Who was that man Jesus and exactly what was his message?

A news article about Christian activist Shane Claiborne that appeared this morning on the CNNPolitics.com website got me thinking about this.

But even before reading the article, my mind had been bending in this direction because of a lunch presentation that I attended recently at the Christian Reformed Church in North America’s Grand Rapids office. That presentation was given by Nicholas Woltersdorff, a professor emeritus of philosophy from the Yale Divinity School.

In many ways, the two are quite opposite — in that Claiborne wears his hairs in dreadlocks and takes on a very public profile as he speaks about that man Jesus. Wolterstorff is mild-mannered, quiet, not one to seek a limelight. Yet, I saw threads weaving through what each had to say.

Jesus, Claiborne tells us, was a radical in his own time, and he preached a message that is radical yet today. “The language of Jesus as Lord and savior is just as radical as it would be to say ‘Jesus as our commander in chief’ today.” In fact, Claiborne is on a nationwide tour, touting the new book “Jesus for President” that he co-authored with Chris Haw.

Instead of seeing Jesus as simply this prophet who told us how to achieve personal salvation, Claiborne views him as being much more than that. While backing Jesus for president is done with his tongue in his cheek, Claiborne does talk about how Jesus stood up to the Roman empire.

Too often, he says, Christians miss the real message of the cross. It is about Christ’s message of peace — a peace brought about by truly living out, even in times of suffering and loss, the lessons of Christ’s crucifixion. We need to take very seriously what happened that day atop that hill outside of Jerusalem.

“We’ve profaned the blood at the foot of the cross and turned it into Kool-Aid and marketed it all over the world. We make an art and a business out of taking the Lord’s name in vain,” he said.

Wolterstorff’s message, contained in his new book titled “Justice: Rights and Wrongs,” is not so  colorfully stated. The philosopher is not on a grand tour to promote his book. Plus, his book is by all means scholarly and deeply reasoned. It is not for those seeking a quick summer read. Still, there is that thread.

That thread has to do with justice, which Wolterstorff contends is a significant theme of both the Old and the New Testaments. Justice, as taught by Christ and those who went before him, has to do with human rights and fairness and with communities that share values as well as resources. Justice is something that has to do with the transformation of a society and not just an individual person.

Justice, he says, arises out the teachings and lives of people like Jesus whose message “gets under people’s skins and gets them into trouble.” In an interview he gave in March to the Christian Century magazine, he says, “As I see it, justice is grounded in rights. A society is just insofar as its members  are enjoying those goods to which they have a right — or to put it from the other side, insofar as no one is being wronged. In turn, I understand rights as being grounded in worth.”

 In his book, he writes, “It follows that any system of ethics that tries to make do only with life-goods, and does not bring the worth of the human being into the picture, cannot give account of rights … For justice prevails in human relationships insofar as persons render to each other what they have a right to.”

Bringing this back to Jesus, we see from these two writers a man who was God but who also spoke forcefully and often about justice, about bringing about peace between people. Love plays into this, of course. But justice is the foundation. Here is what Wolterstorff says in his book:

“Love of neighbor incorporates treating the neighbor justly; so, too, love of God incorporates treating God justly.”

In the end, Jesus was a man whose message was for people living their lives in community — and not simply for those seeking righteousness for the sake of righteousness. Christ was of this world, and he wanted to see a better world for all people.

I remember that “Gunsmoke,” the TV western, was playing on the television that long-ago Sunday night as my dad and a neighbor stood on the front porch of our home outside of Detroit and looked for a funnel cloud in the sky.

I was little, and hardly knew what a tornado was — and yet there was a silent eiriness coming from outside that filled the air, causing me to taste fear. I watched the TV show, and yet my attention was on the adults standing on the porch, just waiting…

Today, I think of the horrible, mile-wide tornado that swept through Pakersburg, Iowa, this weekend, killing an elderly couple who were members of the Parkersburg CRC.

It is so sad to think of them, and of that terrible funnel cloud that dropped from the sky and wrecked their home and took their lives. So sudden, and so final.

Yet, it is good to know that folks from the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee are already out there, playing a role in asessing damage and deciding how the agency can best help in the aftermath of the twister.

It hurts to think of that couple, and of the others who died in the disaster, and how one minute they were alive, and perhaps happy and hopeful, and then that black cloud descended, raging in, oblivious, causing death, injury and devastation.

Somehow, tornados strike me as the sort of weather reality that only helps to underscore how fragile we are as we live on this Earth. Even as  a child, I knew this — that these tornados were very bad news, that you couldn’t control them, and that they were black and ugly as they came sweeping toward you, ripping apart the world as they moved.

I only know now that the best response we can have to the twister that hit Iowa is to pray, to ask God to be in this, to help everyone to deal with what and who has been lost, and then to recover from the storm.

We can also give to CRWRC, praising the disaster relief workers who are at this very minute out there, perhaps picking through the ruins, showing God’s grace and care by their very presence in that corner of Iowa that was the subject last Sunday of the type of storm that, at least in my young life, passed over.

We were able that night to breath a sigh of relief and to watch the end of Gunsmoke. The yellow sky outside — a color that reminded me of bruises — grew dim and then dark and then calm. For me, it is memorable, for the odd sense of death lurking, for the awareness of having missed a bad thing, and for the fact — to be truthful — that I got to stay up that night way past my bedtime.

The controversy over church affiliation at Calvin College took another turn today. I’m not going to get into the specifics. They are around for people to read if they want.

What bothers me about this is what ithis could  do to the image of the Christian Reformed Church, the organization that owns Calvin College. Troubling me is not so much the outcome — the education professor leaving because she decided not to join the church.

Policies about church affiliation are beyond me. I can see both sides of the issue.

What I want to write about is how this situation can be so easily caricatured. Folks on either side will have their say. Some will be in favor, while others will point to it and complain that the church is narrow in its focus.

I would ask people to try to suspend judgement and consider this: Maybe everyone in this case is well-meaning, deeply faithful and have tried, and are trying, to sort through the many issues here.

What comes to my mind is what one of my old philosophy professors said — in effect, he said he could see all sides of many issues, and, as a result, he often felt strongly about both sides.  This meant, he said, he frequently found it hard to lambaste either side as being truly right or terribly in the wrong on an issue.

Basically, he called for calm and consideration and to keep in mind that the ultimate answers to the big questions are not really up to us anyway.

Yesterday was Pentecost and it got me thinking about the amount of wind  and worry that has been raging through our world lately.

We had the cyclone in Burma, washing ashore and killing thousands and stranding millions. Aerial pictures show a landscape of utter devastation.

Then there were all of those tornados sweeping across southern states last weekend — and on Mother’s Day no less. Here, we also see photos of chaos and destruction. And I don’t just mean water-soaked rice paddies or piles of debris that used to be buildings — or even a town.

In the case of Burma, and of the states in the U.S., we also see the horror and pain and suffering on the faces of those who have just been slammed in one way or another by the winds.

Now, we also had the horrific earthquake in China that sent buildings swaying and people fleeing all across Asia on Monday morning. I guess an earthquake isn’t really wind, but tell that to the people whose ceilings are falling.

Again, with the earthquake, we have photos of folks who look stunned and terrified and are perhaps wondering — gazing far up in that sky trying to find God.

You have to wonder about our wobbling planet — its viscious winds that are raking across and through so many lives. I hate to contemplate the next natural disaster waiting in the wings. Maybe a mountain erupting and lava flowing. No, wait, that’s happening right now in Chile. So, maybe …

Here we are. Maybe it will come in the form of hot winds whipping up fierce brush fires and sending those flames racing across acres and acres of land, pushing the fire ever closer to homes in which people hoped that they were safe.

Whoops, sorry! That is already happening in central Florida, isn’t it. Those fires. Look at those fires, those raging walls of angry flames.

On the one hand, I’m glad to be part of the Christian Reformed Church which joins with many other groups to offer relief and assistance to people hit by hurricanes or torn asunder by tornados.

But on the other hand, you have to ask: Dear Lord, why are we experiencing such wicked winds and disruptions. Are we supposed to be awakening to a new Pentecost? Are we supposed to be asking if maybe the spirit that has been loosed in our world these days is not really the one – the Holy Spirit — that we want? 

But there I go again, posing questions — to which there are sadly so few answers.

Having grown up in the Detroit area, I had no idea really that there was this major celebration that occurred every year in May in Holland, on the west side of the state. It’s called Tulip Time.

Once I began living and working in this section of Michigan, I learned of the event and have since seen many photos depicting participants sweeping the streets in Dutch garb. A couple of times I’ve attended an event or two at the festival. For some reason, I’ve always been comforted by knowing that this annual festival occurs.

It is a celebration of ethnicity — and sometimes that can be lost in our world today that is moving– somtimes racing, oftentimes stumbling  – toward a place of of inclusiveness and diversity. We, of course, need to get together and to work toward unity. But let’s not forget the past.

Making me think a bit about Tulip Time is an article in Wednesday’s Grand Rapids Press, chronicling the annual Durth-language service at the stately Pillar Church. This has been going on for 45 years.

Located in the heart of Holland, the church was “named for the six pillars that are part of its Greek Revival architecture.” The church was established in 1856 as the First Reformed Church, but later became one of the earliest of the congregations in the Christian Reformed Church.

Certainly this church is not stuck in the past and, says the news article, is working to be relevant to the needs of its community. It offers a range of ministries, including a summer Bible school for persons with disabilities. Still, this church should be congratualted for taking the time, every year, to hold a service that harks back to the founding days of the denomination. 

 Another of the Dutch-language services is set for 3 p.m. tomorrow. Although I don’t understand Dutch, if I am able to make it, I’d like to go.

 It’s a busy and racially charged world out there these days. 

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of presidential contender Barack Obama, is once again stirring the waters by speaking out on such issues as AIDS, United States foreign policy, and anti-Semitism. Among other things, he claims the U.S. needs to carry some of the blame for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, because of how America has handled itself and oppressed others in the world.

Wright’s comments seem to have struck a chord, causing the issue of race, which is always there, to suddenly sit right there brazenly in the middle of our table.

Given the widespread interest on Wright and what he has had to say — and now Obama’s denouncement of some of his former pastor’s remarks – you wonder where this debate is going to go.

Regardless, though, of where it goes the Christian Reformed  Church is no doubt going to be part of the discussion.

I was thinking this as I sat in the lobby of a Christian Reformed Church in Kalamazoo, Mich.,  late last week and had a wonderful conversation with a man named Fronse Smith.

An elder in his church in nearby Holland, Smith is a softspoken man who is a chemist by trade but an advocate for racial equality and social justice by avocation. We were both attending the annual “Black and Reformed Confrence,” put on by Christian Reformed Home Missions. Smith is black and I’m white.

The reason for the conference was to take a hard look at the Belhar Confession, a document created by a church in South Africa that focuses on the need for Christians to strive for racial healing. The emphasis on the Belhar is one of the reasons why I see the CRC maintaining a role and a voice in the ongoing discussion on race relations.

 Here is what Smith had to tell me about the confession as we sat in the lobby of the church. “Theologically, this (the Belhar) is something that we need. With the help of the Holy Spirit, it can help free us” from the bonds of racism that continue to confront people, in and outside of churches.

The Belhar, he says, ought to become a formal creed of the CRC because of how it could help move people toward justice, reconciliation and unity.

There are some who claim the Belhar should not become an official creed of the church, partly because it does not seem to speak enough about the redeeming grace that Christ brought to all people. I don’t know about that.

What I do know is that the matter of race is making headlines as the presidential race unfolds. Forcing us to once again think about it is Wright.

Wright is clearly a very passionate man, who is willing to speak his mind on the subject of race. In a speech he gave on Sunday at a NAACP dinner, he said blacks tend learn and interact and think differently than whites and “some of our haters can’t get their heads around that.” He also said: “I come from a religious tradition that does not divorce the world we live in from the world we are heading to.” 

On Tuesday, Obama blasted his former pastor for some of his statements. And while that is the political thing to do, it also helps to keep the debate and the discussion alive. And that is crucial. But there is something else — and that is civility. Civility is crucial.

Why do I say this?

Because of the conversation that I had with Fronse Smith. It was simply that — a conversation, conducted in low tones  about a touchy topic. He spoke to me about being a black husband and father, employee and church member. I told him a little bit about myself.

When I left him, I felt a sense of connection. He opened his world to me, and I to him, and I think we’re both better for it. I hope Obama and Wright, and all of the others weighing in on the topic, try to keep that — civility — in mind as the months move forward, taking us toward November.

I was pleased by one story and deeply troubled by another that I read in the news this morning. The first one was about the son of a Reformed Church in America pastor whose son plays professional basketball. Over my coffee, I read about Kyle Korver, who now plays with the Utah Jazz.

Published in the Salt Lake Tribune, the story chronciled how Korver’s faith, and the faith of his family, have held them together and also make him something of an anomaly in the high-profile world of professional basketball. The story reads, “What Jazz fans may not know is that  Kyle is the living, breathing, high-sock wearing, three-point-shooting embodiment of Pella (Iowa) and its Third Reformed Church, where his father has been senior pastor for 15 years.”

With the money Kyle makes from playing pro ball, he gives away a good portion — perhaps as much as one third — to faith-based causes. These causes include his father’s church. Mostly, though, he won’t disclose the causes he supports.

We do know that before being traded to Utah from Philadelphia last year, he had started a Bible study with a group of inner-city kids. He is making $4.4 million this season.

Kyle’s was a positive and uplifting story – quite the contrary to one that I read on the international wire about famous movie director Paul Verhoeven, creator of such hits as “Basic Instinct,” “RoboCop,” and “Starship Troopers.” The story touched on a project that he hopes to launch — a story about the life of Jesus, in which he will contend that Christ’s father was a Roman soldier who forced himself on Mary. Apparently, a book will come out soon in which he writes about this.

From what I gather, Verhoeven has been promoting this belief for many years. A former Roman Catholic, he grew up in the Netherlands during the time of the Nazi occupation. I suspect the horror of that time shaped his vision of religion. I’m not sure where he gets his evidence about Christ being conceived this way.

The thing is, I guess I don’t care that much. In my world today, I choose to look at the Kyle Korver’s of the world and what they do. To tell the truth, I haven’t seen him play ball. But given the choice between watching him on the basketball court or getting a preview of Verhoeven’s movie about Jesus or a free copy of his book, I think I’ll take basketball every time.

I hope Calvin College doesn’t go too far afield as it spends the next year or so trying to chart a course for itself into the future. Charged with accomplishing this job is a task force made up of college officials, teachers, Christian Reformed Church representatives, pastors and others.

Among other things, the task force will be addressing such issues as “What ought to be the confessional,  philosophical and practical characterists and features that constitute the Reformed identity and mission of Calvin College?” Also, this: “What  should Calvin do to strengthen and maintain its Reformed identity and mission?”

I hope as this group gets going that it takes time to ask Kathleen Norris what she thinks. Why? Because she spoke eloquently this weekend at the bi-annual Festival of Faith & Writing about the things that makes Calvin the gem that it is in the literary world. Norris, an award-winning poet and memoirist, spoke Saturday morning about her new book that looks at the ways in which indifference, boredom and other behaviors take us away from connecting to and worshipping God.

But it was what she prefaced her talk with that struck me.  Norris said that the Calvin festival was known far and wide as one of the best — meaning most enganging and ultimately satisfying — conferences for writers in existence.  She said her editor in New York told her that she was so lucky to be attending.

Across the country and beyond, there are dozens of these conferences. But what makes Calvin stand out, she says, is the powerful ways in which its Festival of Faith & Writing weaves issues of faith into the craft and artistry — and appreciation — of writing. Once again this time, authors from a wide range of literary disciplines came to speak and inspire.

As sun shone on the campus after her talk in the Fine Arts Center, I walked along the sidewalk on the way to my car. Doing so, and watching many people move this way and that, on their way to or from conference sessions, I thought of how Calvin has done such a wonderful job in creating and maintaining this conference.  If the job of the college is to offer a platform from which to provide ways of looking at and discussing faith, and especially Reformed Christianity, and how it applies to the written world then it has succeeded wildly.

I wish the new task force well, but also hope that it is able to honor and praise and offer support for those things at Calvin that are already in place and helping to move the institution into the future.

I wonder if I would have gone if I had been invited — as has Rev. Jerry Dykstra, executive director of the Christinan Reformed Church– to attend a special prayer service officiated this week in a New York City church by Pope Benedict XVI.  I am clearly not the leader of a denomination. But what if?

Given that I’m a Catholic, it would have been a chance to get a close-up view of the man who sits at the head of the Catholic Church. Reflecting on it, I’m sure I would have taken the opportunity. At the same time, though, I am a bit mystified by all of the media hoopla surrounding this week’s visit by the pope.  I know, of course, that he is a world figure, and is worthy of press coverage.

At the same time, though, the pope isn’t a particularly central part of my faith. I think there are many others out there who would agree. I know the pontiff runs things and that he has been a stickler for Orthodox teaching. I know he represents a line of men who trace their roots back to Saint Peter, the first pope. I know that the pope is a symbol to many of a connection between God and the people of his church. I know the pope’s words can be powerful and address important issues confronting the world today.

For that matter, I’m not sure what the Catholic Church would be without a pope. I’m not one to argue that the position has no value or should be in any way  diminshed. Simply, I saying this: The pope to me is sort of like a sacred CEO, a person who chairs the board meetings and basically guides the organization.

Mostly, he is a distant figure to me. What he says doesn’t really play into how I view my religion. My religion is rather one that takes on form and shape every Sunday.

This Sunday, for example, I appreciated standing in the pew with my wife as the sun shone through the windows and the  choir sang familiar songs at the Catholic Church that we attend. As always, I took communion and marveled at the mix of humanity who walked up to receive the bread and wine. Although the priest’s sermon, on the need for more men to become priests, was only OK,  I nonethless obtained weekly refreshment from the Mass. Looking back, I thought about the pope’s visit only once — when I saw the front of the weekly bulletin welcoming the pope to America and wishing him well in his travels.

Top generals and diplomats continue to tell us about the progress we are making in the Iraq War. Presidential candidates tells us what we need to do to get out. Soliders and their families — not to mention the Iraqi people themselves — continue to carry the major burden of the cause.

 And many of the most of us have aching hearts and wonder and worry what can we do, if anything, to help make the  hurting in Iraq stop. Answers are hard to come by. Violence there seems out of our grasp — something happening in a movie or novel. I keep wishing there was more that I could do.

While what is in my reach is limited, helping me cope is my job. It gives me a chance to talk to people across the Christian Reformed Church in North America who are doing many things to address the sorrow and sinfulness — the carnage and the chaos, the sad reckonings and loss – that this war continually reflects and creates.

This is why church, in my opinion, can matter so much. We can argue over theology or wonder why young people aren’t going to church. We can ask what it means to be an evangelical, a fundamentalist, a Christian liberal, an emergent church member or a middle-of-the-roader.

But really, in some ways, these things are incidental to the what I like to think of as the boots of our faith being on the ground. The CRC is involved and in action, and that needs to be noted.

In the last few days, I have had, for instance, a chance to write about a CRC military chaplain in the Green Zone in Baghdad. As mortar shells and missles fall and explode in the zone, soldiers and civilians are being killed and maimed, and this chaplain — Gordon Terpstra — is right there offering prayer and comfort to those who have been injured or who are dealing with the terror of being constantly under fire. 

But CRC involvement in that war doesn’t end there. Jacob Kramer, international relief director for the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, told me recently of the church’s efforts to feed the hungry in Iraq who have been victimized by the war. Outside of the country, he says, the church is starting to offer trauma care to the shattered psyches of men and women and children who have had to flee Iraq for Jordan or Syria.

Meanwhile, the CRWRC in Canada has been busy helping to place Iraqi refugee families into new homes so that they can build new lives for themselves in Canada.

And lately,  churches across the denomination have held prayer services to mark the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to the United States and coalition troops.

On nearly every front, as this terrible war goes on, the church is offering help. Politics aside, it is reaching out to all of those who are being affected and are in need of care –  the soldiers, the refugees, and Christians and non-Christian in Iraq itself. 

I feel honored to be able to write about it. In doing so, in some small way, I feel less helpless in the face of this complicated and controversial war.