Dispute Between a Man and His Book: Part 2 of 2

...Continued from Part 1

So my young son is well-versed in Ancient Near East culture.

In my first part of this reflection, I reveled in the sheer lunacy of it, making him out to be a closet scholar precocious beyond his years.

Reality is a bit more complicated, and not quite so humorous.

My son knew this ancient word Ba because he had been reading books from a certain genre. I knew that Rick Riordan had brought the Greek gods to life (witness the popular Percy Jackson movies) but was unaware that he also has a series of books set in ancient Egypt.

My son drank deeply from that well. While I wasn't looking.

Realizing that he was probably not the only one who had been reading these books, I asked my oldest daughter if she knew what a Ba was.

She did.

This is the daughter for whom school-related memorization of "boring historical facts" is an enormous and terribly unpleasant chore.

I'm not sure how I feel about all this.

On the one hand, I'm glad the kids are reading.

On the other hand, I am disquieted by what they are reading.

In one sense, perhaps my disquiet is misplaced. These are all dead gods. Gods that passed from the scene about 2,000 years ago.

In another sense, I'm a bit apprehensive as to how successfully these gods are making a resurgence in today's culture.

Now realistically speaking, I am not concerned that my children will come to believe that the Greek gods or the old Egyptian gods are real.

But I am a bit concerned that by taking these gods so lightly, even in book-land, we invite a nonchalance about all religious systems, treating them as good for entertainment, and not much else.

Religious systems make for dangerous playgrounds, but we as a culture have forgotten that simple truth. The situation I blogged just a few days ago was, in hindsight, entirely predictable.

We now have teachers and educators who have lost all sense of mooring and who therefore give blasphemous homework assignments without even realizing the nature of the offense.

Parents for their part are likewise blind — and voice no complaint.

If I had not spoken up, that homework assignment would have proceeded without a hitch. The only problem, so to speak, was me.

I am reminded of a passage from Nehemiah:

Nehemiah 13:4-8
Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, musicians and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests.

But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God. I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room.

Nehemiah had helped to restored the temple to its proper, holy state... only to see a non-Israelite take up residence in the temple as soon as Nehemiah left town. It happened with the priest's blessing.

When Nehemiah returns, he throws Tobiah back out. But I can almost hear the priest Eliashib muttering under his breath.

"The only problem here is Nehemiah."

Maintaining purity in this world is a task of constant gardening.

In our culture today I see few gardeners. Even among our priests.

Anyone looking here for final conclusions about those Rick Riordan books will come up disappointed. I'm not sure where I'm falling on this. The kids did nothing wrong in this matter, and I'm not even sure the books are of the sort I should ban from the home. I read fantasy books as a child, too.

I'm just putting pen here to my disquiet, my growing dis-ease.

Dispute Between a Man and His Book: Part 1 of 2

I was being scholarly. Reading through the Old Testament at a snail's pace, supplementing my reading with commentary from a commentary that provides obscure background information on Old Testament readings that are obscure enough without the additional help.

Having just finished Esther, I was soldiering through a small prefatory article covering the "wisdom literature" books that were coming up next... Job, Ecclesiastes, etc.

As I said, I was being scholarly.

Or attempting to be.

I turned a bit school-boyish, however, when I got to a comment about there being similarities between Ecclesiastes and (among other things) an ancient Egyptian text from that period titled The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba.

Ba?

Now I cannot speak for others, but I found the word "Ba" pretty funny, given the context. Rather un-scholarly. It almost sounds like the name a child would give to his security blanket.

After chuckling for a moment over this silly book title, I read on, expecting to find out what a Ba is.

My smile quickly faded from my lips. No definition.

Seriously?

You're going to give me a book title like that? With no explanation?

Yep.

So what began as The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba quickly turned into A Dispute Between a Man and His Book.

I began to write a tart comment in the margin.

"No, wait. Don't tell me what a Ba is. I want to guess."

While I was still writing these very words, my early-rising 9-yr old son wandered into my basement office.

He still sleeps with Blue Orsor (his title for Blue Oso, a blue furry blanket with a teddy-bear head in one corner).

He ought to know what a Ba is.

So I showed the book title to him, figuring he might find it funny too.

My son looked up at me after reading the words and said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, "Isn't Ba an Egyptian word for a spirit?"

I must have looked a bit dumbfounded, because he quickly clarified himself.

"Yeah, and when a man goes to sleep, it wanders around in the form of a chicken or something."

Not so long ago I was reading this child Ba, Ba, Black Sheep.

Apparently he's moved on.

It's good to have a scholar in the home at times like these.

Just for backup, you understand.

This reflection continues in Part 2...

Needing Nehemiah

I try to keep my head down, but the stuff comes at me anyway.

I blogged recently about Ezra, so this one had to be Nehemiah.

I am stunned. Haven't been so angry about a school issue in a long time, if ever. Quite frankly, I think three images tells the story.

My daughter came home today with a homework assignment. The below two images are the front and back side of the assignment.

Then I did my homework.

Enough said?

Maybe not! And that alone speaks volumes for our time.

But for those puzzled by my outrage, here's the decoder ring.

Followers of any and all of three main world faiths (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) consider it sheer anathema to worship ancestors. Idolatrous in all the worst meanings to create a literal shrine with an altar upon which to place (for worship) anything at all.

I suppose I have to note that some wings of Christianity support the veneration of saints and prayers given to them. But that's not worship, and in any case this is not a practice I am keen on.

Even more to the point, the box is not a neutral object.

It's a Butsudan - a Buddhist altar!

My child has been asked (IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL) to create an altar suitable for another religion.

And place a photo of someone she reveres on/in it.

I haven't worked out yet how to respond to this, but will be doing so soon. (I don't have a lot of time. This assignment is due on Friday!)

One thing is sure. Nehemiah would not have put up with this.

I will seek to react as Daniel did, responding with tact and grace.

Daniel 2:14
When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact.

But God help us, we need some Nehemiahs in our midst.

Nehemiah 13:25
I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: “You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves.

I'm tempted to chuckle. No, no desire here to go out and beat people up. I don't want to pull anyone's hair out. And we live in a pluralistic society. Christianity was in any case born a minority religion.

No, I don't want to implement Nehemiah's reforms in our world. I want to see his zeal in God's church. When Christianity was born, its stated goal was not to overthrown the Romans and impose Christian ethics on an unwilling world. The goal was to build the church of Jesus Christ, one willing soul at a time.

The day may come when homework assignments like this will seem ordinary and tame. To the world.

But why on earth does the church not recognize that this is not acceptable stuff for our children?

For a little while longer, we have a say in the matter. We live in a democracy. While we have a say, we should speak. And when we no longer have a say (and that day is surely coming), we should withdraw.

But we do neither. We assimilate.

When will the church wake up and recognize that we have married our surrounding culture no less than Nehemiah's people had married the culture surrounding them.

Nehemiah woke the Israelites up.

Can we wake up?

Jesus asked at one point what happens when salt loses its flavoring.

We're finding out.

Finding out right now.

Envying Ezra

Spoiler alert: this blog reveals plot details from "The Fault In Our Stars" and also includes frequent use of a vulgar term.

"These books are not condoning or encouraging sex and vulgarity -- they are providing a voice and context for a particular experience of the characters."

That is the reply that almost haunts me most. (More on that shortly.)

These words came in response to a blog which I posted to a local "Patch" community website. (We used to gather at the soda bar, I suppose, or the post office. Now you post a blog to Patch.)

Heaven knows the link will go stale eventually. In anticipation of that day, I'll note here that in the blog I lamented the fact that an extremely popular book among middle-school children these days is available in our local public middle-school library.

I allowed this book to enter my house and even began to read it aloud to my daughter — but abandoned the project after I realized that there was no good ending to this book. We plowed a furrow through a lot of profanity and dubious material before I realized that things were getting worse, not better. This book was not taking me or my daughter anywhere I wanted either of us to go.

That's not to say I avoid all of life's ugliness. No, what I'm saying is that I need to know it's worth the effort. I don't engage with dark themes for kicks. I do so for the sake of the good. Where is God in this story? What's the redemptive thread in this?

Speaking of that word, a favorite line of mine from the memorable movie The Shawshank Redemption is that the main character "crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."

This book and that movie have shit in common. The movie portrays a redemption of sorts, however. The book just portrays young teens behaving badly.

Notably, in this book young teens...
• have sex,
• engage in lewd, profane and bawdy conversation,
• engage in a celebrated act of revenge vandalism, and
• joke about exchanging porn without parents noticing.

That's rough stuff any day of the week, but I might (maybe) put up with it if we came out clean on the other end.

But we don't. We just come out smelling like the shit we just read. Strong words, but have a look...

Is this appropriate for a sixth-grader?

Or how about this eulogy given in a church sanctuary:

The fact that the church was empty except for the three kids doesn't change the stunning lack of respect for holy space.

Good stuff for a sixth grader?

There are no adverse consequences to any of these deplorable scenes: they are just part of the story. Never lamented. Sometimes celebrated. The characters just keep plowing, behaving badly right up through the end of the book. Nobody grows. No epiphany moments. Perhaps the fact that they have cancer is supposed to somehow make me overlook their lamentable antics, but if that was the plan, it didn't work for me.

The book has nothing - I repeat, nothing - redemptive about it.... Unless dying of cancer is redemptive all by itself. (But it isn't.) Unless romance in and of itself is redemptive in every flavor under the sun. (Including the variety where two young teens have sex together within two months of their first meeting.)

So I blogged about how this stuff is totally inappropriate reading for eleven year old kids and subjected myself to a community response that, in terms of comments, came down on the side of condemnation. Condemnation of me, that is.

The reply at the top of this reflection captured the sentiment.

Fans of the book's presence in a children's library would have us believe that it does not actually encourage bad behaviors. It's just an opportunity to experience life from a different set of eyes.

My short response is to say: Our children? Through these eyes?

My longer response is to say that the American public (large swathes of it self-proclaimed church-attending Christians) can be aptly compared to a smoothly functioning toilet. It has been discovered that our wide American mouths swallow a lot of shit. So people with shit to sell keep dropping by to put more in.

And we defend the fact that we eat the shit we're sold, protesting that it doesn't always taste good. "We don't celebrate the taste," the line goes. "We experience it."

I prefere St. Paul's approach to the matter:

Ephesians 5:3-12 (excerpted)
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving....
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light...
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

(There's admittedly a bit of irony here. I am freely using the word shit here and describing what disobedient kids are doing in secret. Hmmm. but Paul did say we should expose them, and he did use the Greek equivalent of shit once in holy scriptures. A strong word at the right moment can be usefully employed to wake up dozing readers.)

The most haunting part of this experience for me, however, was not the response from my community, which was predictable, if tragic.

No, what haunts me most is the feedback from church acquaintances:
• The college kid who told my daughter that she really liked the book
• The woman who told my wife she very much enjoyed the book
• Others who disparage the book privately, but say nothing publicly

The blog did get forwarded on Facebook quite a bit (more than 50 times) but that takes only a second, and only your friends see it.

Replying to the blog publicly takes time and involves public exposure. It was largely only my detractors who had time for that kind of effort.

I've been reading my way through the Old Testament slowly over the past few years, and I happen (if anything in life is a coincidence) to be reading through Ezra and Nehemiah right now. Thus the blog title.

I envy Ezra. And Nehemiah. They saw that the Israelites were assimilating with local pagan culture, called attention to the situation, and the Israelites responded. Quickly. Repentance and change.

Such has not been my experience.

I live in an area some refer to as "the Christian Mecca". On this topic, at least, I believe more could be expected from a city on a hill.

Jesus asked at one point what happens when salt loses its flavoring.

We're finding out.

Finding out right now.

Baal Worship and Ball Worship

I'm reading through the Bible at a blistering pace. In a mere year (or was it two?) I've made my way from Genesis 1 to the end of 2nd Chronicles.

Today I ran into that odd verse, 2 Chronicles 23:17, which refers to the destruction of the temple of Baal in Jerusalem under the leadership of Jehoiada. Excepting the parallel passage in 2nd Kings, there is no other reference in the Old Testament to an actual temple of Baal in the city of Jerusalem.

And yet it was there.

One of the depressing things I take away from my Old Testament readings is the pervasive reality that people pick up spare idols rather easily. A page or two later we read of Amaziah, who is given a great victory over Edom only to... wait for it... take the Edomite idols home with him to Jerusalem.

At this point I set aside my reading to go upstairs and kiss a few children off to their respective schools. As I passed by our family idol I noticed it was glowing and paused to gain wisdom from it because the man on the screen was a priest wearing albs and a cross over his chest.

The video clip was on the news because the pastor had given a very hurried 1-minute sermon so as to get home to watch his beloved San Francisco 49ers in the NFL playoffs. As he left the podium the pastor spread apart his albs to reveal a red T-shirt underneath emblazoned with the 49ers team logo.

I proceeded upstairs to pray for the child heading off to school. Then I retreated to the basement, somewhat shaken by a disturbing juxtaposition. A temple of Baal tucked away in the City of Jerusalem... and a temple of Ball tucked away under this pastor's albs.

I decided to jot my thoughts down and turned on my PC (which happens to be another contender for my allegiance...). I was relieved to confirm on Google that the 1-minute sermon was a gag. The pastor did proceed to preside over a regular church service after the joke was over.

But my relief was not unmitigated, because a line had been crossed. Before the Lord's table there is little room for humor. Yet this pastor had quipped during his 1-minute sermon, "Would you all like to be forgiven for your sins? OK, that's great, you are. There's some bread and some wine up here on the table. You all feel free to help yourself if you'd like to."

A line had been crossed. And underneath his cross this man bore a shirt dedicated to the temple of Ball.

But as I reflected on the travesty I had witnessed, I realized that I too was guilty. There are many American Idols, and not all of them involve sports.

As it will be recalled, I had gone up to pray for a child or two as they headed off to school. After a brief (real) prayer over a particular child, I worded some final advice to the child (pertaining to an upcoming Math exam) in Eucharistic terms... as if the advice had come from the Lord. I closed with the words, "Thanks be to Dad." Even as I did it, I realized that a line had been crossed.

And I as sit here reflecting upon what I had done, I wonder if during my passage by the TV shine I had not perhaps picked up an extra Baal from that irreverent pastor.

Yes, inappropriate joking can desecrate a holy place no less effectively than a sports logo. I am guilty of the former, if not the later. Baal worship comes in many forms.

We like to think we have come a long way. We like to think we've left idol-worship in the rubble of ancient history.

But we haven't.

I pray for my fellow Americans that they will stop bringing sports idolatry or crass joking into the house of God.

For myself, I pray that this moment of clarity will not leave me. There is a place for silliness.

It does not belong in my prayers.