Experimental Theology

Be Human in This Most Inhuman of Ages...

2012-03-16T04:26:00.000-05:00

You are not big enough to accuse the whole age effectively, but let us say you are in dissent. You are in no position to issue commands, but you can speak words of hope. Shall this be the substance of your message? Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God. You agree? Good. Then go with my blessing. But I warn you, do not expect to make many friends...
--Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

The Jesus Poems: Cana

2012-03-15T04:52:00.000-05:00

It was getting late
with the warm fuzz
of the wine
well worked into our minds
when the first sign
of the Kingdom of Heaven
occurred
in a back room
with only the paid help
as witnesses
and the quality
of the gift
passing unnoticed
because of our
intoxication.

The Slavery of Death: Part 25, Some Contrasts with Insurrection

2012-03-13T04:24:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking some more about my exchange with Peter Rollins regarding his book Insurrection and what I've been doing in The Slavery of Death series, ways our projects are similar and how they are different. (BTW, I hate the word "project." I really don't have "projects." All I have are "things I'm currently thinking about." But no projects.) However, before I get into these additional thoughts about Insurrection a couple of programming notes.

Programming Notes:
First, I don't intend for this post to be a critique or criticism of Insurrection in any way. My thoughts are simply rolling forward and this is the place where I collect my thoughts. So all I'm doing is simply sharing my thoughts. I'm not trying to debate or rebut Insurrection. I'm just clarifying, in my own mind, locations of contrast. I'm feeling around the edges. Intellectually, this is something I need to do. So if you don't want to witness this please stop reading!

Second, don't tweet any of this at Peter. I'm not trying to engage Peter in any sort of discussion or debate. He's a busy guy and I can spill thousands of words a day on this topic. (Regular readers know this.) Of course, if Peter wants to weigh in that would be great, but I don't want him to think he needs to respond or keep responding in any way. It's as simple as this: Peter make me think so here I am thinking. The more words I write about Insurrection the greater the complement to Peter and the more books he might sell. Win/win.

Finally, I'm going to call Peter by his first name. We've never met but I hate the academic distance created by the use of the last name. I'd much rather write "Peter" than "Rollins." I hope the use of Peter's first name signals that we're all friends here.

Recap and Review:
Okay, let's review and get everyone up to speed. I first used Insurrection in this post from The Slavery of Death series. In that post I noted connections between what I'd been arguing in the series (based largely upon the work of Ernest Becker) and Peter's argument that love can only emerge after the death of the deus ex machina.

I followed that post up with a critique of Insurrection. In that critique I said that one of the problems I saw in Insurrection was that it did not specify the necessary connection between the death of the deus ex machina and the life of love. Peter responded that the connection will become more clear in his forthcoming book. One area we cleared up in the comments of his post was that Peter had initially read me as saying that I didn't think the death of the deus ex machina was necessary. I noted that I did think such a "death of god" was necessary and that my "critique" had to do with a lack of specificity as to why it was necessary. That is, I wanted Insurrection to be less descriptive and more explanatory.

That's a subtle distinction but I think it's a big deal and it highlights some of the distinctions between what Peter is doing and what I'm doing. In light of that, I'd like to use the rest of this post to make those distinctions more clear. For myself at least.

Fitting Insurrection into The Slavery of Death series:
One way to make these distinctions is to show how I would incorporate Insurrection and the death of the deus ex machina into the Slavery of Death series. You can follow along in the figure above (click on it to open it in a new, larger window if you can't see the small font). For those who have been following the series our walk through the figure above will be a nice visual summary. For those new to The Slavery to Death series you can think of it as a psychological meditation on Hebrews 2.14-15, 1 John 3.8, and 1 John 3.14.

Hebrews 2.14-15
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

1 John 3.8b
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

1 John 3.14
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

In the figure above we start in Panel 1 with the reality of death. As you'll note, this reality sits behind all the other panels in the figure, Panels #1-#6. This represents the fact that death is the "last enemy" of Christ, the power behind the principalities and powers. Or, in the words of William Stringfellow, death is the Idol behind all idols.

For humans death creates a burden of existential anxiety. This is Panel 2.

Following Ernest Becker in his book The Denial of Death, humans create a cultural worldview that provides a route to significance and meaning in the face this anxiety. This is Panel 3. This worldview provides us with seemingly transcendent and durable "goods" to which we can attach our life stories. We serve these "greater" and "higher" goods and this service gives us a sense of meaning, security, self-esteem, and immortality. Becker calls this cultural heroics, finding self-esteem by participating within and supporting the cultural worldview.

Now, the key thing to note here is how death is still in the background in Panel 3. The entire pursuit of meaning and self-esteem is being driven by an underlying denial of death which is largely unconscious and, thus, neurotic in nature.

Obviously, religious belief is often a large part of any cultural worldview. The cultural god--Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, etc.--tends to support and affirm the values of the culture imbuing the cultural values with eternity. But in truth the cultural worldview is really driving the show. "God" is just the metaphysical rubber stamp. At root, our "way of life" is the real god. Power in its various manifestations is our true god, our true religion. This is why political discourse is so heated. There's a reason why many people think President Obama is the literal Anti-Christ. Politics--the grasping at power--is our religion.

So God is a part of all this, a part of the cultural worldview developed to handle our anxiety in the face of death. This is seen in Panel 4 where I've added the deus ex machina to the cultural worldview.

Now, one of the consequences of using the cultural worldview as a means to repress death anxiety is that the worldview must be believed absolutely for it to perform this function. This is key. If you have doubts that your value system is true then that value system isn't going to infuse your life projects with a feeling of transcendence, ultimacy and eternity. And it's this aspect of the worldview--that it has to be believed absolutely to "work" as a defense mechanism--that leads to the great tragedy of human existence: rivalry and violence. Our pursuit of meaning, identity, and self-esteem within a cultural worldview brings us, inexorably and tragically, into conflict with Others. Within the worldview we find ourselves embroiled in rivalries, pushing to secure the cultural goods that give us self-esteem in comparison with others. When we encounter outgroup members we engage in worldview defense, denigrating and acting aggressively toward Others. This dynamic is found in Panel 5 where two ideological Others encounter each other.

If we translate all this into biblical language we have something like Panel 6. The biblical writers didn't use language like cultural worldview, neuroses, deus ex machina, self-esteem, existential, meaning, or worldview defense. The biblical authors speak of death, sin, the works of the devil, idolatry, and the principalities and powers. Mapping our modern descriptions onto the biblical descriptions we can say that the principalities and powers stand for the cultural worldview and idolatry as the way we serve these powers to gain a sense of self-esteem and meaning. This idolatry produces "the works of the devil"--selfishness, rivalry, violence.

Having incorporated the deus ex machina into the scheme we are working with in The Slavery of Death series we can now turn to points of contrast between this model and what we find in Insurrection.

1. Connecting the Deus ex Machina with Sin
Recall that my critique of Insurrection was that it didn't describe why there was a necessary link between the deus ex machina and failures of love. The model above provides the link I was looking for. Insofar as the deus ex machina participates in the cultural worldview it functions as a defense mechanism to handle/repress existential anxiety in the face of death/finitude. Consequently, the deus ex machina supports cultural heroics that bring us into rivalry with ingroup members and promotes violence toward outgroup members (via worldview defense). Thus, we must "die" to the deus ex machina if we are going to be open and loving toward others, ingroup and outgroup. Here we see the necessary connection between the "death of god" and a life of love.

I can't find an equivalent connection in Insurrection. In Insurrection Peter asks us to squarely face the anxiety involved in the death of the deus ex machina as this will enable us to love our neighbor. But why? That's the question at the root of my critique. Why does facing anxiety make us more loving?

Peter is right in noting that the deus ex machina is intimately involved in providing us with existential comfort. On this we agree. But what I don't find in Insurrection is a connection between this need for existential comfort and sin. And without that connection the association with love isn't at all clear. This is why I've said Insurrection needs a more robust theology of sin and the satanic.

In the model above, thanks to Ernest Becker, we've observed the missing link: Existential comfort can only be produced by the worldview (of which the deus ex machina is a small part) when it is believed absolutely. And it's this fear-driven dogmatism that produces the sin. This is the connection, the connection made by Ernest Becker, that completes the picture of Insurrection.

2. A Focus on the Principalities and Powers Rather than the Death of God
Another point of contrast between the model above and Insurrection is how we understand the crucifixion event. For Peter the crucifixion is primarily about the death of god as captured in Christ's cry from the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" For me the crucifixion is "taking up the cross," renouncing the principalities and powers (think John Howard Yoder and Rene Girard here).

To be sure, there is some overlap. The deus ex machina is an idol. In this the deus ex machina is just another, albeit religious, manifestation of the principalities and powers. The same religious power that was attacked by both the prophets and Jesus. Following their example we should resist the principalities and powers whenever they manifest in religious garb, calling out the satanic aspects of much that is now ascendant in Christianity.

But this is much bigger than religion. For two reasons. First, atheists are just as enslaved to the fear of death as Christians are beholden to the deus ex machina. Atheists as much as Christians are striving after cultural heroics, a source of self-esteem and meaning. Consequently, atheists are caught in the same demonic trap. How, then, to explain their conversion? As a "death of god"? As the death of a deus of machina they don't even believe in? To be sure it could be described that way if we use "god" as shorthand for "worldview," even an atheistic worldview. But that's unnecessarily confusing. No doubt "god" is a good beginning place for Christians, the people most likely to read Insurrection. But if we want a more comprehensive treatment we should start with a model that transcends religion in describing the idolatrous captivity of the entire world, theist, atheist, and a/theist alike. This is why I think focusing on "worldview," "culture," and the principalities and powers is better than focusing upon something religiously narrow like the deus ex machina.

A second reason for not focusing too tightly on the deus ex machina has to do with religious populations themselves. Specifically, while the vast majority of Christians likely do believe in a deus ex machina (beliefs sociologists have characterized as moralistic therapeutic deism), at the end of the day these beliefs are pretty irrelevant. Most Christians are pursuing self-esteem and meaning in exactly the same way as everyone else within the culture. Which is to say, so what if Christians think there is a God out there taking care of them now and after death? What really matters, spiritually speaking, is how American Christians just look like Americans in how they live. As I noted above in my discussion of politics and power, culture trumps religion. We must not think that the tail is wagging the dog. Christians care more about power, their bank account, and their weight than they do about a halo and a harp in heaven, as consoling as those beliefs might be. Yes, thinking that God will help you find good parking spaces is comforting, existentially speaking. But the real idolatry is found elsewhere.

In sum, there are two reasons why I think a focus on a "death of god" is too narrow. First, it excludes atheists from the conversation about idolatry. Second, it fails to target the root source of idolatry among Christians themselves. On its own belief in the deus ex machina, while infantile, is innocuous. The real poison comes when "God" is used to support "a way of life" that creates selfishness, rivalry and violence. This focus on worldviews and worldview defense allows us to cast a broader net and to place our finger more directly on the pulse of the demonic.

One response that I think Peter could offer at this point is that he's not trying to present a robust and comprehensive theology of idolatry in Insurrection. Rather, he's just speaking to a specific form of religious idolatry. If that's the case I have no problems and simply offer up the model above as a more comprehensive analysis that can capture the idolatry described in Insurrection and anywhere else we might find it, religious or otherwise.

3. How about Dorothy Day and Saint Francis?
In my critique of Insurrection I brought up the example of Dorothy Day. Here was someone radically committed to a life of love who attended Mass everyday, said the Rosary, and engaged in all sorts of religious rituals to sustain her life of service. I had asked, how does someone like Dorothy Day fit into the scheme described in Insurrection? No doubt Day struggled with doubts, but she didn't go to Mass or pray the Rosary to deconstruct her faith over and over again as Peter recommends in Insurrection. In fact, Day did the exact opposite. As did Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In light of that, could we not pursue faith like Day and Bonhoeffer? Would Peter point to Bonhoeffer and Day as exemplary Christians worthy of emulation? My hunch is that he would. If so, the paths toward love might be more diverse than Insurrection suggests.

Why might that be? As I noted above, Insurrection is more descriptive than explanatory. And as a description it's extraordinarily powerful and deep. The path Peter describes in Insurrection is one that many of us have taken. We grew up with an immature and infantile view of God. A Sunday School version of God. And when this God collapsed it was extraordinarily painful. Our ground of being had given way. More, we've never really been able to put the pieces back together again. Consequently, the only way we've been able to use the word "God" is to connect it to love. "God is love," we say. This is the path traced in Insurrection.

As a description this fits many of us. But it's not a comprehensive explanation. Thus, when Insurrection fits we feel it is right. And it is right for many of us. But is it right for everyone? It's sort of like Hume's dictum: You can't get an ought from an is. Just because Insurrection describes the way it is for many of us can we conclude that it ought to be this way for everyone?

What are we to do with the stories of saints who have walked a different sort of path toward love? How do their stories fit in the scheme? I've already talked about Dorothy Day so let me float another example, St. Francis.

Most of you know the story of St. Francis. He was a rich, spoiled kid. As he began to follow God's calling he began to have conflict with his rich and powerful father. One day the conflict came to a head when Francis sold some of his father's stuff to assist a priest in the rebuilding of a church he and Francis were undertaking. Francis's father drug him before the secular and religious authorities of the town hoping they could help straighten Francis out. At the high point of the trial Francis stripped naked and gave his clothing back to his father, publicly renouncing anything his father had given him. Even the clothes on his back. Then Francis walked out of town. Naked. And singing.

How does the joy of St. Francis, along with the religiosity of Dorothy Day, fit into Insurrection? Again, Peter says that the crucifixion event is one of "utter desolation." But why can't it be a matter of utter joy?

This is another place where I think the focus on the principalities and powers pays some dividends. True, when an infantile belief in God crashes and burns it can be painful. Giving up a false notion of God can bring us to the bottom, to utter desolation. But true conversion, as I see it, isn't about the "death of god" per se. It's about renouncing "the world." This is why St. Paul felt so liberated and joyous when he counted all his accomplishments, most of them religious accomplishments, as "rubbish" (or, more strongly translated, "crap" or "shit"). This is why Francis was singing even though he was naked. It's not so much that God died for Francis as much as it was Francis who died to the cultural hero system, to the principalities and powers. Francis was free. Liberated. To his father and to the world Francis was "dead." Crucified. Francis had lost his life in order to find it.

Again, this is not to contradict what I said earlier. If we hold to a view of God that is idolatrous then that view of God has to die if we are to love others. But the deeper trick is in renouncing the way the death-denying culture insists that I construct my identity and self-esteem. God might be deeply involved in all this or not. Both Day and St. Francis were irreligious before they found God. There wasn't much of a Sunday School God to "die" when they experienced their conversion, no deep religious aspect of their identity. Again, this is why the death of God is not necessarily connected to a life of love. God or not, the key is to get at the root dynamic, how the cultural worldview and the self-esteem and identity it supports is driven by a slavery to the fear of death.

Peter's response here and to contrast #2 above, I would guess, would be similar to the one he gave in his response to my critique. Specifically, Peter says "I am not so interested in what you or I believe as in what role that belief is playing in our lives." What sort of role might that be? Peter elaborates: "many people think that I am arguing about the type of belief we hold when I am actually concerned with exploring the power that various beliefs hold for us. A fetish object is an object that we know is not magic but treat as if it is. An object that protects us from encountering our own impotence in a direct way even though we may acknowledge it intellectually." Obviously, Christians aren't the only people with "fetish objects." This frame (fetish objects over "death of god") would allow Peter to create a more comprehensive definition of idolatry and address some of my concerns in contrast #2 above. But it would, however, mean that Insurrection is simply retracing the steps of Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil with one of the most important pieces missing (i.e., worldview defense). See my point #1 above.

Back to Day and St. Francis, in light of all this my guess would be that Peter would argue that Day and St. Francis gave up a "fetish object" in their conversions. But if that fetish object wasn't God, and it doesn't seem that it was, what was it? And why characterize it as a "death of god"? And why insist that the response to the loss be one of "utter desolation"?

For my part I'd argue, for both Day and St. Francis, that the fetish object wasn't God but the cultural self-esteem project, a project they joyfully jettisoned, along with St. Paul, counting it all as "loss" and "rubbish."

Summary and Conclusion
Obviously, there are lot of areas of overlap between Insurrection and what I've done in this Slavery of Death series, a series linking Christus Victor theology (along with other theologians like William Stringfellow) with the work of existential psychologists like Ernest Becker. But I do think there are some differences. Feel free to disagree, but I think I'm working with a broader, more explanatory framework. More explanatory in that the causal links between existential consolation and sin are specified in a way that I can't find in Insurrection. Broader in that by focusing on worldviews, self-esteem, and cultural heroics we can describe enslavement to the principalities and powers for both the religious and irreligious. God doesn't always die. But in every case we die to the cultural hero system, to the idols of selfishness, rivalry and violence. And by focusing on a renunciation of the principalities and powers as the key to conversion (rather than upon a "death of god" which is merely a subspecies of this renunciation), we can embrace the spiritual journeys of saints like Dorothy Day and St. Francis.

For some of us experience utter desolation in moving toward a life of love, engaging in a/theistic worship to deconstruct our faith (see Insurrection).

Some of us, by contrast, attend Mass every day and pray the Rosary.

And some of us hit the road naked and singing.

The Monastic in the House: Prayer versus the Dishes

2012-03-12T04:57:00.002-05:00

I've recently been reading through the Rule of St. Benedict in anticipation of a series I might do. And when you read the Rule it's not uncommon to begin thinking about adding some monastic structure to your life, mainly about being more intentional in prayer and the reading of the Psalms.

So the other day I was kicking that around. Where in my day could I carve out 30 minutes for prayer? In the morning? Midday? At night? How about all three, praying at Lauds, Sext and Vespers?

And as I pondered this spiritual pursuit a thought drifted through my mind, "Why don't you just do the dishes for Jana everyday? Isn't that a better use of 30 minutes?"

I think this thought came to me for two reasons. The first, obviously, has to do with my own writings where I've argued that we use spirituality to replace being a better person. In this case I was indulging in a private spiritual fancy rather than helping out more around the house.

The second reason has to do with the Rule itself. Prayer isn't the only thing the Rule discusses. A large part of the Rule is in describing the various ways the monks are to take care of the monastery. And kitchen cleanup is a part of that.

All this to say, I eventually dropped my pursuit of a structured prayer time. I'm now using that time to do the dishes. Not that I've given up on prayer, it just remains an irregular practice. For God has called me, through the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, to do the dishes rather than to prayer.

This is, I believe, one of the few times where Jana has agreed with how I've discerned the spirits...

Peter Rollins's Response

2012-03-09T04:48:00.008-06:00

Recently, as a part of my The Slavery of Death series I wrote a critique of Peter Rollins's book Insurrection. Yesterday, Peter posted a response (I think because many of you tweeted at him) over at his blog. Head on over and check it out and share your impressions there or here (or both places).

The gist of my original post was that I couldn't find in Insurrection the necessary connection between the "death of god" (crucifixion, Part 1 of Insurrection) and the practices of love (resurrection, Part 2 of Insurrection). More specifically, why does the Deus ex Machina interfere with love? Why do we have to get rid of the Deus ex Machina for love to flow forth?

As I wrote in my original post, the only connection I could discern in Insurrection was that the Deus ex Machina promoted an otherworldly spirituality. Love is projected onto a god "out there" rather than being directed at flesh and blood people. This is the root of my critique in the Bait and Switch post.

So I agree that this is a problem. Otherworldliness is rampant in contemporary Christianity. As Stanley Hauerwas has noted, American spirituality is "too spiritual."

This is correct as far as it goes. I just don't think it goes deep enough. In my opinion, the deep problem with the Deus ex Machina isn't otherworldliness or existential infantalism (believing that God is the Benevolent Father in the Sky who will take care of us), though these are problems. My take is that I think these are surface level symptoms of the deeper disease, the runny nose rather than the virus itself. The real problem, in my opinion, are the biblical problems, the Christus Victor problems:

Sin. Death. The Devil. The Principalities and Powers.

As I read it, these are problems that don't show up a lot in Insurrection. What I think is lacking in Insurrection (surprise, surprise) is the very thing we are working through in the Slavery of Death series (and which I touch on a bit in The Authenticity of Faith): a robust theology of sin and the satanic, the roots of selfishness, rivalry, and violence.

1 John 3.8
The reason the Son of Man appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

In summary, I don't think Rollins and I disagree at all on the surface level, that the "death" of the Deus ex Machina is necessary for love to be truly embraced. The difference, if there is one, and there might not be one, has to do with 1) how we specify the underlying machinery (the psychological dynamics at work), and 2) where the root problem is to be found. For Rollins the problem seems to be existential infantalism (the need for the Big Other). For me, that's a symptom a deeper problem: our slavery to the fear of death which produces the works of the devil in our lives. The Deus ex Machina in this case is less a cause than a symptom, a mask that is deployed (mostly unconsciously) to obscure the deeper dynamic.

What I can't tell is if these distinctions in our projects make much of a difference. There's considerable overlap. But I do think starting with the slavery to the fear of death as prior to the Deus ex Machina is a beginning place that has greater explanatory power and can incorporate more biblical, theological and psychological material.

Thoughts?

Gungor Live and The Brilliance

2012-03-08T04:51:00.002-06:00

Over the weekend Jana and I got to catch the Gungor concert in Dallas. It was a belated Valentine's Day date.

It was a great concert. If you can, try to catch them on their tour which is just starting out.

Funny story about the concert. Although Jana and I weren't the oldest people at the concert we were in the top 2%. There were not a lot of 40-somethings.

Not that I'm particularly self-conscious about my age. It mainly had to do with walking into the venue and finding no chairs. No chairs! I'm sure this is typical at a lot of club venues, but it took us by surprise.

And here's the deal. I hate standing up. Hate. It. I try to sit down whenever I can. Jana isn't as philosophically opposed to standing as I am, but she doesn't like standing for long periods because it bothers her back. She's got a sensible physical reason for not liking to stand. My issues are more existential. Why stand when you can sit?

So the prospect of standing for four to five hours really knocked us for a loop. Jana is thinking about her back. I'm thinking about theodicy.

However, we spotted a long bench running alongside one wall. So we made for that and got a seat. But the trouble with this situation was that everyone would be standing in front of us and the stage was elevated. So seated here we wouldn't be able to see the band.

So we scan the room for other options. Jana spots a smaller stage to the left of the main stage. It was mostly full of tables, speakers and equipment. But there was a stack of chairs over there and some room in front of the equipment. What if we put those chairs out on the stage? Because this side stage was elevated and offered a great view of the main stage.

But would we be allowed to sit there? Would the staff chase us off the stage?

Not wanting to give up our seats along the wall, as crappy as they were, I crossed the room to set up some chairs on the sidestage creating Base Camp Bravo while Jana remained behind at Base Camp Alpha to hold our spots on the bench. As we were planning all this out the only other 40-something couple in the place overheard our plans and wanted to know if they could participate. Apparently, once you hit 40 you REALLY want to sit down. So, forming an alliance, me and the other guy head over and set out four chairs on the second stage. We sit down and wait to see if we'll get shooed away.

We wait until the concert is about to start and no one chases us off. More, about 20 other people follow our lead finding places to sit amongst the equipment on the second stage. Pulling the trigger I send word to Base Camp Alpha to pack up and come on over. The ladies fight through the crowd and make it to Base Camp Bravo on the second stage.

It all worked out. The old people had great seats. Jana's back was saved and I averted an existential crisis.

Beyond the awesomeness of Gungor the great discovery of the night was the opening band, The Brilliance. I strongly encourage you to check them out at their website and on iTunes. On their self-titled album The Brilliance stand out tracks include Breathe, Open Up, Mercy, Wounded Healer, and Christ Be With Me. On their Lent album standout tracks include Dust We Are And Shall Return, Now And At the Hour of Our Death, and Does Your Heart Break? From their Advent Vol. 1 album standout tracks include Light, Open Up (a different arrangement from The Brilliance album), and May You Find a Light.

The song Mercy from The Brilliance album may be the most beautiful, haunting, and theologically profound lament I have ever heard. And as a Winter Christian that's saying a lot. If you get the album or just the song, set some time aside to be alone with the best sound system you have. Get quiet and listen to Mercy.

Lyrics for Mercy from The Brilliance

When I think of God's great love
I think of Noah's time.
When love was not enough
and man was forced to die.
This God He sent the flood
to kill the race despised.
The children swept away.
I hear a mother's cry.

Mercy, Lord have mercy.
Mercy on me.
Every soul is searching for you.
Won't you save us?
Grant us peace.

O distant God above,
why do you make us blind?
With eyes that cannot see
we seek but do not find.
And if you are so near
why are you standing by
when peace has been long lost?
Please hear your children cry.

Mercy, Lord have mercy.
Mercy on me.
Every soul is searching for you.
Won't you save us?
Grant us peace.

Kyrie, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison...

Church as Fan Service

2012-03-07T05:44:00.001-06:00

I'm a Netflix subscriber so from time to time I'll surf through their selection of streaming videos to see if I can find anything good (I usually can't). Once in a while I'll look through the Anime movies as I've enjoyed a few sci-fi Anime movies in the past.

It's hard to tell if a movie is any good so I spend time reading the Netflix member reviews. And as I surfed the Anime movies I kept seeing sentences like this in the reviews:

Great movie if you can live with all the fan service.

Lots of fan service if you're into that.

Awesome! Tons of fan service!!!!!

Reading reviews like this I wondered to myself, "What in the world is fan service?"

Fan service, I discovered, are things added to Anime movies to titillate viewers, generally male viewers. Fan service is "giving the fans what they want." For the most part this means drawing female Anime characters with large breasts and short skirts. It also includes nudity and graphic violence.

What is key here is that none of this has any relevance to the plot. It's just "eye candy" to push the visual buttons of the viewer. It's "servicing the fan," not advancing the story. Here's the current top Urban Dictionary definition of fan service:

In general, fan service refers to scenes designed to excite or titillate the viewer...Basically, if it has little plot-redeeming value, but makes the viewer sit up and take notice, it's probably fan service in one form or another.

Having found all this out I can now navigate Netflix in a more informed manner, generally staying clear of movies with reviews mentioning a lot of fan service.

But fan service as a concept has stuck in my mind.

And the other day I began to wonder about fan service at church.

To be clear, I'm not talking about nudity and short skirts at church. I'm talking about the root idea of fan service: adding something that "pleases" (servicing the fans, giving the people what they want) that has nothing to do with advancing the plot.

Let me give a simple example. In the adult bible class I help teach on Sunday mornings at church we have coffee and donuts. That's fan service. People like having coffee and donuts in class so we provide them. But coffee and donuts don't have anything to do with the mission of the church. Coffee and donuts don't help advance the story/plot of the Kingdom of God.

Now there is nothing wrong with coffee and donuts. I sure like having them both in class. I'm just illustrating how the concept of fan service might be applied to church. Such an application opens up a lot of interesting questions. Specifically, how much of church life is devoted to fan service? How much of the physical environment, the worship, the programs/classes, etc. can be considered fan service? That is, how much of what is going on at a given church is devoted to "giving the people what they want" rather than advancing the story of the Kingdom?

Because it seems to me that a lot of churches are so beholden to American consumerism that they are almost wholly given over to fan service, if only to attract the "spiritual shopper."

Everything is created to give the people what they want. Church as fan service.

The Slavery of Death: Part 24, Timor Mortis and "the Glory of Those Who Are Reborn"

2012-03-06T05:45:00.004-06:00

As we near the end of this series it's time to clean up some lingering questions.

As you know, this entire series has been a prolonged meditation upon Hebrew 2.14-15:

Hebrews 2.14-15
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

By this point in the series we've unpacked how our lives can become "enslaved to the fear of death" and how that slavery makes us participate in "the works of the devil." We have also briefly sketched how Christ sets us free from this dynamic (Christus Victor), something I'll try to describe in a bit more detail in a final summary post. In the last post I described the beginning of this process as adopting a martyrological identity--learning to die so that we might live, losing our life so that we might find it.

In light of the word "martyr" it's time to clarify some things regarding our fear of death and address a couple of the questions you've been asking me from the very beginning of this series. Specifically, is the fear of death to be totally conquered? Are Christians to be fearless in the face of death? And if so, what prevents us from throwing our lives away?

I'd like to approach these questions by talking about the development of timor mortis in the thought of Augustine.

First, a hat tip to Charlie Collier over at Wipf & Stock. As Unclean was wrapping up Charlie and I exchanged some emails about future books I might do. I mentioned I had been thinking about a book fusing the work of Ernest Becker with theologians like William Stringfellow. In light of that, Charlie mentioned I look into Augustine's treatment of timor mortis.

Timor mortis is Latin for the "fear of death" (timor being the root of words like timorous and mortis the root for words like mortality).

Timor mortis has an interesting history in the thought of Augustine and tracing the development of his thought on this subject helps us address some of the lingering questions in this series. Like we have been doing, Augustine was trying to address these sorts of questions in relation to timor mortis: Does the faithful Christian fear death? Is the fear of death a sign of spiritual cowardice and a lack of faith?

Early in this writing Augustine seems to suggest that Christians should not fear death. To fear death would be a sign that the Christian did not trust in God and the resurrection. Here Augustine seems to have been greatly influenced by the heroic feats of both pagan and Christian martyrs, individuals who showed no fear in facing death. For Augustine this appears to have been the ideal the Christian should aspire to. More, Augustine was also influenced by the Stoics who argued that the truly wise and virtuous would be calm and fearless in the face of death. Exemplars here are Socrates and Seneca.

This heroic ideal, one based upon the examples of the Christian martyrs, seems an almost impossible standard. Normal people fear death. Does this mean that we lack faith?

Over time Augustine began to change his stance on this issue. It seems that Augustine's early treatments of timor mortis were overly influenced by his desire to place the courage of Christian martyrs in the same heroic pantheon with the pagan philosophers, warriors, and martyrs. Augustine wanted the Christian heroes to be as courageous as the pagan heroes. In this, Augustine was writing more apologetically than pastorally. Later, as his interests in timor mortis became more pastoral Augustine began to back away from the heroic ideal of the Christian martyr scorning death.

According to scholars this change in Augustine's views regarding timor mortis started during the Pelagian controversies. Why that controversy sparked this change need not concern us. But the result was that Augustine began to take a more realistic stance about the experience of timor mortis in the Christian experience. Crucially, Augustine no longer considered timor mortis to be a spiritual or moral failure. Augustine comes to argue that the fear of death is a natural and regular feature of being human. Consequently, the goal of the Christian life is not in the eradication of timor mortis but in how we wrestle with it day after day. The virtue here is less about scorning death than about daily fortitude and perseverance. Here is Carole Straw summarizing this development in Augustine:

Before Augustine, conquest of the fear of death was held to test the faith of Christians in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection; it proved confidence in the reward awaiting a life of virtue. Fear of death revealed doubt, guilt, and a misguided attachment to the body. Augustine began his career within this tradition, but the controversies he faced led him to change his views...Augustine will come to reject the triumphalism of earlier tradition. He will accept fear of death as a part of the human condition. Fear of death is a natural response that does not indicate want of faith; rather, it affirms the value of bodily existence realized finally in the resurrection. Prudence also dictates that one fear death to check sinfulness.

Various arguments seem to have moved Augustine in this direction. First, Augustine came to realize that a complete absence of timor mortis would cause Christians to become indifferent to things like suicide. More, an absence of timor mortis would cause Christians to use suicide as a sign of faith. That is, if timor mortis is a lack of faith in the resurrection wouldn't suicide become the ultimate expression of faith? Augustine senses this line of argument and he works in The City of God to push back. He mentions the student of Plato who, upon reading about the immortality of the soul, got up and jumped off a building to his death. Isn't that faith? And is that the sort of faith and fearlessness we should see in the Christian? Augustine realizes that a line of reasoning, similar to the one followed by the student of Plato, could be worked out from within the Christian tradition. Specifically, why struggle with the Christian life when we could simply commit suicide after being baptized? Wouldn't that be the easiest and safest way to guarantee our salvation? Augustine floating that argument:

[W]hy do we spend time on those exhortations to the newly baptized. We do our best to kindle their resolve to preserve their virginal purity, or to remain continent in widowhood, or to remain faithful to their marriage vows. But there is available an excellent short cut which avoids any danger of sinning; if we can persuade them to rush to a self-inflicted death immediately upon receiving remission of sins, we shall send them to the Lord in the purest and soundest condition!

To this Augustine responds that "if anyone thinks that we should go in for persuasion on these lines, I should not call him silly, but quite crazy." He concludes that "suicide is monstrous."

But why? For Augustine faith isn't really faith until it has wrestled with the fear of death across the lifespan. That is, a lack of concern about death isn't a sign of faith. Rather, faith is manifested in the daily wrestling with death. This is what perfects faith over time in the saints. Augustine writes, "[T]he faithful overcoming the fear of death is a part of the struggle of faith itself." More, the fear of death is simply an acknowledgement of the gift and goodness of life itself. To be indifferent to your life is to spurn the gift of God. Timor mortis, wanting to preserve your own life, is, at root, an act of gratitude.

What this means, then, is that timor mortis is a fact of life and a regular feature of the Christian experience. The fear of death is always with us, moment by moment and day by day. A lack of timor mortis would signal an indifference that could be, by turns, pathological, triumphalistic, or a spurning of the gift of life. Thus, a victory over the fear of death is not experienced as fearlessness, the complete absence of timor morits. Rather, the victory over the fear of death is witnessed in daily perseverance.

The key, in light of Hebrews 2, has less to do with the fear of death than with a slavery to the fear of death. The fear cannot be healthily avoided. But overcoming a slavery to the fear can be, must be, pursued day in and day out.

As Augustine says, our faith doesn't mean "that death had turned into a good thing." No, he contends, "the death of the body...is not good for anyone." So the goal of the Christian life is not to seek out death or to treat life cheaply. Death is evil. Consequently, we are to struggle against death, resisting death in all its manifestations. This struggle, according to Augustine, "increases the merit of patience if it is endured with devout faith."

For Augustine timor mortis no longer signals the failure of faith but rather works to produce "the glory of those who are reborn."

The Evangelical Universalist Forum

2012-03-05T05:03:00.001-06:00

For those of you interested in the conversation regarding universal reconciliation, particularly from an evangelical perspective, I want to make you aware of the Evangelical Universalist Forum featuring Gregory MacDonald (Robin Parry) and Thomas Talbott. Parry and Talbott are two of the leading thinkers regarding universal reconciliation having written two of the "must read" books on this subject--Parry's The Evangelical Universalist and Talbott's The Inescapable Love of God.

I was honored when the good folks at the EU Forum asked me to join the forum as one of their Featured Guests alongside Parry, Talbott and others.

I'm just getting started at the EU Forum with a few threads up about neuroscience, the prophetic imagination, and how proponents of universal reconciliation read the bible. There's also a place where people can ask me questions.

If you're interested in the conversation concerning universal reconciliation the EU Forum would be a good place to hang out.

On Blog Arguments and Dumbfounding

2012-03-02T04:14:00.002-06:00

First, a confession.

I'm not the best at responding to blog comments. For that I apologize. I'm not horrible, but I'm not as good at responding as I'd like to be.

There are two reasons about why this is the case.

The first has to do with the speed at which my blog moves and the kind of posts I write. Given that I try to post every weekday, the minute one post goes up I'm already hard at work on the next post. Consequently, any given day my attention is mainly on writing the next day's post. In my mind I'm always one day ahead of the blog. Yes, I do read all the comments. But more often than not when I have a moment I'm writing the next post rather than weighing in on the post live on the blog.

Happily, there is a strong contingent of regular readers here who ably add to and expand upon anything I write. More, when people ask questions ya'll jump in with answers. Everyday I'm grateful for how you collaborate and participate in the comments.

So that's the main reason I'm not as active in the comments as I'd like. The second reason has to do with the subject of this post. And it has to do with dumbfounding.

If you've read Unclean or The Authenticity of Faith you know I've been thinking a lot about how dumbfounding affects groups. For example, in a recent post I used dumbfounding to analyze why groups, like churches, get into fights about appropriate dress.

To review, dumbfounding (discovered by psychologist Jonathan Haidt) occurs when people make normative judgments based upon their feelings and then struggle to produce reasons for those judgments.

Dumbfounding takes its cue from the thought of David Hume who famously argued that "reason is the slave of the passions." The argument here is that emotions are primary. We feel before we think. Thinking, in this instance, is more about post hoc justification than a process of discernment.

This very different from how we think things should work. We tend to think our feelings follow our reasons. We like to think, when faced with a judgment we have to make, that we reason things out and then respond, emotionally and behaviorally. Deliberation and reasons come first followed by feelings and actions. We discern something to be bad and, in light of that discernment, feel moral outrage well up within us.

But it doesn't really work that way. According to Hume it's the other way around. Feelings come first. We feel the moral outrage and, in light of those feelings, go in search of reasons as to why. Thinking, in this instance, isn't producing our outrage but is being used to explain the existence of our feelings, to ourselves and our neighbors.

Here's the practical import of all this: Reasons aren't persuasive. Reasons are self-justifications.

And this explains why I struggle with certain comments on the blog (and on other blogs). Particularly comments disagreeing with me.

To be clear, I'm not saying that when people disagree with me they don't have good reasons or solid arguments. It's just that I don't find those arguments persuasive. Largely, and this is key, for a host of emotional reasons. Consequently, until I feel differently about things, until my affections change, exchanging self-justifications in the comments section of a blog isn't going to move the conversation forward. It's a dumbfounding situation.

We've all experienced this or seen it happen in blog conversations. Like many of you I've engaged in a lot of blog debates over the years and I've never seen two people who have disagreed sharply on an issue reach an agreement by the end of the exchange. And more often than not, rather than bringing people closer together these conversations tend to deteriorate. And why is that? It's because we are dumbfounded. Things get emotional because beneath all the verbal give and take there is a set strong feelings sitting close to the surface that regularly spills over.

So at the end of the day if you and I disagree strongly I'm not sure we have a whole lot to say to each other. I'm not trying to be dismissive in saying that. I'm making an empirical prediction.

Consider an example. Let's talk about our current President. Is he doing a good job? Imagine two people with strong feelings on the subject, someone who thinks he's doing a horrible job and someone who thinks he is doing a great job (or the best job anyone could do). Do we really think these two individuals can objectively exchange reasons and data that could convince the other?

No way.

And if that's the case, why bother arguing about it on a blog?

That said, I do think there are people on the fence. People with no firm opinions. Seekers. People who at a particular time in life, due to their life experiences, feel their affections changing. I'll respond to the questions of seekers. And you can sense this openness pretty quickly in a comment/er. By contrast, I will tend to leave outright disagreement alone.

Beyond the dumbfounding research, my choice here is informed by the work of William James, particularly his essay "The Will to Believe."

In the essay James talks about hypotheses (positions and arguments we might offer to each other in these blog debates) being, using a electrical metaphor, either live or dead options for us. James describing this:

Let us give the name of hypothesis to anything that may be proposed to our belief; and just as the electricians speak of live and dead wires, let us speak of any hypothesis as either live or dead. A live hypothesis is one which appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed. If I ask you to believe in the Mahdi, the notion makes no electric connection with your nature--it refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all. As an hypothesis it is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even if he be not one of the Mahdi's followers), the hypothesis is among the mind's possibilities: it is alive. This show the deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual thinker.

Our emotions are hugely implicated in how ideas become alive or dead to us. And you can sense in an argument the degree to which the other person is "live" to the position or argument you are offering. By contrast, when you sense the person is "dead" to the idea I'd say it's time to move on.

And to be confessional, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'll readily admit to being "dead" to a host of ideas. For example, I'm pretty "dead" to Calvinism. Nothing in it attracts me, emotionally or intellectually. Calvinism does not "scintillate with any credibility" in my heart or mind. So yes, I admit, I'm pretty hard to talk to or convince on that score.

But this isn't to say that I don't want dissent registered on the blog. Dissent reminds everyone that there are many sides to an issue. And that's important to prevent the creation of echo chambers.

And to be sure Hume wasn't 100% correct. Many of us make decisions based upon rational deliberation. More, these reasons are often used to battle our emotional and knee-jerk reactions. Ideas previously dead to us can come to life.

But then again, I still think this has more to do with emotional maturity than with anything else. Wisdom is learning to hold your feelings in abeyance to give yourself time to think, listen and learn. You can't think well if you can't control your emotions. Emotional self-control is a prerequisite to critical thinking.

At the end of the day, this is what I think about strong blog disagreements. I think we aren't really disagreeing. We just feel differently about things. About God. About government. About moral issues and hot-button topics (and emotions are why they are called hot). About all sorts of stuff.

You feel one way and I feel another way. And that about sums it up.

The Jesus Poems: Incarnation

2012-03-01T05:25:00.002-06:00

I'm going to try and see if I might write a few poems about the life of Jesus. These attempts will show up under the heading "The Jesus Poems." So, to start, a poem entitled "Incarnation":

In the beginning
was a bastard.
Or so rumored.
Voices carried
on a Nazarene breeze,
from shadowy doorways,
down dusty streets.
The gift
of a small town.
And an ancestry
of prostitutes
and murderers.
All this--
the emptying
the pouring out
the lowering
the descent--
kenosis and condescension.
The Incarnation.
The Word made flesh
in that boy walking by
under whispers.

Same Sex Marriage in the Image of God?

2012-02-29T05:01:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I was asked to participate in a Chapel Conversation on campus. This particular Chapel Conversation is called "Jesus is Crackers" and it takes on controversial topics. The speaker is to address a hot-button topic by presenting both sides of the issue.

There are two microphones, one on each side of the stage. You are to start on one side of the stage and argue one side of the case. You then walk to the other microphone and disagree with yourself. And then the chapel ends on that open-ended note.

My assigned topic was same sex marriage. Specifically, can same sex marriages be considered holy and sanctified? Phrased another way, are same sex marriages reflections of the image of God?

This was my argument for the position that, no, same sex marriages are not reflective of the image of God:

Same sex marriages are not in the image of God because when God created humanity in God's image Genesis 1.27 says "male and female he created them." Thus, the model for marriage is Adam and Eve. The basis of marriage is biological complementarity. This understanding is supported in Romans 1 where Paul describes same sex relations as "unnatural." In light of this, the command God gives to marriage, as a reflection of God's image, is reproduction ("be fruitful and multiply"). Obviously, same sex marriages are not based on biological complementarity and cannot procreate. Thus, same sex marriages cannot reflect the image of God. The theology informing this understanding is creation theology.

This was my argument for the position that, yes, same sex marriages are reflective of the image of God:

Same sex marriages are in the image of God because the model for marriage is Yahweh and Israel rather than Adam and Eve. Thus, the basis of marriage is grace and election, God choosing Israel from among the nations. The primacy of election/grace over biology is supported in Romans 11 where God is found "unnaturally" grafting the Gentiles into the covenant with Israel. In light of this, the command God gives to marriage to reflect God's image is covenant faithfulness. Obviously, same sex marriages display the grace of election and can model covenant faithfulness. Thus, same sex marriages can reflect the image of God. The theology informing this understanding is salvation history.

My Guide to Blogging Success

2012-02-28T05:20:00.004-06:00

If you read a lot of Christian blogs you'll have seen some conversation in response to Timothy Dalrymple's post about how bloggers increase pageviews. In light of that conversation let me share my secrets about how to achieve blogging success:

1. Blog from a really cool platform like blogspot.com. Avoid owning a domain name like experimentaltheology.com. Working from blogspot.com signals that you aren't a serious, big time blogger. That you blog with the same platform as grandmothers and high school kids with something important to say.

2. Refuse to join Twitter or Facebook. Completely handicap your ability to tweet your blog posts, post them on Facebook or interact with other bloggers. Make it really, really hard for people to find you and follow you. Make it seem like you don't exist. Play coy. The more obstacles to reaching a new readership the better.

3. Write really, really long and jargon filled posts. More, string these posts together in a ongoing series so that new readers will 1) have to read for twenty hours to catch up or 2) have no freaking idea what you're talking about. People want to surf blog posts quickly. So thwart them. Make them sit down for 30 minutes to read. Force them to consult a dictionary. People enjoy that experience. Tempt all readers--nay, damn well dare them--to write tl;dr in the comments.

4. Share your poetry with them.

The Slavery of Death: Part 23, Martyrological Identity and Resurrection

2012-02-27T05:15:00.004-06:00

Over the last few posts we've reached the following conclusions.

Our slavery to the fear of death is largely implicated in the ways we construct our identity, the ways we pursue meaning and self-esteem. We do this by neurotically borrowing an identity from what the bible calls "the principalities and powers," our cultural worldviews, ideologies, and institutions. In biblical language we engage in idolatry, serving cultural images that are, at root, projections of our fears.

The principalities and powers, along with the self-images they create via idolatry, are aligned with sin and the satanic in that the idols have to be believed absolutely (i.e., appear to us as God or as godlike) if they are to function as anxiety buffers. This causes us to engage in worldview defense, denigrating and demonizing outgroup members who call our worldview into question.

What we see in all this is how we create a fear-based identity which makes us inherently defensive and prone to rivalry and violence. Driven by existential anxiety, identity and self-esteem are "enslaved to the fear of death" and, thus, produce sin and "the works of the devil." Here we have a psychological description that converges upon the biblical witness: "the sting of death is sin." More, we also now understand, at a deep psychological level, why "perfect love" must "cast out fear." The fear of death causes us to create an identity that makes us vulnerable to sin and the satanic. The biblical term for this vulnerability, a weakness rooted in mortality fears, is sarx, variously translated as "flesh" or "the sinful nature." Consequently, to step out of sin, death, and the satanic, to move toward love, we need to escape the "slavery of the fear of death" in how we form our self-concepts.

So how does the bible describe this process of salvation and liberation from sin, death, and the devil?

Perhaps paradoxically, though this series makes this obvious, both Jesus and Paul describe salvation as a sort of death. To be saved is to die and be raised again. Here is Jesus on this point:

Mark 8.34-36
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

According to Jesus we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and lose our life. We must die. Literally? Possibly, but in this text Jesus contrasts "the cross" with "gaining the whole world." And given our psychological analyses we get a sense of what Jesus is talking about. We can construct an identity in one of two ways. On the one hand, we can try to "gain the world." That is, we can pursue self-esteem via idolatry, by serving the principalities and powers. By contrast, we can take up the cross and die to this pursuit. In the language of Paul from the last post we can treat "gaining the whole world" as "rubbish."

Given Jesus's language--taking up our cross--we might say that Jesus is calling us to adopt a martyrological identity. An identity based upon dying to the world. In the language of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

Craig Hovey, in his book To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today's Church, describes the martyrological identity this way:

Askesis (from which asceticism is derived) is a term that names the training or discipline of self-denial...In the same way, martyrdom names not an ethic but an effect or outcome of the askesis of one's whole life, one's needs, and the way of life that would meet them...The way of of Jesus requires the unseating of those modes of behavior, ways of life, desires, and thoughts that are conditioned on scales of self-preservation, self-protection, and security for one's life...The virtues necessary to be a martyr are no different from the virtues necessary to be a faithful Christian. This means that martyrdom is not a special calling for a select few but the commitment of every Christian and the responsibility of every church.

A martyrological identity means "the unseating of those modes of behavior, ways of life, desires, and thoughts that are conditioned on the scales of self-preservation, self-protection, and security for one's life." We've discussed in this series a great deal what happens when our identities are based upon "self-preservation, self-protection, and security for one's life." Recall the words of Orthodox theologian John Romanides from earlier in this series:

Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man's fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him...Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man's weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent.

But as we've seen, this goes deeper than mere self-preservation. Few of us are scrapping for bits of food. As described in the last few posts, we noted how the quest for self-preservation takes a neurotic turn, how we build our self-esteem to convince ourselves that our lives are meaningful and durable in the face of death. It is true that our need for self-preservation can cause us to become violent in desperate survival situations. But our neurotic quest of self-preservation can also motivate violence and rivalry. And it's my argument in this series that the "slavery to the fear of death" is manifested here at this neurotic level.

The point is, a martyrological identity isn't about physical courage in the face of death. Rather, a martyrological identity involves existential courage in the resistance of idolatry, dying to efforts to win self-esteem by "gaining the world."

But note that there is a relationship between the martyr's existential and physical courage. The latter produces the former. The reason Jesus could go to the cross non-violently was because he wasn't existentially anxious. Had he been Jesus would have resisted death and become violent. It's Jesus's existential courage, his relaxedness in the face of Pilate, that allowed him to remain non-violent, allowed him to love.

When we turn from Jesus to Paul we find a similar analysis. The clearest treatment of this subject in Paul comes from Romans 6:

Romans 6.1-16
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Paul's argument parallels Jesus's call to discipleship. Christians, because they have been baptized, are dead to sin as Christ is dead to sin. We have been "buried with Christ" and "baptized into his death." This means that our "old self was crucified with Christ." And this crucifixion sets us "free from sin."

What might this mean? It's clear in this passage that Paul is talking about an ongoing process and struggle. Paul is asking his readers to live up and into to their baptism. In light of their imitation of Jesus's death Paul asks his readers to "count themselves dead to sin." How exactly? Paul is clear on this point: "Do no offer any part of yourself to wickedness." By refusing wickedness we act before God as those "who have been brought from death to life." Paul concludes by bringing in another metaphor: slavery. To be dead to sin is to refuse to be a slave to sin. Paul asks the question of his readers: Are you going to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness? This echos Jesus's call: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." We have some choices to make.

I like Craig Hovey's take on this. He notes in To Share in the Body that Christian baptism is "a kind of drowning" that connects us with the death of Jesus.: "The surging waters of the baptismal do not only cleanse, they kill; they do not only wash the body, the destroy it."

But what, exactly, is destroyed and killed? Hovey goes on to describe it as a change of allegiances:

In baptism, a human individual is transferred from the world to the church. The world registers a loss in loyalty; the church registers an advance in loyalty...Because of this shift, baptism marks a definite realignment of power...If the church grows through the initiation of one member at a time, it seemingly shrinks through an equivalent but opposite process. The world attempts to regain its lost members, to secure its former loyalties, and to establish its earlier power. In this way, baptism is an overtly political act. Like the burning of draft cards, baptism declares a switched identity, a refusal to be one thing and a determination to be something else...Transferring citizenship from one kingdom to another is the action performed in baptism, but it also signals entrance into a temptation to trade new citizenship back for the old, to render back to the worldly powers the souls of God's people, the church.

All this fits with the analyses of the last few posts. In baptism we declare ourselves as "dead to the world," counting it all "rubbish" and "loss." We begin the daily struggle to kill off our previous loyalties, the ways we idolatrously pursued self-esteem and meaning. We die to the sinful identity, the "old self" that was enslaved to sin because of the way sarx is pushed and pulled by mortality fears (overtly and neurotically). We do this by no longer pursuing an identity based on ersatz meaning that papers over our neurotic anxieties in the face of death.

That is what the cross represents. We are dead to the world. The allures of the world, which use fear-through-self-esteem to tempt us, hold no attraction for us. That, at least, is the goal. Practically, it means daily taking up your cross as a follower of Jesus and counting the world as loss.

On the other side of this death is the experience of resurrection. As Jesus says, if we lose our life we'll find it. As Paul says, we are alive to God in Christ Jesus. Resurrection, in this instance, is about being set free from the slavery to the fear of death and the life that becomes available to us as a consequence. This is the emancipation and liberation of Christus Victor. As I've argued it, an emancipation that is largely psychological in nature and function. Resurrection is experienced in an identity no longer affected by death. Here is how William Stringfellow describes it:

Resurrection...refers to the transcendence of the power of death and the fear or thrall of the power of death, here and now, in this life, in this world. Resurrection, thus, has to do with life and, indeed, the fulfillment of life before death.
...
[Christ's] power over death is effective not just at the terminal point of a person's life but throughout one's life, during this life in this world, right now. This power is effective in the times and places in the daily lives of human beings when they are so gravely and relentlessly assailed by the claims of principalities for an idolatry that, in spite of all disguises, really surrenders to death as the reigning presence in the life of the world. His resurrection means the possibility of living in this life, in the very midst of death's works, safe and free from death.

And finally, we come to see in all this why love is the sign of the resurrected life. Fear, we've come to see, is the enemy of love. Fear causes us to construct an idolatrous identity that makes us rivalrous toward ingroup members and violent toward outgroup member. Thus, for love to emerge we have to be set free from the fear of death. So it stands to reason that "perfect love casts out fear." Finally it all becomes very clear, the relationship between resurrection and love.

No one said it better than John:

1 John 3.14
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

There is Only More Darkness

2012-02-25T15:57:00.003-06:00

There is little light
in the world.
Too many black corners
of meanness,
cruelty.
And cold loneliness.
So we linger
and warm ourselves
when we find the soft flicker
of kindness
and love--
fragile, precious, tenuous
wisps of flame in the wind.
Rejoice in these.
And bless.
There is only more darkness
in the extinguishment.

I Am a Worm

2012-02-24T05:34:00.002-06:00

Matthew 27.45-46
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,lema sabachthani?”

Psalm 22.1,6
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

After my statistics class yesterday one of my students came up to me and wanted to talk about worms.

The worm in question is the worm mentioned in Psalm 22.6: "But I am a worm and not a man."

As we know, Psalm 22 was the psalm Jesus cries out from the cross, "Eli, Eli,lema sabachthani?" ("My God, my God why have you forsaken me?").

Is there a connection between the worm in verse six and Jesus's cry from the cross?

Apparently, the Hebrew word for worm in Psalm 22.6 is towla' which has two meanings, "worm" and "scarlet/crimson."

The connection between the worm and the color red has to do with the fact that this particular worm was the "scarlet worm" (Kermes ilicis or Coccus ilicis). The Kermes worm is where we get the word crimson because this was the worm that was used to create red dye around the ancient Mediterranean. The worm isn't really a worm but a scale insect that attaches itself to trees, generally oaks, to feed off the sap (see picture above). Jesus would have seen the Kermes worm on Palestine Oaks (Quercus calliprino).

While affixed to the tree the female worm would give birth to a brood and then die. Toward the end of this cycle the mother's body would bloat and fill with a red fluid that would stain the tree. The ancients would collect these dead bodies and the eggs to make a crimson dye.

So the worm in Psalm 22.6 is an insect that leaves a crimson stain on a tree.

What is interesting here, theologically, is how the image of the worm, and Jesus's invocation of it, may have less to do with the status of the worm on some hierarchy of beings, with worms being base and lowly, than with the color of blood. And even if this isn't the proper reading it sure is an interesting one.

The worm invokes the red-stained tree of the Crucified One.

The Bureaucrat

2012-02-23T05:12:00.004-06:00

I'm a bureaucrat.

This is not a role I love, but as a Department Chair at a university I am a bureaucrat. I am a low level administrator who is a functionary within the larger administrative system that manages the university. When people ask me "What does a Department Chair do?" my main response is "Signing stuff." When I became Department Chair I was stunned at the amount of paperwork that moves through the office. All of which needed, as a part of the bureaucratic process, my John Hancock. To cope with the volume I started to shorten my signature. Moving forward, I think I'll just start marking stuff with a big X. That'd be cool.

The second most common question I get is this, "Do you like being a Department Chair?" My answer is complicated, a yes and a no. On the one hand I don't like managing the administrivia of a bureaucracy. I struggle with this part of the job.

Plus, I keep waking up expecting to find that I have dead, soulless eyes.

But on the other hand, as a bureaucrat I have a certain range of powers within the system. And my goal, in light of those powers, is this: humanize the system. This is the part of the job I like.

I've written about this before, about how bureaucratic systems demonically dehumanize people. As a part of that system one of the things I can do is to work against that process.

For example, the other day I had a student at her wits end. She was trying to add money to her copying account so that she could print off her homework and research papers. (The students start with a certain amount of money in this account and each time they print at a library or lab computer they are charged. If they reach their limit they have to add more money or they won't be able to print.) The student went to the office where she thought she could take care of this. She was informed that, no, this was not the right office, that this had to be taken care of at a different office.

So the student walks over to the other office. There she is informed that she's made a mistake. This office tells her that, in fact, the office she just came from is the office that takes care of this.

So she walks back to the first office. There she is informed that the second office was incorrect. And they send her back.

Now all this student wants to do is print her homework for my class. But what she finds herself doing for half a morning is walking back and forth on campus between offices getting nothing done and becoming increasingly frustrated. Why isn't anyone helping her?

So she asks me for advice. "What should I do," she asks "to get money put in my account so I print my homework?" I tell her to go to one of the offices and start screaming. People start to help you if they think you're a little bit crazy.

I'm half-serious in this advice. How many of us have had to throw a fit to crack through some bureaucratic logjam? Throwing a fit, while humiliating, is a way to get some help.

So my goal, again, is to humanize this system. To use my power and time to make the bureaucracy work for the student sitting in my office. Not everything falls within my power, but when it does those are good days. The student comes in tangled in a administrative snarl and I, with my shortened signature, can clear the way.

And at other times, when I don't have the final say so, I can advocate within the system on behalf of the student.

A story in this regard.

One year I got an email from a recently graduated student expressing alarm. Apparently she hadn't graduated at all. She had just received a letter from ACU telling her that, due to an oversight, she was actually lacking one class toward graduation. It was a glitch in how her transfer credits were accounted. Apparently, a history class she took at another university was the same as the history class she took during her final semester at ACU. No one spotted this as the two classes had different titles and the classes themselves were significantly different in content that the student didn't notice (i.e., same era of history but different take, content, and readings). Only when the student's final grade was posted, after graduation and the student leaving town to start her life, did the computer pick up the conflict. And, having taken the same class twice, the student was informed she was one course short of graduation.

Place yourself in the student's shoes. You think you've graduated. You're living in a different town and have started a job. And suddenly you are informed that you are not, in fact, a college graduate and that you have falsified your workplace applications in saying you were an ACU graduate. More, we are telling you that you have to move back to ACU for a semester to take this history class.

How would you feel is this were you?

Now, if the student had made a mistake all this might be a bit different. But ACU didn't catch the problem and, thus, the student was given the formal clearance to graduate. We told her, in her final semester, she was good to go. We only informed her of the error after she had left campus. So as I saw it, this was our mistake. And, given that this was our mistake, I didn't think it right or proper to make this student return to campus to take a history class.

This won't do, I said to myself. So on behalf of the student I filled out the form requesting that she be allowed to graduate with three fewer hours. And technically this wasn't even true. She took the same amount of hours, and paid tuition for them, as everyone else. The issue wasn't the number of hours but the accounting of them.

I figure this is a no-brainer. So I was shocked when I got the letter saying that this request was denied. You're freaking kidding me, I say aloud, ranting to my administrative coordinator. This is just awful. So I ask for a meeting to make my case face to face.

And I do, putting pressure on, respectfully and politely but firmly. I'm told that the powers that be will meet again to reconsider the case. Hearing that, I figure I've won the day.

I was wrong. After a few days I was told that the administration was sticking with their original decision. The student had to come back to campus to take a history class.

This is the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. Broken, I email the student that my efforts have failed. I can't get the system to budge.

Not a good day for the bureaucrat.

So what happened?

Well, a few weeks later the student and her mother appeared in my offices. They were beaming. Why were they so happy? Well, they had came to campus to resolve this situation and, miracle of miracles, they succeeded! The administration finally signed the paper making this problem go away. At long last my student was an ACU graduate!

After telling me how thankful they were to me for my work on their behalf and hugs all around I asked them, How did this happen? How did you get them to change their minds?

The mom smiled.

They pitched a fit and wouldn't leave until something happened.

I smiled back.

Litany of Penitence

2012-02-22T09:46:00.004-06:00

The Litany of Penitence (adapted from the Book of Common Prayer for a first-person reading):

Most holy and merciful Father:
I confess to you and to others,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that I have sinned by my own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what I have done, and by what I have left undone.

I have not loved you with my whole heart, and mind, and strength. I have not loved my neighbors as myself. I have not forgiven others, as I have been forgiven.
Have mercy on me, Lord.

I have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served me. I have not been true to the mind of Christ. I have grieved your Holy Spirit.
Have mercy on me, Lord.

I confess to you, Lord, all my past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of my life,
I confess to you, Lord.

My self-indulgent appetites and ways, and my exploitation of other people,
I confess to you, Lord.

My anger at my own frustration, and my envy of those more fortunate than myself,
I confess to you, Lord.

My intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and my dishonesty in daily life and work,
I confess to you, Lord.

My negligence in prayer and worship, and my failure to commend the faith that is in me,
I confess to you, Lord.

Accept my repentance, Lord, for the wrongs I have done: for my blindness to human need and suffering, and my indifference to injustice and cruelty,
Accept my repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward my neighbors, and for my prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from me,
Accept my repentance, Lord.

For my waste and pollution of your creation, and my lack of concern for those who come after me,
Accept my repentance, Lord.

Restore me, good Lord, and let your anger depart from me;
Favorably hear me, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in me the work of your salvation,
That I may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,
Bring me with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Voiceless

2012-02-22T05:23:00.003-06:00

For those of you interested in this conservation, particularly those from the Churches of Christ, I wanted to point you to three different online zines about the experiences of being gay on a conservative Christian campus.

Of interest to the Church of Christ folks is that these three zines are from our campuses.

The State of the Gay appeared last year on the Harding University campus.

Paper Clips Press appeared last week on the Freed-Hardeman campus.

Voiceless appeared yesterday on the Abilene Christian University campus.

Last night I was honored, along with other ACU students, alumni, faculty and staff, to be a part of an evening where many of the authors of Voiceless read their stories publicly. The readings were, by turns, poignant, indicting, sad, courageous, and inspiring.

I Hate Religion Too, But For Different Reasons

2012-02-21T05:34:00.004-06:00

Today in ACU's chapel service I've been asked to share some reflections on Jefferson Bethke's spoken word video "I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus." I'm sure you've seen the video as it has gone viral. At the time of this writing the video has received over nineteen million views on Youtube.

So whatever else is said, we can at least say this: Well done Mr. Bethke.

There have been a variety of reactions to "I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus" on the Internet. Some have been approving, others more critical. In light of my chapel response today let me share some of my impressions.

First off, I'm in broad agreement with the sentiment of the video. In fact, I make a very similar point in the most popular post I've ever written (the Bait and Switch post), about how religion comes to replace loving your neighbor. As I noted a week or so ago, this is a significant theme in both the Old and New Testaments:

Amos 5.21-24
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Matthew 9.10-13
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

In Unclean I talk about some of the psychology behind this dynamic, how the pursuit of religious/cultic purity before God causes us to ignore the second of the Greatest Commandments: "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." In Unclean I call this "the purity collapse."

The point being, when Jefferson Bethke is rapping about this theme in his video I'm grooving right along. Going to church is fine, but we can't ignore the injustices at the gate. God demands mercy more than praise music, prayer, and avoiding Harry Potter books

But something hiccups toward the end of the video. And I haven't seen a whole lot of commentary about this particular issue.

After his long criticism of religion in the video Jefferson Bethke ends with the big take home point. Here are the final words of the video:

Religion is man searching for God, Christianity is God searching for man
Which is why salvation is freely mine, and forgiveness is my own
Not based on my merits but Jesus's obedience alone
Because he took the crown of thorns, and the blood dripped down his face
He took what we all deserved, I guess that's why you call it grace
And while being murdered he yelled
"Father forgive them they know not what they do."
Because when he was dangling on that cross, he was thinking of you
And he absorbed all of your sin, and buried it in the tomb
Which is why I'm kneeling at the cross, saying come on there's room
So for religion, no I hate it, in fact I literally resent it
Because when Jesus said it is finished, I believe he meant it

What is really weird, theologically speaking, about the conclusion of the video is that Bethke doesn't end up where the prophets and Jesus end up, with a cry for more mercy and justice. No, Bethke ends up with penal substitutionary atonement. Rather than ending with a cry for justice and mercy we end with "...salvation is freely mine, and forgiveness is my own / Not based on my merits but Jesus's obedience alone / Because he took the crown of thorns, and the blood dripped down his face / He took what we all deserved, I guess that's why you call it grace."

Bethke's argument seems to be this. What makes religion bad is that it's a form of works-based righteousness, churchy things we do to earn our way into heaven. And that's fine, but this isn't the biblical criticism of religion. The prophetic criticism is how religion has become separated from care for our neighbors. It's the point Jesus is making in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. And the Parable of the Good Samaritan isn't a parable about works-based righteousness. Far from it. The parable is placing a behavioral demand upon us.

So there is this disjoint sitting at the heart of the video. At the start of the video we think Bethke is going to make a prophetic critique of religion. For example, early on we hear him say this:

I mean if religion is so great, why has it started so many wars
Why does it build huge churches, but fails to feed the poor
Tells single moms God doesn't love them if they've ever had a divorce
But in the Old Testament, God actually calls religious people whores

This is good stuff. We are hearing criticism about the religious sanctioning of war. About poverty. About compassion for the vulnerable and hurting. The point seems to be that the true follower of Jesus would be non-violent, caring for the poor, and standing beside divorced single mothers. So far so good.

But that's not where Bethke ends up. The poem doesn't end with a clarion call to justice but with the notion that Jesus will "absorb" our sins and for us to remember that Jesus was thinking of us while he was on the cross:

Because when he was dangling on that cross, he was thinking of you
And he absorbed all of your sin, and buried it in the tomb
Which is why I'm kneeling at the cross, saying come on there's room
So for religion, no I hate it, in fact I literally resent it
Because when Jesus said it is finished, I believe he meant it

It's not that this is bad in and of itself, but it's not the solution the prophets or Jesus was talking about. The solution to injustice at the gates is, well, stopping injustice at the gates. Not thinking about Jesus "absorbing" my sins. The solution to religious forms of social exclusion is crossing boundaries to eat with tax collectors and sinners. Not remembering that Jesus was thinking of me on the cross.

In short, yes, both Bethke and I hate religion.

I just think we hate it for different reasons.

Was Freud Right?

2012-02-20T05:30:00.002-06:00

Thanks to the great PR people at ACU for putting together this little promotional clip for The Authenticity of Faith.

Amazon link here.

[Post-Script: In the clip I'm wearing one of those retro ties Jana buys for me at Goodwill as mentioned in my last post.]

On Dress, Divinity, and Dumbfounding

2012-02-17T05:10:00.000-06:00

I've never been one to dress up. I generally wear jeans just about everywhere. So I'm known for casual attire.

Incidentally, this makes "dressing up" a real pain in the neck, socially speaking. For example, Jana likes to shop at Goodwill stores. Recently she's been picking up a cool tie here and there. Mainly retro ties from the 60s and 70s that you just don't see anymore. So I've started wearing these ties to work once in a while. And when I do all day long it's "Hey! Look who dressed up! Look who is wearing a tie! What's the big occasion?!"

It makes for a very long day.

The point is, if I'm wearing a tie it's a big deal.

When I became the Department Chair seven years ago, selling my soul to the Principalities and Powers, my casual dress became a point of commentary. Mainly the issues had to do with something called "professionalism."

What does professionalism mean when it comes to workplace dress? Why are jeans not "professional" but pants/slacks/trousers are?

To be clear, in this discussion I'm setting aside clothing that is dirty, damaged, or immodest. What I'm talking about is this hierarchy of clothing where the suit and tie sit at the top and jeans sit somewhere at the bottom.

That there is a hierarchy here seems diagnostic to me. In Unclean I talk about Richard Shweder's idea that human moral psychology has three main domains: Community, autonomy, and divinity. A summary of the sorts of moral infractions and values from each domain (quotes from here):

Community: "based on moral concepts such as duty, hierarchy and interdependency, which is designed to help individuals achieve dignity by virtue of their role and position in a society."

Autonomy: "based on moral concepts such as harm, rights and justice, which is designed to protect individuals in pursuit of the gratification of their wants."

Divinity: "based on moral concepts such as natural order, sacred order, sanctity, sin and pollution, which is designed to maintain the integrity of the spiritual side of human nature."

Looking at Shweder's domains it seems to me that questions about professional/appropriate attire are involved with the divinity domain. That is, is our dress commensurate with the "sacredness" or "level" of the situation, either the workplace or church? Here dress is a form of showing respect and meeting expectations of dignity and decorum.

So a lack of "professionalism" is a divinity violation. This is why we call casual attire dressing "down." With extreme forms of casualness we even say we are "slumming it." There is a sacred hierarchy at work here, with goodness and sacredness high on this dimension and the profane, base and vulgar low on the dimension.

That clothing is regulated by a divinity ethic isn't surprising. Clothing itself is a way we elevate ourselves above the animals. Clothing is trying to elevate and lift us up above the bestial. Consequently, feelings of sacred elevation become associated with clothing with various attire choices moving us up or down this dimension. Closer to the angels or toward the animals.

This is why, it seems, clothing can be so contentious in faith communities. Clothing has a sacred aspect to it and, thus, people fight over what is "appropriate" for communal worship.

But here's the problem with all this. As I go on to discuss in Unclean the divinity dimension is a source of what the psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls "moral dumbfounding." Dumbfounding occurs when normative judgments have an "I know it when I see it" aspect. That is, the judgment is driven by subjective feelings rather than objective, empirical, and publicly available criteria. Thus trouble emerges when sensibilities differ. With only feelings to guide us how are we to adjudicate between different judgments about what is or is not appropriate?

You can't. You're stuck, communally speaking. If people have different sensibilities there's not a whole lot you can do. One group sees X as "inappropriate." Others disagree. And since the differences here are not matters of fact there's nothing available, objectively speaking, to convince the other side.

Which brings me back to the issue of professionalism.

When someone says "Jeans are not professional" what are they saying? At root, they are simply expressing a subjective judgment about what they think is a divinity violation. But as we've just noted, divinity violations are often in the eye of the beholder. To be sure, these judgment don't emerge out of thin air. There is tradition and norms, what people typically wear in any given situation or context. However, these norms drift and change over time. Moreover, not everyone agrees with the majority view. For example, a younger generation with different subjective feelings about what is or is not professional might come into conflict with the feelings of an older generation.

And who is to adjudicate between the two groups? If there is no objective reason why jeans or shorts at church are inappropriate then all we are left with are our feelings.

So what am I saying? I'm saying that professionalism and propriety are subjective rather than objective states of affairs. That these are "eye of the beholder" judgments, I "know it when I see it" judgments. Which means that, at the end of the day, we're just going to have to agree to disagree about what is or is not professional or appropriate dress in either the workplace or at church. It's a dumbfounding issue. People are going to disagree with each other and there is little we can do about that, no consensus in our future. We're just going to have to learn to live with each other.

Vive la différence.

Interview with The Other Journal

2012-02-16T06:34:00.007-06:00

Let me point you to an interview I conducted with Chris Keller at The Other Journal as a part of their upcoming issue on evil.

In the interview we discuss the topics in Unclean from a variety of different angles, touching on evil, narcissism, positive psychology, virtue, political discourse, and the Eucharist.

The Slavery of Death: Part 22, Worldview Defense, Doubt, Love & the Rubbish of Self-Esteem

2012-02-15T05:28:00.004-06:00

In Part 20 of this series--The Devil's Work--we discussed, in light of the work of Ernest Becker, how our cultural worldviews make us violent. Given that our cultural worldviews, what Becker calls a hero system, prop up our self-esteem in the face of death we defend these worldviews from threat and critique. We generally do this by demonizing outgroup members. According to Becker this produces the great tragedy of human existence: That which supports my self-esteem--the cultural worldview--is the source of human evil.

This argument is no mere theory. The dynamics Becker describes have been documented in the laboratory. Researchers have worked Becker's theory into a research paradigm called Terror Management Theory (TMT) that has garnered significant empirical support.

Developed in the mid-1980s by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski, TMT has focused on two key questions rooted in the work of Ernest Becker:

1. Why are people so intensely concerned with their self-esteem?

2. Why do people cling so tenaciously to their own cultural beliefs and have such a difficult time coexisting with others different than themselves?

As we know, Ernest Becker gave an answer to the first question in The Denial of Death and an answer to the second in Escape from Evil. TMT follows Becker, suggesting that we are intensely concerned with self-esteem because it guides us through cultural worldviews that give life meaning and significance in the face of death. Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski summarize the core axioms of TMT, relating self-esteem to success in upholding cultural worldviews in order to achieve death transcendence:

TMT posits that humans share with all forms of life a biological predisposition to continue existence, or at least to avoid premature termination of life. However, the highly developed intellectual abilities that make humans aware of their vulnerabilities and inevitable death create the potential for paralyzing terror. Cultural worldviews manage the terror associated with this awareness of death primarily through the cultural mechanism of self-esteem, which consists of the belief that one is a valuable contributor to a meaningful universe. Effective terror management thus requires (1) faith in a meaningful conception of reality (the cultural worldview) and (2) belief that one is meeting the standards of value prescribed by the worldview (self-esteem). Because of the protection from the potential for terror that the psychological structures provide, people are motivated to maintain faith in their cultural worldviews and satisfy the standards of value associated with their worldviews.

Given the fact that self-esteem is involved in managing existential anxiety, Ernest Becker pointed out in Escape from Evil that the cultural worldviews that support our self-esteem are vulnerable to the critique of Otherness. The mere existence of alternative cultures, worldviews, religions, and value systems threatens the assumption that one’s own values, culture, or beliefs are timeless and eternal sources of meaning. Otherness threatens our self-esteem at the deepest level.

So in the face of this threat we demean, denigrate, or destroy ideological Others. We protect our existential equanimity by lashing out at difference. In the language of TMT we engage in worldview defense. In the words of Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski worldview defense occurs when we display “vigorous agreement with and affection for those who uphold or share our beliefs (or are similar to us) and equally vigorous hostility and disdain for those who challenge or do not share our beliefs (i.e., are different from us).”

We defend our worldview by siding with those who share our values and attacking those who do not, we display increased ingroup favoritism along with an increased tendency to denigrate outgroup members. And by engaging in these largely unconscious defensive processes we secure our cultural hero systems in the face of the existential threat posed by Otherness.

This is the source of human evil.

And empirical research backs up this conclusion. TMT studies have shown that, in the face of a death awareness prime, American participants denigrated non-Americans and Christians denigrated Jewish persons. In the face of death we lash out at these outgroup members to reap the solace found within our worldview, be that worldview based upon a nation or a god. And, more often than not, god and country are the very same things. In biblical language these are "principalities and powers" that keep us enslaved to sin due to our fear of death.

In many ways, you might say that the TMT research on worldview defense--denigrating outgroup members in the face of death--is how psychologists are studying demon possession in the laboratory.

In light of all this, how are we to be set free from the demonic impulse toward worldview defense?

Well, as described in the last post it seems clear that we have to "die" to the worldview and hero system. We have to "die" to the self-esteem project. And for the culturally religious, as described in the last post by Peter Rollins, this death also involves dying to the cultural god and religion.

But "death" here is largely a metaphor. What, exactly, does it look like when we "die" to the cultural worldview?

Let's get a start on an answer by thinking about this quote (a quote I ponder in the final chapter of The Authenticity of Faith) from Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld in their book In Praise of Doubt:

Sincere and consistent doubt is the source of tolerance.

In light of the work of Ernest Becker I think we can see the reasoning at work here. If fundamentalism about our worldviews--a neurotic dogmatism driven by death anxiety--is the source of violence (e.g., worldview defense) then the way toward love, embrace, welcome and hospitality toward others is letting go of certainty. That is, if I doubt and question my worldview, if I hold it lightly, then there is little desire or impulse on my part to defend my worldview or demonize its critics.

Doubt becomes the precondition of love.

This is exactly what Becker concluded in Escape from Evil. Becker was skeptical that we could abandon all hero systems. He believed that we need myths to orient our life projects, values and "greater goods" to narrate our lives. But we need to protect against the evils inherent in these myths, how they dispose us to become violent. The way forward is to treat these hero systems as fallible and open to criticism. In biblical language, hero systems need prophets. Becker's assessment:

Men cannot abandon the heroic. If we say that the irrational or mystical is a part of human groping for transcendence, we do not give it any blanket approval. But groups of men can do what they have always done--argue about heroism, assess the costs of it, show that it is self-defeating, a fantasy, a dangerous illusion and not one that is life-enhancing and ennobling. As Paul Pruyser so well put it, "The great question is: If illusions are needed, how can we have those that are capable of correction, and how can we have those that will not deteriorate into delusions?" If men live in myths and not absolutes, there is nothing we can do or say about that. But we can argue for nondestructive myths...

This is, incidentally, what I think Peter Rollins is doing in Insurrection, arguing for a myth--a way to use religious language--that is less destructive compared to the dominant myth of Christianity. The notion that "God is love and only love" is less self-defeating and dangerous, it is more life-enhancing and ennobling.

In summary, the way toward love is to begin to die to the hero system that brings us into conflict with others. This may involve a "dark night of the soul" but it will generally manifest as a self-criticism, suspicion and doubt about the hero system. Of course, there is an emotional cost to all this. But it is worth the price to find better ethical footing. Dogmatism is comforting--It is existentially cozy to have all the answers--but doubt is the route toward love.

But there is more here than just doubt. Recall again the connection between the cultural worldview and self-esteem. The doubt here isn't abstract. We're doubting the things that give us legitimacy and significance. We're doubting the ground of our identity. So the doubt here is as much psychological as it is philosophical.

What might this doubt about the foundations of self-esteem look like?

I think one of the best descriptions of this comes from Paul in Philippians:

Philippians 3.7-11
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Notice how Paul dies to the hero system. All those things that used to be props for his self-esteem project Paul now considers "loss" and "rubbish." It's also interesting to note how Paul focuses on the word "righteousness." As Ernest Becker points out, "righteousness" is just a religious synonym for self-esteem, it is the way we experience the self-esteem project within a religious hero system.

Paul has rejected all this. Paul rejects everything in his cultural worldview that made his life meaningful, important, significant and righteous.

In a certain sense, Paul no longer has self-esteem. He's left that game behind and the way it is pushed and pulled by a death anxiety that is masked as a quest for significance. Paul no longer has a self-esteem project. He has died to all that to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Paul no longer lives. Rather, the resurrected Christ lives within him setting him free from the slavery of death and the power of the devil.

god

2012-02-14T05:28:00.002-06:00

Around the Internet you often see people spell God as G-d. I believe this is done as sign of respect based upon the Jewish practice of refusing to speak the name of God.

As most are aware, in the Hebrew Bible God gives his name in Exodus 3.13-14a:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM."

The name given in verse 14 is יהוה‎ in the Hebrew and is rendered in English as YHWH. YHWH is sometimes called the Sacred Tetragrammaton (a tetragrammaton being a word with four letters).

In the Hebrew Bible YHWH is the proper name of God. And as a sign of respect for the name observant Jews will refrain from pronouncing it aloud though, from what I understand, they may write the name.

Which brings me to G-d.

The word God is generally used to translate the Hebrew words El and Elohim. Elohim is not the proper name of God. In its plural form Elohim is translated as "gods" and, thus, is used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to both YHWH and to Canaanite deities.

This raises two questions I have about G-d. First, Elohim isn't the proper name of God as is YHWH. So why not spell God in full? Why G-d? Second, as I understand it, the show of reverence for YHWH is not speaking the name aloud. Writing it is permitted. So why say God aloud but not spell God? Seems backward.

But these are quibbles. If someone wants to show respect to God by spelling G-d then kudos to them.

For this post I'd like to push on and talk a bit about another way of spelling God, the difference between God and god.

The general convention is to spell God with a capital G. This signals that we are talking about the God of the Universe. God, capital G, has monotheistic overtones--we are talking about the one, true and only God. Conversely, little g is used--god--to refer to false deities or polytheistic deities. When you spell God as god you are showing that you don't think the god you are writing about is real. This is why Christopher Hitchens chose to use a lower-case g for his book title "god is Not Great." Hitchens was signalling that he didn't think God was God.

Now, in many of my recent posts I've been resorting to the spelling god. I do this, for example, when I'm talking about idolatrous conceptions of God. In my last post interacting Peter Rollin's book Insurrection I talk about his argument that for many Christians god is a deus ex machina. And in that post I extensively used god to indicate that this view of God--god as deus ex machina--isn't really God. I'm using the spelling to make a visual discrimination between true views of God and false views of God. God versus god.

But here's what I'm wondering. Who has a true view of God? No doubt I think my views of God are more truthful than those expressing deus ex machina views of God, but what does "more truthful" mean here? Aren't my views just as false, idolatrous and self-serving?

Here we run up against the difference between positive and negative theology, cataphatic and apophatic theology. Positive theology speaks to what can be properly said about God. This is what we tend to think of when we think about theology. It's the theology of church, this blog, and the seminary. It's a theology of words.

Negative theology is the theology of the mystics, the theology about that which cannot be said of God. It takes its cue from statements such as this from St. Augustine: "If you understand it, it's not God." It's the theology of the ineffible and inexpressible. A theology of silence and the failure of words.

One of the contentions of negative theology is that in a very important sense every spoken claim about God is a lie, a falsehood. To illustrate this, consider the following statements:

God is a father.
God is love.
God exists.

These are examples of positive theology, linguistic attempts to say something truthful about God. But are they true? Well, sort of. There is truth in each statement, but in important ways each sentence is also false.

It's easiest to see this with the first sentence. Is God a father? Well, yes, in a certain sense. Given our understandings of "fatherhood" God is like some of those things. But we also know that this is just a metaphor, that God isn't really a male. For example, we find ample maternal images of God in the Bible as well. So we know God is genderless. God is a father. But God is also a mother. And at the end of the day God isn't really either.

So let's make it more difficult. Is God love? Yes. But then again human love is a dim window on divine love. There are aspects of God's love that we don't understand. Paul speaks to this in his ode to love in 1 Corinthians 13: "Now we see in a glass darkly but then we will see face to face."

Now let's get really abstract. Does God exist? Yes. But then again not the way we understand existence. In our minds things that exist are objects. If unicorns exist this means that we can locate an object in the world somewhere that fits the description of a unicorn. But if we can't find this object then the unicorn doesn't exist.

Okay, if God exists is God an object? Here's a way to get at that question: Are there two things in the cosmos, God and the universe?

Does God + Universe = 2?

No. God isn't an object that can be counted alongside other objects. So in a key sense God doesn't exist. Not in the way we understand existence.

In short, you can't say anything about God--God is father, God is love, God exists--without speaking a falsehood. God foils all attempts at verbal description.

Which is why many consider silence to be more truthful about God. That negative theology is superior to positive theology.

I tend to agree. Which brings me back to god.

According to negative theology every time I speak of God I am really speaking of god. The word God is more false than true. And if that's the case should I not signal that I'm telling a lie? For example, I'm more than willing to use god to describe the deities of others but what makes me think I can use God to describe my understanding? Isn't spelling God in reference to my own deity the utmost in hubris?

What I'm basically saying is this, shouldn't every spelling of God be god? Not to say you aren't trying to point to the one true God, but spelling god is a sign--to yourself and others---that anything you say about God is inherently limited, fallible, contaminated, self-interested and idolatrous.

Shouldn't we all opt for god over God and G-d?

The Deus Ex Machina in Insurrection and The Authenticity of Faith

2012-02-13T05:15:00.000-06:00

Continuing with my engagement with Peter Rollins's book Insurrection let me swing back in light of my last post and point to other areas where I'm in significant agreement with Rollins.

In fact, there is a great deal in Insurrection that overlaps with the work in my recent book The Authenticity of Faith (I've linked to the publisher as Amazon is now back-ordered). In many ways, much within The Authenticity of Faith makes the empirical, research case for what Rollins is describing in Insurrection.

You can think of The Authenticity of Faith as Insurrection in the psychological laboratory, statistics and all.

For example, recall that at the start of Insurrection Rollins begins by talking about god as deus ex machina. Deus ex machina is Latin for "god out of the machine" and it refers to an ancient Greek plot device where a god, in the form of a Greek deity, would swoop in to resolve the plot (e.g., rescuing the hero after he/she made a self-sacrificing choice). And by "swoop in" I mean literally swoop in as the deity would be lowered in on ropes (hence the phrase "god out of the machine"). In short, the deus ex machina is a plot contrivance to get us to a happy ending. The god rescues the story from ending on a tragic note.

Rollins contends in Insurrection, rightfully so, that for many Christians god functions in just this manner. God is a fixer, a band aid, a balm, a Santa Claus, a force field, a butler, an answer, an opium. When life gets hard, when our life story tends toward tragedy, god is a deus ex machina that is lowered into our lives to save the day and make us feel happier.

This has been a criticism of religious faith for a very long time. In The Authenticity of Faith my focus is on Freud's influential version of this argument (Rollins also cites Freud in Insurrection), that god is a form of wishful thinking and existential consolation.

One question I try to answer The Authenticity of Faith is if all religious believers use god as a deus ex machina. The problem, obviously, for a researcher like myself is how you go about assessing this among Christians. You can't just describe the deus ex machina version of god and then ask people, "Is that how you feel about god? Is your god a deus ex machina?" Few would admit they are using god in this way.

So, what I've done in my research is to identify a suite of beliefs that are associated with a deus ex machina theological configuration. People are more willing to endorse particular beliefs in comparison to asking them to honestly assess their unconscious motivations regarding belief in god. These beliefs are assessed in an instrument I created called the Defensive Theology Scale:

Deus Ex Machina Beliefs as Assessed by the Defensive Theology Scale

Special Protection: In the face of a hostile universe, the belief that God will especially protect the believer (and loved ones) from misfortune, illness, or death. The universe is existentially tamed.

Special Insight: In the face of difficult life decisions, the belief that God will provide clear guidance and direction. God’s guidance reduces the existential burden of choice.

Special Destiny: In the face of a life where meaning is fragile, the belief that God has created a special purpose for one’s life, a “destiny” that makes life intrinsically meaningful.

Denial of Randomness: In a life full of random, tragic, and seemingly meaningless events, the belief that God’s purpose and plan is at work. No event, however horrific or tragic, is existentially confusing or disconcerting. All is going according to plan.

Divine Solicitousness: The belief that the omnipotent God is constantly available and interested in aiding the believer, even with the mundane and trivial. God is an “eternal servant,” our Cosmic butler.

In my research I use the Defensive Theology Scale to assess the degree to which people have a deus ex machina view of god as described by Rollins (and Freud). I then compare these people who score low on the scale, those who eschew these beliefs.

So when you sort people in this way do they behave differently? More specifically, do they behave in the ways Rollins describes in Insurrection?

Part 3 of The Authenticity of Faith has some answers to those questions based upon a couple of different empirical investigations I've conducted. One of those I'll highlight in my next post in the Slavery of Death series.

Seeing Her

2012-02-10T05:30:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago I was asked by our Psychology Club to share a few thoughts for their Club chapel. The theme for the chapel this semester is to share about characters in the Bible who have affected or inspired your spiritual walk.

I selected the unnamed concubine from Judges 19.

Judges 19 is, perhaps, the most horrific episode in the Bible. I expect this may be the first, last and only time the students hear a message from this text.

I started by reading the whole chapter. When I ended it was pretty quiet in the room.

Looking up I offered these thoughts:

You're likely wondering, I started, why I selected this text and this unnamed woman. Why is she a person in the Bible who has significantly affected my spiritual walk? My answer is this: I selected her because I see her. Just like you see her.

Here's what I want you to notice. When I read that story you couldn't help but read the story from her perspective. And why is that? It's because you are a Christian. You read the story from the victim's perspective naturally and instinctively. And because of that you are rightly horrified and outraged.

We read the story from the victim's perspective because our imaginations have been shaped, through repeated tellings, by the story of Jesus, from the Triumphal Entry to the Crucifixion. We've been trained to read that story from Jesus's perspective, from the victim's perspective. We follow the Innocent One through conspiracy, betrayal, denial. abandonment, perjury, a broken justice system, political posturing, Machiavellian machinations, mob rule, torture, and death. And because we read the story this way we become horrified and outraged. Just like with Judges 19.

The gospels have taught us to read the story from the victim's perspective. This is what defines the Christian imagination. It's how we see the world. How we enter the story.

We see the woman in Judges 19. We read the story from her perspective. Because we have eyes that have been trained by the gospels. As Christians we look for the weakest most voiceless character in the story--and in the world around us--and declare, "We begin here."

After the many outrages in Judges 19 in verse 30 the people say this: "Consider it, take counsel, and speak out." The Hebrew for "consider it" is an idiom for "turn your heart" and this is followed by the phrase "to her." The text asks us to "turn our hearts toward her." Unfortunately, at this point in the story it's much too late. Hearts should have been turned toward her from the very beginning. But they were not.

But our hearts turn.

We see her.

And all the rest.

Insurrection: A Critique

2012-02-09T05:00:00.005-06:00

In the most recent post of my Slavery of Death series I used Peter Rollins's book Insurrection to help illustrate some of the important ideas of Ernest Becker from The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil.

In the comments of that post some of you wanted me to say a few more things about Insurrection. Given that in my last post I pointed out things I liked about the book I figured I'd write another post about some of the problems I see in Insurrection.

The main criticism I have of Insurrection is this: It's a theological and psychological non sequitur.

What I mean is this. The core of Rollins's argument is that we need to undergo a "death of god" experience to truly experience the resurrection life of love, right here and right now. As Rollins writes:

In this very act of forsaking the religious God, along with all the psychological comfort that comes with it, we can find a way of fully affirming God--not in some belief we affirm but in the material practice of love. So then, as we turn away from the obsessive desire to find fulfillment, meaning, and acceptance, we come into direct contact with them. This is life before death; this is life in all its fullness.

To get to love we have to undergo a "dark night of the soul" where we learn to live without God.

But here's my question, why should that be the case? What's the connection? Why does love follow from the death of god?

Rollins isn't particularly good in answering this question or in connecting those dots.

Reading through Insurrection I've looked for passages where Rollins tries to make the turn from "the death of god" to the practices of love. What, in his mind, connects the two? Logically, theologically, and psychologically?

It seems, and readers here can correct me if I'm wrong, that the critical chapter in making the transition from "crucifixion" (death of god) to "resurrection" (practice of love) occurs in Chapter 6 "We are Destiny." There Rollins discusses the contrast between God as an object of love versus God as love itself. This, it seems, is the critical connection. Rollins here making this case:

[W]e are introduced [here] to a radically different way of understanding God's presence in the Resurrection. Here we no longer approach God as an object that we love. Indeed, the idea of loving God directly becomes problematic. Instead, we learn that God is present in the very act of love itself. We do not find happiness by renouncing the world and pointing our desire toward the divine, but now we discover the divine in our very act of loving the world. God is loved through the work of love itself (Matthew 18:20, 1 John 4:20). It is in love that we find new meaning, joy, and fulfillment ...

When God is treated as an object that we love, then we always experience a distance between ourselves and the ultimate source of happiness and meaning. But when God is found to be love itself, then the very act of loving brings us into immediate relationship with the deepest truth of all. In love, the fragile, broken, temporal individual or cause that draws forth our desire becomes the very site where we find pleasure and peace. God no longer pulls on us as something "out there"; rather, God is a presence that is made manifest in our very midst. Here meaning is not found in turning away from the world but in fully embracing it through the act of love.

As best I can tell (again, correct me if you disagree), this is the critical passage connecting the "death of god" with love. The logic seems to go like this. If God is an object of love "out there" then our love becomes directed away from this world. Love, we might say, becomes "spiritualized," and not in a good way. By contrast, if God is love itself, we are thrust into the world.

This notion should sound familiar to regular readers as Rollins is explicitly following Dietrich Bonhoeffer here. I've worked through Bonhoeffer's notion of living etsi deus non daretur ("as if there were no god") here and how this creates the immanent transcendence of the "religionless Christianity" here. Rollins's analysis in Insurrection is also unpacking these ideas.

Now I agree with all this, both with Rollins and Bonhoeffer. We need to resist the other-worldliness inherent in religious belief and practice. I'm a huge fan of this move.

That said, I'd like to raise three quibbles with Insurrection.

Quibble #1. While Rollins unpacks Bonhoeffer's religionless Christianity and etsi deus non daretur he fails to go on to discuss Bonhoeffer's treatment of the "arcane" or "secret" discipline in the Letters and Papers from Prison. What is this discipline and why is it secret? In his letter from April 30, 1944 Bonhoeffer describes the discipline as "worship and prayer." These are religious rituals directed toward God as "object." But why are worship and prayer to be kept secret? Bonhoeffer's worry is that these explicitly religious rituals will prove distancing and off-putting to a religionless "world come of age." Thus, according to Bonhoeffer we should hide these practices, as far as the world is concerned Christians should look "religionless." Christians shouldn't practice worship and prayer in public. "Before God and with God we live without God in the world."

But here's the critical issue and the point where I think Rollins might have run off the rails. Specifically, Bonhoeffer isn't rejecting or denying the role of worship and prayer in sustaining the community of saints. Worship and prayer aren't eliminated. They are just secret. The religious, transcendent dimension isn't collapsed in a "death of god" move. The ritual is simply removed from public view as it is simply incomprehensible to the "world come of age." Worship and prayer are to be "words between friends." The best articulation of all this comes from a 1932 lecture Bonhoeffer gave in Berlin:

Confession of faith is not to be confused with professing a religion. Such profession uses the confession as propaganda and ammunition against the Godless. The confession of faith belongs rather to the "Discipline of the Secret" in the Christian gathering of those who believe. Nowhere else is it tenable...

The primary confession of the Christan before the world is the deed which interprets itself. If this deed is to have become a force, then the world will long to confess the Word. This is not the same as loudly shrieking out propaganda. This Word must be preserved as the most sacred possession of the community. This is a matter between God and the community, not between the community and the world. It is a word of recognition between friends, not a word to use against enemies. This attitude was first learned at baptism. The deed alone is our confession of faith before the world.

This is a very different view of religion than what we find in Insurrection. For Bonhoeffer there is an economy "between God and the community."

This brings me to Quibble #2. Rollins seems to be suggesting that we have to choose between "God as other-worldly object of love" versus "God as the act of love itself." This is framed as an either/or choice. But why? Why not both? Why can't be God be both immanent and transcendent? Can't both be endorsed?

Take, as a real world example, Dorothy Day. Here we have an exemplary Christan when it comes to living out the works of mercy. If anyone is an example of a loving insurrectionist it was Dorothy Day.

But here's the deal. Day was a devout Catholic who believed in God as an object of love. She attended Mass every day, sometimes twice a day. She prayed the Rosary constantly. God as object of love sustained Day's living love as God. Just as Bonhoeffer said the secret discipline would sustain us. And for Day it was "secret." Day didn't make the poor go to Mass with her. She didn't try to convert them. As far as the poor were concerned, Day was "religionless." God wasn't used by Day to create "enemies," injecting religion between herself and the poor. But let's be clear, religion sustained Day, week in and week out.

So how does someone like Dorothy Day fit in the scheme of Insurrection? She's living a life of love, radically so, but with God as an object of love. Does that make sense in light of Insurrection?

In short, why does Rollins insist we have to choose? Can't we, instead, be Christians like Bonhoeffer and Day? True, both Bonhoeffer and Day were extraordinarily concerned with how "religion" is a constant temptation, sucking love out of this world into the black hole of other-worldly spirituality. But that's a far cry from saying that we have to choose one over the other.

Which brings me to Quibble #3. If all Rollins is talking about is other-worldly spirituality, about how "God as object of love" pulls us away from "God as love," then it seems, given what we've just discussed, that his cure is disproportionate to the disease. He's demanding a root canal when a filling would do. He's hunting rabbits with atom bombs.

Recall, again, what Rollins is asking us to do. We are to undergo a death of god experience that shatters us. In the words of Rollins: "In this dark hour, when the very earth beneath us gives way, we experience utter desolation."

What is unclear here is why we have to experience "utter desolation" if Rollins is just asking us to be more loving. Why can't, say, a transcendent worship experience with a great praise band motivate me to be more loving? It happens. Why can't things like worship and prayer, as mentioned by Bonhoeffer, be the route to loving-kindness? This is what I'm talking about in saying there is a non sequitur in the middle of Insurrection. Rollins doesn't explicate the necessary connection between undergoing "utter desolation" and love. Nor does he explain why such a drastic experience is required when less extreme options are available.

True, religious ritual tempts us into other-worldliness. But "utter desolation" tempts us to commit suicide.

It's not like Rollins's route to love is risk free.

So why prefer it?

there is no answer / but loving one another

2012-02-08T05:12:00.003-06:00

Jana sent me this poem by Wendell Berry this week. Many of you are familiar with it, but it remains powerful after many readings.

To my granddaughters who visited the Holocaust Museum on the day of the burial of Yitzak Rabin, November 6th 1995.

Now you know the worst
we humans have to know
about ourselves, and I am sorry,

for I know you will be afraid.
To those of our bodies given
without pity to be burned, I know

there is no answer
but loving one another
even our enemies, and this is hard.

But remember:
when a man of war becomes a man of peace,
he gives a light, divine

though it is also human.
When a man of peace is killed
by a man of war, he gives a light.

You do not have to walk in darkness.
If you have the courage for love,
you may walk in light. It will be

the light of those who have suffered
for peace. It will be
your light.

--from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

The Slavery of Death: Part 21, Insurrection

2012-02-07T05:02:00.007-06:00

In the early posts in this series we spent a lot of time focusing on Christus Victor theology and how it focuses salvation upon rescuing us from death and a life enslaved to the fear of death.

In more recent posts we began to unpack all this from a psychological perspective, mainly drawing on the work of Ernest Becker, but with significant help from the work of theologians such as William Stringfellow, James Alison, and Arthur McGill.

The climax of the psychological analysis was this. Our slavery to the fear of death causes us to seek self-esteem through cultural hero systems. However, given that these hero systems are largely created to repress and channel our existential fears, we find our self-esteem projects to be shallow, hollow and fragile. To use James Alison's turn of phrase, we get self-esteem by pursuing ersatz meaning. Another way of saying this is that self-esteem is largely a neurotic enterprise.

But there is more here than merely noting the neurotic nature of self-esteem. The fact that humans are neurotic might be sad and pathetic but not particularly devilish or demonic. But the satanic outworking is observed when we note that the hero systems that give life meaning and security have to be believed in absolutely and protected from the threat of ideological outsiders. Thus the dark outcome: To preserve my self-esteem and life significance (often encoded in "our way of life") I have to demonize, in large ways or small, outgroup members.

This is why people kill for their gods and way of life. That which provides the foundation of our identities--our values, nation, worldview, religion and traditions--must be protected. Why? Because the alternative, to live naked and defenseless before death, is too heavy a psychological burden.

In all this we see a psychological understanding of what it might mean to be "held in slavery all our lives to the fear of death" and why such an enslavement leads to "the devil's works."

With all this in place, it's now time to devote some posts to what we should do about this situation. In light of Christus Victor theology how are we to be "set free" from the slavery to the fear of death and the violence it produces?

We've already gotten some hints about what this might look like. We've discussed McGill's idea of moving from identity-as-possession to identity-as-gift, an "eccentric identity" in the words of David Kelsey. We've also considered James Alison's discussion of "living as if death were not."

Those are important ideas that we'll be building on. But our review of Ernest Becker's work forces us to go a bit deeper.

Specifically, if my cultural worldview is, at root, a form of death repression, then what does it mean for me to "die" to this existence? It means leaving behind everything that, prior to my baptism, gave me worth, meaning, and significance. It means being "dead" to those things from which I constructed my identity. This is what Paul is describing in Romans 6:

Romans 6.2-9
We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.

Death has no mastery over Jesus. And those who die with Jesus in baptism share in this liberation, the mark of which is being set free from sin to live a new life according to the Spirit.

But such a dying to the old self, the self that was mastered by the fear of death, is a terrifying prospect. Who am I once the cultural props have been kicked away? How will I find self-esteem if I let go of all my blue ribbons? How will I carry on if I listen to the Teacher of Ecclesiastes who informs me that my life projects are, at root, "meaningless" and "vanity"?

In The Denial of Death Ernest Becker attempts to answer this question, though he admits that he is articulating something of an ideal that might be unreachable. He suggests that the best we can do is to learn to master our anxiety less neurotically and more directly. Only then can we take charge of our anxiety and not allow it to affect or damage others. I don't have to demonize or kill others because I fear death. I don't have to fall into the Devil's trap as described above. Still, this is hard work as Becker summarizes,

The most one can achieve is a certain relaxedness, an openness to experience that makes [a person] less of a driven burden on others.

William Stringfellow calls this relaxed, non-anxious existence "living humanely in the midst of the Fall." We live among Death's works but we are not pushed and pulled by the fear of death. As Paul describes Jesus in Romans 6, death has no mastery over us.

How might all this look, religiously speaking?

An interesting resource in this regard is the new book Insurrection by Peter Rollins.

Rollins's book follows a trajectory parallel to Becker's in The Denial of Death. I don't know if Rollins has read Becker, but he should as Becker has worked out, in much greater psychological detail, the picture Rollins sketches in Insurrection. (And I also think this series works out some theological foundations that can inform and deepen Rollins's work.)

At the start of Insurrection Rollins talks about, following Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a god who is a deus ex machina. This is a god who is artificially dropped into our world to solve our problems, justify our way of life, and provide some existential comfort. This is the god behind our hero system, the god that props up our self-esteem projects. Unfortunately, as Becker has shown us, this is also the god we kill for.

Rollins argues that the Christian notion of crucifixion involves the death of this god, the existential crutch that helps us cope with existence. Similar to Becker's analysis, Rollins suggests that this "death" involves a loss of everything that made life structured and meaningful:

To experience the Crucifixion is to lose all the supports that would protect us from a direct confrontation with the world and with ourselves. We are robbed of all the stories that we construct about God and our own nature. Stripped of the guarantees and fantasies that previously marked out existence, we come face-to-face with anxiety in its various manifestations (death, meaninglessness, guilt).

This is a radical notion. As we have discussed repeatedly in the comments in this series, "God" can have one of two meanings. We've mainly been discussing the "god" that sits behind the hero system, the religious idol that confers legitimacy to my worldview and my life. This god is, at root, a neurotic coping mechanism. Which is why we need to kill to "protect" it. Thus, crucifixion for Rollins involves the death of god. Crucifixion involves the death of religion as religion is simply one aspect of the cultural hero system holding us captive (neurotically speaking). "Christianity" in this understanding is simply one hero system among many other hero systems, one among many neurotic paths to achieve self-esteem that will, in the end, bring us into conflict with others. "Christianity" here is simply another manifestation of our "slavery to the fear of death," the deus ex machina we create to solve our death problem (e.g., a fix for anxiety, meaning, self-esteem). Rollins describing this:

To lose that which grounds us and provides us with meaning involves nothing less than losing the God of religion in whatever form it manifests itself in our life. This does not require ceasing to believe intellectually in some overarching principle that guides us, but rather it means losing the psychological power that such a principle possesses of us. Like Jesus, we too must make the journey from Gethsemane to Golgotha, a journey in which we pass from the sacrifice of religion (where we give up everything for God) to the sacrifice of religion itself (where we give up everything including God).

In the sacrifice of religion, we lose all the security that any deus ex machina might provide for us. In this dark hour, when the very earth beneath us gives way, we experience utter desolation.

According to Rollins this is how we are united in Christ's death. We cry out with Jesus as we experience the death of god in our lives: "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me!"

We undergo this death because the god of the cultural hero system is an idol, an existential death fetish, an illusion we use to keep death repressed and out of awareness. More, this god was the devil's work in our lives, the motive behind why we protected our ingroup and demonized the outgroups. So this god has to die for us to be able to love others fully. But again, the existential burden here is enormous:

We must give [Jesus's] cry its full theologically and existential weight. We must read it with all its horror and potency. It is a cry that comes from one cut off from all grounding in a deeper reality, one who has lost all sense of meaning, all mythological frames. It is a cry that exposes us to a man utterly destitute.

To die with Christ, therefore, we have to move through this experience, intentionally and repeatedly. If we are to truly love others we have to let go of the cultural hero system, which includes god and religion, and undergo a "dark night of the soul" where we are left with nothing to ground our identity. But on the other side of this experience is a life freed to live for others. As Rollins describes it:

In this very act of forsaking the religious God, along with all the psychological comfort that comes with it, we can find a way of fully affirming God--not in some belief we affirm but in the material practice of love. So then, as we turn away from the obsessive desire to find fulfillment, meaning, and acceptance, we come into direct contact with them. This is life before death; this is life in all its fullness.

In this view, god is no longer a idol that props up my self-esteem or our "way of life." Rather, God is the act of love itself, an act that is only truly possible when the death of god has taken place. For us to truly find God and love others we have to let the religious idol die. Because if the idol remains it becomes the source of outgroup demonization and violence. We'll let Rollins take us home:

Resurrection faith is then manifested in a freedom and liberation in which we are able to courageously and fully embrace this world without repression, resentment, and fear. It is a way of living in love, a love that embraces existence, not because it is perfect, but because it is beautiful in the midst of its very imperfection.

This does not mean that we stop experiencing anxiety and sadness--not at all--but that in the very midst of these we still find life worth living. We no longer need to hide from our sadness and repress it. Rather, we can confront it and work through it. Indeed, it is the very acceptance of our sadness that can lead to its dissipation. Just as grace (the experience of accepting that we are accepted as we are) enables us to change, so too, by accepting that we must mourn (rather than run from it) we can ourselves move through our pain (rather than having it return again and again in various masked forms).

Here, death is robbed of its sting (1 Corinthians 15.55) and despair is overcome...

All this means that the event of Resurrection opens up a type of religionless faith in which we are able to embrace the world and ourselves without some security blanket. It is here, amidst the ashes of the death of the deus ex machina, that a different understanding of God becomes visible. This God is affirmed where people are gathered together in love and is testified to where the sick are healed, the starving fed, and where those who dwell in death are raised into life. "Where two or three come together in my name," we read in the Gospel according to Matthew, "there am I with them." In other words, where people are gathered together in love, God is present.

Race, Politics, and Christianity in the American South

2012-02-06T04:21:00.004-06:00

This last July we were driving through South Carolina. We had stopped to get some gas. I was waiting in the car with the boys and Jana had run inside to buy a drink.

When Jana emerged from the convenience store she looked shaken.

"You okay?" I asked.

She said, "Can't believe what I just heard in the store."

She was standing in line waiting to pay. A man in front of her was buying a newspaper. He had thrown the paper on the counter and was reaching for some money.

You'll recall that in July of 2011 President Obama and the House of Representatives were fighting with each other over the debt ceiling. The standoff had finally ended and the newspaper headline was declaring the deal, with a picture of Obama above the fold.

"Right there, that's an example of nigger thinking," said the man tapping his finger on Obama's picture.

The cashier, taking the man's money, nodded in agreement. "That's right." he said.

...

How did the Republican Party--the party of Lincoln "The Great Emancipator"--become saddled with racism?

I raise the question for a couple of reasons. First, as a college professor in West Texas I've found my students to be clueless about the relevant history. As far as they know the South has always voted for Republicans. No so. Take, as one example, the voting history of Mississippi. Since the Civil War Mississippi has voted for a Democrat in the Presidential elections 21 times. That is almost double the number of times the state has voted for a Republican (11 times). Needless to say, President Obama has almost no chance in Mississippi in 2012.

So what happened? When did this strongly Democrat state, along with the other southern states, turn from Blue to Red?

The other reason I raise the question has to do with Christianity in the American South, particularly evangelical Christianity. As noted in his recent book (which I reviewed in the post Are Christians Hate-Filled Hypocrites?), sociologist Bradley Wright cites statistics that show evangelical Christians to be one of the most racist groups in America. To be sure, only a minority of evangelicals fall into this category, but relative to other Christian groups as well as to non-Christians evangelical Christians are the most likely to hold a candidate's race against them in a political election. And as most people know, evangelicals tend to vote Republican and are plentiful across the American South. This racist strain in southern Christianity greatly disturbs me as I encounter it frequently where I live.

So what changed in the South? When did the South go from being strongly Democratic to being strongly Republican? The story can be summed up by looking at two electoral maps separated by a mere eight years:

Electoral Map of 1956 Presidential Election

Electoral Map of 1964 Presidential Election

The change is startling. This is one of the most dramatic shifts in American political history. The effects of which are being felt to this day and will be reflected in the 2012 electoral map. We are the heirs of this legacy.

So what caused the US political map to flip-flop in a mere eight years? What happened to cause the Southern states, proudly Blue and Democrat since the Civil War, to flip to Republican Red?

Why are the Red States Red?

What happened between 1956 and 1964?

Answer: The American Civil Rights Movement.

Call No Man on Earth Father: A Comment on "Masculine Christianity"

2012-02-03T10:30:00.008-06:00

There's a lively Internet conversation going on right now regarding comments John Piper recently made about "masculine Christianity." For example, Piper said

...the fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families where Christianity has this God-ordained, masculine feel. For the sake of the glory of women, and for the sake of the security and joy of children, God has made Christianity to have a masculine feel. He has ordained for the church a masculine ministry.

The fuller context of these comments can be read here over at Jesus Creed.

Responding to these comments Rachel Held Evans has asked for some men to weigh in on the topic. I particularly learned a lot from J.R. Daniel Kirk's response (who knew the translation of El Shaddai had anything to do with mammary glands?).

For my part, I tend to be late to these parties because I don't follow evangelical culture and they don't tend to follow me.

(Funny story in this regard. Last year the Family Research Council invited me to Washington to speak about the topics I discussed in my post How Facebook Killed the Church. I emailed them back saying, "Have you read my blog?" Invitation pulled. Poor souls, they had no idea who they were inviting to their party.)

I'm also late to the party because I tend to roll things around in my head too long.

But I wanted to say something in light of Rachel's call because I had been thinking about this for the past week or so.

It started with me watching the movie Courageous. Long story about how I ended up viewing the movie, but I did. Courageous is an evangelical Christian film that is mainly about Christian fatherhood, about men "stepping up" to reclaim their roles as providers, protectors, and spiritual leaders of their homes. The film seems to hold to the view that Piper is articulating.

Let me first say this. I don't want to throw complementarians under the bus. I have a lot of conservative friends who just can't seem to see eye to eye with Jana and I on this issue. I also don't want to belittle attempts like those found in the movie Courageous that are trying to encourage Christian men. Because it seems that a lot of men are struggling, really struggling, with finding a place in the church. To be sure, pages and pages could be written about what, exactly, is the problem in this regard. For my part I tried to get into some of the relevant issues in my post Thoughts on Mark Driscoll...While I'm Knitting.

All I want to do is make a simple observation. Specifically, why does Piper say that Christianity has a "masculine feel"? A part of his argument:

God has revealed himself to us in the Bible pervasively as King, not Queen, and as Father, not Mother.

Fair enough. Though we could debate the issue as to if the gendered God of the Bible is a feature of cultural context, as well as point to maternal images of God, on the surface we see Piper's point. God is called Father. Thus, Christianity has a "masculine feel."

To this, I have a simple response (and I'll even use the ESV):

Matthew 23.9
And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.

That's my response. Jesus's explicit command is to call no man on earth your father.

Here's my point. Okay, fine, God's a father. But there is only one father. No man on earth can take or claim that role. Not in the family. Not in the church. If Christianity has a "masculine" feel, fine, but no human can step into the "masculine" role of authority. Only the Father holds that position of authority. Thus, to claim the title "father" as having authority over any other human being is a sin.

Well, it's a sin if you're a Christ follower.

You often hear the phrase, "God is God and I am not." Well, maybe in some sectors of Christianity it would be nice to hear more of this:

"God is Father and I am not."

Post-Script:
Dear Family Research Council: I'm still open to coming.

Just give me a call.

"I Hate, I Despise Your Religious Festivals"

2012-02-03T08:07:00.004-06:00

A few days after Christmas Sojourners asked if they could repost my The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity. It's now February and it continues to be one their "Most Read" essays each week.

I remain surprised at the staying power of this post. What buttons is it pushing? For good and bad?

For my part, I just think the post is a commentary on texts, among others, like Amos 5:

Amos 5.21-24
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

I'll Fly Away

2012-02-02T05:30:00.004-06:00

A while back I wrote about how different the bible sounds when read inside a prison. I'm also coming to see how songs sound different as well.

A month or so ago our teaching team at the prison bible study was reduced from three to two. The study is about two hours long. So with one less teacher we have some time to fill.

So we've started to sing a lot more. About halfway through the study, when we transition from Herb to me, we stop, pull out the songbooks, and I take song requests.

I've really enjoyed these times. Our church has pretty much gone over to the modern praise team/band songbook found in many churches. But the songs we are singing in the prison are the songs I grew up with. Amazing Grace. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. There's a Fountain Free. When the Roll is Called Up Yonder. I'll Fly Away.

Sometimes the song requests can be pretty weird. Last week one of the guys called for The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Good Lord, I thought. But not wanting to be judgmental, I led it. I don't think I'd ever sung all the verses before. But there I was, singing away...

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

I felt like a Civil War solider camped out at Gettysburg or something.

But back to the old school hymns.

I don't blame my church for moving on from the hymns of my childhood. But I do miss them. Some of them are pretty bad as far as music goes, but some songs, when set to country, folk or blue grass music, just bowl me over with nostalgia. Get me some Alison Krauss or Gillian Welch on one of these old church songs and I'm a happy man.

But these songs aren't just dinged on the basis of musical quality. Over the years I've heard preachers and theologians completely throw songs like I'll Fly Away under the bus. Why? Because it's escapist!

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away.

To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away.

I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away;
when I die, hallelujah, by and by,
I'll fly away.

I understand the criticism. Where is the whole "may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? Where is the vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth in Revelation 21-22? It does seem like I'll Fly Away is pointing us away from this world in anticipation of the next. The song suggests that the whole goal and aim of the Christian life is to "fly away" from this world to the next.

But here's what I found in the prison. I'll Fly Away is one of their favorite songs. We sing it every week. And it's not hard to see why. Particularly if you recall the second verse:

When the shadows of this life have grown,
I'll fly away.

Like a bird from prison bars has flown,
I'll fly away.

And the third verse speaks to the bleakness of prison life as well: "Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away."

The point is, while I get the theological criticism of I'll Fly Away the song sounds completely different in prison. Just like the bible.

Because here's the deal, does I'll Fly Away make any sense when it's sung by rich people of power and privilege? I mean, what the heck are you flying away from? Life in suburbia? The Caramel Macchiatos at Starbucks? The vacations at the beach? The fact that you have clean water, indoor plumbing, central heating/air, and two cars?

But when I'll Fly Away is sung by people who are, quite literally, imprisoned or oppressed then the song is less about flying off to the Pearly Gates than a commentary about the world around us. I'll Fly Away can be an indictment and lament about the status quo. There is a prophetic aspect to I'll Fly Away that privileged people generally miss. Having never suffered slavery, oppression or imprisonment we can't hear the lament in I'll Fly Away. So of course when the privileged sing the song it sounds theologically shallow. The privleged shouldn't be trying to fly away. They should be worrying about the injustices at the gate.

In sum, I'm back to the realization that Christianity sounds different--theology, hymnody, and the bible itself--when heard from the margins of society. What doesn't make sense at the centers of power, prosperity and privilege often makes a whole lot of sense on the periphery.

Meditations on the Little Way: Epilogue, The Dark Night of Faith and Love

2012-02-01T05:21:00.003-06:00

Thérèse of Lisieux often gets a bad rap for being one of the most sentimental and girlish of saints. And the syrupy sweetness of much of the Catholic devotion for "the Little Flower" no doubt contributes to this impression. However, as I've tried to show in this series there is a toughness to Thérèse's spirituality. The Little Way is no easy or sentimental journey. It'll turn your life upside down if you let it. It's messing with mine for sure.

But beyond the Little Way, Thérèse is also of interest to us for another reason, something that also pushes against the stereotype that she is an overly sentimental saint. We are speaking here of Thérèse's dark night of the soul.

You'll recall that Thérèse was asked to write Manuscripts B and C of Story of a Soul--the spiritual heart of her memoir--because she was dying.

In 1896 on the evening before Good Friday, and this timing seems apt given what was to follow, Thérèse awoke in the night to find her mouth filled with fluid. It was too dark to know what it was, but the morning light confirmed her suspicions that it was blood. She had contracted tuberculosis. Thus began her slow, protracted, and painful walk toward death.

During this time Thérèse experienced a profound spiritual darkness that, as best we can tell, never resolved itself. Some of this darkness finds its way into Story of a Soul and some of it was captured in things she shared with sisters and novices at Carmel.

The root of it was this. Now facing death Thérèse began to doubt that there was a heaven. What once seemed so certain to her had evaporated in the aftermath of her Good Friday awakening:

[God] permitted my soul to be invaded by the thickest darkness, and that the thought of heaven, up until then so sweet to me, be no longer but the cause of struggle and torment. The trial was to last not a few days or a few weeks, it was not to be extinguished until the hour set by God Himself and this hour has not yet come. I would like to be able to express what I feel, but alas! I believe this is impossible. One would have to travel through this dark tunnel to understand its darkness.

Thérèse says that she was plunged into a darkness "far from all suns." Looking for heaven she says, a "fog surrounds me and becomes more dense; it penetrates my soul and envelops it in such a way that it is impossible to discover within it the sweet image of my Fatherland; everything has disappeared!"

She goes on to say that while she continues to obey Christ that obedience has lost its joy: "[Jesus] knows very well that while I do not have the joy of faith, I am trying to carry out its works at least." And when she sings of heaven it's more from hope than conviction:

I must appear to you as a soul filled with consolations and one for whom the veil of faith is almost torn aside; and yet it is no longer a veil for me, it is a wall which reaches right up to the heavens and covers the starry firmament. When I sing of the happiness of heaven and of the eternal possession of God I feel no joy in this, for I sing simply what I WANT TO BELIEVE. It is true that at times a very small ray of the sun comes to illumine my darkness, and then the trial ceases for an instant, but afterward the memory of this ray, instead of causing me joy, make my darkness even more dense.

What we find here is one of the most extreme dark nights of the soul from the lives of the saints. And it's a startling and unexpected discovery given the sweet sentimentality associated with "the Little Flower." But there is nothing sweet or sentimental about Thérèse's faith struggles in the face of death.

Again, as best biographers can tell, this dark night lasted to the very end. In fact, as discussed by Tomáš Halík in his book Patience with God, a recent biographer of Thérèse's, Thomas Nevin, argues that Thérèse died without faith.

That's a shocking conclusion. And, of course, we'll never really know. But the interesting thing I'd like to draw your attention to is how Thérèse transformed her dark night into love. Thérèse might have died struggling with doubts, but she was firm in her commitment to die in love. In the very last line of the section where Thérèse describes her dark night she concludes with this:

I no longer have any great desires except that of loving to the point of dying in love.

In other conversations and writings she echos this sentiment:

My will is to endure, by Love,
The Darkness of my exile here.
...
If you only knew what darkness I am plunged into...Everything has disappeared on me, and I am left with love alone.

I am left with love alone. One interesting example of this, one discussed by Halík, is how Thérèse's dark night brought her into loving communion with atheists and non-believers. Before her own trials Thérèse didn't really think it was possible to be an atheist. She felt that God was so present in every heart that, deep down, atheists really knew there was a God:

...I was unable to believe there were really impious people who had no faith. I believed they were actually speaking against their own inner convictions when they denied the existence of heaven...

But after her dark night Thérèse understood, intimately so, what non-believers were experiencing. She found herself in loving solidarity with these non-believers, forced through the grace of God to eat at the shared table of non-belief. And in this solidarity Thérèse sees herself as intercessor. In her doubting Thérèse becomes the priest of non-believers. More, in her doubt she offers herself as a loving sacrifice to purify and save her non-believing brothers:

Your child, however, O Lord, has understood Your divine light, and she begs pardon for her brothers. She is resigned to eat the bread of sorrow as long as You desire it; she does not wish to rise up from this table filled with bitterness at which poor sinners are eating until the day set by You. Can she not say in her name and in the name of her brothers, "Have pity on us, O Lord, for we are poor sinners!" Oh! Lord, send us away justified. May all those who were not enlightened by the bright flame of faith one day see it shine. O Jesus! if it is needful that the table soiled by them be purified by a soul who loves You, then I desire to eat this bread of trial at this table until it pleases You to bring me into Your bright Kingdom.

I'm not sure I can track, with my rationalistic mind, the mystical flight Thérèse is taking here in this passage. But the general idea is clear enough. Thérèse finds herself at the bitter table of unbelief in solidarity with non-believers. And there she intercedes for her brothers, calling out for their justification and salvation, and offers her own life of doubt as a ransom for theirs.

In all this we see Thérèse sacrificing faith for love. Her last act isn't faith. It's love. As she says, "I am left with love alone." Faith is irrelevant (or gone missing). All she wants to do is love "to the point of dying in love."

Here's how Halík summarizes the dark night of Thérèse and her comments about the relationship between faith and love:

At the gates of death, did Thérèse perhaps experience something of that final state of which St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians--that ultimate state when everything will come to nothing? Perhaps his words also apply to faith and hope, for they will have "fulfilled their task" of accompanying us in the valley of shadow of this ambiguous world--but love will endure? Was the hell of Thérèse's suffering and inner darkness paradoxically the entrance to a "heaven" where just one of the three divine virtues survives?
...
Man does not fall into boundless darkness but returns home, into the full light of true: faith has already fulfilled its pilgrim task; only love reigns here and now. This will not cancel faith but fulfill it; if faith "dies," it does so only by being dissolved in love--but even this death may be experienced as a passage through the dark chasm of nothingness.

Christian faith--unlike "natural religiosity" and happy-go-lucky religiosity--is resurrected faith, faith that has to die on the cross, be buried, and rise again--in a new form. This faith is a process--and it is possible for people to find themselves at different phases of this process at different moments of their lives.

I have often heard the ironic statement that faith is simply "a crutch" to help those of us who are weak and lame, whereas the strong have no need of it. It is not "a crutch," but it might be compared to a pilgrim's staff that assists us on our journey through life. Maybe when someone is just about to cross the threshold of home, when the staff won't be needed anymore, it falls from his hands; it's not surprising if he loses his balance for a moment. "Seen from the other side"--from the viewpoint we can only experience here as an assurance, as hope--beyond that threshold, at the moment we lose all supports and certainties, there awaits us an embrace of love that will not let us fall into emptiness.

Faith is converted into love--sometimes not until the last gate, sometimes earlier, perhaps. Where faith dies, love continues to burn so darkness cannot have the final victory. Is it our love or His? It's a pointless question. There is only love.

Beyond faith and hope there is only love.

Thérèse, I think, would agree.

Wired to Suffer: On Theodicy and Personality

2012-01-31T04:42:00.007-06:00

I was thinking yesterday about the personality types that struggle the most with theodicy questions, why a powerful and loving God allows such suffering in the world.

My thoughts ran along these lines. Generally speaking, people tend to cluster in one of two groups. On the one side are your rational types. On the other are your emotional types. It's head versus heart. We are speaking of these types when we talk about left-brained and right-brained people. We also see it in the "either/or" nature in the Myers-Briggs personality types where "thinking" is placed in tension with "feeling" in how we make decisions. You're a T or an F.

But what if you're both?

For the most part, the two don't go together. Highly rational, logical and analytical types aren't generally known for their empathy or interpersonal skills. (I'm smiling here as I think of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.)

On the other side, socially intuitive, sensitive, and emotional people don't tend to specialize in logic, physics, or computer science.

Of course I'm painting with very, very broad strokes with all this. But here's the point I want to make. Theodicy has two sides. There's an analytical side and an empathic side.

The empathic side is easy to see. When we see others suffer our hearts go out to them. We suffer with them. Thus, if you have a soft, compassionate heart you'll likely struggle more with theodicy issues. Many of us can put images of suffering out of our minds. Others can't. And that creates a heavy theological burden.

But theodicy has an analytical side as well. There are a lot of people who struggle with God simply because they are tenacious in following the theological thread to the logical and bitter end. A lot of us think our way into faith problems. It's not that we think too much, just that we insist that people face up to the logical assumptions and consequences of their beliefs.

Generally speaking, because for the most part people specialize in one of these two areas, you can find solace in the area you aren't so good at. Emotional types, who don't really want to reason through theological puzzles, often settle for mystery. They don't mind "not knowing." Here their disinterest in analysis gives them a place to run when the emotional burden gets too heavy. When the emotional weight starts to crush they can fall back on "God is in control."

Conversely, analytical types can find shelter on the emotional side. That is, in demanding logical consistency these people might reach a conclusion that demands a certain level of hardheartedness. A lot of Calvinists fit this description in how they handle the problem of evil. As a system Calvinism has a sort of cold, implacable logic to it. But tender-hearted people simply recoil in the face of it. We get the logic of the system but are too softhearted to stomach the conclusions. That's what I'm trying to point out. You can work the logic but you have to hedge on the empathy. And by reducing empathy you can wiggle out of the theodicy trap your theology is creating.

So we see people doing one of two things to run from theodicy problems. Hedge on the empathy or hedge on the logical consistency.

But what if you're the sort of person who can't hedge on either? What if you're one of those rare individuals who are both very analytical and very empathic?

It seems to me, if you are one of these sorts of people, that you're basically screwed. All around you people are suffering. And you feel this acutely. More, as you reason it all out God comes out looking more and more like a monster or less and less like the God of orthodox Christianity. You're getting hit from both sides. You are unable to run from either the empathy or the logic. More, the two fuel each other in a feedback loop. Our analytical minds penetrate the bubble of worship and Sunday School platitudes. And our hearts won't hide the horror of life.

It's a theological nightmare.

You can't turn your mind off. Or your heart.

Theologically speaking, I think some of us are just wired to suffer.

Liam's Wells

2012-01-30T14:50:00.005-06:00

Sadness isn't the only thing we are all experiencing with the loss of Liam. It's very rare in life that you get to meet a truly heroic person. Liam was heroic.

Thus, in the midst of sadness we also feel inspired to be better people. I have this feeling that, for the rest of my life, I'll be asking myself the question, "What would Liam do?"

You can read more about Liam and his project--Liam's Wells--here and here.

You can donate to Liam's Wells here.

Sandcastles Between the Tides of Sorrow and Time

2012-01-30T04:09:00.001-06:00

Last week the child of dear friends passed away after a year long battle with leukemia.

All this time--from initial diagnosis, to treatment, to relapse, and on--I've struggled with my blogging. My friends and their dear sweet boy were always in my heart and mind as I wrote words about God. And with every post I experienced this horrible disconnect.

What is theology beside the graveside of a child?

All this "God talk"--the theorizing, the arguments we have in the comments section--it all seems so...small. And pointless.

I receive a great deal of comfort from this space and I know many of you have found this place to be full of camaraderie and encouragement. I hope it will continue to be in the years to come. But for today, I'd like to express, with a poem, the deep dissatisfaction I experience in writing about God in a world full of pain.

The thoughts I had standing beside the graveside of that bright little boy...

This is the end of theology.
The end of speaking
words into the air,
pretending that these syllables
gave us traction
and marked our progress.
Looking back,
we never moved.
There was only a babel filling
the intervals between our suffering.
Hastily constructed sandcastles
between the tides of sorrow and time.

Our sentences will continue
adding to the chorus of life
of crickets, wolves, and the birds of springtime.
The sounds and calls we make
to know we are not alone.
But this place will remind
with the deep ache of memory
that all doctrine has been reduced
to the singularities and wreckage of faith--
Only silence.
Only tears.
Only love.

Comments will be off for this post.

Why The Bible Made Impossible is Impossible

2012-01-27T05:29:00.002-06:00

There has been a great deal of conversation about Christian Smith's new book The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. All the positive reviews are well deserved. I agree, it's a wonderful book.

In fact, I'm in the midst of a short series I'm doing about the book for the bible class I teach at the Highland Church of Christ. The Church of Christ is a biblicist tradition. However, a lot of our people have grown disillusioned with the bible. The bible has become a stumbling block to faith. Which is why I wanted to do a series at my church about The Bible Made Impossible. Smith's book is therapeutic for people struggling with "the Good Book."

There are a lot of good overviews of the book out there. Let me point you to Rachel Held Evan's as a place to start. But let me give a quick overview so I can get to a comment I have about the book and the point of this post.

What is biblicism? Concisely, it is a theory (often unstated) about the nature, purpose, and function of the bible. Its ruling idea is that the meaning of the bible is clear and transparent to open-minded readers. The implication of this idea is that when people sit down to read the bible a broad consensus can be reached about the will of God for any number of issues or topics, from gender roles to the plan of salvation to social ethics to the end times to church organization.

The first part of Smith's book is engaged in blowing up this idea. Empirically speaking, the bible does not produce consensus. Empirically speaking, what we find, to use Smith's phrase, is "pervasive interpretive pluralism." Even among biblicists themselves consensus cannot be reached. For example, Smith points us to books like the Four Views series from InterVarsity Press. Surf over to that link and look at the titles of the series. Four (and sometimes five!) views on just about every topic in Christianity. What does that say when conservative evangelicals, who hold that the bible is both clear and authoritative, can't agree?

Thus, Smith concludes that biblicism is a wrongheaded way of approaching the bible. Biblicism doesn't deliver on what it promises: consensus and clarity about "the will of God."

In the second part of the book Smith turns to describe what he considers to be a better and more faithful evangelical reading of Scripture. This first move he makes is to argue for a Christocentric hermeneutic. The nature, purpose and function of the bible is to point us to Jesus, the Word of God. The "unity" and "consistency" of God's Word isn't to be found among the (at times contradictory) stories and teachings found on the pages of the bible. The bible isn't pointing to itself. Nor is it particularly interesting in issues of "reliability." The prime interest of the bible is the One to whom it is pointing. The bible is a witness not a rulebook, it is a chorus of voices giving testimony to the Word of God. No one has summarized this better than Jesus himself:

John 5:39-40
You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Now you might be wondering, how does this solve the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism? Aren't there many views of Jesus on offer? Isn't "Jesus" just a container we fill with reflections of ourselves?

Smith talks about this response but he doesn't have a final answer. Not that he could or should. That's a tall order to fill. Smith mainly argues that the benefit of shifting to this Christological conversation--Who is Jesus? Where is Jesus? How is Jesus among us?--is that it makes what is implicit now explicit. That is, rather than pretending we aren't interpreting Scripture, pretending that "God's will" is clearly and transparently written in the bible, we are forced to take up our hermeneutical burden, squarely facing, again and again and again, the question once raised by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today.

That might not be much of an improvement. But it does, however, as Smith points out, lift a considerable burden from the bible. No longer do we have to obsess about the bible's inconsistencies and opacity. We can, rather, get on with the business of finding and expressing the Incarnate Word among us.

In all this I'm in 100% agreement. But the demands of this sort of approach are not negligible. Smith follows his chapter on Christological hermeneutics with a chapter entitled "Accepting Complexity and Ambiguity." In this chapter Smith says,

There is no reason whatsoever not to openly acknowledge the sometimes confusing, ambiguous, and seemingly incomplete nature of scripture. We do not need to be able to explain everything all the time. It is fine sometimes simply to say, "I have no idea" and "We really don't know."

Thus, Smith argues that we should "drop the compulsion to harmonize" the bible and that we should live "on a need-to-know basis." We should embrace the mystery and the uncertainty.

Again, in all this, I find myself in complete agreement. But here's my problem:

Only a few people are going to be able to do this.

That is my quibble with The Bible Made Impossible. Specifically, the recommendations of The Bible Made Impossible are, well, impossible, psychologically speaking. Not across the board, mind you. There are a few people who are psychologically able to tolerate ambiguity and the associated existential anxiety. Because these are pretty big stakes we're talking about here. We're not talking about ambiguity in, say, a form you have to fill out at work. We're talking about sin, salvation, heaven, judgment, grace, hell and all that jazz. And with stakes that huge any ambiguity is going to create an enormous burden of anxiety.

In short, I find The Bible Made Impossible to be psychologically naive. That sounds harsh, so let me clarify. I'm not speaking to Smith's scholarship, which is awesome (plus, he's a great writer). I'm speaking to the anthropological and psychological assumptions that need to be in place to pull his vision off. And to clarify some more, I can guarantee you that Smith is aware of these challenges. He's a sociologist after all. The problem I'm pointing out is that these challenges, where I think the rubber meets the road, aren't discussed in any great detail in the book. That's my point. You read the book and say, "Great idea, but golly, the majority of people aren't going to be able to pull this off. Not without something else being said or done."

Here's the deal. People turn to the bible for consolation and guidance. They want to know if they are doing the right thing, if God is pleased with them. And it's at that location--right there--where the real work has to be done. Because the stakes, as I said, are high. If heaven and hell is in play, if there is any anxiety whatsoever about God's approval, then telling people to "embrace ambiguity" isn't going to help. It's just throwing gasoline on the fire.

George MacDonald on Salvation: "In Jesus Christ I See the Very God I Want"

2012-01-26T05:38:00.002-06:00

There were a lot of things George MacDonald helped me with when I first encountered him in college. One of the things I was starting to struggle with, mightily so, was with certain visions of God that regulated particular theories of salvation.

For example, I was struggling with images of a wrathful and bloodthirsty God. That the God I was called upon to worship could only be appeased by the spilling of blood. What sort of God was that? The whole vision seemed pagan to me. And that's what I concluded, that most of contemporary Christianity is just Paganism 2.0.

MacDonald helped me forward. He gave me the confidence to replace those pagan notions of god with the God of Jesus Christ. Last week I told you I was reading back through MacDonald's novel Donal Grant. It was passages like this one from Donal Grant that proved so helpful to me:

"...in Jesus Christ I see the very God I want. I want a father like him..." [said Donal to lady Arctura,] "...No other than the God exactly like Christ can be the true God. It is a doctrine of devils that Jesus died to save us from our father. There is no safety, no good, no gladness, no purity, but with the Father, his father, and our father, his God and our God."

"But God hates sin and pushes it!" [exclaimed lady Arctura.]

"It would be terrible if he did not. All hatred of sin is love to the sinner. Do you think Jesus came to deliver us from the punishment of our sins? He would not have moved a step for that. The horrible thing is being bad, and all punishment is help to deliver us from that, nor will punishment cease til we have ceased to be bad. God will have us good, and Jesus works out the will of his father. Where is the refuge of the child who fears his father? Is it in the farthest corner of the room? Is it down in the dungeon of the castle, my lady?"

"No, no!" cried lady Arctura, "--in his father's arms!"

"There!" said Donal, and was silent.

The Slavery of Death: Part 20, The Devil's Work

2012-01-25T04:25:00.010-06:00

Critical post in this series. Having taken a tour through psychology we are, finally, going to close the circle and converge back upon Christus Victor theology.

Let me first summarize the takeaway from the last post, our review of Ernest Becker's book The Denial of Death.

A key point in The Denial of Death is that self-esteem is involved in managing death anxiety. Living with the specter of death humans seek to live lives that might have some permanence and durability in the face of death. Our cultural worldviews aid in this quest by providing us with cultural goods and values that seem to transcend death. In pursuing these goods and values we follow a path toward meaning and significance. Self-esteem, how we compare to the cultural values, helps us monitor our progress. We participate in what Becker calls "cultural heroics."

While there are psychological and cultural benefits to be had in all this, in the end this is a precarious and fragile business. Our day to day lives often don't feel very heroic. Consequently, we feel that meaning and significance is fragile and shallow. We can come to doubt that our culture telling us the truth. We wonder if working for "the man" is really admirable and worthwhile. The gold watch at the end of a career can seem perfunctory and pointless. We wonder if there is something more to life. But to even ask that question brings on the threat of an existential crisis. To ask those sorts of questions, questions about the validity of the hero system, can bring you to the brink of despair. It's easier to just keep your head down, existentially speaking. It's easier to remain oblivious, to keep punching the time clock and watching American Idol or football games.

And here is where we can see why the bible describes our lives as a "slavery to the fear of death." We're not really paying attention to what is going on. Our cultural hero system and the self-esteem it produces keeps us distracted and oblivious. Sort of like being plugged into the Matrix. This makes life within the hero system feel, in reflective moments, artificial, empty, contrived, and arbitrary. To use a term from the theologian James Alison, we feel we are pursuing ersatz meaning.

And this dynamic leads us to an even darker outcome. If Becker's The Denial of Death helps us understand the biblical claim that our lives are enslaved to the fear of death how might this fear be the work of the Devil? Again, as it says in Hebrews 2.14-15 the Devil is the one controlling this fear. Christ comes to set us free from this fear, to "destroy the devil's works" (1 John 3.8). And while we have come to see how a slavery to the fear of death might make us existentially oblivious and cause us to pursue ersatz meaning and self-esteem, it's not yet clear how this is "the devil's work." What is the connection between the fear of death and the satanic?

This theme is explored by Becker in Escape from Evil, the sequel to The Denial of Death.

According to Becker, the great tragedy of human existence is this. As noted above, our lives are experienced as "significant" because we create cultural hero systems. And yet, our hero system isn't the only one on offer. Every culture has its own values and goods, is its own hero system, that help define what a "meaningful" life looks like. This poses a problem. Our hero systems only "work" if we experience them as immune to death, as something eternal and timeless. In this, our hero systems are religious in nature. In fact, for most of us our hero system is our religion.

So when hero systems and the gods supporting them come into contact we experience an existential threat. The existence of other ways of life, other values, and other gods threatens to relativize our own values and god. That is, our "way of life" is found to be just one option among other options in the marketplace of worldviews. This shakes our confidence that our particular worldview is both true and eternal. If there are many gods how can I be sure my god is the one true god? Pressed further, how can I be sure that all of these gods aren't just figments of our imaginations to help us cope with our death anxiety? Suddenly we feel the existential floor open up beneath us.

In short, alternative hero systems--other values, gods, and ways of life--threaten to undo everything that has made our life feel significant, meaningful, and secure. The ideological Other, in posing an implicit critique of my hero system, threatens me to the core, attacks the very source of my self-esteem. And here's the deal. The ideological Other doesn't really have to do anything to us directly. Their mere existence is enough to threaten us. They represent, on the edges of our awareness, a dissenting voice. A group who doesn't bow to our god and, thus, calls all we hold dear into question.

So what do we do in the face of that threat? It's pretty simple. We demonize the Other. Rather than endure the existential discomfort it's easier to double-down on our worldview and to see the Others as malevolent agents. We aggress against the Other. In mild forms, we see the Other as confused or mistaken, a target for evangelism. More strongly, the Other is an enemy we have to forcibly eliminate.

Here is Becker describing this dynamic:

The thing that feeds the great destructiveness of history is that men give their entire allegiance to their own group; and each group is a codified hero system. Which is another way of saying that societies are standardized systems of death denial; they give structure to the formulas for heroic transcendence....

[Given that] cultures are fundamentally and basically styles of heroic death denial, [w]e can then ask empirically, it seems to me, what are the costs of such denials of death, because we know how these denials are structured into styles of life. These costs can be tallied roughly in two ways: in terms of the tyranny practiced within the society, and in terms of the victimage practiced against aliens or “enemies” outside it...

And with this conclusion we have reached the climax of our psychological analysis. Here is how the "slavery to the fear of death" produces the "works of the devil." Fearing death we seek solace, comfort, and immorality from our cultural worldviews. But these worldviews can only assuage our fear if they appear to us as eternal and timeless, as something immune to death. But when worldviews collide, as they do in pluralistic societies, our hero systems are relativized and called into question. This undermines the existential armor we need to achieve a workaday equanimity in the face of death. And rather than endure this anxiety we opt for violence, lashing out at ideological Others.

According to Ernest Becker this, then, is the great tragedy of human existence: That which makes life worth living--our cultural hero system and the self-esteem it provides--is the very source of evil.

Thus we converge, from a psychological vantage-point, on a core teaching of Christus Victor theology: The fear of death keeps us bound to both sin and the devil. And we've come to see how this fear is a slavery. It is a fear that has captured everything around me and everything within me. Death soaks into everything. It soaks the cultural hero system that gives my life meaning. Thus enslaving me to the Principalities and Powers. It soaks my self-esteem, an armor of ersatz meaning and pseudo-significance. And all of it--described by the bible as a slavery to the fear of death--pushes me to become a creature of violence and sin.

And so we cry out with Paul:

"Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?"

The Authenticity of Faith Now Available

2012-01-24T04:44:00.009-06:00

I'd like to announce that my second book The Authenticity of Faith: The Varieties and Illusions of Religious Experience is now available. It can be purchased here from Amazon or, if Amazon runs out (UPDATE: they have), here at the ACU Press website.

The book description:

A psychologist tests Freud's claims that faith is a form of wishful thinking and belief in God a consoling illusion.

Is faith simply a form of wishful thinking? Is belief in God merely a consoling illusion? So argued Sigmund Freud in The Future of an Illusion. And the force of Freud's argument continues to be felt as it features prominently among critics of religion such as the New Atheists.

But was Freud right? Until now, few have directly examined the plausibility of Freud's argument. But here, in a groundbreaking analysis inspired by the religious types described by William James in his seminal The Varieties of Religious Experience, Richard Beck explores the motivational dynamics among ''summer Christians'' and ''winter Christians.'' Further, across a variety of laboratory studies, Beck examines how Christians variously engage with art (exploring what Beck has dubbed ''The Thomas Kinkade Effect''), doctrine (from the Incarnation to beliefs regarding the activity of the devil), and religious difference in a pluralistic world. In each instance, Beck analyzes the underlying motivations of the religious types, sifting through the varieties and illusions of religious experience.

The Authenticity of Faith presents a radical ''New Apologetics,'' an attempt to move beyond contentious philosophical and theological disputes to examine the scientific merits of Freud's critique of faith. Here is an unlikely journey--the scientific search for an authentic faith; the outcome is sure to inspire reflection, conversation, and debate among believers and skeptics alike.

Some of the book endorsements:

''Many scholars have studied the relationship of psychology and Christianity in recent decades, but only a few offer the fresh creativity that Dr. Richard Beck brings to the task. The Authenticity of Faith will make us think, and then it will make us think again, and ultimately it will foster a living faith characterized by depth, relevance, and wisdom.''
--Mark R. McMinn, PhD, Professor of Psychology, George Fox University; author of Sin and Grace in Christian Counseling

''Richard Beck artfully blends psychological theory, empirical research, and theology to tackle a challenging question: Are religious beliefs motivated by mere wishful thinking? This well-crafted, thoughtful, and engaging text is guaranteed to provide readers with plenty of food for thought.''
--Julie J. Exline, Associate Professor of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University

“Using social scientific research, Beck identifies the flaws in Freud’s dismissal of religion as a neurotic defense against mortal dread. He draws on the writings of William James to show the complexity of religious belief, which emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual believer. Written in a way that is accessible to readers who aren’t trained in social scientific research, but rigorous in meeting the standards of the social sciences, The Authenticity of Faith is a masterful example of the ‘new apologetics.’”
--Steven Rouse, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University

As I've mentioned before, I thank the readers of this blog in the Acknowledgements. There is reads:

I would also like to thank the readers of my blog Experimental Theology where early drafts of this material first appeared. I’m blessed to have one of the most intelligent and thoughtful readerships on the Internet. A warm thank-you to my readers for your many helpful comments, feedback, and encouragement. You were the first to let me know that this material deserved a wide audience.

In the early days of this blog I did a series called "Freud's Ghost: The Quest for an Authentic Faith." Some of you will remember it. When I wrote that series I had yet to do the empirical work to support the argument I was making then. Years later those studies have now been done, the laboratory work to support my hunch that Williams James was right (in contrast to Freud's "one size fits all" account of faith) in speaking about religious varieties.

In all this, The Authenticity of Faith represents my long personal and professional engagement with Freud's critique of religious belief. It all started in college when I turned to face the question squarely: Did I believe in God or heaven because it made me happy?

After years of self-reflection and research, through seasons where my faith has ebbed and flowed, The Authenticity of Faith is my answer.

Warhorse

2012-01-23T05:33:00.002-06:00

I took my oldest son to see Warhorse last week. Really enjoyed it. And here's why.

Warhorse might be one of the best anti-war movies I've ever seen. It's really subversive.

No doubt there have been a host of films that have more graphically portrayed the brutality and nihilism of war. But Warhorse does something really different in exposing the Principalities and Powers.

If you've not seen the film a bit of overview with no spoilers. Warhorse is a World War I film. We follow a horse named Joey and his first owner, a teenager when we first meet him, Albert. Albert and Joey form a spiritual bond and we recognize in Joey an indomitable spirit. When war breaks out Joey's family, because they are poor, sell Joey to the war effort. Joey becomes a warhorse. From there we follow Joey and the owners who care for him during the war. These owners are British, German and French. Though our affections are always with Albert, Joey's original owner, Joey finds good and compassionate people on both sides of the war.

That is, I think, the particular anti-war genius of the movie. Most war movies have to pick a side. For example, compare Warhorse with Saving Private Ryan, another of Spielberg's war movies. No doubt Saving Private Ryan portrays the horrors of war more graphically than Warhorse (though Warhorse is pretty grim). But one criticism of Saving Private Ryan is that it chooses a side. The Germans are anonymous ciphers. Humanity and heroism is on the American side.

By contrast, since the star of Warhorse is the horse the film isn't choosing sides as strongly. Thus, we follow the horse back and forth across the battle lines and this blurs the distinction between "the good guys" and "the bad guys." This is sharply illustrated in a scene late in the movie when a German and a British soldier meet in the middle of "no man's land" between the British and German trenches to attend to Joey.

It's this blurring of the distinction between Us and Them that I find really powerful in Warhorse. The "good guys" are those who show humanity and compassion on both sides of the lines.

But there is more. One of the visual metaphors in the movie is a regimental pennant that Albert attaches to Joey when Joey goes off to war. As Joey exchanges hands during the war we see this pennant exchange hands. And here's the significance of that.

Early in the movie we note that Albert's father is an alcoholic. Later we learn why. He was traumatized by his service in the Second Boer War. He drinks to forget the horrors of war. The regimental pennant Albert attaches to Joey was his father's from the Boer war.

And as we follow the pennant of Albert's war-damaged father through the film, going from solider to solider (and to non-combatants), we start to see the trauma of war spread. British solider, German solider and even French civilian. None are spared. War damages them all.

In all this we begin to see that Joey isn't the only warhorse in the film. Joey is a symbol of something much darker. The first warhorse in the film is actually Albert's father. And Albert soon follows.

Everyone, German and British alike, is found to be a "warhorse." And we leave the film thinking that the real enemy isn't the man in the other trench.

We're all just warhorses, we come to realize. The real enemy is war itself.

Among Those For Whom No One Else Cares

2012-01-20T05:26:00.002-06:00

"To be concerned with the outcast is an echo, of course, of the Gospel itself. Characteristically, the Christian is to be found in his work and witness in the world among those for whom no one else cares--the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the misfits, the homeless, the orphans and beggars. The presence of the Christian among the outcasts is the way in which the Christian represents, concretely, the ubiquity and universality of the intercession of Christ for all men."
--William Stringfellow, My People is the Enemy

Meditations on the Little Way: Part 4, The Elevator to Jesus: The Practice of the Little Way

2012-01-19T05:06:00.004-06:00

In Part 3 of this series we discussed Manuscript B of Story of a Soul, the mystical charter of the Little Way, where Thérèse came to recognize her vocation as love. In the Body of Christ she would be the heart.

Having discussed the spirituality of the Little Way, in this post I want to turn to practical matters. How do I, practically speaking, follow the Little Way?

Most of the material relevant to the practice of the Little Way can be found in Manuscript C, the final two chapters of Story of a Soul.

Earlier in this series we noted how Thérèse compared the Little Way to the "science of love." At the start of Manuscript C she uses another striking metaphor: The Little Way as an elevator to Jesus:

We are living now in an age of inventions, and we no longer have to take the trouble of climbing stairs, for, in the homes of the rich, an elevator has replaced these very successfully. I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection.

Again, Thérèse was dreaming big dreams, spiritually speaking. Before the elevator metaphor she writes:

You know, Mother, that I have always wanted to be a saint. Alas! I have always noticed that when I compared myself to the saints, there is between them and me the same difference that exists between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and the obscure grain of sand trampled underfoot by passers-by.

I'm guessing we all can identify. The lives of the saints appear to be Mount Everest's of holiness. How to get up that high? Thérèse continues...

Instead of being discouraged, I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness.

Refusing to give up her aspirations to holiness, and despite the daunting climb before her, Thérèse set herself the task of finding an elevator to Jesus. And thus was born the Little Way.

Thérèse discovered the Little Way by contemplating the words of Jesus in the gospels. These passages in particular:

Matthew 22.39
"The second commandment is like the first: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

John 13.34-35
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

As Thérèse pondered these words she realized that she didn't love the people around her--her fellow Sisters--as Jesus loved them: "I realized how imperfect was my love for my Sisters." Convicted by this, Thérèse began striving to allow the heart of Jesus to emerge within her, to allow Jesus to love her fellow Sisters through her life, words and actions:

Ah! Lord, I know you don't command the impossible. You know better than I do my weaknesses and imperfection; You know very well that never would I be able to love my Sisters as You love them, unless You, O my Jesus, loved them in me...Your Will is to love in me all those You commanded me to love!

Yes, I feel it, when I am charitable, it is Jesus alone who is acting in me, and the more united I am to Him, the more also do I love my Sisters.

So, how does all this look in practice?

There is a pretty large literature that unpacks, systematizes, and interprets the Little Way. I've read very, very little of this literature. So for my part I will simply gather stories from Story of a Soul that show Thérèse practicing the Little Way in her day to day life. These stories show Thérèse demonstrating little acts of charity and self-mortification.

Let me first, however, say a word about self-mortification and its relation to charity and the Little Way. Thérèse was a Catholic monastic. Consequently, self-mortification was part and parcel of her spiritual walk. But self-mortification often doesn't sit well with many Protestants. More, we don't understand it's relationship to love.

This is unfortunate because self-mortification--dying to self--was an important teaching of Jesus. At root, self-mortification is wrestling with and overcoming selfishness, self-love, and self-absorption so we can become available to and make room for others. When it comes to self-mortification we shouldn't be thinking of hair shirts. Rather, we should call to mind something like this:

Luke 14.7-8a,10
When Jesus noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor...But when you are invited, take the lowest place...

This is, in fact, one of the acts of self-mortification Thérèse mentions in Story of a Soul: "I don't hasten to the first place but to the last."

These are the acts of self-mortification that Thérèse is speaking about in the Little Way. Acts of humility, restraint, self-control, forbearance, perseverance, patience and long-suffering. It is about "bearing with" people. Self-mortification is less about fasting for forty days than it is about holding your tongue, waiting patiently, mastering your irritation, avoiding the the spotlight, refusing to respond to insults, allowing others to cut in line, being first to apologize, and not seeking to win every argument. In all this we begin to see how self-mortification is related to love. For example, is forgiveness an act of self-mortification or charity? It's both. It's an extension of grace that flows out of an act of self-overcoming. With your ego out of the way it's easier to be open to the other. Thus Thérèse argues,

Love is nourished only by sacrifices, and the more a soul refuses natural satisfactions, the stronger and more disinterested becomes her tenderness.

With that in mind, let's turn to illustrations of the Little Way. There are many, almost maxim-like, nuggets sprinkled throughout Story of the Soul related to the Little Way...

Charity consists in bearing with the faults of others, in not being surprised by their weaknesses, in being edified by the smallest acts of virtue we see them practice.

It is no longer a question of loving one's neighbor as oneself but of loving him as He, Jesus, has loved him.

When I wish to increase this love in me, and when especially the devil tries to place before the eyes of my soul the faults of such and such a Sister who is less attractive to me, I hasten to search out her virtues, her good intentions...

I want to be charitable in my thoughts toward others at all times, for Jesus has said: "Judge not, and you shall not be judged."

...but the most extended and practical description of the Little Way is found in the final chapter:

I have noticed (and this is very natural) that the most saintly Sisters are the most loved. We seek their company; we render them services without their asking; finally, these souls so capable of bearing the lack of respect and consideration of others see themselves surrounded with everyone's affection...

On the other hand, imperfect souls are not sought out. No doubt we remain within the limits of religious politeness in their regard, but we generally avoid them, fearing lest we say something which isn't too amiable. When I speak of imperfect souls, I don't want to speak of spiritual imperfections since most holy souls will be perfect in heaven; but I want to speak of a lack of judgment, good manners, touchiness in certain characters; all these things which don't make life agreeable. I know very well that these moral infirmities are chronic, that there is no hope of a cure, but I also know that my Mother would not cease to take care of me, to try to console me, if I remained sick all my life. This is the conclusion I draw from this: I must seek out in recreation, on free days, the company of Sisters who are the least agreeable to me in order to carry out with regard to these wounded souls the office of the Good Samaritan. A word, an amiable smile, often suffice to make a sad soul bloom...I want to be friendly with everybody (and especially with the least amiable Sisters) to give joy to Jesus.

This is the practice of the Little Way, or a central part of the practice. It is to seek out "the imperfect souls" in our lives (I'm sure people are coming to mind) who we generally, along with others, seek to avoid. As Thérèse describes, these people are touchy, irritable, and generally lacking in social graces, among other faults. More, these faults are chronic, personality-based issues that aren't ever going to change (get "cured" to use Thérèse's word).

The Little Way is to see these souls as "wounded" on the side of the road and to respond to them like the Good Samaritan. Or, to use Thérèse's other image, we can see these souls as chronically ill and respond to them like a Mother caring for her child ("I know that my Mother would not cease to take care of me, to try to console me, if I remained sick all my life"). Practically, this means we seek out the company of these individuals. And finding them we offer kindness and friendliness.

This is the crux of the Little Way: Seeking out the unlikable people in our world and offering them kindness. Thérèse describes this as being faithful to Jesus's command to love both our friends and our enemies:

The Lord, in the Gospel, explains in what His new commandment consists. He says in St. Matthew: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies...pray for those who persecute you." No doubt, we don't have any enemies in Carmel, but there are feelings. One feels attracted to this Sister, whereas with regard to another, one would make a long detour in order to avoid meeting her. And so, without knowing it, she becomes the subject of persecution. Well, Jesus is telling me that it is this Sister who must be loved...

That's a great phrase. "We don't have any enemies in Carmel, but there are feelings." I'm sure you can relate. "I don't have any enemies per se at the office but there are, well, feelings." Those feelings are the focus of the Little Way. And we see the central theme again: Overcoming natural attractions and aversions to seek out the one who isn't an object of affection. I'm particularly struck by how Thérèse compares social avoidance--taking "detours" in order to avoid annoying people--as a from of social persecution.

Goodness, I can identify with that. The avoiding people. The "detouring" around them. The Little Way challenges this natural impulse of mine. And it help me see that seeking these people out and spending some time in friendly conversation is a way I might respond to the Parable of the Good Samaritan in my day to day life. I don't have to wait to find a bloody body in a ditch to act like Jesus's model of love. I can do something "little" but just as heroic this very day: I can stop taking those detours and thereby crack the bubbles of social persecution in my workplace (or anywhere else).

In Story of a Soul Thérèse gives an example of doing this very thing:

There is in the Community a Sister who has the faculty of displeasing me in everything, in her ways, her words, her character, everything seems very disagreeable to me...Not wishing to give in to the natural antipathy I was experiencing, I told myself that charity must not consist in feelings but in works; then I set myself to doing for this Sister what I would do for the person I loved the most. Each time I met her I prayed to God for her...[But] I wasn't content simply with praying very much for this Sister who gave me so many struggles, but I took care to render her all the services possible, and when I was tempted to answer her back in a disagreeable manner, I was content with giving her my most friendly smile, and with changing the subject of our conversation...

One day at recreation she asked in almost these words: "Would you tell me Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus, what attracts you so much toward me; every time you look at me, I see you smile?"

A couple of observations about this example of Thérèse's own practice of the Little Way. First, we again see the seeking out of a person who Thérèse found "very disagreeable," and pretty disagreeable across the board--personality, manner, speech. Second, Thérèse moves beyond prayer to focus on actions, doing good things for this person. Third, we see patience and restraint in interacting with this Sister, Thérèse watching her words, keeping a smile on her face, and sometimes changing the topic of conversation. Finally and most importantly, the Sister noticed! This isn't love in the abstract. Thérèse's behavior made an impact.

I'm sure many of you are starting to shake your heads. "There is no way," you're likely saying, "that I'm going to seek out and be friendly with [insert name of co-worker, family member, etc.]."

Hey, I'm right there with you. I think we're continuing to see how these "little" things aren't so little. And why Thérèse ended up becoming saint for choosing to live this way.

Let me conclude with another example of the Little Way. I love this example because it's such a goofy thing but so very common in day to day life. I'm sure you'll be able to relate to Thérèse's experience:

I am going to recount certain little struggles which will certainly make you smile. For a long time at evening meditation, I was placed in front of a Sister who had a strange habit...This is what I noticed: as soon as this Sister arrived, she began making a strange little noise which resembled the noise one would make when rubbing two shells, one against the other. I was the only one to notice it because I had extremely sensitive hearing (too much so at times). Mother, it would be impossible for me to tell you how much this little noise wearied me. I had a great desire to turn my head and stare at the culprit who was very certainly unaware of her "click."

How awesome is this!? And can't you relate? Boy, I can. I often find myself in moods where people irritate me, for no good reason. I don't like the sound of their chewing. The way they are clearing their throat. The way they are standing too close to me. Ever have one of those moods, where little things people are doing are just driving you crazy?

So there she is, Thérèse at prayers getting annoyed at a Sister for making a distracting clicking noise. The story continues...

I remained calm, therefore, and tried to unite myself to God and to forget the little noise. Everything was useless. I felt the perspiration inundate me...

Again, what I love about this is how small this story seems and yet so huge. How much of our interactions with others is driven by these experiences of irritation? My day is full of this sort of stuff. And the Little Way is calling us to take these moments of impatience and annoyance and turn them into moments of holiness. Thérèse concludes:

I searched for a way of [listening to the noise] without annoyance and with peace and joy, at least in the interior of my soul. I tried to love the little noise which was so displeasing; instead of trying not to hear it (impossible), I paid close attention so as to hear it well, as though it were a delightful concert, and my prayer (which was not the Prayer of Quiet) was spent offering this concert to Jesus.

How to summarize the spiritual heroism of the Little Way? Think of it this way: You can run off to a monastery or hit the mission field or, wait for it, start mastering your irritation. In comparison this last seems, well, pretty little. But upon reflection, each of these seems pretty damn heroic. That's the genius of the Little Way. Finding the experiences of day to day living to be locations of epic spiritual struggle, the narrative arch of the great saints and martyrs.

And yet, this is so hard to see. Because let's admit it. Who thinks mastering your irritation, say, standing in line at Walmart is your St. Francis or Joan of Arc moment? Who thinks putting up with the annoying sound of a co-worker eating potato chips in the break-room is the path to sainthood?

Nobody.

But Thérèse did.

And she called it the elevator to Jesus.

The Fence of Matthew Shepard

2012-01-17T05:11:00.004-06:00

"It's gay awareness week."

That's what the killers said to Matthew Shepard before brutally beating and torturing him.

Eighteen hours after the prolonged beating a cyclist found Matthew, alive but unconscious, hanging on a fence (pictured right).

The cyclist initially mistook Matthew for a scarecrow.

Matthew was taken to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. We was in a coma. The autopsy later revealed that Matthew had been struck in the head 18 times with a pistol causing severe brain-stem damage. Matthew never regained consciousness. He died at 12:53 a.m. on October 12, 1998. He was twenty-two years old.

The Westboro Baptist Church attended Matthew's funeral.

They held up signs.

"No Tears for Queers"

"Fag Matt in Hell"

Many of us recall the news coverage of Matthew Shepard's death. The outcry was enormous, eventually leading to advocacy groups requesting that attacks made on the basis of sexual orientation be added to the federal definition of a hate crime. After numerous setbacks and a great deal of political posturing the legislation was finally passed in 2009 by the US Senate and House. President Obama signed the bill into law on October 28, 2009, eleven years after Matthew's death.

...

People wonder from time to time why I write about the relationship between the gay community and the Christian church. It's not a comfortable topic where I live and work. But the answer is pretty simple.

I'm haunted by the scarecrow hanging on the fence.

In James Cone's recent book The Cross and the Lynching Tree he makes the argument that the cross and the lynching tree need to form a dialectic. If the two are separated the cross becomes innocuous and meaningless. As Cone writes:

Unfortunately, during the course of 2,000 years of Christian history, this symbol of salvation has been detached from any reference to the ongoing suffering and oppression of human beings...The cross has been transformed into harmless, non-offensive ornament that Christians wear around their neck.

Cone argues that during the Civil Rights struggle the Christian symbol of salvation should have been, though it was not, connected with the lynching tree--an actual and ongoing location of human oppression and cruelty. For when the two become separated--when the cross hung around our neck or in our church fails to bring to mind current and ongoing locations of cruelty in our world--then the Christian faith has lost its way.

The cross, to be a truly Christian symbol, must bring to mind the lynching trees of the world.

Christ hangs from the cross as Blacks hung from trees. As Matthew Shepard hung from a fence.

Cursed scarecrows all.

As it says in the Good Book: "Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse." (Deut. 21.23)

Until we see Jesus standing with the cursed we will never understand the central symbol of our faith nor what it means to be a Christian.

Saul falls on his face on the road to Damascus. He looks into the blinding light and asks, "Who are you Lord?" And the reply comes: "I am the one you are persecuting."

Jesus hangs on the crosses of the world, from the trees and from the fences. It is as Elie Wiesel describes in his memoir Night. After watching a young boy hanged by the Nazis in the concentration camp:

Behind me, I heard a man asking:

"Where is God now?"

And I heard a voice within me answer him:

"Where is He? He is--He is hanging here on this gallows..."

Though some might object to me drawing an equivalence between the history of African-Americans in the United States and that of the gay community, I don't want to put sorrows in the balance. Some may want to point out that gay persons are not being lynched and hung from the trees as Blacks were in the Jim Crow south. And because of this we might conclude that the fence of Matthew Shepard is an isolated incident, a crime committed by two hateful and deranged individuals. That the death of Matthew Shepard has nothing to do with me, has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with the church.

And yet. And yet. I am haunted by the fence of Matthew Shepard.

As I reflect on my Christian walk I often ponder this question: If I had lived in Nazi Germany would I have stood up for the Jews?

Most Christians didn't. And as I psychologist I'm familiar with studies like the Sanford Prison study and the Milgram Obedience study. I'm aware that normal, god-fearing people can do horrible things when pressure is put upon them.

So what makes me so special? Statistically speaking, odds are I would have made a good Nazi.

I also think a lot about the Civil Rights Movement in the US. I ask myself: If I had lived in the South would I have marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.? As Cone asks, would the cross in my church have made me think of the lynching trees in my nation? Would I have seen the connection?

Again, most Christians didn't.

And I keep wondering. Am I any different? What makes me think I'd be a courageous agent of light in those circumstances? Odds are I'd be just like everyone else.

And then I think about the fence of Matthew Shepard.

Let me tell you what keeps me up at night. My deepest fear in life is that I'm going to end up on the wrong side of God's history. Like so many Christians before me. My fear is that a moment will come when I am asked to stand up for those hanging on the trees, literally and symbolically, and I'll respond with "That has nothing to do with me. That has nothing to do with the church."

Where are the cursed scarecrows of this world? And does the sight of the cross bring them to mind?

I've read a lot of books and written a lot of words about Christian theology. But really, it's all pretty simple.

Jesus hangs from crosses, from trees and fences.

And to see that, like Saul on the Road to Damascus, is the day of your conversion.

The day you become a Christian.

A Bedtime Prayer on MLK Day

2012-01-16T21:34:00.004-06:00

Sitting on my boys' bed tonight before prayers.

"You know guys, you might be the only kids at your school who actually sat at Martin Luther King Jr.'s kitchen table."

"Yeah."

"That's a pretty cool thing to remember on MLK Day, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember what we saw outside the house when we visited?"

"Wasn't it the place where they bombed his house?"

"Yes. It was the place where they bombed his house. That's one of the reasons why we celebrate saints like Martin Luther King, Jr. It takes courage to do the right thing. Like David and Goliath. Like Stephen before the Sanhedrin. Like Daniel in the Lion's Den. It takes courage and bravery to do the right thing."

We say our prayers, I turn out the lights and leave the room. At the door I stop and turn back. I whisper a final prayer.

"Be brave my boys. Be brave."

Mountaintop

2012-01-16T05:08:00.001-06:00

"I asked God to give me the strength to remain nonviolent and to forgive the people for what they might do."

I was sitting with Drs. David and Jennifer Dillman along with twenty-two ACU students listening to James Zwerg. We were in Montgomery, Alabama almost fifty years to the day when James, along with the other Nashville Freedom Riders, got off the bus at the Greyhound station just down the street. The Nashville Freedom Riders were in Montgomery because the original group of Freedom Riders had been attacked in Anniston and Birmingham. Knowing they would face similar attacks, the Nashville riders had come to Montgomery to finish what the original riders had started.

James was one of the first off the bus to face the mob, many of whom were carrying pipes, chains, and clubs. Being the first white Freedom Rider to come into sight James knew he’d face the brunt of the mob’s fury. But right before the blows fell upon him James stopped, gathered himself, and asked God to forgive those about to beat him.

How did we wind up in Montgomery on the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides?

For years David, Jennifer and I had separately dreamed of a bus trip taking ACU students through significant sites in the American Civil Rights movement. The summer before I had been able to scout various locations with my family on the way home from a family vacation. Having shared our visions, back at ACU David and I huddled over maps determined, along with Jennifer, to make this trip a reality.

We settled on a route. Abilene. Little Rock. Memphis. Birmingham. Montgomery. Selma. Jackson. Abilene. The circuit would take us through some of the most dramatic moments in American history. Brown vs. Board of Education. The Little Rock Nine. Police dogs and fire hoses in Kelly Ingram Park. The Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. Rosa Parks. Martin Luther King Jr. and Montgomery Bus Boycott. Bloody Sunday. The Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March. The balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Freedom Summer.

And, of course, the Freedom Rides.

We didn’t plan it this way, but David, Jennifer and I quickly realized that we were planning our trip the very year marking the 50th Anniversary of the original 1961 Freedom Rides. We also realized that we’d be on the road the same week in May as the original Rides. All sorts of commemorations were being planned for the days we’d be in Alabama. PBS was airing an original documentary about the Freedom Rides during the week of the trip and every day we awoke to newspaper articles discussing the significance of the Freedom Rides. As our bus rolled down the road it was like we were stepping back in time.

Of course, the great blessing of this timing was getting to meet with two of the original Freedom Riders. The day after meeting with James Zwerg our students also met with Dr. Bernard Lafayette, participant in the Nashville sit-in movement, co-founder of SNCC, Freedom Rider and close associate of Dr. King. Dr. Lafayette, a world leader in the philosophy and training of non-violence, looked at our students and said: “Find an issue in life that you are willing to die for. We’re all going to die. The question is, are we going to live?”

Everywhere we went the atmosphere was thick with stories of heartache and heroism. As we walked the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma we were able to experience the courage of the Bloody Sunday marchers. Cresting the bridge you see below where the line of troopers, many on horseback and wearing gas masks, waited for the marchers. The courage of that march really can’t be communicated until you trace that journey with your own two feet as I had the summer before with my wife and two sons.

Every day of the Freedom Ride was like that. You kept finding yourself on holy ground. And sometimes quite unexpectedly.

We were pulling out of Memphis having just visited the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Theron came to the front of the bus and asked if we might stop by the church were Dr. King preached his last sermon.

When the bus pulled up to the church a security guard came alongside us. We explained who we were. Suddenly, the security guard turned into the best tour guide we had on the trip. He pulled out his keys, let us in and showed us around. And then the moment came when he let each of us go up and stand in the last pulpit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The students were visibly moved standing in that spot. Just hours earlier they had looked out over the balcony of Room 306 where Dr. King had been gunned down. We had left that place with a sense of sadness and loss. But here in this church our spirits lifted. The man we had lost hours before came back to us in the incandescent vision of his final message. Standing behind that pulpit you could almost hear his voice cascading again over the pews:

“I've been to the mountaintop…And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. “

This essay originally appeared in the Summer 2011 edition of ACU Today. The picture above, of MLK's final pulpit, the place he delivered the Mountaintop sermon, was taken by me during the ACU Freedom Ride.

On Subversion and Shame: I Like the Color Pink

2012-01-15T10:07:00.001-06:00

I like the color pink.

This has, interestingly, caused not a few people to feel perplexed by me.

The reason for this is that pink is a feminine color. So if you're a man who likes pink this is considered to be strange and deviant.

A part of my fondness for pink has to do with growing up in the 80s where there was a phase of preppy-based chic with khaki pants and pastel colored shirts--yellow, blue, green and pink. More, the pastel colors of Don Johnson in Miami Vice made pink both masculine and cool. In fact, for a senior prom I once went in a white tux from the Miami Vice collection complete with pink tie and cummerbund. Quite a look.

The point is, I grew up liking pink.

But here's the problem. Apparently, pink is really only allowed for men if it's a pink shirt (or a tie). And even that's a statement, particularly here in West Texas. But pink outside of that boundary is considered weird.

For example, given that my hair is long I like to wear bandanas to keep my bangs out of my eyes. I use bandanas sometimes as men aren't allowed to wear headbands. That's what Jana told me when I floated the idea of wearing one. Instead, I use a fake headband called "reading glasses." I use the glasses to pull my hair back as seen in my Streaming video and in the videos with Rachel Held Evans. Side benefit: this is a "headband" that makes me look intellectual.

Anyway, I wear bandanas to keep my hair out of my face (as seen here). And my favorite go-to color for the bandana is pink.

This always makes people do a double-take. Good God, a man with a pink bandana! For example, last fall I was at a High School football game and I was wearing the pink bandana. On Monday one of Jana's colleagues asked, "Did I see Richard wearing a pink bandana at the game on Friday?" Jana responded, "Yeah. Richard likes pink. Why do you ask?" "No reason," she said, "I've just never seen anything like that before."

Few have. At least where I live.

This came to a funny head a few weeks ago. I was given as a gift an Otter Box (a protective case) for my iPhone. I had to order it from our college bookstore. The Box I had before was all black and I found that boring. So the young lady who was helping me was walking me through all the accent colors: navy blue, yellow and, you guessed it, pink.

"I like the pink one," I said.

"The pink one?"

"Yes. I like pink on black. Don't you?"

"Uh, yes. But this is for you, right?"

"Yes. Is that odd?"

"Well, you don't see a lot of guys get pink iPhones."

"It's not totally pink. It's mainly black."

"That's true. But it's still pink."

Yes, I know. But I like pink. Social convention be damned.

Anyway, my iPhone is now a constant source of conversation.

Now why am I telling you all this? Well, the other day I was thinking about the power of social stigma and shaming. Most people wouldn't ever cross a social boundary like this (e.g., getting a black and pink iPhone), even at the expense of their own preferences. The shame, the "sticking out" it just too heavy a burden to bear.

But I wonder. If Christians are supposed to be a "peculiar people" we might need to learn to inoculate ourselves against social shaming. We might need to practice, on a regular basis, small acts of social non-conformity. We need to get used to not caring what people think. We need to become immune to shame.

This reminds me of the shame-attacking exercises of the psychologist Albert Ellis. When working with clients who were totally paralyzed by social shame Ellis would have them do something in public that was both very noticeable and very ridiculous. The most famous example is pulling a banana around on a string in a public place like a mall. Here's a video example of this.

Now most people, those who are terrorized by the opinions of others, would say to Ellis, "I could never do that! It would be too embarrassing." But why live life being bullied by embarrassment? Who cares if people look at you? Who cares if they laugh?

Exactly. The world isn't going to end if people think you're a bit off your rocker. Just look at me.

So learn to embrace your own version of the pink iPhone. Engage in small acts of subversion. Vaccinate yourself against shame. Buck the system.

It might be one of the most important spiritual exercises you practice.

Forget Your False Teachers

2012-01-13T05:25:00.001-06:00

I got a Kindle for Christmas this year. I like it, but I still prefer regular books. Probably always will.

The reason I got the Kindle is because you can get all of George MacDonald's works for free or practically free. My plan for the Kindle was to get back into the novels of MacDonald. It's been years since I'd read one. But which one to read first?

I picked Donal Grant as he was the character that stuck with me the most all these years. Perhaps because he was a scholar/tutor. So, a quote for your weekend, from the novel Donal Grant:

Those who seek God with their faces not even turned towards him, who, instead of beholding the Father in the Son, take the stupidest opinions concerning him and his ways from other men--what should they do but go wandering on dark mountains, spending their strength in avoiding precipices and getting out of bogs, mourning and sighing over their sins instead of leaving them behind and fleeing to the Father, whom to know is eternal life. Did they but set themselves to find out what Christ knew and meant and commanded, and then to do it, they would soon forget their false teachers. But alas! they go on bowing before long-faced, big-worded authority--the more fatally when it is embodied in a good man who, himself a victim to faith in men, sees the Son of God only through the theories of others, and not with the sight of his own spiritual eyes.

This quote captures one the greatest lessons I've taken from MacDonald. Following Jesus--obedience to the Master as MacDonald would put it--is the truest path to good theology, orthodoxy, truth, doctrine, and understanding. Behold the Father in the Son and leave the stupid opinions behind. Set yourself to find out what Christ knew, meant and commanded, and then do it, and forget your false teachers.

Insights that changed my life in college.

Meditations on the Little Way: Part 3, "My Vocation is Love"

2012-01-12T04:40:00.006-06:00

As mentioned in my last post, Manuscript B of Story of a Soul is considered to be the mystical heart of Thérèse's Little Way. It was written to her sister who asked her to describe her "little doctrine."

The first part of the manuscript is addressed to Marie; the second, longer half is addressed directly to Jesus.

In her opening to Marie Thérèse talks about learning from Jesus "the science of LOVE." (Note: Again, all italics and capitalizations are Thérèse's.) Thérèse describes to her sister the primacy of love and how it relates to her Little Way:

The science of Love, ah, yes, this word resounds sweetly in the ear of my soul, and I desire only this science...I understand so well that it is only love that makes us acceptable to God, that this love is the only good I ambition...

Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude.

After the introductory remarks to her sister Thérèse turns to address Jesus for the rest of the manuscript.

She begins by recounting a vision of Anne, the deceased Founder of the Carmelites in France. In the vision Thérèse asks Anne if God is pleased with her. Does God approve of her Little Way?

Mother, tell me further if God is not asking something more of me than my poor little actions and desires. Is He content with me? ...

She said to me: "God asks no other thing from you. He is content, very content!"

However, this assurance for the Little Way was not enough. Thérèse still struggled with the seeming insignificance of both herself and her spiritual efforts. She wanted her vocation in the church to be heroic:

I feel within me other vocations. I feel the vocation of the WARRIOR, THE PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR. Finally, I feel the need and the desire of carrying out the most heroic deeds for You.

She wants, "in spite of my littleness," to "enlighten souls as did the Prophets and the Doctors." To, like the apostles, "travel the whole earth to preach Your name," to "preach the Gospel on all the five continents simultaneously and even to the remote isles." She says, "I will be a missionary, not for a few years only, but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages." She wants to be a martyr, to give everything to Jesus: "I would shed my blood for You even to the very last drop." She dreams of being like her fellow countrywoman Joan of Arc.

And yet, there she was, a twenty-three year-old cloistered nun, and by her own account someone of limited talents and abilities. And though that might have been and likely was excessive humility, I think many of us can resonate with Thérèse's struggle. How many of us have wanted to head off to the dangerous mission field? To sell it all and walk off like St. Francis of Assisi? To speak to huge crowds like Billy Graham? To do something radical?

We have heroic dreams for our spiritual lives.

And yet, most of us live quiet lives among friends, family and co-workers. And the smallness of our spiritual lives can make us wonder, like Thérèse wondered, is "God not asking something more of me than my poor little action and desires. Is He content with me?"

Here we find the great appeal of Thérèse's Little Way. It is a heroic path toward sainthood--the "democratization of holiness" as Thomas Merton called it--that everyone can travel. No matter how humble your talents or situation. There is a radicalness that can infuse the workaday.

So Thérèse struggled with her vocation. She wanted to be Joan of Arc, but it wasn't happening. So she began to despair again:

O my Jesus! what is your answer to all my follies? Is there a soul more little, more powerless than mine?

Her answer came in a mystical breakthrough while reading 1 Corinthians 12-13:

I read there, in the first of these chapters, that all cannot be apostles, prophets, doctors, etc., that the Church is composed of different members, and that the eye cannot be the hand at one and the same time. The answer was clear, but it did not fulfill my desires and gave me no peace.

Why? Because she still didn't know what her vocation was. Was she an eye, a hand, an ear, a foot? What part of the body was she?

She read on into Chapter 13...

Without becoming discouraged, I continued my reading, and this sentence consoled me: "Yet strive after THE BETTER GIFTS, and I point out to you a yet more excellent way." And the Apostle explains how all the most PERFECT gifts are nothing without LOVE. That Charity is the EXCELLENT WAY that leads most surely to God.

At last, she had found her vocation. The key to the Little Way. What part of the body would she be?

She would be the heart.

I finally had rest...Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that if the Church had a body composed of different members, the most necessary and most noble of all could not be lacking to it, and so I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart is BURNING WITH LOVE. I understood that it was Love alone that made the Church's members act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understood that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES....IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!

Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I have found it....MY VOCATION IS LOVE!

Yes, I found my place in the Church...I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything...

This is the mystical core of the Little Way. To follow the Little Way is to commit to being the heart of the church. The Little Way is to become love incarnate in your day to day existence with others. No grand overseas adventures. No speaking to massive crowds. No riding off like Joan of Arc. Simply becoming love. Right here. Right now.

Thérèse is called "The Little Flower." One reason for this is a metaphor she goes on to use to describe what being love--the heart of the church--is like. She compares the Little Way to strewing flowers around the throne of God. Each small act of love we do is a flower strew in the Courts of Heaven.

But how will she [Thérèse is speaking in the third person] prove her love since love is proved by works? Well, the little child will strew flowers, she will perfume the royal throne with their sweet scents...

I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love..

Strewing flowers might seem a bit girlish and feminine. I doubt someone, say, like Mark Driscoll sees himself strewing flowers around the throne of God (though I've spent a good minute here smiling as I imagined that). But sentimentality aside, there is steel here. Requiring a hard, Navy SEAL-like discipline. The discipline of the Little Way is to make every act of sacrifice during the day, every look, and every word flow from love. Yes, these are little things, each act a small "flower," but I bet you are beginning to appreciate the heroic audacity of the spirituality of the Little Way. The Little Way isn't, when put into practice, very little at all. It's pretty damn hard to do and you'd be heroic for even trying it. That's why Thérèse is a saint without the riding off to grand adventures like Joan of Arc. Some adventures are standing right in front of you.

Yes, each little flower--each loving word, act, or look you give today--is a little thing. But cumulatively? It's the love of God incarnate. In you. For the world.

Our vocation is love.

Adam's First Wife

2012-01-11T05:30:00.007-06:00

Let's start with a crazy question: What do Adam's first wife and nocturnal emissions have in common?

A few days ago I couldn't have answered that question. But some of my research drew me into an interesting bit of scholarship regarding gender relations, sexuality, textual criticism, Jewish lore, and demonology.

First, let's start with the obvious: Adam's first wife?

To understand the Jewish legend that Eve was Adam's second wife we need to explore the texts of Genesis 1-2 and the contrasts between the two creation stories found therein.

As biblical scholars are well aware, the first chapters of Genesis appear to be written by two different authors. The two authors are called the Elohist and the Yahwist. The Elohist is called this because he (we assume it was he) uses the word Elohim to refer to God. Elohim is typically translated "God" in English bibles. So when we read "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" the Elohist is writing.

The Yahwist, by contrast, uses the name YHWH to refer to the Deity. In many English translations YHWH is translated LORD, all caps. The Elohist story of creation ends in Genesis 2.2. The Yahwist story of creation starts at Genesis 2.3. You can see both the beginning and the ending of the two accounts as well as the switch from "God" to "LORD" in referring to the Creator:

Genesis 2.1-4
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
--End of Elohist Creation Story--

--Start of Yahwist Creation Story--
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens...

It is believed that the two stories were edited together by a third author (a "redactor") working with both manuscripts.

In some ways the two stories complement and supplement each other. But there are differences that have preoccupied scholars. One location of contrast is in the creation of Adam and Eve:

Elohist Version of Adam & Eve (Genesis 1.26-27):
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Yahwist Version of Adam & Eve (Genesis 2.7-8, 15-23):
Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed...

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

Most readers of the bible read the first account from the Elohist--"in the image of God he created them / male and female he created them"--as an abbreviated summary of the longer, and admittedly much weirder, account of the Yahwist, where God parades all the animals before Adam suggesting he pick a mate from them ("You know God, I'm kind of fond of that zebra over there. Those stripes are sexy..."). But really, these are two different stories.

Incidentally, egalitarians like the Elohist version best where man and woman are created at the same time as equals. By contrast, hierarchical complementarians like the Yahwist version better with the ordered creation of man before woman and woman made from man's rib.

But for this post we are interested in a Jewish legend regarding the differences between the Elohist and Yahwist versions of Adam and Eve. While many Christians read these texts as being the same story (one compressed the other more detailed) there is a Jewish tradition where these are read as two stories about two different events--the story of Adam's first wife and the story of Adam's second wife.

The two stories run like this. The first, Elohist account is the story of the creation of Adam and his first wife. For some reason (which we will get to), this wife goes missing and Adam finds himself alone. Finding this unacceptable, God makes a second wife for Adam. This is the Yahwist story, the story of making Eve from Adam's rib so she will stick with Adam (unlike the first wife).

So who was Adam's first wife? And where did she go?

This brings us to the story of Lilith.

According to Jewish legend, Lilith was the first wife of Adam. Her name comes from one of the Akkadian words (which is uncertain) lilatu ("night") or lilu ("demon" or "phantom"). As the story goes, Lilith felt herself to be Adam's equal (as the Elohist seems to suggest). Eventually, however, Lilith refused to submit to Adam, wanting to be the dominant one. Adam, with the help of God, resists this usurpation. In response Lilith either leaves or is cast out of Eden leaving Adam alone and in need of a second, more submissive wife. Enter Eve.

Is Lilith in the bible? Curiously, she is, if only obliquely. In the middle of a discussion about the destruction of Edom we read in Isaiah 34.14:

NRSV
Wildcats shall meet with hyenas,
goat-demons shall call to each other;
there too Lilith shall repose,
and find a place to rest.

NJB
Wild cats will meet hyenas there,
satyr will call to satyr,
there Lilith too will lurk
and find somewhere to rest.

NASV
The desert creatures will meet with the wolves,
The hairy goat also will cry to its kind;
Yes, the night monster [Lilith in footnote] will settle there
And will find herself a resting place.

The Message
Wildcats and hyenas will hunt together,
demons and devils dance through the night.
The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious,
will establish permanent quarters.

RSV
And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas,
the satyr shall cry to his fellow;
yea, there shall the night hag alight,
and find for herself a resting place.

ASV
And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves,
and the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;
yea, the night-monster shall settle there,
and shall find her a place of rest.

NIV
Desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
and wild goats will bleat to each other;
there the night creatures will also lie down
and find for themselves places of rest.

Here in Isaiah 34 we find a list of night creatures that will haunt the ruins of Edom. Some of these animals can be found at the zoo: wildcats, hyenas, wild goats. But there are some spooky creatures here as well: devils, demons, satyrs, night hags, monsters. And Lilith in particular.

As the legend continues, after leaving Eden Lilith becomes the first succubus, which fits the etymology of her name, a creature who haunts the night killing human infants and seducing men, particularly in their dreams.

Thus the nocturnal emissions.

The Slavery of Death: Part 19, The Denial of Death

2012-01-10T05:01:00.003-06:00

In Part 17 we discussed William Stringfellow's analysis of Death and the Powers. According to Stringfellow, the "idol of all idols is death." Death is the force that sits behind the Powers. And recall the diversity of the Powers. A list from Stringfellow includes:

[The Powers] include all institutions, all ideologies, all images, all movements, all causes, all corporations, all bureaucracies, all traditions, all methods and routines, all conglomerates, all races, all nations, all idols. Thus, the Pentagon or the Ford Motor Company or Harvard University or the Hudson Institute or Consolidated Edison or the Diners Club or the Olympics or the Methodist Church or the Teamsters Union are principalities. So are capitalism, Maoism, humanism, Mormonism, astrology, the Puritan work ethic, science and scientism, white supremacy, patriotism, plus many, many more—sports, sex, any profession or discipline, technology, money, the family...

That's a lot of stuff. How is it all connected to death? According to Stringfellow each of these things is a created thing. This echos Romans 1:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles...They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

The point for Stringfellow is that as created things--products of human activity and thought--the Powers are subject to death. Thus, the morality of the Powers--the "angel" or spirituality of the Powers--is survival, fending off death. Death here is revealed to be the god being served. Consequently, as humans serve the Powers they serve Death. Thus, to be possessed by the Powers is to be enslaved to death. Stringfellow once more on this connection:

Death is the only moral significance that a principality proffers human beings. That is to say, whatever intrinsic moral power is embodied in a principality—for a great corporation, profit, for example; or for a nation, hegemony; or for an ideology, conformity—that is sooner or later suspended by the greater moral power of death. Corporations die. Nations die. Ideologies die. Death survives them all. Death is—apart from God—the greatest moral power in this world, outlasting and subduing all other powers no matter how marvelous they may seem for the time being.

I think Stringfellow is right in all this, but I think his analysis needs to be deepened. It is true that the Powers, as human products, are corruptible. Thus, to spend a life serving a Power is to serve an idol, a corruptible thing. But this points to a Sisyphean futility rather than to a "slavery to the fear of death," let alone to "the demonic." Stringfellow's analysis points us to Ecclesiastes where all is found to be "vanity of vanities." But how does his analysis connect to Hebrews 2 and the "slavery to the fear of death"?

To connect Stringfellow's analysis of the Powers to "the slavery of the fear of death" I'd like to, finally, bring in the work of Ernest Becker. With this connection we'll have in hand a psychological understanding of what it means to be, in the words of Hebrews 2, all our lives enslaved to the fear of death. More, we'll understand how this enslavement produces the "works of the devil," bringing us full circle back to Christus Victor theology.

Our discussion of Becker will be in two parts. In this post I'll summarize the important points from Becker's monumental The Denial of Death. The Denial of Death with help us understand what it might mean to be "enslaved to the fear of death all our lives." In the following post I'll turn to Escape from Evil, the sequel to The Denial of Death. Escape from Evil will help us understand why this slavery to the fear of death produces the "works of the devil."

Ernest Becker begins his analysis in The Denial of Death by focusing on our need for self-esteem, our craving for our life to be significant and meaningful--to both ourselves and to others. Becker describes this as a striving for heroism, suggesting that “our central calling, our main task on this planet, is the heroic.”

This heroism--a feeling of significance--is achieved by following cultural pathways that mark a life, within any given culture, as both admirable and well-lived:

…this is what a society is and always has been: a symbolic action system, a structure of statuses and roles, customs and rules for behavior, designed to serve as a vehicle for earthly heroism. Each script is somewhat unique, each culture has a different hero system. What the anthropologists call “cultural relativity” is thus really the relativity of hero-systems the world over. But each cultural system is a dramatization of earthly heroics; each system cuts out roles for performances of various degrees of heroism… It doesn’t matter whether the cultural hero-system is frankly magical, religious, and primitive or secular, scientific, and civilized. It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning. They earn this feeling by carving out a place in nature, by building an edifice that reflects human value: a temple, a cathedral, a totem pole, a skyscraper, a family that spans three generations. The hope and belief is that the things that man creates in society are of lasting worth and meaning, that they outlive or outshine death and decay, that man and his products count.

For example, I'm an American college professor. This marks out a "hero system" that can give my life significance and meaning. That is, there are various things I can do within his hero system to be "successful" and feel good about myself. For example, I can publish articles and get good student evaluations. Such things mark me as being "good" at what I do and I get, as a result, a self-esteem buzz, a sense that my life "matters." Think of the hero systems you live within. What are the things you'll do today to feel successful and win praise from others?

So far so good. We all strive to be “heroic,” to achieve self-esteem in lesser or greater ways by comparing ourselves to some hero/value system rooted in our cultures. But what is motivating this need for heroism?

Becker argues that quest for self-esteem is fundamentally an attempt to cope with the terror of death: “heroism is first and foremost a reflex of the terror of death.” This implies that culture itself, the routes toward heroism, is massively engaged in death denial, the repression of death awareness. As Becker notes, “cultures are fundamentally and basically styles of heroic death denial.”

That's a pretty big claim. To take one example, Becker is saying that the "American way of life" is a defense-mechanism. A hero/value system that helps us cope with and transcend death anxiety

Where does Becker come up with this?

According to Becker, the higher cognitive and symbolic capacities of humans make our workaday lives existentially unbearable. The specter of death looms over all, making a mockery of our life projects. Our primal instincts for self-preservation are brought up short in the face of our cognitive capacities that inform us death is unavoidable. This clash—the instinct for self-preservation with an ever-present death awareness—creates an extreme burden of anxiety that other animals are spared:

The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one’s dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that’s something else. It is only if you let the full weight of this paradox sink down on your mind and feelings that you can realize what an impossible situation it is for an animal to be in.

This experiential burden threatens madness or despair. How do we make life “count” in the face of death? It is at this point where cultural hero systems step in to provide paths toward death transcendence, a means toward a symbolic (or literal) immortality. Life achieves significance and meaning when we participate in these “greater goods” that can outlive or transcend our finite existence. We can create a life that matters through reaching for symbolic, if not literal, immortality. My life is deemed meaningful because my children outlive me or I wrote a book or I helped the company have its best quarter of the year. Children, book and company are all forms of "immortality," a way to living into the future in an effort to "defeat" death.

The upshot of this analysis—that we strive for a heroic existence and that cultural hero systems are helping us cope with the terror of death—is that our identity is being driven by death anxiety.

Here we are at the hub of the argument I want to make. What does it mean to say that we are "enslaved all our lives to the fear of death"? With Becker we are getting a vision of what this looks like. Recall, in earlier posts I said that our fear of death is largely unconscious and neurotic in nature (though, of course, the fear of death can become overt and acute in life-threatening situations). With Becker the mechanics of all this are revealed. Self-esteem, the bedrock of our identity, is revealed to be a form of denial, an existential defense mechanism, an illusion to help us avoid the full force of our existential predicament.

This is why Becker calls human character—our personal route toward self-esteem—a vital lie. Our identity is a lie because it is a fundamental dishonesty, in the moment, about our true existential situation. More, this lie obscures the fact that our self-esteem is borrowed, that it rests upon a cultural hero system. The lie hides the fact that my self-esteem is fundamentally a form of idolatry, a service rendered to the cultural hero system--the principality and power.

But this dishonesty is vital as this daily obfuscation is necessary for the human animal to continue on in the face of death. Again, the existential burden death places upon us is impossible. So culture helps us bear this burden, largely through repression and sublimation, by providing us routes of identity-formation via cultural heroics. Here is Becker on these dynamics:

We called one’s life style a vital lie, and now we can understand better why we said it was vital: it is a necessary and basic dishonesty about oneself and one’s whole situation…We don’t want to admit that we are fundamentally dishonest about reality, that we do not really control our own lives. We don’t want to admit that we do not stand alone, that we always rely on something that transcends us, some system of ideas and powers in which we are embedded and which support us. This power is not obvious. It need not be overtly a god or openly a stronger person, but it can be the power of an all-absorbing activity, a passion, a dedication to a game, a way of life, that like a comfortable web keeps a person buoyed up and ignorant of himself, of the fact that he does not rest on his own center. All of us are driven to be supported in a self-forgetful way, ignorant of what energies we really draw on, of the kind of lie we have fashioned in order to live securely and serenely. Augustine was a master analyst of this, as were Kierkegaard, Scheler, and Tillich in our day. They saw that man could strut and boast all he wanted, but that he really drew his “courage to be” from a god, a string of sexual conquests, a Big Brother, a flag, the proletariat, and the fetish of money and the size of a bank balance. The defenses that form a person’s character support a grand illusion, and when we grasp this we can understand the full drivenness of man. He is driven away from himself, from self-knowledge, self-reflection. He is driven toward things that support the lie of his character, his automatic equanimity.
...
…the armor of character was so vital to us that to shed it meant to risk death and madness. It is not hard to reason out: If character is a neurotic defense against despair and you shed that defense, you admit the full flood of despair, the full realization of the true human condition, what men are really afraid of, what they struggle against, and are driven toward and away from.
...
It can’t be overstressed, one final time, that to see the world as it really is is devastating and terrifying. It achieves the very result that the child has painfully built his character over the years in order to avoid: [character-building hero systems] makes routine, automatic, secure, self-confident activity possible.

Let's go back and reconnect with Stringfellow and the Powers. As seen above, particularly in the first of these three quotes, Becker agrees with Stringfellow: we serve the Powers, we engage in idolatry. But why? What motivates this service? According to Becker, it's the fear of death. We want our lives to "matter." We want our lives to "last." But how? How do we "matter" and "last" in the face of death? Answer: We serve the idols (hero systems) of the culture. The company, the political party, the ideology, the religious denomination, the nation. These idols are "bigger" than we are which tricks us into thinking they are able to last and transcend death. Consequently, if we serve these idols our life becomes "meaningful" and "successful" and "immortal."

So we serve a Power. We pour our lives into the idols--these engines of self-esteem and "immortality"--and feel, on a day to day basis, that we are living meaningful lives. But are we really? Let's remember the message of Ecclesiastes!

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?

We can spend our whole lives trying to be "successful." But as Stringfellow has pointed out, death outlasts it all. This is why Becker calls our sense of self-esteem a "lie." I think the Teacher of Ecclesiastes would agree.

This brings us to an earth-shattering conclusion. We are enslaved to the fear of death because our self-esteem is, at root, a defense-mechanism involved in death repression. Ponder that. Think about everything you are currently pursuing in your life that is outside of God. Your dreams, goals, and New Year's resolutions. Think about everything you use to pat yourself on the back, all those things that make you feel good about yourself, or special, or better than others. Maybe you're good at your job. Or your kids are talented. Maybe you have a great marriage. Perhaps you are good looking or are in really good shape. Maybe you're really smart. Maybe your blog gets a lot of page views. Maybe a lot of people "liked" your quip on Facebook.

Think about all those things, all those things that make us feel that our lives are "important" or "unique."

Then read Ecclesiastes.

Suddenly you'll see Becker's point about self-esteem being a lie.

Personal example of this. The copies of my new book arrived. So I brought one home to show Jana and the boys. We were all very happy. Later I said to Brenden, my oldest:

"Brenden, you know what Ecclesiastes says about writing books?"

"What?" he replied.

"Well, of the making of books there is no end."

I wasn't trying to be a downer. This isn't about a morbid self-esteem or an effort at self-mortification. It was about resisting the lie, about realizing that my self-esteem is being seduced on a daily basis by the Father of Lies who uses my fear of death to enslave me with the lure of "significance." I was simply reminding myself that the cultural hero system I live within--the college professor hero system--is an idol. Writing a book doesn't make me matter. Doesn't make me better. Won't make me immortal.

True, writing a book might make be "better" within the hero system as I compare myself to others and reap self-esteem benefits. But this is the devil's trap. It is an example of how my fear of death--the craving to matter and have something outlive me--is keeping me enslaved to sin.

How so? Well, if I get any self-esteem from the book I get trapped in a host of sinful practices. Pride. Jealously. Even depression if no one buys the book. This is why we are describing self-esteem as a defense mechanism. My feelings about the book and its reception make me defensive. Why? Because I need the book. The book makes me feel heroic. And I need that heroism to make me feel that my life counts in the face of death.

To conclude, let's revisit our orienting text:

Hebrews 2.14-15
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Reading this text let's think of the dynamics described by Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death. We are enslaved to death because we pursue self-esteem in order to "count" in the face of death. This means that our personhood is saturated with death. Everything about ourselves that makes us feel good, successful, smug, important, cool, worthy, snobbish, distinctive, admirable, or headline-catching is, simply, a lie. A death-denying lie. But a lie we will spend our lives anxiously chasing.

This is Not the End

2012-01-09T05:35:00.000-06:00

Given that my artistic tastes are so bad I never like to "recommend" things. But I feel confident in this.

I've found Gungor's latest album Ghosts Upon the Earth to be, musically and theologically, absolutely stunning.

The song "This is Not the End" is one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard:

This is not the end
This is not the end of this
We will open our eyes wide, wider

This is not our last
This is not our last breath
We will open our mouths wide, wider

And you know you’ll be alright
Oh and you know you’ll be alright

This is not the end
This is not the end of us
We will shine like the stars bright, brighter

I find myself crying every time I hear it. It's my hope.

Meditations on the Little Way: Part 2, Story of a Soul

2012-01-06T04:59:00.002-06:00

As I recounted in Part 1, the influence of Thérèse of Lisieux was due to the publication of her spiritual memoir Story of a Soul. Published in 1898, the year after Thérèse died from tuberculosis at the age of 24, Story of a Soul became a sensation. It led to worldwide devotion, with many Catholics praying to Thérèse. Miracles due to her intercession followed, leading to her sainthood in 1925. But it was the theological content of Story of a Soul, with its discussion of the spirituality of the Little Way (among other things), that led to Thérèse becoming a doctor of the church in 1997.

What was in this memoir--Story of a Soul--that caused such a ruckus?

In this post I want to give a brief history and overview of Story of a Soul. But I'd like to offer a warning before you rush off to buy a copy.

While it is true that many have been profoundly affected by Story of a Soul it's also true that a lot of people don't like the book and can't see what all the fuss is about. My point is that it's possible that you could buy the book and fail to finish it. I myself struggled with it a great deal.

This was, in fact, the reaction Dorothy Day had toward the book. Here is how Day described her first encounter with Story of a Soul:

At that time I did not comprehend that we are all "called to be saints," as St. Paul puts it. Most people nowadays, if they were asked, would say diffidently that they do not profess to be saints, indeed they do not want to be saints. And yet the saint is the holy man, the "whole man," the integrated man. We all wish to be that, but in these days of stress and strain we are not developing our spiritual capacities as we should and most of us will admit that. We want to grow in love but we do not know how. Love is a science, a knowledge, and we lack it.

My confessor at the time was Father Zachary, an Augustinian Father of the Assumption, stationed at the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe on West Fourteenth Street. He was preparing me for Confirmation, giving me weekly evening instruction.

One day Father Zachary said to me, "Here is a book that will do you good."...The book he now handed me was The Little Flower: The Story of a Soul...

I dutifully read The Story of a Soul and am ashamed to confess that I found it colorless, monotonous, too small in fact for my notice. What kind of saint was this who felt that she had to practice heroic charity in eating what was put in front of her, in taking medicine, enduring cold and heat, restraint, enduring the society of mediocre souls, in following the strict regime of the convent of Carmelite nuns which she joined at the age of fifteen? ... I was reading in my Daily Missal of saints stretched on the rack, burnt by flames, starving themselves in the desert, and so on.

Joan of Arc leading an army fitted more into my concept of a saint...I wondered what this new saint had to offer...it took me a long time to realize the unique position of Therese of Lisieux in the Church today.

It's not just the unheroic littleness of the Little Way that can rankle. As Day hints at, some can find the writing of Story of a Soul to be colorless and monotonous. More, there are parts of Story of a Soul that are a overly sentimental and sweet. As Jesuit author James Martin describes in his book My Life with the Saints:

Though there are parts of her story that I find difficult to accept (her childhood religiosity can sound pretentious, precious, and even a little neurotic, and her efforts at self-denial sometimes are close to masochistic), and though it is embarrassing to admit that one of my favorite saints is one of the most girlish and cloying, it is finally the woman herself who appeals to me. Like every other saint, Thérèse Martin was a product of her times, raised in the overheated environment of a super-religious family and formed in the pious nineteenth-century French convent life. So it is hardly surprising that some of her words and actions occasionally baffle us. But shining through the nineteenth-century piety, like a pale green shoot bursting through dark soil, is a stunningly original personality, a person who, despite the difficulties of life, holds out to us her Little Way and says to us one thing: Love.

Like Martin, Day eventually came to see heroic "bigness" of the Little Way, comparing it to the nuclear power hidden within the atom:

Is the atom a small thing? And yet what havoc it has wrought. Is her little way a small contribution to the life of the Spirit? It has all the power of the Spirit of Christianity behind it. It has an explosive force that can transform our lives and the life of the world, once put into effect.

The point being, even great admirers of Thérèse have struggled with their initial encounter with Story of a Soul, both its style and its message. For my part, being a rationalistic and practical sort of person, I struggled with all the mystical flights that fill Story of a Soul. When love-drunk contemplatives wax on about their mystical and rapturous unions with God I tend to roll my eyes. I can handle a few lines of the stuff. But Story of a Soul has pages and pages of it.

So reader be warned. Story of a Soul might not be your cup of tea. That said, the spirituality of the Little Way is too important to miss. Thus this series! Aren't you glad you're here? This is my attempt to extract and summarize the Little Way from the Story of a Soul so that it can get a wider hearing.

A brief overview of the history, structure and content of Story of a Soul.

The Story of a Soul is a compilation of three different manuscripts--A, B, and C--written to three different people, for three different purposes, on three different years. An overview:

Manuscript A (1895): Written to her sister Pauline

Recall, Thérèse was at Carmel with her two older sisters, Pauline (who was the Prioress) and Marie. One day the sisters were talking and reminiscing about their family and childhood. Wanting to capture this and capitalizing on Thérèse's writing ability Pauline, as Prioress, "ordered" Thérèse to write about the family and her earliest memories. Thérèse dutifully did so, writing an autobiographical memoir spanning her earliest recollections to the time of her entrance into Carmel at the age of fifteen. The manuscript was written for her sisters as a family keepsake.

Manuscript A mainly recounts, beyond family history, the spiritual development of Thérèse during her early years, the immature setbacks and the advances. There isn't much about the Little Way in Manuscript A, but there are glimpses of it here and there:

It is love alone that attracts me.

Jesus has no need of books or teachers to instruct souls; He teaches without the noise of words.

I applied myself to practicing little virtues, not having the capability of practicing the great.

Because I was little and weak He lowered Himself to me, and he instructed me secretly in the things of His love.

God made me feel that true glory is that which will last eternally, and to reach it, it isn't necessary to perform striking works but to hide oneself and practice virtue in such a way that the left hand knows not what the right hand is doing.

I expect that Manuscript A will be hardest part of Story of a Soul to get through. It was for me. Plus, its the bulk of the book.

Manuscript B (1896): Written to her sister Marie

Recall, in April of 1896 Thérèse woke up in the middle of the night with blood in her mouth. Fearing that her younger sister would die before she could share her approach to the spiritual life Marie asked Thérèse to write down "her little doctrine."

Manuscript B is short, about 24 pages. It is the mystical heart of the Little Way. It's not very practical, but it's the spiritual core. Many consider it to be one of the crown jewels of the mystical tradition.

The lasting appeal of this vision has to do with Thérèse's struggle to find her vocation before God. What was she to do for God given her limited talents and capabilities? The answer she discovered was love. Her vocation was to be love (BTW, the all caps are Thérèse's. When she gets excited SHE GOES ALL CAPS!!! I can't imagine what Thérèse's tweets would have looked like...):

I understood that LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING, THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES...IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!

Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God, who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything...

This is, I believe, the lasting appeal of Thérèse--placing love at the center. As she describes it, there are many people with many great gifts in the church. Thérèse didn't have those gifts. So she set herself the task of being the heart of the church. That's the key, living your life as the heart of the church. "I shall be love," she says. That is the core of the Little Way, expressing love to everyone in the ebb and flow of life's interactions with others. Mother Teresa summed up the Little Way like this:

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

Story of a Soul introduced that idea to the world.

Manuscript C (1897): Written to Mother Marie de Gonzagne

As Thérèse neared death Pauline began to regret that she had only ordered Thérèse to write about early family memories (Manuscript A). She wished that she had ordered Thérèse to share more of her religious life, particularly as it developed over her nine years at Carmel. Recall, Manuscript A ends with a 15-year-old Thérèse entering the monastery.

Trouble was, Pauline was no longer Prioress and couldn't order Thérèse to write more. (Why not simply ask your sister to write some more? Because of the monastic call to humility. Thérèse would only write about herself when ordered to.) To get around this, Pauline convinced Mother Marie, the sister who succeeded her as Prioress, to order Thérèse to write about her religious life at Carmel. Thérèse duly wrote two long chapters--Manuscript C--but died before it was finished.

If Manuscript B is the mystical core of the Little Way in Manuscript C we get a vision of the praxis of the Little Way as Thérèse describes her life among the sisters at Carmel:

Charity consists in bearing with the faults of others, in not being surprised by their weakness.

[When] the devil tries to place before the eyes of my soul the faults of such and such a Sister who is less attractive to me, I hasten to search out her virtues, her good intentions.

I want to be charitable in my thoughts toward others at all times.

I wasn't content simply with praying very much for [this "very disagreeable"] Sister who gave me so many struggles, but I took care to render her all the services possible, and when I was tempted to answer her back in a disagreeable manner, I was content with giving her my most friendly smile, and with a changing of the subject of the conversation.

I told myself that charity must not consist in feelings but in works.

In the posts to come I'll share more quotes and reflections from both Manuscript B and Manuscript C (with bits of A thrown in)--the mystical and practical manifestos of the Little Way.

Until then, may we all strive to become the heart of the church.

"I shall be love. Thus I shall be everything."

The Slavery of Death: Part 18, N.T. Wright on Christus Victor

2012-01-05T05:01:00.005-06:00

A lot of people are listing N.T. Wright's recent book Simply Jesus on their "Best Books" lists for 2011. I agree, it's a great book and a lot of the book nicely supplements the work we've been doing in this series, particularly the work with Christus Victor theology. Recall, in the last few posts we've been thinking about the role of "the satanic" in human relations through the work of Walter Wink and William Stringfellow (and earlier in this series the Church Fathers and Eastern Orthodox theology).

What is the book Simply Jesus about? Simply stated (he he!), the book is trying to get into the head of Jesus. What did Jesus think he was doing during his life and ministry? How did he see himself? How did he envision his task? That's the question the book starts off with. The very opening lines:

Jesus of Nazareth poses a question and a challenge two thousand years after his lifetime. The question is fairly simple: who exactly was he? This includes the questions, What did he think he was up to?...

You'll have to read the book to find out all the in's and out's of the answers to that question. What I'd like to do is underline the Christus Victor themes from the book that supplement and reinforce what we've been talking about in this series. Specifically, Wright argues, rightly in my opinion, that Jesus primarily saw himself as doing battle with the devil.

1 John 3.8b
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

This conflict was framed by the Second Exodus expectations that Jesus invoked as he described his life and ministry. As Wright describes it, the Exodus story had seven themes:

Wicked tyrant
Chosen leader
Victory of God
Rescue by sacrifice
New vocation and way of life
Presence of God
Promised/inherited land

By invoking this story, in announcing the inauguration of a Second Exodus, Jesus uses the seven themes (the Exodus narrative/paradigm) to describe his own life, teachings, and eventual death and resurrection.

So the question becomes who is the "Wicked tyrant"? Who is playing the part of Pharaoh in Jesus's dramatic retelling of the Exodus?

For a lot of the Jews Rome and Caesar would have been the obvious contender. But as we know, Jesus didn't say much of anything about Roman occupation and oppression.

So who is Pharaoh?

Well, this is where the Christus Victor themes come in. Here is Wright, after many chapters working through New Exodus material, finally turning to the battle with the Wicked tyrant:

[W]herever we look, it appears that Jesus was aware of a great battle in which he was already involved and that would, before too long, reach some kind of climax.

This was not, it seems, the battle that his contemporaries, including his own followers, expected him to fight. It wasn't even the same sort of battle--though Jesus used the language of battle to describe it. Indeed, as the Sermon on the Mount seems to indicate, fighting itself, in the normal physical sense, was precisely what he was not going to do. There was a different kind of battle in the offing, a battle that had already begun. In this battle, it was by no means as clear as those around Jesus would have liked who was on which side, or indeed whether "sides" was the right way to look at things. The battle in question was a different sort of thing, because it had a different sort of enemy.

Who was that enemy? Wright continues...

The battle Jesus was fighting was against the satan.

After citing passages to support this claim (Mark 1.13, 27, 34; 3.11-12, 22-27; 5.1-20; Luke 10.18; 13.16; 22.31; John 13.2,27), passages I pulled together (along with others) in Part 3 of this series The Gospel as the Christians First Understood It, Wright goes on to discuss how many modern Christians have wanted to deemphasize this understanding of Jesus's mission:

Many modern writers, understandably, have tried to marginalize this theme, but we can't expect to push aside such a central part of the tradition and make serious progress. It is, of course, difficult for most people in the modern Western world to know what to make of it all; that's one of the points on which the strong wind of modern skepticism has done its work well, and the shrill retort from "traditionalists," insisting on seeing everything in terms of "supernatural" issues, hardly helps either. As C.S. Lewis points out in the introduction to his famous Screwtape Letters, the modern world divides into those who are obsessed with demonic powers and those who mock them as outdated rubbish. Neither approach, Lewis insists, does justice to reality. I'm with Lewis on this. Despite the caricatures, the obsession, and the sheer muddle that people often get themselves into on this subject, there is such a thing as a dark force that seems to take over people, movements, and sometimes whole countries, a force or (as it sometimes seems) a set of forces that can make people do things they would never normally do.

Wright then goes on, as I have done in this series, to bring the work of Walter Wink into the conversation in the effort to help us moderns think about "the demonic":

You might have thought the history of the twentieth century would provide plenty of examples of this [a dark force taking over people, movements and countries], but many still choose to resist the conclusion--despite the increasing use in public life of the language of "force" (economic "forces," political "forces," peer "pressure," and so on). In recent scholarship, Walter Wink in particular has offered a sharp and compelling analysis of "the powers" and the way they function in today's world as much as in yesterday's.

Readers following this series will recall that we recently reviewed Wink's analysis in Part 16 To Destroy the Devil's Work. Wright then goes on to discuss how this understanding of the demonic can help us better describe, from a Christian perspective, what is going on in our lives:

Without the perspective that sees evil as a dark force that stands behind human reality, the issue of "good" and "bad" in our world is easy to decipher. It is fatally easy, and I mean fatally easy, to typecast "people like us" as basically good and "people like them" as basically evil. This is a danger we in our day should be aware of, after the disastrous attempts by some Western leaders to speak about an "axis of evil" and then go to war to obliterate it. We turn ourselves into angels and "the other lot" into demons; we "demonize" our opponents. This is a convenient tool for avoiding to have to think, but it is disastrous for both our thinking and our behavior.

But when you take seriously the existence and malevolence of non-human forces that are capable of using "us" as well as "them" in the service of evil, the focus shifts. As the hazy and shadowy realities come into view, what we thought was clear and straightforward becomes blurred. Life becomes more complex, but arguably more realistic. The traditional lines of friend and foe are not so easy to draw. You can no longer assume that "that lot" are simply agents of the devil and "this lot"--us and our friends--are automatically on God's side. If there is an enemy at work, it is a subtle, cunning enemy, much too clever to allow itself to be identified simply with one person, one group, or one nation. Only twice in the gospel story does Jesus address "the satan" directly by that title: once when rebuking him in the temptation narrative (Matt. 4:10), and again when he is rebuking his closest associate (Mark 8:33) for resisting God's strange plan. The line between good and evil is clear at the level of God, on the one hand, and the satan on the other. It is much, much less clear as it passes through human beings, individually and collectively.

Wright then brings us back to how Jesus understood his mission and vocation. What did Jesus think he was doing?

Somehow it appears that Jesus's battle with the satan [begun with his temptation in the desert], which was the battle for God's kingdom to be established on earth as it is in heaven, reached its climax in his death. This is a strange, dark, and powerful theme to which we shall return. For the moment the point is clear: Jesus is indeed fighting what he takes to be the battle against the real enemies of the people of God, but it is not the battle his followers or the wider group of onlookers was expecting him to fight. Jesus has redefined the royal task around his own vision of where the real problem lies. And he has thereby redefined his own vocation, which he takes to be the true vocation of Israel's king: to fight and win the key battle, the battle that will set his people free and establish God's sovereign and saving rule, through his own suffering and death.

Meditations on the Little Way: Part 1, Thérèse of Lisieux and the Democratization of Holiness

2012-01-04T05:02:00.001-06:00

How many of you are familiar with St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the spirituality of her "Little Way"? I've only recently discovered her and want to write a few posts to share and capture what I've been learning.

I stumbled onto Thérèse as I've continued thinking about issues I raise in Unclean regarding Christian hospitality. Specifically, I have been thinking a great deal about what it might mean to welcome others in day to day interactions. I've been kicking around descriptions about what it is I'm trying to describe. Sometimes I like the labels "micro-hospitality" or "little hospitality." This practicing of "little hospitality" requires great attention to the present moment (e.g., Am I listening well? Smiling? What is my body language saying? Am I agitated inside?). So sometimes I think of it as "mindfulness hospitality" or "the mindfulness of welcome." Then at other times I'm convinced that the word kindness captures everything I want to say.

Obviously, I'm not the first to have pondered such things. And my investigations into this subject eventually led me to the Little Way of Thérèse. Not being Catholic I'd never heard of Thérèse, but I've been really excited to discover her and would like to share with you what I've found.

Let's begin with some biography and the influence of the Little Way.

Thérèse Martin was born on January 2, 1873 in Alençon, France. Her parents were two very devout Catholics, Louis and Zelie Martin. The family had a very high view of monastic life as both parents tried in their early lives to join a monastic community. Eventually two of Thérèse's older sisters--Pauline and Marie--entered the cloistered Carmelite monastery in Lisieux, Normandy. (The family had moved to Lisieux after the death of Zelie when Thérèse was four years old.)

Thérèse herself was spiritually precocious and wanted to follow her sisters into the Carmelite community. But she chaffed at having to wait until she was sixteen years of age. She eventually petitioned Pope Leo XIII for a special dispensation to enter the monastery early. This was granted and on April 9, 1888, at the age of fifteen, Thérèse joined her sisters at Carmel.

From all external perspectives Thérèse's years at Carmel were quiet and uneventful. She dutifully participated in the life of the community, but without outward distinction. She loved to write, often composing plays to be put on by the sisters.

In the early morning of Good Friday in 1896 Thérèse awoke finding her mouth filled with blood. After a painful and prolonged struggle with tuberculosis for well over a year Thérèse died, after two days of great pain, on September 30, 1897. She was 24.

In 1925, a mere twenty-eight years after her death, Pope Pius XI presided over Thérèse's sainthood. Since then Thérèse has become one of the most popular saints. Pius X called Thérèse "the greatest saint of modern times."

In 1997 Pope John Paul II named Thérèse a doctor of the church putting her in rarefied air, a saint among the saints, in the company of people like Augustine and Aquinas. Only three women are doctors of the church--Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena and Thérèse of Lisieux.

In the ceremony for Thérèse John Paul II described the doctor of the church in this way:

When the magisterium proclaims someone a doctor of the Church it intends to point out to all the faithful, particularly to those who perform in the Church the fundamental service of preaching or who undertake the delicate task of theological teaching and research, that the doctrine professed and proclaimed by a certain person can be a reference point, not only because it confirms to the revealed truth but also because it sheds new light on the mysteries of the faith, a deeper understanding of Christ's mystery.

John Paul II went on to describe Thérèse as "one of the great masters of the spiritual life in our time."

I hope, at this point, your curiosity is piqued. Specifically, I'd like to draw your attention, if you missed it, to the contrast between the quietness of Thérèse's life and the accolades that so quickly followed her death--worldwide devotion, sainthood, and becoming a doctor of the church. No miracles were associated with Thérèse during her life. She never left Carmel. She started no new monastic orders. She did nothing, externally, that drew attention. She was just one nun among other nuns in a cloistered community. And even among her fellow sisters Thérèse's life was unremarkable and lacking in distinction. In fact, when Thérèse died one of her fellow sisters worried that no one would have anything to say at Thérèse's funeral. Never was a saint more unnoticed. More, let's remember that Thérèse died when she was 24. What could such a young person have to say to make her a doctor of the church?

The impact of Thérèse rests upon the influence of her spiritual memoir published after her death--Histoire d'une Ame in French, Story of a Soul in English.

Story of a Soul was published the year after Thérèse's death in 1898. And much to the surprise of her fellow Carmelite sisters, it went on gain widespread notoriety and influence. During her life few around Thérèse sensed that a spiritual hurricane was raging inside of her. That the quiet and humble exterior was hiding "one of the great masters of the spiritual life in our time." Who knew that spiritual greatness could be so quiet, kind and bland?

This is, I think, one of the great attractions of the spirituality and story of Thérèse. The life of Thérèse suggests that sainthood and spiritual genius might be standing right in front of us. Thérèse teaches us that we've become confused about what sainthood looks like. We are picturing something grand and heroic and headline grabbing. But Thérèse teaches us that sainthood can be quiet and nondescript. One of the greatest of saints--even a doctor of the Church on par with Augustine and Aquinas!--can be the person checking you out at WalMart, or the old lady sitting by you at church, or the mom with two toddlers, or the college student, or the janitor taking out the trash in your office. Thomas Merton, who was greatly influenced by Thérèse as were people like Dorothy Day who wrote a biography of Thérèse, noted that one of the things Thérèse accomplished was the "democratization" of holiness. Anyone could be a saint. As John Paul II said of Thérèse, "God has offered the world a precise message [that of Thérèse's] 'Little Way', which everyone can take because everyone is called to holiness."

Ponder that. What does sainthood look like? Imagine yourself living with this quiet, undistinctive twenty-year old girl at Carmel, little suspecting that she would become one of the most popular saints in the world today and a doctor of the church. Imagine struggling with what you'd say at her funeral as there didn't seem much to say.

What does sainthood look like?

In the next post I'll give an overview of the history and content of Story of a Soul. From there we'll get into a description of the Little Way.

The Medal of St. Benedict

2012-01-03T05:20:00.002-06:00

Ya'll know I've been thinking a lot about Christus Victor theology. As Gustaf Aulen describes it:

[Christus Victor's] central theme is the idea of the Atonement as a Divine conflict and victory; Christ--Christus Victor--fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the 'tyrants' under which mankind is in bondage and suffering...The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil.

Because I've been thinking about this a lot--Christ's defeat of the devil--I've been attuned to anything I come across or read that has Christus Victor themes. A recent find in this regard: the Medal of St. Benedict.

We were home last week visiting my family for Christmas. During our time there I was wanting to purchase The Rule of St. Benedict, one of the founding and guiding documents of monasticism. I dropped by the local Barnes & Noble to see if they had a copy. They didn't. But outside of town there is a Benedictine monastery that I knew had a bookstore. So I called out there, figuring that if anyone had a copy of The Rule of St. Benedict it would be, well, the Benedictines. (Incidentally, this monastery--The Benedictine Sisters of Erie--is the home of author Joan Chittister.)

So Jana and I drove to the monastery and shopped in the bookstore where I picked up a copy of The Rule and a few other books. While we were checking out the sister handed us a few St. Benedict Medals. She said, "Here, you can have some of these. They are Medals of St. Benedict." I took them and thanked her. Then she said, "They give protection from evil."

That caught my attention. Who doesn't want to be protected from evil? But more to the point, "protection from evil" rings with Christus Victor themes. So when I got back home I did a little reading about why the Medal of St. Benedict is associated with this sort of protection.

The medal, as you can see here, has two sides. On the front of the medal is an image of Benedict himself. In his left hand he is holding a copy of The Rule and in his right hand he is holding a cross aloft. Around the edge of the medal are the words Ejus in obitu nostro presentia muniamur. Translated this means, "May we be protected by his presence in the hour of death."

Due to the peace of his own death Benedict is considered to be a patron saint of the dying and the medal is often used in ministering to the sick and dying.

The Christus Victor themes are found on the backside of the medal. The back of the medal is dominated by a cross. On the vertical bar of the cross are the letters C, S, S, M, and L. On the horizontal bar of the cross are the letters N, D, S. M, D. Taken together these letters stand for the the Latin words Crux Sacra Sit Mihi Lux--Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux. Translated this means, "May the Sacred Cross be my light--Let not the dragon be my guide."

And there is more. Around the border of the medal are the letters V, R, S, N, S, M, V--S, M, Q, L, I, V, B. These letters stand for the Latin words Vade Retro Satana! Nunquam Suade Mihi Vana! Sunt Mala Quae Libas. Ipse Venena Bibas! Translated this means, "Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your vanities! Evil is the cup you offer. Drink the poison yourself!"

These are the inscriptions on the medal that relate to its association with protection against Satan, evil, and temptation.

(I haven't discussed all the symbolism on the medal but I can't resist one other comment about the medal. On the front side, to Benedict's lower right, is a broken cup of poison. On his lower left is a raven carrying away a poisoned loaf of bread. Apparently, some enemies of Benedict had tried to poison him on a few occasions and he was miraculously rescued each time. Consequently, Benedict is also the saint you'd pray to if you've been poisoned. So file that tidbit away.)

Because of the explicit command to Satan--"Begone Satan!"--the Medal of St. Benedict has often been used for exorcisms. In fact, the medal is often incorporated into the crucifix for this purpose creating a St. Benedict's Cross (though the more workaday use of the cross is like that of the medal--a general talisman/prayer against evil). The combination of the medal with the crucifix makes the St. Benedict's Cross a powerful weapon in the hands of an exorcist.

Obviously, I was thrilled to discover all this theology from the Catholic tradition. The next day, after reading about all this, I went to a store and purchased a St. Benedict's Cross. It's the must have gift for anyone thinking a lot about Christus Victor theology.

The cross has also proven useful in my marriage. After explaining the cross to her I keep using it to exorcise Jana. She'll be sitting quietly on the couch knitting or reading and I'll come around the corner holding the cross aloft saying, "Begone foul spirit!"

She is not amused.

And really, given my understanding of the Principalities and Powers exorcising my wife doesn't make sense. (Though it is great fun.) I mainly purchased the cross so I can have it with me when I go shopping, to work, to church and watch politics play out in this country and around the world.

"Begone Satan!" indeed.

It's Still Christmas

2012-01-02T04:14:00.006-06:00

I didn't grow up in a liturgical tradition. But through my experiences with The Book of Common Prayer I am slowly learning the ropes.

But as a neophyte I still make a lot of mistakes. For example, I tend to mix up Advent songs with Christmas songs. I sing the Christmas songs during Advent. Which drives liturgical purists crazy.

But by far the hardest thing for me to get used to, liturgically speaking, is the fact that it's still Christmas. Christmastide lasts from the Feast of the Nativity (December 25) to the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6). These are the proverbial "Twelve Days of Christmas."

Growing up we just had "Christmas Day." Thus, Christmas was over on December 26th. And I'm finding this to be a hard habit to break. I keep thinking Christmas is over. So I have to remind myself, almost daily, "It's still Christmas. It's still Christmas."

What makes this hard, as I remain in my non-liturgical tradition, is that everyone around me has moved on. Friends keep apologizing for still having their Christmas trees up. And I keep saying, "No worries. It's still Christmas! The tree should stay up until Epiphany." I think I'm being helpful in pointing this out. But mainly I just get strange looks.

That said, I think the biggest culprit in this truncating of Christmas is New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Smack in the middle of Christmastide is this other "holiday." Though it isn't, in fact, a holy day at all.

Still, as the "next" celebration New Year's Eve causes us to truncate Christmas. The Christmas tree might stay up on December 26th, but it many Christian homes the tree doesn't make it past January 1st.

This is sad and problematic for two reasons.

The first reason is this. We all lament the commercialization of Christmas. But what few Christians realize is how we unwittingly enable this trend by restricting Christmas to a single day. If you restrict the celebration of Christmas to a single day you strengthen the association between Christmas and opening gifts. The point of Christmas becomes the shopping for and opening of presents. In fact, for many I'd say that Christmas is officially over once the presents have been opened. Christmas isn't really even a whole day. It's a few hours lasting from the time the kids get up until the presents are all opened. In many Christian households Christmas lasts about an hour, roughly from 6:00 am to 7:00 am. Christmas is over before lunch on December 25th. No wonder the opening of presents has come to dominate the celebration of the Incarnation.

The celebration of Christmastide, the full Twelve Days of Christmas, can help push against all this. Christmas isn't an hour. It isn't a morning. It isn't a day. It's a twelve day season.

So let's resist the cultural push to be productive and "get Christmas put up" as soon as possible. Leave the tree and the Nativity set out. Let's slow down and prayerfully linger. Yes, well into the New Year. Let the kids learn that Christmas cannot be reduced to the one hour when they opened their presents. Christmas isn't over. We're still in the middle of it.

A second problem with Christmas ending early due to New Year's Day is that we are allowing secular time to trump liturgical time. Which defeats the whole point of the liturgical calender. Our lives are governed by the clocks of the world--the punchclock, the appointment book, the federal "holidays." The whole point of the liturgical calender is to create a "sanctuary in time," similar to the Jewish observance of the Sabbath. Here is Abraham Heschel describing how Jews view the Sabbath. Read it and think of the liturgical calender, Christmastide in particular:

The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography. To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept its premise that time has a meaning for life which is at least equal to that of space; that time has a significance and sovereignty of its own...

Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time. Unlike the space-minded man to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogeneous, to whom all hours are alike, qualitiless, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time. There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.

Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of the year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals...

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things in space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

Again, I think Heschel's observations apply to the Christian liturgical calender. We learn to free ourselves from the slavery of the "To Do list" and the punchclock of modern economies to move within a "holy time," a cathedral in time set apart for worship and renewal.

But we can't celebrate these cathedrals of time if we rush through celebrations like Christmas. Especially so if we are allowing secular time--the change of a calender year--to trump liturgical time. To allow New Year's Eve to truncate Christmas is a symptom of the very disease the liturgical calender is trying to cure.

So let's keep the celebration going.

It's still Christmas.