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Show The Salt Lake Tribune RELIGION urches Saturday,April 22, 2000 Friday Afternoon: Meditations on Deatu an BP we yu aren ey 6). On this first Easter Sunday new millennium thatis still all might have forgiveness of and eternal life in his name power. In this Holy Year we ate the 2000th anniversary of irth of Jesus because of what eavas born to be — Savior — and plat he was born to do. : Jesus is risen. But then what? The heavenly messenger in Mark’s Gospel continues the good newsof the risen Jesus: ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee, where you will $ee him justas hetold you.’ Thelife of the Christian is now a matter of meeting Jesus throughoutlife, not only in Galilee, but everywhere, @ndall the time. | This Easter, on this Feast of Life, humananddivine,let us ded- {cate ourselves to the culture of life, to the work of resurrection. Whenwerespect and protect and foster life we meet andvenerate the risen Christ, who died and was Taised because of the Father's ar@ent love for all his human ¢hildren. | -Bishop George Niederauer, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City vi Q Of all thevictories in human history, none is so great, none so tniversal in its effect, none so ev- erlasting in its consequences as the victory of the crucified Lord, who ¢ameforth in the resurrection that first Easter morning. + The empty tomb of that first Easter brought the most comforting assurance that can comeinto man’s heart. This was the tive answerto the ageless question taised by Job,‘Ifa man die,shall he live again?’ (Job 14:14), iy . But those that die in me $hall not taste of death,forit shall f sweet unto them.’ (D&C 42:45Oris ii s the promiseof the risen Lord.This is the relevance ofJesus to 4 world in which all must die. Butthere is further and more im- mediate relevance. Heis’ the con- queror arae so also is he the a Faupay “Father, forgive them, Sor they know not what they do.” For whom does he pray forgiveness? Forthe leaders of his own people,a fragile,frightened establishmentthat could not abide the threatof the presence of a love so long delayed. For pitiable Pilate, forever wringing his hands foreversoiled. For the soldiers who did the deed, who wielded the whip, whodrovethenails, who thrust the spear,it all being but a day’s workon foreign assignment, far from home. Andfor us he asks forgiveness, for we were there. On the Sundaythat begins Holy Weekweread the passion story and come to the part where the crowd shouts, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”Thatpart is read by the entire congregation, for we were there. The old spiritual asks, “Were you there whentheycrucified my lord?” Yes, we answer. Yes, we were there whenwecrucified our Lord. Overthe centuries theologians have contrived wondrouslyrefined theories of the atonement: Whyit is that this One hadto die, whyitis that his dyingis for us death’s death, whyit is that his open tombopensfor every last child ofearth the door to tomorrowswithout end. Andall the theories of atonementare but probings into mystery, the mystery of a love thatdid not haveto be but was, andis, All the theories are intellectual variations, imaginative riffs, on the assertionofSt. Paul that “God wasin Christ reconciling the world to himself, not countingtheir trespasses against them,andentrustingto us the message ofreconciliation.” As the prodigal son was reconciled to his father, but infinitely more so. ‘ “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Arelatively recent form of Christian thought, found among both Protestants and Catholics,is strikingly, even shockingly,individualistic. Its sole preoccupation is with individual salvation. Am I saved? Am I going to heaven? Are you saved? Are you going to heav- master oflif en? Nowthere surely can be no Sime FirstSS of The Chiitch of Jesus Christ of or for you than the question of oureternaldestiny. Butjust as Latter-day Saints t Q \*.. . and aboveall,in the Word miade flesh, Jesus, yourson.” | At no other time do we fully cons ider the vulnerability of being ‘madeflesh’ as we do whenreading ott the whole Passion narrative. Thg vulnerability is God's andit is as well. It is God's, because in thae-narrative God's only son, and i e way God himself, is given upto suffering anddeath.It is ours use, our being ‘madeflesh’ invelves us in the capacity to inflict aiid-permit violent death. ,Butit is in the great mercyof our liturgies during the whole of Holy Week that the sufferingofviolence — the betrayal, denial and atandonmentof friends, and the mockery, torture and cruelty of enemies- is bracketed by two great shouts ofjoy in which wealso partidipate: ‘Hosanna!’ in the liturgy ofithe Palms, and ‘Alleluia’ in the liturgy of Easter... . ‘May yourthanksgiving for the Werd..made flesh, Jesus [God's] sqn’ challenge and enrich youlife inthe Easterseason and always. - The Episcopal Diocese of Utah ‘ Gensus Can’t Ask About God @Epntinued from C-1 more important question for me surely, our eternal destinyis not censusof religious organizations, but notof individuals. A censusof religious bodies, as it was called, was done in 1850, 1860, 1870, 1890, and again in 1906, 1916, 1926 and 1936. At first, the governmentgathered information about church buildings so it could set taxes. Then,starting with the 1906 “spe- something apart from God's purpose for his creation. The Gospel AFTERNOON Rrenaen Joun Newnes is sometimes presented as though God is running a desperate rescue mission, saving a few survivors from the shipwreck of what had been his hopes for creation. First Timothy clearly declares that God “desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”Is it possible that God’s purpose will be thwarted? And what mightthat say about whether God is truly God? Will the sovereignty of God in Christ be foreverin dispute? Admittedly, these are heavy questions. Christians have been debating them for centuries, and wewill not here resolve them to everyone's satisfaction, not even to our own. Butstay with them for a while, for these questions lead into the mystery of a love that searched out and found such an unlikely soul as Dysmas [orDismas,the namegivento the good robbercrucified alongside Christ]. It is the samelovethatfound us, andif we don’t think that we are equally unlikely candidates for salvation, we have not begun to understandthe meaning ofgrace. cross her station keeping. There was nothing else to be done, except to be there. The presence of ourhelplessness is our gift to the helpless. The Stabat Mater, some say, was written by St. Bonaventure in the 13th century, andit Bronx are the words, “I THIRST,I QUENCH.” These are the same words at the said MotherTeresa,“to satiate the thirst ofJesus on the cross for the soon became immensely popular. Ten three-line verses form a prayer thattakes us through Mary's suffering to the sufferings of Christ, by whose mercy we offered to him.In offering that drink, our thirst is quenched.I hope to attain paradisigloria. The poem-prayerhas beenset to music by someofthe greatest composers: Palestrina, Rossini, Verdi, Dvorak and,in this century, Symanowski, Poulenc and Part. Antonin Dvorak composed his StabatMater in 1878, after losing three childrenin three years. It is a large and romantic work, both melodic and painfully intense;it takes the listener into the heart of darkness, andthere, at the heart of darkness,is hope, because there is Christ. Like the In Rome I said Mass for the Missionaries of Charity in their plain little chapeljust outside St. Peter’s Square.Six sisters, including two from India, one from Indonesia and a formidable Valkyrie, perhaps from Sweden, operate a soup kitchen andrefuge for the street people of Rome. Theintensity of thesisters’ devotion and the simplicity of their lives embarrassed me. How complexand cluttered original poem-prayer,it moves with plans andprojects is mylife thirst, I quench. through Mary's suffering to Christ's suffering, there to discoversaving grace. “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” Andfrom that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” “My God, my God, why have youforsaken me?” “Dereliction” is an apt word for the times wecall modern.Theessence of modernity, weare told,is that welive in a disenchanted world. God andthe gods have withdrawn,ifever they were there in thefirst place. More recently in the cycles of cultural fashion, we have witnessed the adventof “postmodernity,” in which we are given permission to speak again And Mary, whatwasshe thinking then? They were likely looking at one anotherface to face. Much later, beginning in the Middle Ages, artists would depict a very tall cross, with Mary andthe others far below atits foot. But historiansbelieve that the cross was probably aboutsevenfeettall. They were face to face. The sweat, the blood,the tearing tendons,the twitching, the wrenching,the bulging eyes — she would have seenit all quite clearly, as clearly as she saw him so long ago when she held him safely to’her breast. Whenhewas12 years old they cameto Jerusalem, and now she had accompanied him once more, to celebrate his last Passover there outside the walls ofJerusalem.But this timeheis the Pass- aboutthe gods, and maybe even about God. Butthe children of postmodernity knowthat they are making it up. Whetherit is the ironicliberalism oftenured professors cleverly “deconstructing” reality or whetherit is the popular peddling of New Age “spirituali- ties,”it is a matteroftelling fairy tales. And no matter how many fairy tales wetell, when we know that they are fairy tales, they cannot re-enchant the world. Somethinghas beenlost, something has been withdrawn,andit cannotbe called back. “T thirst.” Reflections on this Fifth Word from the crosstraditionally refer to the Church's missionary im- practice was dropped due to budget cuts andlackofinterest, according to Dave Hendricks, a U.S. Census Bureauhistorian in Suitland, Md. Butit also was a time when the world wasjuststarting to deal with the profound consequences ofreligious andracial hatred such as the genocide of European Jews by Nazis, the forced Japanese-American labor camps in the United States and brutalization of Chinese in Nanking at the handsof Japanese, The religion census issue recently has come up abroad, from Great Britain to Australia, British professor Leslie J. Francis, who chairs that country’s 2001 Census Religious Affiliation Group, wrote that “the consequences of not asking the questionare thatreligious discrimination goes unmonitored and unchecked”and religion’s role ae “remains invisible.” In Australia, a question onreligiousaffiliation is included in the census — butit is the only optional question on the form. In the 1996 census, however, nearly quarters of Australians divulged a religiousbelief. Such a question on the U.S. Census could help draw clearer BaleBillsspokesmanforUta’ le , Spokesman for 8 ekepainigheneterbensis emp! reco! D inebabena members ping to athens draw attentionrto tet crvatng are Front has grown to about 20,000 der to pay appropriate attention to that diversity, that information would be very helpful.” Yet there are some compelling reasons for omitting religion. “Since we don’t fund religion, and there’s the separation of church and state, we don’t ask the question,” said Census Bureau spokesperson Anjali Olgeirson. In general, Congress has three main criteria for including a question on the Census.First, it must meet the needs offederal,state or local government program. Second, it must have broadpublic interest. And third, it can't be too personal. Eachof the Census questions is tied to a specific law or program in SOUTHEAST the $185 billion offederal grants the government hands out. The questions on plumbing and bathing,for instance, relate to programs that help with housing andpeople with disabilities. Anything that crosses into areas where thestate is seen as meddling is ruled out. “That's definitely where the questions onreligion and union membership get kicked out,” said Census Bureau spokesperson Jerry O'Donnell. Such a question might not even accomplish its supporters’ goals, according to Grace Dyrness, associate director of the Centerfor Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “Including religion in-the Census is going to give no new nuances, just very superficial information about people’s beliefs. There are actually a lot of surveys that really tell us much more aboutreligious life in the U.S.,” Dyrness have made’ them one of the country’s largest non. Hossain groups, the Muslim Neopagans Werecognize ourselves in his last cry from the cross when we recognize it as a cry offaith. One scholar has reckoned that in the Bible and the subsequent Christian tradition there are more than twenty distinct variations on the meaning ofthe word “faith.” Wedo notneed to consider so many.Faith is, in one variation, rocklike conviction. On the far side ofthe cross,St. Paul is able to declare, “I am persuaded that neither death,norlife, nor angels, norprincipalities, nor things present, northings to come, nor pom, norheight, nor depth, nor else in all creation,will be. able to separate us from the love ofGod in Christ Jesus our Lord.”Thatis faith with all stops pulled:faith militant, faith defiant, faith audacious. Faith is also assent;it is saying yesto a truth proposed or a course ofaction proposed. Here, preeminently, is the Marian form offaith, herfiat — “Letit be to me according to your word” — in response to the angel’s strange announcement. Mary’s entire being is, as wehaveseen,one sustained act of faith. The mother’s “Letit be” and her son’s “Into your hands”flow into one another. Standing by the cross, she heard thatfinal cry, and wecanimaginethatin her heart and through her tears and temulously whispered on her lips were the words,“Let it be. Let it be.” ca il Ti 61 36.6 23.0 13.5 10.6 8.4 5.3 51 4.9 43 4.2 25 2.0 17 1.5 Dated * ‘The Salt Lake Tribune said. “It’s really not going to tell you how seriously a person takes their faith,” she added. “Butit’s not any Bible Study Evening Worship by 9:00 am - & 10:30 am AWANA i : 6:15 pm _ 6:00 pm Morning Worship x am & 10:30 i am 9:00 oe With A “ 14700 East 7000 South « Salt Lake City f Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. 1.0 Sunday Morning 943-2241 it is still contested until all things are subjected to him and God is all in all. The human project cannotfail because God has invested himself in it; the Second Person of the Trinity is truly one of us. God has taken our part by taking our place. more intrusive than your ethnicity or your racial affiliation or your gender. Theyall can be perceived as intrusive to some degree.” A Place To Believe, Belong & Become Jewish groups want to knowif numbers. DENOMINATION BAPTIST reticent. pepegSay ina freauent asservon Ata particular pointin time, ona certain Friday afternoon ona dung heapoutside the gates of Jerusalem,it is said ofall time,“It is finished.”Yet it is not over. Nowtime, reformed because cross-formed, begins anew. The past andthe future andthislittle in-between point wecall the presentare all in order. What happened at the cross point is what the first Adam was supposed to have donein the beginning. This is the Omega point, the end and the destinyofthe love that was to give birth to love.It took the one whois both Alphaand Omega to restore life to love aborted. It is finished,yetit is not over. It is finished means itis settled, decided, certain, complete and incontestable. Consummatum est. Nothing can happen now to undo it. Now there is absolutely nothing to fear. The worst has already happened. On a certain Fridayafternoonit could truly be said, “God is dead,” and there is no ca- RomanCatholic Church Baptist Churches Non-religious Methodist Churches Pentecostal Churches Lutheran Churches Eastern Orthodox Churches islam Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) Judaism Presbyterian Churches Episcopal Church Reformed Churches Churches of Christ ~ Atheists Presiding elder of Salt Lake Valley’s largest polygamist church people with the recent addition of Somalians, Bosnians, Kosovars and Albanians.“Utah is becoming an increasingly diverse society in termsofreligion,” he said. “In or- “It isfinished.” me OwenAllred community along the Wasatch compared to theirs. Then it came to me: Their austere attentiveness was a thirsting for the waterof life, It was an ecstatic thirsting. In the communiontheir thirst was quenched and,at the sametime, intensified. The reality of this was palpable; you couldfeelit. is Lord. The outcome ofthe human project is incontestable, but Traditions by the Numbers in the U.S. “We havea lot ofhatred, notfrom the state or the [LDS] church or anybody like that — it seems like the greatest hatred isfrom the people that were once with us.” cial census,” it began to ask for a count of members. By 1946, the tastrophe beyond the death of God. About the decisive outcome entrance of the community's chapels all over the world. “We want,” Even “ 124 IH ” i Difference ; |