The Adventures of Spaceman Spiff

Ten Theses on Evidence and Faith

2011-01-17T12:06:00.002-05:00

Evidence

1. First, a plausible concept of evidence. Evidence is, in the broadest sense, the stuff of our experience, the stuff of which we try to make cognitive sense. A given state of affairs (A) can be evidence of a given proposition (P) in two ways: subjectively and objectively. A is objectively evidence of P if A is more likely if P than if not-P. But, A can only be evidence of P to a subject (S) if S has sufficient background knowledge to reasonably believe that A is more likely if P than if not-P. ‘State of affairs’ ought to be construed very broadly. Also, note that A can be objectively evidence of P even when it is not subjectively so for S, or vice versa.

2. Human beings form beliefs because of evidence (though not exclusively so). That is, we see and experience stuff, our brains try to make sense of that stuff, and thus we form beliefs. This happens consciously sometimes but subconsciously a lot more. We can reason incorrectly from evidence or choose to focus on certain pieces of evidence over and against others in ways that turn out to be misleading. And, sometimes, the incomplete nature of our background knowledge causes A to appear to be evidence of P when it isn’t. In each case, however, we are forming beliefs from evidence.

3. There appears to be some beliefs for which we cannot get evidence for directly, but nonetheless are rationally accepted. I think there two classes included here. We might call the first necessary assumptions. Among these might be such beliefs as the acceptance of a minimal rationality, the assumption that our sense perceptions are basically reliable under normal circumstances, etc. While it’s hard to imagine what would constitute evidence of these beliefs, there is a sort of pragmatic necessity to hold them. For, if we do not grant them, we can’t get anywhere, epistemically speaking. So, a strict evidentialism (let alone empiricism) does not hold up.[1] Note, however, that the class of beliefs in question appears to be fundamentally epistemological—they are about how we know. They have a kind of boot-strapping problem. The only way to know the propositions in question would be to carry out the procedures they specify, but carrying out those procedures assumes that they are true in the first place. Hence, we accept them on the basis of intuition, pragmatic necessity, and the fact that, at the least, the evidence doesn’t falsify them (which, it’s worth pointing out, it could theoretically do). The second are a priori beliefs, i.e., beliefs arrived at purely on reflection with no observation about the world needed, e.g., the truths of mathematics and logic.

4. Nonetheless, aside from basic epistemic commitments and a priori beliefs, it appears that people form beliefs about the world based on evidence.

Faith

5. If faith is belief without evidence, then faith is something that only exists in the insane. The extreme language of some detractors of religion notwithstanding, insanity does not account for religious belief in general. Indeed, religious people might even describe their own epistemic procedure as “blind belief”—intending to imply belief in the absence of evidence or any rational basis. But I reject this testimony for two reasons. First, because it does not appear that human beings can directly control their beliefs or directly access their belief-forming processes. Therefore, while S can incorrigibly know whether S believes P at any given moment, S cannot know in quite the same way how S came to believe P. Second, because even among people who recommend that one “just believe” or “just have faith,” only a particular class of beliefs is recommended, and thus the recommendation appears to result from specific reasons rather than arbitrarily. Religious belief is, apparently, formed on the basis of some evidence, and thus, faith as belief in the absence of evidence is something that doesn’t accounts for religious beliefs in the case of sane believers.

6. And, anyway, faith isn’t primarily a matter of belief, but of the orientation of one’s whole life. To have faith in the Christian sense is not merely to believe certain propositions. After all, as James tells us, “even the demons believe!” The difference is the response to those beliefs. The Christian experience of conversion is not (by and large) one of conceding certain intellectual points. Rather, we people of faith come to recognize ourselves in relationship to an Other. As Ben Myers put it, we “[are] grasped by a reality outside ourselves.” Faith is a particular response to that recognition, namely a response of trust in which our whole lives now have their meaning in relation to that Other. If it can be true that the demons believe and yet shudder, then faith is not the only possible response to the beliefs implicit in Christian faith, and thus it is possible to believe and yet not have faith.

7. Faith does involve beliefs, but those beliefs are arrived at based upon evidence: the evidence of testimony from trusted people and from a long tradition, the evidence of the lived experience of receiving salvation and newness of life through that tradition, and the experience of the risen Christ in liturgy, sacrament, and fellowship. You can think what you will of how well or poorly the evidence in question has been interpreted. That is well within bounds. It is nonsensical, however, to pretend this evidence is non-existent.

8. There are some a priori arguments which attempt to some faith claims on the same kind of foundational level as the beliefs in #3 (e.g. Reformed epistemology), and others try to prove them on an a priori basis (e.g. Anselm, Descartes) but even if they succeed, evidence is required to get from those beliefs to Christian faith. Christianity is an irreducibly particular and historical faith. It is true that faith involves threshold beliefs, i.e., beliefs which—once accepted—change how everything else is seen and interpreted. But this does not change the fact that we cross through the threshold (in part) via evidence.

9. Hebrews 11—“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,” but this implies the absence of ultimate confirmation, not the absence of evidence. As a professor of mine once said, to ‘hope’ is not the same as to ‘wish.’ A hope, unlike a wish, must have some basis in reality. This is borne out by the examples of faith the writer of Hebrews gives in the very same chapter. Each and every one had an evidential basis for hope. Abraham had hope that through his descendents the whole world would be blessed because God told him so—a good prima facie case if ever there was one. What Abraham lacked (what he hoped for but did not see) was ultimate confirmation. He did not get to see his children living in the Promised Land, God present to them in the Temple, the Magi worshipping Jesus, or the Gentiles coming to faith in YHWH through him. He did not get to see those things, and could scarcely have imagined them. He did have faith, as shown by his obedience to God’s call, and the beliefs implicit in that faith were clearly based on evidence.

10. Therefore, to have faith is to hold on, to act consistently with respect to the beliefs we’ve come to when such action requires patient endurance or other costly action. A man confronted by a close friend with a hard truth may not want to believe it. His mind may grasp for other explanations: his friend is jealous, perhaps, and is only saying this to hurt him. To remember in that moment all the evidence that the friend really has his best interests at heart, and to act on that possibility, that is faith. A person on the brink of a lifelong commitment to another may have “cold feet” no matter how strong the evidence is that the relationship is rock solid. No amount of evidence would make such a commitment truly risk-free. To make the leap to the appropriate action in response to the evidence, therefore, requires faith.

[1] This is so because the claim “Evidentialism is true” cannot be supported by evidence without circularity, and, if evidentialism is true, then the claim “Evidentialism is true” could be supported in no other way than by evidence.

[Theses 2, 3, 4, and 8 have been modified to explicitly include a priori beliefs thanks to my friend Adrian Woods].

A call to worship

2009-10-04T19:45:00.003-05:00

This semester in ACU's graduate chapel, our semester has been structured around the Apostle's Creed. Each week our service reflects on a sentence or two. My planning team got the part where we affirm that we believe Jesus

"suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;"

Interpreting the suffering and death of Christ is something I've thought about a lot at both an academic and personal devotional level because it seems so central to the Christian faith. It certainly is for me. So it was good for me to be able to think about how to frame a worship service reflecting on it. This is the call to worship I came up with:

We believe that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, died, and was buried,

That this God who made heaven and earth sent his Son; not in wrath, to conquer us,; not to enforce his power over us,; but to share in the suffering and evil which we have brought upon ourselves,; Under Pontius Pilate,; not in some abstract metaphysical plane,; but as a human being in human history,; at the hands of human beings who hold onto power,; at our hands,; That Jesus suffered,; not punished by his Father,; but rejected by humanity along with the Father,; alienated, humiliated, misunderstood, betrayed, tortured and killed,; and buried.
: Today we remember and affirm together that God in Christ entered into humanity, sharing in death with us so that we may share in life with Him.

"So What?" #1 Part 2: Grounding Theology

2009-07-09T15:26:00.002-05:00

This is the long overdue sequel to my last entry. What I want to do is talk about why I defined theology the way I did in this post. As a refresher, I said that theology is "the cognitive, correlative process that is a part of the church's past and present experience of God."

The first problem, or so it seems to me, is to decide what grounds the discourse we call theology. What are we talking about anyway? Are we just making stuff up? Are we doing something like science, or is it something more like poetry or writing fiction? Interestingly enough, both anti-intellectual Christians and naturalist atheists tend to write off constructive theology as basically making stuff up, so this question is quite important, at least if you're someone who thinks theology is something more than that.

In my own denomination, most people tend to assume there is nothing more to theology than biblical exegesis: once we know what the Bible says about an issue, then we know what the proper Christian belief is. Then, the theory goes, if we've done our exegesis properly, the theological claims we come up with rest on the reliability of the Bible--which is to say, they are completely certain.

But for my part, this view has become more and more impossible to accept the more I've studied the books in the Bible and the history of the church. It's become more and more apparent that we all read through a lens that is necessarily quite different from the ones with which the authors wrote, meaning a truly "objective" exegesis is impossible. All interpretation is--in some way or other--creative. Perhaps more importantly, it doesn't seem to me that the texts of scripture represent one, unified and coherent theological system. Deuteronomy and Job interpret suffering in markedly different ways. The book of Samuel and Kings interpret Israel's history quite differently than the Chronicler. The gospel accounts don't all fit together very neatly from a modern historical perspective.

So for these and other reasons, the biblicist concept of theology doesn't work for me. For that matter, adding in "Tradition" as an authoritative guide to interpreting scripture also doesn't work for me, because it is even more true that the tradition does not all agree, is always read through a lens, etc. All adding in "tradition" does is to pile more books ontop of books, and I have become convinced that a foundation of books cannot succeed in grounding theology.

So what are we left with? For that matter--some might ask--if I don't think those things succeed in grounding theological claims, then why am I still a Christian? My answer is this: while those texts don't provide an epistemic norm--that is, a perfect guide for beliefs--they do provide a new kind of life that I can only make sense of by being a Christian, by immersing myself in and wrestling with the practices, the creeds, and, yes, the texts, of the Christian tradition, and by participating in the community that receives these various elements as a means of grace and new life. So at the end of the day, what grounds Christianity for me is not the epistemic reliability of a set of texts, but rather the experience of new life found in engaging those texts, among other things like sacraments, songs, disciplines, prayers, etc.

So, for me, Christianity is primarily an experiential thing, a kind of life experienced by a community through a tradition. Therefore, theology must be grounded in that experience. It must be centered not on either the tradition or the contemporary experience, but on the connection between the two. The best description I've come across of that connection is 'correlation.' That is to say, theology is about connecting those traditional elements with our current context.

To that I add that theology is clearly a cognitive endeavor. It is the our creative response as thinking beings to the experience of life found in the tradition. If we recognize the contextual nature of our thinking--that our cognitive response is going to be shaped by our particular location in time and space and culture--then we learn not to be dogmatic about our claims. And yet, recognizing that as human beings we experience a sort of urge to connect, to make sense of things, we cannot simply write off theology as merely subjective. There is still the need to be rigorous and coherent.

It also needs to be said that theology is more than merely a response because it also shapes our continued experience. This is the way the world of thought works: as we experience things, we attempt to form an understanding of that experience, and then our interpretation of future experiences is shaped in important ways by our understanding. Some experiences push us to modify our understanding. The process of shaping goes both ways.

That is more or less what I think theology is (for now, anyway). It's a very human sort of thing, and it doesn't lead to epistemic certainty. It is grounded in revelation only to the extent that God is involved with humanity in and through the Christian tradition. And if it is true that God is involved, that is a truth that can only be known be experience, I think.

But despite this lack of certainty, despite the fact that we can never get outside of ourselves or take off our lenses, there is reason for hope. If God is involved in things as human as the writing of scripture, our reading of scripture, in our practice of Christianity, and perhaps even in our cognitive attempts to make sense of it all, then perhaps as a part of new life we are also being led into all truth as well. This is the hope that motivates me.

“So What?” #1 Part 1: Why Define Theology Anyway?

2008-10-22T20:08:00.002-05:00

So I've thought a bit about the fact that some people who might be silly enough to read these entries are not theology folks. And besides that, writing for a class is always just a little bit terse and boring. Maybe that's just me. Anyway I've decided I want to try and follow up entries by expanding on why anyone would bother saying the things I've said in my essays. I'd like to call these entries "So What?" So here goes. This one is on the entry where I offered my definition of theology.

So, what was the point of this assignment? Why do students in a systematic theology class need to bother defining theology anyway? I mean, I can just hit up dictionary.com and find out that theology is "the field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God's attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity." Why do we need any more definitions? And don't definitions just box people in, anyway?

The thing is that practitioners of theology need a specific concept of the work they do. This is especially true for theologians of the systematic variety. The term 'systematic' has a negative ring to it in some people's minds, but all it means is that we're going to be very clear and pay attention to the stuff we say, so that it is as consistent as we can make it. This has a number of benefits. First, and most obviously, it helps us avoid saying things that are contradictory. Ideally this means it helps us avoid saying things that are false, but at least it helps us realize when some things we say actually conflict with beliefs we hold more deeply. Second, far from being a limiting or constraining endeavor, examining how the various things we believe hold together tends to point to new truths we hadn't realized before. Often enough, taking the time to set things out clearly points to interrelationships between concepts that maybe we thought were unconnected. Other times it can help clarify how our existing beliefs can point to a solution to a new problem or situation.

Being able to be systematic can be really helpful, and in some senses, it has to start with a clear, helpful picture of what it is we're doing. What is the goal of theology? How can that goal be achieved? What methods are allowed? What resources are allowed? Clearly, how we answer those questions is going to shape how our theology looks. And we'd rather be up front and consistent about how we answer those questions so that we don't accidentally use methods or resources that fail to get us to our goal, or appeal to resources that don't fit with the process we believe ourselves to be doing. For example, if we think theology has to proceed from divine revelation, we have to be careful about appeals to science, philosophy, or nature. If we think systematic theology is clarification and presentation of church dogma, then we have to be sure not to contradict the canonical teachings of the church we're theologizing for.

But what does that do to people who might use a different method or appeal to a different resource? Aren't we being a little rude if we define things in such a way that it rules them out? Well, there are different approaches to that. Some people might purposefully be very specific and describe what theology is in a Lutheran context or a feminist context. For myself, I made an attempt to define theology that is merely descriptive (though I do assume a Christian perspective) but nonetheless provides guidance by highlighting what I see as the essential process of doing theology. But nonetheless, the whole point of articulating our own definition is to clarify the grounds on which we make theological judgments. That is to say, our definition should clarify exactly why and on what grounds we disagree with people on theological matters.

This is just like the scientific method shows exactly how you might go about showing one scientific hypothesis to be wrong and another to be right. We can be charitable in disagreement. We can be epistemically humble, admitting that we could be wrong. We can still be accepting and inclusive. Nonetheless, in order to engage another person in dialogue, it is necessary to have a position from which to converse. We need to be able to clarify why we disagree. Thus, we can offer a definition that does help clarify our own position and why we might disagree with others without fear that doing so will lock us into a path of exclusivism and intolerance. For that matter, we are always free to change our minds and modify our definition if we come to understand the task and method of theology differently. Nonetheless, in order to engage in any of that, we must start by taking a shot at saying what we're doing.

So the dictionary definition is accurate, but it doesn't provide any description or guidance for how theology is actually done. It's a definition that is broad and general enough for everyone to agree on, but any theologian is going to have a more specific picture in her mind of what it is she's doing when she does theology. That picture is going to guide her in doing theology. So if we want to engage in theology and we want to a) avoid being contradictory, b) understand how the various claims we make interrelate, c) have a clear idea of how to approach new problems, and d) engage in meaningful dialogue with others in which we can be clear about why we disagree, we probably need to start with a more specific definition of theology than dictionary.com is able to provide. In the next episode of So What? I will try to break down why anyone would bother defining theology the way I did.

A Cognitive, Correlative Approach to Atonement Theories

2008-10-17T15:28:00.001-05:00

This is the second part of the assignment from the previous post. In that post, I offered a definition of theology, and identified what I see as the resources of theology and my theological norm. In this one, I attempt to apply all of that to a particular theological problem. In this case, I chose atonement theories. Atonement theories are an ongoing area of research for me. By atonement theories, I mean attempts to explain how Jesus' life, death, and/or resurrection bring about salvation.¹ Perhaps surprisingly, the Christian tradition is full of different approaches to this issue. And unlike the issue of Christology,² no particular explanation has been uniformly insisted upon as the only orthodox possibility.

If we apply the above observations about theology in general to atonement theories, it becomes clear that an epistemology of atonement theories is needed. For this, we first need a descriptive analysis of the epistemic desiderata of existing theories. This can be seen by first asking what a theory of atonement is and then by asking epistemological observations to guide us. The first question can be understood as asking what kind of correlation is involved in an atonement theory, and the second as asking how epistemology can help regulate that correlation.

It is immediately apparent that the description of theology above fits atonement theories perfectly. While atonement theories can be construed in a number of ways, they all involve correlating the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus with the experience of salvation in the lives of believers. Such theories start with the particular experience of transformation by the tradition. The cognitive response to this is to seek an explanation. Such an explanation must somehow correlate the "past event" with the "present salvation", to borrow terminology from Paul Fiddes.³

The differences between theories center around two interrelated issues: the question of how this correlation is to be made and the varying locations of the 'present' part of the correlation. Answers to the first question vary in the extent to which either the tradition or contemporary context is given precedence. Some, for example, suggest that the primary criterion for an atonement theory is the extent to which it represents what is taught in scripture,⁴ while others apply contemporary sociological theories.⁵

The second point is simply that different theories arise out of different contexts. Context plays a significant role in determining the epistemic guidelines within which a theorist must work. That is to say, context determines what methods are available to a theorist, what basic view of the human condition she operates with, what questions her audience needs answered, and what kinds of answers they will find convincing.⁶

Epistemology can be brought to bear on this problem in the following way: first, we may observe that theories of atonement are essentially particularist⁷ in their assumptions, and second, that various theories are engineered to fulfill different epistemic desiderata based on those assumptions.⁸ These particular assumptions and the epistemic desiderata which flow from them first need to be untangled. Following Alston's work on the concept of epistemic justification, this work must begin with a roughly comprehensive descriptive analysis of the epistemic desiderata at work in existing atonement theories.

This analysis would provide insight as to how the various desiderata at work should be categorized and ordered with respect to each other. It would be naïve to suppose that any process would lead to widespread agreement on a single theory, but such an analysis might potentially illuminate analytic grounds for pluralism with respect to atonement theories. Awareness of the desiderata at work in various theories could show that they are not as incompatible as they previously seemed. At the very least, it would provide clarity with respect to goals and methods for future atonement theories.

1. This is may seem like a broad usage of the term "atonement theory", which at one point only seemed to refer to theories that insisted that Jesus' suffering and death was the central point. But today, the term seems also to refer to theories that insist on emphasizing some other aspect as the central saving point, such as the Incarnation (i.e. Jesus' birth), Jesus' teachings and moral examples, or Jesus' resurrection. See Sam Wells' sermon, "How Jesus Saves Us" for a pretty nice way of breaking this down.

2. The issue of Christology (i.e. the issue of Jesus' nature) was hammered out specifically over different ecumenical councils, with one position named orthodox and others named heretical. So today, to be Christian means to affirm that Jesus is both human and divine. To say Jesus was only human or only divine is to adopt a position that has been ruled out by the historic church. To ascribe one or the other explanation of how Jesus saves, on the other hand, is to choose among several orthodox options.

3. Paul S. Fiddes, Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement, Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989.

4.
See J. I. Packer, "What Did The Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substition", Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974), 3-45.

5. See S. Mark Heim, Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006.

6. One might suspect that the effects of varying the location of the 'present' context would disappear in the case of theories that give great precedence to the tradition, but this is certainly not the case. The context in which a theory arises appears to be an equally important factor in both cases. As observed above, theology involves creative construction even if the theologian intends passive description.

7. By particularist, I mean that, taken together as a whole (as opposed to considering them in their individual contexts) atonement theories start with various particular assumptions rather than beginning with a universalized method.

8. See Alston, Beyond Justification. I am indebted to Alston for the concept "epistemic desiderata" and for this overall approach to a set of apparently competing theories.

Systematic Theology as Cognitive and Correlative

2008-10-13T22:38:00.001-05:00

I think I've finally decided to use this blog to post stuff I write for classes. This is an assignment for Systematic Theology in which we were asked to offer a definition of theology, specify the resources for theology, and identify our theological norm.

Theology is the cognitive, correlative process that is a part of the church's past and present experience of God. As a cognitive process, it arises from, informs, interprets, and articulates that experience of God. Through theology, the church constructs, describes, and evaluates beliefs, models, and theories related to the experience of God. As an aspect of experience, theology frames and informs continued experiences. Experience, in general, does not neatly precede interpretation, but is partially shaped by it. Thus theology is not simply passive description, but involves creative construction, even (and perhaps especially) when this fact is not admitted.

As interpretation and articulation, theology must have an audience. In general, its audiences are the community which identifies itself as the church and the larger public. Both groups have many subsets. To say theology is an activity of the church is not to say that it is the responsibility of theologians to locate themselves within the church. Rather, it is the responsibility of the church to acknowledge and expand to include theology wherever it is being done well.

The resources of Christian theology come from the canonical heritage of Christianity (scripture, creeds, liturgy, sacraments, lives of saints, theological and devotional literature, etc.) and from our own context (experiences of individuals and communities, philosophy, physical and social sciences, the arts, the human disciplines, interreligious dialogue, etc.). These are cognitive and experiential elements from the past and from the present. The method of theology is to correlate these disparate elements: experiential elements with cognitive elements, experiences of God in the present with experiences of God in the past, and cognitive work in the present with cognitive work in the past.

This correlation must be mutually critical and constructive. This is less a normative claim than a descriptive fact. From the very beginning, our own context shapes our experience of the tradition. It is true that as we interact with the tradition, our understanding of it critiques and corrects the perspective we bring from our context. But we cannot pretend that our approach can ever be entirely shaped by the tradition; we must allow that elements from our present context can critique the understanding we gain from our experiences of the tradition. Thus, none of these elements is prima facie superior to the rest.

To see how these elements are to be correlated, we return to the definition offered above. Theology is essentially a process of human cognition, though God is involved in the experience which gives rise to it and which it then interprets and shapes. The church experiences God both in the tradition and in its present. This ontologically transformative experience begs us to think, to make connections, and to form beliefs. But it does not confer a ready-made epistemology. We must avoid making too sharp a distinction between thought and experience, but, nonetheless, theology is the distinctively cognitive aspect of this experience of the divine.

As an aspect of the cognitive life, theology falls under the regulative guidance of epistemology.¹ This is not to say epistemology governs theology, but rather that theology is a fundamentally epistemic and epistemological activity. We start with the particular experience of transformation by the tradition, and proceed epistemologically from there. Thus we come to the contextually variable norm which regulates the correlation of the resources: Theologians do well to make explicit their epistemological assumptions, to examine their epistemic practices, and to use the best epistemological tools available to them to do and to evaluate their work.

1. See William P. Alston, Beyond Justification: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005, 1-5. Following Alston, I take epistemology to be philosophical reflection on the cognitive life as a whole, rather than merely the theory of knowledge or justification.

The RLP Retreat

2008-08-25T19:59:00.002-05:00

So I got to visit RLP's church in San Antonio for a Franciscan Retreat. Being around so many bloggers has inspired to blog again! About this event, anyway.

It was a great trip. I drove down with my buddy Xander, which was a lot of fun. It turns out Texas is actually pretty if you go south and east-like. There are hills and trees and stuff. Who knew? It was great to have a friend to go with. If you know me, you probably aren't surprised to know that having someone to go with increased the likelihood of going.

So we went the week that was supposed to be for "clergy", and I'm not really clergy, but I figured I'm in school with a bunch of 'em and I might teach some future clergy-folk someday, so that has to be close enough. I'm really glad that we ended up going on that week because we got to meet some very cool people doing very different kinds of ministry. Emergent folks, Baptist folks, several Disciples of Christ folks (woot for Restoration movement folks!) and others.

We had one session where Gordon asked everybody to share their funniest ministry story or the most important thing they've learned. Well, I don't have any ministry stories, but I can't pass up what seems like an opportunity to tell a joke that honors and old friend, so I told my joke about the Pope and the Rabbi. I think that's close enough to a ministry story. Paulette appreciated it, anyway, which is good enough for me.

I got to meet a fellow "Pirate" blogger who went by the handle revsparker in a certain chatroom not too long ago. Sean is definitely a cool guy and I think his church is lucky to have him. He's the kind of guy I know I could have really cool conversations with if only we happened to live in the same city. It was great to find out that we do, in fact, have cool conversations when we are in the same city. Sean ministers at a Unitarian Universalist church in Salt Lake City of all places.

I also got to play some disc golf with RLP, which was a lot of fun. He has a great way of playing with folks of varying abilities which we used. Essentially it was five of us against the course. Each throw, we just used whomever's shot was the best. I'm proud to say I had the best drive once! (And yes, we did birdy that hole.)

It was structured like a real Franciscan retreat, which means we met for contemplative, liturgical style prayer/worship services at the canonical hours which was really cool. I definitely dig the way they did worship over there.

The theme of the retreat was making a "Rule of Life." As a (sort of) good church of Christ boy, this stuff is all pretty new to me, but I've been blessed by it quite a bit. For awhile I've been sort of drawn and pushed towards the spiritual disciplines tradition through reading folks like Richard Foster and Dallas Willard and by learning from friends here and there. Taking this retreat has given me occasion to blog a bit about this stuff.

Some things take a long time

I'm 25 years old. I think it's fair to say I've been reasonably successful at life so far. Not to toot my own horn, but it's probably fair to say I'm reasonably talented at a few things. I've had to work hard sometimes, but by and large I'm used to things coming quickly at least, if not always easily.

This problem (and it is a problem) has been reinforced by the fact that I've actually been taught to believe that my efforts should have quick results. Theologically speaking, I grew up believing that righteousness/holiness/fruitfulness/whatever-you-want-to-call-it would happen right now if only I would start acting right and trying hard enough.

In high school, I was a wrestler. In wrestling, you're expected to get to the lowest possible weight class so you can wrestle guys of a reasonable size. Now, it is certainly possible, and would have been possible for me, to just live healthy all year-round, but the path of least-resistance is to lose weight during the season and gain weight the rest of the time. You can guess what I (and most of us 14-18 year-old kids) did. I learned to expect that weight-loss can and should happen fast.

In the long run, neither physical health nor spiritual growth have come quickly or easily for me. Anytime I've set out with a spurt of willpower to change and live differently forever and lose weight/get in shape/read my bible everyday/repent of this or that sin/never do this or that bad thing again I have inevitably failed, experienced inordinate guilt, given up, and settled, more or less comfortably, into my original pattern, my expectations subtly adjusted.

As I've read the spiritual disciplines literature, I've felt drawn to the slowness and deliberateness of it. I'm drawn to the recognition that true transformation cannot be brought about by our willpower but neither will it happen against our will. We must "put ourselves in God's way", so to speak, and wait patiently.

I also appreciate the sense that we need a community that supports a different way of living if we want to live differently. We don't simply need people to hold us accountable or give us pep talks, we need a community whose rhythms and patterns intentionally model and encourage a different way of life.

Not only does the spiritual disciplines tradition encourage community with others living today, it draws upon wisdom from the ages. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we learn old ways of living passed down through the ages. We walk down a well-worn path that our fathers and mothers have told us is a good path. We do not have to find our own way; we are free to find the Way that was there before we were born.

So at the retreat, I won't say there was a Life-Changing Moment. Rather, I experienced an entirely different communal rhythm. I got a chance to take a little walk down the path and talk about it with some friends. I learned about making a Rule of Life, and it isn't a 3 Step solution to all my problems. But I do think the idea of taking on disciplines in community which can help me intentionally honor the values I say I have is one I will stick with for a long time.

I am not very good at this. This will take a long time. At this point, it only takes the slightest distraction from my normal rhythms to throw me off from the disciplines I'm trying to take up. But that is ok. Some things take a long time.

Paul Tillich on Systematic Theology

2008-02-22T21:29:00.002-05:00

This quote is from the 3rd volume of Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology (tip of the hat to WTM).

The question “Why a system?” has been asked ever since the first volume of my systematics appeared. In one of the books that deals critically with my theology…the fact of the system itself, more than anything stated within the system, is characterized as the decisive error of my theology…There are many reasons for aversion to the systematic-constructive form in theology; one is the result of confusion of a deductive, quasi-mathematical system…with the systematic form as such…

For me, the systematic-constructive form has meant the following. First, it forced me to be consistent. Genuine consistency is one of the hardest tasks in theology (as it probably is in every cognitive approach to reality), and no one fully succeeds. But in making a new statement, the necessity of surveying previous statements in order to see whether or not they are mutually compatible drastically reduces inconsistencies. Second, and very surprisingly, the systematic form became an instrument by which relations between symbols and concepts were discovered that otherwise would not have been apparent. Finally, the systematic construction has led me to conceive the object of theology in its wholeness, as a Gestalt in which many parts and elements are united by determining principles and dynamic interrelations.

I dig it.

Fundamentalist Christians and Atheists: A Marriage Made in... Heaven?

2008-02-14T21:20:00.004-05:00

Some atheists think fundamentalists are morally reprehensible, lacking in critical thinking skills, superstitious, unable or unwilling to comprehend or acknowledge the results of science, and willing to go to great lengths to justify their already-held beliefs rather than being open to evidence which contradicts those beliefs.

On these counts, they will more than likely happily side with moderate-to-leftish Christians who believe in evolution, don't claim they can prove the existence of God, don't believe people are condemned to hell simply for not being Christians, don't believe people are eternally condemned to hell at all, believe in taking care of the earth, believe in taking care of the poor, happily agree women can and should "lead" as well as men in every arena, and don't condemn people on the basis of sexual preference. They will probably agree these folks are more sensitive to and committed to truth, better critical thinkers, etc.

But the one thing some atheists won't say is that fundies are bad readers, and they can never agree that moderate Christians are good readers (except when it comes to science, I suppose). This fact just mystifies me. On every issue, they disagree with fundamentalist Christians except the issue of interpreting the text. They somehow think fundamentalists are the most logically and intellectually sound on this one issue.

Some might protest that these atheists agree with the fundamentalist reading and this is why they reject the Bible. Well, to that I say: good for them. But to explain my confusion, try to understand in what case you think that a better reading of an ancient text is going to come from the group who is morally insensitive, lacking in critical thinking skills, and inflexibly ideologically committed before entering any discussion.

It seems to me pretty silly. Better readers of ancient texts are those who possess imaginative empathy, those who are not ideologically driven but open to new ideas, those who are committed to truth and willing to adapt their beliefs, and those who read a much larger body of ancient texts with and accept the results of archeology and developments in our understanding of languages. But for some reason when it comes to the Bible, there's a whole set of atheists who seem all too happy to ignore this fact. I just don't get it.

Against Scripture as Epistemic Norm

2008-02-06T16:49:00.000-05:00

In theologically conservative Christian traditions in the modern US, we've typically said that the claims we find in Scripture must be true and authoritative, no matter what we think about them. As evidence for this claim, we have tended to point to the historicity of the gospels, their testimony to Jesus' miracles, the resurrection, the miracles performed through the apostles, the apostles' commitment to their beliefs even unto death, etc. In other words, all the evidence for the moral and factual claims that we must accept in Scripture are external to the content of those claims, or how we feel about that content. The above view is what I'm going to call treating Scripture (or, from a Roman perspective, Scripture+Tradition) as an "epistemic norm" (EN).

Before we go further, some definitions and caveats for the purposes of this essay.

A proposition "X" can be moral, or factual, (i.e. it can be "you should do..." or it can be "such and such happened/will happen).

"is taught in Scripture" means by the best possible exegesis, which is to say, ignoring stuff that was "taught" by people who the text presents as wrong, or simple misreadings, etc.

Now then, with these definitions, we can say this. If we are treating scripture as an epistemic norm, then for any proposition X, if it is taught in Scripture then we must accept it as true regardless of what we think or feel about the content of X, since the evidence for its truth is completely external to itself (back in the miracles, historicity of the gospels, etc.).

With me so far? If this sounds crazy to you, then you can skip the rest and my question is not directed at you. But a lot of people seem to buy this view. In arguments they might say "This is what is taught in Scripture", as proof that it must be true, which assumes that Scripture is already proven to contain only true beliefs, their truth proven solely by their presence in Scripture.

So now to my question. Once more, if you agree with this view, what I have called the EN view of Scripture, then you agree with this:

"For any proposition X, if X is taught in Scripture, it must be true regardless of the content of X."

My question is this: if
1) X=the institution of Slavery in the US was *right* and should not have been abolished.
2) X was taught in Scripture
Would you accept X as true?

If you say yes, well I don't really have any gripe with you as far as consistency and coherency are concerned. I disagree, but our disagreement is outside the scope of this essay. Similarly, if you already rejected the EN view of Scripture or the Canon then I have no quarrel with you.

But if you bought that EN view of Scripture, and you answered my question above with a "No", then I would like to hear an explanation. It would appear that something is telling you that proposition X is wrong, and in this case, that something is so powerful as to override what you are willing to accept from Scripture. Something is guiding you in your reading of Scripture, such that you recognize that some things are out of bounds even if Scripture taught it, even if all that evidence for the truth of Scripture (miracles, resurrection, etc.) was still true. What is that something, and how do you square that with what you agreed to above?

It seems to me there is no possible way to hold the epistemic norm view without conceding that Scripture completely trumps your moral intuition to the extent that you would have to accept slavery, rape, genocide, or whatever, if Scripture taught those things. If, on the other hand, you would say that those things are wrong no matter what, and insist instead that Scripture would never teach those things, then you must agree that somehow your moral intuition plays a role in how you read Scripture.

At the very least, you would have to agree that somehow the content of the teachings of Scripture plays a role in why you accept it, i.e. the evidence for any given claim in Scripture is not entirely external to that claim. This implies that it is not enough to justify a moral or factual claim to simply appeal to whether or not it is taught in Scripture. Thus Scripture is not an epistemic norm, and we must justify our claims using Scripture, but also something else, such as moral intuition, reason, experience, church history, etc.

Note that there is still room for Scripture to be taken (by Christians) as evidence of a claim, and perhaps even prima facie reason to believe it (meaning that something taught in Scripture should roughly be taken to be true until there is significant reason to believe it false). But even so, if you are willing to reject outlandish claims even if they were taught in Scripture, you are admitting that presence in Scripture does not constitute proof.

Footnote 1: I am fairly certain that it is irrelevant to my argument whether or not Scripture does or does not teach that US Slavery was ok, since I insist that from the EN view what we think about the content has no bearing on its truth.

Footnote 2: Though I used only a moral example above, we note that we could make the same type of case with factual claims, e.g. what if Scripture taught that the Roman Empire still ruled Western Europe in 2005.

Footnote 3: It has been pointed out to me that the above argument is basically the most common argument against Divine Command Theory (the idea that if God commands something it is thereby made good). So I guess my argument is that if you don't accept Divine Command Theory, you also cannot logically accept an EN view of Scripture or the Canon.

Ground Rules for Conversation #1: The Principle of Charity (Or, "Two Straw-Men Walked Into A Bar...")

2008-01-24T20:16:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a bit lately about good and bad conversation, and good and bad arguments. I've had quite a bit of experience with both, and some things I've learned from academic argumentation turn out to be reflections of what are simply good ways of talking to people with whom you disagree. So I offer these entries for what they're worth as suggestions for good habits so that your conversations are not a waste of time.

Ground Rule #1: The Principle of Charity
The principle of charity is a way of approaching another person's argument or claim. It is particularly useful when confronted with a viewpoint you have never heard before, or that you are inclined to dismiss right off the bat. Philosophers use this principle when responding to each other's arguments. In this essay I'll explain what the principle is and give some reasons why it is useful, and then suggest what its use in conversation might look like.

Part of the reason I like this principle so much is that is a philosophical application of the classical Christian virtue of charity, which is just a very old word for "love." So you can think of the principle as showing "charity" to those with whom you converse. Sometimes people you talk to don't communicate clearly, but this principle suggests that you should help make up for that rather punishing them for it immediately.

According to the venerable Wikipedia, the principle of charity is "an approach to understanding a speaker's statements by interpreting the speaker's statements to be rational and, in the case of any argument, rendering the best, strongest possible interpretation of an argument." In other words, give the other person the benefit of the doubt. When interpreting and evaluating their argument, assume the other person is not an idiot.

"But," you will surely protest, "what if my opponent is an idiot? Why shouldn't I treat him like one?" Well, part of the answer is a bit self-interested: you want to avoid wasting time defeating straw men.

A straw man is an argument or belief that is so extreme or obviously flawed that no one actually holds it. Or you might say it is an unfair misrepresentation of someone else's views. But it is similar enough to what your conversation partner does believe to appear on first glance to actually be those beliefs. Thus, defeating a straw man argument can often look like defeating the person's real argument. In reality, defeating a straw man just wastes time.

Some examples (taken from here):
Bill:"Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

In this case, the speaker is dismantling a straw man, since Senator Jones did not say that the country should be defenseless. He simply objected to one particular military program.

How could Bill have responded according to the principle of charity? Well he would have to start out assuming that Senator Jones is not suggesting something so extreme as "leaving us defenseless." Bill must ask, why would Senator Jones want that if he were a rational person? He would have to find the actual reasons, such as what the actual effect of the submarine program would be, what the cost would be, how else the money could be better spent etc. If he did all this, Bill could provide a reasonable critique rather than defeating a straw man.

Here's one where two people both engage in straw men arguments: Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets:
Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy."
Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"
Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want to keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."

In this case, Bill is addressing the straw man of cleaning every day, which Jill didn't suggest, and Jill then attacked the straw man of Bill wanting to keep all his junk forever, something he never expressed either and probably doesn't actually want.

If Bill had applied the rule of charity, he would have to assume that Jill isn't suggesting that they clean everyday, but simply this day, or perhaps whenever the closets get a bit messy. He could have responded that they are not messy enough to warrant cleaning. Jill, on the other hand, could have stopped at her first sentence, assuming that Bill is rational, and probably doesn't actually want to keep all his junk forever.

In these examples it is clear that adhering to the rule of charity would have assisted these folks in their arguments, forcing them to be stronger and more convincing. For example, if Bill chose to apply the principle of charity to Senator Jones' rejection of the submarine program, his argument would have been strong enough to refute even an intelligent person who wanted to drop the program, rather than just some imaginary person who wants the country to be defenseless. The fact that the resulting argument is stronger when you apply the principle of charity than it would be otherwise is one of the reasons philosophers use it.

But the thing I want to highlight here is that both of these cases are not just bad arguments. They are cases of bad conversation. The problem isn't just that the arguments produced are weak. I would suggest that the reason such arguments come about in the first place is because we don't pay attention to each other well enough. We respond too quickly, rejecting a person's opinion or argument before we have fully understood it. We are arguing back when we should be asking clarifying questions. It is probable, for example, that Bill #1 simply doesn't understand the senator's argument about the submarine program because he hasn't really listened yet.

The trick here is that we do this when we think we have understood. So how do we know when we have really understood versus when we merely think we have? Well, that's where the principle of charity comes in. If your interpretation of your conversation partner's argument is one that requires him to be an idiot, you stop and ask clarifying questions. Try very hard to assume your partner is rational and intelligent. If it is not clear how he could be rational and intelligent and think what he does, ask clarifying questions. Raise your concerns. But do so expecting that when you understand, you will no longer be forced to believe he's an idiot.

A good measure of when you have successfully done this is when you can state your friend's argument in your own words in a way that she would agree with. If you can do that, then you have probably understood her actual argument and can offer a counterargument if you still disagree.

In my experience, by this point you will probably be able to see precisely where you disagree. Conversation can happen fairly naturally after we've listened long enough. The trick is withholding judgment at the very beginning. The principle of charity will help you get past this and actually have a good, fruitful conversation, even if you and your friend still end up disagreeing.

The Appropriateness of Protest

2007-11-12T18:29:00.000-05:00

"Based on your readings of textbooks and then of psalms of lament and perhaps especially the book of Lamentations, please comment on the following issue: Under what circumstances is protest to God appropriate in Christian worship, life, and theology? Are there limits to such protest? And, what does your view of this question say about your view of divine agency and goodness?"

I'd suggest these texts teach us that protest and lament are ok and often necessary from where we sit. Nick brought up Habakkuk, and it is worth noting that God's response was a legitimate answer to Habakkuk's protest. If David and the prophets, and even Jesus, needed the voice of protest to God, then I think we should recognize it as not just a necessary thing, but as part of our faithfulness.

It is important to see these protests and laments in the context of a more comprehensive life of devotion and worship, *but* it is not necessarily a mark of strength or goodness to be able to look at gross injustice and easily join in praise songs. Nor is it a sign of theological sophistication to be, as so many of us are, beneficiaries of injustices and talk about God's sovereignty.

I'd say we need more people who just can't make sense of just how messed up the world is, and having wrestled with God, are forced to say "God how can you be silent through all of this? Where are you?"

After all, if God is as concerned and grieved by these things as we proclaim, perhaps God wants to hear prayers like these sometimes. If injustice bothered us that much, then perhaps we would repent and call others to repent.

Seeing the Later Prophets in Continuity with the Earlier

2007-11-09T22:46:00.000-05:00

"In this week's prophets, there is a recognizable shift from pessimism to hope. Based on your readings, how does this shift take place? What theological justification exists for it in the texts themselves? By extension, when is hope justified today? By this I don't mean merely hope for an eternal reward/resolution of the problem, but hope in the present world. How do we articulate a theology of hope for today's church and world?"

In my mind, these later prophets are still doing the same work of the earlier prophets: interpreting their recent history and present in light of Israel’s identity as God’s chosen people. They are trying to look at what’s happening and find God there. The situation has changed and so the results of this work change with it. The exile had been interpreted by the earlier prophets as Israel’s punishment, and so the later prophets naturally interpret the return as forgiveness and restoration (in both cases this is true even if they are predicting exile or return).

It is important that not all the people interpreted these events in the same way. If, as Collins says, there were plenty of people who weren’t eager to return and rebuild the city or the temple, then it seems that hope was lacking among the people. This is in contrast to those before the exile who suffered from what might be called an overabundance of hope. In any case the main point I want to get at here is that these prophets must have meditated long and hard on a situation that didn’t appear hopeful. And I think that they wrestled hope out of the very narratives of judgment that the earlier prophets had uttered.

It seems to me that these prophets took the oracles of the earlier prophets as a sign that God was not finished with Israel. The additions we saw to earlier prophets are in line with what we see in the later prophets. The move to hope is theologically justified by their meditation on judgment and seemingly hopeless situations: they determined that judgment was a sign of God’s care and grace, and that such punishment was part of God’s plan to keep the covenant.

The question of when hope is justified today is a challenging one. In a sense, we can always be hopeful, since God’s ultimate aim involves our good. But we can also expect that along the way, grace will enter our lives in unexpected and painful ways. More specifically, we can be hopeful that God will not stand for idolatry, greed, and oppression. In that sense we can always preach hope to the oppressed, to the faithful, and to those who do justice to the poor.

Old Testament Week 8: Judgment is Grace

2007-10-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

One way of thinking about Amos is through the lens of the final unit, a promise of restoration to Israel. The editor of the book, a disciple or admirer of Amos frames the text to lead toward this unit. Based on your reading of Amos and of the other material for this course, how does the juxtaposition of hope and doom influence the reader (ancient Israelite or today's) to think about (1) the interaction between God and Israel, (2) the nature of grace and divine demand, (3) moral reflection on justice in society? How do hope and condemnation relate to each other, if they do? What implications might there be for us today given the shaping of this oracle?

The juxtaposition of hope and doom clarifies the purpose of judgment in God’s relationship with Israel: the purpose of judgment is to achieve restoration. This doesn’t mean that all punishment is rehabilitative, but at least it is clear that for the people of God, punishment is aimed at rehabilitation. This includes punishment as severe as exile. The very end of Amos also seems to have an absolute character that the previous chapters don’t have. God will judge Israel unless they turn back of their own accord. But God will restore them and bring them back even if they fall so far as to go into exile. This signals the infinite faithfulness of God to covenant even when the people of God are unfaithful, and God’s promises include bringing his people to faithfulness.

This gives a new character to earlier verses like 9:2. God will go to any lengths to punish and humble them, no matter where they try to run. Rather than reading this as a vindictive commitment to punishment or a cosmic balance of justice, we can read it is God’s commitment to restore his people no matter where they try to run.

Thus we can see the nature of grace is that God makes his people able to be faithful to covenant. We may imagine grace to be something separate, i.e. a lot of rain. But we learn in the prophets that good times do not always signal God’s approval. On the other hand, we see that hard times are the gift of God aimed at returning his people to faithfulness. So the best way to understand this is to see grace not resulting from faithfulness, but grace in a sense making God’s people in to a faithful people. God’s demands are a part of grace, as are judgment and blessings. God’s nature is faithfulness to covenant and it is apparent that God will not let his people go.

If we are to take God’s love for the people of God as a model for how we should relate to others, we might take seriously the idea that we should be very hesitant to condemn without also providing hope. What would a justice system look like if it was aimed at restoration rather than punishment, perhaps excepting extreme cases? I suggest it might mean that those who have been “unfaithful” in the past would not have to fear marginalization after they re-enter society. It might mean we would be committed to doing whatever we could as a society to restore people to right relationship with society.

Week 7 Old Testament Post

2007-10-22T09:07:00.001-05:00

Notice the extent to which the prophets cry for social justice. Based on your reading of the Bible, what assumptions underlie these appeals for justice? That is, what notions of society, human nature, etc. are in play? From your vantage point as a (post-?) modern American, how convincing are these views? Explain. And as before, please remember to bring to bear your readings for the course, not merely your personal opinion.

The prophets seem to share several assumptions that underlie their appeals for social justice. 1) They assume that all people are created in God’s image and therefore are precious. 2) They assume that God is active throughout history and is supreme over all nations. Moreover, they see God’s action in history directed not just towards bringing about justice, but also towards showing the nations that the God of the universe is just and to teach them what justice looks like. 3) They assume that God has chosen Israel specifically to be a model to the nations towards this goal.

In common with other Mesopotamian views, they see it as the responsibility of authority to do justice to the weak. Yet in while other cultures placed this responsibility solely on the king, the prophets see it as the responsibility of the whole nation. And rather than just an interaction between the king and the gods, justice has an outward focus; God wants Israel to be a model to teach everyone. As a people with oppression and liberation as a part of their story, they had compassion. They saw the importance of eradicating injustice as a universal phenomenon. For them this was the purpose—the end—of Torah. Yet they grappled with the fact that often Israel didn’t look much different than other peoples even when they obeyed most of the ritual requirements of Torah.

It also seems to me that the prophets share a common task or method. They each are trying to interpret their recent history and present in light of their assumptions, which seem to flow from their ancient history (the exodus, the monarchy, etc.). Each of the prophets displays thoughtful and passionate belief in justice and grapples with why things are not as they should be.

From my perspective the work of the prophets seems beautiful. I am filled with respect for the way they took the covenant with YHWH with utmost seriousness. I admire them for not settling for less than what was promised. I am convicted at how little I am bothered (most of the time) by how poorly today’s church in the US matches up with its mission (which, I think, is the same one Israel is charged with in the Old Testament) even when we participate in the ritual aspects of our religion. And I am frankly a little scared by the way they interpret history and pronounce judgment for injustices of which I am guilty.

An Invitation

2007-10-05T20:13:00.001-05:00

This week's Old Testament discussion question and my answer:

As you will see/have seen this week, the Bible's portrayal of David, as well as of other heroes, is exceedingly complex and multilayered. What does the portrayal of David's qualities say about the nature of divine election? Why choose someone like David? What does this say about the God portrayed in 1-2 Samuel?

As several people have noted, it is somewhat ironic when people claim to have figured out what it was about David that made God choose him, since the Scripture itself says the Lord doesn’t look at what man looks at. Since in this instance, the man was Samuel, claiming to understand this is claiming to be wiser than Samuel, or to transcend “what man looks at.” Who among us can claim to have done that? Whatever it is, we can’t see it. So God elects whom He chooses, and He doesn’t choose based on things that we humans look at. And God chose David rather than his brothers, whom, ostensibly, any of us would have chosen had it been up to us.

But David’s flawed nature shows us something else. David shows us what a human instantiation of being “after God’s own heart” means. I do think David’s story shows us, as so many have noted, what God can do rather than what a “good” man can do. We do see what God can do in the messiness of human life.

On the other hand, the story does indicate that it is something about David that makes God choose him. God is seeing something in David. This doesn’t fit the Calvinistic picture of God choosing someone completely independent of their who they are and then turning them into something good. God is responding to some good in David. So it isn’t perfection, it isn’t a specific quality we can see or not see, but it is something about the person, not merely God’s initiative. And afterwards the person is still flawed. This is a conundrum.

I suggest the way out is this: the story is in fact inviting us to make David’s story our story. David’s story gives us resources to see how God is already working in our own flawed lives. This is why the Psalms are still to this day useful as prayers. They are interwoven as part of a story is capable of containing and giving hope to our own wherever we happen to be. Finally we are given the resources to see God working in the lives of others and the corporate life of the people of faith.

When things are going well, David’s story tells us to thank God and to be humble, for it is possible to fall from great heights. When things are going terribly, David’s story tells us to cry out to God and believe we are heard, but to trust that God is forming us because such times happen even to God’s chosen. Perhaps the story of how God chooses David is can lead us to the story of how God chooses each one of us.

Pointed At A Theology of the Law?

2007-09-15T00:29:00.001-05:00

The prompt followed by my answer:

"Christians have struggled with Law at least since Paul and James. Talk about how we would construct a theology of law from biblical materials. or, asked another way, how do we appropriate the OT legal material in today's church? We cannot merely generalize about the need for norms, though that's a good start. We must try to deal with the specifics of the law in some way."

I think the debate over how to understand the Law goes to the heart of Jesus’ conflict with the religious authorities of his day, and many people have noticed this so far. Therefore, in agreement with several posters to this point, I would suggest that a Christian theological understanding of Law must start with the way Jesus uses the Law.

In Jesus there is clearly a tension between the ways he appears to flout the Law and his promise that he came to fulfill the law rather than to erase it. As far as I can tell, Jesus sees the Law as a gracious revelation of the heart of God, as Brant would put it. So for Jesus what is important is what the Law is getting at rather than the individual rules themselves.

To insert another NT interlocutor, Paul says this: “What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.”

So for Paul, the Law is getting at Christ. But it takes the form that it does because of human transgressions. I’d suggest that when he talks about a mediator not just representing one party, Paul is indicating that the Law is formed both by God’s interests and by the interests of the people to whom the Law was given, so to speak. What I mean to say is, the Law is shaped for humanity embodied by Israel at the time it was given.

So what does it mean to get at the heart of the Law? I think all this implies two things. First, we have the level many people have suggested already: we must understand how the Law functioned for the people to whom it was given. The principles we find there can often be picked up and “applied” to our lives today. But secondly, we must see that what God is doing in the Law is, in essence, the same thing God is doing in the Incarnation. God is getting his hands dirty, becoming involved with human beings at their level. So we cannot expect everything we find there to have some direct ethical or moral application.

We must sometimes decide that God was dealing with the people as they were in the place where they were, such as the law commanding the stoning of disrespectful children or women caught in adultery. I would even go so far as to suggest that the sacrificial system is an example of God working with a group of people where they are, while still making them distinct and pointing them towards the revelation in Christ, rather than, say, concluding that there is something fundamentally good about killing an animal for one's own sins.

But this is careful and dangerous work. There are very clear and obvious dangers, and perhaps what I’ve suggested already goes too far. But I think this is the kind of grappling we have to do, struggling to avoid two errors. On the one hand, it is a mistake to attribute fundamentally to God what is only there because of the particular historical place of the people receiving the Law. On the other hand, putting ourselves in the place to discern perfectly what is of God and what is human is precarious, and we must only do so prayerfully and in conversation with the community of faith both now and historically.

Our only hope is that God guides the grappling of the community with the text and with God. It is only this type of work that can allow us to understand and imitate Jesus’ and Paul’s uses of the Law, and see that mercy is greater than sacrifice.

Is The Bible A Story?

2007-09-07T18:20:00.000-05:00

This is the second week's question and post from Old Testament. I think my answer here didn't come together as well as my last one, but here it is. Lemme know what you think!

"As several of you have noted, the Bible has many elements of a story. Yes, as we talked about in class, the meaning of the text in some measure derives from the interpreting community, not just from the text itself. So, in what sense is the Bible a single, unitary story? Or is this unity derived from the outside? Or does the unity also sit side-by-side with fractures in the story, with discontinuities? And, most importantly, what does any of this mean theologically? How adequate a starting place is the category of story for our biblical theological reflections?"

The perspective of faith would be that the Bible does contain a deep underlying unity that comes from divine guidance and involvement. As has been pointed out, though plenty of attempts have been made, as yet no *single* theme has been shown to dominate and provide unity to the whole. And yet, we see threads running throughout that for the community of faith seem to suggest the fingerprints of God on all of it. I would suggest theologically that we can’t expect to be able to boil down that unity to a particular concept or theme. Since the unity comes from God and happens in the community of faith it is transcendent and eludes our articulation even as we experience it.

I would say that “story” is a useful category for understanding the Bible in a number of ways. It is useful because it captures the faith proclamation that the Bible contains unity without forcing the text into a category (such as a systematic theology) in which it clearly doesn’t fit. Also, narrative is a much more pervasive element than anything else. Thirdly, the idea of Scripture as a story comes much nearer to explaining the way humans actually come to be converted or captivated by the Bible. We don’t generally find a set of arguments with which we agree or even historical claims which we research and confirm, but instead we feel an inward resonance with the spirit of the text. I think this is what Christians mean by the involvement of the Holy Spirit in us, and by the Bible being the Word of God.

On the other hand, as has also been pointed out, not all of Scripture is story. Moreover, since if unity exists it is beyond articulation, I don’t think we should limit our approach to one overarching category, even if that category is as nuanced and powerful as story can be.

I think we have to make a theological distinction between the way in which other stories have unity and the way this one does. We need to recognize that if God is uniquely involved, then no category is going to completely contain what it is that is going on in Scripture. So I'd suggest that for us unity does sit side-bye-side with fractures and discontinuities even as we proclaim unity is underlying them. What does this mean? I think it means we should be careful not to impose categories on the text or too easily resolve tensions. Finally, we recognize that God is the one who gives unity to the Bible in a way that will always be beyond us, but He promises to be with us in our attempts at understanding it if we approach with humility and as a community.

How does God work?

2007-09-01T23:04:00.000-05:00

For my Intro to Old Testament class, we have to give brief responses to questions on an online discussion board. Here's the question and my response:

"Discuss among yourselves whether it matters theologically if the Bible is a composite text with a developmental history as this week's reading suggest. What is at stake theologically in this discussion? What can be gained or lost by whatever option you take?"

I think what is at stake is our understanding of how God interacts with humanity. From what to us would be a “traditional” understanding in which the texts are not composite, God inspires individuals and then they write. What they have written then becomes authoritative for the rest of us. Then it is essential that the author’s original meaning is understood and that nothing else is added on, since it was that individual who was divinely inspired. The human necessity to interpret then becomes a part of our fallen natures, since ideally we would all read and understand exactly the same thing. Diversity of opinion in the church is much less possible, since there is one proper meaning. The church then becomes a fragile alliance based on general agreement on what that one meaning is. Division is then an ever-present threat.

On the other hand, if the text is composite and developed over time both as a reflection of and a partial answer to the community’s theological struggles, then we would probably have to conclude that God does not work like that at all, or God is a defeated God, since we don’t even have the original texts. Further it would seem that God can only reach the (best) scholars and the lucky (elect?), if anyone at all, since the tools necessary to get to the original intent are the tools of scholarship.

But what if, instead of God working primarily by investing himself in individuals, God invests himself in the community as a whole? In this case, we can readily deal with the idea of scripture as a composite text. We can see God working in the various dissonant voices, and we are free to see God working in dissonant voices in the community of faith today. Rather than being driven apart by a desire to get the text right, we are driven together by the knowledge that it is only in the community as a whole that God promises to work. And rather than being motivated to oversimplify the text and resolve tensions, we are motivated to read the individual voices as faithfully as we can while still seeing the voice of God in the whole.

The Poetics of Chess and Math

2007-06-21T00:53:00.001-05:00

I had a conversation with my friend William the other night about what makes poetry (or rather, the poetic) possible. It's had me thinking since we talked and I think he's really onto something that applies well to disciplines I know a little bit more about.

Basically he suggested that all people have an imaginative or creative sense within us that pushes outward. Our rational, realistic mind, or even perhaps reality itself, pushes back inward against the imaginative sense. The poetic arises from the pushing back and forth between the two. Both are necessary for the poetic, since imagination unchecked by reality is incoherent and unintelligible while without the imaginative sense we cannot see any possibilities which might create tension with the way the world is, or seems to be from a given angle. Without the imagination there would be nothing to say, no reason to feel any particular way about a given event or perspective.

This would probably express pretty well what it is that a human mind can do that I can't imagine a computer doing. Can a set of algorithms imagine? Is imagination reducible to parallel processing? Can a computer write a poem? I suppose if you assume that is happening in our brain is a set of rigid algorithms, then the answer has to be yes. But it seems to me to be the quintessentially human activity.

A computer program can try different possibilities given a set of parameters for evaluating them, but how can a program question the parameters that it is given? If it is told to evaluate the parameters of its evaluation, it has to be given parameters to judge its parameters by. How can a computer think "outside the box" of its own programmed goals? Yet I think humans are able to do this.

Why People Are Better At Chess

In any case, I think I can see all essentially human endeavors as fitting into the scheme my friend suggested. Chess is a great example, and the difference between the way a human plays and the way a computer plays is illuminating.

People are still better than computer programs at chess, despite the vast advantage in calculations per second. People can perform long-term strategy, imagining where they want to be a long ways down the road, and then, when there are bumps in the road, make imaginative connections between what they planned and what actually happened. Then they can still get where they wanted to go.

A computer cannot use imagination in the same way we do. It has to consider each possibility and evaluate it according to a set of rules. It is stuck with the realistic mode of thought without the imagination pushing out to new and unexpected places.

It cannot (although maybe someday it will) choose to go through a seemingly worse position if it cannot see exactly how it leads to a better position, while a human player's imaginative sense might push him to try.

The way chess develops is through such innovations. Chess is a very different game today because after a lot of people try a given variation, its possibilities are better understood. Sometimes it is "refuted" when a certain response is shown to be effective more often than not. Sometimes it is left open, but the intricacies become more and more subtle as it is explored in greater depths.

A computer could conceivably simulate all that, if it were powerful enough to simply try ever possible game, and this is where the analogy fails. Chess could conceivably be "solved" meaning computer methods could eventually figure out what the "right" move(s) are in any given position.

But if in the world (the physical world, the world of relationships, the socio-political world, etc.) the possibilities are not limited in number as they are in chess, it might be that computers will never be able to perform what the human imagination can, since the computer will always have to limit its considerations to possibilities that fit certain parameters. The human imagination will always be pushing against whatever the parameters are that we believe are there.

This means humans often try things that don't work, but it also allows for moments of genius, moments of the poetic, when the imagination pushes through and finds a way that the realistic mind would have had to rule out from the start.

What It Means To Do Math

I was just reading some career advice for mathematicians when I came across this (I cut out the more specific math stuff, but I thought this explanation was so close to what I wanted to say that I had better just quote the whole thing.):

"As an undergraduate one is often first taught mathematics in an informal, intuitive manner …but then told a little later that to do things "properly" one needs to work and think in a much more precise and formal manner … It is of course vitally important that you know how to think rigorously, as this gives you the discipline to avoid many common errors and purge many misconceptions. Unfortunately, this has the unintended consequence that "fuzzier" or "intuitive" thinking (such as heuristic reasoning, judicious extrapolation from examples, or analogies with other contexts such as physics) gets deprecated as "non-rigorous". All too often, one ends up discarding one's initial intuition and is only able to process mathematics at a formal level. The point of rigor is not to destroy all intuition; instead, it should be used to destroy bad intuition while clarifying and elevating good intuition. It is only with a combination of both rigorous formalism and good intuition that one can tackle complex mathematical problems; one needs the former to correctly deal with the fine details, and the latter to correctly deal with the big picture." (from this page)

So we see that the actual work of doing mathematics (which is to say, proving new things or improving the communal understanding of numbers/logic/mathematical constructions, rather than mere problem-solving) involves the interplay between an imaginative sense and a realistic or rational imposition by the rules of logic/nature/what-have-you.

The imaginative part is what allows mathematicians to see possibilities of new concepts, form possible relationships between concepts, or envision striking possibilities for new ways of trying to answer certain types of questions. The realistic part is what pushes back against the imagination, cutting out poor use of intuition or careless guess-work.

The development of modern mathematics has involved the generalization and interrelation of concepts that arose independently in various fields. This just cannot be done without a bold imagination, that is, without a willingness and ability to envision what the world might be like in a radically open way. One has to be willing to say "maybe concept A and concept B are really just two examples of some larger concept C" or "solutions to problem type A might give us a starting point for what solutions to problem type B might be like" and then explore imaginatively how that might be so.

At that point the rational sense jumps in and pushes back, sometimes saying "nope, that just ain't the way it is" and sometimes saying "maybe but you have to try harder". Sometimes the imagination is spent, and the rational mind has to grind out a path based on what has worked before, and the imagination steps back and fills in the conceptual connections later. But at some beautiful points, both agree, and the imaginative and rational senses exult together at the beauty of what their long struggle produces.

A Natural Theology of God the Father

2007-06-18T12:45:00.001-05:00

For my father—I know in some ways we do not speak the same language, but I think we understand each other.

Theology often takes on the character of a discipline of the mind. But modern psychology has shown how the possibilities that a mind can reckon with are heavily influenced by the formation of that particular mind. So theology is a lived thing, and our real experiences in real relationships shape the way we can understand God in ways that often go unnoticed. For Christians, this means that our understanding of God is often shaped by our experience with earthly fathers.

I think this has far-reaching implications. A friend pointed out that in our broken world many people live with an "angry dad" theology. Their struggle to make sense of their physical dad's anger in a way that would allow them some measure of control and the possibility of placating that anger colors everything about their grappling with the biblical text, their understanding of Church, Heaven, Hell, the Eucharist, sin, redemption, baptism, etc. Certain possibilities are not open to them without great struggle since they have no experience with anything different.

In reflecting upon Father's day, I believe it is right that I express gratitude for the theological possibilities that you have opened up to me so readily. I've been thinking about this a bit, and I'd like to just mention a few of those possibilities and how you opened them up for me.

A God who likes me and is proud of me

It sometimes seems to me that so many people choose their theology to make sense of the fact that God doesn't like them. They seem to reject as sentimental any idea of God as concerned with the intimate details of their lives. They are so oriented towards figuring out what God wants and seem never to consider that God might actually want them to do something they enjoy.

I thank you for the fact that this is not so for me.

Whenever I have thrown myself into something I love, I have always felt your delight. You have been urged me to be cautious and to be practical, yes, because that is also your job. But when I actually do the work and share with you the things I'm doing, you so naturally enjoy it hearing about it.

Because of this, it is not hard for me to imagine that God loves when I love something. I can picture a God who puts certain passions and delights in our hearts so that we will pour ourselves into loving that aspect of his creation. I thank you for making possible that theology of calling that includes our natural passions.

A God who forgives easily

I have always known that you liked my personality because shared jokes and enjoy the same sorts of things. But what is more, though I have resisted the possibility every way I know how, I have discovered over and over that you still like me even when I screw up. Due to the theology I grew up with, I developed a lot of shame, so I have often tried to hide myself. But over and over you have acted contrary to that theology, and it is through your ready forgiveness that I first conceived that God was also ready to forgive.

You were ready to do the work of helping me to overcome the things that enslaved me, and down and dirty work it often was. You came alongside me as well as set boundaries for me so that I could be free. So it was no "cheap grace" and your forgiveness was not just words.

For many people, there is a tension between God's insistence on making us holy and His willingness to forgive us. Perhaps in their experiences forgiveness and warmth of attitude were withheld until "holiness" was achieved. But I thank you for opening up the possibility to me that God, while insisting on doing the full work of healing, is always ready to forgive. Thank you for showing me so clearly that nothing I can do can turn away his desire for my good.

A God who loves all his children far more than we love each other

It is relatively easy for me to believe in a God who loves all of his children. Growing up in a house that went from three to six in my lifetime was not easy. Anytime you get that many people together for years, you learn the challenge of community. You get to know each other really well and what you find isn't always pretty.

There were plenty of times I saw, with the incredibly clarity of a child (or a teenager, or a young adult), exactly what was wrong with one or the other of my siblings and what they deserved. There were plenty of times when I didn't like them and, in truth, hated them in my heart for the way they hurt me.

But so many times I saw you love them and show mercy. I saw you continue to believe that they would turn out alright and that they just needed a little help. Over and over I saw you concerned with their well-being, with helping them to grow up right, rather than concerned with what they deserve.

As I have grown older I have concluded that you simply loved each of us more than I could understand. You did not conclude that one or the other of us was the "bad" kid, or that all of us were bad kids, or that we should suffer. You just believed in the good in each of us even when we clearly saw the bad in each other.

As a result, it is easy for me to see God doing that with us. I can still see (with the clarity of a 24 year old man) the evil in others, not to mention their inconsistency, irrationality, their pettiness and their greed. But in spite of that, it is not hard for me to imagine that God does love each of us far more than I can know and believes in the good in them far longer than I am capable of doing.

A God who will save all His children

It seems a lot of people feel the need to draw the line somewhere, and most of them feel pretty confident they know where it is. I wonder if the experience of abandonment, and the temptation to blame oneself and to find a reason for it, would push someone towards this kind of understanding. They have never experienced grace that can overcome anything before, so there has to be a line somewhere. And if they can just know where that somewhere is, they can stay on the right side and in God's love.

But because of my experience of forgiveness from you, and my observation of your patience with my siblings, I wouldn't put it past God to be so patient with us that in the end He saves all of His children. The Hell we make for ourselves may be very real, and yet the Kingdom of Heaven may be the reality that wins out in the end.

A God who is faithful

It is sad that a father who has stuck by his family for more than 25 years is so rare. It is sad to have to mention this, but it has to be mentioned. A lot of people have a very hard time believing that God both has always been there and will always be there for them. I don't doubt that this is tied to the fact that so many don't experience a faithful father as children.

I won't say it is always easy for me. But I have seen and continue to see faithfulness lived. Thank you for doing and being that. It means so much. Even when things were really rough at home, even it seemed like the fights would never end and like no one in the whole house understood me (yeah, I was a teenager) I never once wondered about where you would be. Even though I didn't always get how much that meant and I didn't always see the beauty in our family, you were always there building it, and I always knew that.

In a similar way, because of that, you have opened up the possibility that amidst all the garbage, God is making something beautiful out of this big family. And I can imagine that maybe even when things are at their worst, He still hasn't left. I can see God's faithfulness through tough times because I have seen your faithfulness through tough times.

Thank you, more than I can say.

The Strangeness of Reading Athanasius

2007-06-08T22:15:00.001-05:00

This is not exactly a review of Athanasius' On the Incarnation of the Word, but these thoughts are a direct reflection on the things I have found strange or troubling in reading it.

The Strangeness of the Ancients, or, What was with those people?

First, I have to admit at first it seemed a little strange to me. I realized later that Athanasius carried the same strangeness that many of the ancient fathers (and indeed the Biblical writers) carry. He makes bolder statements than I am normally comfortable with, both with respect to his opponents and with respect to his confidence in his conclusions. He often makes arguments via analogy that lack the quality of being systematic in a way that bothers me, and I think, most post-Enlightenment readers. The issues he is passionately concerned with can seem to my mind to be so fine and abstract that they make me wonder why anyone would care so much.

The Estrangement of Po-Mo folks, or, Do I know you?

And yet, as I have considered (with help) why he might have done these things, and also why they might bother me, I have come to find what I think is a step towards understanding. As I thought about why these ancient theologians might write so vehemently against their opponents, I thought about what theologians and preachers today do. Certainly there are people who talk as vehemently (and more) as Athanasius or any of the fathers, but we label them sectarian.

But while I pondered the fact that the "wise" men of our day do not gather together and have each other's tongues cut out, or call each other fancy words for stupid, I remembered that they do often enough ignore each other. They may even be friendly when they talk, but for the most part they act as if the people they disagree with do not matter much. Jesus spoke to the heart of this when he said "If anyone hates his brother he has already murdered him in his heart."

Even more relevant, to say to someone "Racca!", which is, to curse them outright, one is answerable to a human court. But to say to someone "You fool!", a more societally acceptable slight that carries a more deceptive malice, one is answerable to God. So I think it's fair to say that while society has changed, it has mainly been external. We have distanced ourselves from each other. We have drifted far enough away that we don't have to care. Jesus was right to point out that there is little difference.

The Strangeness of Ideas without a Context, or, I have no idea why anyone would ask that question

In On the Incarnation of the Word Athanasius seems primarily concerned with showing that it was necessary that the work of renewing God's creation in man must be done by the self-same Word through which God effected creation to begin with, and that it was this Word that became incarnate in the man Jesus Christ.

To the mind of a relatively orthodox Christian reader, this all sounds nice, but he seems to be belaboring points that have been long accepted. This is not to say that all his ideas are long-accepted, but certainly the central thesis has been. So it can seem as if he is arguing over fine points that don't make a whole lot of difference, and not only so, but he is doing it unsystematically.

But in Athanasius' day, it seemed that the very different theology of Arius would win out. Arius taught that Jesus did not exist eternally with God, but was created or begotten. So what Athanasius was fighting for, against the odds it seemed, was a higher view of Christ and what He accomplished. It was for this he earned the epithet "Athanasius contra mundum" which for those who don't know Latin or Spanish, means "Athanasius against the world".

In thinking about this, and reading Athanasius, I begin to see why he might argue so vehemently for this. One of the beautiful things Athanasius does is to use Christian behavior to justify certain conclusions. At one point he argues that it is obvious that death has been defeated because the ease with which Christian martyrs face it. For Athanasius, this demonstrates clearly that death does not hold the power it once had.

This is not an argument that would hold much sway with anyone today. People might point to suicides, Kamikaze pilots, and militant extremists of all persuasions, not to mention honorable and admirable martyrs of other persuasions before and after Christ, to debunk Athanasius' argument. C.S. Lewis even points out that Athanasius couldn't make such arguments as easily today because of the checkered history we now have.

The strange beauty of truth contextualized, or Put some meat on those bones!

But if the example is given a real human context, I think we can catch a glimpse of why Athanasius would have found this convincing. I once knew a man named Richard who was a close friend of my father. He was a Christian, he even served as a missionary, and was known to write and preach on occasion. He was full of joy, full of laughter, humble, and easy to talk to. He was all these things amidst a movement of people who were largely serious, intense, and driven personalities, many quite proud.

He faced illness his whole life. My cousin was there when he finally passed, with brothers around singing hymns at his request. I wasn't there, but just hearing about the peacefulness with which he left this world still moves me near tears even as I write. Not tears of sadness, exactly, but tears at the beauty of seeing a dear truth lived. That was one of the few events that has ever led me to express myself with music (admittedly a very small bit of music).

When I think of that death (though Richard was not a martyr) I think I begin to get a sense of why Athanasius would have found such arguments convincing. Seeing someone face death with such peace does convince me--does make me believe without being final and universal proof--that death has been overcome in Christ and therefore in my friend Richard.

Today we seek to make arguments that are systematic, that could be taken anywhere and still be true. But Athanasius did not seek such arguments. He sought to enlighten by pointing to real, visceral, lived truths. He was not making abstract arguments disconnected from reality. He argued so passionately in the face of much opposition because of his real experience with the living Christ he found in Scripture and he allowed as evidence his real experience of Truth embodied by the Church.

Strange wisdom from the ancients, or, That crazy old man was onto something!

The more I consider it, the more I grateful I am for the strangeness I find in Athanasius. I recognize that I would find the same strangeness in the Bible if the words were not already so familiar to me. Old Athanasius puts us in touch with some things that are so strange to our ears, yet even in their strangeness have the ring of truth.

I think we have a lot to learn from the ancients. I don't think we should start arguing more vehemently, or do away with arguing systematically. But I do think we need to find a place for recognizing truth contextualized, particularly in the Church. We need to accept truths we see embodied by the Church, Christ's body, as admissible evidence in theological arguments.

And I do think we should get close enough to each other so that we cannot ignore each other. Come to think of it, we should get close enough to our faith that we cannot ignore it, nor ignore its Author. A strange idea, but, I think, true and beautiful.

Summer Reading

2007-06-01T08:45:00.000-05:00

So it's finally summer, and I've got quite a reading list cut out for me. I'm including more here than is likely for me to finish in the summer, but you never know. I'm going to try to behave as if right now is the beginning of graduate school for me, so maybe that will help.

I had three books recommended to me by Dr. Aquino, who will be my advisor. I also had several books recommended to me by Ben Guyer, a friend of mine who's a PhD student in religion/philosophy at FSU. And finally, in my own searching I picked a couple other books, and had an article recommended to me by my friend Carter. All on the topics of atonement/justification/deification/theosis. I'll be trying to review and respond to what I read on my own, and then post something readable here.

In the most likely chronological order of my reading (variations in Amazon delivery rates, available money to spend or copies at libraries could change the order):

"The Logic of Penal Substitution" by J.I. Packer (finished)
On The Incarnation of the Word by St. Athanasius (working on)
Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement by Paul Fiddes
Saved From Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross by Mark Heim
The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition by Norman Russell
On the Human Condition by St. Basil the Great
The Life of Moses by St. Gregory of Nyssa
On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ by St. Maximus the Confessor
The Creative Suffering of God by Paul Fiddes
Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement by Gustaf Aulen

So there you have it. Lots of good stuff to process and write about. This will be a good summer.

On Atonement Part II: The Incarnational Model

2007-05-20T12:51:00.002-05:00

So finally I'm going to try to put into my own words what the Incarnational model of salvation is. I'm going to try to explain it as best I can and also try to explain how I see it doing a good job making sense of the whole of scripture. In my next post I intend to explore how it might be possible to understand other theories (penal substitution/satisfaction, ransom, exemplar, etc.) in light of this one.

I'm going to try to do this generally and intuitively. I'm not going to prove it, define terms rigorously, cite a lot of scriptures, deal with all objections, or anything like that. Just a hand-waving kind of explanation of the direction I'm leaning. I'll still refer to particular points by contrasting them with the corresponding points in the penal substitution or satisfaction theories. Once again that's because that's what I know.

What is Justice?

In the west, we seem to have an abstract concept of justice that boils down to people getting what they deserve. For every crime there is an appropriate punishment, and if the guilty go unpunished then there is this concept of justice which is unsatisfied. So in theologies that buy into this western concept of justice, there is a conflict or tension between God's justice and His love. His love would seem to draw Him to forgive us while the fact that He is just means He must punish us. There are attempts to try to resolve this tension, but I don't think it can be done away with completely as long as we hold this western view of justice.

But from the perspective of an incarnational theory, justice is understood as right relationship. To satisfy justice is to stand in right relationship with God and with men, for there to be shalom. So taking this view, we see the problem of the Fall a bit differently. It isn't that there is an offense against an infinite God that necessitates infinite punishment, but instead that the relationship between God and man has been broken. God isn't concerned so much with the fact that He has to punish us to satisfy justice and conflicted about how to pour out His wrath but still save His children. Instead we have a picture of God who is solely and infinitely concerned with restoring His children to right relationship with Him at whatever cost.

This seems to make the most sense of the ethical views Jesus puts forth in the sermon on the Mount. It is actually more just to turn the other cheek than to fight against an evil person. If you wrong me and I forgive you without demanding retribution, that is more just than if I had demanded that you suffer the same wrong you inflicted on me. Why? Because these things all increase and restore shalom, and push the humanity towards right relationship with God. And these are in fact the very ways that God behaves towards us. So in this view God can and does forgive sins freely, but He also punishes, and whatever else is necessary to bring us into right relationship with Him.

And if we read the prophets, this is exactly the motivation they ascribe to God over and over. After those lengthy passages about God actively bringing destruction and judgment on Israel or, more often, about God allowing Israel to suffer the natural consequences of her actions, there's always the reason: so that man would turn back to God and shalom be restored.

What is Salvation?

Traditionally with the penal substitution model, there are two parts to salvation: justification and sanctification. The division here is pretty sharp: justification is the immediate removal of guilt, which presumably means if you died you'd go to heaven, while sanctification is the gradual increase in holiness that Christians should experience throughout their lives.

Justification here is tied to the debt/wrath idea. Once we appropriate Christ's sacrifice in our place, our debt/punishment is removed, and we are justified. But it is clear enough that salvation in the Bible also has to do with being freed from sins, and with living in righteousness and obedience rather than just being forgiven. On the other hand, proponents of penal substitution want to avoid sounding as if it is this obedience that merits salvation, so we have this idea that you are initially justified by faith, and the Holy Spirit also sanctifies you so that over time you are able to obey more fully.

In the incarnational model, salvation means sharing in the divine life of God. God does not merely want our relationship with him to be set back to zero, but the actual goal is theosis, or unification with God (forgive me if I'm not using the word technically, but it gets the general idea). We are created in His image, but we are to grow into His likeness, and share fully in His life. Because of our sin, and our broken relationship with God, we cannot do this. God remains alien to us. So God finds a way to repair our broken relationship and invite us to take part in His life.

Thus in the incarnational model the division between justification and sanctification is not so sharp. We are justified, or restored to justice (which is our right relationship with God) by entering into the covenant He has initiated. But that right relationship, that covenant, means not a legal transaction erasing debt, but participating in His divine nature and properly bearing His image, growing into His likeness.

So what is needed is away for us, fallen though we are, to participate in the life of God. It isn't a question of being worthy, or of merely having our sins removed, but rather being empowered, enabled, invited, and taught, to participate in the life of God as God intended.

How Jesus Saves

With this understanding of justice and salvation we can then move to a discussion of how it is that Jesus achieves our salvation in this model. So given that we needed to be saved, we needed to be brought into the life of God, what does God do? Does He call us to some infinite height that we cannot reach? Does He violently and painfully rip away all the parts of us that are unworthy? Does He purge the sin so that He can stand to look at us? I submit not. The thing that God does is to come down to that very point where we are and join us.

This is the incarnation. In Jesus, God lowers Himself into our situation. He comes alongside us and offers healing, love and compassion. He defends us from all that would oppress us, teaching us the true about God's nature, and opposing all human and spiritual forces that would keep us from participating in the life of God. He casts out demons, heals diseases, and opposes religious authorities who weigh down God's children with heavy burdens. He teaches us to restore Shalom, and He invites us to join in with Him in doing it.

Not only so, but He lowers Himself into our situation. He suffers what we suffer: temptation by the flesh and by the devil, alienation from God and from men, fear, doubt, uncertainty, and ultimately, terrible, violent, and unjust death. Jesus does not preach to us from above, but comes right down into the dirt with us. Yet He does it all with perfect submission.

As a result, we have a way through. God is no longer alien to us since He brought Himself down to where we are. So participating in God means participating in Christ. Participating in Christ means placing our faith in Him and learning to do what He did. We confess our sinfulness, the ways we have rebelled against God, and we resolve to repent and to join with Him. We see that God has come and participated in our lives, so we resolve to participate in His.

From this view, the crucifixion is the climax of God's participation in human suffering: alienation from God and finally death, which is the final result of sin. And the resurrection, more than just confirming that Jesus was right all along, is the decisive victory of God in a man over death. Salvation means joining in the divine life at the cross, at that moment of perfect submission poured out freely for us.

Some Symbols

God has given us a myriad of symbols to understand this more clearly so it is appropriate to try to parse those symbols in light of this view, to see if it is capable of giving meaning to (and receiving meaning from) them.

Looking at the ritual sacrifices, we can see the beginnings of the incarnational view. As the Hebrew writer says, the sacrifices themselves do not atone. But it does point to what is necessary. The penitent is required to lay his hands on an animal, cut it open and pour out the blood on the altar. The laying hands on points to identification with the animal. The blood symbolizes the life of the animal being poured out. So what we see in the sacrifice, from a Christian perspective, is the idea of identifying with another and receiving life from them, poured out freely. Jesus then is the perfect sacrifice, willingly pouring out his life so that we may receive it. To participate in this we must identify with Him, joining in His life.

This is why blood is such an important symbol in undertstanding Jesus. In John 6 when Jesus says his followers must eat his flesh and drink his blood, He is radically interpreting himself as the fulfillment of the sacrificial system. He is saying they can receive from Him the new life, the divine life.

This is why communion is such a powerful act. We invite in the divine life of Christ, knowing the tangibility of what Jesus offers us. New life, divine life, is no longer alien to us. We can take it and eat of it. It is offered to us, and our bodies and spirits are capable of processing it, as we can eat and process bread and wine because it is similar enough to ourselves. This is what Christ accomplished for us that was not available before. And He still accomplishes it when we take the sacrament together.

Anothing symbol for what's going on here is in John 15. Jesus in the vine and we are the branches. We receive life and nourishment from the vine. Branches can be grafted in, now as opposed to before, because now the divine life has become something which we can receive from. God is the gardner, but the gardner is not capable of nourishing the branches. There must be a vine to nourish branches, and so that is Jesus.

Indeed, from this perspective we can see the importance of the continued role of mediator that Christ has in Hebrews. He is our high priest. If it were merely a debt to be paid, then Jesus could be the sacrifice with no more need of a priest. But Jesus is still the contact point between us and the Father, we receive the divine life of the Father through Him.

Baptism, as Paul says, means joining in Christ's death so that we may join in His life. Taking on the baptized life means rising with Him and therefore doing what He does. We rise and become ministers of reconciliation, the body of Christ. We join in His life by spreading shalom and restoring the world to justice the way Christ did. Understood from this perspective, there is no division between evangelism, serving people, helping people mature who are already Christians, and helping to bring about social justice. All of this is part of the divine life of God, part of restoring justice, part of bringing about shalom.

The last image I'll mention is the image of the church as the Bride of Christ. That God would use the image of the intimacy of marriage speaks volumes. In Genesis it is said that a husband and wife become "one flesh." So it is with us and God. We become of one substance, and part of that becoming is God taking on flesh. The other part is us taking on Spirit. And I can think of no more potent image of intimacy, of sharing of space, than the act of marriage. And this is the language we are given.

On The Next Episode...

So that about covers my understanding of the incarnational theory of atonement, and I pretty much buy it. Next time I'll talk about how other theories can be understood and grounded by this one.

Link: Justice as Gratitude

2007-05-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

So I found a really cool new blog: On Journeying with those in Exile. I highly recommend checking it out. Dan is a guy who's gone a lot further than anyone I know in following Jesus towards the margins of society. His writing is very thoughtful, and in a way similar to Wendell Berry but not as far in degree, grounded by his actual attempts at living the stuff out.

Anyway this one post in particular about Justice as Gratitude was really helpful to me in my thoughts on atonement/deification. Dan talks about this book Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture by Professor David A. Desilva. In this particular post Dan explores the possibility of an understanding of justice rooted in the 1st century culture that seems to do away with this justice/mercy dichotomy that we've come up with. I dig it. I dig it a lot.

On Atonement Part 1.5, Some Metanarrative

2007-04-19T19:01:00.000-05:00

After I posted my last entry, some great comments have been made both here on blogger and on facebook have led me to make an intermediate post and think about where this is going. I'll frame this as a few comically stated questions that I feel I should be directed towards, and subsequently answered by, me.

Why did you focus on penal substitution when you titled the post "on atonement"? Did you think that was the only theory there was till you came along? What's your problem anyway?

I titled the series "On Atonement" but then the first post only addressed one particular theory that I happen to have some problems with. Well, my intention is to go into the other theories I am aware of inasmuch as I am aware of them in the next post. Maybe the series will take a little longer than I though.

So why did I focus on penal substitution? First of all, penal substitution was my first understanding of atonement, even though I couldn't articulate it. Therefore, inasmuch as this set of articles will be a narration of my own development, it has to start there.

Another reason is that it seems to be the theory most often articulated by the average theologically conservative Christian, and also by those outside the Christian tradition. Most critiques of Christianity that I've read seem to take a penal substitutionary understanding of atonement for granted, and then use some of the same critiques I offered as a critiques against Christianity altogether.

Against all this, I'd like to point out I'm not innovating here. There are plenty of other ways of understanding atonement throughout the Christian tradition, and is by no means the oldest. I think its safe to say, with C.S. Lewis, that all that's required by the title Christian is what I said at the beginning of the last post: that Jesus was uniquely the Son of God, that He lived without sin, and that His death and resurrection somehow attain salvation for us if we place our faith in them. That is the doctrine of atonement. What I am discussing here is the question of how and why that is so, answers to which are called theories of atonement.

Didn't you forget the point that sparked this whole topic in your mind awhile back and then feel silly for leaving it out, especially when you'd been writing and talking about it not a day before you wrote the post? What's your problem?

The last thing I wanted to put in this intermediate article is for me the most important criticism of penal substitution as a stand alone theory. If we only think in terms of substitution, or even satisfaction (more on that later) I think it is hard to deal with all the biblical language about us participating in Christ's deal and resurrection. Yes He was in our place, but then we also join Him in His place. And as Paul suggests, we get there by somehow the same route. "If we were buried with Him we will also rise with Him."

I think the idea of participation is a really, really important one, and I think its important that it be tied directly to our understanding of what happened at the cross, so we can know what we're participating in. From the standpoint of substitution, it seems like you have to say that somehow our sin is up there with Jesus on the cross, and then His righteousness is down here with us. But I think the text suggest a bit more by our participation in the life and death of Christ than just the execution of our sinful natures. I think perhaps the text calls for participation by faith in His victory over sin and death, His submission and obedience to God which come to their fullest point in His death and resurrection.

So maybe that gives some more hints as to where I'm going with this. Anyway I hope this clarifies a bit. In Part II I'll try to discuss the different theories I know of all together, and try to articulate finally what sort of thing I believe and why. There have been a number of other things said that I'm still thinking about that will probably show up in future posts. Alright, last question!

Why do academics use only certain prepositions (like "on" and "towards" and "against") and not others (like "about" or "under")? Don't they know English? What's they're problem?

This is a toughie. See, academics need jargon that no one else can understand, otherwise anyone can just jump in and see they're not really doing anything. In disciplines like science and engineering, this is easy. They have a bunch of words like hadrons and tribology and quantum chromodynamics that no one else knows. But in disciplines like theology or english, they have to mystify words that everyone already knows. Sometimes this can be done by just saying in Latin, German, or French. Other times, they just use the words in ways that clearly suggest some higher meaning. Everyone plays along even if they don't know what's going on.

It turns out this comes into play even with prepositions. No one knows why academics use "on" instead of "about" or "towards" and not "at", or "moving" instead of "going" but they do know if you wrote a paper with the title About a Thomist Reading of Hegel: Goin' Medeival on the Dialectic no one would read it. Ok fine, no one would read that even if it it didn't start with "about."

But let's take a real example: there's a book called Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith. Imagine if it was Pointed at a Theology about Nature: Essays about Science plus Faith. No one would publish that. Imagine Pointed at a Theology about Nature: Essays that had happened to be about Science plus also about Faith too. Now there's a thesis title you could take to the bank!

On Atonement Part I: Statement of the Problem

2007-04-15T15:00:00.000-05:00

As the title of my post indicates, I've been thinking a lot about atonement. I've come to the point where I have a position I can begin to articulate, and it also demonstrates some of how my mind tends to work in interpreting Scripture, and why I think I'll prefer theology to biblical studies. So any interaction and criticism will be appreciated greatly.

At the very least I think the Bible claims that Jesus, uniquely the Son of God, lived without sin, died, and was resurrected, and that now somehow because of this all men can be saved. But the question is, how does that happen? In what way are we to understand what happened at the cross? The Bible uses many different pictures and kinds of language when talking about the atonement, so its hard to sift through it all.

I am convinced that deciding on how to understand this requires some spiritual and ethical engagement on the part of the readers. I don't think the text will "interpret itself" as it were. We have to make decisions about which verses or concepts are going to frame which other ones. For guidance in doing this we can look to tradition, reason, prayer, and conversation. At the end of the day, our conclusions can never claim the authority of the story itself. With that in mind, here is my attempt.

In this first post, I'll try to sum up what penal substitution means, what my problems with it are, and hint in each section what a better theory might look like. In the second post, I'll try to sum up some other atonement theories as I understand them, and articulate the theory I more or less subscribe to as best I can. And in the third post, I'll try to argue that the theory I set out in the second post meets the criteria for what a better theory would look like.

Penal Substitution: What's the deal with that?

I grew up with what I gather to be the position most conservative protestant churches take, and that is what is often called "penal substitution." That is to say, man sinned, and sin requires a serious punishment. Some people would say that sin also caused man to be fallen, and therefore we couldn't repent, others would say even if we did really repent, we still warrant the punishment of Hell. Only a perfect sacrifice could atone for sin against an infinitely good God, and no man could provide that sacrifice. So God sent His Son to be that sacrifice. Jesus lived a perfect life and the willingly became the scapegoat for God's wrath thereby opening up the Way for humanity to be saved. All we have to do is place our faith in Him.

This interpretation seems to me to start with a picture of God's justice, grounded in a reading of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, messianic language from Isaiah in particular, and then interpreting Jesus in light of those things. This probably isn't a bad way to go about it, since the NT writers appeal to the ritual sacrifices and messianic prophecies in talking about what Jesus accomplished. But nonetheless there are a few things that bug me.

Innocents Being Punished: Moral Asset or Liability?

One question that has bugged for a long time is this one: how on earth (or in heaven) does it satisfy justice for an innocent person to be punished for my sins? It seems to me it is quite the opposite of justice. Forgive me for putting it in economic, but if we had a negative balance, shouldn't the horrific torture and murder of an innocent man (even a willing man) merely increase that negative balance?

What kind of judge would say justice had been served just because someone was punished? If the man on trial is found innocent, aren't we supposed to let him go free? What if the innocent man said, "I didn't do it, but just punish me and stop looking for the real killer. Justice will have been served!" It doesn't make any sense in any other arena I can think of.

Now I know God is a perfect judge, omnipotent, omniscient, sovreign, and the source of all Good. So I know I can't judge God, and I suppose this provides an "out" in a manner of speaking. It is possible that there is some way in which the punishment of a willing innocent substitute satisfies justice but only when God does it, and in a way that is just beyond my limited ethical sense.

But I think an understanding that made sense of Jesus having to go to the cross without requiring this ad hoc appeal to God's "omni" qualities would be better.

Forgiveness and Innocent Blood: Two Peas in a Pod, or the Odd Couple?

Another scripture people will quote in favor of substitution is this one: "There can be no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood." But, I still ask, why? Why is there no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood? It is here that I think the person defending penal substitution as the best way of understanding atonement has to just say "because the Bible says so." Touche.

I suppose this way of thinking is internally consistent, but I would argue that an understanding that made sense of this question would be better. And I think the way towards that would be to imagine that perhaps forgiveness of sins and the shedding of blood are only linked in fact and not in essence, or even by some mystical decree of God. Maybe this statement is descriptive rather than normative.

The last thing I'll say about it is this: it seems to me this concept of justice is being framed by the Old Testament sacrificial system. Why not try framing justice in terms of Jesus, and interpret the Old Testament sacrificial system in light of that?

"The First Law of Wrath-o-dynamics?" or, "Is wrath a conserved quantity?"

Another line of defence is the idea that God is Just, so therefore He must punish wrongdoing. Of course, this is true, but what do we mean by it? Proponents of substitution generally mean retribuitive punishment. This is the way they understand wrath. This "wrath" doesn't just disappear, it has to be vented or poured out.

But isn't this contrary to much of what we are taught about how to love? "Love keeps no record of wrongs" and "Forgive us... for we also forgive those who sin against us" come to mind. Jesus told Peter to forgive "not seven, but seven times seven times." (What if Jesus had said, forgive him as many times as he will let you strike him!)

We also know that God is "slow to anger, abounding in love" and "does not take delight in the death of the wicked" and forgives quickly when a sinner repents. Over and over, God forgives people when they repent and ask forgiveness, and He requires us to do the same, and even to forgive those who have not even asked to be forgiven.

Many would point to the fact that "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord." But does this mean that the idea of hurting people because they hurt you is basically sound, its just that only God is Good enough to do so? Was Jesus' point with the woman caught in adultery really "if only all of you were sinless, then you could stone this woman rightfully"? Are we supposed to love our enemies because we know God's going to get 'em better than we would in the end? I seriously don't think so.

Could it be more like a parent telling their child "I'll worry about what's fair" when that child wants to hit back their sibling who hit them first, because its "fair"? In this case, the parent probably doesn't ever mean to exact "fairness" in the sense the child means, just as Jesus never intended for anyone to stone the woman. They probably mean to take the weapon of "fairness" out of that child's hands, hoping that eventually they will realize how foolish their concept of fairness really was. Maybe when God claims vengeance for Himself, he's merely taking a weapon out of our hands, not really ever intending to use it the way we thought.

I'd guess that most people who defend penal substitution this way are not vengeful people hoping for God to torture their enemies for eternity. I think we are just searching for a way to understand what happened at the cross, and perhaps also to make sense of Hell, and all those wars in the Old Testament where God told the Israelites to kill all the heathen. These are incredibly difficult questions for any honest person to deal with, so I respect those who are able to hold this picture of God in tension with His Love and Mercy.

But again! If we could find a way of understanding how the cross accomplishes our atonement that is equally faithful to the scriptures but doesn't necessitate a God who never forgives unless he gets to hit someone, then I think that would be better.

Towards Another Theory

In sum: what I hope to point towards is a theory of atonement that is faithful to the scriptures and makes some sense of Jesus' work on the cross without requiring that A) God hold it just to punish an innocent man for punishment's sake, B) shedding of blood be tied to forgiveness in an essential or de jure way, or C) wrath be a completely conserved quantity of anger that God must dump out before He can forgive.

That's a lot to pull off, but my disclaimer is in the phrase "hope to point to." So please comment, and stay tuned for my next post: "On Atonement Part II: Another Theory, and Other Theories"!

Link: On Political Theology

2007-04-06T23:53:00.000-05:00

So I just found the Faith and Theology blog of Benjamin Myers. Its pretty good stuff. Definitely worth your reading. This guy Kim Fabricius posts there on various theological topics in the form of "Ten Propositions On: some topic". He makes propositions and fleshes them out, as I guess you coud infer from the form of the title.

Anyway I came across a post of his I really liked entitled "Ten Propositions On Political Theology" where he talks quite a bit about what that should look like. Proposition 1: the ascension is the basis of all political theology, 2: God is political.

But my favorite parts have to be proposition 3: "it is legitimate to speak of an “epistemological privilege” of the excluded and oppressed" and the "Post 9/11 Postscript" where he mentions a comparison of American intellectuals' response to 9/11 and German intellectuals' response to the Kaiser after the outbreak of WWI. Very interesting and telling, I think.

What, you don't want to read it? You know if you don't read this you'll probably read something that will make you dumber. You've probably been thinking about putting a little critical theological thought into those hours you spend in front of the screen. So read it. You look hungry. I shlepp, you read.

Another audio link

2007-03-27T21:15:00.000-05:00

Here's another really cool sermon.

This one was preached at Duke University's chapel. He talks about Jesus and the rich young ruler and shows how inadequate the typical interpretation is. You know, the "it doesn't mean you have to be poor, you just have to put God before money" business that manages not to have the same effect on rich people in churches that Jesus' words had on the rich young man he was talking to.

Anyway check it out! Its only like 25 minutes and its really good.

Link Dump

2007-03-25T18:19:00.000-05:00

Nothing original here, just an annotated audiography. Two really good things to listen to. I know they're long, but you have mp3 players, you have ipods, you drive places, you sit at computers for hours at a time. Check them out!

MP3 Link #1: "Women, Gifts, and the Body of Christ" by Mike Cope

This guy Mike Cope preaches at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas and teaches freshman bible classes at ACU. In this sermon he gets up at a Church of Christ and explains and defends the decision of Highland's leadership to have women participate more visibly in the service, praying, reading scripture, and even (gasp!) leading communion thoughts. I'm really happy they're doing this, and he articulates really well a lot of things I feel. He argues pretty well that this is actually a *better* understanding of Scripture than that typical face-value reading of these scriptures. I'm sick of people talking as if its obvious and accepted truth that the Bible is misogynistic, and this is why.

For more on this, read NT Wright's take here.

Its a little ironic to me that the popular tactic among critics of Christianity today is to take the most face-value, simplistic, fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible as the best interpretation, and then argue with that. Anyway, check out the sermon, its good stuff.

MP3 Link #2: "One" by Don Miller

Don Miller, author of several books, including Blue Like Jazz, gave a talk (sermon?) at the Imago Dei congregation in Portland. What I like here is his discussion of what has brought him to Christianity. A lot of people take as a given that anybody interested in "evidence" has to reject Christianity, but I think this is an unsophisticated understanding of the epistemologies at play. Hopefully this can serve as an explanation of what kind of evidence leads intellectual people to Christianity, and demonstrate the way in which Christianity makes sense of the vastness of human experience.

The Search for Meaning

2007-02-07T20:24:00.000-05:00

My dad made a post about the search for meaning here. This is in response, but I think it can be read on its own. Anyway, here it is:

It may be that man is alone in his search for meaning and purpose, but it is an equally possible option that meaning and purpose is inherent in the nature of reality, and man is not, in fact, alone in his perception of these things.

We have to ask ourselves, which explanation makes the most sense of what we experience? We know that *in this world* consciousness, arises more or less from simple chemistry. But all the chaos theory in the world can't answer the question of why that is the way the world is. Either there is no explanation, and it is more or less an inevitable but nonetheless surprising accident, or meaning and purpose are everywhere because at its very core, meaning and purpose are built into reality.

I think you are wise when you point to family, community, work and love of actual people as an answer to your emptiness. I don't think you're far off the mark.

But I find it unsatisfying to think that my love for and responsibility to my parents and my wife is merely valuable because it makes us feel better and helps us survive.

I concede it may be a sublimation of my psychological need to find patterns and meanings, but I believe that the fact that my wife's love makes me happy, and the fact that I'm convinced I should love and serve her even when it hurts, point to something bigger about the way the world is, rather than just serving to fill needs the two of us have. I believe that those things are in some larger sense, True. It seems to me that in some way, it would be Wrong to abandon them, no matter how much I would benefit from it.

If in fact, it is merely to meet our own needs, then it seems to make sense to toss those commitments when it costs me more than I can see getting back. But to me, that misses something that resonates so deep within me that I'm convinced it has to do with the way things really are, and not just my or her needs.

Thoughts on Religious People Acting Evilly

2007-01-28T16:48:00.000-05:00

This was written in response to a series of articles my dad wrote on whether we need God in order to be good. I find that a lot of people tend to critique the behavior of Christians as a means to critiquing Christianity, or the claims of religion, as a regressive rather than progressive force in history. This is the pointI take issue with here.

Yes "religion" taken as the actions of religious people (which is certainly a fair way to take it) has been used as a justification for evil as often as for good.

First, while I agree that religion has often been used to justify evil at least as often as it has been used to for good, I do think the language we're using is very interesting. Where did we learn to use language like good and evil?

Can there be any content to the ideas of good and evil other than "that which I like" and "that which I don't like"? Without some sort of religion, I'm fairly certain it can't. Yet I think you and I both want to be able to mean something more than that. So the very fact that we are asking why religious people so often do evil things already seems to concede that something like religion is a given, since there is some good and evil larger than both us and those religious people.

Second, that religious people do so much evil doesn't prove that religion does no good. Only that it isn't a panacea, and that people will use anything they can find for the ends they had. Would you say that science has more often been used for good than evil? I'd be willing to take that debate any day of the week. But of course I wouldn't then make the claim that science is false or evil or a negative force in history. What people use science for only shows their own nature, not the nature of science.

Third, if my understanding of Christianity is correct, then there is plenty of evidence to support the idea of "general revelation." If God reveals himself in nature, and if man is made in God's image, it is no surprise then that we might find men everywhere doing good without "religion" and people with "religion" doing evil. Christianity allows me to say "God is working over there in those people, though they may not know His name" and "All who call themselves Christians run the risk of doing so falsely and using Christianity as another tool for evil." Ultimately, Christianity teaches that God is progressive, and nothing else, least of all religion. Thus wherever we see good happening, we say "Praise God!"

A view of science or democracy as uniquely progressive, or a view of religion as uniquely or inherently regressive is much less forgiving and flexible, and as far as I can tell, doesn't hold up under scrutiny. There are too many examples of religious understanding causing people to do good and noble things and too many examples of science, capitalism, democracy, and what-have-you being used in evil ways for those to hold up.

So to point to the fact that people use religion as a justification for evil doesn't really do much to address whether the claims of religion are true. Christianity claims that all good things come from God, but it doesn't claim that all good things come from religion, or from religious people, so we are addressing the wrong questions.

The questions we should ask are not in the aggregate, but in the personal. What is it in me that compels me to use language like good and evil? Why do I hope for history to progress? Might the God that Scripture attempts to introduce us to explain and fulfill these things?

Posing As A Physics Teacher

2006-10-23T20:54:00.000-05:00

They got a pic of me teaching for the yearbook. I kinda like it so here it is.

Communion and Fasting

2006-10-13T20:16:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday I led the communion thoughts at my church. We're going through a series on spiritual disciplines and this week was fasting so I decided to try and tie that together. I tried to spend time thinking about it and writing it out, so I thought I'd post it here.

"We have come to the point in our service when we share the Lord's Supper. Those of you who have been here know that our Bible classes, Eric's sermon, and our small group discussions tonight will all be focused on the spiritual discipline of fasting. With that in mind I'm going to share some thoughts on the relationship between fasting and communion.

Fasting and communion are the only two practices that I know of that we are given related to eating, yet we don't often think of them as having anything to do with each other. But I think understanding how they relate will help us understand each one a little better.

To me, they seem related in some important ways.

We fast, in part, to remind ourselves that "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God", that physical food and material things cannot sustain our lives or satisfy our souls, though often we live as though they did. We take communion, in part, to remind ourselves that Jesus, the Word of God, does satisfy our souls and give us life, though often we live as though He didn't.

Jesus said we would fast when he was no longer physically with us, implying that we might fast to mourn Him. Jesus also said to take this bread and this cup in remembrance of Him, to proclaim His death until He comes again.

In reading about the relationship between these two acts, I found that in many other traditions within Christianity, fasting is done in preparation for the Lord's Supper. In groups that don't take communion every week, as we do, sometimes the church has to be notified at least a week in advance so that they can fast and reflect and examine themselves so they will be ready.

Other groups might institute a fast from Saturday evening to be broken with communion on Sunday.

There is a symmetry in this that makes sense to me. We remind ourselves first that food and physical things don't give us life, so that we will be prepared to remind ourselves that Jesus does gives us life, and to partake of that life. For His flesh is real food, and His blood is real drink.

We fast, mourning that Jesus is no longer with us physically, to prepare ourselves to feast, celebrating that He is in us and with us, and will come again. One prepares us to do the other more gratefully and properly.

I believe we who do practice communion weekly can sometimes run the risk of taking it for granted rather than examining ourselves. I believe that fasting regularly with the feast of communion in mind is one way that we can grab hold of this idea of preparing for the Lord's Supper. Seen this way, taking this meal every week can be a beautiful way to live our whole lives in preparation for the Lord's Supper.

At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus fasted forty days, and was tempted by the Devil. I believe Jesus fasted in preparation for his mission, in preparation for the cross. The Bible does not indicate that His fast was pleasant. He was sorely tempted, as He would be again later, to give up. I believe that in an important way, Jesus' fast prepared Him for what was to follow, prepared Him for the act in which He would become Bread and Wine given for us.

I believe fasting helped form Jesus into who He needed to be to go to the cross for us. How much more then do we need to be formed to be the kind of people who can share this meal, and lay down our lives to invite others to share in it? Let us also then, live our lives in preparation for what we are about to do."

Reflections on 1 Kings 19

2006-09-10T16:49:00.000-05:00

This morning at church we read 1 Kings 19. When we were talking about God telling Elijah he would pass by, and then not being in the earthquake, the wind or the fire, but being in a small voice, my friend Eric suggested that maturity is appreciating the small voice of God. When we are not mature we expect God to appear in big things, but as we mature, we need those big things less and learn to hear the small whisper of God all the time, because that is the norm.

That got me thinking. I am grateful for the continual whisper from God that I have been experiencing lately.

I must confess that I have been experiencing a lot of anxiety, stress and fear, particularly about my new job teaching. I quite often feel like giving up. I am tempted to want an easy, lazy life free of hard work and stress. I know now why people want to win the lottery. I am tempted to want a life where I could do only the kind of work I want to do and do it only when I felt like doing it.

But amidst all that, I cannot deny that I continue to hear God's voice urging me not to give up, to love, to care, to desire hard work and to take joy in being shaped into a hard worker, to try again when I fail, to be open to being formed and shaped by Him even when it hurts. I hear his voice through my wife, through my friends, and even sometimes through my students. I also hear his voice through scripture and through prayer, both by myself and in the community of believers. I have noticed that I need church now more than I ever have, and in a whole new way, but also that church fulfills in a whole new way, challenging and calling me forward into something I am not yet any good at.

I am grateful that God is doing a good work in me. He is leading me (even me!) towards maturity, forging perseverance in me, and strengthening me for the task of loving Him and loving my neighbor for a lifetime. This is good, even when my flesh resists, and even when my spirit is weak.

Another thing that we noted in the text is that God simply listened to Elijah's complaints and sent him back to the work of his ministry. God's answer to Elijah's difficulties was not to take them away, but to make Elijah into someone who could handle them. That is also part of maturity: asking God to form me into someone who can be faithful in the midst of my challenges rather than asking God to simply change my circumstances. Support and help towards this kind of maturity is one of the goals of the church, I think.

I am grateful to be where I am, and I am going to do my best to take joy in it rather than worrying about it or focusing on when it will be over.

Here's an update

2006-09-03T16:24:00.000-05:00

Seems like all I do is update once every couple months or so, but I suppose that's ok. Life has been so packed with new things. Since my last entry I got married and started teaching high school physics and physical science. The wedding was perfect, and married life has been wonderful. People have asked how I've been able to manage two big life transitions at once, and the truth is, I don't think I'd have made it through the last four weeks of teaching if I hadn't gotten married first. Johannah helps me so much more than I could ever ask.

Which brings me to the next point. Teaching is hard!! Holy crap. Its a lot of work and there are a lot of skills you need as a teacher that apparently you pretty much learn the hard way. Thankfully there are some things I'm good at and some things I really enjoy about teaching.
I'm also realizing that I have a lot of emotional growing up to do. Its hard for me just to get used to this amount of work, and the fact that I havae to be ready to go again 5 days a week (hurray for Labor Day!). It takes a toll, and coming out of college I'm just not used to it. So that's growing up I guess. I keep telling myself that, but it still sucks.

Everyone tells me that no one enjoys it their first year. The first year is pretty much just really hard, and you screw up a lot, and you pay for your screw ups all year long, and if you survive then good. It certainly is hard for me to imagine how I'll get through 8 more months of this. But I suppose I can't think about it that way. All I can think about it is getting through tomorrow, and maybe the rest of the week. I suppose I can make it through another week.

The other thing they say is, don't decide whether you like it or not after one year, because your second year will inevitably be so much better than your first. My plan is still to pursue graduate study in theology next fall, but I certainly want to teach in some capacity. One thing I know is that if I ever became a professor, no college class could ever scare me after having taught lower-performing 11th graders. At least, I don't think so.

I'm just going to keep showing up, and doing my best to do my best, and accepting that a lot of the time it just isn't going to feel good, and that's ok. I have to be grateful for the satisfaction I do find, which is significant, and know that the only path to real satisfaction in a craft is through hard work and time becoming good at it.

Anyway, as I said, I love being married. As much as I can't really envision how I'll get through 8 more months of this "being a first year teacher" thing, I really can see (as much as is possible at 23) another 60 years of this being a husband thing. I feel very blessed in that respect.

Journal Exerpt #1

2006-06-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

For about a month and a half I've been keeping a journal. Its good because it keeps me writing, but it means I feel less of a need to blog. My goal is really to take what I like from my journal and put it on my blog but I haven't done much of that yet. Here goes:

Thoughts on meditating on the Word:

Meditate on the Word? How do I even do that? "It is possible to read quickly, but it is not possible to understand quickly." But I often feel that I understand a text as quickly as I have read it. I have read these texts over and over and over since I was a child, and any reading brings to mind a host of interpretations I have heard and accepted.

My notion of understanding is too small. It generally breaks down to being able to paraphrase someone else's thoughts. I am not practiced at meditating on texts. So what do I do?

Do I just sit and think about it? I honestly have a hard time understanding how people can have had consistent daily bible study for years and years because I am satisfied by pithy observations and insights that don't take me very long to come up with, though they may well represent more time invested by people who are not as gifted in that mental area. Either way, that can't be what meditating on the Word is about. I must not settle for what fruit my intellect can bear. I must not settle for anything that comes so easily and does not change what I do.

What I call conviction is such a light thing, almost weightless. It generally changes only what I say. Changing what I say is good and necessary, bu there is so much more. This book about God interacting with man has given so much more to people throughout history. I want what David had. I want to taste the Word, I want to know the joy that comes from prolonged and concentrated meditation on the words God has given us. The kind of joy that inspired poetry like Psalm 119.

I need a new way of reading books. I need a new way of understanding and believing that involves my whole self, including my body and not just my mind and my mouth. I need an end to fragmentation. I need wholeness that I can only find in Christ.

Thoughts on Narrative

2006-04-29T20:36:00.000-05:00

I once told a preacher I knew that I felt his sermons were too simple. Yeah, I can be a jerk sometimes. It was indeed hurtful, and I ended up apologizing, because it was never my intent to hurt him. But leaving that aside, some of the things that were said have returned to my mind recently.

When I said "simple" I clearly meant something negative, but he said that he was glad to hear me say that. I think he took it to mean that he was clear and easy to understand, which are good things. But thinking about this has got me thinking about something else.

In certain settings, I found that as an explanation of why I didn't enjoy a book or a sermon, I'd have to explain that I could tell before I read it just about every point that was going to be made. But it is worth asking if that is such a bad thing. Afterall, what does it matter if I could predict them as long as they are true? It might be instructive for some people and simply a necessary reminder for others. Clearly knowing what points someone is going to make doesn't mean I don't need to hear them again.

But I still feel there's something to my complaint. I confess that there is most likely some intellectual vanity in it. I know that I am young and tempted by pride; I know that I enjoy knowing things for the sake of appearing better than others. But is there anything valid in my critique?

I think that there is. Yes it is true that the gospel is simple, but it is also infinitely rich and deep. There are things that a simplistic presentation of the gospel, or of any aspect of spirituality, cannot capture. This is subtle, because I am not trying to suggest mere intellectual or academic sophistication. I am trying to suggest a method of communicating that does justice to the richness of the Biblical text. Like more and more people, I find that the missing element in today's main modes of communication is narrative.

This is not the same thing as mere illustration. The kind of narrative I'm talking about means going deeper, telling a story that does more than merely highlight a point. Communicating using narrative is a challenge because it requires us to be so immersed in the text that we can recognize its truth as it plays out in our lives. It is also challenging because it requires that we actually be living lives that could demonstrate such truths. But I believe that these are the challenges that we are supposed to have in talking about Christianity.

The cool thing is that if you do immerse yourself in the text and strive to live it out, you will never be predictable since, presumably, you will always be learning new things as you live your life. On the other hand, you will never get too esoteric or intellectual since your communication is always rooted in the soil of real life. And if we stay away from the cliche, embellished, or saccharine, narrative has the potential to address both the mind and the heart with equal potency.

It has taken me awhile, but I think now my problem was not as much with a particular deficiency in what my friend was saying in his sermons, but instead a yearning for something I had never come across (except in scripture of course). I was yearning for a mode of communication that could incorporate the richness and complexity of the gospel while still remaining grounded and clear.

I believe now, after being nourished on it for a few years, that narrative preaching and writing offers something that has been missing from our modernistic styles. Yes we will always need clear, logical, propositional exposition. But by itself, such a presentation of the gospel is lacking. To offer consistent nourishment and teaching, the power of stories and poems is necessary.

Some (more) thoughts on God and Suffering

2006-04-21T21:39:00.000-05:00

My friend recently raised the question of why God let the Israelites suffer in slavery for 400 years before rescuing them. God did tell Abraham basically what would happen, but I don't think that means there were no other reasons. My immediate suggestion would be that the text indicates that the Israelites didn't cry out to God till then, since it says when they cried out he heard them and answered. But that's sort of skirting the issue, because there are plenty of times in scripture where an explanation like that isn't available.

So I wanted to suggest some reasons why sometimes God lets stuff happen that seems really really crappy to us. One is to bring his people back to Him. I suppose there's a sense in which this could sound narcissistic, but I don't think so. I think that creating people who could choose him or not was the most selfless thing a loving God could do, and then to pursue them after they had rebelled and try to win them back, knowing what he created them for and what is good and not good for them, once again seems selfless to me. There are plenty of times in Israel's history that God allowed Israel to go through hardships in hopes that they would cry out to him. It is clear enough that this wasn't the way God wanted things to be; ultimately he wanted know him and understand what is good and bad and desire to obey rather than returning to God when they were in trouble. But you have to start somewhere.

This leads me to an extended analogy. It seems to me that we can understand a lot of this in terms of a relationship between good parents and several children. I want to make several suggestions along these lines. First, good parents have to set up boundaries and discipline their children to teach them to be able to function in a world where consequences for simply doing what you feel like can be much more deadly than a spanking. In the same way, it makes sense to me to understand that God, knowing that there are ultimately worse fates than slavery and worse fates than death.

In general the difference in perspective between parents and children leads to a lot of perceived injustice. For example, when there is an argument between two children and the parents become involved, they parents are generally more concerned with mending the children's relationship and teaching them to treat each other right than they are with figuring out the details of who was right and who was wrong. The parents know that the kids' relationships with each other are far more important in the long run than whose turn it really was to sit in the front or push the button the elevator. The children perceive this as grossly unjust because they simply don't have the perspective to understand. In the same way, I can imagine that a God with eternity as his perspective sometimes has a different perspective on justice and what would be best for us.

Good parents generally love the offending child much more and in a much different way than any of the other children can understand. We have to remember that God loves the worst of us more than we can know. Sometimes it seems like a perfect God judged by *us* would mete out justice a lot more quickly, but it seems to me that if that were the case then none of us would be here.

Last, the Scriptures claim that God's justice can operate on an eternal timescale. Clearly not everything will be punished in this life, but just as clearly, God is ultimately just.

So that's my response. Please don't take this as a claim that any reason I suggested is why any particular even happened. I just want to suggest a way of looking at these things that perhaps answer the question that most interests me, which is what kind of faith and understanding must a people have had to worship a God who had allowed their people to live in slavery for so long? I think the answers are concrete and must be lived to be understood, but I think we can see a glimpse of them along these lines of understanding God as father and ourselves as his children.

Two Sides of a Coin

2006-04-06T21:32:00.000-05:00

In the bible study I go to on Sunday mornings, we've been reading through 1 and 2 Samuel. Something stuck out to me that I'd never noticed before about Nathan's confrontation with David in 2 Samuel 10.

Nathan, essentially quoting God, uses the phrase "you have despised the Lord by doing this" to describe what happened. It strikes me that most people today wouldn't have put it like that. We might say that it was wrong, that it hurt God, that it was selfish, evil, or sinful. But I think most of us lack the theological perspective required to make this connection between David's sin, which we might see mainly as an act of the flesh (even if a failing of the spirit), and his love for God, which we might see as mainly as an act of the heart/will/mind.

Sure, we know that the mind and the body are connected and that true love for God on the inside must result in actions on the outside. But we also know that all humans fall short no matter how much they love God. It seems to me that there's a tension here that we've become too comfortable resolving, a paradox that we are too good at explaining away. We have become comfortable with something that Nathan deals with in a very uncomfortable way.

I have seen this dealt with in two extreme ways. One way is to try and use what the Bible offers to draw some line past which people do not love God enough to be called Christians. We might say that to get to heaven you have to die while loving God, or when you fail you have to do some penance or other to get back "in." This view, when held honestly, leads to fear and uncertainty towards one's relationship with God. When held dishonestly or arrogantly, it leads to condemnation of others who do not meet your criteria.

In either case, this view reduces love to act of the body or even blind obedience. It loses the truth that love for God also means aligning ourselves psychologically and emotionally with the mind and heart of God. It doesn't just mean doing what He says, it means learning to feel how He feels and think how He thinks about things, both of which greatly aid in the doing part. This, I think, is what is meant by "sanctification."

The other extreme is to become comfortable explaining failures away with something like "he's only human." We come to terms with our imperfections so that they don't bother us so much anymore. We become very accepting of failure to obey by reducing love to an act of the mind, making it a belief or feeling. But we then lose the truth that what we do really matters and that love isn't just a feeling or a psychological attitude, love is doing things. We blame God for where we are, waiting for Him to sanctify us so we can love Him better. We no longer feel the discomfort of admitting that when we sin we are not loving God, no matter how passionately we claim we are or how correct our doctrine might be.

I have found myself in both of these camps at various points in my life. I escaped the guilt and fear of the first extreme by fleeing to the other. After I left the first extreme, I had a hard time accepting that it is God's faithfulness and not mine that will end up saving me. When I did accept it, I let that fact ease a discomfort it isn't supposed to. I should not go on sinning because grace abounds. I realize now that it is not ok that so much of what I want to do I don't and so much of what I don't want to do I do anyway. I realize that in living the greedy, lazy, lustful, selfish, angry life that I do so much of the time, I show contempt for God. My mind and my body are not separate. When I do those things I do not love or honor God. There is no question about it. I need to repent.

I can realize this while still leaving my trust in God and not in myself. In fact, God's faithfulness should be the motivating force behind my striving to be faithful and my discomfort at my faithlessness. God's grace, properly understood, does not mesh with being comfortable with sin in my life. This is a difficult balance to strike.

I want to suggest that we can know that God's faithfulness will save us and sanctify us, that it is Him working in us when we repent, and still also know the importance of our own striving. We can know that God's grace in sanctifying us is inseparable from our discomfort with the disparity between our beliefs and our actions. God's grace is at work in our conviction.

We can know that real love for God is a thing of both the mind and the body. It cannot be one without the other. This is a tension we must restrain ourselves from resolving or becoming comfortable with. We have to learn to let it bother us without letting it push us to excessive fear or guilt but instead push us to strive all the more to be faithful.

God, in his mysterious way, has joined our minds and our bodies together, as He has joined His faithfulness to our faithfulness, His working in us to our working for Him. And what God has joined together, let no man separate.

Monday evening...

2006-02-16T12:02:00.000-05:00

So for all interested here's the story. Its not very elaborate or anything so don't get your hopes up. Anyway, here goes...

So I had Jo meet me at the christian study center where we and a lot of our friends hang out a lot. She often meets me there after she gets off work, so this helped the surprise factor, plus its a place that was already pretty significant in our relationship, and it seemed like a good way to involve the community around us as we move forward.

Anyway, I gave the barista a CD with the song "Stand By Me" on it, and instructions to play it when Jo sat down with me. So when Jo sat down with me, the song came on, and I leaned in real close and told her some things about how I felt about her that I can't bring myself to repeat to anyone else, then said I had a question for her, got down on one knee, pulled out the ring, and asked her to marry me. She said yes! Then I gave her a kiss and everybody clapped and lots of our friends were there to congratulate us and stuff and I could barely speak. Then we went to dinner and made lots of phone calls to tell people the good news.

Woohoo!!! I'm ridiculously happy about it, and I really am grateful for all of your congratulations and kind words. It means a lot to me.

Woohooo!!

2006-02-14T07:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't have time to say a whole lot right now, but I figure I owe those of you who read here this much: she said yes!!

I'll post details later on today :)

Breaking News!

2006-02-13T13:04:00.000-05:00

I can write about this now because Johannah doesn't read this (and won't have a chance to anyway) and everything's set...

This weekend I had two new experiences: I picked up the most expensive gift I've ever bought anyone and I asked a man for his permission/blessing to ask his daughter to marry me. I feel like I have crossed into new territory. Thinking about this for so long is one thing, but physically *having* the ring (I think its beautiful by the way, don't you?) and talking to her dad about it make it much more real... I'm so excited I can barely think about anything else...

And tonight I'm going to ask her to marry me... Goodness I can barely stand it... I love this girl so much... Wish me luck!

What to do with myself... your thoughts?

2006-02-07T22:04:00.000-05:00

I posted this at my more journal oriented blog (this being more essay oriented up to this point). Check it out and feel free to leave comments either there or here.

What to do with myself... your thoughts?

Reflections while doing some work

2006-02-07T02:28:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting here working on this lab report that was due last week. The lab was "Low Temperature Transport" which basically means studying how things conduct at low temperatures. I feel very little motivation to do this. But I need to prove to myself that I can (which is to say I need to learn how to...) do even things that are really crappy for the right reasons. Everyone has to do this. This is a large part of what it means to be a mature adult. This is what is necessary for me to be able to make meaningful commitments at all, whether it be to God, to a wife and children, to a church, to a discipline, to a career, or to myself. I accept that I cannot avoid this no matter what I choose to do in life. So no matter what else I feel this is useful and I must devote myself to doing it to the best of my ability.

And it is done! Thanks for listening.

Short Post In Request of Patience/Forgiveness

2006-02-04T17:47:00.000-05:00

Hi. I know I haven't blogged in awhile. So I want to try to explain that, and maybe why it might be a little while longer before I start blogging fullspeed again, which I fully intend to, by the way.

Lately I've been devoting a lot of mental energy to a few things that aren't writing. I'm graduating in May with a B.S. in physics after 5 years of working towards it. That's pretty exciting. It also means that this coming fall with be the first fall in 5 years that I'm going to be doing something besides working towards a degree in physics. I have to decide what that's going to be, and I also have to work out all the details. That's taken up a lot of the time and energy and been the subject of many prayers and conversations.

And it might have been something I wrote about except I don't know exactly what to say about it yet because it has been very disorienting and at times really stressful and sometimes I deal with that by avoiding reality for awhile either in video games or the pointless surfing of the internet, and some other things less innocuous. Writing for me is no escape, but a confrontation with reality. It forces me to face reality in an honest and careful way, because if I do any less then the writing comes out like crap.

Anyway I have been unable, or perhaps too lazy, to wrangle my thoughts into a form that makes sense here up to this point. I don't want to settle for that for much longer. As someone once said, the first key to writing is to write. So this is a step in the right direction. But there are still a few major life changes in the making and a few decisions to be made before I will be able to devote the energy I want to (and indeed, used to) devote to this blog. So it might be a little while longer before I'm going full steam.

So please, if you've found reading this stuff worthwhile, don't give up on me. Check back here every so often, or just leave me on your list of RSS feeds or your friends page or whatever. I will do my best to make it worth your while very soon. And while I'm making requests, if you pray, please pray that God makes his call very clear to me and that I listen enough to hear it. I will appreciate it very much.

The Ten Commandments: Moses and Solon

2005-11-15T12:51:00.000-05:00

This is an exerpt by a guy named Richard Carrier and my response to it. The original exerpt is in italics and my response is not.

"Let us now turn to the Ten Commandments of Solon (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 1.60), which run as follows:

1. Trust good character more than promises.
2. Do not speak falsely.
3. Do good things.
4. Do not be hasty in making friends, but do not abandon them once made.
5. Learn to obey before you command.
6. When giving advice, do not recommend what is most pleasing, but what is most useful.
7. Make reason your supreme commander.
8. Do not associate with people who do bad things.
9. Honor the gods.
10. Have regard for your parents.

Unlike the Commandments of Moses, none of these is outdated or antithetical to modern moral or political thought. Every one could be taken up by anyone today, of any creed--except perhaps only one. And indeed, there is something much more profound in these commandments. They are far more useful as precepts for living one's life. Can society, can government, prevail and prosper if we fail to uphold the First Commandment of Moses? By our own written declaration of religious liberty for all, we have staked our entire national destiny on the belief that we not only can get by without it, but we ought to abolish it entirely. Yet what if we were to fail to uphold Solon's first commandment? The danger to society would be clear--indeed, doesn't this commandment speak to the heart of what makes or breaks a democratic society? Isn't it absolutely fundamental that we not trust the promises of politicians and flatterers, but elect our leaders and choose our friends instead by taking the trouble to evaluate the goodness of their character? This, then, can truly be said to be an ideal that is fundamental to modern moral and political thought.

Now, two of the commandments of Solon are almost identical to those advocated by Moses: do not speak falsely, and have regard for your parents. Of course, Solon does not restrict his first injunction to false accusations or testimony against others, as Moses does. Solon's commandment is more profound and thus more fundamental, and is properly qualified by the other commandments in just the way we believe is appropriate--for Solon's rules allow one to lie if doing so is a good deed (no such prescription to do good appears in the Ten Commandments of Moses). And whereas Moses calls us to honor our parents (in the Hebrew, from kabed, "to honor, to glorify"), Solon's choice of words is more appropriate--he only asks us to treat our parents in a respectful way (in the Greek, from aideomai, "to show a sense of regard for, to have compassion upon"), which we can do even if we disobey or oppose them, and even if we disapprove of their character and thus have no grounds to honor them.

In contrast with Moses, Solon wastes no words with legalisms--he sums up everything in three words: do good things. This is an essential moral principle, lacking from the commands of Moses, which allows one to qualify all the others. And instead of simply commanding us to follow rules, Solon's commandments involve significant social and political advice: temper our readiness to rebel and to do our own thing (which Solon does not prohibit) by learning first how to follow others; take care when making friends, and stick by them; always give good advice--don't just say what people want to hear; shun bad people. It can be said without doubt that this advice is exactly what we need in order to be successful and secure--as individuals, as communities, and even as a nation. The ideals represented by these commandments really do rest at the foundation of modern American morality and society, and would be far more useful for school children whose greatest dangers are peer influence, rashness and naivete.

There is but one that might give a secularist pause: Solon's commandment to honor the gods (in the Greek, timaô, "to honor, to revere, to pay due regard"). Yet when we compare it to the similar First Three Commandments of Moses, we see how much more Solon's single religious commandment can be made to suit our society and our civic ideals: it does not have to restrict religious freedom, for it does not demand that we believe in anyone's god or follow anyone's religious rules. It remains in the appropriate plural. Solon asks us to give the plethora of gods the regard that they are due, and we can say that some gods are not due much--such as the racist gods and gods of hellfire. In the end, it is good to be respectful of the gods of others, which we can do even if we are criticizing them, even if we disbelieve in them. This would remain true to our most prized American ethic of religious liberty and civility. Though it might better be rendered now, "Respect the religions of others," there is something fitting in admitting that there are many gods, the many that people invent and hope for.

It is clear then, that if anyone's commandments ought to be posted on school and courthouse walls, it should be Solon's. He has more right as the founder of our civic ideals, and as a more profound and almost modern moral thinker. His commandments are more befitting our civil society, more representative of what we really believe and what we cherish in our laws and economy. And indeed, in the end, they are essentially secular. Is it an accident that when Solon's ideals reigned, there grew democracies and civil rights, and ideals we now consider fundamental to modern Western society, yet when the ideals of Moses replaced them, we had a thousand years of oppression, darkness, and tyranny? Is it coincidence that when the ideals of Moses were replaced with those of Solon, when men decided to fight and die not for the Ten Commandments but for the resurrection of Athenian civil society, we ended up with the great Democratic Revolutions and the social and legal structures that we now take for granted as the height and glory of human achievement and moral goodness? I think we owe our thanks to Solon. Moses did nothing for us--his laws were neither original nor significant in comparison. When people cry for the hanging of the Ten Commandments of Moses on school and court walls, I am astonished. Solon's Ten Commandments have far more right to hang in those places than those of Moses. The Athenian's Commandments are far more noble and profound, and far more appropriate to a free society. Who would have guessed this of a pagan? Maybe everyone of sense."

And here's my response:

There are several points at which I disagree with this.

First, there is the implicit assumption that it is a bad thing to be "outdated or antithetical to modern thought." Of course there are plenty of people who find something sorely lacking in modern thought, myself included. I would much prefer, and indeed do much prefer a mode of thought that is quite antithetical to modern thought, and I like it better that way, because it seems more likely to me to contain what is missing from today's society than something that fits so neatly into our culture which "almost anyone of any creed could take up." Commandments that fit so easily seem to me to be of no consequence, since apparently we already follow them so well (of course, we don't even do *that* very well).

Second, and this is related to the first one in a significant way, I reject the command to "honor the gods" but I also reject the command to "make reason your supreme commander." I'll just go with Nietzsche and Pascal on this one. I will not make an idol out of reason. Reason has limits and they are obvious. Reason cannot prove or disprove presuppositions, or "first principles." It can only take first principles as a starting point and go from there to discover what conclusions follow from what starting points. Indeed, taking reason as one's supreme commander only represents starting with the (unprovable and unreasonable) assumption that reason is supreme. In any case, I find such a view of reason quite unreasonable. I think it only honest to accept that there is a much different process by which we come to choose our first principles that has little to do with reason.

The third point I make is that these commands, unlike the commandments of Moses, do not contain the resources that would make it possible to follow them. In fact, they contain their own destruction and contradiction, as is pointed out in the essay. One is free to break any of the commands if by doing so one is "doing a good thing" and since reason is the supreme commander, we can also break any of these commands whenever it seems to us to be reasonable to do so, even if it isn't good to do so. I think this point explains perfectly well why almost everyone in our society would agree that these are good commands and should be followed but very, very few actually do follow commands like "do not speak falsely", "do good things", or "do not abandon [friends] once made" in any meaningful way.

The commandments of Moses, on the other hand, start out with the very key to following them: "Thou shall have no other gods before me." Since these commandments require loyalty to something outside of and greater than oneself, they do not allow for such finagling, and they provide the sort of loyalty one needs to actually carry out such commands even when one does not want to, no matter how good one is at rationalizing. I think there is something powerful in this that modern american society, with its rampant individualism and avoidance of commitment as a barrier to happiness, is missing badly.

I think, though, that we would do better than either Moses or Solon if we would put up the words of Jesus summing up the greatest commands: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength." and "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Responding to "Beyond God the Father" by Mary Daly

2005-11-09T23:32:00.000-05:00

In the section of Beyond God the Father assigned in my class, Mary Daly argues forcefully that Christianity is a patriarchal religion that has reinforced the oppression of women by placing the blame for sin on woman and making her out to be weak and vulnerable. She claims that women must break out of the societal restrictions that have resulted from the Judeo-Christian worldview and effect change by operating on the borders of patriarchal entities. She says that by doing this, women will be able to unify their divided selves, stop being complicit in their own oppression, and ultimately help men as well to reach a new consciousness that transcends gender identity.

Daly points very powerfully to the insidious ways in which women have been oppressed and been conditioned to reinforce that oppression to themselves and each other. She points out that the ways men have limited the female identity and failed to consider female freedom as important as male freedom have dehumanized both women and men. I found these points striking and compelling.

But I still have several questions. What about differing interpretations of the Fall, such as the on offered by Pope John Paul II in The Theology of the Body? His interpretation suggests that the message of the Fall, rightly understood, does not condone the oppression of women, but instead predicts and condemns it. How is Daly so sure that a Judeo-Christian understanding is the real culprit and not human nature, which twists Christian stories to it's own ends? Also, why is sexism more fundamental than racism? Can they not both be seen as ultimately manifestations of the same inner instinct, namely the instinct to subjugate and objectify that which is other? And as far as the conflict she points out between black liberation and women's liberation, why must one supercede the other? Indeed, how can there be hope for a solution if we are all still clamoring for our own rights? It seems to me that our only hope lies in the possibility of considering others better than ourselves, so that we are all clamoring for each other's rights. And finally, do men not face a unique oppression "as men" since they are forced by societal conditioning to participate in a process that dehumanizes them as well as those they oppress? I would suggest that getting back men's humanity is important enough to warrant an equal place for men in this movement. But how can we get either back if it must be either men or women who figure it out and teach the other? Maybe women alone are just as ill-equipped to solve this problem as men alone and the only solution lies in truly working together and putting each "other" before ourselves.

What Will Suffering Teach Us?

2005-11-03T23:14:00.000-05:00

My girlfriend subscribes to Elle magazine and every so often there's an article that piques my interest. This time it was an article about a new and very expensive rapid form of detox. In traditional detox, you would simply have to wait out the awful effects of withdrawals until your body recovers naturally. In rapid detox, they accelerate the process and sedate you for the duration of it, condensing a process that can take more than a week down to a few hours.

I think it is noteworthy that with our wealth we find more and more ways to do evil without paying the consequences. This process is apparently becoming more and more popular as higher numbers of people become hooked on painkillers. This of course, is linked to a significant rise in the prescription of painkillers. We create more painkillers, not simply as a legitimate response to pain, but as a way to deal with the symptoms of our unhealthy and extravagant lifestyles. We would rather take pills than exercise or eat differently or lift with proper technique. We need more painkillers to prevent the consequences of abusing our bodies.

But painkillers have proven to have consequences as well: they can be addictive. Dealing with addictions is physically and emotionally painful, not to mention time-consuming and embarassing! So do we stop prescribing so much and start dealing with our problems the way that is both cheaper and more effective? Of course not. We use our wealth to invent a quick and painless solution to our invented problem.

It is not surprising that intially such processes caused several deaths. But what are a few lives in exchange for a reliable way to circumvent natural consequences? This seems to be the way we deal with everything. We use our wealth to save ourselves from inconvenience or pain. We use oil to save us from having to walk so much, and to bring us luxurious goods from far away. Then when there isn't enough oil around here to support our not-walking and our need for luxury items, we use our wealth to get oil from far away. Then, maybe when far away lands with oil have problems that might jeopardize their willingness to sell us oil, we might send our soldiers to bring us oil. Maybe we've done that and maybe we haven't. It wouldn't be out of character.

The problem isn't with the inventions. It is possible that nothing is wrong with oil or with painkillers. It is imaginable that we could use oil conservatively rather than to subsidize our laziness. We could use electricity more sparingly and ride bikes and walk more, and live without so many luxuries from far away places. It is possible that people could use painkillers responsibly, only to help themselves on the way to making lifestyle changes, rather than to save them from ever having to make them. We could use them conservatively enough to avoid more than a few of the addictions that seem to happen.

But that is something that our culture is not equipped to do. We do not know how, and I will admit that I do not know how, to take a gift and use it responsibly and carefully. There is something in me that only knows how to abuse gifts and make idols of them. I do not know how to play a video game just for an hour and then do my homework. I have to do my homework first or I will inevitably play much longer than I should. I have a very difficult time figuring out how to use my intellectual gifts solely for God's glory and not abuse them for my own pride. And in this respect, I feel very at home in this culture.

What is it about our culture that creates people like this? I cannot claim to know definively. I am only speaking as one who shares the problem. But there was something in this article that seemed to me to illustrate the problem as well as anything. In defense of the use of rapid detox, a woman is quoted as saying "Why should Gabrielle go through 10 days of anxiety, vomiting, and diarrhea? What will that suffering teach her?" (emphasis mine). At the heart of the problem, I think, is the fact that our cultural resources no longer contain a use for suffering or hardship. There is nothing wrong with using medicine to avoid suffering assuming no other harmful consequences, but in our wealth and prosperity we have deluded ourselves into believing that it is our right not to suffer and that suffering has nothing good to teach us.

This problem manifests itself in many ways. Recently, I was reminded of a passage I read in high school from a sermon by Jonathan Edwards delivered in 1741 entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" that depicts with vivid imagery the precarious position of sinful man in relation to a just but merciful God. A sermon like that would never be preached today. We would never dream such a portrayal of God. I admit that even as a Christian, such a vision did not sit well with me at the time.

In the time since then, Christianity and time have given me resources for understanding such a perspective. As I have lived more and searched the Scriptures more, I have become more and more convinced, by the Holy Spirt I believe, of the depths of my own guilt. I have begun to understand why "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Hebrews 10:30) I understand why Peter, upon witnessing a miraculous catch of fish, would exclaim, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8). I think I have begun to understand just a glimpse of just how evil I am without God. There is no way God could be just is if were not angry at the things I have done. I do not believe such evil is, as a good friend puts it, the deepest truth about who I am, thanks be to God. Yet it is, at least for now, a truth about who I am. Christianity gives me a way to understand that truth about life without being consumed by it. Our culture's only answer would be that I am simply being too hard on myself and have low self-esteem.

What is it that has led us to believe we have a right to a life without suffering no matter how badly we abuse our bodies, our minds and our souls? What is it that leads us to expect that God would not be angry with us no matter how we ignore Him, or abuse the poor? I believe that we as a culture have idolized our wealth. Indeed, wealth makes these promises that God does not: wealth will save us from the discomfort we bring on ourselves, it will numb us from pangs of conscience, it will deaden us to all spiritual worries, and it will never punish us, if only we would bow down a worship it, seeking it above all else. Wealth has offered us comfort in exchange for our souls.

The book of Hebrews, I think, was written to a group of Christians with a similar problem. It seems they had lost those resources to understand suffering. They had grown comfortable in their Christianity and they grew to love that comfort. I would like to submit three passages from that book, which, I think, have much to say to our culture.

(1)"Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions." Hebrews 10:32-34

The writer reminds them of times when they suffered willingly and joyfully, and he reminds them why. It was because they knew there is something better than not-suffering. American history can offer this to our culture, in its own way. But our present generation has forgotten that there is something larger and more important than itself and its comfort.

(2)"During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered." Hebrews 5:7-8

Here we are reminded the Jesus suffered and that he learned from it. We like to think that we can learn everything we need to without suffering and without experience. We live in a culture of arm-chair quarterbacks, arm-chair preachers and arm-chair Christians. But we cannot learn obedience to God without suffering. Indeed, "suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope" (Romans 5:3). Our generation must remember that there is value in suffering. We can learn something through it. We can develop character through it. It is certain that the generations who lived through the Great Wars and the Great Depression and the Revolution knew more about perseverance and had more character than ours does. It is probably true then, that they also knew something about perseverance, character, hope and obedience that most of us do not.

(3)"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 'Make level paths for your feet,' so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed." Hebrews 12:7-13

Finally, we have this passage, rich with understanding so different from what we have today. It is not surprising to me that this idea is so foreign to us when one of the premises the writer holds as an assumption is so untrue for us. Those of us in our generation who had "fathers who disciplined us" are truly rare and blessed. The image of a father disciplining a child seems almost as foreign and archaic in our culture as the idea of a angry God. And yet the underlying idea here is so powerful that we cannot turn away from it: something beautiful and good often results from something painful. Even more foreign to us is this: if God did not discipline us, He would not really be loving us. If we grab hold of this passage, would we be so eager to spend such a large portion of our resources simply to save ourselves from suffering?

I believe these passages contain Truth that our generation sorely needs. I believe they contain Truth that I sorely need. I have attempted here to relate them to elements in our history in a perhaps misguided effort try and communicate them better. But I do so not in an attempt to idealize those Americans or to Americanize those ideals but instead in an attempt to illuminate the specific ills of this generation through contrast with previous generations, who admittedly had their own problems where they did not share ours.

I am convinced that our generation will learn the lessons of suffering one way or the other. It is my hope that we can learn them by choice rather than by force when all choice is gone. It is my hope that we can learn to be responsible with our gifts, and to honor the gift-Giver, before our abuses lead to their natural conclusion. But I fear that it may already be too late.

Confessing Pride and Lack of Charity; Praying for Grace

2005-10-12T22:55:00.000-05:00

This week I've found myself frustrated in several situations of the type that I don't want to be frustrated in when I think about it. I don't always know how I would like myself to react, but I can always tell when I'm not reacting the right way. And what do I do? Well at least I don't mouth off and give voice in a harmful way to my frustration. At least not much. I've found myself sitting and stewing a lot and just sort of thinking. I go through a number of emotions: anger at the person or situation that is frustrating me, anger at myself for being angry rather than handling it in a mature way, confusion over what to do.

The root of all this seems to be two things. The first is that I do not naturally love people except in a very narrow set of circumstances. Within this range I am friendly and kind and generally charitable and maybe even more charitable than some. But whatever "love" I have for people doesn't go very far once someone does or says something that I don't like. I have been able to adjust my mental likes and dislikes to the point where that doesn't happen very often, but I have not done much in the way of working towards really loving someone who has hurt me or offended me, especially if they have hurt my pride. Once they have done that, it will be awhile before I can give a heartfelt hug or be "charitable" as a thought I was being before. How can I get to the point where I truly love rather than simply rewarding behavior in others that pleases me? How can I learn to react charitably even when someone hurts me badly?

The second thing is that I do not possess humility. In fact, I have pride that runs so deep that sometimes I don't even know what it would look like for me to be humble. It truly is a necklace that I can walk around all day unaware of while anyone from the outside can see it plain as day. It is so confusing to me that I feel so justified and right at times. I can recognize humility in others but I cannot fathom how I can bridge that gap in myself. I realize that I have not stopped needing approval. I have simply transfered that need to a select few who generally give it. How can I get to the point where I stop using my talents as a means of getting praise and recognition? Why can't I use them humbly and thankfully, the way God intended me to? How can I train myself to need only God's love and acceptance, and accept that His love and acceptance are not based on my performance or my ability to understand everything? And how can I get to the point where I can take compliments or recognition from others merely as a gift without needing them to feel ok about myself?

I confess I do not know the answer to these questions. I am frustrated beyond expression at the depth of my own pride and at the shallowness of my love and charity. I can only turn to God's grace. God's grace must be enough for me.

Father, I ask that you change me. I beg that you change me. I know that I am asking you to do something that may be very painful to me. I know I am asking you to remove from me things that have become so near to my heart that I have confused them for my very self. But I submit, Father. I give up, once again, knowing that I will continue to be in this process of giving up for the rest of my life. Please come in and do Your will, and teach me to love and learn from everyone You have created. Teach me to find Your image in each of them. Teach me to how small and wretched I am and how little I know. I have no clue how to do these things myself and need, with all my being, for you to do them for me. I ask only in the Name of Jesus, who died that this would be possible.

Edited: On Essentialism and Oppression

2005-10-12T22:53:00.000-05:00

This is my final attempt to address this issue having finally done the intelligent and respectful thing and reading Alcoff's whole essay. This is not exactly a response to the main thrust of her essay, but simply an attempt at discussing a significant idea I found in her work.

I will attempt to restate the dilemma here. Cultural feminism criticizes sexism and oppression of women by taking patriarchal society's oppressive and sexist definitions of the concept of "woman" and correcting them with a new, more positive and fair, but still essentialist defintion of "woman." The problem with this is that it creates a new oppression by still boxing women into a box that some women don't fit into. The post-structuralist solution to this problem is to essentially let go of the category of "woman" altogether. The problem with this is that if "woman" doesn't mean anything then you lose the ability to point out or claim that they are being mistreated or oppressed as a group. How can women be oppressed if women don't exist?

Linda Alcoff points out these problems with these two strands within feminism. She suggests that we find a new route that avoids the problems with both. She suggests the use of "identity politics" as a route by which women has no essential meaning, but is understood as a constructed and also chosen position from which to act politically. The part of her argument I want to respond to is particularly that she seems to me to be arguing that any form of essentialism, any form of saying "woman" has an a priori meaning, is inherently oppressive.

This is what I would like to contribute to the discussion: I disagree that essentialism is necessarily oppressive. I would argue instead that oppression occurs whenever anyone attempts to force their definitions and categories (even if they are non-definitions and non-categories) onto other human beings. This generally happens, I think, when we are excessively confident in our definitions and categories. When we humans start to believe we absolutely know the nature of things we have a tendency to go pushing our understandings on others. We start to treat other people like objects and we try to force them into our boxes. We can even do this with an absolute belief that categories are socially or even self-constructed. We can do this if we rigidly decide that "woman" has no essential meaning and that it is rightly understood as a starting point for political action. In particular, I think an absolutely dogmatic belief in this view leads people to make out to be weak those who would turn to tradition and community to define and categorize themselves and feel no need for political action as a part of that identity.

If I am onto something with this argument, then to eliminate oppression we need not eliminate altogether the idea that "woman" has an essential and real meaning. We should not attribute such an awful and evil thing as the oppression of women to that ancient and revered concept. Instead we should recognize a few things. First, whatever is held within the meaning of "woman" is no more deterministic than that which is held in the meaning of "man" and whatever is in the meaning of "man" allows no more freedom of choice than what is the concept of "woman." Second, our understanding of such mystical, powerful and eternal concepts is incredibly limited; our attempts to get at that meaning must be colored by our place in history, society, geography and our specific dealings with a specific subset representing those concepts. Thirdly, because our understanding is and always will be thus limited, we must avoid as much as possible forcing that understaning on individual women or individual men, since to do so would be to objectify them. This is not to say we share nothing of that understanding or try not to influence people one way or the other. That would be impossible. But I am saying we must remain flexible and open to new ways of understanding the old concepts in individuals. As hard as that balance seems I believe we can help each other define ourselves without being rigid or objectifying each other.

I think if we can grab hold of those ideas we will have a vantage point that allows us both to avoid oppression and to realize and correct it when we ourselves are guilty of it. We can avoid the erroneous and harmful implication that a view of womanhood as having essential meaning is the source of oppression. Flexibility and fluidity can be achieved without reducing the concept of "woman" to a political platform. We can move towards the essential meaning and revere it and learn from it without claiming to have arrived at it already. And ultimately, I think this allows us to have a space in which to share meaning-fully in community without oppressing or objectifying each other. That is the kind of place that I would hope a sound form of feminism would lead.

I'm Alive and this is really funny

2005-10-03T11:30:00.000-05:00

Well I've been insanely busy and continue to be insanely busy. Have an exam tonight and another one on Wednesday night. As my friend Montrece said, "I haven't had time to reflect on squat!" So this isn't an essay or anything cool like that. But I am thinking about writing and will write again very soon, once things slow down a little bit, hopefully by this weekend.

Anyway, I wanted to share this with whoever reads my blog. If you read my blog, check this out, it is really funny, short, and written by one of my best friends. Last time: click here!

Response Paper on Feminism

2005-09-22T11:45:00.000-05:00

This is a paper I wrote for my class, "Christianity and the Modern Mind" edited in a few places from the original version I handed in. It is in response to Linda Alcoff's paper, "Cultural Feminism vs. Post-Structuralism." In this class we are asked to write response papers to the readings. The response papers are bsaically supposed to spend one or two paragraphs outlining the central argument of the reading and then one or two paragraphs responding to those arguments, either with questions, challenges or ways in which our own thinking has been enriched. I'll probably be posting any of these that I write and feel proud of, which only excludes my response to Nietszche's Twilight of the Idols so far. Maybe I'll rewrite the ones I don't feel proud of and post them here. Anyway, here goes.

In her Essay "Cultural Feminism vs. Post-Structuralism" Linda Alcoff outlines two strands within feminism, which she calls cultural feminism and post-structuralism, pointing out what she sees as the strengths and weaknesses of each theory and suggesting that a theory be developed that avoids the weaknesses of either while retaining the strengths of both.

She defines cultural feminism as the attempt of feminists to criticize the traditional, misogynist and sexist definitions of woman given to them by partriarchal society and replace them with more positive and accurate definitions give by the feminists themselves. Alcoff's criticism of this position is that it still attempts to define women, and as such is still limiting and thus oppressive. The post-structuralist position she defines as the attempt to remove the concept of woman completely, in an attempt to allow women (whatever that would mean) to be totally free of societal and political expectations or limitations based on their gender. Alcoff accurately perceives the weaknesses of this position, since it leads to nowhere. Biddy Martin puts this problem quite well when she says that post-structuralism "could make the question of women's oppression obsolete."

Alcoff does a very good job outlining these ideas and their weaknesses, but without seeing where this thought leads her, I have to doubt the possibility of choosing something new. I don't see how she can choose anything that doesn't either contain "woman means something" or "woman doesn't mean anything." I don't believe this question can be transcended, at least not by new theory. I would suggest that not all freedom is good freedom; specifically that it is not an evil for society to help us define ourselves. I think it is wiser to settle on the concept of woman being real while admitting that our understanding of that concept is inevitably flawed and contextualized historically and culturally. Thus we must always be very careful and open in how we deal with individual people, much more so than our society is now. In this way, we retain a measure of flexibility and freedom and a position from which to criticize oppression, as well as a safe ground from which society can help women (as well as men) know who they are.

Why I Argue, Why I Don't and a Prayer for Community

2005-09-14T21:52:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I have something of a contrary personality. I find myself in arguments a lot, and I'd like to think about why that is. There are plenty of personality traits that contribute to this, I think. I seem to have an inclination towards analysis, which helps. I am enjoy conversation and all that good stuff. Also, sometimes I can be jackass and get really emotionally involved in a stupid argument, although I like to think I do that less these days.

I have to admit all that from the outset so it's clear that I don't consider myself noble or anything. I recognize that in a large way, this is just who I am. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. Most of the time it just is. But that's not what I'm thinking about right now.

What's on my mind right now is how I often find myself arguing with someone I more or less agree with. I'm not just trying to argue for the sake or arguing or to nitpick. Sometimes I just feel like I can see both sides of an issue and it really bothers me when someone doesn't appreciate how someone might disagree with them.

Keep in mind, it's probably just as often that I find something out that makes me feel like an idiot for not seeing the other side of an issue at some earlier time. But nonetheless, there are times when this happens to me. I just feel the instinct to defend those who aren't there.

This happens wherever I go. I have this urge to try and balance everything and hold things in tension. But I'm young and I still don't know what the really important things are, but I often feel passionately that I do. There's so much involved here. Good instincts mingled with bad ones mingled with tiny bits of knowledge and tiny bits of ignorance and not enough wisdom or experience or patience.

This awareness that I am young and often incorrect, along with a general dislike of serious conflict in groups I'm actually emotionally involved with, have led to a sort of reluctance to "get into it" in certain cases. I am often tempted to just let things go. Of course, sometimes I should.

But, perhaps naively, I still feel that I have something related to this to offer in community. I am young and foolish and I have much to learn, but I think it important that I speak my mind in the community I'm a part of. Not every time of course. But I think it is important that I respect everyone enough and care enough about the group to share the things I think are really important, even if I am afraid of the possible social consequences.

When I don't do this, it subtly and subconsciously cuts me off from the community I'm outwardly claiming to be a part of. I become isolated in tiny ways. Or worse, sectioned off into a clique with others who I know will at least understand me if not agree with me. This builds a growing internal disrespect for those who are different from me. It is very important for me to avoid this even when it hurts.

No, instead I am determined to try my way of thinking by fire. I must do this. I must risk something. I must try my theology, my ideas, my understanding of God and of people in action. It is the only way it will really matter. I refuse to be an arm-chair theologian. I must see how well my way of seeing things works in actually loving actual people at length. I must place myself truly in community and see what happens. Some parts of me will have to go, maybe painfully. The community will change me. Other parts will have to hold up under intense pressure and not yield. Perhaps in small but important ways, I will change the community.

May God work even through my mistakes. May I see God working even through the mistakes of others. May I see God in people even who are different from me. May God enable me to love even when I don't feel like it. May God give me courage to risk being hurt by these people who I call my church. May He be present in our midst, and take our fumbling, foolish, misguided efforts and mold us into true brothers and sisters who love like Jesus loves.

The Problem of Pain or Why Do Bad Things Happen?

2005-09-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

This is an essay from my old blog. Recent events have forced me think about these issues again, so now seems like as good a time as any to repost this here. Apologies to any of you who have already see this.

One of the things people look to religion for most is comfort in times of difficulty. They want some satisfying explanation about why they have to go through some painful time. For some this comes from a sense of injustice; they feel they don't deserve what they're going through, or that if there were indeed a good, loving and all-powerful God, He would surely not allow His children to experience undeserved pain. For others, the question just comes from a desire to place meaning on the events of their lives. No matter how terrible the event is, if we can at least assign it some meaning, at least know that it had some purpose, then we can live a little easier. In either case, the question falls to theology: why do bad things happen even when they are undeserved?

On a purely abstract level, it is necessary to point out that there are a number of assumptions involved in the question. First of all, we assume that undeserved pain is a bad thing. I will propose here that pain, just like pleasure, has value in shaping us into whole people. I think this question is particularly strong in a culture like ours, where we are so averse to any type of pain. It is only today, when we have the capacity to avoid so much pain that simply had to be endured by previous generations, that pain can be so strange to us that we have to ask this question.

Previous generations knew that pain was a good thing. Pain, first of all, teaches us how to take care of ourselves. Physical pain shows us that our bodies are interfacing correctly with the rest of the world when it results from something like touching a hot stove. I believe in the same way, emotional pain can show us that we our psychological/emotional beings are functioning correctly, and interacting well with others. Secondy, pain teaches us compassion. It is not until we know pain ourselves that we can understand it in others. Third, if there were no pain, there could be no real love. Love involves risk, because we do not know if we will be loved back. We don't know whether our beloved will hurt us, or choose not to love us the way we want to be loved. This is why the foolish infatuations of youth are not the same thing as mature love. When we are young, we don't know yet what it means to be hurt, so we throw ourselves so willingly and so wholly into any relationship that presents itself, and we quickly believe it will last forever. It is only after we find out that sometimes it is not so, and we face a real risk the next time we decide to care for someone, that we are truly in a position to love. Pain teaches us humility, compassion, and provides a context in which real love and joy are possible. It bonds us like almost nothing else, the same way joy can. There are few people more together and connected than two people grieving together. Pain has value, and it is not inherently a bad thing.

We also know that in many cases, pain results from sin. This is not cruelty, this makes sense. It is there so we learn what is good and what is bad. Of course its not as simple as "if it hurts don't do it" but there are certainly situations in which we bring pain on ourselves and we know it is our fault.

Having said all that, I must say that I have learned a number of things over the years from what little grief I've experienced and more from seeing others grieve. One of those is that when we are in the process of grieving, when we are in pain, when we are in the thick of difficult situations that appear to be happening for no reason at all except to torture us, all the answers above become meaningless or, even worse, insulting. There are few worse insults than to tell a grieving person "It'll be good for you in the long run" or "Its your own fault" or "This happened so God could do x, y and z." The point of the book of Job is that we do not know for what purpose everything happens. We cannot interpret events and say what good or bad will come of it. For one in pain, the best thing we can do is often the last to come to mind: sit there, listen to them, and feel their pain with them.

I have found though, that personally, although believing that something may be good for me in the long run, or that time will make it better doesn't provide a whole lot of comfort, there is one theological idea that does provide comfort: I believe with all my heart that God sees my pain and hurts for me as well. I believe that it hurts him to see me hurting, and that like any parent, He wants to remove me from it. Because of that I decide to trust that if He is allowing me to go through this, even though He loves me so much, that no matter how painful or bad it is or how long it lasts, I will be ok in the end, because I know Him who is able to save me, and I know that He loves me. I end up thinking all those things, but the part that always provides the healing, the only part that actually comforts is believing that God sees my pain and that He hurts as well. I don't know if all humans are this way, but I find that all the sense-making in the world does just about zilch for pain (even though it may be an important process). But sharing it with someone, be they human or divine, is ultimately the only thing that helps me heal. In the end, I believe that the most important value of pain, or joy for that matter, is to connect us more fully with other people and with our Creator.

With Whom Are You In Conversation?

2005-09-02T10:10:00.000-05:00

In my last post I wrote about the first of two questions that were suggested to my Christianity and the Modern Mind class. The professor, Dr. Richard Horner, suggested that we keep these two questions in mind particularly with respect to the class, but also with respect to our lives in general. I like that he wants us to take the things we learn personally. We don't get that a lot in this University where objectivity is considered the only correct place from which to make a judgment. I'm glad he wants us to learn from the great thinkers rather than simply learning about them.

In any case, the second question Dr. Horner suggested to my class was this: "With whom are you in conversation?" Who do you talk to with the idea of trying to understand them? What kinds of people do you interact with regularly, not just to argue or to convert or to prove your point, but to learn something from? I think it is a good thing to have both a wide and deep response to this question. What I mean is that it is good for us to deal personally and vulnerably with people who are very different from us. And it is good for us to be close to them with no goal in mind but simply for their own sake.

This second question is related to the first. Dr. Horner suggested that if we can answer the first question, ("What frames what in your life?") easily and without trouble or hesitation, than perhaps we are lacking in answers to this second question. Maybe if we are utterly confident in our worldview it is because we are not exposing ourselves to competing worldviews?

I try to involve myself in conversation with many types of people through reading, writing, talking and sometimes involving myself in online discussion groups. I have relatively consistent discussion with several types of people. It is important for me to be able to do two things at the same time: really believe what I believe and believe that people who see things differently are worth understanding and even learning from.

One of the groups in which I often have conversation with people who see things much differently than I do is a forum that consists of members, ex-members and concerned never-been-members of a particularly controversial church that at the very least had (and probaby still has although this is more debatable and thus I won't comment) some strong cult-like tendencies. I myself am one of the ex-members.

Many of us who have gone through this experienced strong cognitive dissonance as we began to realize the church wasn't what we initially thought it was. This time of disillusionment led naturally to many kinds of reactions. As for myself, I decided I was still grateful for many of the things I learned and that the people I was leaving were still my brothers and sisters even if we had disagreements strong enough to necessitate my finding fellowship elsewhere. But the process of leaving has been much more violent and difficult for many that it was for me.

Probably something like 50% of the people I've talked to who have left that church also left Christianity altogether either immediately or soon after. The rest of us find ourselves in an incredibly broad range within Christianity. Some maintain very similar doctrine and thus end up in churches that are similar doctrinally but avoid the overtly harmful methods of the church they left. Others end up on the complete opposite end of the spectrum within Christianity. Each person's story is an interesting one with many lessons. Some of them will show you things you never thought about before and new ways to introduce God into your life honestly, while others will show you very clearly a path you want to avoid at all costs.

I recently found myself in a heated discussion after asserting that forgiveness and anger cannot coexist for very long; instead eventually one or the other takes over. I found myself absolutely shocked at the responses I was getting and it was clear that the people I was talking to were shocked at me. I tried to ask questions that would illuminate both what I was saying and give the others a chance to clarify to me what they were saying. But I was called naive, I was told that my understanding of the scriptures was shallow and that I should not limit myself to conservative commentaries.

I had a choice here: I could either give up on the possibility of communication or continue to try. If I gave up, I might at least be able to satisfy my own sense of justice by writing a sarcastic and angry but altogether logical response. In that case this blog entry would have been about how even though conversation is good, some people (mostly those who disagree with me) are just plain crazy. If I chose not to give up, I would risk looking like the loser in the conversation and feeling the sting of being misunderstood without the comfort of knowing I put them in their place.

I chose simply to be honest and, if I could, a little bit gracious. I wrote explaining how I felt the assumptions being made about me were unfair and that I really was interested in understanding what was, to me anyway, an unfamiliar idea. I really did not expect any good to come of this but I wanted to treat people right and give them a chance even if I didn't really have faith that they'd respond well.

Well you can guess that I was more than a bit surprised to find that as I stuck in there several people began to understand me a little better. Not only so, but, lo and behold, I, who already thought I understood the situation perfectly, began to understand them! I saw why they would react the way they did: they had heard many similar-sounding arguments about forgiveness put forth by the leaders that abused them and never really listened or considered that they had actually done wrong. These leaders used such arguments to villify those who thought they should step out of ministry in repentance since they had been so abusive and arrogant for so long. They were told that they should forgive when they already had forgiven but simply wanted reasonable and wise steps to be taken afterwards to insure the same things did not happen again.

Further than that, these people who went through what I did and worse, but also had to deal with the fact that they gave their best years to something that wasn't what they thought it was. It is quite natural that they go through a longer period of anger than I did, being only 20 years old when I left and ostensibly still having most of my life ahead of me to be enjoyed cult-free. And they rightly pointed out that we should never stop feeling angry when we see others being lied to and abused. The conversation ended up in the area that really is difficult: what do we do with people who wronged us and never wanted or asked for forgiveness? Surely there is a level at which we can forgive them anyway, but just as surely there is also a real sense in which reconciliation cannot occur until the offending party recognizes their sin and apologizes.

So where does anger fall then? I would still probably say I think we can heal and forgive in our hearts to the point where we don't feel angry when we think about it. But I would also say that probably does take a lot of time and praying and probably more than one or two discrete decisions to forgive. I would never step into that situation and tell the person that they "shouldn't" feel angry anymore. I'd probably want to discuss what could be done to let it go, but I wouldn't expect it to all go away at once. In fact I would probably expect it to be a continuing process of reflection and decisions to forgive.

So at the end of the day, even though I think I stated things about as clearly as I could have, I recognize how similar my statements must have sounded to things they had heard before that were indeed shallow and manipulative. Once we communicated a little more, I realized that patience is indeed warranted when dealing with other human beings. I began to see that we really don't disagree as much as it seemed at first. Now maybe a real conversation can happen in which we learn some things from each other. Conversation with people who are different from us is indeed good work.

What Frames What?

2005-08-29T19:42:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a class called "Christianity and the Modern Mind" with Dr. Richard Horner. I'm really excited about it, and the first class just convinced me how much I have the opportunity to learn. On the first day of class, he mentioned two questions that he thinks are worth asking ourselves, both in general and with respect to the class. I think both of those questions are worth asking and writing about, so I'm setting out to do that.

The first question he posed was simply this: "In your life, what frames what?" What ideas in your life do the "framing" or the "heavy lifting"? What are the central assumptions that decide how you interpret new events or ideas that you are confronted with?

This question can seem easy to answer if you don't think about it much. But if you do think about it, you start to realize that the real answers require a deep form of honesty that is hard to come by. It can only come in bits and pieces, and then only when you purposely ask yourself this question often. You have to ask yourself often enough to catch yourself doing something that doesn't quite line up with what you thought was framing your life, and then you have to be honest enough to consider what really might be.

In terms of the class, Dr. Horner pointed out that this question is essentially the one going on when we study the modern criticisms of Christianity and the responses of Christian thinkers to those criticisms. Moses, the prophets, Solomon, Jesus and the apostles all offer us a certain way of understanding the world. They suggest, among other things, that there are things too large for us to understand and that we are fallen and thus ill-equipped to discover truth on our own. They offer faith as a fundamental way of framing the the world. They elevate the importance of the community, rather than in the individual, in answering questions.

Descartes, Freud and Nietzche along with all the other "prophets of doubt" offer a different way of understanding the world, one that eschews revelation and faith in favor of reason, doubt and skepticism. They reject the notion of a fallen humanity and replace it with one that is perfectly capable of figuring things out with no assistance from any authority, divine or otherwise. They offer doubt as a fundamental way of framing the world, and they elevate the importance of the individual, rather than any community or authority, in answering questions.

So the question before us is, what frames what? Do we frame our understanding of the prophets and the apostles with Nietzche, et. al.? Or vice versa? How and why do we choose what we do?

Dr. Horner talked about how he recently realized how much his life is framed by his identity as a consumer. He said this is something that he had been aware of in his mind for awhile, but the full implications of that idea hit him only just recently. It strikes me that if someone as smart as Dr. Horner says there's some value in having such questions on our mind consistently, and that there are things we can only learn by doing that, then it's probably true. I plan to ask this question about my own life more often. It should be interesting to see what kinds of things pop up.

Reflections on Falling Short

2005-08-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

I have a younger brother and his name is Daniel. I have a strong sense that it means something important to be his older brother. My heart seems to hold some ideal inside it that doesn't even consist in words or images but just a tightening of the throat and chest and a deep sense of protection, love, laughter and loyalty. These are only my attempt at labeling what feels like a weight in my chest, dense, full and powerful. This is the place where he has left his mark on me, and where I am aware of the mark I have left on him.

When I hear him laugh or give him a hug, a real hug, I get a deep feeling of joy that comes from this place I am describing. Sometimes images come to my conscious mind unbidden, of times when I have failed. It is not exactly sadness that I feel, but emptiness where something full and vibrant should exist. It is not guilt, for I have been forgiven, both by God and my brother. But there is still that empty space where I could have put something valuable but either put nothing, or put something hurtful that has been removed by forgiveness.

But this place inside me, this almost living sense of brotherhood and responsibility also contains hope. It is a place that calls to me to be different now. It is from here that I often make phone calls, or have my brother over for dinner. It is from here that I tell my brother I love him, trying to make the words big enough to contain everything about this place, this weight, inside me that is only for him.

I don't want to paint too sad a picture. My brother and I are good friends, and I am grateful for what we have. But I do want to communicate the deep and very real sense of having fallen short of something that I feel I should have achieved. This is something I feel to some degree in all my close relationships with people. Each of them owns a piece of me, and that piece becomes the place where I know what they should have from me; the place where I know what I owe them.

It is the place from which guilt, joy and love all flow at their respective times, from knowledge. It is from here that I feel the burden of knowing that Daniel should have a brother who never got angry and yelled during an argument. He should have a brother who didn't need to be told to take him with him to play with friends when they were kids. He should have had a brother who never made fun of him in a hurtful way, or tossed around his teddy bear just to annoy him, or made fun of him for singing a song to their grandpa. Yes, this is a place of vivid memories and deep sorrows.

It is also from this place that I can act with the most compassion, or feel the most joy. It is from here that the deep wellspring of joy bubbles up when we laugh together. It is from here, in fact, that the urge to laugh comes irresistibly when I hear my brother laugh. But this is no simple happiness. There is simple happiness from laughing together with someone, or being affirmed by someone, or having your own needs met by someone. But that does not come from this place. That happiness is simply the happiness of the moment. The deep flood of joy that comes from this place is so deep because it is of a place in my heart that has been carved out and cultivated over time with much work, many failures, deep sorrows, hard-earned knowledge, and yes, redemption.

Many will say what I describe here is nothing more than the psychological/physiological manifestation of socialization and genetic predisposition to certain social situations. They may be right. But I cannot believe this. Deep down, I have knowledge that I have fallen short of what I should be to those around me. Deep down, I know it when I look into their eyes and when I look into my heart. I cannot believe that this is simply the result of chemical reactions. It is and always has been my fault whenever Daniel did not have the brother he should have. I know this.

I know it in the same way that I will know when I look into the eyes of the woman I marry that it is my fault she will not have a husband who has saved his eyes and his thoughts for her alone, or a husband who has long and carefully cultivated patience and gentleness in himself. I know it the same way that I know that my parents should have had a completely and consistently honest responsible son and that it is my fault they didn’t. And I know it in the same way that I know when I look in the mirror that it is my fault that my mind, my body and my soul have too often been nourished on junk food and immediate gratification when they should have been carefully and diligently cultivated to be as strong and full and healthy as it was in their nature to be.

I know I am fallen. I know this in a way that only makes sense fully from these places within me connected to others, and even myself, where I know what should have been. I know it in a way that I cannot explain or defend but nonetheless cannot deny. I am fallen. May God have mercy on me.

On Apologetics

2005-08-17T20:28:00.000-05:00

This is an essay I posted once on my old blog, but I like it a lot and its relevant to my previous post, so I thought I'd post on on this blog.

Apologetics is "the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines." I don’t like this definition, because I think that all humans do apologetics. We all try to defend our beliefs. Some of us do it in public while some of us do it with our friends when conversations become “deep.” Some do it in our own minds and some of us do it on the Internet. I find myself in all these categories. For some reason, human beings seem to think their beliefs should make sense, and ideally make sense to as many people as possible. We won’t give up our beliefs just because someone doesn’t agree, but we have a deep desire that they do.

People engage in apologetics for a number of reasons, some good and some bad. Some are honestly searching for truth while some fearfully grasp at anything to protect them from the pain of adjusting their worldview. This is the danger of apologetics as I see it. You can do it no matter why you want to.

My friend Carter said, “Our ministry must transcend our apologetic.” How true that is. Apologetics is a defense, but it cannot possibly communicate to someone why we have become Christians. The best it can do is to remove an obstacle. It has nothing to do with the motivating force. Why would we try to focus on removing roadblocks when we haven’t even established the reason for trying to move past them in the first place?

This is the same thing that bothers me, as a lover of science, about how science is taught in school. Students are taught the conclusions of science as if they sprang full-grown from the minds of their discoverers just ready to be memorized by unfortunate children to keep them from being allowed to have fun. It isn’t until later on that you learn differently, and then only with much effort. But if you pay attention, you learn that these ideas are children not just of scientists’ brains, but also their passions, their egos and their insatiable curiosities. You may find some of their reasons in your own heart, and this may drive you to actually do science.

But this happens in spite of your early science education. The fact is you can memorize scientific conclusions all day, but it won’t make you a bit more likely to actually do science. That won’t happen till you find the reasons people did science in the first place. I wonder often why we can’t teach the reasons first, especially when almost all children display the necessary qualities so readily in just about every setting except school.

I think we have things just as backwards in apologetics. We can argue about the existence of God all day, but what does it matter if we don’t first communicate why in the world we’d want to believe in him in the first place.

I think honest people on both sides can at least admit that they can’t answer the question decisively. If we can agree on that, then we can agree that to come to a conclusion worth acting on we must involve ourselves in some sort of aesthetic judgment. We have to decide to some extent what lens we will use to see the world, and then we have to judge what the world looks like to us. After much experience talking to people with many different beliefs it seems clear to me that this is where the real conversation lies.

The Ridiculous Claims of Christianity

2005-08-15T18:33:00.000-05:00

People all throughout history have tried to convince each other of things through rational discourse. We try to choose views that are plausible, views that "make sense" and we try to convince others (and ourselves) of the sense-making powers of our beliefs. We like to feel wise, as if we cannot be fooled. People on all sides of every issue laugh with people who agree with them and marvel in utter astonishment that people exist who don't see things their way. In short, it seems that we like to think our beliefs are clearly and obviously the right ones. When we argue we try to show the other person why our side is clearly the most plausible one, the one that leaves the least room for the possibility of being duped.

This is something I refuse to do with Christianity, though I do believe in it. I will never argue that Christianity is the most plausible or safe set of conclusions. I will never argue that it makes plain, logical sense, or that I am wisest for believing it. Instead I will agree with the critics of Christianity: the claims of Christianity are utterly ridiculous.

The moral expectations of Christianity are ridiculously high, not to mention inestimably dangerous to the anyone who attempts to follow them seriously. Turn the other cheek? This is not a command to avoid hurting others, this is a command to invite harm to yourself! If a man accosts you for your cloak, give him your tunic as well? Too many people agree too easily that these are "good moral teachings" for me to believe they have actually considered their implications. When a man threatens you for your wallet give him your pin number along with it? No one should try to live the Christian life because they think they'll avoid trouble, or that it will lead to a more stable, responsible life.

No, the suggestions of secular ethicists make much more sense. At least they're attainable. Jesus said I can't even look at a woman lustfully! Why not? No one even has to know about it! How does it hurt anyone else? All of these are intelligent, sensible objections. Avoiding murder makes sense, but I can't even be angry? I'm sure just about any psychologist will agree that such a strict policy is unreasonable, and probably isn't the path to mental health.

Past the ridiculous moral expectations, which even some outside of Christianity respect as "good morals," we have the outrageous stories of Christianity. Even the wisdom of a child can tell us how to decide what kind of story is believable: the kind that consists of things we've seen happen before! Of course this doesn't always serve perfectly, since our experiences are finite, but it still works well enough to tell us that the stories that we Christians try to tell people are completely incredible. Angels bringing messages? Demon possession causing children to have fits? Any modern person with critical thinking skills can see that its more reasonable to chalk these up to hallucination and epilepsy. A man rising from the dead? Who could think that was a plausible or sensible or wise thing to believe when we could toss it into the heap with all the other myths the ancient world has passed onto us?

What about the model of community that Christianity calls for? Confess your sins to one another? Lay down your lives for one another? Have everything in common? How about speak the truth in love? Any reasonable person would say these are nice ideals but more than a little extreme. Why cause ourselves the discomfort of having to love those who are different from us? Why should we get so uncomfortably close? If your brother sins against you, go to him and show him his fault. If he doesn't listen, bring two or three others to help, and if he doesn't listen then, bring the issue before the church. Wouldn't it make more sense just to let it go? Why should I care so much that someone's issues be dealt with? Heck it was them who sinned! Why should I have any responsibility? And forgive someone seven times seven times in a day? Anyone can see how that's far beyond what is reasonable for us to have to deal with from a "brother." Shouldn't we be able to just stop talking to them or disown them or something?

No, I will never try to convince someone with neat proofs that lead them to accept Christianity based on logical, physical or historical reasoning. I will not attempt to be what my friend Montrece referred to as a "spiritual lawyer", attempting to reason people into faith. Instead I will aspire to be a spiritual Romantic. I will essay to show people why my brothers and sisters and I all remain convinced of these ludicrous claims and this ridiculous moral system and why we try to form ourselves into such a wacky kind of community. I will write to share the beauty and truth I have found in the story of Christianity. That truth and beauty speak to me in such a way that I can do naught but listen and bow and beg for that story to be made my own. And I will open my mouth and speak, not with explanations of why Christianity is so believable, but with attempts to put into words the unspeakable reasons why I believe it.

The Physical and the Spiritual

2005-08-14T21:48:00.000-05:00

The Song of Solomon stands out among the books of the Bible for a number of fairly obvious reasons. It is a book of poetry. It is essentially composed of dialogue between two lovers with some parts being from the perspective of their friends. The book contains no explicit references to God, but it does contain some pretty explicitly sensual and even sexual imagery. It is an absolutely beautiful piece of literature, but these differences from other books of the Bible give Christians some difficulties. It is just about the only book that begs us modern Christians to ask the question "Why is this book in the Bible?" This is not a very comfortable question for most of us, but the answers are telling.

There are generally two ways that Christians interpret the Song of Solomon. Either they take it as a metaphor for God's love for his people, or they take it as a poetic demonstration of what God intended marriage to be like.

Those who interpret it symbolically are perhaps uncomfortable with the raw sensuality evident in the Song. Afterall, it contains passages that, were they found anywhere but the Bible, would at the least be deemed "inappropriate." So perhaps they attempt to justify such physical language by such a "spiritual" message. Passages like "Your stature is like that of a palm/and your breasts like clusters of fruit./I said, 'I will climb the palm tree;/I will take hold of its fruit." sound a lot like what we might call common love poetry, and maybe we have a hard time understanding why common love poetry should be included in the Word of God.

On the other hand, we have those who feel an honest reading leads to a clearly physical, romantic understanding of the Song. They feel that the Bible should address every area of our lives, and that the Song of Solomon is where it addresses romance, marriage and sex. So they like to interpret it literally, viscerally, physically. To them, the Song is about exactly what it sounds like it's about. To them, it is completely acceptable for the Bible to address us even in the things that are most physical without having a "spiritual" message.

Personally, I think it is worth asking ourselves why we need it to be one or the other. Why do we need the message to be either spiritual or physical? It seems to me that contrary to our Western way of thinking, the spirit and the body are intricately linked. My picture of God can allow nothing less. If God is who we say He is, then wouldn't every aspect of the way we were created be thought out and related to our ultimate good? Or is just coincidence that we are made male and female and that the two must come together in order to create new life? On the contrary, I believe that God designed us very carefully, and though we are fallen, even those aspects of our design that seem most physical have spiritual significance. It seems to me that God made us in such a way that romance and yes, even sex, would reflect His glory and His design for our lives.

I do not believe it a coincidence that marriage is often the chosen metaphor to describe how God relates to his people. People who practice marriage, even a fallen version of it, are inevitably play-acting a representation of the divine! People who have sex, even if they sin, do something that is indeed spiritual, i.e. affecting or related to the spirit. So it seems to me that the Song can't possibly be about marriage without also saying something about God's love for us. It cannot possibly address the physical without saying something about the spiritual.

My Friend Nick Said Something Really Cool

2005-08-13T17:56:00.000-05:00

"i have a couple of comments on commitments and attachments. in our time and at our age, we take freedom as the natural state, and distrust attachment/commitment as a barrier to happiness. on the contrary, humans were meant to sink roots, and develop deep and abiding relationships with both people and a particular place. for almost all of us, the best use of the freedom of our youth is to submit ourselves to God's teaching and shaping, and perhaps to his showing us, or leading us in founding out, where to settle. then we have a long job of work set for us: over a lifetime, become intimately involved in a spouse, a church, a place. here in these commitments can true service and stewardship take place. here within a few square miles and a few lives you'll experience the infinite variety of depth, and be glad you traded in the illusory variety of life on the surface."

I don't even really want to add anything to that. Just liked it so much I thought I'd post it. A very eloquent way of expressing a conclusion I've been coming to for a long time. I think I'll post on this topic a little later...

Spaceman Spiff??

2005-08-12T14:34:00.000-05:00

I'd been thinking of what to title this blog for awhile. I wanted it to be a reference to a mildly obscure fictional character that I liked. So the other day in the chatbox at Real Live Preacher's webpage, I had a chat with susiederk, whose handle I immediately recognized as a reference to Susie Derkins, the girl from the comic Calvin and Hobbes. I told her about my difficulties finding a handle and blog title I could be happy with for my new home, and she suggested Spaceman Spiff. Spaceman Spiff was one of Calvin's many imaginary alter egos. He was, obviously, a space explorer who often found himself pitted against scary alien versions of Calvin's parents, teachers, bullies and other assorted foes.

So why do I like the name aside from the obscure reference to a comic I like? Well, for one, I'd say Spiff's strong, if often misdirected, sense of good and evil is an interesting parody of my own way of looking at the world. Don't get me wrong, I take this stuff seriously, but I don't want to take myself too seriously. I want to keep in mind that I really do have a young and limited perspective. I want to remind myself that I can be as wrong as Spiff is about the people he perceives as enemies. I want to be able to laugh at myself and how silly I am. I want to recognize that I am speaking from my particular perspective without forgetting that it is still my perspective, and I have to speak from it.

I also like the sense of exploration provided by this character. I want to remember that there's a lot to learn and a lot to think about. People in my subculture can be very cynical. We can feel very strongly that there is nothing new under the sun. We forget to explore. We forget that knowledge isn't the same thing as wisdom. So I want to remember that there are some things I can't learn by reading about them or talking about them, but only by experiencing them. There is plenty of exploration left for me to do, more than I can do in a lifetime. I'd like this blog to be a place of exploration.

So those are the reasons why I chose the handle and title I did. Thanks again to susiederk for the inspiration. I'll be back soon!

P.S. my old blog can be found at http://www.livejournal.com/users/mahf/ so you can check that out if you want. I plan on posting some of my favorite entries over here over time.

My New Blog

2005-08-11T21:25:00.000-05:00

So this is my new blog. I've moved to blogspot from livejournal because I like the setup here better. Also, I'm hoping the conversation here will prove to be more what I was looking for. Of course two of my closest friends and conversation partners have just started blogging on here as well, which doesn't hurt. Check them out at http://ericmontrecebrown.blogspot.com/ and http://a238phreak.blogspot.com/

Anyway, I really enjoy writing and benefit from it a lot. In fact, I feel that I need to write. I need to write about the things that are important to me, because it seems to be the only way that I can get those thoughts out in a way that is satisfying. Conversation is good, of course. But once I've written about something to the point where I feel good publishing it, I generally feel that I've explored it in a more precise and satisfying and finished way. Not finished for good, mind you. But a particular kind of finished.

So that's basically what I'm doing here. If you read what I have to say, and find it interesting, boring, right, wrong, uplifting, enlightening or stupid and juvenile, please comment and let me know. It seems only fair that if you get to read about what I think, I should be able to know what you think as well. Anyway, thanks for checking this out, and I hope you enjoy it.