“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me . . .” bellows out Lee Greenwood and American patriots.
And appropriately so . . . Yet . . .
“Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded like dust on the scales . . . Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing” (Isaiah 40:15-17).
Challenging words from an eternal angle. Against that awareness, American pride seems trivial. Surely multitudes of nations have existed and exist, probably will exist. In view of the universe’s age, they, we, are indeed drops in the historical bucket. All that national pride . . . yet against eternity, just what is it worth?
Stuck in the finite with a craving awareness for the eternal. Therein lies our rub. I’m an American, cultured in America, and thankful for it, even appropriately proud of it, appropriately thankful for the patriotic sacrifices which have procured it. In light of that, I seek to be a faithful citizen--informed, voting, paying the taxes, keeping the laws . . .
Still, the God who transcends history and time--including the time drop of America, continues to invite all via the sacrifice of His Son, “whose blood purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation,” to an eternal kingdom (Revelation 5:9). The God over eternity, the God behind eternity, entered time and space as specifically as you and I have. Cultured as a Jew in Palestine under the oppressive weight of the Roman empire, however, a patriotic glint (or glare) was not to be found in his eye. To the fury of fellow Jews, Jesus seemed unconcerned with Roman possession and oppression of the Holy Land. Instead, he was passionately concerned with people’s openness to the presence of the eternal kingdom in their midst--Jews or gentiles. He still is.
Unfortunately, His church, his purported kingdom on earth, has at worst, deliberately neglected and at best, ignorantly forgotten His eternal kingdom passion and has instead steeped itself in nationalism and political agendas. Certainly, life in this world is full of necessary even if undesirable entanglements, yet the church has not really found them undesirable. To the contrary, it has found them appealing. Drenched in finite power, it has lost its eternal moorings, and consequently, its efficacy and credibility.
And yet, for those who have discovered His kingdom, their taste and subsequent hunger for more of it has transformed the world, life-to-life, heart-to-heart. The kingdom comes in this manner. Jesus himself, though crowds certainly gathered, actually built relationships with only handful of minimally educated, even troubled, men and women, opening their eyes to an eternal kingdom. He bypassed Caesar, the religious authorities, the local authorities, instead dropping eternity into individual hearts who would share it in love with other individual hearts.
That’s a kingdom paradox: against its eternity, all the nations a drop in the bucket, large political entities and organizations next to nothing, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13). Regardless of gender, tribe, locale, nation, or birthright, the kingdom is open. And it is passed in love relationally, never coercively, never manipulatively, never politically.
Nonetheless, a proper engagement in the finite political scene can establish and enhance an environment fit for kingdom engagements: freedom of thought and free exchange of ideas and debate, freedom to worship or not. An appropriate separation of church and state is essential as the church seems to completely forget salvation by grace when it tastes wordly power. Thankfully our country’s founders--Deist or Christian--understood that. They understood that the notion of God is essential to the undergirding of our dignity in rights and freedoms. Without God, then dignity, rights, and valuing freedom are quite simply evolved contrivances and constructs--nice, even essential, yet contrived constructs nonetheless. But they also understood that when finite powers seep into eternal perspectives, those eternal perspectives are trumped by prideful political mandates and dictates.
All the above to say to non-Christians whose non-interest in faith in Christ has a lot to do with the political behavior of Christians, I am very sorry. And I would encourage you to consider the person of Christ, who is the entire point of Christianity. You’ll not only be impressed by his lack of political motive, but you may be impressed how he lived with overt eternal values and expressed them with refreshing, yet disconcerting, ease. In the testimonies of those who encountered him, you’ll find that his kingdom is certainly not of this world but is imperative to this world.
And to politically-motivated Christians of any stripe, it is exciting, even necessary at times, to engage in politics and government, but let’s avoid associating the God of eternity, the God who considers the nations a drop in the bucket, with any political party or agenda or any nation. Our calling is clear: to pass the love that rules in God’s kingdom heart-to-heart, life-to-life. Politics has never gotten that done.
His kingdom is boundary-less, open to all nations, tribes, and races, for He has given His life to redeem them all. And his kingdom is a saving grace from even the tyranny of the American dream.
So I’m proud to be an American, but ultimately my “citizenship is in heaven” by God’s saving grace (Philippians 3:20). May that citizenship always be prime.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Parental Wounds . . . Our Father . . .
I write this on Father’s Day. Yet, I’m thinking of some daughters I know. One worked to forgive her father for his verbal, physical abuse, and alcoholism which contributed also to his neglect of her. She even helped him to pass away in peace. Another is at 20 years of age working to maintain contact with boundaries from another unhealthy father. And another is the only one aiding in the gradual passing of a father woefully lacking other relationships because of his cruelty. Each of these women has had to forgive so much in order to honor their fathers, an undeserved honor.
However, this life is only about just deserts insofar as there is a heavenly Father. If we only exist by luck, or lack thereof perhaps, then there is no “ought” in life but what we contrive. Our parents’ coming through for us or devastating us is simply an evolutionary tweak or burp, nothing more. Our feelings are simply biochemical responses--some we label as pleasure; some we label as painful. Really, any meaning beyond that is contrivance. It’s strange to me how such an impersonal force can feel so personal, however. The wounds of fatherly neglect or fatherly abuse runner deeper than our existential contrivances, don’t they? For wholeness to ensue, we must see them as deeper and more personal than contrivance, whether we believe in God or not.
While I cannot speak for the above three women, although I know all of them are Christians, my relationship with God was integral to my coming to peace with my dad. And I’m so thankful to have made peace with him before he passed.
My dad was quite aloof during my growing up years. The term “phantom father” is an apt one. He was there, but he was not. He didn’t take an interest in my life. Attending events or any sort of conversation were not priority. I developed a hatred for him but blamed myself. He never did anything wrong, so how could I hate him?
Years later, one of my philosophy and theology professors gently challenged me. I had something to forgive. I was not to blame. My dad didn’t do anything wrong because he didn’t do anything. Maybe he didn’t have sins of commission, but he had sins of omission. I had, like every child does, an interior construct of how a father should be, and he didn’t fulfill it. And where do such constructs come from? The existence of God validates those constructs of loving, accepting, engaged, sacrificing parents. As a result, our hurts are justified when our parents fall short.
As I realized I did indeed have something to forgive my dad for, I began recognizing where I was receiving fatherly love--professors, pastors, friends’ parents. I also begin to trust more deeply in the love of God as father. Gradually, this freed me from my bitterness enough to see my dad as another fallen being, also in need of grace and love. He was deeply wounded by losses growing up and was functionally depressed during my childhood and teen years. My pain was real, but so was his. God loved us both, sacrificed for us both, forgave us both. When my dad was gradually passing away from the effects of a stroke, the fact I could tell him I loved him and mean it was huge for me.
Of course my happy-ending story should not be seen as a prototype for others to follow. Many are wounded far more deeply than I ever was. The cross is reminder that God knows the personal pain of the wounds we received. The sins of others against us is costly. It cost him his life. Jesus Christ did not just die for my sins. He died for the sins committed against me as well. And if Christ chose to suffer their just deserts in their place, who am I to dare say that is not enough?
Our brokenness is real, not an evolutionary contrivance, nor an illusion. And the sanity of forgiveness and grace is real, also not an evolutionary contrivance. Unless one is committed to biochemically shrink-wrapping the dimensions of existence.
I know for many Father’s Day is a painful one. Grief continues. Estrangement continues. Justifications continue. I certainly won’t pretend moving down a path of healing, forgiveness, and potential reconciliation is easy. However, I do know bitterness and unforgiveness only victimizes us further, and keeps us small, which is tempting because then nothing much can be expected of us. We don’t have to explore avenues of our own fallenness as long as we keep the spotlight on our fathers’ sins, or anyone elses for that matter.
Maybe it’s time to pray, even if you don’t believe it will work. Maybe it’s time to ask God’s help in forgiving a parental wound, in healing it. Who knows? Maybe by next Father’s Day, you will have greater peace with your heavenly Father and will have traveled farther down a path of wholeness. Do you really have much to lose?
The attached song I found quite healing. Yes, it’s from the ‘80s as is readily apparent, yet its truths remain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-5Z2YXlG8M
However, this life is only about just deserts insofar as there is a heavenly Father. If we only exist by luck, or lack thereof perhaps, then there is no “ought” in life but what we contrive. Our parents’ coming through for us or devastating us is simply an evolutionary tweak or burp, nothing more. Our feelings are simply biochemical responses--some we label as pleasure; some we label as painful. Really, any meaning beyond that is contrivance. It’s strange to me how such an impersonal force can feel so personal, however. The wounds of fatherly neglect or fatherly abuse runner deeper than our existential contrivances, don’t they? For wholeness to ensue, we must see them as deeper and more personal than contrivance, whether we believe in God or not.
While I cannot speak for the above three women, although I know all of them are Christians, my relationship with God was integral to my coming to peace with my dad. And I’m so thankful to have made peace with him before he passed.
My dad was quite aloof during my growing up years. The term “phantom father” is an apt one. He was there, but he was not. He didn’t take an interest in my life. Attending events or any sort of conversation were not priority. I developed a hatred for him but blamed myself. He never did anything wrong, so how could I hate him?
Years later, one of my philosophy and theology professors gently challenged me. I had something to forgive. I was not to blame. My dad didn’t do anything wrong because he didn’t do anything. Maybe he didn’t have sins of commission, but he had sins of omission. I had, like every child does, an interior construct of how a father should be, and he didn’t fulfill it. And where do such constructs come from? The existence of God validates those constructs of loving, accepting, engaged, sacrificing parents. As a result, our hurts are justified when our parents fall short.
As I realized I did indeed have something to forgive my dad for, I began recognizing where I was receiving fatherly love--professors, pastors, friends’ parents. I also begin to trust more deeply in the love of God as father. Gradually, this freed me from my bitterness enough to see my dad as another fallen being, also in need of grace and love. He was deeply wounded by losses growing up and was functionally depressed during my childhood and teen years. My pain was real, but so was his. God loved us both, sacrificed for us both, forgave us both. When my dad was gradually passing away from the effects of a stroke, the fact I could tell him I loved him and mean it was huge for me.
Of course my happy-ending story should not be seen as a prototype for others to follow. Many are wounded far more deeply than I ever was. The cross is reminder that God knows the personal pain of the wounds we received. The sins of others against us is costly. It cost him his life. Jesus Christ did not just die for my sins. He died for the sins committed against me as well. And if Christ chose to suffer their just deserts in their place, who am I to dare say that is not enough?
Our brokenness is real, not an evolutionary contrivance, nor an illusion. And the sanity of forgiveness and grace is real, also not an evolutionary contrivance. Unless one is committed to biochemically shrink-wrapping the dimensions of existence.
I know for many Father’s Day is a painful one. Grief continues. Estrangement continues. Justifications continue. I certainly won’t pretend moving down a path of healing, forgiveness, and potential reconciliation is easy. However, I do know bitterness and unforgiveness only victimizes us further, and keeps us small, which is tempting because then nothing much can be expected of us. We don’t have to explore avenues of our own fallenness as long as we keep the spotlight on our fathers’ sins, or anyone elses for that matter.
Maybe it’s time to pray, even if you don’t believe it will work. Maybe it’s time to ask God’s help in forgiving a parental wound, in healing it. Who knows? Maybe by next Father’s Day, you will have greater peace with your heavenly Father and will have traveled farther down a path of wholeness. Do you really have much to lose?
The attached song I found quite healing. Yes, it’s from the ‘80s as is readily apparent, yet its truths remain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-5Z2YXlG8M
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
A Filling Hunger
I take a right out of my family’s farmyard, jogging down the hill of the gravel road. Alfalfa perfuming the air on my left, corn leaves jostling each other on my right. Turning east at the corner, I hear the creek gurgle in the ditch, surrounded by thick, short trees and brush, blocking my view in either direction. Yet the setting sun’s rays gently lay upon the leaves, tickled by the breeze. Several gravel-crunching steps farther, the view opens up. I look south. Just beyond another hayfield and more impenetrable brush lies the pasture: tumbling, lolling hills clustered with oaks. The sun’s diminishing light casts its subdued glow.
I stop. There it is again. Beauty’s poignant touch. It fills me, yet leaves me hungry, saddened that something I deeply desire is just out of my reach. I want to run toward the scene, but I know I won’t find it. It’s there, but I’m not.
In the years since, I’ve had that experience during other encounters with beauty--canoeing in Boundary Waters, being surrounded by trusted, loving friends, sitting alone with a cup of coffee and a good view, reading or watching artistic creations. It’s that simultaneous sense of yearning while feeling filled.
A character in a C.S. Lewis novel (Till We Have Faces) summed up the experience. She said, “I want to know where all the beauty comes from.” And that’s just it. I notice the beauty, delight in it, yet the sharp longing suggests there’s something more I cannot grasp just yet, cannot get to now. Something that is wonderfully filling just in the longing for it.
One of the criticisms of Christians is that they so long for heaven that they take no real interest in the world, that they are of no earthly good here; while atheists or others who simply believe in this life alone are the ones who truly love this world because there is no “beyond” to distract them. However, Christians and unbelievers of whom the above descriptions fit are both missing something.
Genuinely loving this world--or anything or anyone for that matter--necessitates a teleological approach, a worldview that affirms purpose; without it, loving it simply devolves into just enjoying it. While enjoying it is not wrong, just enjoying it can become patently self-serving; whereas, enjoying it with an eye to beauty deepens both the joy of enjoyment and longing for something more, something this world is no doubt a part of, yet is fragmented in its expression.
I appreciate G.K. Chesterton’s analogy of this world containing pieces of broken stained glass. We can rejoice in the beauty of each shard, while simultaneously longing for wholeness. While unbelievers may suggest the shards are all there is, that hardly explains the longing of the informed conscience--atheist or not--for wholeness, hardly explains the oft-experienced sadness regarding the brokenness. On the other hand, some Christians can get so caught up noticing and judging the brokenness, they neglect the shard’s beauty and fail to aid in the redemptive journey toward wholeness, and instead wait--in protective uselessness--for “the end.”
The life of Jesus best exemplifies the tension between beauty and brokenness. He was a man of joy and a man of sorrows. His immersive awareness of the love of God enabled him to see beauty in all those the world rejected and even in those doing the rejecting. Yet his awareness of their brokenness broke his heart, ultimately literally. He came from the place where beauty and love come from, but “the world did not recognize him” (John 1:10). We still don’t.
Recognizing beauty and love is vulnerable. If you open your heart to the joy of it, yes there will be the sorrow. The world’s brokenness prevents us have from having it completely. “For now we see in a glass dimly” (I Corinithians 13:12). Still, the reality is there though we cannot see it.
And this, in part, is faith: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). It’s not belief without evidence, nor belief without reason. It’s a belief that realities exist beyond my perceptions that evidence themselves based on my openness to them. It’s a trust that what is ultimately real is love and its concomitant beauty.
When Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6), they are blessed because righteousness does ultimately exist--it is not just an ego construct of purportedly societally-evolved people. When he tells us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done,” it’s because a kingdom and a will exist worth hungering for because they are actually there. And loving this world means rejoicing when we see that kingdom expressed as well as sorrowing over its lack where brokenness has eroded it. From that sorrow grows the passion to challenge and nourish those fragments.
Why hunger for anything that is not ultimately real? If beauty, love, justice, mercy, grace are only elevated societal constructs of no eternal value beyond this life, then they are just the empty calories for the ego rather than the fueling and enticing nourishment for the soul.
I stop. There it is again. Beauty’s poignant touch. It fills me, yet leaves me hungry, saddened that something I deeply desire is just out of my reach. I want to run toward the scene, but I know I won’t find it. It’s there, but I’m not.
In the years since, I’ve had that experience during other encounters with beauty--canoeing in Boundary Waters, being surrounded by trusted, loving friends, sitting alone with a cup of coffee and a good view, reading or watching artistic creations. It’s that simultaneous sense of yearning while feeling filled.
A character in a C.S. Lewis novel (Till We Have Faces) summed up the experience. She said, “I want to know where all the beauty comes from.” And that’s just it. I notice the beauty, delight in it, yet the sharp longing suggests there’s something more I cannot grasp just yet, cannot get to now. Something that is wonderfully filling just in the longing for it.
One of the criticisms of Christians is that they so long for heaven that they take no real interest in the world, that they are of no earthly good here; while atheists or others who simply believe in this life alone are the ones who truly love this world because there is no “beyond” to distract them. However, Christians and unbelievers of whom the above descriptions fit are both missing something.
Genuinely loving this world--or anything or anyone for that matter--necessitates a teleological approach, a worldview that affirms purpose; without it, loving it simply devolves into just enjoying it. While enjoying it is not wrong, just enjoying it can become patently self-serving; whereas, enjoying it with an eye to beauty deepens both the joy of enjoyment and longing for something more, something this world is no doubt a part of, yet is fragmented in its expression.
I appreciate G.K. Chesterton’s analogy of this world containing pieces of broken stained glass. We can rejoice in the beauty of each shard, while simultaneously longing for wholeness. While unbelievers may suggest the shards are all there is, that hardly explains the longing of the informed conscience--atheist or not--for wholeness, hardly explains the oft-experienced sadness regarding the brokenness. On the other hand, some Christians can get so caught up noticing and judging the brokenness, they neglect the shard’s beauty and fail to aid in the redemptive journey toward wholeness, and instead wait--in protective uselessness--for “the end.”
The life of Jesus best exemplifies the tension between beauty and brokenness. He was a man of joy and a man of sorrows. His immersive awareness of the love of God enabled him to see beauty in all those the world rejected and even in those doing the rejecting. Yet his awareness of their brokenness broke his heart, ultimately literally. He came from the place where beauty and love come from, but “the world did not recognize him” (John 1:10). We still don’t.
Recognizing beauty and love is vulnerable. If you open your heart to the joy of it, yes there will be the sorrow. The world’s brokenness prevents us have from having it completely. “For now we see in a glass dimly” (I Corinithians 13:12). Still, the reality is there though we cannot see it.
And this, in part, is faith: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). It’s not belief without evidence, nor belief without reason. It’s a belief that realities exist beyond my perceptions that evidence themselves based on my openness to them. It’s a trust that what is ultimately real is love and its concomitant beauty.
When Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6), they are blessed because righteousness does ultimately exist--it is not just an ego construct of purportedly societally-evolved people. When he tells us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done,” it’s because a kingdom and a will exist worth hungering for because they are actually there. And loving this world means rejoicing when we see that kingdom expressed as well as sorrowing over its lack where brokenness has eroded it. From that sorrow grows the passion to challenge and nourish those fragments.
Why hunger for anything that is not ultimately real? If beauty, love, justice, mercy, grace are only elevated societal constructs of no eternal value beyond this life, then they are just the empty calories for the ego rather than the fueling and enticing nourishment for the soul.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Freedom That Becomes Us
Freedom is always inviting, yet it’s risky and vulnerable, for it means change. I understand that as freedom was procured for slaves in the waning days of the Civil War, some slaves preferred the predictability, the security of the plantation. They had become slaves, and the prospect of becoming free--even if they were in fact, free--was overwhelming.
I read something recently wherein someone conceded they were living in Hell, yet candidly admitted to a comfortable familiarity with it-- “At least I know the names of every street!” I’m sure the streets in Freedom and Peace are nice, but I won’t be familiar. I’d have to acclimate, and I’m unsure I can pull that off . . . so I’ll just stay in Hell.
Just today, my husband related his having heard that huge adult elephants can be tied via a rope to a stake in the ground, and they will remain even though they could walk off with the rope and stake quite easily. Why? Because when they were babes, the stake and rope had the power to hold them then. Now the enormous adult elephant still believes they can. Of course, this story isn’t so much about a fear of freedom, but rather the questioning if one actually has it: If you believe you are smaller than that which holds you, you really won’t be free.
My faith in Jesus Christ appeals to me primarily because of the freedom He invites me to, the freedom He invites all of humanity to, and it’s the only freedom offered which is commensurate with our human dignity . . . and beyond. He invites us to live larger than that which we believe holds us.
He invites us to a freedom from condemnation. Since he has absorbed the cost of our reconciliation, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8). Now if we are free from God’s condemnation, we are free from everyone’s condemnation: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” We are free from the condemnation of others, of ourselves. Familial, educational, societal condemnations no longer hold because God has accepted us. And no voice carries more weight, though we may not always think it so.
Now I realize there’s a whole self-esteem industry marketing means for us to feel good about ourselves. Feel good about ourselves based on what? That there are now a few overweight models so we really can feel good about ourselves because the media gods have finally affirmed size variety? How about that my friends assure me I’m smart, talented, attractive--got some good things going for me? That my parents have affirmed me? That “in comparison” to whatever or whomever, I’m better? But isn’t that all a relative? All a sliding scale? I’d prefer a transcending self-assessment, based on something far less fickle than surrounding culture . . . and my moods. Indeed, if God says I’m loved and accepted just as I am, that He has no condemnation for me, then indeed I am genuinely free to love and accept myself, condemnation-free.
Being free from condemnation of any kind means I am now free to become who I am: the Beloved. The journey of spiritual growth is becoming who you are--learning to live loved. And this really isn’t about living by some moral code--as handy as those can be. In Christ, we’ve received an identity shift: living lives of love is a result of internalizing an identity. As I become who I am, loving other becomes obviously consequential, rather than something achieved by obeying laws or religious dictates. “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6). Soaking in that humbling amazing grace shifts the foundations of the heart: it’s no longer about obeying ethics while remaining internally unchanged; it’s living new: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation: The old is gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
If there’s a discipline involved in it, it’s learning to regularly receive grace, receive God’s love until the old measurements, assessments, condemnations, achievements and failures purported to give identity in this world fade into their apparent superficiality. As they diminish, the freedom to be me increases. And clearly, I’ve got a long way to go, yet indeed there is joy in this journey.
Don’t become so familiar here, so comfortable and familiar in your present assessments that you decide to remain a slave, remain on the streets of whatever hell you’re in, or remain tethered to a stake so much smaller than you.
Begin the freeing journey of becoming who you are: the beloved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIVjjY8Ou8
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Conceding the Absurd
About six crosses are within my sight as I write this in my living room. Yes, an ancient Roman torture and execution device adorns walls, bookcases, dressers, shelves in my home. It’s pretty ridiculously absurd.
I desire this blog to demonstrate the truth of Christianity--the credibility of its text, its history, its message. Yet to the argument that its absurd . . . I have to concede. It is absurd. That’s no secret admission. The Apostle Paul even back in the day admitted that “the message of the cross is foolishness” in the eyes of the world.
Now, of course, I don’t concede my worldview’s absurdity as some means of getting out intellectual accountability free card when it comes to discussing my beliefs. I’m quite comfortable with challenges. Further, I would suggest that the absurdity of Christianity provides additional evidence for its credibility.
Consider the overwhelming preposterousness of this world. Where to begin? With the recent inexplicably intentionally tragic bombing in Boston that forever changed lives and took lives, including that of an innocent little guy, who in a school poster urged people toward kindness weeks before? A horrid explosion in Texas that devastated lives? An earthquake in China? A crazed dictator in North Korea making nuclear threats, while thousands languish in prisons for not worshiping at his throne? Attacks in religions’ names in multiple spots around the globe? Illnesses? Accidents? Wars? Terrors? Nature’s upheavals? Many who wonder where God is. Others have decided he’s simply not there, period. All this absurdity and an overwhelming much more can deluge anyone’s belief system.
And that’s just it. I just don’t see another worldview that confirms reality for what it is, like Christianity. As Frederick Buechner states in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, & Fairy Tale (1977), “The Gospel is bad news before it is good news.” Jesus Christ, God-in-flesh, is persecuted and crucified by religious and political authorities. The innocent one meets the raw injustice of the world. Is that absurd? Or does it simply confirm the already evident absurdity of this world, where innocence is destroyed by religion and politics? God himself becoming a victim of our absurdity is the best evidence that our world is clearly absurd! What other worldview so strongly confirms our absurdity?
The cross reminds me that I’m part of a ridiculously tragic, pathetic humanity, that “my nature is built into the wall of humanity” as C.H. Spurgeon expressed it, that we have all contributed to it “by what we have done and have left undone” (Lutheran liturgy perpetually lodged in my head). We’re all in this mess together. And God is, too. He has shared in our humanity and as a result can “empathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:5). As Buechner continues, “God himself does not give answers. He gives himself . . .” We all want answers, we all want reason, logic, sense for the absurd quality of our world. None of those suffice. Perhaps an absurd world merits an absurd God, the God who gives himself. So the cross affirms for me that the world is what it is, and God intimately knows what it is.
So what prompts God’s absurdly personal investment in our preposterous world? Love. The cliched verse still bears the truth: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It’s unfortunate how infrequently the verse following is posted: “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). God is not interested in condemning. He’s interested in saving.
We never see that coming. It seems too good to be true. So we tone it down a little or a lot: to have eternal life you must do all this religious activity, hold these particular views, do these particular good works while avoiding these particularly bad works. None of that is true! And that’s the good news.
Eternal life is simply ever only a gift to be received. How do you receive it? Acknowledge you’re part of the absurd mess of this world, that you’re a contributor, a neglector. In other words, agree with God on the reality of the situation. Then receive His forgiveness. He has absorbed the cost of our sin. There’s not debt to be paid. “It is finished!” He said in concluding words on the cross.
It’s tough to believe eternal life is that easy. “The tragic is inevitable. The comic is unforeseeable,” Buechner notes. I think that’s why I'm amused as I notice my home redundantly emblazoned with crosses. It is almost comic. This instrument of death intersects two realities: the world and I are fallen and broken; the world and I are loved beyond our wildest comprehension. There’s something delightfully, joyfully comical about that.
“Maybe the truth of it is that it’s too good not to be true” (Buechner). Indeed, I don’t think humanity could have made this up. It flies too much in the face of our prideful constitution and our suspicion of and avoidance of joy. In fact, a couple thousand years of church history includes plentiful evidence of quieting and containing this absurdly good news.
Thank God for leaks! :)
I desire this blog to demonstrate the truth of Christianity--the credibility of its text, its history, its message. Yet to the argument that its absurd . . . I have to concede. It is absurd. That’s no secret admission. The Apostle Paul even back in the day admitted that “the message of the cross is foolishness” in the eyes of the world.
Now, of course, I don’t concede my worldview’s absurdity as some means of getting out intellectual accountability free card when it comes to discussing my beliefs. I’m quite comfortable with challenges. Further, I would suggest that the absurdity of Christianity provides additional evidence for its credibility.
Consider the overwhelming preposterousness of this world. Where to begin? With the recent inexplicably intentionally tragic bombing in Boston that forever changed lives and took lives, including that of an innocent little guy, who in a school poster urged people toward kindness weeks before? A horrid explosion in Texas that devastated lives? An earthquake in China? A crazed dictator in North Korea making nuclear threats, while thousands languish in prisons for not worshiping at his throne? Attacks in religions’ names in multiple spots around the globe? Illnesses? Accidents? Wars? Terrors? Nature’s upheavals? Many who wonder where God is. Others have decided he’s simply not there, period. All this absurdity and an overwhelming much more can deluge anyone’s belief system.
And that’s just it. I just don’t see another worldview that confirms reality for what it is, like Christianity. As Frederick Buechner states in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, & Fairy Tale (1977), “The Gospel is bad news before it is good news.” Jesus Christ, God-in-flesh, is persecuted and crucified by religious and political authorities. The innocent one meets the raw injustice of the world. Is that absurd? Or does it simply confirm the already evident absurdity of this world, where innocence is destroyed by religion and politics? God himself becoming a victim of our absurdity is the best evidence that our world is clearly absurd! What other worldview so strongly confirms our absurdity?
The cross reminds me that I’m part of a ridiculously tragic, pathetic humanity, that “my nature is built into the wall of humanity” as C.H. Spurgeon expressed it, that we have all contributed to it “by what we have done and have left undone” (Lutheran liturgy perpetually lodged in my head). We’re all in this mess together. And God is, too. He has shared in our humanity and as a result can “empathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:5). As Buechner continues, “God himself does not give answers. He gives himself . . .” We all want answers, we all want reason, logic, sense for the absurd quality of our world. None of those suffice. Perhaps an absurd world merits an absurd God, the God who gives himself. So the cross affirms for me that the world is what it is, and God intimately knows what it is.
So what prompts God’s absurdly personal investment in our preposterous world? Love. The cliched verse still bears the truth: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It’s unfortunate how infrequently the verse following is posted: “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). God is not interested in condemning. He’s interested in saving.
We never see that coming. It seems too good to be true. So we tone it down a little or a lot: to have eternal life you must do all this religious activity, hold these particular views, do these particular good works while avoiding these particularly bad works. None of that is true! And that’s the good news.
Eternal life is simply ever only a gift to be received. How do you receive it? Acknowledge you’re part of the absurd mess of this world, that you’re a contributor, a neglector. In other words, agree with God on the reality of the situation. Then receive His forgiveness. He has absorbed the cost of our sin. There’s not debt to be paid. “It is finished!” He said in concluding words on the cross.
It’s tough to believe eternal life is that easy. “The tragic is inevitable. The comic is unforeseeable,” Buechner notes. I think that’s why I'm amused as I notice my home redundantly emblazoned with crosses. It is almost comic. This instrument of death intersects two realities: the world and I are fallen and broken; the world and I are loved beyond our wildest comprehension. There’s something delightfully, joyfully comical about that.
“Maybe the truth of it is that it’s too good not to be true” (Buechner). Indeed, I don’t think humanity could have made this up. It flies too much in the face of our prideful constitution and our suspicion of and avoidance of joy. In fact, a couple thousand years of church history includes plentiful evidence of quieting and containing this absurdly good news.
Thank God for leaks! :)
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Saving Face
A recent 60 Minutes show provided an update on the Lost Boys of Sudan, whom the program covered many years ago. These boys fled their villages in South Sudan, fleeing those who had murdered their parents and captured their sisters into slavery. They were faceless--no documents, no legal rights, really nonexistent--and/or persecuted wherever their existence were discovered. One of these boys, who eventually became an Episcopal priest, said even then: “They call us the lost boys. But I’ve never been lost to God.”
Now, of course, I don’t share this to gloss over the horror of lives lost or to assume this faithful account somehow dismisses the questioning of this woefully disturbing violence. However, it is interesting (and touching to me) that America stepped in and transplanted some 4000 of these lost boys to cities across America in what one interviewed professional on the program considered the most successful transplant of foreign peoples in American history. We were moved by facelessness. We wanted them to have a face, to become citizens, to have rights. It’s a powerful, invigorating vision.
We liberally apply the term “person” to everyone, and rightly so, for person is the equivalent of having a face. Yet even for us, history has shown that we’ve not been too willing to extend the notion of facefullness to everyone. The powerful typically have it and the powerless never seem to have enough face, sadly.
Still in the Greco-Roman world, the facelessness of some, if not the majority, of the populace was assumed and justified. David Bentlley Hart’s Atheistic Delusions (so called because he challenges the arguments of some atheists who question the role of Christianity in history) discusses that for those of the “lowest stations--slaves, base-born non-citizens and criminals, the utterly destitute, colonized peoples--legal personality did not really exist, or existed in the most tenuous of forms” and of course, those tenuous forms applied also to the limited extent of women’s possessing “face.” Even the esoteric philosophies of the times were not interested in extending personhood to the masses. The philosopher’s facefilled pensive leisure was purchased by the sweaty brow of the faceless.
In Jerusalem, correct religiosity added to the addenda of acquiring a face. And in order for there always to be a hierarchy--whether in religious circles or otherwise--it was essential that only a powerful few access face and the rest are left faceless.
Yet it is to the faceless that Christ comes. The Gospel accounts are rife with his intentional engagements with the faceless, to the perpetual chagrin of the face-filled powerful. I think that is one of the key characteristics of Jesus’ life to which I’m so drawn. He was so perpetually free from and therefore, dismissive of human power. He talked to whom he wanted when he wanted, was entirely unmoved by human praise or criticism. I believe he has been the only human who was ever only genuinely himself, defined by his capacity to live totally, entirely free from the confining responses of others. He calls us to a similar freedom, but that’s a topic for a different day.
In fact, it was this absolute freedom to love, to grant face to the faceless that made him such a threat to the religious of any type as well as political authority, for earthly authority typically always gathers more face for some and less for others. Christ created the fissure of facefulness that is still rupturing our preconceived notions of face today. Bentley continues: “Conscience, after all, at least in regard to its particular contents, is to a great extent a cultural artifact, a historical contingency, and all of us today in the West, to some degree or another, have inherited a conscience formed by Christian moral ideals. For this reason, it is all but impossible for us to recover any real sense of the scandal that many pagans naturally felt at the bizarre prodigality with which the early Christians were willing to grant full humanity to persons of every class and condition, and of either sex.” Consequently, the merging into one community of people previously separated by clear strata became the key challenge of the early church: how does a community consisting of sharply divided personhood designations become unified and cohesive? For now the “literate, accomplished, propertied and free had to crowd in among slaves, laborers, and craftsmen, and count it no disgrace” (Hart 2009).
The letter writers of the New Testament, of which most are in Paul’s hand, reveal the challenges of merging these previously faceful and faceless communities together. Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (2010) is a refreshing text in that it reveals the culture in which these efforts were taking place. Of particular interest to me in this text was her discussion of Paul’s intentions in regards to the sexually objectified, women (also, of course, sexually objectified), and slaves. In these we see the Spirit of Christ breaking the fissure of facefulness opened wider.
Ruden’s contention is when Paul addresses homosexuality, he is indicting the prevalent pederasty of the Greco-Roman world, wherein manhood was not only proved by family and offspring but also by one’s ability to dominate other, weaker men via forced sexual penetration: “The Greeks and Romans thought that the active partner in homosexual intercourse used, humiliated, and physically and morally damaged the passive one.” Therefore, you did not want to be the passive recipient, so you had to prove yourself the brutal, aggressive one: “society pressured a man into a sexual brutality toward other males.” So when Paul takes on homosexuality so aggressively, it is likely he’s referring to this brutalization and the surrounding culture’s encouragement of it. Indeed, Paul is quite clear that sexual intimacy is to be preserved for the marriage bed, wherein your spouse’s face is most intimately honored. No one is ever to be defaced sexually: “and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister” (I Thessalonians 4:6).
And in regard to “sisters,” it is probably discombobulating to some that Paul actually encouraged more rights, more freedoms, more honor than women certainly possessed at that time. When Paul directs all women to be veiled during worship, he is actually seeking to honor all women who attend, regardless of previous “face” status--prostitutes, the discarded, and the otherwise abused. Esteemed women--matrons and widows--wore veils in this culture: an ironic way to feature their facefulness, whereas other women did not merit such honor. However, Paul directs all women to be veiled during worship, so that all will be equally honored, so that all have equal face because that’s their reality before Christ, what Ruden terms “an outrageous equality.”
Of more intriguing controversy in the early Christian era within the Greco-Roman world was Paul’s affirmation that men AND women could decide whether or not to marry. All the sudden the enforced hierarchal, determined role of marriage could be freely entered into or not. Of course, Paul encouraged celibacy for both: the persecution at the time was so intense, he felt it wiser. Still, it was up to them. Much more could be said here: his contention that both should please the other in marriage, not just the woman to the man would also have been revolutionizing in this time period. Yet our culture now assumes it, but its roots are here.
The early cracks of institutional, government ordained slavery appear in the early days of Christianity as well. While Paul could never have conceived of a culture devoid of slavery--it was so ensconced, his following of Christ lead him to conclude that slaves are brothers and sisters to their masters. That in and of itself was a revolutionary thought. Unfortunately, it took us a couple thousand years to carry it to its logical conclusion. Ruden feature Paul’s brief letter Philemon, to whom Paul is writing in regards to Philemon’s escaped slave, Onesimus. Paul encourages Onesimus to return to Philemon, holding Philemon accountable to receiving his former slave as a brother in Christ, an unheard of request in a culture that would have cruelly punished such an offense. Yet Paul desires the Christian community to live out its new reality: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
The most beautiful Face condescended to give each of us a face, regardless of our face-status in this world. Our love for him is measured in our ability to see his face in every face and love them accordingly: “Truly, I tell you whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Because of him, our present culture understands some of this, but we have miles to go for its realization. Indeed, may his kingdom come, his will be done. Amen.
Now, of course, I don’t share this to gloss over the horror of lives lost or to assume this faithful account somehow dismisses the questioning of this woefully disturbing violence. However, it is interesting (and touching to me) that America stepped in and transplanted some 4000 of these lost boys to cities across America in what one interviewed professional on the program considered the most successful transplant of foreign peoples in American history. We were moved by facelessness. We wanted them to have a face, to become citizens, to have rights. It’s a powerful, invigorating vision.
We liberally apply the term “person” to everyone, and rightly so, for person is the equivalent of having a face. Yet even for us, history has shown that we’ve not been too willing to extend the notion of facefullness to everyone. The powerful typically have it and the powerless never seem to have enough face, sadly.
Still in the Greco-Roman world, the facelessness of some, if not the majority, of the populace was assumed and justified. David Bentlley Hart’s Atheistic Delusions (so called because he challenges the arguments of some atheists who question the role of Christianity in history) discusses that for those of the “lowest stations--slaves, base-born non-citizens and criminals, the utterly destitute, colonized peoples--legal personality did not really exist, or existed in the most tenuous of forms” and of course, those tenuous forms applied also to the limited extent of women’s possessing “face.” Even the esoteric philosophies of the times were not interested in extending personhood to the masses. The philosopher’s facefilled pensive leisure was purchased by the sweaty brow of the faceless.
In Jerusalem, correct religiosity added to the addenda of acquiring a face. And in order for there always to be a hierarchy--whether in religious circles or otherwise--it was essential that only a powerful few access face and the rest are left faceless.
Yet it is to the faceless that Christ comes. The Gospel accounts are rife with his intentional engagements with the faceless, to the perpetual chagrin of the face-filled powerful. I think that is one of the key characteristics of Jesus’ life to which I’m so drawn. He was so perpetually free from and therefore, dismissive of human power. He talked to whom he wanted when he wanted, was entirely unmoved by human praise or criticism. I believe he has been the only human who was ever only genuinely himself, defined by his capacity to live totally, entirely free from the confining responses of others. He calls us to a similar freedom, but that’s a topic for a different day.
In fact, it was this absolute freedom to love, to grant face to the faceless that made him such a threat to the religious of any type as well as political authority, for earthly authority typically always gathers more face for some and less for others. Christ created the fissure of facefulness that is still rupturing our preconceived notions of face today. Bentley continues: “Conscience, after all, at least in regard to its particular contents, is to a great extent a cultural artifact, a historical contingency, and all of us today in the West, to some degree or another, have inherited a conscience formed by Christian moral ideals. For this reason, it is all but impossible for us to recover any real sense of the scandal that many pagans naturally felt at the bizarre prodigality with which the early Christians were willing to grant full humanity to persons of every class and condition, and of either sex.” Consequently, the merging into one community of people previously separated by clear strata became the key challenge of the early church: how does a community consisting of sharply divided personhood designations become unified and cohesive? For now the “literate, accomplished, propertied and free had to crowd in among slaves, laborers, and craftsmen, and count it no disgrace” (Hart 2009).
The letter writers of the New Testament, of which most are in Paul’s hand, reveal the challenges of merging these previously faceful and faceless communities together. Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (2010) is a refreshing text in that it reveals the culture in which these efforts were taking place. Of particular interest to me in this text was her discussion of Paul’s intentions in regards to the sexually objectified, women (also, of course, sexually objectified), and slaves. In these we see the Spirit of Christ breaking the fissure of facefulness opened wider.
Ruden’s contention is when Paul addresses homosexuality, he is indicting the prevalent pederasty of the Greco-Roman world, wherein manhood was not only proved by family and offspring but also by one’s ability to dominate other, weaker men via forced sexual penetration: “The Greeks and Romans thought that the active partner in homosexual intercourse used, humiliated, and physically and morally damaged the passive one.” Therefore, you did not want to be the passive recipient, so you had to prove yourself the brutal, aggressive one: “society pressured a man into a sexual brutality toward other males.” So when Paul takes on homosexuality so aggressively, it is likely he’s referring to this brutalization and the surrounding culture’s encouragement of it. Indeed, Paul is quite clear that sexual intimacy is to be preserved for the marriage bed, wherein your spouse’s face is most intimately honored. No one is ever to be defaced sexually: “and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister” (I Thessalonians 4:6).
And in regard to “sisters,” it is probably discombobulating to some that Paul actually encouraged more rights, more freedoms, more honor than women certainly possessed at that time. When Paul directs all women to be veiled during worship, he is actually seeking to honor all women who attend, regardless of previous “face” status--prostitutes, the discarded, and the otherwise abused. Esteemed women--matrons and widows--wore veils in this culture: an ironic way to feature their facefulness, whereas other women did not merit such honor. However, Paul directs all women to be veiled during worship, so that all will be equally honored, so that all have equal face because that’s their reality before Christ, what Ruden terms “an outrageous equality.”
Of more intriguing controversy in the early Christian era within the Greco-Roman world was Paul’s affirmation that men AND women could decide whether or not to marry. All the sudden the enforced hierarchal, determined role of marriage could be freely entered into or not. Of course, Paul encouraged celibacy for both: the persecution at the time was so intense, he felt it wiser. Still, it was up to them. Much more could be said here: his contention that both should please the other in marriage, not just the woman to the man would also have been revolutionizing in this time period. Yet our culture now assumes it, but its roots are here.
The early cracks of institutional, government ordained slavery appear in the early days of Christianity as well. While Paul could never have conceived of a culture devoid of slavery--it was so ensconced, his following of Christ lead him to conclude that slaves are brothers and sisters to their masters. That in and of itself was a revolutionary thought. Unfortunately, it took us a couple thousand years to carry it to its logical conclusion. Ruden feature Paul’s brief letter Philemon, to whom Paul is writing in regards to Philemon’s escaped slave, Onesimus. Paul encourages Onesimus to return to Philemon, holding Philemon accountable to receiving his former slave as a brother in Christ, an unheard of request in a culture that would have cruelly punished such an offense. Yet Paul desires the Christian community to live out its new reality: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
The most beautiful Face condescended to give each of us a face, regardless of our face-status in this world. Our love for him is measured in our ability to see his face in every face and love them accordingly: “Truly, I tell you whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). Because of him, our present culture understands some of this, but we have miles to go for its realization. Indeed, may his kingdom come, his will be done. Amen.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
The Reconciliation
In the process of joining a a church several years ago, the pastor wanted to interview me. Since it was a Lutheran church, I assumed he wanted to know just how Lutheran I was or was interested in becoming, so I came in pretty nonchalant.
After exchanging essential pleasantries, he hit me with an obvious, yet completely unexpected question: “Who is Jesus Christ to you?”
I sat there, eyes blinking . . . lump in my throat rising . . . tears welling up. I cried.
“I guess your tears mean Jesus Christ means a lot to you?”
I nodded, inarticulately blubbering through an apology for the awkwardness of it all.
Clearly, Christianity has to have objective qualities to determine the truth or falsity of its claims, yet it’s a highly personal, highly relational, and therefore, a highly subjective belief system as well. Belief system does not do it justice. Christians actually enter into a reconciled relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And as anyone with any relationships knows, a relationship goes quite far beyond mental ascent or creedal acquiescence.
Essential to my relationship with God is the death of Jesus Christ, God-in-flesh, the God-man, Son of God. It seems strange to suggest my relationship with God is dependent upon His sacrificial death, yet if God is God and I am me (which is the case), for the relationship to exist, he must initiate. And he has. And that initiation involved a cost he was willing to pay.
While I fully acknowledge “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19), in this post, I will not so much be addressing the world’s or other people’s reconciliation to God. Instead, I will be focusing on God’s and my reconciliation.
To be reconciled implies that the relationship was previously broken. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been born into a fallen humanity, a humanity estranged from God. For me, that estrangement expressed itself in a distorted identity, wherein I believed accomplishments, achievements, relationships with the right people, having an enviable guy would somehow make me somebody. Of course, it was an identity based on the ever-shifting sands of endless comparisons.
Beyond the distorted identity, justification was another estrangement symptom. My wrongs had to be excused, rationalized, justified, explained away somehow. My hatreds, cruel words, seeing others as means to ends, my negligence and omissions--I had to weave a victimized rationale for it all, even resorting to the standard, “what’s the big deal?” All this so I could still apply the term “good” to myself--a sociological construct reached again only via comparison.
Of course, to some degree I was a victim. Other sinners had hurt me. At times the fear of being the victim encouraged me to be the victimizer or the “go-alonger,” not actively participating in an injustice, yet simply ignoring it. The approval of the identity-bestowers surrounding me carried the day.
I also remember the fear, the fear of the loss of meaning if I failed or lost approval somehow--the symptom of insecure vulnerability--as if the weight of my life was resting on a tenuous point, like an inverted triangle.
Back then, I would not have expressed the above as symptoms of estrangement from God, even though I knew the concept. I just believed it was life. I didn’t link it to anything to do with him. Most Christians in the inherited-belief-system mindset sadly think this way. Their faith is the occasional church thing with no internalization. Yet what is Christianity if its not internalized?
Needless to say, there are more symptoms of estrangement from God than I’ve listed. We live the global, economic, sociological, political, national, natural symptoms. Others live with different individual symptoms. Here, I just wanted to center more on my journey.
God becoming human in Jesus Christ, suffering and dying on the cross is perhaps an unexpected cure--salvation is the word. Yet at multiple levels, his life and death have been and more and more continue to become my salvation. Please note that I’m not particularly focusing on life beyond the grave here. I’m speaking of my now.
In responding affirmingly to God’s initiation of peace and reconciliation, I’ve noticed and continue to experience the following transformations:
I’ve received the gift of identity, the identity of the beloved, the ever-increasing awareness that I’m loved just as I am . . . and not just because a kind, loving family may have said that--their opinion would be clearly biased in my favor. Though that's warm and healthy, for something so vital, I'd prefer something more objective: God’s coming to earth in human form and shedding his blood for our reconciliation establishes my identity as the beloved. “For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you were redeemed [...], but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (I Peter 1:17-18). To know that no amount of success or failure, no amount of rejection or approval alters my core identity as someone worth his life is salvation indeed. As a result, it’s freeing to get off the comparison track. I cannot improve on or lessen my identity regardless of how well I compare in any venue. I value the cross as the most concrete, absolute expression of my self-esteem. I’m now free to be me.
My identity is further expressed as I step out from under the weight of my justifications. He has provided for my justification, so I can let go of the rationalizations and face myself frankly in his love: I’m not inherently good, and I’m not putting myself down here. I’m just being honest. If I say I’m good, well that's motivated by comparisons against the broader culture; however, God’s standard for loving motives, words, and deeds is volumes higher than anyone surrounding me. So I can delude myself with my purported "goodness,"but all the designation does is craft my need for rationalizations so I can hang onto the “good” tag. It’s more realistic and honest to be frank about it: I’m not inherently good, but I have inherit worth. I’m a sinner and my rationalizations only distort reality. I need forgiveness. I need genuine justification. I value the cross because it melds the dual realities of my sin and my belovedness. I’m now free to face me.
While yes, the cross does affirm that I am a victimizer--Jesus did die for my sin, it also affirms that I’ve been a victim. In affirming that my sins against others matters, it also demonstrates that others sins against me matters. While we like to downplay our own sins, we tend to “up-play” the sins of others against us. In Christ, both are just as real. Requesting forgiveness never equates to "what's the big deal?" Accepting forgiveness is never saying, “it was no big deal that you hurt me.” Actually, forgiveness is agreeing to absorb the pain of the sin and not exact it from the offender. This is precisely what Christ did: He absorbed the pain of our sin, so not to exact it from us. Christ died for my sins and for the sins of others against me. Therefore, I’m called to forgive. What greater price would I have the offender(s) pay? Is the blood of Christ not good enough? And while salvation lies in my being forgiven, it’s inextricably linked to my forgiveness of others. I value the cross because it represents my forgiveness and my forgiveness of others.
I’ve found it freeing to shift the weight of my life onto Him--it’s peaceful to live without fear, without anxiety. This is not suggest the temptation isn’t there, nor is it to suggest the simplistic notion that placing faith in Christ will eradicate disorders of anxiety, though I’m confident it helps. His presence ensures meaning’s bedrock, even if my intended meaning falters. It’s quite freeing to know I possess something I cannot lose, a foundation that sustains all the vulnerable parts of my world: I’m free to treasure them, yet not insist on needing them. I can affirm and enjoy life’s temporal qualities, knowing there’s an eternal essence behind it all: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him gives me strength” (Philippians 4:12-13).
God has offered me peace with him, reconciliation to him. He has initiated. He has absorbed the cost of forgiveness. The absolute best decision of my life was to accept. Indeed, my brief sojourn in the land of estrangement confirms my never going back to that.
So as the pastor asked me, I ask you: Who is Jesus Christ to you?
After exchanging essential pleasantries, he hit me with an obvious, yet completely unexpected question: “Who is Jesus Christ to you?”
I sat there, eyes blinking . . . lump in my throat rising . . . tears welling up. I cried.
“I guess your tears mean Jesus Christ means a lot to you?”
I nodded, inarticulately blubbering through an apology for the awkwardness of it all.
Clearly, Christianity has to have objective qualities to determine the truth or falsity of its claims, yet it’s a highly personal, highly relational, and therefore, a highly subjective belief system as well. Belief system does not do it justice. Christians actually enter into a reconciled relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And as anyone with any relationships knows, a relationship goes quite far beyond mental ascent or creedal acquiescence.
Essential to my relationship with God is the death of Jesus Christ, God-in-flesh, the God-man, Son of God. It seems strange to suggest my relationship with God is dependent upon His sacrificial death, yet if God is God and I am me (which is the case), for the relationship to exist, he must initiate. And he has. And that initiation involved a cost he was willing to pay.
While I fully acknowledge “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19), in this post, I will not so much be addressing the world’s or other people’s reconciliation to God. Instead, I will be focusing on God’s and my reconciliation.
To be reconciled implies that the relationship was previously broken. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been born into a fallen humanity, a humanity estranged from God. For me, that estrangement expressed itself in a distorted identity, wherein I believed accomplishments, achievements, relationships with the right people, having an enviable guy would somehow make me somebody. Of course, it was an identity based on the ever-shifting sands of endless comparisons.
Beyond the distorted identity, justification was another estrangement symptom. My wrongs had to be excused, rationalized, justified, explained away somehow. My hatreds, cruel words, seeing others as means to ends, my negligence and omissions--I had to weave a victimized rationale for it all, even resorting to the standard, “what’s the big deal?” All this so I could still apply the term “good” to myself--a sociological construct reached again only via comparison.
Of course, to some degree I was a victim. Other sinners had hurt me. At times the fear of being the victim encouraged me to be the victimizer or the “go-alonger,” not actively participating in an injustice, yet simply ignoring it. The approval of the identity-bestowers surrounding me carried the day.
I also remember the fear, the fear of the loss of meaning if I failed or lost approval somehow--the symptom of insecure vulnerability--as if the weight of my life was resting on a tenuous point, like an inverted triangle.
Back then, I would not have expressed the above as symptoms of estrangement from God, even though I knew the concept. I just believed it was life. I didn’t link it to anything to do with him. Most Christians in the inherited-belief-system mindset sadly think this way. Their faith is the occasional church thing with no internalization. Yet what is Christianity if its not internalized?
Needless to say, there are more symptoms of estrangement from God than I’ve listed. We live the global, economic, sociological, political, national, natural symptoms. Others live with different individual symptoms. Here, I just wanted to center more on my journey.
God becoming human in Jesus Christ, suffering and dying on the cross is perhaps an unexpected cure--salvation is the word. Yet at multiple levels, his life and death have been and more and more continue to become my salvation. Please note that I’m not particularly focusing on life beyond the grave here. I’m speaking of my now.
In responding affirmingly to God’s initiation of peace and reconciliation, I’ve noticed and continue to experience the following transformations:
I’ve received the gift of identity, the identity of the beloved, the ever-increasing awareness that I’m loved just as I am . . . and not just because a kind, loving family may have said that--their opinion would be clearly biased in my favor. Though that's warm and healthy, for something so vital, I'd prefer something more objective: God’s coming to earth in human form and shedding his blood for our reconciliation establishes my identity as the beloved. “For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver or gold that you were redeemed [...], but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (I Peter 1:17-18). To know that no amount of success or failure, no amount of rejection or approval alters my core identity as someone worth his life is salvation indeed. As a result, it’s freeing to get off the comparison track. I cannot improve on or lessen my identity regardless of how well I compare in any venue. I value the cross as the most concrete, absolute expression of my self-esteem. I’m now free to be me.
My identity is further expressed as I step out from under the weight of my justifications. He has provided for my justification, so I can let go of the rationalizations and face myself frankly in his love: I’m not inherently good, and I’m not putting myself down here. I’m just being honest. If I say I’m good, well that's motivated by comparisons against the broader culture; however, God’s standard for loving motives, words, and deeds is volumes higher than anyone surrounding me. So I can delude myself with my purported "goodness,"but all the designation does is craft my need for rationalizations so I can hang onto the “good” tag. It’s more realistic and honest to be frank about it: I’m not inherently good, but I have inherit worth. I’m a sinner and my rationalizations only distort reality. I need forgiveness. I need genuine justification. I value the cross because it melds the dual realities of my sin and my belovedness. I’m now free to face me.
While yes, the cross does affirm that I am a victimizer--Jesus did die for my sin, it also affirms that I’ve been a victim. In affirming that my sins against others matters, it also demonstrates that others sins against me matters. While we like to downplay our own sins, we tend to “up-play” the sins of others against us. In Christ, both are just as real. Requesting forgiveness never equates to "what's the big deal?" Accepting forgiveness is never saying, “it was no big deal that you hurt me.” Actually, forgiveness is agreeing to absorb the pain of the sin and not exact it from the offender. This is precisely what Christ did: He absorbed the pain of our sin, so not to exact it from us. Christ died for my sins and for the sins of others against me. Therefore, I’m called to forgive. What greater price would I have the offender(s) pay? Is the blood of Christ not good enough? And while salvation lies in my being forgiven, it’s inextricably linked to my forgiveness of others. I value the cross because it represents my forgiveness and my forgiveness of others.
I’ve found it freeing to shift the weight of my life onto Him--it’s peaceful to live without fear, without anxiety. This is not suggest the temptation isn’t there, nor is it to suggest the simplistic notion that placing faith in Christ will eradicate disorders of anxiety, though I’m confident it helps. His presence ensures meaning’s bedrock, even if my intended meaning falters. It’s quite freeing to know I possess something I cannot lose, a foundation that sustains all the vulnerable parts of my world: I’m free to treasure them, yet not insist on needing them. I can affirm and enjoy life’s temporal qualities, knowing there’s an eternal essence behind it all: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him gives me strength” (Philippians 4:12-13).
God has offered me peace with him, reconciliation to him. He has initiated. He has absorbed the cost of forgiveness. The absolute best decision of my life was to accept. Indeed, my brief sojourn in the land of estrangement confirms my never going back to that.
So as the pastor asked me, I ask you: Who is Jesus Christ to you?
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Consider the Source
I’ve been plagued with teaching composition, aka “comp.” Whether it’s been a college prep course during my high school teaching years or online or at the local community college, I’ve taught it year-in, year-out for fifteen years. A necessity of the course is the oft dreaded research essay, wherein students have to find reliable, credible source materials to support their contentions. Consequently, it would be duplicitous of me to teach source reliability and authorial credibility and not value those qualities in the texts that support my belief system.
Since I believe in Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord, clearly it’s reasonable and expected for me to face inquiries, whether my own or those of others, regarding the integrity of the New Testament text collection. Yet of intrigue to me, some educated, thoughtful, esteemed people in my world open to reading and ascribing reasonable trust to other ancient historical material withhold that reasoned openness in considering the New Testament. Therefore, I have a couple of requests: First, do contemplate your own openness to this material--questioning with a view to getting to the truth of it is admirable, whereas a questioning obduracy reveals more about the reader’s credibility than that of the text’s. Secondly, I’m not an expert on analyzing historical documents. Still, I do wish to provide my reasoning for deeming the New Testament a credible, reliable collection.
Four different testimonies regarding Jesus Christ-- “the gospels”--and several letters from early disciples/apostles--most frequently St. Paul--to early Christian communities make up the New Testament “library.” While the letters and the content of the gospel accounts merit much discussion and clearly play a role in establishing credibility, I will try to focus this brief discussions to the textual credibility of the four gospels, each simply entitled with an authorial name: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It’s certainly fair to question the early church’s inclusion of these four gospels (and the letters) to the exclusion of other purported accounts of Christ (and other early church materials). Also, some question the motivations of church authorities--once having gained enough political power--in simply selecting texts because those texts would support certain political agendas. First, the inclusion of these four gospels was a matter of their being recorded nearer the actual event: all four gospels were written prior to 100 AD, whereas other purported accounts of Christ’s life were written well after that, some up to 200-300 years. Early church leaders understood the necessity of proximity to occurrence and included these four and understandably excluded others--their distance from the event corrupted the account. Also, though the church did not develop corporate or established status until the fourth century, early Christian communities had been circulating these gospels and letters--undoubtedly, some other materials were lost--for a couple centuries prior to an organized formalizing of the canon. Therefore, when the powers-that-be selected New Testament content, much of their work was already done since local churches had already deemed the included texts credible.
And regarding the Church’s gradual and unfortunate organization of a political agenda, since when has the words of the Bible ever really stood in its way when the Church has tragically indulged darkness? History reveals that it was more efficient to simply ignore or malign the biblical text than take the time to manipulate (including/excluding) content in order to justify the injustices.
Even though the four gospels reflect the earliest dating in relationship to events, still some time had passed since Christ’s death in 33AD and the timing of the writing of the gospels some years later. However, it’s impressively noteworthy as Gregory Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy have stated the Gospels “together with the whole New Testament, have far better textual attestation than any other ancient work.” They go on to discuss the “roughly 5,500 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, either in fragments or in whole,” which is certainly far more copies than any other ancient historical work, for example only nine copies exist of Josephus’s Jewish War and only ten of Livy’s Roman history. Further, the dating of copies in relationship to actual events is even more impressive when we consider that “the earliest copy of Homer’s Iliad we possess dates approximately nine hundred years after the original--and that is remarkably good by ancient standards” (Lord or Legend? Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma, 2007). Indeed, copies of the New Testament are dated remarkably far closer to the originals than that.
Still, it’s reasonable to question the expanse of time, albeit brief, between the documenting and the events. In response, two factors: first, some credible consideration has been given to likelihood that other written attestations existed prior to the writing of the four gospels we have, which may have provided source material to these authors. However, it's worthwhile to note that given the early dating of their initial accounts, these four were highly likely to be eye-witnesses of these events. Indeed, all four are mentioned in other New Testament materials as participants in the events. Secondly, while our modern world indulges in journalism-as-events-occur, the ancient world did record and pass on history orally, and as I’ve mentioned before, it seems chronocentric to suggest that as a result only the modern world has a handle on history: in fact, due to their “historical interest and the community’s checks and balances, some experts in the field of oral traditions have gone so far as to argue that, at times, history preserved in orally dominant communities may actually be more reliable than history written down by elite individual historians in modern contexts” (Boyd and Eddy). As the “author” delivered the content orally, the audience could challenge, refine, and hold the speaker accountable. With writing, the text is there to stay, for a time at least, due to its inherit lack of audience immediacy. Therefore, the combined close proximity of the author to the actual events, the potential use of another earlier written source, and the reliability of oral contributions altogether provide for the gospels’ credibility.
Be that as it may, a thoughtful read of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John does reveal discrepancies. Some is due to each account being structured to specific readers: while the ancient world valued historical veracity, flexibility in organization and inclusion/exclusion of some material were subject to audience targets. For example, Matthew is written for a Jewish audience; hence, the extensive inclusion of Old Testament referencing; Mark, the shortest of the Gospels may have had more of Roman audience in mind since Christ says the least in this account, while one action after another is described--more palatable to an action-oriented Roman crowd; Luke, the educated gentile, a doctor in fact, takes the most historical route even indicating he had done some research, and it’s not surprising his focus particularly on Jesus’ healings; lastly, John has that distinct Greek appeal, beginning his account with logos, and quotes Jesus the most, thereby appealing to those more interest in oral presentation and argument. So some discrepancy is due to differing authorial angles. Nevertheless, the essentials remain intact in all four. Lastly, some account disagreements exist simply because they are told through different eyes. Frankly, the fact that these disparities exist attest to the gospels’ overall credibility. We are all familiar with differing eyewitness angles on crimes and accidents. Four identical accounts suggests collaborative conspiracy to me. Four differing accounts with agreement on the essentials provides not only credible evidence but also the integrity of that fallible human stamp.
Although much more could be said and will be in future posts when dealing with New Testament content, of concluding consideration for now, it is also fair to ask if other ancient materials outside the New Testament confirm the events included. Certainly, scholars in this regard develop this miles more than my best efforts could; however, Boyd and Eddy, who are among those scholars, discuss at some length the following ancient writers in whose writing New Testament material appears: Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus, Lucian, Thallus, Suetonius, and Celsus. Those are certainly enough for a solid endorsement of New Testament credibility while keeping in mind that “the vast majority of all that was written in the ancient world has perished in the sands of time” (Boyd and Eddy). If not, perhaps the list would be even longer.
Of course, it is always good to thoughtfully question these texts. Still, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the remainder of the New Testament as well as the Old have proven credible enough to me that those texts may now question my credibility as a human being: what do they have to say about my humanity? About humanity in general? About the meaning of life? About human motives, hopes, fears, goodness, evil? Love? Is there hope for healing? Redemption? Salvation? Restoration?
The Bible can certainly withstand questioning. It’s a complex, beautiful, human and divine text that has stood for centuries. Question it. But do not neglect reading it. Unless you wish to avoid its questions for you.
If you’re open, consider reading the Luke or John--my favorites.
Since I believe in Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord, clearly it’s reasonable and expected for me to face inquiries, whether my own or those of others, regarding the integrity of the New Testament text collection. Yet of intrigue to me, some educated, thoughtful, esteemed people in my world open to reading and ascribing reasonable trust to other ancient historical material withhold that reasoned openness in considering the New Testament. Therefore, I have a couple of requests: First, do contemplate your own openness to this material--questioning with a view to getting to the truth of it is admirable, whereas a questioning obduracy reveals more about the reader’s credibility than that of the text’s. Secondly, I’m not an expert on analyzing historical documents. Still, I do wish to provide my reasoning for deeming the New Testament a credible, reliable collection.
Four different testimonies regarding Jesus Christ-- “the gospels”--and several letters from early disciples/apostles--most frequently St. Paul--to early Christian communities make up the New Testament “library.” While the letters and the content of the gospel accounts merit much discussion and clearly play a role in establishing credibility, I will try to focus this brief discussions to the textual credibility of the four gospels, each simply entitled with an authorial name: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It’s certainly fair to question the early church’s inclusion of these four gospels (and the letters) to the exclusion of other purported accounts of Christ (and other early church materials). Also, some question the motivations of church authorities--once having gained enough political power--in simply selecting texts because those texts would support certain political agendas. First, the inclusion of these four gospels was a matter of their being recorded nearer the actual event: all four gospels were written prior to 100 AD, whereas other purported accounts of Christ’s life were written well after that, some up to 200-300 years. Early church leaders understood the necessity of proximity to occurrence and included these four and understandably excluded others--their distance from the event corrupted the account. Also, though the church did not develop corporate or established status until the fourth century, early Christian communities had been circulating these gospels and letters--undoubtedly, some other materials were lost--for a couple centuries prior to an organized formalizing of the canon. Therefore, when the powers-that-be selected New Testament content, much of their work was already done since local churches had already deemed the included texts credible.
And regarding the Church’s gradual and unfortunate organization of a political agenda, since when has the words of the Bible ever really stood in its way when the Church has tragically indulged darkness? History reveals that it was more efficient to simply ignore or malign the biblical text than take the time to manipulate (including/excluding) content in order to justify the injustices.
Even though the four gospels reflect the earliest dating in relationship to events, still some time had passed since Christ’s death in 33AD and the timing of the writing of the gospels some years later. However, it’s impressively noteworthy as Gregory Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy have stated the Gospels “together with the whole New Testament, have far better textual attestation than any other ancient work.” They go on to discuss the “roughly 5,500 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, either in fragments or in whole,” which is certainly far more copies than any other ancient historical work, for example only nine copies exist of Josephus’s Jewish War and only ten of Livy’s Roman history. Further, the dating of copies in relationship to actual events is even more impressive when we consider that “the earliest copy of Homer’s Iliad we possess dates approximately nine hundred years after the original--and that is remarkably good by ancient standards” (Lord or Legend? Wrestling with the Jesus Dilemma, 2007). Indeed, copies of the New Testament are dated remarkably far closer to the originals than that.
Still, it’s reasonable to question the expanse of time, albeit brief, between the documenting and the events. In response, two factors: first, some credible consideration has been given to likelihood that other written attestations existed prior to the writing of the four gospels we have, which may have provided source material to these authors. However, it's worthwhile to note that given the early dating of their initial accounts, these four were highly likely to be eye-witnesses of these events. Indeed, all four are mentioned in other New Testament materials as participants in the events. Secondly, while our modern world indulges in journalism-as-events-occur, the ancient world did record and pass on history orally, and as I’ve mentioned before, it seems chronocentric to suggest that as a result only the modern world has a handle on history: in fact, due to their “historical interest and the community’s checks and balances, some experts in the field of oral traditions have gone so far as to argue that, at times, history preserved in orally dominant communities may actually be more reliable than history written down by elite individual historians in modern contexts” (Boyd and Eddy). As the “author” delivered the content orally, the audience could challenge, refine, and hold the speaker accountable. With writing, the text is there to stay, for a time at least, due to its inherit lack of audience immediacy. Therefore, the combined close proximity of the author to the actual events, the potential use of another earlier written source, and the reliability of oral contributions altogether provide for the gospels’ credibility.
Be that as it may, a thoughtful read of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John does reveal discrepancies. Some is due to each account being structured to specific readers: while the ancient world valued historical veracity, flexibility in organization and inclusion/exclusion of some material were subject to audience targets. For example, Matthew is written for a Jewish audience; hence, the extensive inclusion of Old Testament referencing; Mark, the shortest of the Gospels may have had more of Roman audience in mind since Christ says the least in this account, while one action after another is described--more palatable to an action-oriented Roman crowd; Luke, the educated gentile, a doctor in fact, takes the most historical route even indicating he had done some research, and it’s not surprising his focus particularly on Jesus’ healings; lastly, John has that distinct Greek appeal, beginning his account with logos, and quotes Jesus the most, thereby appealing to those more interest in oral presentation and argument. So some discrepancy is due to differing authorial angles. Nevertheless, the essentials remain intact in all four. Lastly, some account disagreements exist simply because they are told through different eyes. Frankly, the fact that these disparities exist attest to the gospels’ overall credibility. We are all familiar with differing eyewitness angles on crimes and accidents. Four identical accounts suggests collaborative conspiracy to me. Four differing accounts with agreement on the essentials provides not only credible evidence but also the integrity of that fallible human stamp.
Although much more could be said and will be in future posts when dealing with New Testament content, of concluding consideration for now, it is also fair to ask if other ancient materials outside the New Testament confirm the events included. Certainly, scholars in this regard develop this miles more than my best efforts could; however, Boyd and Eddy, who are among those scholars, discuss at some length the following ancient writers in whose writing New Testament material appears: Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus, Lucian, Thallus, Suetonius, and Celsus. Those are certainly enough for a solid endorsement of New Testament credibility while keeping in mind that “the vast majority of all that was written in the ancient world has perished in the sands of time” (Boyd and Eddy). If not, perhaps the list would be even longer.
Of course, it is always good to thoughtfully question these texts. Still, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the remainder of the New Testament as well as the Old have proven credible enough to me that those texts may now question my credibility as a human being: what do they have to say about my humanity? About humanity in general? About the meaning of life? About human motives, hopes, fears, goodness, evil? Love? Is there hope for healing? Redemption? Salvation? Restoration?
The Bible can certainly withstand questioning. It’s a complex, beautiful, human and divine text that has stood for centuries. Question it. But do not neglect reading it. Unless you wish to avoid its questions for you.
If you’re open, consider reading the Luke or John--my favorites.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Muddying the Higher Ways, Higher Thoughts
During my teaching days, my colleagues and I would occasionally run into a parent who would scan through our assigned texts, locate something they found offensive while neglecting the context and overall theme, and then demand that either the text not be taught or their child be offered an alternative, more acceptable text. We would be quite frustrated, if not exasperated, in our efforts to explain the legitimacy of our texts to those who decided based on a cursory flip-through that their child should not be exposed to such compromised material. Keeping in mind that it was typically the religiously conservative parents who offered these arguments, I found the situation ironic because the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, includes material far more disconcerting than anything ever presented in the texts we selected.
Be that as it may, of further irony to me is that those deemed liberal or purportedly more open among us would often approach the Bible in a similar fashion to these parents: locate the disconcerting portion, or just hear of it, regardless of context or broader theme, and decide the whole thing ought not be read. If that dismissive approach is not available, then simply excusing it as too old, or written too far after the events discussed could also suffice as reasons for keeping the Bible closed.
Regardless of belief, intellectual integrity requests a more thoughtful and thorough response than either of those options. As a text central to my most foundational beliefs, I do wish to approach the Bible with integrity and candor. In this post, I will discuss my reasons for finding the Old Testament credible. The next will focus on the New Testament. And in two short posts, not remotely as much will be said as could be.
First, as it regards the entire Bible, one vote for its credibility is its multiple and varied authors--approximately forty--spanning a few thousand years of history. Therefore, when someone says they do not believe the Bible, it’s a little like saying they don’t believe a portion of the library. It is more reasonable to find specific portions more questionable than other portions. This coverage of time and authorial variety suggest to me thematic credibility, a God who has been faithful through generations. A contrasting example: Consider the Quran, which God purportedly revealed through the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammed from 609-632. While I readily offer my esteem to any seekers of God, Muslim or otherwise, one author claiming divine inspiration for a span of 20 years does not really hold credibility against the Bible with its multiple witnesses and historical vastness.
While we’re on the topic of other texts, another vote of confidence in the Old Testament’s reliability is its contrast to other ancient texts. The ancients, at least the ancient Hebrews, had an appreciation of real time in contrast to storied time: the once upon a time notion. They believed they were recording actual history, where in contrast to the ancient Sumerian series of poems, Epic of Gilgamesh, while their authors and listeners may have believed the tale, it is certainly not presented with historical qualities of the early books of the Old Testament, complete with particular historical names of places, people, and the ubiquitous genealogies. While the Old Testament may contain some epic stories, it certainly is not crafted like an epic tale.
One thing the Sumerians had going for them that the early Israelites did not: they could write. This capacity would not arrive for the nomadic Israelites for some time. Therefore, they relied on oral tradition. The stories of the early Old Testament were shared orally for a time before they recorded. We moderns, who have evolved to be so dependent upon the written record, immediately question the validity of such traditions. However, that questioning only reveals our chronocentricity. It’s ridiculous to assume that orally-based cultures would not value credibility and reliability in their accounts. In fact, it’s reasonable to believe they may have been more attentive to facts, that those entrusted with those histories, felt the burden of accurate accounting. The eventual invention of the writing instrument and papyrus was a relief.
Of further contrast to other ancient cultures, Sumerian and Egyptian included, a transcendent, previously unknown God initiates a relationship with humans. This God transcends all the localized deities with which every people group populating the ancient world at the time were familiar. These gods had domain or held sway over households, small communities, and larger regions if one people’s god could defeat the neighboring people’s god through battle. However, God extends a call to one man, Abraham, and his family, requesting him to leave all that is familiar to him. Obviously, it takes multiple generations, continuing even now to adjust to the reality of this God from beyond us. Hence, the messy complexity that is the Old Testament.
Paul Copan in Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (2011) provides analogous situations in our country’s gradual adjustment from the racism embedded in slavery to the notion of equality and freedom for all (in some ways this struggle still continues) as well as in our efforts to export democracy to countries unfamiliar with such an idea. It will take generations for them to adjust to the possibility. He then invites us to the ancient Near East, a culture completely unrecognizable to the contemporary eye “with all its strange ways and assumptions” and social structures oppressive and frightening: the Sumerians, for all their capacities in writing and technology, were renowned for ritual rape of both boys and girls in their hopes for crop fertility. It is with people of this type of culture the transcendent God initiates relationship.
This both testifies to the truth and complexity of the Old Testament. It is decidedly unlikely individuals of this culture would have fabricated a God entirely transcendent above nature, who forbids them idol worship because of that fact, who strictly forbids human sacrifices--sexual or otherwise, and who gradually invites them to a system of law that has contributed to the sanity of the Western world we have inherited. As Thomas Cahill notes in The Gift of the Jews: “This God is the intiator: he encounters them; they do not encounter him. He begins the dialogue, and he will see it through. This God is profoundly different from them, not their projection or their pet, not the usual mythological creature whose intentions can be read in auguries or who can be controlled by human rituals.”
And yet, this difference provides the complexity and conflict that is the Old Testament. Copan continues: “Within this context, God raised up a covenant nation and gave the people laws to live by; he helped to create a culture for them. In doing so, he adapted his ideals to a people whose attitudes and actions were influenced by deeply flawed structures.” He is a “God who accommodates,” who is willing to have his own name muddied because he reaches out to muddy people. So the Old Testament saga begins through Israel’s actual history of gradually learning to adjust to this transcendent God, to the cries and songs of the Psalms, to the wit of the wisdom texts, to the cry of the prophets for justice, who call not only ancient Israel but all of us to the understanding that loving this God will always result in loving others.
Yet we never quite get it. Why? Because as the prophet Isaiah recounts the Lord, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9). For those of us who believe, the journey of acclimating to this God of love never ends.
Be that as it may, of further irony to me is that those deemed liberal or purportedly more open among us would often approach the Bible in a similar fashion to these parents: locate the disconcerting portion, or just hear of it, regardless of context or broader theme, and decide the whole thing ought not be read. If that dismissive approach is not available, then simply excusing it as too old, or written too far after the events discussed could also suffice as reasons for keeping the Bible closed.
Regardless of belief, intellectual integrity requests a more thoughtful and thorough response than either of those options. As a text central to my most foundational beliefs, I do wish to approach the Bible with integrity and candor. In this post, I will discuss my reasons for finding the Old Testament credible. The next will focus on the New Testament. And in two short posts, not remotely as much will be said as could be.
First, as it regards the entire Bible, one vote for its credibility is its multiple and varied authors--approximately forty--spanning a few thousand years of history. Therefore, when someone says they do not believe the Bible, it’s a little like saying they don’t believe a portion of the library. It is more reasonable to find specific portions more questionable than other portions. This coverage of time and authorial variety suggest to me thematic credibility, a God who has been faithful through generations. A contrasting example: Consider the Quran, which God purportedly revealed through the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammed from 609-632. While I readily offer my esteem to any seekers of God, Muslim or otherwise, one author claiming divine inspiration for a span of 20 years does not really hold credibility against the Bible with its multiple witnesses and historical vastness.
While we’re on the topic of other texts, another vote of confidence in the Old Testament’s reliability is its contrast to other ancient texts. The ancients, at least the ancient Hebrews, had an appreciation of real time in contrast to storied time: the once upon a time notion. They believed they were recording actual history, where in contrast to the ancient Sumerian series of poems, Epic of Gilgamesh, while their authors and listeners may have believed the tale, it is certainly not presented with historical qualities of the early books of the Old Testament, complete with particular historical names of places, people, and the ubiquitous genealogies. While the Old Testament may contain some epic stories, it certainly is not crafted like an epic tale.
One thing the Sumerians had going for them that the early Israelites did not: they could write. This capacity would not arrive for the nomadic Israelites for some time. Therefore, they relied on oral tradition. The stories of the early Old Testament were shared orally for a time before they recorded. We moderns, who have evolved to be so dependent upon the written record, immediately question the validity of such traditions. However, that questioning only reveals our chronocentricity. It’s ridiculous to assume that orally-based cultures would not value credibility and reliability in their accounts. In fact, it’s reasonable to believe they may have been more attentive to facts, that those entrusted with those histories, felt the burden of accurate accounting. The eventual invention of the writing instrument and papyrus was a relief.
Of further contrast to other ancient cultures, Sumerian and Egyptian included, a transcendent, previously unknown God initiates a relationship with humans. This God transcends all the localized deities with which every people group populating the ancient world at the time were familiar. These gods had domain or held sway over households, small communities, and larger regions if one people’s god could defeat the neighboring people’s god through battle. However, God extends a call to one man, Abraham, and his family, requesting him to leave all that is familiar to him. Obviously, it takes multiple generations, continuing even now to adjust to the reality of this God from beyond us. Hence, the messy complexity that is the Old Testament.
Paul Copan in Is God a Moral Monster: Making Sense of the Old Testament God (2011) provides analogous situations in our country’s gradual adjustment from the racism embedded in slavery to the notion of equality and freedom for all (in some ways this struggle still continues) as well as in our efforts to export democracy to countries unfamiliar with such an idea. It will take generations for them to adjust to the possibility. He then invites us to the ancient Near East, a culture completely unrecognizable to the contemporary eye “with all its strange ways and assumptions” and social structures oppressive and frightening: the Sumerians, for all their capacities in writing and technology, were renowned for ritual rape of both boys and girls in their hopes for crop fertility. It is with people of this type of culture the transcendent God initiates relationship.
This both testifies to the truth and complexity of the Old Testament. It is decidedly unlikely individuals of this culture would have fabricated a God entirely transcendent above nature, who forbids them idol worship because of that fact, who strictly forbids human sacrifices--sexual or otherwise, and who gradually invites them to a system of law that has contributed to the sanity of the Western world we have inherited. As Thomas Cahill notes in The Gift of the Jews: “This God is the intiator: he encounters them; they do not encounter him. He begins the dialogue, and he will see it through. This God is profoundly different from them, not their projection or their pet, not the usual mythological creature whose intentions can be read in auguries or who can be controlled by human rituals.”
And yet, this difference provides the complexity and conflict that is the Old Testament. Copan continues: “Within this context, God raised up a covenant nation and gave the people laws to live by; he helped to create a culture for them. In doing so, he adapted his ideals to a people whose attitudes and actions were influenced by deeply flawed structures.” He is a “God who accommodates,” who is willing to have his own name muddied because he reaches out to muddy people. So the Old Testament saga begins through Israel’s actual history of gradually learning to adjust to this transcendent God, to the cries and songs of the Psalms, to the wit of the wisdom texts, to the cry of the prophets for justice, who call not only ancient Israel but all of us to the understanding that loving this God will always result in loving others.
Yet we never quite get it. Why? Because as the prophet Isaiah recounts the Lord, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9). For those of us who believe, the journey of acclimating to this God of love never ends.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Open
“What would constitute proof to you of God’s existence?” I recently asked an atheistic acquaintance. He replied that God would have to reveal himself in such a way that it would be apparent to the entire world that he was indeed God. Of course, this answer may not be every unbeliever’s request for theistic evidence, yet this response surfaces at least three components regarding awareness of God: human perception, God’s integrity, and human integrity.
I was born into a particular culture and time. I could not avoid it. My present perceptions are clouded, or clarified, by my setting. Therefore, if the God of the universe were to reveal himself all at once in one glaringly apparent brilliant episode, then it’s reasonably likely I would have a hard time making sense of what I was seeing. Whether I would even survive the encounter is another matter. And I say this as a believer in him already. So I’m not even addressing how peoples unfamiliar with God would comprehend this revelation. It’s likely we would have a variety of different accounts of what we witnessed--once again, if we would even survive the encounter. We would try to make sense of the experience in terms of pre-existing perceptions. This unavoidably timeless human condition Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes in his acclaimed text, The Prophets (1962): “What impairs our sight are habits of seeing as well as the mental concomitants of seeing. Our sight is suffused with knowing, instead of feeling painfully the lack of knowing what we see.” We do not, cannot, even will not, take in pure reality because we are finite (limited) and fallen (bent and self-absorbed). Since God would be the Ultimate Reality, our “habits of seeing” would color the whole encounter with him; in fact, they do already.
Secondly, God’s integrity, as I understand it, does not lend itself well to his roaming the earth revealing himself to just anybody. As the perfectly complete whole being, his integrity and self-respect prevent him from disclosing himself to those uninterested in seeking him. As healthy human beings do not reveal themselves to those not genuinely interested in them, God is discerning with whom he shares himself. Not surprisingly then, experiences of God are rather limited to those open and seeking such encounters. And those not so open or seeking would consequently have fewer to no experiences of God. Therefore, belief in God transcends morality, intellect, wealth, ethnicity--it’s primarily a matter of seeking openness. God condescends to anyone seeking. Like every genuine relationship, it begins with some desire. I realize the analogy has its limits, but I’m not inclined to share who I am with people not desiring a relationship with me. I’m not sure why we would expect God to be different in this regard.
Further, God’s wise hesitancy in forcing revelation upon humans also has to do with our character and freedom. God desires a genuine, transparent relationship with us. Forcing belief via undeniable encounters with him trumps our capacity for responsive integrity. Dr. Terence Fretheim in The Suffering of God (1984) confirms the importance of potential unbelief: “For God to be fully present would be coercive; faith would be turned into sight and humankind could not but believe.” Instead, “[t]rue human life is possible only if the vision of God is of such a nature that disbelief remains possible. The concern is not to keep people ignorant, but to preserve them.” We are well familiar with the tragic accounts of people being forced into any variety of beliefs, relational manipulations and acquiescences--mirages of trust and relationship rather than the freedom and subsequent vulnerability of authenticity. It ought not be surprising that the God of reality would prefer sincerity.
So how does God navigate the following: Initiating a relationship with the open and seeking among us, while revealing himself within the confines of our perceptions, while not overwhelming or forcing our wills into belief, all the while developing an authentic relationship with us, the kind of relationship that invites maturation into the kind of humanity that holds healing and hope--salvation--for the world?
Is it any surprise that the Bible, the prime source we have regarding our and God’s shared history, would be inspiring, complicated, transforming, messy, hopeful, disconcerting, vast, specific, historical, futuristic, metaphorical, literal, confusing, clarifying, dark, enlightening, tragic, beautiful, healing, discombobulating . . . even rather overwhelming? Could it be other? To open it is to begin “to see in a mirror dimly” (I Corinthians 13). To keep it closed is to dim the lights of our awareness, regardless of levels of belief.
I was born into a particular culture and time. I could not avoid it. My present perceptions are clouded, or clarified, by my setting. Therefore, if the God of the universe were to reveal himself all at once in one glaringly apparent brilliant episode, then it’s reasonably likely I would have a hard time making sense of what I was seeing. Whether I would even survive the encounter is another matter. And I say this as a believer in him already. So I’m not even addressing how peoples unfamiliar with God would comprehend this revelation. It’s likely we would have a variety of different accounts of what we witnessed--once again, if we would even survive the encounter. We would try to make sense of the experience in terms of pre-existing perceptions. This unavoidably timeless human condition Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes in his acclaimed text, The Prophets (1962): “What impairs our sight are habits of seeing as well as the mental concomitants of seeing. Our sight is suffused with knowing, instead of feeling painfully the lack of knowing what we see.” We do not, cannot, even will not, take in pure reality because we are finite (limited) and fallen (bent and self-absorbed). Since God would be the Ultimate Reality, our “habits of seeing” would color the whole encounter with him; in fact, they do already.
Secondly, God’s integrity, as I understand it, does not lend itself well to his roaming the earth revealing himself to just anybody. As the perfectly complete whole being, his integrity and self-respect prevent him from disclosing himself to those uninterested in seeking him. As healthy human beings do not reveal themselves to those not genuinely interested in them, God is discerning with whom he shares himself. Not surprisingly then, experiences of God are rather limited to those open and seeking such encounters. And those not so open or seeking would consequently have fewer to no experiences of God. Therefore, belief in God transcends morality, intellect, wealth, ethnicity--it’s primarily a matter of seeking openness. God condescends to anyone seeking. Like every genuine relationship, it begins with some desire. I realize the analogy has its limits, but I’m not inclined to share who I am with people not desiring a relationship with me. I’m not sure why we would expect God to be different in this regard.
Further, God’s wise hesitancy in forcing revelation upon humans also has to do with our character and freedom. God desires a genuine, transparent relationship with us. Forcing belief via undeniable encounters with him trumps our capacity for responsive integrity. Dr. Terence Fretheim in The Suffering of God (1984) confirms the importance of potential unbelief: “For God to be fully present would be coercive; faith would be turned into sight and humankind could not but believe.” Instead, “[t]rue human life is possible only if the vision of God is of such a nature that disbelief remains possible. The concern is not to keep people ignorant, but to preserve them.” We are well familiar with the tragic accounts of people being forced into any variety of beliefs, relational manipulations and acquiescences--mirages of trust and relationship rather than the freedom and subsequent vulnerability of authenticity. It ought not be surprising that the God of reality would prefer sincerity.
So how does God navigate the following: Initiating a relationship with the open and seeking among us, while revealing himself within the confines of our perceptions, while not overwhelming or forcing our wills into belief, all the while developing an authentic relationship with us, the kind of relationship that invites maturation into the kind of humanity that holds healing and hope--salvation--for the world?
Is it any surprise that the Bible, the prime source we have regarding our and God’s shared history, would be inspiring, complicated, transforming, messy, hopeful, disconcerting, vast, specific, historical, futuristic, metaphorical, literal, confusing, clarifying, dark, enlightening, tragic, beautiful, healing, discombobulating . . . even rather overwhelming? Could it be other? To open it is to begin “to see in a mirror dimly” (I Corinthians 13). To keep it closed is to dim the lights of our awareness, regardless of levels of belief.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Truth: Subjective NOT Relative
Mumford & Sons’ “I Gave You All” asks the question, “How can you say your truth is better than ours?” I confess my ignorance regarding the song’s context; nonetheless, the question seems the cry of the Post-Modern because relativism is now simply assumed. Truth does not exist in any absolute, objective sense; instead, truth is simply proportional to each of us. We define it. We live it. And, of course, others define their own truth and live it. Apart from the warm affirmations of whatever works for you, the discussion is over. To press further is to suggest my “truth” is “better than” yours. How dare you? How dare I?
Yet truth by its very definition is exclusive and absolute. Adjusting it to my personal history and agenda of comfort and security seems a hyper-overindulgence of my ego. Humility and sanity would suggest that truth be something to which I am ever-learning to adjust. Simply because I cannot grasp it absolutely does not negate truth’s absolute existence. It’s an impressively arrogant error to assume that because my mind is too subjective to appreciate objective truth that, therefore, objective truth must not be. To accept relativism kills the journey. Why head toward the destination if the destination is quite simply myself?
Still, any truth we claim to know inherently expects a knower and therein lies the subjective rub. Any truthful knowledge I claim to have is wrapped up in my subjectivity. While I need to be aware of my subjective propensities, an inherent beauty exists in recognizing that truth must be personally appropriated. And if it cannot be lived, how true is it? Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), arguably the genuine founder of existentialism, reminds us, “Lest we forget, the subject, the individual, is an existing self, and existing is a process of becoming.” Our relationship to truth determines what we are becoming. He adds, “true knowing pertains essentially to existence, to a life of decision and responsibility.” In other words, truth is lived subjectively. Hungering for more truth drives our journey, our maturation, our growth. Negating truth inflates the ego, justifies our immaturity, and stunts our growth.
Though we may yet be haunted by the Modernist’s anxiety that subjectivity can only corrode objective truth, philosophy Professor Esther Lightcap Meek echoes Kierkegaard: “Truth is not rendered arbitrary and relative by my involvement. It is embedded and actualized in my involvement” (Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People, 2003). For some that could be seen as bad news. It’s a comfort to believe that truth exists in entirely objective notions. With that, I can simply acknowledge some facts, possess some knowledge, and be left alone to be however I want to be. And a step further, I think this leave-me-be-ism is relativism’s draw rather than some sort of objective conclusion that absolute truth does not exist.
We’ve developed insular philosophies--truth is only objective; truth is only relative--to protect us from having to become genuinely larger than we are. We’re like Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, who chooses the shire over an adventure because adventures are bothersome inconveniences. Yet by choosing the adventure, he discovers an ever-greater truth that calls him to become more genuinely himself than he ever would have been had he remained in the comfy shire.
We stumble here into a paradox that truth, for all its objective benefits is always ultimately relational. It cannot be other. Every knower is a relational being created in the image of the Ultimate Knower. Madeleine L'Engle suggests that while we each have points of view, God has View. The faith journey is ever acclimating to that View in wonderful contrast (and relief) to one's one. Further, Kierkegaard continues, “God is a subject to be related to, not an object to be studied or meditated on.” Therefore, while yes, I need to and will continue to offer what I believe are objective evidences for the Christian faith, each of us needs to consider our level of relational openness to Christ. For to place your trust in Him is to engage in a relationship with Him. If you have already firmly decided you will not subjectively appropriate the truth of Christ, which is what faith is (not belief in the absence of reason), then no amount of objectivity on my part will matter.
Mumford and Sons’ “I Gave You All” also includes the intriguing line, “If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy, I could have won.” Regardless of whether you’re agreeing with me or not, I do pray that in your search for truth, you will face enemies bigger than your apathy. If you do, I'm confident you will end up closer to Truth.
Yet truth by its very definition is exclusive and absolute. Adjusting it to my personal history and agenda of comfort and security seems a hyper-overindulgence of my ego. Humility and sanity would suggest that truth be something to which I am ever-learning to adjust. Simply because I cannot grasp it absolutely does not negate truth’s absolute existence. It’s an impressively arrogant error to assume that because my mind is too subjective to appreciate objective truth that, therefore, objective truth must not be. To accept relativism kills the journey. Why head toward the destination if the destination is quite simply myself?
Still, any truth we claim to know inherently expects a knower and therein lies the subjective rub. Any truthful knowledge I claim to have is wrapped up in my subjectivity. While I need to be aware of my subjective propensities, an inherent beauty exists in recognizing that truth must be personally appropriated. And if it cannot be lived, how true is it? Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), arguably the genuine founder of existentialism, reminds us, “Lest we forget, the subject, the individual, is an existing self, and existing is a process of becoming.” Our relationship to truth determines what we are becoming. He adds, “true knowing pertains essentially to existence, to a life of decision and responsibility.” In other words, truth is lived subjectively. Hungering for more truth drives our journey, our maturation, our growth. Negating truth inflates the ego, justifies our immaturity, and stunts our growth.
Though we may yet be haunted by the Modernist’s anxiety that subjectivity can only corrode objective truth, philosophy Professor Esther Lightcap Meek echoes Kierkegaard: “Truth is not rendered arbitrary and relative by my involvement. It is embedded and actualized in my involvement” (Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People, 2003). For some that could be seen as bad news. It’s a comfort to believe that truth exists in entirely objective notions. With that, I can simply acknowledge some facts, possess some knowledge, and be left alone to be however I want to be. And a step further, I think this leave-me-be-ism is relativism’s draw rather than some sort of objective conclusion that absolute truth does not exist.
We’ve developed insular philosophies--truth is only objective; truth is only relative--to protect us from having to become genuinely larger than we are. We’re like Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, who chooses the shire over an adventure because adventures are bothersome inconveniences. Yet by choosing the adventure, he discovers an ever-greater truth that calls him to become more genuinely himself than he ever would have been had he remained in the comfy shire.
We stumble here into a paradox that truth, for all its objective benefits is always ultimately relational. It cannot be other. Every knower is a relational being created in the image of the Ultimate Knower. Madeleine L'Engle suggests that while we each have points of view, God has View. The faith journey is ever acclimating to that View in wonderful contrast (and relief) to one's one. Further, Kierkegaard continues, “God is a subject to be related to, not an object to be studied or meditated on.” Therefore, while yes, I need to and will continue to offer what I believe are objective evidences for the Christian faith, each of us needs to consider our level of relational openness to Christ. For to place your trust in Him is to engage in a relationship with Him. If you have already firmly decided you will not subjectively appropriate the truth of Christ, which is what faith is (not belief in the absence of reason), then no amount of objectivity on my part will matter.
Mumford and Sons’ “I Gave You All” also includes the intriguing line, “If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy, I could have won.” Regardless of whether you’re agreeing with me or not, I do pray that in your search for truth, you will face enemies bigger than your apathy. If you do, I'm confident you will end up closer to Truth.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
I'm Fallen . . . So Are You
In her move to an apartment in town, my mother, gradually cleaning out the storage spaces in our old farm house, found my baptismal certificate and the order of service from over forty years ago. “We are born members of a fallen humanity . . .” states one of the opening lines.
I am a member of a fallen humanity. My common ground with every other human is my flesh and fallenness.
The fall behind our fallenness certainly suggests a preceding precipice. To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, we may not remember the fall, but we do remember its height. We are routinely reminded in our relationships with others, ourselves, and with nature, that we’re not who we could be, who we should be. Our encounters with these realities have and can become existentially bewildering. In fact, some struggle with a belief in God based on the inconceivable evil in the world. I’m inclined toward the opposite position. Not because I believe God is the source of evil. Hardly. Actually, His height of goodness provides the precipice for the Fall. Our capacity to dredge the moral bottoms is inversely related to our capacity to touch the moral, altruistic heights. And it is the existence of God which makes this range apparent.
In the previous post, I described a few of the vast differences between the Genius behind creation and the rest of humanity’s contrived gods, whether ancient or present. Of further intriguing contrast is humanity’s having at some time enjoyed a dignified relationship with this God. The Genesis account, of course, describes the ancient account of creation including the creation of humanity. I do not see a necessity to see this story literally; however, that does not mean it does not display truth. Its obvious contrast to other creation accounts is surprising in that it reveals one God, a natural world devoid of gods--simply alive and beautiful, and a dignifying relationship between humans and God rather than a subservient, capricious one--as is quite typical of the ancients’ relationships to other “gods.”
This relationship between God and humans held “no shame” (Genesis 2). No humiliation--respect and esteem were a given. Between God and humans, between man and woman, between humans and nature--the relationships were secure and transparent. Now, perhaps this relationship came about in the early days of developing human consciousness: Once humanity evolved to a place of significant consciousness, humans were able to enjoy this loving exchange of relationship with God. Regardless, I believe this collectively unconscious memory explains volumes about our brokenness and beauty, our capacities and incapacities.
For any relationship to contain the transparent freedom and dignity of genuine love, possibilities must exist to choose against the relationship. Envy enters the scene for the humans--a desire to possess God’s role; we developed an anxiety that he was holding back something from us to which we felt entitled--namely, His role. Tragically, we violated his boundaries in an effort to “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:3).
Consequences have rippled out genetically and historically. In our godlike state, we now judge others perpetually as “good” or “evil” or place them in any other variety of predetermined boxes we have consciously or subconsciously created. “In a word, we like to pass verdicts. To some extent, we get our sense of worth from attaching worth or detracting worth from others, based on what we see” (Gregory Boyd, Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God 2004). Having usurped God’s role, we no longer enjoy transparent vulnerability with others--although there are moments we taste it; instead, we often categorize others and assess them as worthwhile or not against our own standards. This tendency provides us with a sense of identity. Having lost our spiritual identity, we now seek it from one another or at the expense of one another. We also endlessly justify our behaviors. We long for that secure rightness we once had; now we rationalize our wrongs to bargain for a cheap sniff of it.
And often what we justify is our often horrible treatment of one another. It’s intriguing to note that man and woman lived in an equal relationship with one another prior to the fall. It’s post the fall that woeful disparities begin (I’m indebted to John and Stasi’s Eldredge’s Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul for this concept). Our relationship to nature became strained as well: we now have to toil hard to get by. The natural world seems to have no natural place for us any longer. We are the oddball out in the natural order. Now, having usurped God’s role, we have hoisted our will upon nature, more often than not, to its own, our own, and our descendants peril.
Indeed, we humans have tumbled quite far from our original place in relationship with God, ourselves, each other, and nature. To borrow again from G.K. Chesterton, our world is like broken pieces of stained glass: each piece--whether of nature, spirituality, or human relationships--holds something of the original beauty, yet the fact that it is a broken piece is readily apparent. This broken beauty stirs within us that endless longing for something more, although we may not really remember exactly what. Nonetheless, it's worth remembering. Maybe the beauty will be more poignant and the brokenness more convicting.
I am a member of a fallen humanity. My common ground with every other human is my flesh and fallenness.
The fall behind our fallenness certainly suggests a preceding precipice. To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, we may not remember the fall, but we do remember its height. We are routinely reminded in our relationships with others, ourselves, and with nature, that we’re not who we could be, who we should be. Our encounters with these realities have and can become existentially bewildering. In fact, some struggle with a belief in God based on the inconceivable evil in the world. I’m inclined toward the opposite position. Not because I believe God is the source of evil. Hardly. Actually, His height of goodness provides the precipice for the Fall. Our capacity to dredge the moral bottoms is inversely related to our capacity to touch the moral, altruistic heights. And it is the existence of God which makes this range apparent.
In the previous post, I described a few of the vast differences between the Genius behind creation and the rest of humanity’s contrived gods, whether ancient or present. Of further intriguing contrast is humanity’s having at some time enjoyed a dignified relationship with this God. The Genesis account, of course, describes the ancient account of creation including the creation of humanity. I do not see a necessity to see this story literally; however, that does not mean it does not display truth. Its obvious contrast to other creation accounts is surprising in that it reveals one God, a natural world devoid of gods--simply alive and beautiful, and a dignifying relationship between humans and God rather than a subservient, capricious one--as is quite typical of the ancients’ relationships to other “gods.”
This relationship between God and humans held “no shame” (Genesis 2). No humiliation--respect and esteem were a given. Between God and humans, between man and woman, between humans and nature--the relationships were secure and transparent. Now, perhaps this relationship came about in the early days of developing human consciousness: Once humanity evolved to a place of significant consciousness, humans were able to enjoy this loving exchange of relationship with God. Regardless, I believe this collectively unconscious memory explains volumes about our brokenness and beauty, our capacities and incapacities.
For any relationship to contain the transparent freedom and dignity of genuine love, possibilities must exist to choose against the relationship. Envy enters the scene for the humans--a desire to possess God’s role; we developed an anxiety that he was holding back something from us to which we felt entitled--namely, His role. Tragically, we violated his boundaries in an effort to “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:3).
Consequences have rippled out genetically and historically. In our godlike state, we now judge others perpetually as “good” or “evil” or place them in any other variety of predetermined boxes we have consciously or subconsciously created. “In a word, we like to pass verdicts. To some extent, we get our sense of worth from attaching worth or detracting worth from others, based on what we see” (Gregory Boyd, Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God 2004). Having usurped God’s role, we no longer enjoy transparent vulnerability with others--although there are moments we taste it; instead, we often categorize others and assess them as worthwhile or not against our own standards. This tendency provides us with a sense of identity. Having lost our spiritual identity, we now seek it from one another or at the expense of one another. We also endlessly justify our behaviors. We long for that secure rightness we once had; now we rationalize our wrongs to bargain for a cheap sniff of it.
And often what we justify is our often horrible treatment of one another. It’s intriguing to note that man and woman lived in an equal relationship with one another prior to the fall. It’s post the fall that woeful disparities begin (I’m indebted to John and Stasi’s Eldredge’s Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul for this concept). Our relationship to nature became strained as well: we now have to toil hard to get by. The natural world seems to have no natural place for us any longer. We are the oddball out in the natural order. Now, having usurped God’s role, we have hoisted our will upon nature, more often than not, to its own, our own, and our descendants peril.
Indeed, we humans have tumbled quite far from our original place in relationship with God, ourselves, each other, and nature. To borrow again from G.K. Chesterton, our world is like broken pieces of stained glass: each piece--whether of nature, spirituality, or human relationships--holds something of the original beauty, yet the fact that it is a broken piece is readily apparent. This broken beauty stirs within us that endless longing for something more, although we may not really remember exactly what. Nonetheless, it's worth remembering. Maybe the beauty will be more poignant and the brokenness more convicting.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Reverb or Reality
Myriad divine options have existed, and in some places continue to present themselves to humanity. A supernatural smorgasbord of deity flavors “existed” in the ancient world, replete with idols, rituals, sacrifices, rigmaroles to procure security within a turbulent world. So what is one more? Is the God of the Jews and Christians simply the lucky survivor of that not so lucky myriad, yet offers no appreciable difference from them?
In the previous post, I described the credible presence of theism within the past and present of the science community. Of course, some theists do not believe in a personal God; they simply believe that the rationality, informational coding, and order apparent in the world lead to the evidential conclusion of a brilliant Mind behind it. I alluded to this as Einstein’s position, for example, and he merits quoting here: “Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble” (ctd. in Flew & Varghese 2007).
Now, if this “spirit vastly superior” to us were to reveal Himself to us, it seems reasonable to conclude that given His brilliance in creation, He would be markedly different from the localized deities often representing or merging with elements of that creation or human political powers. Therefore, a God who genuinely transcends nature and humanity would indeed be different from the gods blended with nature and the human ego.
One credit the localized deities merit is their revealing of humanity’s natural religious impulse. And I have no problem citing that impulse as natural. It’s indicative of a desire for transcendence, further evidence of a divine presence beyond our world. Considering it a consequence of natural selection seems another imaginative stretch (see previous). Still, the ancient world being unfamiliar with God (having lost that relationship in the Fall--more on that in future posts), its peoples would logically extend their worship and spiritual adherence to natural and political powers--the moon, the sun, stars, earthly items, Pharaohs, Caesars, etc. It’s a reverb effect: the people call out and quest spiritually; they are not aware of anything beyond their immediate world, so their spirituality bounces back in idols representing familiarity--gods related to the skies, seasons, fertility, waters, storms, powerful political entities, etc.
Not surprisingly, people locked within nature become trapped within a deterministic fate--roles are assumed and assigned, hierarchies are established; temple prostitutes are determined, even human sacrifices are set. Of course, individual wills are not considered: your role in relationship to the order of things is predetermined. Individuality is a relatively modern notion as is linear thinking or the prospect of an open future.
With this, we need to be aware of anachronism--the tendency to assume the ancient mindset was somehow similar to ours, that concepts we take for granted were part of ancient people’s awareness. However, this is not the case: individuality, freedom, progress, future, justice, equality are not the products of evolution or localized deities. In fact, those concepts fed and continue to feed the demise of localized deities--our modern world’s familiarity with those concepts make it difficult for localized deities to sustain their powers once people become aware of those notions. These concepts are the products of the same “spirit vastly superior to that of men” (cited above). This Spirit approaches humanity in history and that has changed everything.
The Old Testament records God’s approach of Abraham and his subsequent Jewish descendants which display that gradual, progressively revealing--and thereby at times messy--encounter between the God of the universe and darkened human nature. Thomas Cahill’s The Gift of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels effectively discusses the challenges and transformations the early Israelites partake in as they become the people to which and through which God introduces himself: For the ancient Sumerians, “only impersonal survival, like the kingship, like the harvest, mattered; the individual, the unusual, the singular, the bizarre--persons or event that did not conform to an archetype--could have no meaning. And without the individual, neither time nor history is possible. But the God of Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob]--no longer your typical ancient divinity, no longer the archetypal gesturer--is a real personality who has intervened in real history, changing its course and robbing it of predictability. He will continue to intervene. And these interventions will gradually bring about in Avrahams descendants enormous changes of mind and heart” (1998). These drastic changes clearly display that their source was not any localized deity, a projection of human desires, but rather from a Source with very different desires for humanity.
Of many examples that could be delved into, one I find particularly intriguing is God’s forbidding the ancient Israelites against representing Him with any sort of image or idol--a radically new notion, which the Israelites struggled with repeatedly--the golden calf debacle being among the earliest. They had to learn to relate to a God who cannot be contained or represented in any sort of image. However, the rationale for that command, and for this I’m indebted to Pastor and Professor Gregory Boyd, is because God created man and woman in His image. He already has an image--it’s us; therefore, no fabricated images or idols are necessary. Gradually through the Old Testament, wherein the prophet’s routine pleas for their fellow citizens to be attentive to justice and mercy if they claim to follow God, and culminating with sharp clarity in the New Testament in person of Jesus Christ, who routinely taught and demonstrated that love of God and love of people are intrinsically bound concepts, the binding of faith and love was formed. Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Re-imagined in His Own Time thoughtfully captures the drastic contrast of the burgeoning Christian community against a backdrop that never would have naturally evolved it: New Testament content “shows a great concern with the link between religion and getting along with other people, caring for them, allowing communities to thrive. Among those who had grown up as polytheists, there was nothing trite about this program. On the contrary, it set out a new way of thinking that must have been quite exciting, a hope for something beyond exploitation, materialism, and violence--a plan not for competing in purity and denial of life, but for the sharing of life in full” (2010). This new way of thinking then eventually transformed our world in ways the modern mind cannot fully appreciate due to our distance from the ancient minds.
While certainly more could be said, clarified and exemplified, my intent here was to concisely demonstrate that the God of the Bible is well-beyond compare to any localized, mythical deities past or present. The contrasts are profound, and the subsequent impact on our world has been profound. I would suggest that humanism’s roots and the pillared assumptions of Western culture are comfortably traced back to what was supernaturally new to the peoples of the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, when non-believers suggest they can be “morally good” in our day without Christianity, I don’t find it surprising they can. And really self-assessed goodness is not the point of the Gospel. Nonetheless, we all presently exist in an inherited consciousness that history reveals carries God’s handprint. Still, while we enjoy the Giant’s shade of individual dignity and freedom and their necessary complements, it’s wise to recognize the Giant providing it, than to just assume these profound shadows were somehow simply contrived by humans alone (to borrow from G.K. Chesterton).
In the previous post, I described the credible presence of theism within the past and present of the science community. Of course, some theists do not believe in a personal God; they simply believe that the rationality, informational coding, and order apparent in the world lead to the evidential conclusion of a brilliant Mind behind it. I alluded to this as Einstein’s position, for example, and he merits quoting here: “Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble” (ctd. in Flew & Varghese 2007).
Now, if this “spirit vastly superior” to us were to reveal Himself to us, it seems reasonable to conclude that given His brilliance in creation, He would be markedly different from the localized deities often representing or merging with elements of that creation or human political powers. Therefore, a God who genuinely transcends nature and humanity would indeed be different from the gods blended with nature and the human ego.
One credit the localized deities merit is their revealing of humanity’s natural religious impulse. And I have no problem citing that impulse as natural. It’s indicative of a desire for transcendence, further evidence of a divine presence beyond our world. Considering it a consequence of natural selection seems another imaginative stretch (see previous). Still, the ancient world being unfamiliar with God (having lost that relationship in the Fall--more on that in future posts), its peoples would logically extend their worship and spiritual adherence to natural and political powers--the moon, the sun, stars, earthly items, Pharaohs, Caesars, etc. It’s a reverb effect: the people call out and quest spiritually; they are not aware of anything beyond their immediate world, so their spirituality bounces back in idols representing familiarity--gods related to the skies, seasons, fertility, waters, storms, powerful political entities, etc.
Not surprisingly, people locked within nature become trapped within a deterministic fate--roles are assumed and assigned, hierarchies are established; temple prostitutes are determined, even human sacrifices are set. Of course, individual wills are not considered: your role in relationship to the order of things is predetermined. Individuality is a relatively modern notion as is linear thinking or the prospect of an open future.
With this, we need to be aware of anachronism--the tendency to assume the ancient mindset was somehow similar to ours, that concepts we take for granted were part of ancient people’s awareness. However, this is not the case: individuality, freedom, progress, future, justice, equality are not the products of evolution or localized deities. In fact, those concepts fed and continue to feed the demise of localized deities--our modern world’s familiarity with those concepts make it difficult for localized deities to sustain their powers once people become aware of those notions. These concepts are the products of the same “spirit vastly superior to that of men” (cited above). This Spirit approaches humanity in history and that has changed everything.
The Old Testament records God’s approach of Abraham and his subsequent Jewish descendants which display that gradual, progressively revealing--and thereby at times messy--encounter between the God of the universe and darkened human nature. Thomas Cahill’s The Gift of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels effectively discusses the challenges and transformations the early Israelites partake in as they become the people to which and through which God introduces himself: For the ancient Sumerians, “only impersonal survival, like the kingship, like the harvest, mattered; the individual, the unusual, the singular, the bizarre--persons or event that did not conform to an archetype--could have no meaning. And without the individual, neither time nor history is possible. But the God of Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob]--no longer your typical ancient divinity, no longer the archetypal gesturer--is a real personality who has intervened in real history, changing its course and robbing it of predictability. He will continue to intervene. And these interventions will gradually bring about in Avrahams descendants enormous changes of mind and heart” (1998). These drastic changes clearly display that their source was not any localized deity, a projection of human desires, but rather from a Source with very different desires for humanity.
Of many examples that could be delved into, one I find particularly intriguing is God’s forbidding the ancient Israelites against representing Him with any sort of image or idol--a radically new notion, which the Israelites struggled with repeatedly--the golden calf debacle being among the earliest. They had to learn to relate to a God who cannot be contained or represented in any sort of image. However, the rationale for that command, and for this I’m indebted to Pastor and Professor Gregory Boyd, is because God created man and woman in His image. He already has an image--it’s us; therefore, no fabricated images or idols are necessary. Gradually through the Old Testament, wherein the prophet’s routine pleas for their fellow citizens to be attentive to justice and mercy if they claim to follow God, and culminating with sharp clarity in the New Testament in person of Jesus Christ, who routinely taught and demonstrated that love of God and love of people are intrinsically bound concepts, the binding of faith and love was formed. Sarah Ruden’s Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Re-imagined in His Own Time thoughtfully captures the drastic contrast of the burgeoning Christian community against a backdrop that never would have naturally evolved it: New Testament content “shows a great concern with the link between religion and getting along with other people, caring for them, allowing communities to thrive. Among those who had grown up as polytheists, there was nothing trite about this program. On the contrary, it set out a new way of thinking that must have been quite exciting, a hope for something beyond exploitation, materialism, and violence--a plan not for competing in purity and denial of life, but for the sharing of life in full” (2010). This new way of thinking then eventually transformed our world in ways the modern mind cannot fully appreciate due to our distance from the ancient minds.
While certainly more could be said, clarified and exemplified, my intent here was to concisely demonstrate that the God of the Bible is well-beyond compare to any localized, mythical deities past or present. The contrasts are profound, and the subsequent impact on our world has been profound. I would suggest that humanism’s roots and the pillared assumptions of Western culture are comfortably traced back to what was supernaturally new to the peoples of the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, when non-believers suggest they can be “morally good” in our day without Christianity, I don’t find it surprising they can. And really self-assessed goodness is not the point of the Gospel. Nonetheless, we all presently exist in an inherited consciousness that history reveals carries God’s handprint. Still, while we enjoy the Giant’s shade of individual dignity and freedom and their necessary complements, it’s wise to recognize the Giant providing it, than to just assume these profound shadows were somehow simply contrived by humans alone (to borrow from G.K. Chesterton).
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Proof is in the Perceptual Pudding
In the spawning days of Christianity, surprisingly, Christians were considered “atheists”:
"In such a world, the gospel was an outrage, and it was perfectly reasonable for its cultured despisers to describe its apostles as ‘atheists.’ Christians were--what could be more obvious?--enemies of society, impious, subversive, and irrational; and it was no more than civic prudence to detest them for refusing to honor the gods of their ancestors . . ." (David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies 2009). Having experienced the freedoms of unconditional love and forgiveness, new beginnings, a unifying and equalizing community, early followers of Christ challenged the existence of the localized gods by stepping toward another, purported to supersede them all, including the political gods--Jesus Christ. And the world has not been the same since.
Of course, Christians are not remotely atheists, yet the above displays the allure of stepping away from what is oppressive and no longer rings true toward that which offers freedom and truth--truth and freedom are comfortable bedfellows.
And while atheism has always enjoyed some representation, I understand that much fuel was added to its flame (and fame) during the French Revolution. The church’s heinous neglect of its call, and instead, its aiding and abetting of the establishment provided much combustible material for an inferno of unbelief, and not only in France either. Citizens sought freedom from an oppressive establishment of which the Church was an enthusiastic participant. Atheism became and still is perceived as a viable solution in response to the misbehaviors, inconsistencies--basically, the sins--of the church. While I am sympathetic with the conclusion of atheism on this basis, it’s not prudent to throw out the babe of theology with the religious bath water.
Subsequent scientific developments appeared to offer their endorsements of atheism, primarily to those subjectively motivated to encourage a fault-line between theism and science (including some misguided theists)--a misperception still lingering today. Nonetheless, theism and science have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a rich relationship: many renowned scientists were and are theists, including Einstein (not a Christian, mind you, nor a believer in a personal God of any sort). And, of course, many renowned scientists are atheists. Science is no respecter nor endorser of worldview assumptions: science can certainly challenge and refine theories, but to suggest that in and of itself it proves God or eradicates God is to stretch, and discredit, the capacities of science.Therefore, “proof,” or lack thereof, of God is determined by perceptions, how evidences are perceived to confirm atheistic or theistic presuppositions.
While what follows is not evidence of a personal or revealed God (in which I do believe), for me, it briefly summarizes the evidence to infer a creator. I do confess to an a priori assumption of God’s existence, which I find a reasonable assumption.
It is self-evident that consciousness precedes organized, developed matter in our entire human experience: every technology, industrial development, agricultural enhancement, architecture, artistic endeavor--in human creation of any sort, a conscious idea precedes the material reality. In considering a natural world of colossally more vast complexity than anything we’ve manufactured, it’s reasonable to conclude a Genius behind it as well. We enjoy and study an intelligible world, a world we can study and investigate with our minds. For me, intelligibility suggests intelligence. Information--including reproducible information--preceded the material that delivered it rather than the other way around.
Dead matter developing into living matter and eventually into conscious, self-aware matter entirely on its own strikes me as an untenable position. Borrowing an illustration from Roy Abraham Varghese: "Think for a minute of a marble table in front of you. Do you think that given a trillion years or infinite time, this table could suddenly or gradually become conscious, aware of its surroundings, aware of its identity the way you are? It is simply inconceivable that this would or could happen. And the same goes for any kind of matter. Once you understand the nature of matter, of mass-energy, you realize that, by its very nature, it could never become ‘aware,’ never ‘think,’ never say ‘I.’ But the atheist position is that, at some point in the history of the universe, the impossible and inconceivable took place" (Varghese and Antony Flew, There Is a God: How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind 2007). I do not find it more convincing to simply endlessly add time--or tables--to increase the likelihood of such an occurrence.
As to the notion that increasing scientific advancement clears the air of God, it seems that conclusion confuses agent with mechanism as Dr. John Lennox suggests with a rather simplistic illustration, which I appreciate: Just because I continually learn more and more regarding how my car works, the existence of Henry Ford does not become consequentially questionable. (I'm presently reading Lennox's God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? I'm unsure if that analogy appears in this text, however. I know the source is correct, but I'm no longer sure of the article.)
Now, I’m sure atheists would be quick to suggest to me that they find God just as, if not a more, untenable option to the above unlikelihood. That’s fair. I still would suggest that an uncaused God is a more reasonable inference than a uncaused accidentally, incredibly complex, and conscious world.
Yet further, I would suggest that science does not give rise to atheism--something else does. And science does not give rise to theism--something else does. Candor about what motivates our worldview conclusions is healthy for all of us.
"In such a world, the gospel was an outrage, and it was perfectly reasonable for its cultured despisers to describe its apostles as ‘atheists.’ Christians were--what could be more obvious?--enemies of society, impious, subversive, and irrational; and it was no more than civic prudence to detest them for refusing to honor the gods of their ancestors . . ." (David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies 2009). Having experienced the freedoms of unconditional love and forgiveness, new beginnings, a unifying and equalizing community, early followers of Christ challenged the existence of the localized gods by stepping toward another, purported to supersede them all, including the political gods--Jesus Christ. And the world has not been the same since.
Of course, Christians are not remotely atheists, yet the above displays the allure of stepping away from what is oppressive and no longer rings true toward that which offers freedom and truth--truth and freedom are comfortable bedfellows.
And while atheism has always enjoyed some representation, I understand that much fuel was added to its flame (and fame) during the French Revolution. The church’s heinous neglect of its call, and instead, its aiding and abetting of the establishment provided much combustible material for an inferno of unbelief, and not only in France either. Citizens sought freedom from an oppressive establishment of which the Church was an enthusiastic participant. Atheism became and still is perceived as a viable solution in response to the misbehaviors, inconsistencies--basically, the sins--of the church. While I am sympathetic with the conclusion of atheism on this basis, it’s not prudent to throw out the babe of theology with the religious bath water.
Subsequent scientific developments appeared to offer their endorsements of atheism, primarily to those subjectively motivated to encourage a fault-line between theism and science (including some misguided theists)--a misperception still lingering today. Nonetheless, theism and science have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a rich relationship: many renowned scientists were and are theists, including Einstein (not a Christian, mind you, nor a believer in a personal God of any sort). And, of course, many renowned scientists are atheists. Science is no respecter nor endorser of worldview assumptions: science can certainly challenge and refine theories, but to suggest that in and of itself it proves God or eradicates God is to stretch, and discredit, the capacities of science.Therefore, “proof,” or lack thereof, of God is determined by perceptions, how evidences are perceived to confirm atheistic or theistic presuppositions.
While what follows is not evidence of a personal or revealed God (in which I do believe), for me, it briefly summarizes the evidence to infer a creator. I do confess to an a priori assumption of God’s existence, which I find a reasonable assumption.
It is self-evident that consciousness precedes organized, developed matter in our entire human experience: every technology, industrial development, agricultural enhancement, architecture, artistic endeavor--in human creation of any sort, a conscious idea precedes the material reality. In considering a natural world of colossally more vast complexity than anything we’ve manufactured, it’s reasonable to conclude a Genius behind it as well. We enjoy and study an intelligible world, a world we can study and investigate with our minds. For me, intelligibility suggests intelligence. Information--including reproducible information--preceded the material that delivered it rather than the other way around.
Dead matter developing into living matter and eventually into conscious, self-aware matter entirely on its own strikes me as an untenable position. Borrowing an illustration from Roy Abraham Varghese: "Think for a minute of a marble table in front of you. Do you think that given a trillion years or infinite time, this table could suddenly or gradually become conscious, aware of its surroundings, aware of its identity the way you are? It is simply inconceivable that this would or could happen. And the same goes for any kind of matter. Once you understand the nature of matter, of mass-energy, you realize that, by its very nature, it could never become ‘aware,’ never ‘think,’ never say ‘I.’ But the atheist position is that, at some point in the history of the universe, the impossible and inconceivable took place" (Varghese and Antony Flew, There Is a God: How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind 2007). I do not find it more convincing to simply endlessly add time--or tables--to increase the likelihood of such an occurrence.
As to the notion that increasing scientific advancement clears the air of God, it seems that conclusion confuses agent with mechanism as Dr. John Lennox suggests with a rather simplistic illustration, which I appreciate: Just because I continually learn more and more regarding how my car works, the existence of Henry Ford does not become consequentially questionable. (I'm presently reading Lennox's God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? I'm unsure if that analogy appears in this text, however. I know the source is correct, but I'm no longer sure of the article.)
Now, I’m sure atheists would be quick to suggest to me that they find God just as, if not a more, untenable option to the above unlikelihood. That’s fair. I still would suggest that an uncaused God is a more reasonable inference than a uncaused accidentally, incredibly complex, and conscious world.
Yet further, I would suggest that science does not give rise to atheism--something else does. And science does not give rise to theism--something else does. Candor about what motivates our worldview conclusions is healthy for all of us.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Let's be SUBJECTIVE for a minute
Eighth grade was as close to atheism as I ever came. Confirmation was horrible, our class filled with obnoxious, disinterested “potential” Lutherans. Our teacher was an exasperated seminary intern, who I’m sure was questioning his sense of call. I could not see God’s relevance to me or to anyone in my immediate surroundings. My parents made me go. The preceding five siblings did it. Precedence had been set. I went. I hated it.
My parents making me go actually meant my mom made me go. Dad was quite emotionally detached from me, so it was difficult for me to determine his role in my life (Now as an adult, I appreciate my dad's own wounds more). There was an emotional gap, even though dad was physically present.
Into that gap entered Pastor Erickson, my second year confirmation teacher, and a father-like presence who greeted me like he was genuinely glad to see me. He affirmed and encouraged my attempts at answers. He circled our group, checking to see if we had our homework completed. I still remember his pat on my shoulder when I had it done, even if the answers were a bit off. For a girl who could not remember her dad’s touch since her childhood, Pastor’s affirming gesture opened the door of my heart to faith.
Of course, I would not say that the reason I follow Jesus Christ is because of a kind pastor I met almost twenty years ago. Nonetheless, I would say that my worldview had a subjective start. And I do not think it’s an overstatement to suggest that everyone’s worldview has a subjective start.
While we may claim, and like to cling to, objectivity in our worldviews, intellectual knowledge is fired by an emotional spark. Pathos paves the way for logos. Any decent educator understands this. Engagement, establishing of internal motivation, paves the way to understanding.
Therefore, I would encourage you to consider your worldview’s subjective beginnings: Who opened your heart to your present position? What experiences fed (or feed) that belief system? If negative relationships and experiences encouraged you to reject a particular worldview, what view have you developed instead? What relationships and experiences influenced your development of the new view? Perhaps ironically, awareness of these factors can help us to consider our worldviews more objectively.
Indeed, thinking objectively can free us from subjectivity’s stranglehold--our emotions can become traps if we’re unaware of them. However, subjectivity determines the livability of our worldview.
Several years ago in the high school classroom, I had a rather nihilistic TA. He possessed a comedic irony covering an Eeyore-like disposition. Everything was meaningless and futile, but he was alive, so . . . whatever. Concerned a depression was developing in her son, his mother forced him into counseling. Upon my asking how it went, he told me the counselor challenged him to develop “more emotionally healthy beliefs. . . [Insert sigh] . . . Whatever.”
Our worldviews are subjective in their initiations and in their implications. So I ask: What are the implications of your worldview on your sense of self? On your relationships? On your view of the future? On your view of your past experiences? On your daily decisions? In other words, is it livable?
My faith in Jesus Christ certainly does not lack in subjective rationale for me. Of course, my emotions do not always align with my beliefs. But that is the journey--one of greater and greater consistency and wholeness. The sense of being continually unconditionally loved is the most powerful grounding for genuine self-esteem. That validation that this world is broken confirms reality as I experience it: fragments of beauty and wonder exist as well as disconcerting evil. I am part of that beauty and part of that evil, so joy, responsibility, confession, forgiveness, and renewal are all components of meaning for me. Relationships are the most valued engagements in life because others exist in the image of God, so the reality of my relationship with God is played out in my relationships with others. Following Christ also confirms humanity’s seemingly innate teleological orientation--we desire life to head somewhere; we seem to want to grow, to learn, to develop, to mature. Christianity affirms and invites that desire out.
Now, of course, these are not an exhaustive list of the subjective benefits of my following Christ. They are also certainly not objective arguments for the truthfulness of Christianity. My intent was two-fold: to invite consideration of the role of the subjective in worldview development as well as to invite considerations of worldview consequences . . . which are always experienced subjectively.
My parents making me go actually meant my mom made me go. Dad was quite emotionally detached from me, so it was difficult for me to determine his role in my life (Now as an adult, I appreciate my dad's own wounds more). There was an emotional gap, even though dad was physically present.
Into that gap entered Pastor Erickson, my second year confirmation teacher, and a father-like presence who greeted me like he was genuinely glad to see me. He affirmed and encouraged my attempts at answers. He circled our group, checking to see if we had our homework completed. I still remember his pat on my shoulder when I had it done, even if the answers were a bit off. For a girl who could not remember her dad’s touch since her childhood, Pastor’s affirming gesture opened the door of my heart to faith.
Of course, I would not say that the reason I follow Jesus Christ is because of a kind pastor I met almost twenty years ago. Nonetheless, I would say that my worldview had a subjective start. And I do not think it’s an overstatement to suggest that everyone’s worldview has a subjective start.
While we may claim, and like to cling to, objectivity in our worldviews, intellectual knowledge is fired by an emotional spark. Pathos paves the way for logos. Any decent educator understands this. Engagement, establishing of internal motivation, paves the way to understanding.
Therefore, I would encourage you to consider your worldview’s subjective beginnings: Who opened your heart to your present position? What experiences fed (or feed) that belief system? If negative relationships and experiences encouraged you to reject a particular worldview, what view have you developed instead? What relationships and experiences influenced your development of the new view? Perhaps ironically, awareness of these factors can help us to consider our worldviews more objectively.
Indeed, thinking objectively can free us from subjectivity’s stranglehold--our emotions can become traps if we’re unaware of them. However, subjectivity determines the livability of our worldview.
Several years ago in the high school classroom, I had a rather nihilistic TA. He possessed a comedic irony covering an Eeyore-like disposition. Everything was meaningless and futile, but he was alive, so . . . whatever. Concerned a depression was developing in her son, his mother forced him into counseling. Upon my asking how it went, he told me the counselor challenged him to develop “more emotionally healthy beliefs. . . [Insert sigh] . . . Whatever.”
Our worldviews are subjective in their initiations and in their implications. So I ask: What are the implications of your worldview on your sense of self? On your relationships? On your view of the future? On your view of your past experiences? On your daily decisions? In other words, is it livable?
My faith in Jesus Christ certainly does not lack in subjective rationale for me. Of course, my emotions do not always align with my beliefs. But that is the journey--one of greater and greater consistency and wholeness. The sense of being continually unconditionally loved is the most powerful grounding for genuine self-esteem. That validation that this world is broken confirms reality as I experience it: fragments of beauty and wonder exist as well as disconcerting evil. I am part of that beauty and part of that evil, so joy, responsibility, confession, forgiveness, and renewal are all components of meaning for me. Relationships are the most valued engagements in life because others exist in the image of God, so the reality of my relationship with God is played out in my relationships with others. Following Christ also confirms humanity’s seemingly innate teleological orientation--we desire life to head somewhere; we seem to want to grow, to learn, to develop, to mature. Christianity affirms and invites that desire out.
Now, of course, these are not an exhaustive list of the subjective benefits of my following Christ. They are also certainly not objective arguments for the truthfulness of Christianity. My intent was two-fold: to invite consideration of the role of the subjective in worldview development as well as to invite considerations of worldview consequences . . . which are always experienced subjectively.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)