Clearly I’m into Science and Faith. I write occasionally for Biologos and have all sorts of other things to say there too.

As a pastor and preacher, there are sermons and other thoughts at the Colonial Church website and at Colonial Church Blogma Dogma.

by Daniel Harrell

Part of the Patheos Book Club Roundtable

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 nears, Christian-Muslim relations haven’t improved that much.  Immediate, stereotyped incriminations on the heels of the Al-Qaeda attack, stoked by two American Wars, find new energy from fears over what happens once the Arab Spring gives way to Summer. The somewhat tepid response of Americans to the Somali famine makes you wonder if it would be different if the famine occured in a less Muslim dominated area. Here in Minneapolis, the large Somali population is still viewed with suspicion by many, especially when women don traditional Muslim headscarves.

Where are the models for genuine interfaith connection and interreligious charity, especially in the face of conflict and discord? Emir Abd el-Kader drew high praise from Algerian Catholics as well as fellow Muslims, an American President and even his enemies. On what basis? On the basis of his faith in God as the God of all people and in the sanctity of human life as the gift of God. Nowhere was this more clearly evidenced that in his defense of Christians from attack by Muslims in Damascus in 1860. Having killed Christians earlier himself, he drew the distinction between Christians who invaded and sought to destroy Algeria, and those who merely professed strong faith in Jesus. For the latter, he had high regard, by virtue of his own strong faith. He wrote, “that which we did for the Christians, we did to be faithful to Islamic law and out of respect for human life. All creatures are part of God’s family and those loved most by God are those who do the most good for his family. All the religions of the book rest on two principles–to praise God and to have compassion for his creatures. The law of Mohammed places the greatest importance on compassion and mercy, and on all that which preserves social cohesion and protects us from division” (p. 302).

Too often contemporary Christians and Muslims, trained to view each others as enemies for centuries, interpret points of convergence as threatening the purity and integrity of personal and collective (read tribal) belief. Easier to label the other as infidel or unbeliever than to seek peace and mutual tolerance. As a Christian, can’t I affirm truth that is in Islam even if I do not affirm all that Islam teaches? Muslims regard Jesus as prophet even if they do not regard him as Lord. While that might not constitute full confession of faith, it certainly is enough to work with for the sake of the common good on earth. Moreover, can either say for sure what the full will of God is for the other? It’s as a quote from el-Kader carried by a Catholic Sister read: “If you think that God is what the different communities believe–the Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc.–He is that, but also more. … None of His creatures worships Him in His entirety” (p. xvii).

It is entirely possible to be a church-going Christian for 40 years and never hear a sermon preached solely from the Book of Leviticus.

Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew scriptures (i.e. the “Old Testament”) that contains the laws, large and in minutiae, that God gave to the Israelites. Most people might be familiar with its odd edicts against, for instance, eating lobster or shaving your sideburns, and laws ordering menstruating women to sit in a tent apart from the rest of the community for the duration of Aunt Flo’s visit.

When viewed through the lens of modernity, Leviticus seems to be an arcane, strange and wholly irrelevant book.

Take, for example, what it has to say about zits.

“Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, `Unclean! Unclean!”‘ Leviticus 13:45 proclaims. “As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.”
As an acne-battling teenager, had my pastor highlighted that particular verse from the pulpit, I would have lost faith in the God of love.

Why would God care about the condition of our skin? Or what kind of meat we eat? Or whether we wear a cotton-polyester blend T-shirt? Or ask us to sacrifice pigeons to atone for our sins? Or need to remind us not to have sex with our stepmothers, nephews or pets?

It’s no wonder, then, that many pastors, preoccupied with attracting — not repelling — people choose to ignore Leviticus altogether.

Daniel Harrell is not your average pastor. Call him an ecclesial Captain Courageous or a foolhardy glutton for punishment, but a few years ago, while he was a minister at Boston’s congregational Park Street Church, Harrell launched a preaching series on Leviticus. More than a few folks thought he was crazy.

“Leviticus is that graveyard where read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plans go to die,” Harrell says. “They looked at me as if I were attempting sermon suicide — or worse, homiletical homicide (Leviticus would kill our congregation.) Who’d get up on a Sunday
to hear a homily on mildew?”

(Leviticus not only mentions that God is concerned about mildew, but actual types of mildew: “He is to examine the mold on the walls and if it has greenish or reddish depressions that appear to be deeper than the surface of the wall, the priest shall go out the doorway of the house and close it up for seven days.”)

Throwing caution (and mold) to the wind, Harrell did more than just preach about Leviticus. He convinced 19 of his congregants to join him for a month-long experiment in “living Levitically” — trying to obey all of the laws (in spirit if not in substance as most municipalities, including Boston, frown on animal sacrifice, even for religious purposes) put forth in Leviticus.

Harrell has chronicled the adventures of his would-be Levites in the hilarious and thought-provoking new book How to Be Perfect: One Church’s Audacious Experiment in Living the Old Testament Book of Leviticus.

While the book is peppered with laugh-out-loud anecdotes, Harrell’s aim was quite serious. Many Christians simply dismiss Leviticus and its odd edicts as the “old law” — one that Jesus fulfilled, replaced with grace and is no longer applicable to believers.

But if Christians really believe that God gave all of the Bible to humankind to show us how to live, then what does Leviticus mean to faithful living?

Inspired by A.J. Jacobs’ book, The Year of Living Biblically, in which the author, a journalist and agnostic Jew, attempted to adhere to the biblical laws for 12 months, Harrell decided the best way to answer lingering questions about the laws of Leviticus was to attempt to follow them in real life.

Following Leviticus’ laws — keeping kosher, not cutting their beards, keeping their bodies and their homes as meticulously clean as possible, and strict adherence to Sabbath-keeping — was as difficult as Harrell and his flock had anticipated, but even more rewarding than they could have hoped. The stories of their Levitical adventure are also far more entertaining and enlightening than most readers will expect.

Rather than affirm the idea that you can either embrace grace or the law, Harrell found that a faithful life involves both. No one can be perfect by following Leviticus’ laws. They’re impossible. And realizing that leads, necessarily, to the understanding that no one can be perfect apart from God’s grace.

Still, Leviticus illustrates that there is nothing too small for God to care about (even mildew and zits), and nothing too big. Grace might cover all, but knowing and trying to follow God’s law — the greatest of which Jesus said was to love our neighbors as ourselves and to love God with all our hearts, minds and spirits — can be transformational as well.

“The thing that struck us in doing the Levitical month was the simple power of obedience,” Harrell said in a recent interview. “The discipline that comes with trusting God, or a tradition of faith or a community, and how that discipline can truly shape your life toward good things (be they grace, commitment, devotion, etc).

“Because we’re so used to the disconnect between our beliefs and our behavior, integrity has become something of a quaint notion consigned to the past. But I’d like to think that it still matters and that somehow it’s still worth pursuing,” he said. “Otherwise, why bother believing?”

A version of this post appeared originally via Religion News Service.

I’m a minister and not too long ago I led a small group from my former church in Boston through an experiment of living by the Old Testament book of Leviticus for a month. If you’ve even heard of Leviticus, what probably comes to mind is that obsolete part of the bible devoted to animal sacrifice, kosher food and bizarre commandments pertaining to sin infections and improper sex with your father’s daughter. Skeptics know it as ammunition for homosexual haters or as a target for animal-rights activists. Many Jews regard it as awkward and outmoded. Its unfamiliar terms and references render it apparently irrelevant for modern readers.

Nevertheless, since Leviticus is in the Bible, I thought it worthwhile as a minister to at least give it a look. But since Leviticus was meant to be lived rather than simply looked at, it made more sense to give it a try. Maybe living Leviticus would show us whether it was really so irrelevant or not. What this meant for our group was experimentation with everything from building makeshift tabernacles in one woman’s apartment to eschewing shaving and making reparation payments to people we had wronged. Needless to say, it was a very interesting month.

Clearly the biggest challenge with Leviticus is what to do with its emphasis on animal sacrifice. Goats, birds, bulls and rams were regularly slaughtered not only to atone for wrongdoing but also as a way of expressing gratitude, making peace and celebrating abundant harvests. These days, however, animal sacrifice breaks more laws than it keeps. Besides, not even the most orthodox Jews sacrifice animals any longer. No animals were harmed during our Levitical month, but still, we were left to wonder in the first place why so much seemingly senseless slaughter had been commanded  by a God who purportedly loves all creatures.

What we didn’t realize until we dug a bit deeper was that the majority of animals sacrificed in Leviticus weren’t so much burnt as they were cooked. Animal sacrifice would have smelled a lot like an summer outdoor barbecue. And not only was the sacrificial meat grilled, but it was accompanied by offerings of baked grain and poured drink too. And all of this occurred three times a day. The sacrifices that atoned for sin, gave thanks and made amends, fed people too.

Viewed this way, to eat three meals a day and be thankful for them is a participation in the ancient practice of Levitical sacrifice. To sacrifice acknowledged that all we enjoy in life comes to us as gift. We are not the owners of creation, but its stewards. For some of the participants in the Levitical experiment, to sacrificially eat also meant to purchase food that was humanely procured and organically grown. It cost more, but the sacrifice was a way to respect the gift and the giver. Other participants were motivated to share their food with hungry people in our community. This sacrifice made amends for all the ways that participants had selfishly thought only of their own hunger while ignoring the needs of others.

I love to cook. Culling ingredients from local farmers’ markets, chopping and prepping veggies, slowly sautéing or braising with a variety of spices, and then presenting a meal to partake can be a genuine religious experience for me. That food and festivals are centerpieces of every religious expression made it no surprise that food and festivity find so much expression in Leviticus too. In addition to seven chapters on animal sacrifice—aka barbecue—there is a whole chapter devoted to religious festivals. Leviticus is the party book of the Old Testament.

Of course Passover for Jews, as well as Christmas Dinner for Christians and the like, we’ve all taken part in religious festivals where food is highlighted. But otherwise, in a fast food culture where little time is spent eating well and nobody takes time to cook, to embrace everyday meal preparation and partaking as inherently spiritual can be a stretch. And yet Leviticus encourages just that, spurring us to approach procurement, preparation and eating with due intentionality and a slower, savory pace. To eat is to spend time with God.

For my family, meal preparation is often accompanied by music. Gratitude is given prior to eating, and a time of spiritual reading and prayer follows. The meal itself is a time of connection and basic obedience to that chief of Levitical commands: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Such a practice makes food taste better too.

Daniel M. Harrell is the author of How To Be Perfect: One Church’s Audacious Experiment in Living the Old Testament Book of Leviticus (FaithWords, 2011). He is Senior Minister of Colonial Church, Edina, MN and also author of Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith (Abingdon, 2008).

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=6151008075

http://biologos.org/blog/daniel-harrell-on-embracing-science/

Now available at all Barnes and Now available at all Barnes and noble bookstores (this one in Hingham, MA).

And this one in Greensboro, NC

First Feller: “Yeah, we didn’t git too much snow last night, but it was enough to keep most folks out of church this mornin’.” [Note: It snowed but there was no accumulation., but there could’ve been a slick spot on some road somewhere.]

Second Feller: “Yeah, I know. Though I heard they got some snow in I-Rack [Iraq]. A-Rab feller over there on the radio said he ain’t never seen snow in 80 years. Called it white rain. Preacher says it’s a sign on the end times.”

First Feller: “Mebbe, but they got to git that new Temple built first. I hear they’ve already started on it.” [Note: Some Christians believe that Jesus will return only after the Jerusalem Temple is restored. It was demolished in 70 AD by the Romans with only the Western Wall remaining. There’s currently an Islamic mosque where the Temple formerly stood.]

Second Feller: “They gotta git a red heifer over there too. I hear they got one only they need to git it over to Israel.” [Note: The reference to a red heifer comes from Numbers 19, not Leviticus; though it is to be sacrificed according to Levitical specifications. In recounting this historical record in his commentary on the Mishna, Maimonides?the greatest Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages?concludes with the enigmatic statement: “…and the tenth red heifer will be accomplished by the king, the Messiah; may he be revealed speedily, Amen, May it be God’s will.”]

First Feller: “Naw, they thought they had one, but something won’t right about it.”

Second Feller: “Maybe they should clone ‘em one. You hear the guv’ment says we can eat cloned meat now?”

First Feller: “I ain’t eating no cloned meat. Unless it’s fish. That’s my favorite meat.”

Two good ol’ boys and of all the things to jaw about, they’re going on about theology. Bad theology (bless their hearts), but theology none the less. Still, sometimes even bad theology can be better than no theology. Believers are superb compartmentalists, somehow managing to keep our “spiritual life” separate from our “real life.” Reasons have to do with the sense that faith is either irrelevant to most of what we do or makes us feel awkward outside of Sundays. But if Leviticus does anything, it breaks down this compartmentalization by infusing faith into everything——our food, our clothes, our bodies, our relationships our work and our play. Leviticus illustrates what it looks like “to love the Lord with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength” (Deut 6:5; cf. Mark 12:30), which Jesus labeled the greatest commandment.