"We're not going to let you take our tradition": A Beautiful Year with Diana Butler Bass

 REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:

Dr. Diana Butler Bass is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher and theologian, and one of America's most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality. Her books include Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and The Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening, and Freeing Jesus, among many others. On November 4th, she adds another volume to this growing library: A Beautiful Year, 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance, available now.

Diana, congratulations and welcome back to The State of Belief!

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

Oh, well, thank you. And Paul, it is just wonderful to be with you, even in this format, even though it's more fun in person, of course, but your voice gives me joy.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Yeah, same, same. And all of our listeners who have had the chance to listen to Diana Butler Bass - she goes on tour, she speaks frequently, and she has an amazing gathering. I mean, you really gather people, which is so important. And this is the Cottage. Let's start there, because right now gathering is so important. The feeling of not being alone is probably one of the most powerful tools we have. Talk to me about - I think it's still weekly, but you gather people to talk about important things. Talk about what that feels like to you and why that still is such an important principle.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

You know, it's really fascinating that you would mention this, because I never thought of myself as a person who could create community. Generally, through the long history of my writing career, I'd put words in the world and then communities would invite me to come and talk about my work. So I would go into churches, go to colleges, address civic groups, all of those kinds of things. And I always loved being in those kinds of communities where people are joined together to do some sort of good that's bigger than just themselves. But as far as me being a gatherer, that was not something I considered.

But what happened during the pandemic is that I started a newsletter. And a friend of mine was already on this platform that nobody had ever heard of called Substack. And she invited me to join up and to start writing from that platform. And I said, well, I don't really understand this. But I started a newsletter called The Cottage, which is named after my little she-shed writing office in the backyard, which I'm sitting in right now. And I just started putting things in the world.

And before I knew it, people were coming to that place, that online place that I'd created. And for the last four years, The Cottage has been the fifth-largest Substack newsletter in religion and spirituality. And I'm super proud of it. And I love the people who have gathered there, and we have created, together, a genuine online community.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

And you also host, I don't know if it's on YouTube, I participated on that. And you invite people to come together and talk about important things. And it was just interesting, the one time I did it, which was a couple years ago, you could tell people were very present to one another and to you and to the topic at hand. And I just want to lift all of that up. I love the fact that you didn't view yourself as that person, and yet you became that person because someone invited you into thinking about yourself in a different way, and then you took advantage of it.

And I think that that kind of creativity and that kind of like, oh, I'm not the one; but then you just decide, well, maybe I am the one and I just don't know it. I think that this kind of mentality, and then gearing that towards gathering people in this time of authoritarianism and an exercise of power meant to tear people apart, tear communities apart, and create a vacuum into which a kind of autocracy can take root. And I think that that's the reason I wanted to start there because first of all, I want all of our listeners to imagine themselves, also, as that kind of person who maybe didn't think of themselves as that, but now maybe can. And also to recognize showing up with one another, even if it's in an online way, or in person, is just a huge part of what we are all called upon to do in this moment.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

It's funny, because some of the people who have watched this community grow around the Cottage have said, they think I'm a pastor. And so that my calling was always to gather people like in church or around causes. And it's like, no, I'm not a pastor. I'm just a lay person.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Which is even better, you know? I love that.

Diana and I go back, and the way we first started interacting was through an online community called Progressive Revival that was connected with BeliefNet. And we just wanted to kind of celebrate the amazing voices of progressive religious tradition that this country has. And that often we forget that, if we don't pay attention. And so we rocked that for several years, and really, were hitting it hard. And it was an amazing accomplishment. So it wasn't the first time.

I'm going to lay claim to... Basically, I'm responsible for all of Diana Butler Bass's success, and… Um, no. We both had had some platforms before that. But anyway, I think it's out there if you found it. But BeliefNet is a little bit of a mess now, or a lot a bit of a mess now. But there's still echoes of a progressive revival out there. And I think that, actually, is a part of this trajectory of imagining the Internet as a place where we can learn and grow and encounter one another.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

I was actually going to say that you were the first person who ever invited me into really thinking about the Internet as a possible location for really good work. And before that, I had been writing books, I'd been a classroom teacher, and I had a syndicated column through The New York Times syndicate. And so those were pretty traditional forms of distribution. And in all those forms of distribution, the old model was that people came to a place where things were being distributed by gatekeepers and by publishers. And so I had always thought like that. That was the culture I grew up in. That was the culture that was all around me as the publishing culture.

But then I remember when you started working for BeliefNet, and I'd certainly heard of BeliefNet, and they had been trying to get me away from The New York Times syndicate for a little bit. You said, hey, let's do this thing together. And I thought, well, maybe I should try it. And so you were the first person who ever really invited me into thinking about the new technology and how it was different. And it wasn't about people coming, in effect, to us, but us going to where people were. And then it was on their computers. And now it's on their computers, their phones, their streaming services, and all those other places.

But then after we did Progressive Revival, you invited me then to come into Huffington Post as one of the first religion writers over there. And so I did that. And I guess, Paul, that's all to say that you're the one who got me to understand not to be afraid of new platforms and new technologies.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I appreciate that. And, you know, that really was one of my constant refrains to - especially a lot of the traditional folks out there – is, we have to be on here, because you know who's really on here? The extremists from every side. They understood the Internet immediately. Oh, I can go into someone's bedroom with no gatekeeper? That's right. Wow. Okay. I can see the power of that. I can see how I can get into people's mindset.

I remember - you and I have both been to Chautauqua, it's a very old school. It's exactly what you're talking about. The oldest school, in some ways. And I remember giving a lecture about the Internet and religion and someone standing up righteously after my lecture and holding up The New York Times newspaper and said, if I want to learn something, I read a book. And I'm like, good for you. I don't know how that refutes anything I'm saying.

Let's get into your book, because this feels like a balm in Gilead, literally - A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance. And the claim, right now, “a beautiful year”, when there's so much ugliness in the world, and I know you're experiencing that, you've seen it, but can we claim a beautiful year? And what a subversive decision it is to claim a beautiful year. Talk to me a little bit, just even to start with, why that title? Even why the word “beautiful” to start a book of reflections, a yearly reflection book.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

The title was intended to be subversive. I did not know when this book went into publication process that it would be quite as horrible as it is. But I wanted to lift up the idea that the time in which we live isn't the only time. and that there are other patterns of keeping time. And so A Beautiful Year focuses around a very, very ancient practice of the Christian calendar. And a lot of people know that Jews have their own calendar, and Muslims have a calendar, and Hindus and Buddhists have their own religious calendars. But in the West, we kind of forget that Christians have a calendar too. Parts of it have been subsumed into the secular calendar, but we don't deeply imbibe the idea that the identity of Christians is based in an alternative structure of time. Because we've just thought, oh, yeah, we own everything, we're in control, we're the biggest religion in the world. And so everybody just sort of has to lockstep with us.

And so keeping the calendar, keeping the Christian year, has been a practice that has sustained me through all of the last 10 years, all of the political nastiness, the pandemic, and I really started paying very close attention to it almost 30 years ago. So it's become kind of my quiet life's heartbeat behind everything else.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I love that. And I remember when I first went to seminary, I was the most clueless person in seminary, and I literally went there kind of because I had an intuition. I had no idea what I was doing there, and I knew nothing. But someone said, I really love the idea of our time that is different. And I was like, what are you talking about? You know what I mean? And you've just described it. There is a heartbeat to the calendar that is rooted in the tradition, built over years, that does offer a different vantage point into what is happening, rooted in scripture, rooted in tradition.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

 And it's also a different vantage point than the Christian Nationalists.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Oh, 100%. I was just about to go there. This is not about saying everybody has to say “Merry Christmas” or you're going to be thrown out of school. That is not what we're talking about here, that everybody must say “Merry Christmas”. And now we've understood what Diana Butler Bass's book is. You can use that as a blurb, by the way. I would love for you to really go deep into why this is not about Christian Nationalism.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

Well, one of the things that I noticed as the conversation about Christian Nationalism was deepening, and I think is really very obvious to people now - we're taping a little bit after the Pete Hegseth speech to the military leaders, where he called all the generals back to DC and did this kind of stuff. And it was about the warrior ethos.

And so, I had noticed several years ago that the calendar we live with is essentially the calendar of the Roman Empire. all of the months are named after Roman gods, Roman emperors, or Roman numerals. And then the days of the week are either - in English, at least - are named after either, again, Roman figures or pagan gods from Norse or Germanic mythologies. And so We live in a calendar whose days and weeks are actually celebrating imperialism, militarism, and the financial sort of systems of empire.

And so I looked at the standard secular calendar here in the United States, and also this would be true in many parts of Europe as well. And that's pretty much what all Western calendars celebrate, is they celebrate imperialism, militarism and some form of capitalism. And in almost all these countries, religious holidays even have been replaced by bank holidays. Or I make the point about the American calendar, things like Black Friday are more important now and talked about more in the culture than, say, Michaelmas, or the celebration of St. Michael the Archangel. And you have, then, just all these interesting moments in the calendar that celebrate the worst of us.

And so what does it mean that Christians in Western countries are colonized by a calendar that celebrates those three things? And what if, instead, we went back to some of the roots of that more ancient calendar that we celebrated over and against the Roman Empire? where we were celebrating things like humility and nonviolence. And just coming up, for example, on November 11th is what's called St. Martin's Day. And St. Martin was a very early Christian leader. And he was, first of all, a soldier in the Roman army, and then he had a conversion experience and told his father that he wanted to become a Christian. And his father, who was, I believe, also a Roman soldier, was just horrified, because in those early days of Christianity, there were no soldiers in the Roman army. That was an impossibility in the first two centuries of Christianity. We have no historical record of any person serving in a Roman army who also was a Christian before the year 200. There's just no historical evidence that that ever happened. And so the earliest church was a pacifist, nonviolent community.

So when Martin decided that he wanted to become a Christian, it meant that he had to resign his family's legacy of the military. And he had a vision of himself taking off a soldier's cloak and giving it to a poor beggar who was lying in the street. And so St. Martin became kind of really a patron saint of the care of and protection of the poor, and also of nonviolence. And in a just huge sense of irony, the day, his feast day, is November 11th. And that's the day here in the United States - a little different in Europe and Canada, especially, in the rest of the English-speaking world, they celebrate Armistice Day - and we celebrate Veterans Day, which is a celebration of soldiers from all the wars. But for centuries in Europe, St. Martin's Day was a reminder for people to take care of the poor and to live Jesus' call of “blessed are the peacemakers.”

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Oh my God, that is amazing. That is a perfect example of what this book can bring to you. That's so powerful. Now we're really getting into how subversive this is because Hegseth is all about war ethos. And what he means by that is the Crusades. You know, he has Crusader tattoos on his body as Christian Nationalist symbolism. And so what he means is the Crusades. And what you're saying is, actually, there's an ancient tradition underneath that that does not celebrate that, which is in line with what Jesus actually taught.

And the story of St. Martin is actually a repentance story. In some ways, like, you know, “I felt the call and now I'm going to go in a different direction” - which is, I think, some way of talking about repentance. And I think that that's such an incredible invitation. And it does show this opportunity for us to imagine this moment, actually going deep into the resources of our faith, those of us who are Christian, but I think there's similar opportunities in other faith traditions, is a great act of sustenance as well as a framework for continuing to show up and saying, no, we don't want this.

And I think it's especially - and I know you agree with me on this, that Christians say, no, we're not going to let you take our tradition and we're not going to let you wield it like this. How are you seeing that play out? Because I'm actually oddly encouraged in this moment. I see people showing up in really powerful ways. And that's something we're really trying to put out there with Interfaith Alliance is, this is a moment for us to show up. If we want a real religious freedom in this country, those of us who are actually opposed, we have to exercise that and show up and say, “no.” And so I'm just curious: in light of this book, but also, just, you live in DC, which has been occupied, what are the ways that you're seeing people show up?

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

I am not seeing people show up quite as much as what I wish they were. There have been some remarkable moments of protest and people being very consistent, standing in front of certain government buildings. And especially in the early months when there felt like there was less threat to showing up and that DOGE was running wild, there were an incredible number of people who just would go and nearly every day protest at some different building or simply stand on the street with their sign, you know, we are here. And so that was stronger then.

I think people have been a bit more discouraged in more recent weeks with the military moving in. And of course, people are a bit more afraid. And so that's been a lot harder. But I suspect that my call in the midst of this is one sort of step before getting people to show up. And that is: everyone I know is completely depressed and disheartened - I would say bordering on despair. And the fact that people feel this incredible weight and helplessness at the moment, along with rage and anger, those emotions are keeping people from showing up as their best selves in this particular time. And so I've just sort of taken it on myself. I felt like my call in this moment was to try to help people become regrounded and rerouted and to remember what really truly matters. And if we can get people to that point where they're feeling like they understand their own identity and their own agency in this time when their identity, especially - what you said about Christians is so perfect.

So many Christians feel like their identity has just been stolen away from them by Christian Nationalism, by this absolute corruption of the Christian faith that's going on by MAGA and the whole of Trump world. And so, there's a sense of dislocation in that. And to remind people that these really are the stories. Yes, there has been a terrible history in Christianity of capitulation to authoritarianism, of capitulation to violence, of capitulation to imperialism. And oftentimes, Christianity is not just capitulating to it, but has been the handmaid of those things in Western culture. But to remind ourselves that while that is true, there has been this historical abuse of who Jesus was and what his words and teachings were, it doesn't mean that we have to participate in that abuse, that we can actually stand in and with and for that other story of God's dream of a kingdom of peace and justice. And so to keep holding that out in front of people in powerful and meaningful ways, I think, right now is… I think it's the task of Church, first of all. But, you know, it's also the task of laywomen on Substack who have gathered a whole bunch of people.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

You're part of Church. One of the things I think it's really important to lift up is that at every moment in this country's history, where terrible things have been done in the name of religion, in the name of Christianity primarily, there have also been Christians who were speaking out against it. And we can't forget them, as well. The abolitionists were so clear: even as many people were using the Bible to support the institution of slavery, there were many Christians who were saying, absolutely not. So this is not the first time that that wrestling is part of this allure of power and this allure that comes to Christians. And so, over the time, many of us have developed, oh, you know, Christianity is bad. And rightfully so with that critique. And yet, almost every era - even in the right of women to vote. People change their minds. People, Christians, even Walter Rauschenbusch, who was like, at first, kind of, oh, well, you know, I'm kind of Victorian. Women should do this. Then he changed his mind. People began to speak out. Christians began to speak out for women's enfranchisement.

The best example we have is the Civil Rights Movement. And that's what I actually really want us to invite people to think about, which is: churches were the location where people were trained in nonviolent resistance, which allowed them to withstand the terrible attacks, dogs, water guns, guns themselves, firebombing. So I do think we also have to look at that tradition. I love that you're giving people that sense of grounding over the history and the root of Christianity. But there's also such important stories from American history that we can also turn to right now. And that's what I'm out there speaking about.

You know, one of the coolest things that happened at the Free DC Rally, that was reported to me by Jewish people and non-religious people, was when the church bell, Foundry rang their bell in DC and rang their bell in the middle of the march. And everybody was so elevated that a church was supporting them. And they felt like everybody stopped and was like, oh my God. And again, this was not just the Christians were like, yeah, we're showing up. It was really everybody's like, okay, there's something bigger than ourselves. And that was such a small thing to do, but it landed so hard.

People are so hungry for Christians to show up well right now. I actually think this - again, we're talking a lot about Christianity here, and I know many of you are not Christian, and many of you are from different faith traditions or spiritual - I think what you're hearing, though, is go deep. Find those places in all of our traditions, including the philosophical tradition, if you're an ethical humanist or whatever. There's places to go to find inspiration. And Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance.

I'm wondering, we're about to come up on Christmas, not too long. It's coming up. In writing this book, did you go, oh my God, this is so important that we remember this about Christmas, this about the birth of Jesus. My guess is that all throughout the year there's things popping up like that. But what about Christmas? Actually, it's Advent. It starts with Advent, doesn't it?

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

It does. The book starts with Advent, because that's the beginning of the Christian year, which is somewhere around November 30th, December 1st. And so, we're about to come into a new year. That means that while everybody's closing up a year, we're beginning one. And it really means that, in effect, we're a little bit more like the Jews on this score, because our Jewish friends, of course, just celebrated their New Year in the autumn as well. And so the Christian one falls around Thanksgiving, which is interesting, I think. So, starting the year with gratitude.

And then the Christian year starts with moving into the darkest time. Moving into the deepest of nights, and every week we light a single candle. And we are recognizing this real deepness of human agony and how profound an evil empire is. And you're wondering, will there ever be a King of Peace? will there ever be another way? And by the time you get into the third week of Advent, the third week is usually the big sort of liturgical turn toward a real vision of justice. And generally in the third week, churches who are in this tradition, we’ll read from the Magnificat of Mary, where she talks about the rich being cast down from their thrones and the poor being lifted up and the hungry... It's so funny.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

It's amazing that they still allow that to be read, frankly, because it's such a revolutionary text.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

I actually worry about sometimes getting put in jail for preaching on the Virgin Mary. And so, you know, it's a really moody, deeply honest, existentially-wrought season, is that very first season of the Christian year. And it's like, will this come? Will this promise ever appear? Can we continue to trust God, even when the night is so deep? And then you get Christmas. I love Christmas. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany are my three favorite seasons. And so that really shows in the book. Actually, there are lots of beautiful essays that I personally love.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Diana Butler Bass trashes Easter on podcasts. I'm joking. I'm joking.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

But there's something about the poetry of these winter seasons and the candlelight and the receding of light. And then at the darkest time of the year comes the birth of the Messiah, comes the birth of the Prince of Peace. And then there's this increasing light. And so you get out of this season of this U-shaped darkness by a holiday on February 2nd referred to as Candlemas, where the reading that's read is Christ, Jesus himself, saying to his disciples: you are the light of the world. So we go from lighting candles and looking for light and falling into the deepest darkness to a story on February 2nd where Jesus turns around and says to the people who trust in him, “you are the light.”

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

That is so powerful. I think the story of Mary saying “yes”, it's like, well, who am I to do this? And it's like, well, actually, you are it. You are it. And, you know, echoes with the “you are the light.” But also, and this is where I think the story is so worthwhile taking time with, is that immediately upon the birth of Jesus, there's a threat.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

 That's correct.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

And none of this is, like, happy, happy, and now we've done it all. You know, the threat is there from, again, from empire and from someone scared of having the idea of military rule be, you know, present. So it's all very exciting. “You are the light” is such a powerful reminder for the Christians who are, right now, feeling like there's so much shadow and despair, that actually, maybe, over this holiday season, we can recast all of this.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

And I do want to say something a little bit about the fact that other religious groups have their own calendars. A lot of my early thinking on this project was not only inspired by the fact that I was looking and seeing, oh, look, it's a Roman calendar, and why are we living with the calendar? That was the oppressors to early Christianity. So that was one set of questions.

But then I started thinking about the Jews, and I started thinking about how Jewish survival - that's a really interesting question in history. How did the Jews survive for all this time? And Jewish survival, in some ways, is tied to having an alternative sense of time. And it was their calendar and their sense of the ritual year and their obedience or disobedience to the heartbeat of those festivals that was sort of determinative of whether or not they succeeded as a people, or that they failed as a people.

And so I thought that's really fascinating that there are at least these two groups under the Roman Empire, Jews and Christians, with a ton of crossover between them in the early years. And they're both appealing to the same set of spiritual tools with this alternative sense of time being the grounding for not just their survival, but their ability to thrive under persecution. And so I think that that is really beautiful. Hence the title.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

We started this with me asking about the word “beautiful”. But I mean, beatific and that idea of what does it mean to really lift up the year in a different way? And I do think this is going to be a really important resource for a lot of folks. And I'm sure that you're going to get lots of reaction to it. But again, it is a little bit of a revolutionary statement. And I would love just for you to talk a little bit: what are some of your most valued spiritual practices that can be connected to this book, but also something that has just helped you survive over the time and helped you thrive? And what are some things that you do that have really made a difference in kind of meeting this moment?

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

Well, certainly the idea of a Christian year has really been a spiritual practice that has sustained me. And it's not just that you understand the rhythm of the six seasons - there are six seasons of the Christian year - but there is attached to that sets of readings that we call lectionaries. And the lectionaries are collections of readings that match the flow of the year. And the major lectionary is something called the Revised Common Lsectionary, which is used by many, many, many denominations around the world, including forms of it are used even by the Catholic Church. So it's an interdenominational, widespread ecumenical set of readings for the whole of the year. And that's the one I generally use, but there are other lectionaries as well.

And those, a person just looks that up on the internet. There's a wonderful new lectionary that's a womanist lectionary that was compiled by an Episcopal priest who teaches at a university in Texas. And then there is a lectionary, it's called the narrative lectionary. And so it tracks the stories, particularly of the Hebrew Bible, I think, in a more cohesively sensible way, sometimes, than the Revised Common Lectionary does. So, reading Scripture has really helped me. And I know that sounds crazy, because it sounds a little like your local Southern Baptist church or your local, you know, sort of fundamentalist church preacher saying, read the Bible every day. But if you read the Bible every day, one of the things you discover is that it's not what they tell you it is.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Right. Read the Bible. Just don't, you know, don't read any of the Sermon on the Mount. Don't read any of that.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

Right. Don't read any of that stuff about radical love or justice or mercy and righteousness, kissing, or any of those things. And so I go to the readings, these bits of Scripture which can be confusing, but I always try to read them with different frames. And so there's a question I ask myself every time I read the Bible, and that is: what have I never seen before? So even if I'm in the most familiar of texts, I expect that because of the nature of Scripture and these kinds of sacred texts, that they always hold some surprise. And so I walk into the text and it's like, I'm looking not to confirm what I already believe, but I'm looking for whatever surprises me. My husband always refers to that as my hermeneutics of surprise.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I love that. Hermeneutics, by the way, is just a fancy term for interpretation.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

That’s right. That’s a big seminary word. And so I like to think about that as a way that I don't think I was ever taught to read the Bible in seminary or graduate school, but it's just sort of come to me as a writer.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

And I love that because in some ways, every time I was asked to preach - and I don't preach that much, but especially when I was at Princeton at the chapel and had to preach from the lectionary, I was always like, oh, God. Because it's work. And then there's that text and you're like, oh, what do I do with this text? And it was amazing that if you actually spent time with almost any text, something would come to you that was surprising, that was not what you thought you were going to do. And I do think, in part, because I had to come up with something, that was part of the discipline. But I love the fact that you're inviting people to do this because the revelation can come just by examining it and saying, what can I see that I haven't seen before? I think that that's a lovely practice.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

I am a Protestant, and the idea of Protestants reading the Bible on their own, that's one of the most revolutionary parts of Protestant tradition. And I still trust that. I still believe that that is a deeply true principle, that when we, as people who are imbued with the Spirit, go to the sacred text, that it does speak. And it can speak in ways that we don't expect, and that can give us fresh insight on our world.

And I mean, it's fun. I do preach kind of a lot. And I remember last year, right before the election, I was preaching at Duke Chapel, which was a hugely wonderful invitation. It's the 100th anniversary of Duke, and so I got invited to be part of the 100th anniversary preaching series at Duke Chapel. And the lectionary text on that particular Sunday was a text about a blind man sitting in a road, and Jesus was coming by.

I remember when I read the text, I thought, what am I going to do with this? You know, basically it's a miracle story. And I thought, yeah, I sure would love a miracle right now. But my attention kept focusing on the sightless man, the man who had the essential problem that needed to be solved: he couldn't see. And I just imagined this blind man sitting on the side of the road, and he didn't know what was coming down the road. And that was the moment that all of a sudden I started thinking, what must it be like to be sitting by the road and only be hearing these noises in the distance, and not being sure what's coming down the road at you? And what happened was that this man held out his hand and he said, “heal me, son of God.” And so he reached out in this position of trust, not even really knowing what was coming at him, and the vulnerability of that.

And so what I wound up preaching on was the vulnerability of the moment. That everyone in the cathedral, whether or not they had some sort of physical thing they were struggling with, an illness they were worried about, a personal problem that was consuming their fear about the future, is that all of us were sitting by the road of America, and that something was coming down the road. And that none of us could see what that was clearly. And that at this moment, all we could do was hold out our hands in that vulnerability and say, help, heal, save.

And so that, to me, is the way that these texts, these stories reframe themselves in each setting. And as you said, it does take work and it does take some imagination when you read that, because the temptation is to just say, oh, Jesus is great. He's going to heal this guy, etc. But the truth of it is, is that aren't we always sitting on the roadside just hearing the echoes of something coming from the distance? And do we have that capacity in our vulnerability to reach out?

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

As they say, that'll preach. And it did. You know, I think that right now, so many of us are just wondering, what is the future? What's coming? What can we do? You and I spoke right after the election. You were much more cloud silver lining than I was at the time. But that's probably because you were reading all those scripture passages and going deep while I was scrolling on my phone. But I am curious: if you look into your prophetic ball or magic ball, whatever, how do you imagine America showing up right now in a way that will be helpful to the future of our democracy? What would you most wish for our listeners, but also just the wider public? What can the future be for us?

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

The only vision I have of that is, somehow we have to find our best selves again. To me, spirituality, faith traditions, the sacred wisdom of these ancient Scriptures, that can be part of who our best selves are. And one of the reasons I trust that to be the case is that I'm trained as a historian, and I've certainly seen in history, the truth of the matter that often the people who do show up are some of those people like during the Civil Rights Movement that you're talking about, or the abolitionists in the 19th century, or I think St. Francis of Assisi. He shows up as a figure that transforms global history. Hardly anybody remembers the name of the pope who had to accept the Franciscan order. But it was, I believe, Innocent III. Nobody has statues of that pope in their garden. But everybody has statues of St. Francis. If you're that kind of person who has saint statues around, it's probably going to be that statue. And churches everywhere have St. Francis.

And so here's this fella who used to be a crusader, who comes home from the Crusades, repents of war, sees an entirely different way. His father is super rich. He disavows himself of his father's wealth, and he goes out into the countryside with no clothes on to rebuild the Church. And it's like, where did this fella come from? And so somehow Francis, in the Middle Ages, got to his best self. And that was a self that was humble, that didn't depend on violence as the way, and certainly understood the plight of those who didn't have all of the things that he was privileged to have when he was growing up.

And so to me, those are the people who are the real heroes of history. I think that there's some level in which we can always emulate that in every one of our lives. And the reason why the Catholic Church, of course, has held up the saints is for that very purpose. It's not simply to create a superclass of saints and heroes that nobody can ever reach. To have pictures and statues and the stories of those kinds of people available to all is a way of saying, imitate this. Even if you feel like you can't imitate Jesus because he's the Son of God, you can imitate a failed soldier from the Crusades who rejected his father's wealth. You can imitate the Grimke sisters of South Carolina, who looked around and saw the privilege that they had and said, hey, look, it's really wrong to hold these people in slavery. And there's got to be a better way. And they become two of the greatest abolitionists to come out of Southern culture.

You can look at regular everyday Black churchgoers in the 1950s and 1960s who crossed bridges and who joined picket lines and who gave themselves to a cause of voting rights. And they followed, of course, somebody who was much more famous, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Malcolm X, both of those guys really famous. But they were regular guys, too. So history calls us when there are these moments of crisis, be it something like the Crusades or the new capitalism of the Middle Ages that was hurting so many, many people across Europe, or it’s enslavement, or it’s Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century, those movements all said the choices have to be made about who you are, not just who America is or who Italy is going to be or who South Carolina is going to turn out to be, but it's: who are you? Who are you in this moment?

And that's, to me, the only way we get to who America is supposed to be, or we get to where global community needs to be around things like climate change or beating back global authoritarianism, because this is a global problem. It's not just an American problem. The only way we can get to that is if we are the people we are supposed to be. And to me, that means picking up the best pieces of who we've been in the past, those memories, those examples, in all kinds of different traditions and then saying, okay, well, what do these stories mean for me? And it doesn't mean I'm going to become St. Francis, but I can become a peacemaker. We do what we can do.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I love that. It's about who we will become. The new book from Diana Butler Bass is titled A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance. Diana regularly explores faith and Christianity on her Substack, Diana Butler Bass. You can also find her at The Cottage.

Diana, thank you so much for being with us on The State of Belief.

DIANA BUTLER BASS:

Oh, Paul, thank you so much for coming to The Cottage.

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