News on Philo Presbyterian Church and Muslim Syrian refugees
Church ready to house Syrian refugees
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News on Philo Presbyterian Church and Muslim Syrian refugees
Author Archives: Gordon C. Stewart
Muslim Clerics declare “ISIS is un-Islamic”
Before Beirut and Paris, 1,ooo+ Muslim clerics in India issued a Fatwa against ISIS declaring, “The acts of the Islamic State are inhuman and un-Islamic.” The Associated Press report was published September 9, 2015. Click the link above to read the story.
Also in September, NPR aired Prominent Muslim Sheikh Issues Fatwa Against ISIS Violence, re-aired yesterday. Posts like these deserve wider attention.
Meanwhile, a very small Christian church in the little town of Philo, Illinois, drew attention in the local paper for its consideration of hosting Muslim Syrian refugees.
News on Philo Presbyterian Church and Muslim Syrian refugees
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, November 18, 2015.
The Statue of Liberty: “Send THESE, not those?”
Statue of Liberty, NY, NY
“Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” – Emma Lazarus, Jewish American author; inscription, Statue of Liberty, New York, New York
“Send these, the [Christian] homeless, tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” – Sen. Ted Cruz
Click “Ted Cruz’s Religious Test for Syrian Refugees” for Amy Davidson’s November 16 article in The New Yorker.
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Nov. 19, 2015
O God of Earth and Altar
While the world holds its breath after the attacks in Paris, we’ve searched for hymns that express in music a word worth hearing.
“O God of Earth and Altar” expresses a sense of prayerful resilience and supplication.The lyrics, written by G.K. Chesterton in 1906, were revised, in part, by Jane Parker Huber to address global terrorism:
“From all that terror teaches, From lies of pen and voice, From all the easy speeches That make our hearts rejoice, From sale and profanation of honor and the sword, from sleep and from damnation, deliver us, good Lord.”
Already U.S. governors have made “easy speeches” about not accepting any Syrian refugees in their states, although it is not within their jurisdiction to decide. And, while we pray, the arms industry is preying on war’s alarms to increase production, sales and profits in the name of our safety and security.
Here’s “O God of Earth and Altar” sung to Chesterton’s original lyrics.
“We wither and perish, but…”
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ISIL’s terrorist attacks have put the world on high alert. Anxiety is high. How do we provide security against the threats of religious madness while honoring the Bill of Rights against illegal government intrusion?
Times like this also remind us of the need for prayer and thoughtful reflection, the need for something less knee-jerk, less urgent, more principled, wiser and more lasting.
People of my faith tradition often turn to the church’s music. We look to great hymns like “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” from whose poetry a favorite line came to mind yesterday.
“We blossom and flourish, like leaves on the tree, and wither and perish, but naught changeth Thee.”
Until darkness descends, it’s easy to forget we are mortal. We unconsciously indulge the illusion that we are immortal, that we will forever blossom and flourish without withering and perishing. These great hymns and the scriptures which inspired them help to recover our bearings in the search for the deeper wisdom that does not wither and perish, “the true life of all.”
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, November 18, 2015
Verse – MY HERO
The pain is constant
How can he hammer a nail
The middle of the stomach
Abdomen hurt first
How can he still care
About the chronic pain of others
Then he noticed his back ached
Why does he still write and give speeches
The aches spread around both his sides
Where will he fly next around the world
Habitats here peacemaking there
When did the CT scan confirm cancer
Pancreatic a quick killer
What will he teach this Sunday
The codeine cuts agony in half
But constipation adds new pain
Is his faith a factor
What is he smiling about
- Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, November 18, 2015
A Song for Beirut and Paris
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News from Paris and Beirut reminds us of the history of Lac qui Parle, the Dakota Creation Song, that still speaks hope to a violent world. Thirty-eight Dakota men sang it in its original Dakota language – Wakantanka taku nitawu – before their executioners took them to the gallows in Mankato, MN in 1862. The threat of death did not deter them from affirming the goodness of creation.
“Many and great, O God, are Thy things, Maker of Earth and Sky; Thy hands have set the heavens with stars, Thy fingers spread the mountains and plains. Lo, at Thy word, the waters were formed; Deep seas obey Thy voice
“Grant unto us communion with Thee, Thou star-abiding One; Come unto us and dwell with us: With Thee are found the gifts of life. Bless us with life that has no end, Eternal life with Thee.
[Joseph R. Renville, Dakota, 1842; paraphrased translation, R. Philip Frazier, 1929 and 1953]
All the World – tout le monde, kl alealam
Christian Theological Seminary‘s “Statement on Attacks on Beirut and Paris” (11.16.15) is one for the ages.
“Friends,
“All the world – tout le monde – grieves and stands with France in the midst of these harrowing days. All the world – kl alealam – grieves and stands with Lebanon. As people of faith, our hearts can only break when God’s children turn against each other in the name of God. And the most elemental, effective way to counter such “turning against” is to reverse the gesture, turning toward one other in solidarity, compassion, and hope.
“On Friday night, I attended the student-organized vigil against racism, a gathering powerfully proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. CTS student body president Whittney Murphy spoke eloquently that we are like the candles we held that night: sometimes flickering in the wind, or even going out, but then rekindled by the lights of others. The shadows may fall and the winds threaten, but together we can walk in the promise that God is with us, and that God is a light the world’s shadows cannot and will not overcome.
“As we stood together in the vigil that night along Michigan Road, the attacks in Lebanon were only a day old, and the news was just beginning to come in about the attacks in Paris. On one level, these various events – the vigil and the attacks – seem separate and distinct. But on a deeper level, they are profoundly connected. The same dehumanizing act of dividing the world into “us” on the one hand and “our enemies” on the other is the root of both racism and religious intolerance. The peace and equality for which the vigil called here at home is the same peace and equality we need in France, Lebanon, and beyond. And what’s more (and more troubling), while France has received a public outpouring of support and solidarity from around the world, Lebanon has not. For many, this has understandably raised the question: When it comes to the world’s solidarity and concern, don’t Lebanese lives matter as much as French ones? If our hearts (or Facebook pages) now bear the French flag’s blue, white, and red, shouldn’t they also bear Lebanon’s red, white, and green?
“In the New Testament Gospels, Jesus’ signature move is to stand with outsiders, with the forgotten or marginalized, and to reach across religious and ethnic lines of hostility. Following Jesus as best we can, we can only heed the call to do the same. Jesus is in Lebanon. Jesus is standing along Michigan Road. Jesus is in France, and in so many other places around the world, mending the brokenhearted, calling for justice, calling for love. Wherever the shadows fall, there Jesus goes, the flickering, quickening light of the world.
“And so we give thanks for student leaders, their voices clear, their faces illuminated by candles of hope. We give thanks for all of those committed to helping to turn these horrifying attacks into renewed resolve to work toward reconciliation. For as we approach the coming Season of Advent, those four weeks of lament and prayer that lead to a once-forgotten backwater not far from Lebanon, we know our lives depend on the love that binds us together. So much depends on that love. All the world – tout le monde, kl alealam – depends on it.
“God’s shalom,
Matthew Myer Boulton
“Matthew Myer Boulton
President and Professor of Theology
Christian Theological Seminary
1000 W. 42nd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46208″
Syrian Refugees Welcome Here
Suggested letter to come from the Board of the small Presbyterian Church of Philo, Illinois:
Dear Syrian refugee family,
Yes, we know you are Muslims, fleeing for your lives from a violent cult that claims they have all the truth & can harm anyone they want.
We are a small Presbyterian Christian Church in a small town, Philo, in Illinois.
Yes, our State’s Governor in Springfield says no Syrian refugees can come to our State. Fortunately, our Country separates Church from State, so we will welcome you here. Tell us where you are & we will send a car…
Members, Philo, Illinois, Presbyterian Church
- Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Nov. 16, 2015
Philo Presbyterian Church, Philo, Illinois
Being Human – nothing more, nothing less
The ISIL fundamentalist extremists who terrorized Paris, San Bernardino, Beirut, and elsewhere in the name of God believe in an eternal reward for sacrificing themselves for a holy cause. Though it may seem strange to many of us in the West, they share two beliefs widely held by others who are not terrorists:
- God (Allah, in Arabic) is a being — the Supreme Being, but ‘a being’ nonetheless.
- Death is not the end of mortal life; we are destined for immortality – Heaven or Hell, eternal states of bliss or punishment.
It’s not just the jihadists who deny our mortality, our perishable nature within the order of Nature.
In Man Before Chaos: Philosophy Is Born in a Cry, philosopher of religion Willem Zuurdeeg wrote:
“Threatened by nonbeing, by chaos, and meaninglessness, man looks for a foothold in the Imperishable.”
The “soldiers of the caliphate” are young. Paradoxically, as hideous, grotesque, and deranged as their thinking is, their massacres are performed in the name of an ideal. They are idealists claiming “a foothold in the Imperishable”.
Seeking to rid the world of evil, they succumb to evil. In the name of heaven and the Imperishable, they create hell on earth.
But what if God is not a being? What if, as Paul Tillich argued, God does not “exist” as a thing or person exists, but instead is Being-Itself or the Ground of Being or the God above god?
What if we are mortal? What if death is the end, not a doorway to heavenly reward or eternal punishment? What if no St. Peter stands at the pearly gates to separate sheep and goats? What if no vestal virgins are waiting? What if life and death are what they seem?
John Lennon’s “Imagine” strikes a chord in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, Beirut, and Mali. Imagine there’s no religion. But imagining won’t erase the problem of religion or the anxiety endemic to the human condition. We are suckers for certainty desiring the end of complexity and ambiguity.
“Finitude,” wrote Paul Tillich, “means having no definite place; it means having to lose every place finally, and with it, to lose being itself.” [Systematic Theology, Vol. I., p. 195, University of Chicago Press]
The appeal of fundamentalist certainty, whatever its form, is the promise of a secure foothold, place in immortality – a purpose bigger than life itself, the escape from ambiguity.
When faith is ill-conceived as acting to end the ambiguities represented by the enemies of God, instead of as coping with life’s inherent ambiguities, we create what we seeks to escape. We create a foothold in what will not hold.
What if to be human is not to escape mortality, but to embrace it thankfully and to live courageously within the boundaries of time, of mortal flesh filled with the Eternal in the midst of time?
“Being holy . . . does not mean being perfect but being whole; it does not mean being exceptionally religious or being religious at all; it means being liberated from religiosity and religious pietism of any sort; it does not mean being morally better, it means being exemplary; it does not mean being godly, but rather being truly human.” ― William Stringfellow, A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings.
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 9, 2016
Views from the Edge 