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An Easter Message For Liberal Quakers

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An “Easter” Message  – 4th Month (April) 9, 2023

 I’ve been to Easter morning worship at a good many Friends meetings, mostly liberal & unprogrammed. And the most visible special character noted at many on the occasion was someone, usually female, in an adult-sized cartoon rabbit costume. It brings to mind a cartoon I turned up this past week:

It is not, of course, that liberal Quakers worship rabbits or poultry. The focus on floppy ears and colored eggs serves as a familiar, welcome distraction and deflection. It’s all-but guaranteed to avoid the framing of the occasion by the vast majority of Christian groups. Because in these Quaker meetings, that framing is believed in even less than that of a bountiful egg-laying bunny.

 Let’s recall the difference, in sum: Those who traveled more than a few miles to meeting today probably passed one or more signs or banners proclaiming “He Is Risen!”

Like such banners, Easter marks the climactic moment in a drama that began, in the traditional reading, shortly after God’s creation of a human couple. They at first subsisted in blissful divine-human communion in Eden, until something went terribly, fatefully wrong:

The couple defied a divinely-announced taboo. As a result, they were expelled from Eden, condemned to labor, bear children in painful travail, and then die.

As the tradition developed, the errant first couple, following their deaths, were to be plunged into a bottomless pit of fiery torment, which they would endure as conscious torture, forever, and ever. 

This prospect of endless torment in hell was soon expanded to include as many as all humans ever born (or to be born); or just most, with a select few (numbers were fuzzy) exempted for various reasons, or (in some major theologies) no reason at all.

All this was justified by saying the first couple’s downfall was not simply an infraction, but a sin, evil – and the stain of this sin marked all their children, through all generations, magnified by the children’s own sinful contributions. These millennia of total human  depravity added up to a kind of debt load no human could ever repay, even in theory.

But God eventually (in 33 A.D.) decided to offer (an uncertain number of) exemptions. To produce the exemptions, God would transfer the debt to their own (sinless, ergo innocent) divine offspring, who would pay for it by being killed. Lynched, in the standard script.

But as mercy, God would revive the offspring after not quite 48 hours following  his demise.

This ominously vivid scenario captured wide attention. It also soon began to evoke questions, and skepticism. The questioning even seeped into the sacred pages of the Bible. 

There were doubts about the mechanics: How does it work to transfer responsibility for evil from the evildoer to an innocent? (Like, if I murdered someone and was found out, how could I fix it so, knowing my guilt, the authorities would select some innocent person to punish, maybe execute, and let me go free? 

Put another way, how does punishing an innocent absolve the guilty?

There were also doubts about this kind of “justice”: the “sin” of the First Couple, however precedent-setting, was still finite, even petty; and for pete’s sake, it was their first offense.  Yet the punishment, for them and their spawn, was infinite in scope, everlasting, and endless.

I mean, if I were burned at the stake, even with the newest AI technology, they could only burn me once, til my bones were vaporized. In current crematoria, the process only takes a couple of hours.

But in the scriptural hell, and its tributaries, the fire and torment are infinite punishment. As in Revelation 14:9-11 (one of numerous similar passages): “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he . . . will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night . . . .

Such revenge fantasies did not mollify the doubters, primarily because it was far out of whack with their life experience.

The scriptural efforts to square such assymetric suffering, which makes the tortures of the Inquisition seem tame, with “divine justice,” can be profound (e.g., the Book of Job), but are unsuccessful (ibid.). As one of the best biblical writers to make the effort admitted, in Ecclesiastes 8 & 9:

8:11: Why do people commit crimes so readily? Because crime is not punished quickly enough. 12 A sinner may commit a hundred crimes and still live.

Oh yes, I know what they say: “If you obey God, everything will be all right, 13 but it will not go well for the wicked. Their life is like a shadow and they will die young, because they do not obey God.”

14 But this is nonsense. Look at what happens in the world: sometimes the righteous get the punishment of the wicked, and the wicked get the reward of the righteous. I say it is useless. . . .

9:16 Whenever I tried to become wise and learn what goes on in the world, I realized that you could stay awake night and day 17 and never be able to understand what God is doing. However hard you try, you will never find out. The wise may claim to know, but they don’t.”

Some say this is cynical, others merely realistic. I oscillate.

Whichever; but if after-death salvation schemes are “useless,” in explaining how they embody or vindicate scriptural divine justice, what then to make of Jesus?

I have an extra-scriptural elder and teacher here, in the form of Lucretia Mott; she clerks my inner clearness committee on the topic. In 1849, she declared plainly to her home meeting in Philadelphia that:

“This creed based upon the assumption of human depravity and completed by a vicarious atonement–connected with a belief in mysteries and miracles as essential to salvation–-forms a substitute for that faith which works by love and which purifies the heart, leading us into communion with God and teaching us to live in the cultivation of benevolence, to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction and to entertain charitable feelings one unto another.”

For her, Jesus is a model and a teacher. His key teachings begin in Luke 4, with his first public appearance after spending six weeks in the desert wilderness:

16 Then Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went as usual to the synagogue. He stood up to read the Scriptures 17 and was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed
19     and announce that the time has come
when the Lord will save his people.”

20 Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. All the people in the synagogue had their eyes fixed on him, 21 as he said to them, “This passage of scripture has come true today, as you heard it being read.”

(How did the crowd respond? They tried to kill him.)

Then there is the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the Last Judgment of the “sheep & goats” set out in Matthew 25: 31-48. Each of these is worth extended study, but my thumbnail is that: what matters most there is what you do, particularly leavened with justice, mercy & compassion, more than what you believe, or the religious rituals you repeat.

Mott also revered his example: rejecting both the exploitive empire, the co-opted and corrupt religious establishment, and the self-and community-destructive rebel terrorism; then facing his senseless fate with resolve and resignation.

But what about resurrection? What about the related issue of Jesus as the “messiah”, the widely-expected liberator of the Jews from Roman oppression??

Mott didn’t buy either of these notions as actual history. But the rise of the church — at least the good parts of it (among which she frankly preferred the Religious Society of Friends, but collaborated with many others), and the leading figures in them –those were the resurrections she believed in.

And these lasting figures in it – like John Woolman, William Penn, Margaret Fell, what Catholics would call “saints” but Mott wouldn’t (superstitious “priestcraft”, she considered such titles), could bring liberation, in fits and starts, to their people and others. She called them “the Messiahs of every age”; not just one person, one group, or in one era.

Now Mott might not agree with my next thought, but this view reminds me of the Catholic doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. It’s one of the few beliefs from my Catholic upbringing that’s stuck to me: Rather than him climbing out of the grave, Jesus’ spirit has come back repeatedly in and among the church (and other religious bodies) again, in its good parts, and not only in his biblical name. The official Catholic version says this Mystical Body is only manifest in the Roman Catholic Church.

I don’t buy that: it can show up — or be resurrected — in many places & groups; it can also be crucified again too.

Early Quakers thought much like that as well, tho they were also mostly anti-Catholic & anti-pope, and for awhile figured Quakers were the real one & only true church. (When William Penn published his summary of Quakerism, his title was, perhaps hyperbolically,  Primitive Christianity Revived. Eventually, some Friends got over that particularist triumphalism. Some.)

In this Mystical body view, whether seen as a potentially profound metaphor or even a theological belief, Jesus can become a kind of archetype, that is, the embodiment of a story (not necessarily historical) that can come alive for people and groups. Such archetypal stories can then die and be resurrected.

From this perspective, perhaps the tomb on that ancient Sunday morning was really vacant.

Vacant, yes, but not empty: it left behind a story that continued, renewed itself (more than once) and for many, isn’t finished yet.

Ponder all that for awhile. I’m going to talk with Lucretia about it, while I go crack a decorated egg or two. And maybe eat an apple.

Arts: Drama, Belief, Catholics & Catholicism, Easter, Ecumenical & Interfaith, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Russia, Sacred, Ukraine, War & Peace

Ritual Crucifixions resume for Easter in Philippines

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SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines (AP) — Eight Filipinos were nailed to crosses to reenact Jesus Christ’s suffering in a bloody Good Friday tradition, including a carpenter, who was crucified for the 34th time with a prayer for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to end because it has made poor people like him more desperate.

The real–life crucifixions in the farming village of San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga province north of Manila resumed after a three–year pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. About a dozen villagers registered but only eight people showed up, including 62–year–old carpenter and sign painter Ruben Enaje, who screamed as he was nailed to a wooden cross with a large crowd watching in the scorching summer heat.

In a news conference shortly after his crucifixion, Enaje said he prayed for the eradication of the COVID–19 virus and the end of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has contributed to gas and food prices soaring worldwide.

“It’s just these two countries involved in that war, Russia and Ukraine, but all of us are being affected by the higher oil prices even if we’re not involved in that war,” said Enaje.

Ahead of the crucifixions, Enaje told The Associated Press that the steep increases in oil and food prices after Russia invaded Ukraine made it harder for him to stretch his meager income from carpentry and sign making.

Thousands of people, including foreign tourists, came to watch the annual religious spectacle in San Pedro Cutud and two other nearby rural villages.

Kitty Ennett, a veterinarian from Ireland, said the crucifixions were “a very religious experience” and they were worth the long trip from her home in the United Kingdom.

“When I was seeing the young man doing the flogging and going up to the cross, it’s very moving to see how much they sacrifice for their faith,” Ennett told The AP. “They really put themselves in the shoes of Jesus.”

Enaje survived nearly unscathed when he fell from a three–story building in 1985, prompting him to undergo the ordeal as thanksgiving for what he considered a miracle. He extended the ritual after loved ones recovered from serious illnesses, one after another, turning him into a village celebrity as the “Christ” in the Lenten reenactment of the Way of the Cross.

Ahead of their crucifixion on a dusty hill, Enaje and the other devotees, wearing thorny crowns of twigs, carried heavy wooden crosses on their backs for more than a kilometer (more than half a mile) in the brutal heat. Village actors dressed as Roman centurions later hammered 4–inch (10–centimeter) stainless steel nails through his palms and feet, then set him aloft on a cross under the sun for about 10 minutes.

Other penitents walked barefoot through village streets and beat their bare backs with sharp bamboo sticks and pieces of wood. Some participants in the past opened cuts in the penitents’ backs using broken glass to ensure the ritual was sufficiently bloody.

The gruesome spectacle reflects the Philippines’ unique brand of Catholicism, which merges church traditions with folk superstitions.

Many of the mostly impoverished penitents undergo the ritual to atone for their sins, pray for the sick or for a better life, and give thanks for miracles.

Church leaders in the Philippines have frowned on the crucifixions and self–flagellations, saying Filipinos can show their faith and religious devotion without hurting themselves and by doing charity work instead, such as donating blood.

Robert Reyes, a prominent Catholic priest and human rights activist in the country, said the bloody rites reflect the church’s failure to fully educate many Filipinos on Christian tenets, leaving them on their own to explore personal ways of seeking divine help for all sorts of maladies.

Folk Catholicism has become deeply entrenched in the local religious culture, Reyes said, citing a chaotic annual procession of a black statue of Jesus Christ called the Black Nazarene, which authorities say draws more than a million devotees each January in one of Asia’s largest religious festivals. Many bring towels to be wiped on the wooden statue, believing it has powers to cure ailments and ensure good health and a better life.

“The question is, where were we church people when they started doing this?” Reyes asked, saying the clergy should immerse itself in communities more and talk with villagers. “If we judge them, we’ll just alienate them.”

The decadeslong crucifixion tradition, meanwhile, has put impoverished San Pedro Cutud — one of the more than 500 villages in rice–growing Pampanga province — on the map.

Organizers said more than 15,000 foreign and Filipino tourists and devotees gathered for the cross nailings in Cutud and two other nearby villages. There was a festive air as villagers peddled bottled water, hats, food and religious items, and police and marshals kept order.

“They like this because there is really nothing like this on earth,” said Johnson Gareth, a British tour organizer, who brought 15 tourists from eight countries, including the U.S., Canada and Germany, to witness the crucifixions.

“It’s less gruesome than people think,” Gareth told The AP. “They think it’s going to be very macabre or very disgusting but it’s not. It’s done in a very respectful way.” ___

Associated Press journalists Aaron Favila and Cecilia Forbes contributed to this report.