Hope

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  His historical birth is the hinge of time, breaking Christian history into a before and after rather than running it all toward its apocalyptic consummation. And that, of course, is why certain Christians ask “WWJD,” that is, “What would Jesus do?” rather than “WWBS,” or “What would the Bible say?” My proposal in this book is that the same individual studied as the Jesus of history by academic research and accepted as the Christ of faith by confessional belief is the norm and criterion of the Christian Bible. In other words, the meaning of that Bible’s story is in its middle, in the story of Jesus in the Gospels and the early writings of Paul; the climax of its narrative is in the center; and the sense of its nonviolent center judges the (non)sense of its violent ending. Therefore, and with all due respect to Islamic tradition, we are not “the People of the Book.” We are “the People with the Book,” but even more importantly, we are “the People of the Person.” This is why a favorite Christian quotation from John’s Gospel does not say that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Book,” but “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (3:16). Christianity’s godsend is not a book but a person, and that person is the historical Jesus. It is precisely that historical Jesus whom Christians proclaim as “the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). Succinctly put, for Christians, Incarnation trumps Apocalypse. Where Are We Now and What Comes Next?ALTHOUGH THIS BOOK ’S TITLE is How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, my plan is not just to propose my own personal solution to the problem. My hope is to probe a problem in the Christian Bible so that we discover a solution that is internally revealed from the very depths of the problem itself. The surface problem is the bipolar or even schizophrenic portrayal of the biblical God as both nonviolent and violent, as nonviolent in distribution and violent in retribution. The same dichotomy envelops the biblical figure of Christ—on peace donkey and on warhorse. I use the metaphor of a Biblical Express Train with its twin and parallel rails for that dialectic. Beneath this surface problem, however, a deeper one appears. Those twin aspects—be they of God or of Christ—form a repeated pattern of assertion-and-subversion. Nonviolence and violence are not just parallel but interactive biblical processes. They present a “yes ” from the radicality of God’s nonviolent distributive justice that is then followed by a “no ” from the normalcy of civilization’s violent retributive justice. The metaphor of the Biblical Express Train with parallel tracks cedes place to that of the Biblical Heartbeat with interactive rhythms. It is here that we begin to glimpse a solution to the book’s titular How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (1) We learn that, even if these people to whom he is writing have failed to grow up in Christian faith and knowledge, and even if they have been falling away from their first enthusiasm, they have never given up their practical service to their fellow Christians. There is a great practical truth here. Sometimes, in the Christian life, we come to times which are arid; the church services have nothing to say to us, the teaching that we do in Sunday School or the singing that we do in the choir or the service we give on a committee becomes a labour without joy. At such a time, there are two alternatives. We can give up our worship and our service; but, if we do, we are lost. Or we can go determinedly on with them, and the strange thing is that the light and the attractiveness and the joy will in time come back again. In the arid times, the best thing to do is to go on with the habits of the Christian life and of the Church. If we do, we can be sure that the sun will shine again. (2) He tells his people to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promise. What he is saying to them is: ‘You are not the first to launch out on the glories and the perils of the Christian faith. Others braved the dangers and endured the tribulations before you and won through.’ He is telling them to go on in the realization that others have gone through their struggle and won the victory. Christians are not treading an untrodden pathway; they are treading where the saints have trod. THE SURE HOPEHebrews 6:13–20 When God made his promise to Abraham, since he was not able to swear by anyone greater, he swore by himself. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘I will bless you and I will multiply you.’ When Abraham had thus exercised patience, he received the promise. Men swear by someone who is greater than themselves; and an oath serves for a guarantee beyond all possibility of contradiction. But on this occasion God, in his quite exceptional desire to make clear to the heirs of the promise the unalterable character of his intention, interposed with an oath, so that by two unalterable things, in which it is impossible that God should lie, we, who have fled to him for refuge, might be strongly encouraged to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us. This hope is to us like an anchor, safe and sure, and it enters with us into the inner court beyond the veil, where Jesus has already entered as a forerunner for us, when he became a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  O NE thing links these three examples of faith together. In each case, it was the faith of someone to whom death was very near. The blessing which Isaac gave is in Genesis 27:28– 9, 39–40. Given after Isaac had said: ‘See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death’ (Genesis 27:2), it was: ‘May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.’ The blessing of Jacob is given in Genesis 48:9–22. The story has just said that ‘the time of Israel’s death drew near’ (Genesis 47:29). The blessing was: ‘In them let my name be perpetuated, and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude on the earth’ (Genesis 48:16). The incident from the life of Joseph comes from Genesis 50:22–6. When Joseph was near to death, he made the Israelites take an oath that they would not leave his bones in Egypt but would take them with them when they went out to possess the promised land, which in due course they did (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32). The point which the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make is that all three men died without having entered into the promise that God had made, the promise of the promised land and of greatness to the nation of Israel. Isaac was still a nomad, Jacob was an exile in Egypt, Joseph had attained to greatness but it was the greatness of a stranger in a strange land; and yet they never doubted that the promise would come true. They died not in despair but in hope. Their faith defeated death. There is something of permanent greatness here. The thought in the minds of all these men was the same: ‘God’s promise is true, for he never breaks a promise. I may not live to see it, death may come to me before that promise becomes a fact; but I am a link in its fulfilment. Whether or not that promise comes depends on me.’ Here is the great function of life. Our hopes may never become reality, but we must live in such a way that we shall hasten their coming.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The wise will pass over it but will not build a house upon it.’ Christians regard themselves as the pilgrims of eternity. (2) In spite of everything, these men never lost their vision and their hope. However long that hope might be in coming true, its light always shone in their eyes. However long the way might be, they never stopped tramping along it. Robert Louis Stevenson said: ‘It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.’ They never wearily gave up the journey; they lived in hope and died in expectation. (3) In spite of everything, they never wanted to go back. Their descendants, when they were in the desert, often expressed a wish to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt. But not the patriarchs. They had begun, and it never struck them to turn back. In flying, there is what is called the point of no return . When the aircraft has reached that point, it cannot go back . Its fuel supply has reached such a level that there is no option but to go on. One of the tragedies of life is the number of people who turn back just a little too soon. One further effort, a little more waiting, a little more hoping, would make the dream come true. Immediately a Christian has set out on some enterprise sent by God, he or she should feel that the point of no return has already been passed. (4) These men were able to go on because they were haunted by the things beyond. People with the urge to travel are lured on by the thought of the countries they have not yet seen. Great artists or composers are driven by the thought of the performance they have not yet given and the wonder they have not yet produced. Robert Louis Stevenson tells of an old farmworker who spent all his days amid the muck of the cowshed. Someone asked him if he never got tired of it all. He answered: ‘He that has something ayont [beyond] need never weary.’ These men had the something beyond – and so may we. (5) Because these men were what they were, God was not ashamed to be called their God. Above all things, he is the God of the brave adventurer. He loves the person who is ready to venture for his name. The prudent, comfort-loving individual is the very opposite of God. The one who goes out into the unknown and keeps going on will in the end arrive at God. THE SUPREME SACRIFICE Hebrews 11:17–19 It was by faith that Abraham offered up Isaac when he was put to the test. He was willing to offer up even his only son, although it had been said to him: ‘It is in Isaac that your descendants will be named.’ He was willing to do this, for he reckoned that God was able to raise him even from the dead.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  The ability to destroy one’s enemies by “word” alone is a transcendental ability akin to the creative word of God in Genesis 1. The other example is from a Dead Sea Scroll fragment found in Cave 4 at Qumran: He [the Messiah] will be called Son of God, and they will call him Son of the Most High. Like sparks of a vision, so will their Kingdom be; they will rule several years over the earth and crush everything; a people will crush another people, and a city another city. Until the people of God arises [or: until he raises up the people of God] and makes everyone rest from the sword. His Kingdom will be an eternal Kingdom, and all his paths in truth and uprightness. The earth will be in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease in the earth, and all the cities will pay him homage. He is a great god among the gods [or: the great God will be his strength]. He will make war with him; he will place the peoples in his hand and cast away everyone before him. His Kingdom will be an eternal Kingdom. Once again, if God “will make war” with this Messiah, he is hardly a pacifist. But with a transcendental figure, one could still wonder how exactly that “rest from the sword” would be accomplished. Granted all that, one point, mentioned already in the preceding chapter, needs emphatic repetition. Israel against Rome was never simply the standard conflict of the conquered against the conqueror, a colony against an empire. Instead, it was a clash between eschatological visions as Israel proclaimed a still-future Golden Age and Rome an already-present Golden Age. A just, peaceful, and nonviolent world was the still-future eschaton for Israel but the already-present empire for Rome. By the first century CE , it was for many in the Jewish homeland a time of choice between Roman and Jewish versions of that fifth and final Kingdom of Earth. It was, for many, a time for courageous decision between God and Rome, between fidelity and infidelity to covenantal law. Finally, therefore, this question presses: How precisely was the ruling style of God different from that of Rome; how exactly were God’s justice and peace different from those of Rome? If, as was certainly the case, the Pax Romana was established by war and conquest, violence and victory, was the Pax Divina to be established by similar but far, far superior force? Enter John and Jesus in the next chapter. Where Are We Now and What Comes Next?I THINK, AND NOT just with easy hindsight, that any Jewish teachers or thinkers, sages or prophets in early-first-century Roman Israel who did not wonder how to react to Roman imperialism failed their history, their tradition, their covenant, and their God. Reaction could be a withdrawal or a participation, an acceptance or a resistance, violence or nonviolence.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Part 2, Trans Women, Femininity, and Feminism, brings together my experiences and observations—pre-, during, and post-transition—to discuss the many ways fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape societal attitudes toward trans women and influence the way trans women often come to view ourselves. In the last two chapters of this section, I bring together several of the main themes in this book to suggest new directions for gender-based activism. In chapter 19, “Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism,” I make the case that feminist activism and theory would be best served by working to empower and embrace femininity, rather than eschewing or deriding it, as it often has in the past. Such an approach would allow feminism to both incorporate transgender perspectives and reach out to the countless feminine-identified women who have felt alienated by the movement in the past. And in chapter 20, “The Future of Queer/Trans Activism,” I show how certain taken-for-granted beliefs and assumptions that are prevalent in contemporary queer and transgender theory and politics ensure that trans women’s perspectives and issues will continue to take a back seat to those of other queers and transgender people. I argue that, rather than focusing on “shattering the gender binary”—a strategy that invariably pits gender-conforming and non-gender-conforming people against one another—we work to challenge all forms of gender entitlement (i.e., when a person privileges their own perceptions, interpretations, and evaluations of other people’s genders over the way those people understand themselves). After all, the one thing that all forms of sexism share—whether they target females, queers, transsexuals, or others—is that they all begin with placing assumptions and value judgments onto other people’s gendered bodies and behaviors. Trans Woman Manifesto THIS MANIFESTO CALLS FOR the end of the scapegoating, deriding, and dehumanizing of trans women everywhere. For the purposes of this manifesto, trans woman is defined as any person who was assigned a male sex at birth, but who identifies as and/or lives as a woman. No qualifications should be placed on the term “trans woman” based on a person’s ability to “pass” as female, her hormone levels, or the state of her genitals—after all, it is downright sexist to reduce any woman (trans or otherwise) down to her mere body parts or to require her to live up to certain societally dictated ideals regarding appearance.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The unleavened bread had to be made; the Passover lamb had to be slain; the doorpost had to be smeared with the blood of the lamb so that the Angel of Death would see the blood and pass over that house and not slay the first-born in it. But the really amazing thing is that, according to the Exodus story, Moses not only made these regulations for the night on which the children of Israel were leaving Israel; he also laid it down that they were to be observed annually for all time . That is to say, he never doubted the success of the enterprise, never doubted that the people would be delivered from Egypt and that some day they would reach the promised land. Here was a band of wretched Israelite slaves about to set off on a journey across an unknown desert to an unknown promised land, and here was the whole power of Egypt hot upon their heels; yet Moses never doubted that God would bring them safely through. He was supremely the man who had the faith that, if God gave his people an order, he would also give them the strength to carry it out. Moses knew very well that God does not summon his servants to a difficult and challenging task and leave it at that; he goes with them every step of the way. (5) There was the momentous act of the crossing of the Red Sea. The story is told in Exodus 14. There, we read of how the children of Israel were wondrously enabled to pass through and of how the Egyptians were engulfed when they tried to do the same. It was at that moment that the faith of Moses communicated itself to the people and drove them on when they might well have turned back. Here, we have the faith of a leader and of a people who were prepared to attempt the impossible at the command of God, realizing that the greatest barrier in the world is no barrier if God is there to help us to get over it. Moses possessed the faith to attempt what appeared to be the most insurmountable barriers, in the certainty that God would help the one who refused to turn back and insisted on going on. Finally, this passage not only tells us of the faith of Moses; it also tells us of the source of that faith . Verse 27 tells us that he was able to face all things as one who sees the God who is invisible. The outstanding characteristic of Moses was the close intimacy of his relationship with God. In Exodus 33:9–11, we read of how he went into the tabernacle: ‘Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.’

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The wisest person is a fool in the sight of God; and the strongest person is weak in the moment of temptation. There is no one who can live the Christian life and neglect the fellowship of the Church. If people feel that they can do so, let them remember that they come to church not only to get but also to give . If they think that the Church has faults, it is their duty to come in and help to correct them. (3) We must encourage one another . One of the highest of human duties is that of encouragement. There is a regulation in the Royal Navy which says: ‘No officer shall speak discouragingly to another officer in the discharge of duties.’ Eliphaz unwillingly paid Job a great tribute. As Moffatt translates it: ‘Your words have kept men on their feet’ (Job 4:4). The writer J. M. Barrie somewhere wrote to Cynthia Asquith, the wife of the Liberal statesman: ‘Your first instinct is always to telegraph to Jones the nice thing Brown said about him to Robinson. You have sown a lot of happiness that way.’ It is easy to laugh at people’s ideals, to pour cold water on their enthusiasm, to discourage them. The world is full of discouragers; we have a Christian duty to encourage one another. So many times, words of praise or thanks or appreciation or cheer have kept people on their feet. Blessed are those who speak such words. Finally, the writer to the Hebrews says that our Christian duty to each other is all the more pressing because the time is short. The day is approaching. He is thinking of the second coming of Christ when things as we know them will be ended. The early Church lived in that expectation. Whether or not we still do, we must realize that none of us knows when the summons to rise and go will come to us also. In the time we have, it is our duty to do all the good we can to all the people we can in all the ways we can. THE DANGER OF DRIFTING Hebrews 10:32–9 Remember the former days. Remember how, after you had been enlightened, you had to go through a hard struggle of suffering, partly because you yourselves were held up to insult and involved in affliction and partly because you had become partners with people whose life was like that. For you gave your sympathy to those in prison; you accepted the pillaging of your goods with joy; for you knew that you yourselves hold a possession which is better and which lasts. Do not throw away your confidence, for it is a confidence that has a great reward. You need fortitude so that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  We had a very fruitful discussion”—he chose his words with the precision of a Sunday school teacher—“She understands completely. There is a time in every man's life when he must push off from the wharf of safety into the sea of chance … Anyway, she is arranging with a friend of hers in Oakland to get me on the Southern Pacific. Maya, it's just a start. I'll begin as a dining-car waiter and then a steward, and when I know all there is to know about that, I'll branch out … The future looks good. The Black man hasn't even begun to storm the battlefronts. I'm going for broke myself.” His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol and age, but his face believed the freshness of his words, and I had no heart nor art to drag him back to the reeking reality of our life and times. Whores were lying down first and getting up last in the room next door. Chicken suppers and gambling games were rioting on a twenty-four-hour basis downstairs. Sailors and soldiers on their doom-lined road to war cracked windows and broke locks for blocks around, hoping to leave their imprint on a building or in the memory of a victim. A chance to be perpetrated. Bailey sat wrapped in his decision and anesthetized by youth. If I'd had any suggestion to make I couldn't have penetrated his unlucky armor. And, most regrettable, I had no suggestion to make . “I'm your sister, and whatever I can do, I'll do it.” “Maya, don't worry about me. That's all I want you to do. Don't worry. I'll be okey-dokey.” I left his room because, and only because, we had said all we could say. The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no craft to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The greatest barrier preventing us from fully challenging sexism is the pervasive antifeminine sentiment that runs wild in both the straight and queer communities, targeting people of all genders and sexualities. The only realistic way to address this issue is to work toward empowering femininity itself. We must rightly recognize that feminine expression is strong, daring, and brave—that it is powerful—and not in an enchanting, enticing, or supernatural sort of way, but in a tangible, practical way that facilitates openness, creativity, and honest expression. We must move beyond seeing femininity as helpless and dependent, or merely as masculinity’s sidekick, and instead acknowledge that feminine expression exists of its own accord and brings its own rewards to those who naturally gravitate toward it. By embracing femininity, feminism will finally be able to reach out to the vast majority of feminine women who have felt alienated by the movement in the past. The movement would also be able to reach those who are not female (whether male and/or transgender) who regularly face effemimania or trans-misogyny, but who have not been able to seek refuge or have a voice in the feminist movements of the past. Indeed, a feminist movement that encompasses both those who are female and those who are feminine has the potential to become a majority, one with the strength in numbers to finally challenge and overturn both traditional and oppositional sexism. 20 The Future of Queer/Trans Activism THE MAJORITY OF MY EXPERIENCES as a trans activist and spoken word artist have taken place in what is increasingly becoming known as the “queer/trans” community. It is a subgroup within the greater LGBTIQ community that is composed mostly of folks in their twenties and thirties who are more likely to refer to themselves as “dykes,” “queer,” and/or “trans” than “lesbian” or “gay.” While diverse in a number of ways, this subpopulation tends to predominantly inhabit urban and academic settings, and is skewed toward those who are white and/or from middle-class backgrounds. In many ways, the queer/trans community is best described as a sort of marriage of the transgender movement’s call to “shatter the gender binary” and the lesbian community’s pro-sex, pro-kink backlash to 1980s-era Andrea Dworkinism. Its politics are generally antiassimilationist, particularly with regard to gender and sexual expression. This apparent limitlessness and lack of boundaries lead many to believe that “queer/trans” represents the vanguard of today’s gender and sexual revolution. However, over the last four years in which I’ve been a part of this community, I’ve become increasingly troubled by a trend that, while not applicable to all queer/trans folks, seems to be becoming a dominant belief in this community, one that threatens to restrict its gender and sexual diversity. I call this trend subversivism.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And her words had the strangest effect on Puddle who quite suddenly beamed at Stephen and kissed her—Puddle who never betrayed her emotions, quite suddenly beamed at Stephen and kissed her. 2People gossiped a little because of the freedom allowed Martin and Stephen by her parents; but on the whole they gossiped quite kindly, with a great deal of smiling and nodding of heads. After all the girl was just like other girls—they almost ceased to resent her. Meanwhile Martin continued to stay on in Upton, held fast by the charm and the strangeness of Stephen—her very strangeness it was that allured him, yet all the while he must think of their friendship, not even admitting that strangeness. He deluded himself with these thoughts of friendship, but Sir Philip and Anna were not deluded. They looked at each other almost shyly at first, then Anna grew bold, and she said to her husband: ‘Is it possible the child is falling in love with Martin? Of course he’s in love with her. Oh, my dear, it would make me so awfully happy—’ And her heart went out in affection to Stephen, as it had not done since the girl was a baby. Her hopes would go flying ahead of events; she would start making plans for her daughter’s future. Martin must give up his orchards and forests and buy Tenley Court that was now in the market; it had several large farms and some excellent pasture, quite enough to keep any man happy and busy. Then Anna would suddenly grow very thoughtful; Tenley Court was also possessed of fine nurseries, big, bright, sunny rooms facing south, with their bathroom, there were bars to the windows—it was all there and ready. Sir Philip shook his head and warned Anna to go slowly, but he could not quite keep the great joy from his eyes, nor the hope from his heart. Had he been mistaken? Perhaps after all he had been mistaken—the hope thudded ceaselessly now in his heart. 3Came a day when winter must give place to spring, when the daffodils marched across the whole country from Castle Morton Common to Ross and beyond, pitching camps by the side of the river. When the hornbeam made patches of green in the hedges, and the hawthorn broke out into small, budding bundles; when the old cedar tree on the lawn at Morton grew reddish pink tips to its elegant fingers; when the wild cherry trees on the sides of the hills were industriously putting forth both leaves and blossoms; when Martin looked into his heart and saw Stephen—saw her suddenly there as a woman.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  They were very unlike each other, these negroes; Lincoln, the elder, was paler in colour. He was short and inclined to be rather thick-set with a heavy but intellectual face—a strong face, much lined for a man of thirty. His eyes had the patient, questioning expression common to the eyes of most animals and to those of all slowly evolving races. He shook hands very quietly with Stephen and Mary. Henry was tall and as black as a coal; a fine, upstanding, but coarse-lipped young negro, with a roving glance and a self-assured manner. He remarked: ‘Glad to meet you, Miss Gordon—Miss Llewellyn,’ and plumped himself down at Mary’s side, where he started to make conversation, too glibly. Valérie Seymour was soon talking to Lincoln with a friendliness that put him at his ease—just at first he had seemed a little self-conscious. But Pat was much more reserved in her manner, having hailed from abolitionist Boston. Wanda said abruptly: ‘Can I have a drink, Jamie?’ Brockett poured her out a stiff brandy and soda. Adolphe Blanc sat on the floor hugging his knees; and presently Dupont the sculptor strolled in—being minus his mistress he migrated to Stephen. Then Lincoln seated himself at the piano, touching the keys with firm, expert fingers, while Henry stood beside him very straight and long and lifted up his voice which was velvet smooth, yet as clear and insistent as the call of a clarion: ‘Deep, river, my home is over Jordan. Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. . . .’ And all the hope of the utterly hopeless of this world, who must live by their ultimate salvation, all the terrible, aching, homesick hope that is born of the infinite pain of the spirit, seemed to break from this man and shake those who listened, so that they sat with bent heads and clasped hands—they who were also among the hopeless sat with bent heads and clasped hands as they listened. . . . Even Valérie Seymour forgot to be pagan. He was not an exemplary young negro; indeed he could be the reverse very often. A crude animal Henry could be at times, with a taste for liquor and a lust for women—just a primitive force rendered dangerous by drink, rendered offensive by civilization. Yet as he sang his sins seemed to drop from him, leaving him pure, unashamed, triumphant. He sang to his God, to the God of his soul, Who would some day blot out all the sins of the world, and make vast reparation for every injustice: ‘My home is over Jordan, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.’

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Apostle Andrew. This highly prized treasure was brought to Italy by Thomas Palaeologus, who, in recognition of his pious benevolence toward the holy see, was given the Golden Rose, a palace in Rome and an annual allowance of 6,000 ducats. The relic was received with ostentatious signs of devotion. Bessarion and two other members of the sacred college received it at Narni and conveyed it to Rome. The pope, accompanied by the remaining cardinals and the Roman clergy, went out to the Ponte Molle to give it welcome. After falling prostrate before the Apostle’s skull, Pius delivered an appropriate address in which he congratulated the dumb fragment upon coming safely out of the hands of the Turks to find at last, as a fugitive, a place beside the remains of its brother Apostles. The address being concluded, the procession reformed and, with Pius borne in the Golden Chair, conducted the skull to its last resting-place. The streets were decked in holiday attire, and no one showed greater zeal in draping his palace than Rodrigo Borgia. The skull was deposited in St. Peter’s, after, as Platina says, "the sepulchres of some of the popes and cardinals, which took up too much room, had been removed." The ceremonies were closed by Bessarion in an address in which he expressed the conviction that St. Andrew would join with the other Apostles as a protector of Rome and in inducing the princes to combine for the expulsion of the Turks.746 In his closing days, Pius II. continued to be occupied with the crusade. He had written a memorable letter to Mohammed II. urging him to follow his mother’s religion and turn Christian, and assuring him that, as Clovis and Charlemagne had been renowned Christian sovereigns, so he might become Christian emperor over the Bosphorus, Greece and Western Asia. No reply is extant. In 1458, the year before the Mantuan congress assembled, the crescent had been planted on the Acropolis of Athens. All Southern Greece suffered the indignity and horrors of Turkish oppression. Servia fell into the hands of the invaders, 1459, and Bosnia followed, 1462. Pius’ bull of 1463, summoning to a crusade, was put aside by the princes, but the pontiff, although he was afflicted with serious bodily infirmities, the stone and the gout, was determined to set an example in the right direction. Like Moses, he wanted, at least, to watch from some promontory or ship the battle against the enemies of the cross. Financial aid was furnished by the discovery of the alum mines of Tolfa, near Civita Vecchia, in 1462, the revenue from which passed into the papal treasury and was specially devoted by the conclave of 1464 to the crusade. But it availed little. Pius proceeded to Ancona on a litter, stopping on the way at Loreto to dedicate a golden cup to the Virgin. Philip of Burgundy, upon whom he had placed chief reliance, failed to appear. From Frederick III. nothing was to be expected.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Thus these hymns constitute a book of devotion and poetic confession of faith for German Protestantism, a sacred band which encircles its various periods, an abiding memorial of its struggles and victories, its sorrows and joys, a mirror of its deepest experiences, and an eloquent witness for the all-conquering and invincible life-power of the evangelical Christian faith. The treasures of German hymnody have enriched the churches of other tongues, and passed into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, French, Dutch, and modern English and American hymn-books. John Wesley was the first of English divines who appreciated its value; and while his brother Charles produced an immense number of original hymns, John freely reproduced several hymns of Paul Gerhardt, Tersteegen, and Zinzendorf. The English Moravian hymn-book as revised by Montgomery contains about a thousand abridged (but mostly indifferent) translations from the German. In more recent times several accomplished writers, male and female, have vied with each other in translations and transfusions of German hymns. Among the chief English translators are Miss Frances Elizabeth Cox;667 Arthur Tozer Russell;668 Richard Massie;669 Miss Catherine Winkworth;670 Mrs. Eric Findlater and her sister, Miss Jane Borthwick, of the Free Church of Scotland, who modestly conceal their names under the letters "H. L. L." (Hymns from the Land of Luther);671 James W. Alexander,672Henry Mills,673 John Kelly,674 not to mention many others who have furnished admirable translations of one or more hymns for public or private hymnological collections.675 English and American hymnody began much later than the German, but comes next to it in fertility, is enriching itself constantly by transfusions of Greek, Latin, and German, as well as by original hymns, and may ultimately surpass all hymnodies. § 83. Common Schools. Luther: An die Rathsherren aller Städte deutschen Landes, dass sie christliche Schulen aufrichten und halten sollen. Wittenberg, 1524. The book appeared in the same year in Latin (De constituendis scholis), with a preface of Melanchthon, the probable translator, at Hagenau. In Walch, x. 533; in the Erlangen. ed., xxii. 168–199. Church and school go together. The Jewish synagogue was a school. Every Christian church is a school of piety and virtue for old and young. The mediaeval church was the civilizer and instructor of the barbarians, founded the convent and cathedral schools, and the great universities of Paris (1209), Bologna, Padua, Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Salamanca, Alcala, Toledo, Prague (1348), Vienna (1365), Heidelberg (1386), Cologne (1388), Erfurt (1393), Leipzig (1409), Basel (1460), Ingolstadt (1472), Tübingen (1477), Wittenberg (1502), etc. But education in the middle ages was aristocratic, and confined to the clergy and a very few laymen of the higher classes. The common people were ignorant and superstitious, and could neither read nor write. Even noblemen signed their name with a cross. Books were rare and dear. The invention of the printing-press prepared the way for popular education. The Reformation first utilized the press on a large scale, and gave a powerful impulse to common schools. The genius of Protestantism favors the general diffusion of knowledge.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Different branches—Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, charismatic, evangelical, liberal, social-gospel, and the many segments of church life that bear two or more of these rather misleading labels at the same time—come at things from different angles. Naturally. But it is my belief that all of them, over many centuries now, have backed off from facing the full challenge of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It would be fascinating to chart the ways in which different parts of the church have read (and, in my view, misread) the gospels. But that would require a different sort of book and is in any case way beyond my competence. Instead, I want to come at the question from the angle of the parts of the church I know best. After nearly twenty years in senior ministerial roles in the Church of England, seven of them as Bishop of Durham, and with fairly wide experience of traditions very different from my own, I think what I have to say reflects not a narrow or idiosyncratic viewpoint, but one at which many Christians from many traditions will nod with recognition. The question, then, is not only: Can we learn to read the gospels better, more in tune with what their original writers intended? It is also: Can we discover, by doing this, a new vision for God’s mission in the world, in and through Jesus, and then—now!—in and through his followers? And, in doing so, can we grow closer together in mission and life, in faith and hope, and even in love? Might a fresh reading of the gospels, in other words, clear the way for renewed efforts in mission and unity? Is that what it would look like if we really believed that the living God was king on earth as in heaven? That, after all, is the story all four gospels tell. I am aware, of course, that there are other documents that have been called “gospels,” and I shall say something about them in passing. But I am here dealing with the four that were recognized, from very early on, as part of the church’s “rule of life,” that is, part of the “canon”: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And the story that the four evangelists tell is the story, as in my title, of “how God became king.” This, I discover, comes as a surprise to most people, and an unwelcome shock to some. It appears, as we say today, counterintuitive; that is, the claim that God has become king doesn’t seem to square with the world as we know it. “If God is really king, why is there still cancer? Why are there still tsunamis? Why are there still tyranny, genocide, child abuse, and massive economic corruption?”

• From How God Became King (2012)

  But they are biographies with a difference. One can imagine how this might work. Someone might write a biography of Abraham Lincoln that was at the same time designed to show the way in which the old America of the original revolution was passing away, never to return. Similarly, someone might write a biography of Winston Churchill that was at the same time designed to show the way in which the old British ruling class was having its final hurrah before the winds of change swept through the United Kingdom. You can read Michael Foot’s biography of the great Labor politician Aneurin Bevan not simply as a window through which to view the great man, but as the description of a key moment in a much larger story that Foot was anxious to tell, a moment when British society began to embrace a socialist vision that would (Foot hoped) bring new hope to millions of poor working people. A biography can be a biography and still be a vehicle for telling a much bigger story. Or, in the case of the gospels, four much bigger stories, which all come rushing together at this point. This, to be sure, is why the gospels, which on the surface look like such easy reads, indeed quite the page-turners, are in fact highly complex, repaying hours and years of patient thought and reflection. Let us then examine the first of our four speakers, a speaker that has, for many people, been turned right off altogether. Many people who have read the gospels all their lives have never even imagined music coming from this corner of the room. Prequel and Sequel In the year 1900, a book was published that changed the imagination of America. Its creator, L. Frank Baum, had stumbled into writing fantasy fiction some years before, mostly to while away time spent on the road as a traveling salesman. But The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was an instant hit, and Baum never looked back. Three years later, the show of the same name (but without the “Wonderful”) opened on Broadway. In one form or another, the story has been delighting audiences young and old ever since. Baum, as I said, never looked back—in more ways than one. He wrote several sequels to the Wizard, but never a prequel. Almost a hundred years later, in 1995, Gregory Maguire remedied this omission—and changed the way a new generation would understand the original book and the original show. He published a book entitled Wicked, in which the Wicked Witch of the West was not always so wicked.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Thus, when the servant’s work is done, “Kings shall see and stand up; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of YHWH, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you” (49:7). Or, through a different lens, when they see what the servant’s work ultimately involves, “kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate” (52:15, leading immediately to the description of the servant’s suffering in chapter 53). In other words, with the echo of the opening words of the first “servant” poem, the synoptic writers are not inviting their readers merely to contemplate Jesus as the one who dies so that sinners may be forgiven. They are invoking one of the primary scriptural passages in which Israel’s God, YHWH, establishes his sovereignty over the whole world, doing so indeed despite the failure of his own people to believe in him. He will rescue them through the servant’s work, but merely to do that is “too light a thing.” He will provide, through the servant, “a light to the nations, that [his] salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49:6). At the heart of all this is the ultimate good news: “Your God reigns,” malak elohayik (52:7). He is king, and has demonstrated this by overthrowing the pagan kingdoms and their idols, unveiling his worldwide justice, and inviting all and sundry to turn to him and enjoy the benefits of his renewed covenant and renewed creation (Isa. 54–55). The baptism narrative, therefore, in all the gospels, is not simply about Jesus’s “divine identity,” on the one hand, or a particular program of “atonement,” in the sense of a rescue from the world of creation, on the other. Yes, the gospels affirm Jesus’s divine identity. Yes, they affirm his death on the cross as the climax of God’s age-old plan of salvation. But the purpose of God coming incognito in and as Jesus and the purpose of this Jesus dying on the cross was—so the gospels are telling us—in order to establish God’s kingdom, his justice, on earth as in heaven. As in Psalm 2, the point is that in this way the nations are to be called to account. This is how the creator is bringing his creation back into proper shape. Once we have noticed this theme in the baptism story, we are bound to see it all over the place.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  “This is what is written,” said Jesus. “The Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and in his name repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, must be announced to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are the witnesses for all this.” (24:46–48) We should not imagine that “forgiveness of sins” here is a purely individualistic thing. In the light of the “Nazareth manifesto” (4:16–21), it seems clearly to extend to the jubilee principle, the release from all debts, the cosmic sigh of relief at God’s new exodus achievement, rescuing people from all forms of slavery. Jesus’s followers were thereby commissioned and then empowered by the Spirit to announce to the world that there was a different way to be human. Acts, with its many tales of confrontation, persecution, and martyrdom, takes forward exactly this agenda. This is what it looks like, Luke is saying, when Jesus is enthroned as Lord of the world, and his followers go out to put his royal rule into effect, ending up in Rome announcing God’s kingdom and Jesus as Lord “with all boldness, and with no one stopping them” (28:31). In Luke, as in John, the broader picture is filled in with the little telltale touches that show that the larger cosmic kingdom achievement is to be applied vividly to every single person. Over against those who have claimed, absurdly of course, that Luke had no real atonement theology (mainly on the grounds that he does not reproduce Mark 10:45!), we discover Luke saying again and again that Jesus was being accused of crimes of which he was innocent but people all around him were guilty: They began to accuse him. “We found this fellow,” they said, “deceiving our nation! He was forbidding people to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he is the Messiah—a king!” (23:2) [Pilate] released the man they asked for, the one who’d been thrown into prison because of rebellion and murder, and gave Jesus over to their demands. (23:25) “Daughters of Jerusalem,” said Jesus, “don’t cry for me. Cry for yourselves instead! Cry for your children! Listen: the time is coming when you will say, ‘A blessing on the barren! A blessing on wombs that never bore children, and breasts that never nursed them!’ At that time people will start to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us’! Yes: if this is what they do with the green tree, what will happen to the dry one?” (23:28–31) Jesus, in other words, is the “green” tree, the tree that is not ready for burning. He is innocent. But all around him, growing up in the streets and lanes of Jerusalem, are the young firebrands who will be only too ready for the fire when the time comes. The innocence of Jesus continues to be a major motif throughout Luke’s account of the crucifixion:

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He pronounced from the pulpit in favor of virtue as the foundation of a sound government and democracy as its form. "Among northern nations," he affirmed, where there is great strength and little intellect, and among southern nations where there is great intellect and little strength, the rule of a single despot may sometimes be the best of governments. But in Italy and, above all in Florence, where both strength and intellect abound,—where men have keen wits and restless spirits,—the government of the one can only result in tyranny." In the scheme, which he proposed, he took for his model the great council of Venice, leaving out its head, the doge, who was elected for life. The great council of Florence was to consist of, at least, 1500 men, who had reached the age of 29, paid their taxes and belonged to the class called beneficiati, that is, those who held a civil office themselves or whose father, grandfather, or great-grandfather had held a civil office. A select council of 80 was to be chosen by it, its members to be at least forty years of age. In criminal cases, an appeal from a decision of the signory was allowed to the great council, which was to meet once a week and to be a voting rather than a deliberative body. The place of the supreme doge or ruler, Savonarola gave to God himself. "God alone," he exclaimed from the pulpit, "God alone will be thy king, O Florence, as He was king of Israel under the old Covenant." "Thy new head shall be Jesus Christ,"—this was the ringing cry with which he closed his sermons on Haggai. Savonarola’s recent biographer, Villari, emphasizes "the masterly prudence and wisdom shown by him in all the fundamental laws he proposed for the new state." He had no seat in the council and yet he was the soul of the entire people.1186 In the last chapter of his career Savonarola was pitted against Alexander VI. as his contestant. The conflict began with the demand made by the pope July 25, 1495, that Savonarola proceed to Rome and answer charges. Then followed papal inhibitions of his preaching and the decree of excommunication, and the conflict closed with the appointment of a papal commission which condemned Savonarola to death as a heretic. Alexander’s order, summoning the friar to Rome, was based on his announcement that his predictions of future events came by divine revelation.1187 At the same time, the pope expressed his great joy over the report that of all the workers in the Lord’s vineyard, Savonarola was the most zealous, and he promised to welcome him to the eternal city with love and fraternal affection. Savonarola declined the pontiff’s summons on the ground of ill-health and the dangers that would beset him on the way to Rome.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  But he has come to that place and maintains it by, and only by, his humility and self-giving love. When, therefore, at the start of Acts, the disciples ask Jesus whether this is the time for him to “restore the kingdom to Israel” (1:6), his answer is not (as people often suppose) a “no.” It is a “yes.” As so often, however, it is a “yes but”: “It’s not your business to know about times and dates,” replied Jesus. “The father has placed all that under his own direct authority. What will happen, though, is that you will receive power when the holy spirit comes upon you. Then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the very ends of the earth.” (1:7–8) And that “witness,” as Luke has made abundantly clear, is not a matter of “telling people about your new religious experience” or of informing them that there is now a new prospect of a much better otherworldly destiny than anything the bleak pagan world had to offer. The “witness” of Jesus’s followers is the message that there is now “another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7). It is the witness according to which the temples that presently exist, whether in Jerusalem, Athens, Ephesus, or anywhere else, are now to be seen as at best redundant (Acts 7) and at worst a blasphemous category mistake (Acts 17; 19). Jesus is the true Temple, now ruling the world as the one who was crucified; his followers, as Paul would explain more thoroughly, constitute the fuller version of the same thing, so that the dwelling of the living God is now spread increasingly across and around the world, again evidenced not by coercive or violent power, but by the rule of love. So where does all this leave us today? How can we address the question of the major misunderstandings that have dogged the footsteps of Christian faith for so long? And, since the kingdom is (as Paul says in 1 Cor. 4:20) not about talk, but about power, how might this begin to translate into the lives of real Christian communities? To put it another way, if this is really and truly the story the four evangelists are telling, is there any way we can retrieve it for ourselves? How might we become true gospel readers, gospel pray-ers, gospel livers in our own day? If it is true, in some sense that we no doubt still find perplexing, that God really did become king in and through Jesus of Nazareth and supremely through the victory of his crucifixion and the launching of his new world in the resurrection, how might we be brought into this story? What might it look like? PART FOUR Creed, Canon, and Gospel 11 How to Celebrate God’s Story IMAGINE A MAN who owns an old car. It still goes; he can drive to work.