I talked about this before in a post called repent or burn <cough, gag>. Someone decided, when translating a certain group of authority-approved books about our religious history, to use words like “repent” and “sin” and “savior”.

When you translate, you choose words appropriate to the time and place you’re in. They should be words that are in general use. In King James’ time, you’d call someone who saved a kid from drowning a “savior”. But now-a-days, we think “savior” means something magic and weird. If you’re curious, here’s my understanding of what those words really mean. “Repent” would be better translated “change your approach”, “sin” actually means “screw up”, and “savior” would better be called “rescuer”.

Right now I’m thinking of “scripture.” That word means “words that are written down.” Whoop-de-do! Just like “Bible” means… get this… “book.”

Jesus didn’t talk in magic-language. He didn’t want to hold up a system of code-words that kept people separate from God. He used the a word like “kingdom” because “kingdoms” made sense to people. When’s the last time you set foot in a “kingdom”?

I imagine that by the word that became “kingdom”, Jesus meant a world where God was present, fully involved, where God’s will carries the day. That we can look around a see a new environment, a new world that belongs to God and where we, as sparks of the divine fire, can be truly ourselves.

The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.

And I’ve been thinking about some folks I know. And a guy who was given $100,000, and six months later was homeless again.

Some of the folks I know are literally transient. They live a camping lifestyle, travelling from town to town, visiting national forests when they can. Others stay in one town for a long time, but really seem to crave freedom. If that’s true, and especially if some folks (note: some) choose to live outside, free of monthly obligations like rent and utilities, does that mean we don’t have to worry about them?

Crossan, by the way, says (at least in the “Blessed are the poor” verses) the word is more accurately translated as “destitute”–not just poor people living paycheck to paycheck, but people who have nothing but the clothes on their back.

If those people will always be with us, maybe the answer isn’t that we don’t have to worry about them, but that we get to include them. Maybe a place where it’s expected that the poor will be with us is a city where it’s not illegal to pitch a tent, or even to create a whole city of tents on unused land. Maybe a place where it’s expected could be friendly to the folks who live outside, happily encouraging those who like to share, instead of outlawing “unauthorized feeds”. Maybe parks for all citizens would spring up, with sleeping benches included as a matter of course.

What do you think?

“On the outside, it can sometimes appear that these “emerging churches” are just as orthodox as any other Bible-believing church. Online doctrinal statements and many sermons will sound no different from a Bible-based church. But more often than not when the outer layers are peeled back from these “emerging churches,” a mystical-based, kingdom-now, panentheistic view of “God” is revealed.

And I have to say it looks to me much like it looks to these guys: Churches do try to hide the truth of what they believe in an effort not to offend old-school Christians. They *do* put up statements of faith that imply that they’re just regular old-fashioned “Bible-believing” Christians. And I think it’s sad.

I keep hearing leaders say “I’m not saying I don’t agree with substitutionary atonement, I’m just asking…” or “Of course I affirm the Nicene Creed, I’m just saying…” They are dancing around the truth because they don’t want to push away fellow Christians. But what about the rest of the world?

The secular world is my world, an I am telling y’all that they are not going to come to Christianity as long as they think it’s about a God who longs to burn people for all eternity, or any other weird, illogical theology.

I am deeply in love with the emergent church, and grateful to Jonathan Brink, and to Tony Jones, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and others for the honest things they’ve said.

But you’re all still only seeing Christians. You’re not speaking to the rest of us, for whom the dogma is just silliness. Those doctrines kept me away for so long. And when I was finally able to see the possibilities, it was because I dug and dug, and overlooked weird things like “I’m not saying substitutionary atonement is wrong…”

Just for the record OF COURSE IT’S WRONG. The idea that God demanded blood as payment for our sins is silly, and any God that worked that way would be unworthy of worship. There. I said it.

Jesus didn’t come here to die as payment for anything. I could go on all day about how that makes no sense at all, but I won’t. Because what’s much more interesting is why he did come here.

Jesus came here to LIVE with us, to BE among us, and to SHARE the good news of God’s love and God’s kingdom with us. Why did he have to die? Because that’s what it means to be human. We all die. Some earlier, some later. Some by “natural causes” and some because of the stupidity of other humans. But we all die.

The reason he died the way he did is because that the most loving thing he could do right then, with those people. He gave himself to show us the way.

There are words that Christians use that make up a sort of code. These words are supposed to be the “correct” translation of certain words in Greek or Hebrew. But if a word has no meaning outside the Christian context, then it isn’t really a translation at all.

Some people think that when you translate, you just find the word that’s an exact match for the original word, and you’re set. Sometimes that’s true… for example, shoe, in English, is pretty equivalent to zapato in spanish. But often, it’s not true. Often, there are lots of words to chose from, or words have connotations (or sub-meanings) that make the translation strange.

Here’s an example. How do you translate the word “farm” to chinese? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that if you did translate the word, a chinese speaker wouldn’t picture what we picture when they heard the word. They might picture rice paddies, where we picture rows of corn. See what I mean?

The word “repent” has been used since somebody decided it was the right word in the 1600s. And maybe then, it was. But the word “repent” doesn’t actually mean anything in English, except for in the context of Christianity. So how can anyone claim to know what it means?

But, there’s good news. (Fancy that! Good News!) Bible scholars tell us that the word that’s been translated “Repent” in the New Testament actually means “change what you’re doing.” (And nowhere does it say “or burn.”)

Wow. Imagine that. Jesus, our loving Brother and Spark of the Divine Fire actually said “Change what you’re doing, if you want things to not suck so much.” Turn your heart toward the light that I’m showing you, so that you won’t live in hell.

He tells us that there’s a light to turn toward, and that we can embrace that light. How awesome is that? That’s what I call good news.

Oh, and by the way. You know that scary word “sin”? What if it meant “make a mistake”? “Miss the mark”? … More good news. It does!

More about not fearing the Bible

Jay Bakker gave a sweet sermon on this the topic of “repent”. If this topic intrigues you, you could also check out Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell. He’s pretty good at explaining how the Bible, far from saying hateful, terrifying things, actually brings a beautiful, hopeful, loving message.