July 26

Today marks the day, in 1775, when the second continental congress established the United States Post Office, of which Benjamin Franklin was the Postmaster General. Because it was established for the general welfare of the public, the current fascist regime wants to end the United States Postal Service and force us to use private companies for communication and commerce. 

Today is the birthday of Polish saint Stanislaus of Szczepanow, in 1030 (his feast day is celebrated in May in Poland). According to legend, this bishop of Krakow faced down the king in various struggles for power, until the bishop excommunicated the king and the king responded by murdering him during mass. 

Today is also the feast of Saint Anne, by tradition the mother of Mary, in the Roman Catholic Church.

Reflection: 

“The Immaculate Conception” is the doctrine that Mary, Jesus’s mother, was conceived without sin. In my opinion, it is one of those extra-biblical absurdities, like the concept of purgatory, invented to help people make sense of theological abstractions and paradoxes. It arose because people thought of original sin as a contaminant spread through sex, which presented the problem: How could Jesus be born sinless, if he was born of a human mother? The solution was to imagine some kind of divine cleansing process that happened in Anne’s womb that kept both her and him free from the taint of sin.  

I think it’s important for Christians to look back through Christian history and see how easy it is, when we begin to ascribe concrete reality to metaphors and abstractions (like “original sin”), to come up with creative and wrong doctrines and stories invented from whole cloth. I appreciate the way Dan McClellan refers to these stories as “fan fiction” about the Bible. 

(The Immaculate Conception is not necessary if you a) do not believe in original sin or b) do not imagine original sin to be transmitted by sex. The doctrine of original sin hinges on a literalist reading of Romans 5:12. While I am skeptical of this doctrine, I see the value of interpreting it as “the sin that meets us at our origin.” I see value in debating whether nature or nurture leads us to wound others, ourselves, and the planet. Like generational trauma or capitalism, the sin that meets us at our origin is a situation we are born into that seems impossible, without divine intervention, to escape.)

What I do appreciate about the story of Anne, though, is the feminist and collectivist correction to the individualistic and patriarchal ways we often read the Bible. Ancient people understood that Jesus was born into an extended family. He surely knew and loved his grandparents, and even if they do not show up in the pages of the Bible, they would have had an impact on the Son of God. Anne even shows up in the Koran. 

Prayer: God, whether we place the origin of sin in us, in society, or in some other force, it seems impossible for us to overcome it. Restore us to right relationship with you, with each other, and with the planet. Amen.