dan clendenin journey with jesus

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Weekly essays, book reviews, film reviews, and poetry reviews on Christ & culture by Daniel B. Clendenin. JourneyWithJesus.net serves the global church through scholarship, teaching in third-world seminaries, consulting, and the promotion of Christian philanthropy. This weekly webzine is published every week free of charge to all readers. Our mission vision is characterized by six values--biblical fidelity, cultural relevance, critical inquiry, pastoral sensitivity, global awareness, and ecumenical generosity. Pastors may find JourneyWithJesus.net helpful for sermon preparation. New episodes are posted every Monday.

JourneyWithJesus.net Podcast Daniel B. Clendenin, Ph.D.

• Religion & Spirituality
• APR 10, 2022

JwJ: Sunday April 17, 2022

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *Rising* for Sunday, 17 April 2022; book review by Dan Clendenin: *Harlem Shuffle* by Colson Whitehead (2021); film review by Brad Keister: *Citizen Hearst* (2021); poem selected by Dan Clendenin: *Death Be Not Proud (Holy Sonnet X)* by John Donne.

• APR 3, 2022

JwJ: Sunday April 10, 2022

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *Cruciform* for Sunday, 10 April 2022; book review by Dan Clendenin: *The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir* by Sherry Turkle (2021); film review by Dan Clendenin: *Mayor Pete* (2021); poem selected by Dan Clendenin: *Crucifixion* by Anna Akhmatova.

• MAR 27, 2022

JwJ: Sunday April 3, 2022

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *Beauty and Breaking* for Sunday, 3 April 2022; book review by Dan Clendenin: *Why I Would Have Killed Jesus and You Might Have Too* by David Nelson (2021); film review by Dan Clendenin: *The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous* (2021); poem selected by Debie Thomas: *Comfort Animal* by Joy Ladin.

• MAR 20, 2022

JwJ: Sunday March 27, 2022

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *Love and Lostness* for Sunday, 27 March 2022; book review by Dan Clendenin: *No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear* by Kate Bowler (2021); film review by Dan Clendenin: *Jimmy Carter* (2021); poem selected by Dan Clendenin: *The Prodigal's Mother Talks to God* by Allison Funk.

• MAR 13, 2022

JwJ: Sunday March 20, 2022

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *What Are You Asking?* for Sunday, 20 March 2022; book review by Dan Clendenin: *Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past* by David Reich (2018); film review by Dan Clendenin: *Walk Together Children: The 150th Anniversary of the Fisk Jubilee Singers* (2021); poem selected by Dan Clendenin: *The Peace of Wild Things* by Wendell Berry.

• MAR 6, 2022

JwJ: Sunday March 13, 2022

Weekly JourneywithJesus.net postings. Essay by Debie Thomas: *I Have Longed* for Sunday, 13 March 2022; book review by Dan Clendenin: *A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years In Eight Chapters* by Andrew H. Knoll (2021); film review by Dan Clendenin: *Fruits of Labor* (2021); poem selected by Dan Clendenin: *Prayer for Overcoming Indifference* by Chaim Stern, ed.

• ℗ & © 2009-2017 Daniel B. Clendenin, Ph.D.

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Poems and Prayers

A poem or prayer is featured here each week.

All poems may be found in the Poetry Index

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• The Noise of Politics
• Communion in the Asylum
• God's Grief
• Trinity Sunday

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Translate journey with jesus website, he's out of his mind.

Ray: make a blue hotlink to my essay out of the words " my essay last week" in the very first sentence . Make a blue link to my book review of What Jesus Meant.

Lectionary essay for the June 9, 2024 RCL

TITLE: "He's Out of His Mind"

Images and descriptions for the lectionary essay: (1) Scroll down for image with triangle face,  https://reknew.org/2017/06/was-jesus-crazy/

I've really searched hard but cannot find any info on this image, I would be grateful for you to try too!

(2)  "Insane Jesus" by Steve Cox:  https://moragalleries.com.au/scox/steve_cox-insane_jesus.html

Image for upper left module:   https://reknew.org/2017/06/was-jesus-crazy/  scroll down for image with triangle

Poem for upper right module: Communion in the Asylum ,  https://journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers/1738-communion-in-the-asylum

Image for upper right module:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Hudgins#/media/File :AndrewHudgins.jpg

Teaser text for upper right module: Andrew Hudgins’s first book,  Saints and Strangers  (1986), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; his third collection,  The Never-Ending  (1991), was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Weekly Prayer  at end of essay: Berry, Mad Farmer Liberation Front ,  https://www.journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers/460-wendell-berry-manifesto

Make the "weekly prayer" title below a blue hotlink to the poetry archive source

1 Samuel 8:4–20, 11:14–15 or Genesis 3:8–15 Psalm 138 or 130 2 Corinthians 4:13–5:1 Mark 3:20–35

From Our Archives

Michael Fitzpatrick, What Cannot Be Seen (2021); Debie Thomas, A House Divided (2018); and Dan Clendenin, Don't Lose Heart (2015).

For Sunday June 9, 2024

Lectionary Readings ( Revised Common Lectionary , Year B)

This Week's Essay

John 10:20, "He is demon-possessed and raving mad."

In my essay last week I considered the anger of Jesus in Mark 1:41 and 3:5 as a warning about "the dangerous illusion of a manageable deity." As the historian Garry Wills writes in his book What Jesus Meant , "what Jesus signified is always more challenging than we expect, more outrageous, more egregious." When we discover the early historical Jesus behind the so-called later Christ of faith, he becomes more rather than less mysterious to us. And so Mary Gordon calls Jesus "the irresistible incomprehensible."

The gospel for this week is another story about the outrageous, the egregious and the mysterious Jesus — not an angry Jesus, but a crazy Jesus. Just a few verses after Jesus "looked at them in anger" (3:5), he is accused of being demon-possessed, out of his mind, raving mad, beside himself, or of having lost his senses (3:20).

This accusation included a failed attempt at a family intervention: "His family went to take charge of him, for they said, 'He is out of his mind.'" When the crowd alerted Jesus that "your mother and brothers are looking for you," he brusquely dismissed his nuclear family. Who was his family? Anyone who does the will of God. John's gospel tells us that even his brothers did not believe in him.

Was Jesus mad? A lunatic? Certifiably crazy? Many interpreters have tried to reconstruct the mental health of Jesus 2,000 years after the fact, like the four-volume (!) study by the French physician Charles Binet-Sanglé (1868–1941) called La Folie de Jésus ( The Madness of Jesus ). These retrospective diagnoses draw predictably different conclusions — that Jesus was bipolar, a megalomaniac, a paranoid schizophrenic, a utopian fanatic, an epileptic, and so on. These efforts are obviously anachronistic, and a fruitless endeavor, but they do have the advantage of taking Mark's account seriously.

Other interpreters rebut the idea that Jesus was mentally ill. They assure us that Jesus was perfectly normal, and not a mad man. This view avoids psychological speculation, but it tends toward a safely innocuous Jesus, a meek and mild Jesus who was little more than a do-gooder. He was a Nice Guy, just like we learned from the flannel graphs in Sunday school. This interpretation risks sanitizing Mark's disturbing story — that family, friends, enemies, and authorities were deeply alarmed by the words and deeds of Jesus.

I can easily imagine feeling deeply apprehensive in the presence of Jesus. Just reflect for a moment on the hysteria that Mark describes in the first couple pages of his gospel. "And again a crowd gathered, so that Jesus and his disciples were not even able to eat." Jesus "could no longer enter a town openly" because of the crush of the crowds. People were "amazed at his authority." They wondered aloud, "Who is this? What is this?" At one house "the whole town gathered at the door." News and rumors about Jesus "spread quickly over the whole region."

Instead of psychoanalyzing Jesus, I keep wondering why Mark begins his gospel with such unflattering accounts of Jesus as angry, mad, and even demon-possessed. Why was he such a threat to his family, the religious authorities, and the government? Why are we barely five pages into Mark's story when "they began to plot how they might kill Jesus?" Why do the villagers of Nazareth try to murder him by pushing him off a cliff? Why did the Roman Empire even take any notice of Jesus? How and why did he threaten its political power? Why did Rome execute this village rabbi in a faraway province as a political criminal?

In fact, I think we can connect the anger of Jesus last week (1:41 and 3:5) with the charges of madness this week (3:20). We just need to flip the script. It is the world that has gone mad, not Jesus, and he is rightly angered and aggrieved at this — the religious sanctimony, economic exploitation, political oppression, social exclusion, and the like. And when Jesus disrupts this cultural status quo, he is scapegoated as insane.

The accusations of madness and demon-possession remind me of a famous "saying" by the desert dweller St. Anthony the Great (251–356). He was one of the first believers to flee the madness of the cities for the solitude of the desert. No one would have considered these eccentric monks to have been well-adjusted to a corrupt culture. They were outliers, both literally and figuratively. But they were unapologetic. Abba Anthony said, "A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, 'You are mad, you are not like us.'"

Similarly, many people would consider the farmer-poet Wendell Berry (born 1934) to be both angry and insane. And they would be right. Nor would he object to the charges. Berry was born to a family that had farmed Kentucky land for five generations. After studies and travels took him to the University of Kentucky, Stanford, France, Italy, and the Bronx, in 1965 he bought his own farm near his birth place.

He's been tilling the earth and upsetting the status quo ever since. Over fifty books of poetry, novels, essays, and short stories have earned him numerous awards as one of the leading truth-tellers of our day. The "dominant theme of our time," he says, is the violence done against human life and the land. 

Ever since the Industrial Revolution we have had to face the "fundamental incompatibility between industrial systems and natural systems, machines and creatures." He invokes the Amish as "the only communities that are successful by every appropriate standard." He romanticizes the Jeffersonian ideal of small landholders, logging with horses instead of mechanical skidders.

Berry has a series of poems about the Mad Farmer . In 16 poems from 1970 to 2013, the Mad Farmer expresses his grief and anger at the madness of contemporary culture — late stage techno-capitalism, violence to the land, the destruction of our communities. He proposes a counter-cultural vision of a more sane way to live. These poems are manifestos or even ravings by the angry farmer. By the normal canons of culture, the Mad Farmer is crazy, but also unrepentant. Says the Mad Farmer, "To be sane in a mad time / is bad for the brain, worse / for the heart. The world / is a holy vision, had we clarity / to see it — a clarity that men / depend on men to make."

Weekly Prayer Wendell Berry (born 1934)  Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more  of everything ready-made. Be afraid  to know your neighbors and to die.And you will have a window in your head.  Not even your future will be a mystery  any more. Your mind will be punched in a card  and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something  they will call you. When they want you  to die for profit they will let you know.  So, friends, every day do something  that won't compute. Love the Lord.  Love the world. Work for nothing.  Take all that you have and be poor.  Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace  the flag. Hope to live in that free  republic for which it stands.  Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man  has not encountered he has not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers.  Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.  Say that your main crop is the forest  that you did not plant,  that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested  when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.  Put your faith in the two inches of humus  that will build under the trees  every thousand years. Listen to carrion — put your ear  close, and hear the faint chattering  of the songs that are to come.  Expect the end of the world. Laugh.  Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful  though you have considered all the facts.  So long as women do not go cheap  for power, please women more than men. Ask yourself: Will this satisfy  a woman satisfied to bear a child?  Will this disturb the sleep  of a woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields.  Lie down in the shade. Rest your head  in her lap. Swear allegiance  to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the generals and the politicos  can predict the motions of your mind,  lose it. Leave it as a sign  to mark the false trail, the way  you didn't go. Be like the fox  who makes more tracks than necessary,  some in the wrong direction.  Practice resurrection.

Dan Clendenin:   [email protected]

Image credits: (1)  RE|KNEW ; and (2)  William Mora Galleries .

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A New eBook by Dan Clendenin - Our Contested Story

Our contested story: christian faith in an age of doubt (2019).

by Daniel B. Clendenin, Ph.D.

This is the distribution page for Dan's new ebook.  These files include no DRM* restrictions and so can be downloaded and read freely  (* = Digital Rights Management).

Available Formats

• EPUB (for most ebook readers except Kindle) instructions…
• MOBI (for Kindle)  instructions…
• AZW3  (for newer Kindles)  instructions…
• PDF  (for many devices) instructions…
• HTML (for many devices)  instructions…

Questions?  

• Dan (author):  [email protected]  or
• Ray (JwJ webmaster):  [email protected]

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EPUB — This common ebook format works with many e-reader apps and devices with the notable exception of Kindles (which accept MOBI, AZW3, or PDF formats).  For some e-readers, clicking on the EPUB link above may be sufficient to load the ebook onto your app or device.  Other devices (such as the Barnes and Noble nook e-reader) may require sideloading of the file onto the device.  Sideloading means first downloading the EPUB file onto a computer, then copying the file to your nook or other device by attaching it to the computer with a USB cable, and finally manually copying the downloaded EPUB into the proper directory on the device.  A quick web search for "how to sideload epubs on to my nook" (replace "nook" with your device name) should locate the proper instructions for your device.  For the nook, Barnes and Noble provides instructions here .

MOBI — This is the original Kindle format.  Older Kindles may require use of this format, and may not be able to use the newer AZW3 format.  Kindle apps running on a computer or a tablet or smartphone may be able to automatically load the ebook simply by clicking the MOBI link above.  Kindle devices (such as the Kindle Fire) may require sideloading as described in the EPUB instructions above. 

AZW3 — This is a newer Kindle format.  Use is similar to the MOBI instructions above, including the need for sideloading on some Kindle devices.

PDF — This format is commonly used to distribute all kinds of electronic documents, and works on almost any computer, smartphone, tablet, or e-reader device.  Sideloading may be required on some devices.  Some computers may require downloading the (free) Adobe Reader DC software, if you don't already have a way to read PDFs.

HTML — The old standard.  Can be downloaded and read by virtually any web browser just by clicking the link.

A new book by Dan Clendenin, now available free for download to your device or browser.

“Clendenin's newest book is a robust affirmation of both the ancient Christian story and our modern critical consciousness.”

—John Bravman, President of Bucknell University.

“ Our Contested Story is a whirlwind ride through the ancient yet contemporary conversation between Christian and secular cultures. Clendenin weaves a story that is faithful to modern knowledge and sensibility, and also to the vibrant historic core of Christian faith.”

— Bill Newsome, Vincent V.C. Woo Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University

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