Today was the day I visited the Lutherans. Specifically Lutherans of the Missouri Synod which is the more conservative branch of the Lutheran Church in America...and it showed. The speakers and pastors were all men, though it did look like at least some women were in leadership positions though sadly not in leading the service type of ways.
The Church itself is connected to a school and the Chapel is beautiful. The colors today were black, rather than the White of Yesterday and the Red of Tuesday. The High Church or Churches connected to the High Church are good in regards to using the traditional colors to represent where and what should be felt during Holy Week. Black covered the empty cross, a smaller cross with a figurine of Jesus on it (which you generally don't see in Lutheran Churches), and the podium.
After I arrived the first hymn was sung...and they have an organ! This is one small detail I've loved about all the Lutheran churches I've attended. Organs are great at creating a good somber ambiance and are lovely when played.
It opened with variation on the Nicene Creed where the pastor said Christ did this, and congregation replied "To do this for us." With details relating to atonement and resurrection. After was the old Testament reading which was about Isaiah's prophecy of the coming Messiah and later the Epistle from Hebrews about Jesus being the Sacrifice and High Priest of the Christian Church before the final New Testament reading of Jesus's crucifixion with the two thieves.
After was the sermon about evil, which to be frank didn't really answer any questions about evil. God is good and destroys evil was the basic jist of it and Christ who is God came to do that as well. The problem was it was only spoken in generalities of sin and the Devil, both themes have historically been used to oppress...if it had been targeted at oppression or even hypocrisy than it would have made more sense...but given that Sodom and Gomorrah was brought up...well, no such luck. The problem was never truly addressed and in the end all I got from it that I didn't know from Christianity before was that it doesn't help on dealing with actual problems in the world, bringing up evil and the Devil I mean. I've only seen them used to hurt innocents like those with mental illness (saying their possessed by demons) and LGBTQ folks and attacking the people we love.
The part that was beautiful was after when the seven words were spoken and candles that had been lit at the beginning of the service were snuffed out as different quotes of Jesus's last day were read from the New Testament. One candle was left lit for Easter and a drum was pounded after it was lead out by one of the men in charge of the service.
It was good for reflection and I was invited back here for Easter. Don't know if I will be coming back or not...I hope to visit more Christendom...and maybe find another community like the Unitarians or Episcopals to get involved with. Regardless, it was a good Friday.
Today has been an interesting day. I've met with friends and talked philosophy and teaching in China, ran into a philosopher from Kentucky who is teaching math and physics here and experienced an interesting sermon.
I figured with the time I have left in Nanjing I should revist St. Paul, and also visit the Temple before I go. Both are interesting places from what I experienced before, and in the case of Daming Temple, heard about.
The sermon today touched on the Problem of Evil, and to a degree the nature of belief and faith.
First I arrived early and sung two of the songs with the congregation, while also catching up with Durin, a college student who I had met there last time I had visited. After that there was the songs and readings, all which focused on the reality of God being there and the desire for God, before leading up to the sermon.
The readings were a psalm, and a chapter in Mark in which Jesus heals a woman who is healed by her faith in him, and his healing of a dead twelve year old girl.
The sermon started with the pastor telling a story about a sixteen year old believer he knew who died of cancer. He mentioned how he didn't know why events like this happen if God heals and that it had initially caused him to doubt. He eventually came back and tied this story to the story of a missionary in the 19th Century whose daughters had died in a shipwreck, and when he had passed the shipwreck on the way to his wife how his belief in God had caused him to have peace in his soul.
"What is the state of your soul?" He asked the congregation.
My thoughts were...'I don't know if I have one...I really have no way of proving if it exists or not. Where is the soul? What is the soul?'
He ended with making a claim that God seeks those who trust and have faith in him, like the woman who had faith and healed and the young girl who had been dead. If Jesus is "The Way, the Truth and the Light," my experience of the relationship has been an unknown, much like the existence of my soul, except Jesus's stories remind us of the importance of integrity with the world and living with truth and honesty in all that we do.
That is something I do believe in. virtue and integrity, it may be hard to fully define but it is something that can be defined and experienced without the questions and unknown. If Jesus Christ is God, I'll always be open to knowing that, but right now Jesus is unknown as anyone else in the past where I can know how others thought of him and what others believed him to be, but if I believed that without any doubts...I'd be lying to myself and that would not be living with virtue or integrity.
Have you ever had an overdue thing you've wanted to do, but it's taken forever to come together? This discussion was one of those moments for me. For at least a year now, this is a discussion I've been meaning to have. Father Raphael is a friend and one of the priests at the Catholic Newman Center at the University of Washington. One of his majors is philosophy and when he did a forum against Referendum 71 against Civil Unions becoming legal in Washington I came ready to ask questions and to hopefully help him see how going against Referendum 71 was unjust (since Gay couples deserve the respect and dignity straight couples receive). That day I learned a lot about Catholicism and made a friend (though neither of us was able to convince the other that our position was correct).
After that day we pretty much had a rain check to meet up to talk philosophy at some point in the future. This was a rain check that finally came together today.
The discussion began with a prayer for illumination to find truth.
It began with questions. When it comes to philosophy, asking questions is one of the few things I'm good at. Being a philosopher is something that I wouldn't call myself, because that takes a lot of work and I have not done all the work to be one. If anything, I'm simply a person with questions seeking answers and truth (and stories).
I asked first about the crucifixion and the issue of an evil act being done, and how it could be good? From there what we found was it was the reaction and intent behind the one experiencing the evil act (forgiveness, dying for sins) which came around not because of the act but in answer to the act. This was a distinction that we tackled first. The conclusion which ended being, just that: "Good can come out of Evil, but not because of the Evil."
We then discussed the New and Old Testament a bit. Old Testament Father versus Jesus (Genocide done by or in name of Father, and forgiveness and non-murderous nature of Jesus versus the Eternal Torment or Reward Jesus offered in the text versus the Old Testament not explicitly talking about Heaven or Hell).
I brought up the question, "How can infinite reward or punishment exist for finite acts and life?
He answered that because of God's infinite goodness, a sin against Him, though finite from our perspective, takes on an infinite quality from an absolute perspective, since it is a sin against an infinite being.
We then discussed how we got to where we are (in relationship to religion). Father Raphael was raised Christian, but didn't become Catholic till much later in his life. It was when he was in college he halfway submitted to God on possibly pursuing the Priesthood (after completed PHD would be open to it) and eventually how the seed grew until he accepted it, even though it had never been an idea before. (I had asked how do you know when God is talking versus the mind?)
I asked because...I have tested prayer before, and I did have an experience that made me a Theist (Agnostic Theist in the end), so I was wondering if there was a better way. Since I would like to take each religion on the basis of their claims and test the claims (Both Paul and Buddha said to test something before putting belief in it).
We talked a little bit about how all faiths have similar core values but differ in their Thesis's on what it means to be a member (which was an argument against relativism I thought - which there are many since that philosophy doesn't hold).
I told my faith journey about being born and raised Mormon till I was 11, and then raised Unitarian Universalist after that. The searching that is a such a huge part of UUism is something that I still carry with me to this day.
We then talked about relationship (in regards to God) since his sermon the day before had referenced the darkness that many believers have felt (Saint Tereza of the Flower felt near the end of her life that if she went with her feelings she would be an atheist) and how God is looking for true friendship (people who stick through the darkness of separation - in romantic relationship - when the strong romantic feelings aren't there all the time or are hard to feel). It was a great conversation. I don't know any couple who has not been in that place of drought within romantic relationship, and I know both my girlfriend and I have felt it at times too.
Eventually it went too what I believe now. Right now, I think there is a lot I'm figuring out. I do believe in living love and respect for all though (which is constant growth and long way to go), and continuing to seek truth.
I mentioned that part of the test for me in regards to religion is if two of my mentors who are an amazing gay couple would be accepted...since I've seen the goodness their relationship is built on, and the good that has come out of it.
Father Raphael brought up that that is coming from my own definition of virtue and good (Versus the Abrahamic faiths which are by Revelation (God speaking). We talked about on that (I think it was earlier) what Revelation means.
"If humans are imperfect, how does Revelation work?"
"God makes certain word is recorded as he intends it."
Father Raphael also brought up Priests who don't follow Church teachings (not following what the Bible says in regards to gays having to live celebate, or being full of hate as many Protestant groups act towards gays). He mentioned that gays who do try to do this are often isolated from within their own communities (which is true and not right, but I think the Church in regards to this has not been good to the gay community for those who do not want to believers and want to be treated with respect as those who are).
A conversation for another day would be questions about the Catholic Church (of which I have a lot of) in regards to transparency and the past, as well as gender issues in relationship to men's and women's role and Church leadership, as well as church verse state issues, but those are a conversation for another day. It was a great conversation and I am lucky to have had it and the friendship that helped facilitate it.
