An Evening with Bart, Bird, and the Baptists

Bart Ehrman

Persecutors Pay the Price
February 2016

Getting comfortable in the nearly straight-backed, hardwood benches with a minimum of padding involved  a continual re-alignment of posture for the dozen disciples of New Orleans’ club for Christian persecutors unaccustomed to sitting in church. The benches—pews in churchspeak– were in the voluminous Leavell Chapel, located on the grounds of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The Persecutors made a rare appearance in church and suffered the punishing seating arrangements as a penance to hear one of their own: Biblical scholar, UNC professor, prolific author and fellow non-believer Bart Ehrman debate with theological lecturer and author Michael Bird, who made the trip from his native Australian. Ehrman could have been from the other, not-Australian place Down Under judging from the awkward introduction and reception he was given prior to his lead-off address. The forum director, Robert Stewart’s introduction of him to the audience of about 1200 seminarians, instructors, old Baptist preachers, and the dozen Persecutors was worded awkwardly enough not to invite applause.

The title of the dialogue was “How Did Jesus Become God,” named from Ehrman’s most recent book, and was the the theme of the larger Greer-Heard Point-Counter Forum held annually at the seminary for the last 11 years. The Friday night dialogue is followed Saturday morning and early afternoon with more lectures from other distinguished presenters followed up with responses from the key speakers Ehrman and Bird. The idea of the for the forum was initially proposed by seminary donors– and husband and wife –Greer and Heard, said President Chuck Kelley during his general introduction. Besides the unstated purpose of getting their names attached to something of interest related to the seminary operations, their published  motivation was to get divergent viewpoints on matters religious for the goal of “teaching preachers to think.” Anyone would see what a novel concept that was, and its potential for successful outcomes, though not guaranteed, remain in the realm of possibility. In theory.

Dr. Ehrman kicked off by setting out the “terms” of the discussion, though “limits” may have been a better choice. The purpose would be to present a credible explanation of how the historical person Jesus, described at length in the New Testament addition to the Bible, came to be also known, called, pronounced, exalted as, or proclaimed to be… God.  Ehrman emphasized that the discussion was limited to the historical possibilities of the question and not its theological ramifications. Whether Jesus truly was the same as, or the son of the God was not part of the debate. Ehrman does agree with  other skeptics and agnostics, and believes that the personhood of Jesus is affirmed (that the historical person of Jesus existed); and that position of mythicism—that a historical Jesus did not really exist, but was rather a mythical figure, a composite other such deities of the area, such as (among others) Dionysus and Osiris of Greek and Egyptian lore, was false.

***

The short answer, said Ehrman, is that Jesus officially became God at the Council of Nicea in 325 C. E. Roman Emperor Constantine, who may have made his first mistake by legalizing Christianity in the Empire, and second, really big error making it the official state religion, called for a meeting of about 300 bishops to smooth out some of the details of the newly established religion in an effort to patch up the social structure of an empire that was falling apart and was in need of a unifying….something. In a truy democratic process, the motion to proclaim Jesus to be the co-eternal, co-equal,  begotten, and of the same essence as the real god received a majority vote of those in favor. And so came to be the Nicean Creed. It can only be speculated how things may have turned out had voter fraud later be uncovered.

So to be fair, Ehrman painted a little historical perspective of the official coronation done by the Council. A study of the New Testament scriptures shows that Jesus’ disciples did not believe at the time of their association with him he was divine, but only came to that belief after the Resurrection. The empty tomb was a trigger for a group with high expectations and an even loftier imagination to surmise no explanation existed for their leader’s disappearance other than that he had been exalted to Heaven—a transformation which happens only to truly godly beings, they thought.  Ehrman quoted and referred frequently and breezily from Biblical verse and chapter, evaluating nuances in the semantics and aphorisms of the scripture to validate his position that the Jesus-God unification was of a Christology called adoptionism; that Jesus was really born as a mortal man and was later “adopted” to be the son, and, curiously enough, at the same time, the same being as God. This theory conflicts with the final edicts of the Council of Nicea, which ended up with a god of not two, but three agents, all three almighty, all three, one; each one, three. And they understandably called it the Doctrine of the Trinity. It is difficult, using logicians’ standard  laws of thought, specifically the law of the excluded middle; or Leibniz’ catchy Identity of Indiscernables, to get one’s head around all this, a problem church theoreticians recognized soon enough, and called it a mystery—euphemizing the problem temporarily away, kicking it down the line for future generations to figure out.

Dr. Bird is along with this idea, too. The diminutive but plucky redhead is an informed and entertaining presenter, and kept a light-hearted attitude and non-apocalyptic tone throughout (even if the irony in the overused icebreaker Australian speakers often employ, associating his homeland, Crocodile Dundee, and Outback Steakhouse resonated as bit Trinitarian itself). Bird tried to show that the theory of adoptionism didn’t emerge until about 190 C. E. from a group following the works of Theodotus, which had itself carried the tradition of the mortal beginnings of the Christ fellow from the earlier thought of Bishop Arius, one of the participants of the Council of Nicea and the leading opponent to the doctrine that was eventually accepted. Dr. Bird patched together verses from the Gospels, mixed in references from Pauline Epistles, and tied them together with the “Word,” or “logos” notion from John the baptizer to fortify his theory of the making of Jesus-God as a version of the “possession” Christology. All this meaning that Jesus was of “the word”, was in possession of the same substance and eternal existence as the god and the divine spirit.

Thus,the Doctrine of the Trinity is reaffirmed by Bird, albeit with a few twists. Ehrman, getting the final rebutting remarks, said as much. Mr. Bird had not contributed an answer to discussion’s primary puzzle: How did Jesus become God? For Bird, and likely most of the seminarians, instructors and old Baptists preachers there, the proposition that Jesus is “of the Word” and just is, always was, just as the god Yahweh and the spirit are, is, when outfitted with enough Biblical cross references, the Truth (with a capital T) for the ages.

As for the Persecutors, some left wondering (and doubting) if the Greer and Heard goal of getting preachers to think came close to being accomplished. A few wondered if it was the mental gymnastics required to square the logical constraints of identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middles against Trinitarian mysticism that made them uncomfortable, keeping them out of church, or if it was bodily taxation caused by the stiff, straight-backed pews.  Catholic churches can be even more sadistic, it has been said, with those non-optional prayer kneelers.

~ Marty Bankson

Celebrating the Writer: Bankson Branches Out

We are very fortunate to have such a dedicated and community-minded supporter in NOSHA board member, Marty Bankson, who does double-duty as the newsletter reporter for The Humanist Advocate, our quarterly publication reflecting on our recent meetings and activities. We couldn't do it without him!

He has his work featured on "At The Well" that tries to improve the image of Christians in American public discourse. That Bankson's writing is featured here is a wonderful testament to the ideas and efforts he brings to his work.

Here are a couple of short segments from his recent articles you might enjoy: (the whole piece is available at the link)

X-Mas List, With Love and XOXO: 
"It was only natural, probably written in the stars: the Christian spirit of giving, the tradition started by the three wise men bringing gifts to the newborn Christ, expanded at some point to include making one’s own personal wish list: gifts you would like to receive.

And since the spirit-tradition does not begrudge anyone from participating in the routine but, in fact, encourages everyone, of every faith or no faith to participate, because it is good for the economy, it’s a win-win.

For that reason–the universal spirit of giving and getting–I am not even slightly embarrassed or feeling presumptuous or hypocritical about publicly posting my personal little wish list (or sharing the news that I have bought stuff to give to others in the coming days), even though I am not a Christian or a member of any other faith."

Heretical Compromise?
"Religion is one of man’s first attempts at a coherent narrative about the human condition—all that is sublime, all that is wretched, and all the tedium in between. It’s a methodology for making a revered completeness from a fragmented and bewildering sensory experience.  As such, it is a branch of the  larger topic of humanism—“any system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values, and dignity predominate.”¹

Over the past 400 years, during and since the Enlightenment movement, the definition of humanism, as a philosophical worldview has been narrowed. It had never been worded into a doctrinal format until 1933, when a group of 30-odd academic scientists, sociologists, ministers, and philosophers agreed on the tenants to be penned in the first Humanist Manifesto, which “was designed to represent a developing point of view….representative of a large number who are forging a new philosophy out of the materials of the modern world.'"

Bankson also maintain's his own blog where all of his work is available, Bricolage. Check it out!

Learn something new everyday!

This graphic may be hugely helpful to anyone who is grappling with the terminology and definitions for sexuality, gender expression, and identity that can be confusing at times, especially if some of the terms have been used interchangeably (or that people think they are).

From the text for the "Genderbread Person":

Gender Identity is how you, in your head, think about yourself. It's the chemistry that composes you (e.g. hormonal levels) and how you interpret what that means. Woman < Genderqueer > Man

Gender Expression is how you demonstrate your gender (based on traditional gender roles) through the ways you act, dress, behave, and interact.  Feminine < Androgynous > Masculine

Biological Sex refers to the objectively measurable organs, hormones, and chromosome. Female = vagina, ovaries, XX chromosomes; male = penis, testes XY chromosomes; intersex = a combination of the two. Female < Intersex > Male

Sexual Orientation is who you are physically, spiritually, and emotionally attracted to, based on their sex/gender in relation to your own. Heterosexual < Bisexual > Homosexual

NOSHA’s Social Aid and Pleasure Club: Helping at the Holidays!

~A special report from NOSHA member Eve Ortiz

As 2015 comes to an end, NOSHA members came together once again to volunteer at the Second Harvest Food Bank. While families and friends all across the nation start preparing for their end of the year festivities, many see the need to give back to their communities through volunteer work. This time of year is about giving; giving our time and our labor can be the best gift of all. Food banks and soup kitchens are a good choice for helping the neediest. For a few selfless hours, we ensure that many will eat another day.

NOSHA members have proven time and again that hard work does not scare us away, and our December 5 shift was no different. In past visits we helped to box up the food to be distributed to 474 locations throughout the 23 southern most parishes of Louisiana. By now we pretty much have a system down for the “boxing” room. The most recent visit presented us a new task. We were to sort the foods that would eventually go to the “boxing” room.

At first, it seemed a daunting task as we listened to the employee go through the instructions. In the middle of the room were several crates piled high with the donated foods that we would be sorting. Bordering the edges of the room were the many categorized boxes we were to fill. As an extra incentive, we were told that the foods that we sorted that day would end up on kitchen tables in time for Christmas dinners.

Organized chaos is what comes to mind when I think of that day! We eagerly dove in, and although some of us seemed a bit confused in the beginning, we all quickly fell into step and were sorting like it was our second nature. Organizer and NOSHA member Glenn Pearl commented that if one was to look down on us it would have looked like a bunch of ants toiling about—we were definitely a determined bunch. The speed with which we were moving — in, out, and around each other— it is surprising there were no accidents.

In the short four hours that we were there, we not only accomplished our goal of giving back to the community, but we all also got in a good physical workout. By quitting time we had emptied all the crates and had sorted a whopping 9,000 pounds of food. Thanks to Glenn for organizing another successful outing by NOSHA’s Social Aid and Pleasure Club. We’ll be back in 2016 most definitely!

Humanism (and NOSHA) Goes to Church!

The Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church

Mr. Alan Wolfe helps coordinate the “First Tuesdays: Spirituality in the City” speaker series and acts as the liaison between the guest speakers and a the co-sponsorship of The Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church and several other Catholics entities. Now in it’s seventh season, guests from diverse religions, human interest groups, and prominent leaders in local government and business are chosen to “initiate conversations about their spiritual traditions and address the theme ‘Spirituality in the City’.” We met up with Mr. Wolf at the front steps of the grand 160-year old Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church—with its Moor-influenced architecture of onion domes and pointed arches—less than a block off Canal Street in the Central Business District of New Orleans. He shuttled us down a pedestrian alley between the church and the adjacent Lenes Hall, the parish center for the church where the group meets.

Scrolling through the list of past speakers, one finds representatives from Buddhist, Muslim, and Jewish traditions; journalists and authors, including Jason Berry, Bob Marshall, and John Barry; and local celebrity chefs Leah Chase and John Besh. Tuesday, December 1, the bar for diversity was set a bit higher, even by the liberal standards of the Jesuits.

“We had a speaker from the Unitarian Universalist Congregation a while back,” Wolf told me after Tuesday’s presentation, “but this was the real deal.” The “deal” being the presentation of a humanitarian, ethically positive outlook on life based on naturalism rather than traditional theology, gods, or laying claim to an ethereal spiritualism, courtesy of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association (NOSHA).
***

NOSHA President Charlotte Klasson and Membership Coordinator Beth Deitch spoke on the theme “Humanism: Ethical, Secular and Good for Everyone” in a coordinated tag team effort before a group of about 30 there for the midday talk and light lunch affair. Deitch started by defining terms: Humanism, naturalism, consequentialist ethics—all fitting together in overlapping  meanings and nuance, and building on a comprehensive outlook on life through the “self-aware moral agent” that the human is. Klasson gave the audience a brief history of NOSHA from its beginnings, its affiliate groups, and its function as the only local organization of its type for people sharing a non-theistic, naturalistic worldview. She stressed the importance of being vigilant about church and state separation issues, and pointed out Harry Greenberger’s (NOSHA President Emeritus) multiple ‘secular invocations’ at city council meetings to balance the typically Christian bias at that part of the meeting agenda.

Beth referred to cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker’s recent  book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Pinker’s thesis, that, in spite of appearances, violence in the world is decreasing, could  be traced back to the tradition of the Enlightenment movement of the 17th and 18th Century Europe and America, which held as axiomatic that there are knowable truths in the world, which, when discovered through the scientific method and rational thinking, would lead to an increasing improvement of the human condition—and less violent behavior—over time. This is a foundational concept of secular humanism.

During a brief Q and A segment at the end, several of the typical concerns about a godless world were brought up by thoughtful listeners. One questioned how humans could have been the basis of their own positive ethical behavior. A: The primary motivation of survival has shown us that cooperation and altruism are necessary for maintaining and propagating life. Another question from a priest in the audience was how values of good and evil, right or wrong can emanate from the naturalistic materialism that humanism claims—a problem Kant had, he added. A: The problem of consciousness remains unsolved, and the solution to the question lies in the theory of consciousness itself. (And besides that, our consequentialist ethics are “at 180s” with Kant’s categorical imperative, or universal and unswerving morality Kant thought could be  derived from rationality.)

Maybe the most relevant question—at least as it related to the theme of "Spirituality in the City”—came from a dapper man near the front, who wanted to know if humanists have anything they call spirituality. “The term is problematic,” said Deitch, as the ambiguity between spirituality being something that comes from some real but intangible spirit, which we reject, or if it is something more like a sense of awe or wonderment, a magical or enchanted mental state. Apparently he had been unmoved by an earlier partial reading of Carl Sagan’s ode “Pale Blue Dot” which, for many, stimulates an awe that comes from man’s realization of his insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps the observation of theoretical physicist/cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, though not quite as lyrical, but no less poetical, which invokes a sense of wonderment by a reversal of tack, placing man as a shining product of the grand scheme of the universe, his bodily makeup the result of elements manufactured in solar furnaces, and then spread by the exploding aged stars and spread as elemental fertilizer to create untold diversity in the cosmos.

And maybe when it is shown that spirituality is possible without spirits, numen, genies or poltergeists or gods, will we better appreciate the “real deal.”

~ Marty Bankson

Greenberger Gives Historical Invocation at City Council Meeting

Harry Greenberger’s Secular Invocation

New Orleans City Council

November 19, 2015

"I am Harry Greenberger, President Emeritus of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association.

Thank you for having me today for my eighth secular invocation before this Council. Only one Councilperson now seated was here for any of those prior meetings, so I find it appropriate to give a quick explanation of the constitutional requirement that mandates allowance of such invocations. An old Supreme Court ruled that “Freedom of Religion” in the Bill of Rights meant that government must stay out of religion and religion must stay out of government. A more recent Supreme Court ruling was that religious invocations before governmental bodies did not violate that restriction, so long as the body invites any and all religions and established non-religious groups to present such invocations.

So ...as you convene to consider the needs of our city, instead of lowering your heads in prayer, I invoke you, with eyes open, to deliberate with reason and compassion the needs and problems of New Orleans in order to produce the best solutions possible, remembering that we have a disparate population in which most of us are members of some minority group, race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, and I hope that we all share the belief that we must treat our fellow human beings with respect and dignity.

By applying your experience, intelligence and persuasiveness to matters on your agenda, you have, without a need for prayer, ability to lead this city into brighter days ahead.

I therefore, invoke: Your ability to govern amid conflicting interests and issues. Your ability to work together in harmony. Your sense of the true needs and welfare of the New Orleans people.

So be it. Amen."

You can watch it here. Harry's invocation starts around 26:00 minutes (not much happens for a while... there are some large gaps in activity, so be patient.)

In Honor of Dr. Sagan

The November reading for  the NOSHA meeting by Connie Roeder Gordon Schultz (November 21, 2015)

_____________

In 1990 as Voyager 1 spacecraft sailed away from Earth, Ground Control issued a command that directed the craft to turn around and look back from its 4 billion mile vantage point and photograph all the planets it had passed leaving our solar system.

“From Voyager’s vast distance, the Earth was captured as an infinitesimal point of light, actually smaller than a single pixel of a photo.  The image was taken with a narrow angle camera lens, with the Sun quite close to the field of view.  Quite by accident, the Earth was captured in one of the scattered light rays caused by taking the image at an angle so close to the Sun."  Dr. Carl Sagan was quite moved by that pale blue dot in the photograph.

In 1994, Dr. Sagan published Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.

I want to read a couple of pertinent excerpts from that book, not only in honor of Dr. Sagan’s recent birthday, November 9, but also as we share in the recent atrocities that continue to wrack our tiny planet and ALL OF HUMANITY, all seven-plus billion of us, not just in Paris, or Beirut, or Syria, or in Nigeria, and just yesterday in Mali, or in a movie theater in Lafayette, or a community college in Oregon, or at a historically black church in South Carolina, but everywhere on our pale blue dot.

***

“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.  

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.  

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.  

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” 

And one more excerpt . . .

“Ann Druyan [Dr. Sagan’s wife] suggests an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot . . . . Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn’t strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?”