Q&A with Rev. Durrell Watkins

Question: I’ve been trying to use The Secret and so far, it hasn’t worked. I’m about to give up on it.

Answer: You haven’t really asked a question, but your declaration seems to be filled with disappointment. I assume The Secret to which you refer is the book by Rhonda Byrne that teaches we each have the power to shape how our lives unfold. I don’t know how you’ve been using it or for what purpose, so I can’t really address why it doesn’t seem to be working. What I do know is that hope is better than despair, forgiveness is better than resentment, and looking for what is right is more empowering than dwelling on what is wrong.

We all struggle at some point with health issues or finances or relationships or career or personal loss. And there are several self-help methods that offer hope and encouragement to help us get through the difficult times. If The Secret doesn’t appeal to you, there is A Course in Miracles, The Power of Positive Thinking, The Science of Mind, and books by psychologists like Wayne Dyer, spiritual leaders like Louise Hay, and leadership experts like John Maxell. They all agree that focused intention, positive attitudes, and overcoming fear, regret, and resentment can improve the quality of our lives. As one slogan famously counsels, “Change your thinking, change your life.”

I’m sorry that you haven’t found The Secret to be very helpful, but I hope you won’t give up on reading positive literature and surrounding yourself with joyous, optimistic people. Hope and joy enrich our lives, and you are certainly entitled to those wonderful gifts.

Question: Are all the Christian rituals based on astrology? Many pagan celebrations coincided with ours.

Answer: This one is harder than most for me, but I’ll try. The truth is that ancient cultures often felt a divine presence in Nature and looked to the skies for guidance. Matthew’s gospel suggests that astrologers followed a sign in the heavens in order to find Jesus. Easter is calculated by observing lunar cycles in conjunction with the Spring Equinox. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon falling upon or after the first day of Spring.

Some of our rituals (like our Easter celebration and our Epiphany story) have an astrological element to them. But I don’t think that astrology motivated all of our observances. Pentecost, for example, is an ancient Jewish festival that we adopted and Christianized. Christmas is celebrated on December 25^th (the day of the Winter Solstice before the calendar was changed), but that is a natural time of year for a community to remind itself that the light of spring will in due course return. I don’t know of any obvious astrological connection for Advent or Lent. Numerology (the idea that numbers can be spiritually significant) plays a role in some of our celebrations: Advent is always four Sundays before Christmas; Christmas is always 12 days leading up to Epiphany; Lent is always 40 days (out of 46 because Sundays are NOT counted in Lent) leading up to Easter; Ascension is always 40 days after Easter and Pentecost is always 50 days after Easter.

The first “followers of the Way” (later to be known as Christians) were Jewish, and within a century the movement had reached out substantially to Gentiles in a pagan culture. So, Christianity has borrowed from Jewish and pagan traditions, and has initiated some of its own to meet its own needs. I wouldn’t say that “all” Christian rituals are based on astrology, but it would be naïve to suggest that astrology and other esoteric traditions didn’t have some influence at times on the development of Christianity.

Question: I don’t see why Jesus had to die such a horrible death? Did God require it? If so, why couldn’t God come up with a less violent way to redeem us? I just don’t understand how brutality can be redemptive.

Answer: The earliest Christians seemed to have some idea that Jesus’ death had meaning and purpose. They celebrated that belief more than they explained it. A couple of centuries after Jesus’ death, a man named Origen thought he had figured it all out. He hypothesized that the world was in the grip of Evil, and God wanted to win the world back. This “Ransom Theory” suggests that God made a bargain with the forces of evil (personified as “Satan”) whereby God would give up an ideal person as a ransom to win back the world; but God cheats Satan out of his winnings by raising Jesus back to life in the Resurrection.

About nine centuries after Origen, a theologian named Anselm came up with what he believed was a better understanding of Jesus’ death. Anselm hypothesized that God was a cosmic monarch, and in Anselm’s world, a monarch’s authority was absolute. Anselm figured that God wanted to redeem humanity, but the integrity of God’s monarchial office wouldn’t allow God just to forgive and forget. Someone had to be punished for the sins of the world. So, Anselm imagined that God sacrificed Jesus to satisfy God’s own wrath. Anselm’s proposal is called the “Satisfaction Theory”.

A few years after Anselm, someone named Peter Abelard came along with a much less violent understanding of things. Abelard believed that God’s love would outweigh God’s wrath. He understood Jesus’ life and death to be an example for us to follow. Jesus lived a life of courageous love and he wouldn’t back down from what he believed was his life’s mission, even if others wanted to kill him for it. His was a moral example, and our admiration of him causes us to follow his example. We serve God by serving others, and if we don’t back down even when the cost is high, we are following Jesus and are thereby assured of right relationship with God. The Abelardian view doesn’t blame God for Jesus’ violent end, nor does it let us off the hook for taking responsibility for our own lives. Abelard’s view is called the “Moral Theory of Atonement”.

About three centuries after Abelard, the Reformation theologians such as Calvin and Luther weighed in. The Reformers modified the Satisfaction model and came up with the vicarious sacrifice model, also called the “Penal Theory”. The Reformers decided that there was a real cost for sin, and so the sins of humanity resulted in a debt owed to God. In their view, Jesus died to pay the debt.

Of course, each of these views has a biblical proof-text or two to support it and each depends on the assumption that God and humanity were somehow separated and needed to be reconciled. However, perhaps it is possible that God has never been apart from the creation that is called in scripture, “very good”. Maybe God loves us and always has, unconditionally and forever.

My personal belief is that Jesus was killed as so many others were, to terrorize the community into being compliant with imperial rule. I don’t believe God required, desired, or sanctioned his brutal execution, or anyone else’s. The miracle for me isn’t how he died but that his followers dared to claim they experienced him beyond his execution. I don’t need to find meaning in his death, because I find meaning in his life. The witness of his earliest followers is that the significance of his life could not be killed! I don’t need to glorify Jesus’ execution in order to celebrate the Resurrection.

Question: I’ve received at least 20 emails saying that the new dollar coin doesn’t have “In God We Trust” on it. Is this a conspiracy to secularize America?

Answer: While most Americans are to some degree religious, and we are very proud that we are free to be religious (or not), our country is not a theocracy. So a conspiracy to “secularize” the U.S. is, at this time, unnecessary.

Additionally, the rumor that the new coin doesn’t have “In God We Trust” on it is false. According to the Urban Legends Reference Pages ( www.snopes.com/politics/religion/dollarcoin.asp) the U.S. Mint began a new Presidential $1 Coin Series in 2007. On these new coins, the year of minting, the motto from the Great Seal of the United States (“E Pluribus Unum”), and the national motto (“In God We Trust”) are inscribed on the edge of the coins. The phrases that were relocated to the edge were meant to allow for larger art work. I personally have seen a couple of these one-dollar coins, and “In God We Trust” is indeed inscribed on the edge.

Apparently, when the new coin was first released a year ago, a mechanical error omitted the inscription from a small number of coins that wound up in circulation. The omission was never intentional and was quickly corrected. Furthermore, the coins in the series that will be minted in 2009 are supposed to have the motto returned to either the front or the back of the coins.

Question: I don’t believe that God created the world in seven days. I don’t think non-Christians need to be “saved”. I’ve started reading (and enjoying) A Course in Miracles. And I certainly don’t believe it’s a sin to be gay. My brother tells me that my beliefs mean that I’m not really Christian. Can I be Christian on my current path?

Answer: A Christian is someone who chooses to identify as a follower of Jesus. There are many stories about Jesus, and a variety of beliefs about him, but his primary message was that his followers should live loving lives. The Jesus kind of love confronts oppression, resists injustice, cares about people who have been denied privilege, and offers hope and healing to as many people as possible. Nothing you have said indicates that you have abandoned those Christ-like virtues. In fact, it sounds as if you may be “more” Christian than those who define faith by what or who they are against. If you choose to call yourself Christian, then I would say a Christian is exactly what you are.

If you have questions about faith, the bible, the church, or sexuality & spirituality, you can email your questions to durrell@sunshinecathedral.org, or go to the Cathedral web site at www.sunshinecathedral.org and click on the link there. Rev. Durrell Watkins will answer your questions and publish the answers in this column. Your name will always be withheld, so only the actual question and the response will be printed.