Gerard Manley Hopkins

The New New Testament, 3019 C.E.

/ alicebarrett / 1 Comment

If, as the United Church of Christ says, “God is still speaking,” it must also be true that the Bible is still being written. What will be in the New New Testament?

The present Bible was started 3,400 years ago (depending on how you count). It was completed around 90 C.E. or 1,900 years ago. So, it was written over a period of 1,500 years. The specifics are debatable, but you get the picture. A long long time.

I’m thinking ahead about 1,000 years. Should humanity have not committed suicide by then, some scholars may wonder what 20th-21st century Christianity looked like.

The Bible Bible is a wondrous book of tales, contradictory rules, questionable history, sex, ponderings about divinity and humanity, poetry, love, crime, conflict, hope, all seen through the lens of a people’s relationship with their God. So will the next one be.

Logically, the New New Testament (NNT) should begin 90 C.E., when the last one ended, but my current number of brain cells can’t cope. I will start using the method I’m most familiar with: off the top of my head.

Let’s go with the obvious first: C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Surprised by Joy, sections of at least one of his books will be included. 

Marvelous tales: Lewis’ friend, J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings stories would fit in with David and Goliath and the Ark stories. As would A Wrinkle in Time.

No doubt the scholars will come across the Left Behind series, which would not show up in my Bible version, but will no doubt end up in some version.

And whose stories will be told? Dorothy Day via columns from the “Catholic Worker;” Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the work of Reconciliation in South Africa; Simone Weil, creepy but popular; Dietrich Bonhoeffer; MLK, Jr. 

In the Psalms section: Gerard Manley Hopkins. He is 19th century, but I love him and it’s my bible. W.H. Auden, Carolyn Forche, Denise Levertov, David Whyte.

I’d wait another 200 years to see whether Joel Osteen’s writing stands the test of time, or that of Tammy Faye Bakker, or Rick Warren, or Oral Roberts. 

My Books of the Bible are shamefully English-language centered, but that’s what lives at the top of my head.

I suspect that the NNT will not be limited to Christians. The search for the divine is not limited; the People of God are no longer a small group, but an encompassing people. 

I encourage you to create a list of Books/ Stories/ People/ Poems for the NNT. It is an exercise in Seeing Biblically. The world we live in is full of “biblical life,” that is, the stories of how people struggle with the idea of the Divine. The Bible is not dead, but passed along in thousand-year chunks. Future people will learn from us, so let’s think about it now.

All Things Counter: A Subdued Christmas

/ alicebarrett

 

This is the time of year that I usually enjoy looking back over the Christmas Wars: reporters speculating on what race Santa really is, fundamentalist atheists demonstrating, once again, that while the Nativity scene may not be historically accurate, Grinches are real. (See “Delicious Christmas Controversies”) The War was very subdued this year. Much spittle flew over the President and First Lady wishing the nation Happy Holidays, but that was fleeting. The only real bright spot was the wave of Pastafarians winning the right to have their license photos taken with colanders on their heads.

However, Pastafarians are gaining acceptance for wearing colanders while Muslims are attacked for wearing hijab. I’m not finding the humor in that. Screaming at refugee Syrians, picketing children from Central America, some Americans are celebrating The Slaughter of the Innocents. One woman screamed at a bus of children on its way to a refugee camp, “Jesus would obey the law!” I consider this proof positive that there are two opposing versions of the New Testament, the one our church uses and the one that woman uses.

Our country has an ugly history of immigrant-hatred. We just can’t seem to shake it: Chinese, Italians, Irish, Japanese, Puerto Rican, Syrians, and always front-and-center, African Americans. (I’m skipping over the irony that African Americans were kidnapped and brought here by white folks.) This Christmas season the never-ending trend is gaining political traction.

This year the war on Christmas seems real.

Usually the bracing cold of this time of year helps me snap out of this discouragement. Now I’m weighed by damp warmth. Christmas Day, Kate Stevens told us to remember the resources we use to fill the hole of discouragement. The resources do not solve problems, but give us the strength to face them. I’ll pass along my joy to you, a gift from Gerard Manley Hopkins:

“Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.”