the•ol•o•gy    [thee-ol-uh-jee]

noun, plural -gies.

1. The field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God’s attributes and reactions to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity.

Theology, then, is man’s studying of God and drawing conclusions based on this information. However, man is limited in his understanding of the universe as well as the divine. In addition, man’s reasoning is often faulty. In history we have often relied on what has been called ‘truth’ in any given field of study only to have it overturned in the next generation, or sooner.

I am left to wonder why, then, theology for many religions is so fixed and not fluid. I am astonished that there is any group of people that even remotely hints that their version of God is ‘the truth’ and unchangeable when their conclusions on not based on anything other than the interpretations of men existing thousands of years ago. Even more silly, are the interpretations of God based on the interpretation of men a century ago which was based on the interpretations of men 1000 years before that which was based on the writing of men 2000 years before that!

It would seem more prudent and honest, if these various religions with fixed dogmas, made a commitment instead to get together every 10 years to review their theology and change it in light of cultural changes, advancements in science and language, and revelations of God to his Church (the people, not the hierarchy).

For any soul on a journey with the divine, this journey is not static (at least we hope not). The revelation of God to us as individuals changes in our journey; sometimes fast, sometimes slow. The things we knew as truth 10 years ago is not what we know today or, at the very least, we do not know truth in the same light. So, why do some of our religious communities show very little of the same fluidity in our communal journey?

I am sure our Creator shares the same concerns. So, God has provided a remedy. God has created the heretic (in the image of his Son) to help things move along and balance things out. Heretics play an important role in all of society and deserve respect regardless of our/their position on divine or secular issues. If you think, perhaps, that today’s heretics are NOT thought of in the same way as 1000 years ago (punished and put to death), think again. A quick look at Facebook alone provides all the answers: there are many sentiments promoting killing of heretics and/or rejoicing in their death. Heretics are killed or beaten daily for being vocal and visible in standing up for an issue. When you consider that the Roman Catholic Church at large considers LGBTQ movement to be heretical and that they readily promote hate, intolerance and legislation that causes suffering against LBGTQ… what more proof do you need?

Anatomy of a Heretic

her•e•tic    [n. her-i-tik; adj. her-i-tik, huh-ret-ik]

noun

1. A professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church.

2. Roman Catholic Church: A baptized Roman Catholic who willfully and persistently rejects any article of faith.

3. Anyone who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle.

So, what are the marks of a heretic?

A heretic (allegedly)…

• “is one who bases his beliefs on his own opinions, rather than the revelation of Christ as taught by the magisterium of the Church”
• “are people who lack faith in the Church”
• is a thief: a Catholic who does not offer himself to lawful Church authority is as a thief: he withholds what he has freely offered to Christ by virtue of his baptism, that is, his will.

(“Our Lady of the Roses” website)

At “Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service”, an anonymous, stinging attack on Brian McLaren and his book “A New Kind of Christianity”, doesn’t directly describe McLaren as a heretic, but this is the clear intent of the post, in which they describe him and others like him as

• have been brainwashed to think that separation from false doctrine is mean-spirited and that a “positive, non-judgmental” approach to Christianity is preferable. As a consequence, evangelicalism, over the past 50 years, has been infiltrated with every sort of heresy.
• is New Evangelicalism that has created the climate whereby the average Christian does not have a mindset of being on the constant outlook for heresy and of carefully testing everything by Scripture.
• teaches that the Bible is not the infallible Word of God and that all doctrines and theologies are non-absolute, that we need to approach the Bible “on less defined terms” (p. 56). It teaches that the Bible alone should not be our authority, but that the Bible should be one of many authorities, such as tradition, reason, exemplary people and institutions one has come to trust, and spiritual experience (pp. 54, 55). It teaches that it is wrong and Pharisaical to look upon the Bible as “God’s encyclopedia, God’s rule book, God’s answer book” (p. 52). It teaches that the authority of the Bible is not in the text itself but in a mystical level above and beyond the text (p. 51).
• teaches that people should not ask pastors questions such as, “Do you believe in inerrancy?” or “What’s your position on homosexuality?” because to make them answer such questions is to “cheapen” them and to make them sell themselves (p. 61).
• has “a strong conviction that THE EXCLUSIVE, HELL-ORIENTED GOSPEL IS NOT THE WAY FORWARD”
• says, “I DON’T THINK IT’S OUR BUSINESS TO PROGNOSTICATE THE ETERNAL DESTINIES OF ANYONE ELSE”

-Way of life: “Beware of Brian McLaren“

Let’s Sum it Up: A heretic…

• doesn’t believe the bible is the Law of God
• believes it is not our place to judge others
• doesn’t believe in Church authority, or interpretation or that the Church speaks for God
• believes the bible is fallible and Christian clergy is too
• doesn’t not believe everything should be tested by the bible

Gifts from Heretics

(other than the community BBQ)

Heretics directly oppose church theology through written words, religious and political movements, art, and lifestyle. They often stand in resistance to hate, intolerance and accusations that are unfounded simply because they will not renounce their beliefs for something the church opposes. As a result, these brave leaders have initiated great changes within the church’s theology and practices and have paid dear prices for their beliefs. They have lost their lives and livelihoods, been tortured, imprisoned, ostracized and hunted.

The greatest gift heretics bring is change! Often, heretics don dramatic roles, engage in extremism, or adopt outrageous lifestyles in order to get their message across to change hearts or minds. In the face of violence, often such actions are needed.

Here is a short list of famous heretics who changed the Church and the World:

1. The most famous heretic was Jesus. There was a religious hierarchy who officially assigned Jesus marks of the heretic #1-9.Let us not forget the Jewish heretic
2. Spinoza: “Changes in theological concepts have never been readily accepted. Spinoza, whose theology was considered a heresy in his day, is today proclaimed by many as one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of all times. Over the years, ideas that were regarded as radical or heretical have come to be accepted by the community. Consequently, the entire spectrum of Jewish theology today is diverse and at times contradictory“. (Beth Adam, God Concept)
3. We also need to include Galileo: A major work published in 1632 resulted in Galileo’s conviction on suspicion of heresy and a lifetime house arrest. The Galileo affair provides important lessons and applications to the Church and to science today.Van Bebber says, “This allegorical interpretation gave birth to a new brand of Christianity. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), although not as extreme as Clement or Origen, accepted this new approach. Through Augustine the mixing of philosophy, culture, and theology became inter-twined. And, since Catholic theology recognizes the traditions of the Church as equal in authority with written scripture, changing this trend became impossible. Eventually, the roots planted in Augustine took full bloom in Thomas Aquinas” (1224-1274 A.D.).(Christian Answers)
4. Wycliffe, Luther and Tyndale were heretics that made a huge change in the Catholic Church: At one time, the bible was banned from laity and it was consider heretical to own one. http://biblelight.net/banned.htm This is in stark contrast to the Reformers like Wycliffe, Luther and Tyndale who laboured tirelessly to give the Word of God to the people in their own native tongue. In my country, Malta, which is intensely Roman Catholic, the first efforts to translate the Bible into the Maltese language were done by the handful of Protestants on the island. In fact the first complete Bible in Maltese was published by a Protestant society, despite all the opposition encountered from the Catholic establishment. (Just for Catholics)

A Modern Day Heretic: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

A long, long time ago, in 1976, far away in the Land of Oz (Iowa), a convent of Roman Catholic nuns lent some retired habits to The Sugar Plum Fairies performing their version of The Sound of Music. One year later, one of our Founders Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch (Ken Bunch) moved to San Francisco (1977) and brought those habits to the streets of the Castro district…

On Easter Weekend, during the time of the “Castro Clone,” being extremely bored with the conformist atmosphere three men went out into the streets to challenge the world: Ken Bunch (Sister Vicious PHB), Fred Brungard (Sister Missionary Position) and Baruch Golden. They went in full, traditional habits through the streets of our city and down to the nude beach. One even carried a machine gun (for protection). They were met with shock and amazement, but captured everyone’s interest. Their next appearance was at a softball game where their pompon routine all but stole the show. In the fall of 1979, Sister Hysterectoria (Edmund Garron) and Reverend Mother (Bill Graham) went to the first International Faerie gathering and encountered even more men with the calling.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence started as one of the first charities supporting San Francisco’s gay community and has since spread to more than 600 sisters in eight countries.

Mixing street theater, drag-queen elegance and community fundraising, the men of the Sisterhood support AIDS organizations help combat hate crimes and, as they put it, “promote universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt.”

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence® is a leading-edge Order of queer nuns. Since our first appearance in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979, the Sisters have devoted ourselves to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment. We believe all people have a right to express their unique joy and beauty and we use humor and irreverent wit to expose the forces of bigotry, complacency and guilt that chain the human spirit.

The Sisters Website: Sistory

It sounds all quite innocent, doesn’t it? Not so! Even the most liberal of Christians usually talk about “The Sisters” with rolled eyes and offense! The Sister’s humor and fundraising projects takes their ministry to the edge and beyond. There are times they even go too far for non-Christian Gays (and that’s far!). But one thing you cannot deny, their non-profit group has many members and the organization has raised considerable money for charities. There were among the first to not only support AIDS/HIV care, research and prevention but they were there caring for AIDS patients, entertaining them, listening to them, and hearing their confessions before any clergy. To this day, there are gay people who would entrust their last rites and confession to a Sister before any priest or minister. Their compassion and commitment is unbounded and unrivaled and so are their tactics in order to make it all happen.

Here is a list of their sins:

• Hunky Jesus Contest on Easter
• Attending Mass in their white face and getting communion from the Archbishop
• Fun-raising called “The Last Supper” which included strong, gay sexual content
• Their presence, support and fundraising at the Folsom Street Fair (S&M Gathering) helping to raise $300,000 for charities
• While in town for the AIDS Memorial Quilt display the Sisters led an exorcism of homophobia, classism and racism on the steps of the United States House of Representatives
• Losing several members to AIDS in the early 1980s, the Sisters’ presence at the 1986 Castro Street Fair was accomplished with less than a dozen members who sponsored a fund-raising and safer sex education booth that featured pie throwing with the slogan “Cream yer Sister, not yer lover!”
• In 1987, their Castro Street Fair presence was a protest of the rhetoric of Lyndon LaRouche, a California politician who advocated for quarantines for people living with AIDS. The Sisters covered their costumes with “Stop LaRouche” buttons, selling them as they mingled in the crowd to raise money for San Francisco General Hospital’s AIDS ward.
• Starting in 1995, the Sisters began a Castro Crawl on Easter Sunday to celebrate their anniversary. The event features a 13-stop pub crawl that parodies Stations of the Cross. At each station in front of a gay bar or similarly affiliated organization, the Sisters call out “We adore thee, O Christ” to be answered by their traveling audience in “Luvya, mean it, let’s do brunch”. Actors portray the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and other people integral to Easter traditions, and the Sisters continue to educate for safer sex by passing out condoms, ending the event with a toast of vanilla wafers and Jägermeister.

If that weren’t enough: They mean to be offensive. Offense is their magic and, honestly a great way to get publicity and get people to donate to their charities!

The Religious say the Sisters are “bashing” them. Some gays say, “How dare they! That is not who we are!”

It seems their critics have forgotten one important thing: that they are clowns! The clown is a messenger and presents you with choice: How do you choose to react? Your reaction to the clown is who you really are. This alone is something most people never wish to be confronted with: themselves! So, they react violently.

The Sacredness Behind the Paint

“Clowns, ritual or ceremonial figure, in various preliterate and ancient cultures throughout the world, represent a reversal of the normal order, an opening to the chaos that preceded creation, especially during New Year festivals. The reversal of normality that is the distinguishing mark of the clown relates him to the powerful world that existed before the present one.” (Encyclopedia Britannica Online)

“One is not born into the clan or elected. Instead, becoming a member “comes to one,” like a calling. A koshari holds a semi-religious position, honored as a powerful member of the community. All those maligned class clowns who had a natural humor, wit and persistently subverted the teacher’s will come to mind. Perhaps they too were following a calling - airing the foolishness of our ways.”

(Michael Hice is Editor-in-Chief of Indian Artist magazine, as well as a freelance writer. Published in SANTA FEAN August 1998, Vol. 26 No. 7)

Many of today’s cultures like China, Japan, India and Thailand, to name a few, the clown still has a place and is respected and revered for their uniqueness. Imagine, during the most sacred holidays and rituals, are the sacred clowns making fun of just about anything, including sex and genitals! Imagine, during the sacred moment, laughter! I am not speaking of a chuckle, or that light laugh of “ah, I recognize it…isn’t this amusing”. Nope, I am speaking of belly laughs, snorts and tears running down your face. I am also speaking of others being not so happy during this time, too. A clown wields a two edged sword. Just as quickly as one is laughing, soon they will be sporting a frown as well. Catching us off guard with their entertainment and perhaps even relaxing us a bit, the clown transforms the moment of sacred energy within the laughter of others (or, the embarrassment of ourselves). We find revelations that we just do not laugh at because it is too real for us, too close to home, too on the mark. Just as quickly, the moment transforms again within the magic, we are laughing; controlled chaos at its finest.

“By so doing, I focus my attention on the clown as being both a subversive and conservative agent. On the one hand, he represents a Turnerian-like anti-structure, which allows him to test the limits of social and political acceptability and on which his ritual personality as a sacred being rests.” (Johnson, Irving. Little Bear Sells CDs and Ai Theng Drinks Coke: Sacred Clowning and the Politics of Regionalism in South Thailand, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia - Volume 21, Number 2, October 2006, pp. 148-177)

“In certain traditions clowning is an apotropaic (averting evil) ritual, a way of deflecting demonic attention from serious religious activities. In other contexts it serves as an initiatory ordeal in which the initiate must persevere through the jests and insults ….”

(Encyclopedia Britannica Online)

“Nowhere is the role of the jokester more developed than in the sacred clown among the Pueblo cultures of New Mexico. Though aspects, including the name, vary from pueblo to pueblo, surprising similarities exist among these sacred personas of the pueblos along the northern Rio Grande and Laguna and Zuni Pueblos to the west.

Varying tales are told concerning the koshari’s origin. Most include important elements such as the sun, Corn Mother, cornmeal, the power of fertilization and life-giving rain. All are elements essential to the survival, prosperity and happiness of the people. Thus, the clown is both adored and feared. Pueblo hierarchy allots him a revered position.” (Michael Hice is Editor-in-Chief of Indian Artist magazine, as well as a freelance writer. Published in SANTA FEAN August 1998, Vol. 26 No. 7)

Punch and Judy Promotes Domestic Violence

Today in the West, clowns are feared, often rejected and mostly misunderstood. Clown magic has been displaced in western, modern society; perhaps this why we see so many ailments of the stomach in the West. There is nothing better for healing and preventing illness than laughter. There is nothing that unites better than community laughter. Clown magic brings us on a journey that is integral to healthy mental and spiritual development. Without the clown around us, within our communities, offices and schools, all our environments creates and harbors a climate of disease… diseased personalities, stunted, stilted, diseased community structure, lack of unity and feeling of belonging.

Those who speak against clowns, cast a spell with their words that does NOT make Clown Magic disappear, but twists is into something that it is not, casting doubt and suspicions upon the clown in some of the most vile of ways. The vileness is not within the clown, but with the people who speak against the clown. You see, leaders who are less than honest, lack confidence and ability, leaders who lie, deceive, who use and manipulate are afraid of the magic of the clown because it will reveal the truth about them. Then, what will we have… revolt? Fraudulent leaders, be they family, churches, business offices, will squish the clown because the clarity and transformation the clowns brings will be their undoing… or, so they believe.

Clown magic brings clarity, insightfulness, freedom, transformation and revelation. Leaders who will not just allow clowns to exist in their communities, but fosters their important position in society, is a leader who is self-assured, understands his/her own failings, has nothing to hide and can laugh at himself.

Clowns are known, historically, as the Trickster. But, is it the Clown playing the trick, or have you played the trick on yourself? Indeed, every clown or trickster asked us to consider this question. Often, we are the ones playing tricks on ourselves: life and how it appears to you may not be what you perceive. If you are like most of the West, then you abhor the trick, but in reality you abhor your own weakness, your own resentment, your own prison.

The next time you see something you do not like, or hear something that doesn’t make you happy, or read something somebody wrote that makes you angry or uneasy, try laughing. Think of it as the cosmic clown (you cannot suppress or escape the cosmic clown), come to take you on a short journey. In laughing, not only are you healing yourself, but healing those around you. Laughing will either help you release something you do not need, or internalize wisdom you do need.

Remember next time you meet a clown: they play with energy. There ministry is to promote thought and examination. ONLY YOU and your reaction gives the clown their real POWER.

from Southern Fried Catholicism