DNJ Column 2/3/19 We’re all familiar with various rivalries, feuds and gangs in history. The Hatfields and McCoys, famous in Kentucky and West Virginia, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, from medieval Italy and Austria (now called), Alabama and Clemson, Liverpool and Manchester United. There are a lot of ways we sort ourselves into “teams.” Though not always, many such partisans have visible identifiers. The Bloods and the Crips, LA street gangs, often identify themselves by color, red and blue respectively. In the movie “Gangs of New York,” about 19th century gangs, the Dead Rabbits (mainly Irish-Catholic immigrants) ranged themselves against the “Bowery Boys” (mainly native-born Protestants). The Dead Rabbits carried a yes, dead rabbit on a pike when marching through the streets of their NYC Five Points neighborhood. The Bowery Boys were anti-immigration in their politics and supportive of the nascent “Know-Nothing” political party, which was also anti-immigrant. The Know-Nothings had nominated former president Millard Fillmore in 1856 for their candidate, who came in 3rd behind winner Democrat James Buchanan and Republican John Fremont. The American Civil War left us with a rivalry between the Blues and the Grays, as long as ex-soldiers continued to wear their old uniform jackets. There was a much older rivalry of the Blues and the Greens which dates back to the Roman Empire. It too, was born of sports, if chariot racing fits that description. There had been political rivalries, even semi-parties, in the earlier days of the Roman Republic, long before Julius Caesar was assassinated and the rule reverted to a mostly monarchical form with the emperors who followed him. The Optimates and the Populares were rival groups of wealthy Romans of the Senatorial class. The Optimates controlled the Senate and the Populares attempted various end runs by appealing to the less wealthy citizens, who could still vote for various Tribunes, who had near dictatorial power in some cases re: some issues. The Tribunes acted as a check on the power of the Senate and their appointed magistrates. They had the power of unappealable veto over certain legislation. There were thus two poles of power, the Senate and the People, who relied on the Tribunes and some Senatorial allies. Thus, the SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus) of their republican military standards. The Blues and the Greens started out as favorite colors of the four racing teams of horse drawn chariots of Rome, later Constantinople. The reds and the whites had faded in popularity and later vanished, and by the time of Emperor Justinian, (6th century), the Blues and the Greens were becoming dangerously divided and politically identified, which led to riots in 532 at the Hippodrome. Justinian’s army put down the riots brutally, contemporary accounts estimating perhaps 30,000 were slain inside the Hippodrome, whose exits had been sealed. Humans tend to organize based upon identity. It’s seemingly hardwired, as we in our early history lived in small groups and learned the hard way not to trust strange groups from over the mountain or across the river. Thus developed the search for identifying marks when confronted by possibly dangerous strangers. In the Bible, Judges 12, in an inter-tribal battle, the winning Gileadites stopped the losing Ephraimites from crossing back into their territory by requiring them to say the word “shibboleth,” which was notoriously hard for the Ephraimites to pronounce correctly, since they couldn’t get the “sh” right, and it came out like “sibboleth.” Surface identifiers are the heart of identity politics. When skin color, native origin, sex, and other easily identifiable markers are elevated, the importance of the role of citizen and accompanying unifying factors lose their power. Some Catholic school boys were accused of all kinds of things based on the kind of hat they wore to a political march in Washington a couple of weeks ago. In terms of opportunity for dialogue, argument, discourse and conversation do you think it’s a good idea for modern day political patrons to identify by means of recognizable garments, hats or colors? Steve Odom has a black hat and a white hat and preaches at Central Christian Church on East Main St in Murfreesboro. Email him at steven.odom@gmail.com

DNJ Column February 10, 2019 There’s no denying that Jeffery Burton Russell is a bit of an odd duck in his publishing history. Author of 14 books and Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he’s also known for his 5-volume history of the devil, beginning in 1977. The series runs Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (1977), Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (1981), Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (1984), Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World (1986), and Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History (1988). The bulk of his other research is on medieval church history. What most interests me about him, however, are his two books on heaven. He began in 1997 with “History of Heaven: The Singing Silence,” and in 2006 finished up with “Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven—and How We Can Regain It.” “History of Heaven” was full of stuff like, “Heaven…is an endless dynamic of joy in which one is ever more oneself as one was meant to be, in which one increasingly realizes one’s potential in understanding as well as love and is filled more and more with wisdom.” Now that’s a mouthful, but in it orients us toward Russell’s reading of the history of the images and metaphors of heaven found in scriptures and poetry and theology from a human point of view. He sees an uncontradictory unity of vision connecting the human good and the revealed essence of fulfilled divine love. There’s more: “Heaven is the singing silence, the still ness of God that he sings to the world.” One of the best gifts of Russell is the way he opens our vision to a metaphorical expression of the theological reality of what must be, given resurrection of Christ. He combines 2500 years of western (and not always western) philosophical reflection on reality with the book of Revelation’s picture of the New Heaven and New Earth and comes up with “the singing silence,” and all that implies. This is found in introduction, but he proceeds from the biblical views of heaven up through the early fathers and medieval thinkers to the apex of poetic reflection found in Dante’s “Paradiso.” Dante himself understands how any human expression can only fail when approaching a description of the infinite and eternal, but, in hopefully immortal lines says (in translation) “the Love that moves the sun and other stars was turning my desire and my will together as elements of one moving wheel.” Dante himself sees through a theological prism, to a world where love moves will. And, in describing this topos of the gospel, he encapsulates a great deal of scripture in a few words “turning my desire and my will together.” This is an allusion to the problem raised by Paul in the letter to the Romans in chapter 7: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Dante reflects the solution Paul points toward at the beginning of chapter 8, when he says: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” For Dante, desire and will united is only accomplished by the Love that moves the sun and the stars of the universe. Russell’s follow-up work, “Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven—and How We Can Regain It,” is the book our Sunday night class will be reading and discussing beginning in April, when we complete the book of Romans we’re studying now. Steve Odom is pastor of Central Christian Church on E. Main St. and may be reached at steven.odom@gmail.com

DNJ Column 2/17/19 How does one come to know God? The largeness of such a question need not daunt our interest in the way other largenesses might. For instance, I recently read a book by a man who read the entire 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in a year and wrote a book about it, “Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages,” by Ammon Shea. Now that’s a daunting task. But coming to know God is different in many ways. For our purposes, it’s relevant that the OED does not seek to know me. For Ammon Shea, it was all one way. He reflects a lot in his book on the grinding necessity of staying in his seat for long hours turning pages and making notes. It’s like those unhappy relationships where one partner does all the work. How we come to know God is a large question but need not be daunting for several reasons, perhaps the most important of which is that God is indeed not the OED, nor any other object. And he’s not the OED in a lot of ways. The most important difference is that the OED does not want to know you. It’s not that the OED wants not to know you, and it’s not that the OED just doesn’t care, it’s just not a capacity of the OED. I’ve had a miniaturized version in my office since college days (comes with its own magnifying glass) and it’s not said a kind word to me in all that time. It is lifeless, an object, a creation of man, that carries the results of a lot of labor, and love, and knowledge, but not capable of initiating anything. When we seek to know God, there’s a given involved, a head start as it were. Because of the nature of God, our own interest in the question of coming to know God is an indication of his interest in us. I’m not speaking in any mechanical sense. It’s not that he “meets us halfway,” as is sometimes said. God starts the whole process. God acts, and is, in order for the knowing to even be possible. When I desire to know God, I am already beginning to know by virtue of that desire which is his willingness to be known. Because of his desire, he gives me that same desire. My desire to know God is a gift from the object of my desire that not only begins the process but enables the process to say on the right track. Because God initiates the process of me coming to know him, it is enabled to go in the right direction, through having begun on the right road. If I consider my knowing God as generated by and from myself, I may stumble in that knowing through lack of humility, and simple misapprehension of the nature of our relationship. Moses asked to see God’s glory and God said I will show you my goodness. One can know a chemical formula for example, by “force,” but knowing a person presumes willingness and love on the part of both parties. And when one is the creator and one is the creature, the path of successful knowing, however it might be described, is always the one given by the creator. The humility of God is a phrase used by Christian theologians to describe the coming of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, initiating, seeking, beginning the search for each child of God, by showing us who he is in ways not knowable without God’s self-unveiling. In the willing, innocent suffering of the Man of God on a cross, God reveals, among many things, his willingness to be known by all drawn to him, as well as his desire to know the creature who responds in humility and love. All moments and all directions and all questions meet at the cross. “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Steve Odom is pastor of Central Christian Church on E. Main St. and may be reached at steven.odom@gmail.com

DNJ Column 2/24/19 I saw a Facebook post today that strongly suggested that our current president is “God’s man” for this hour. Now some of you are hyperventilating and some of you are cheering. This would be a perfect example of the inappropriate mixing of religion and politics if done by a government official using government time or money. But it was a private citizen expressing his opinion. You and I have also seen opinions opposite from that on social media, some quite extreme in the other direction. But is there any sense to the notion that a government leader can be God’s man (or woman; see the Bible, Judges 4) for this particular hour? The idea itself does indeed derive from the Bible. See cases like Joseph, great-grandson of Abraham, through whom it is said God preserved many lives during the famine in Egypt perhaps 4,000 years ago. This and other passages are foundations of the idea of the “providence of God,” i.e., that God operates behind the scenes of history, as it were, to bring about his purposes. In the story of Joseph, that purpose was specifically to keep alive the descendants of Jacob, the twelve tribes, God’s chosen people, during the region wide famine. You may be familiar with Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat cows and seven lean cows which ate up the fat cows, presaging the famine throughout the region. By virtue of interpreting Pharaoh’s dream, Joseph (“coat of many colors”: that Joseph) is promoted to #2 in Egypt and institutes government control of grain stocks to lay in enough surplus to survive the approaching famine. Many Bible readers are sometimes surprised that every character in the Bible is not a moral exemplar. Joseph’s wisdom preserves countless lives during the famine, but using Pharaoh’s delegated power, he also, having confiscated a portion of every Egyptian’s harvest during the “fat years,” turned around and sold it back to the Egyptians during the lean years. First, it was sold for money. When people ran out of money, they exchanged their livestock for grain, and when that was gone, they gave up their farmland to Pharaoh for grain, and when that was used up, Joseph essentially turned the Egyptians into slaves in exchange for grain by allowing them to sell themselves to Pharaoh. To me that seems deeply problematic for a political leader from our modern perspective of liberal democracy. But the Bible tells that story without saying “this is how good leaders act.” That episode is part of the overall Joseph story in the second half of Genesis in which, in the realm of human freedom, God nonetheless, for the purpose of advancing his intention to preserve a people to be a light to the world, sometimes pushes an actor forward onto the stage of history. There are other examples. You can look them up. Jephthah, Gideon, Ehud, Samson, Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the Great. Cyrus is even called, by Isaiah the prophet, God’s “messiah,” meaning he was anointed (chosen by God) for a particular task. Esther (in the biblical book of Esther) is reminded by her older cousin Mordecai, and this is where the phrase is first used, that perhaps she has her place of prominence in Xerxes’ court “for just such a time as this,” that the Jews might be spared Haman’s planned genocide. So perhaps she was “God’s woman for that hour.” I can’t explain all of history and justify every good or bad player on the world stage. But I know how the story ends. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Steve Odom is pastor of Central Christian Church on E. Main St. and may be reached at steven.odom@gmail.com

Daily News Journal Column 8/26/18 Many churches have a guy like this. In my church, it was the late father of a member who still has the tiny animals his dad carved out of peach pits, and the strange shaped walking canes whittled from sticks and tree limbs. In my mother’s church it’s a member of her old Sunday School class, the BYKOTA class. They named themselves this because that was their slogan: Be Ye Kind One To Another (Ephesians 4:32). And so, naturally, this little old fellow in their class started carving every piece of wood he could find into acorns, turtles, frogs, top hats, bulldogs, etc., etc., and on each piece was the slogan’s initials: BYKOTA. Class members get a new one at each Christmas party. Actually, it’s quite effective in reminding one of the scriptural admonition, since it’s pronounceable and short: BYKOTA. Some of the class members even turned it into a farewell known only to them: BY – KOTA! What interests me is thinking of those folk, how many generations from now, who find these little acorns and turtles in their great grandmother’s dresser drawer with those cryptic initials (Do you want it? Not me. How bout you? Naw, give it to Melvin. He keeps everything.) What will they think? Will they be able to decipher it? Not all periods of Christian history have had the same attachment to words of wisdom like are represented in BYKOTA. Through a complicated series of developments (traced in Peter Brown’s “The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity” 2015) we learn that it took generations after the granting of legal status to Christianity by Constantine and Theodosius before you can discern any kind of wholesale BYKOTA spirit among the ruling classes in any of the successor Christian kingdoms of the west. We see it begin in a dispersed way during the rule of the Frankish King Dagobert I (629-634) during the time of the Merovingians. Dagobert was more than a century after Clovis, first Catholic king of “Francia,” and it was the presence of the Irish monk Columbanus (543-615) and his monastic successors who began a new era of courtesy and kindness among the ruling elite of early northern France. The difference was that prior to Columbanus the Gaulish, Franco-Gothic successors to the late Romans had lived and worked by the same “personal code” as their predecessors. “High talk and taking down one’s rivals by malicious tales had been the characteristic trait of great bishops and of the swaggering courtiers, warlords and great landowners of the Frankish kingdom.” (Brown, 192) In Columbanus’ new “rule” the nun in charge of the cellar (food supply) should, for example always answer requests “with mild words and without any roughness in response, so that the sweetness of her heart may be revealed by the answering of her voice.” (ibid.) The extremely strict and ascetic rules of Columbanus were intended to tame the unruly behavior of monks, nuns and rulers alike. “Day to day life was to be conducted through gently uncontentious interchanges….these pointed inversions of the codes of the new aristocracy radiated outside the convents and monasteries.” In Dagobert’s world, there was a bit of a revolving door between the monasteries and the Merovingian court, and as the standards for monkish behavior changed, life among the noble classes began to change as well. The pious habits of the monastery began to “convert” the code of behavior at the royal court as well, and improved life for all, over time. I don’t know if they carried any carved acorns around with them, but I do know that the stories we tell ourselves and words we pledge to live by are what change us from within to without. The Merovingian courtiers even came to address one another not as my lord, sir, your honor, etc., but, peccator, Late Latin for “sinner.” And that’s how the world changes. One peccator at a time. BYKOTA. Steve “Peccator” Odom is pastor of Central Christian Church on E. Main St. of Murfreesboro and may be reached at steven.odom@gmail.com