WiseSerpents

A great quote on Orthodox/Catholic unity

2009-07-22T09:15:00.001-07:00

[...] reunion of the Orthodox and Roman churches has become an imperative, and time is growing short. I say this because I often suffer from bleak premonitions of the ultimate cultural triumph in the West of a consumerism so devoid of transcendent values as to be, inevitably, nothing but a pervasive and pitiless nihilism. And it is, I think, a particularly soothing and saccharine nihilism, possessing a singular power for absorbing the native energies of the civilization it is displacing without prompting any extravagant alarm at its vacuous barbarisms. And I suspect that the only tools at Christianity's disposal, as it confronts the rapid and seemingly inexorable advance of this nihilism, will be evangelical zeal and internal unity.

-David Bentley Hart, "The Myth of Schism"

Review of Marcus Borg's "The Heart of Christianity"

2009-07-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

HI BLOG! Sorry to be gone so long... where were we. Oh yes...

I recently read progressive Christian Marcus Borg's book "The Heart of Christianity". I highly recommend it for any individual or small group as a piece of reflection. It's a book that probably better discussed than read in solitude. Many things that need to be said are contained in this work, and Borg manages to say them with a flair that I certainly cannot match. Yet, I also find much of what he says disagreeable. Below is my review. If you should ever choose to read the book then I would welcome any feedback:

I really appreciated his laying into the heritage of the Enlgihtenment. In particular, it was nice that he treated "traditional" Christianity - ie: the classic protestant and now evangelical formularies of faith - as relatively modern products (last 400 years) in the grand scheme of a 2100 year old religion. He does a very nice job of articulating a better biblical hermeneutic, which he calls "historical-metaphorical", a combination of historical context and metaphorical meaning that take precedence over historical accuracy. I would like to say that despite what some may say about his proposal, he is really just recognizing this reading strategy It pre-dateds literalism by several centuries. Furthermore, I have noticed that Anglican writers do some of the best work on the interaction between faith and science - Borg is no exception.

I also think that he is on point in terms of what is wrong with the modernist evangelical Protestant approach: bilical literalism, too much focus on the afterlife to the exclusion of the contemporary life, all kinds of 'ists' and 'isms' that arise as a result, and just generally the emphasis on 'faith' as a kind of will to believe those things which are patently unbelievable. These are indeed the cancers of normative Western Christianity.

On the other hand, I always wonder with the Borg's of the world if their remedy is not more destructive in some ways than the cancer (a bit like chemo). In particular...

Christianity has always been enculturated (as he redundantly reminds us), but it has also been a judge of cultures. It isn't true that the morals and ethics of the New Testament squared all that well with the Greco-Roman worldview into which it was born. In particular, the normal Roman imperial world had plenty of alternate sexual and family pratices, and the NT self-conciously took hard-line stances against them. Too often liberal Christians act as if Christianity was birthed into a world of religious singularity, but pluralism has been a reality from the start.

Also, the "scandal of Christian particularity" has been well-attested since the beginning, and early church writers are nearly unanimous in declaring the God of Abraham known through Christ as the pinnacle of human faith, not simply another mystery cult that could be "affirmed" along with the pagan cults. Even if we agree that the Bible may be God speaking metaphorically and allegorically (Borg and I do agree on this...), it does not follow that all other religions are therefore equally valid. God can be just as exclusive via a particular set of metaphors as He can be via literal historical happenings. I cannot accept that faiths which make radically opposing claims regarding the human condition are just people responding to God "in their own cultural stream" - that's a bit mediocre.

Finally, as always, I dislike the tendency to dismiss personal morality and accountability from issues of salvation. Oddly, this is the one holdover from the Reformation that Borg insists on maintaining. I see no issue whatsoever in affirming that faith is, in the final analysis, something of a work. The Reformation notion that we are saved "by grace, through faith alone" is reductionist in the extreme. I think that the tradition is solidly on the side (especially pre-Reformation) of explicitly claiming that a life pursuing the divine virtues is part of the saved mindset. Furthermore, Borg shoots himself in the foot by claiming that we "should" be good little social justice people without expecting that God will reward us. He calls the idea of trying to be righteous to earn God's favor "a religion of requirements and rewards." Simply put - I see no problem with that system. But then, I am not hung up on defending 'unmerited grace' in the form Borg presents it.

Words of import

2009-01-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

Today the words before Eucharist were ground into my bones for reasons that I doubt I will ever be able to fully disclose: "For I will not speak of thy mysteries to thine enemies, neither will I give the a kiss, as did Judas."

Baptism with the spirit and fire

2008-12-14T20:05:00.001-08:00

I have often wondered how we should express the proper Christian view on Baptism. I found today's reading from John insightful, and remembered that Matthew was more elaborate in describing Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist. Here it is, Matthew 3:11

‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.'

I think clearly there is a disconnect between Baptism and the reception of the Holy Spirit. Clearly John is suggesting that Baptism with water is key in order to, as Jesus says a couple of verses later, 'fulfill all righteousness', but it is actually the reception of the Holy Spirit in blazing passion that is the gift of Christ. How to express this in the life of the Church?

Chesterton Reflection #5 - "Spiritual but not Religious"

2008-11-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

Many well-meaning persons today wish to maintain the position that they are "spiritual, but not religious." Usually this is intended to indicate that the person wants to maintain a world that is still full of potential, if undefinable, ultimate meaning, without actually committing themselve to any particular creed, which they find to be a self-limiting demand. No matter that everyone from true believers like Pope Benedict to professional skeptics like Dr. Bart Ehrman have insisted that spirituality without religious content is vapid, they insist that this is their prefered outlook on the divine.

Simply put, transcendence, which is the beginning of meaningful mystical experience, requires one to go outside of themselves and come into a contact that is not only beyond themselves, but patently superior to themselves. God isn't much of a God if it does not challenge a person's self-understanding and pre-existing standards. Truly, the Bible would indicate that to say one is a "spiritual person" is redundant. In Hebrew the word for person means "embodied spirit". In John I it is simply taken for granted that "there are many spirits", the worshipper must test them, because only one is the spirit of Christ - the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the only divine force on the market, but rather one of many options. Further, a person is by definition an embodied spirit, so they have a spirit, and thus a spirituality, by default. The question is not whether or not there is a spirit presence, but only which spirit that may be.

Chesterton: "Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definately recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners."

Chesterton Reflection #4 - Vows and duty

2008-11-28T10:33:00.000-08:00

I am continually amazed that our society lacks any sense of "vows". We are raised to believe that "I promise" is always contingent on changing information, and we dispense with everything from handshakes to blood oaths when we feel the slightest gust of fortune's winds. I suppose the place where this is obviously most true is marriage. Marriage, simply speaking, consists of a set of vows that one promises to live into. It is not meant to be a re-statement of the way things already are, in which case they would be called "articulations", but they instead create a new institution; they constitute a fundmanetally different identify than the couple had the day before. The ordain them into a certain office of a community, and enlist the community's support and oversight in helping the pair live into their covenant.

For the God of Christians and Jews, there is little worse than the breaking of a pact. It's not accidental that Dante put traitors in the lowest level of his Inferno, lower even than murderers and the like. It was God's very faithfulness to his covenant in spite of the people's actions that made him who He was. I often wonder why people take so many vows? If they realize that they cannot possibly live into them, it's nobler to simply opt out. Why be married if you do not believe in the marital vows that you are giving? Why be a Christian if you are crossing your fingers when uttering the creed?

It strikes me that vows are only formulated in difficult situations, and therefore should not be taken lightly. Why would we ever come up with a list of oaths and vows if we thought that an institution was going to be forever peachy? If marriage was supposed to be easy, if passion was always going to last, and if romantic mush frequently had the final say, then why would the church have ever felt the need to list out the particular hardships of the committment and forced members to sign on?

So again I am reminded of some anonymous pastor's sermon many years ago, which is forever etched in my shallow memory: "For Christians love is not an emotion, it's a committment."

Chesterton: "Whatever reason, it seemed and still seems to me that our attitude towards life can be better expressed in terms of a kind of military loyalty than in terms of criticism and approval. My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserableit is the less we should leave it. [...] the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more. All optimistic thoughts about England and all pessimistic thoughts about her are alike reasons for the English patriot. Similarly, optimist and pessimism are alike arguments for the cosmic patriot. [...] For decoration is not given to hide horrible things; but to decorate things already adorable. A mother does not give her child a blue bow because she is so ugly without it. A lover does not give a girl a necklace to hide her neck. If men loved Pimlico (a run-down suburb of London) as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grown great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find then knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

[...] The worst jingoes do not love England, but a theory of England. If we loved England for being an empire, we may over-rate the success with which we rule the Hindoos. But if we love it only for being a nation, we can face all events: for it would be a nation even if the Hindoos ruled us. Thus also only those will permit their patriotism to falsify history whose patriotism depends on history. A man who loves England for being English will not mind how she arose. But a man who loves England for being Anglo-Saxon may go against all facts for his fancy. He may end (like Carlyle and Freeman) by maintaining that the Norman Conquest was a SAxon Conquest. He may end in utter unreason - because he has a reason. A man who loves France for being military will palliate the army of 1870. But a man who loves France for being France will improve on the army of 1870, This is exactly what the French have done, and France is a good instance of the working paradox. Nowhere else is patriotism more purely abstract and arbitrary; and nowhere else is reform more drastic and sweeping. The more transcendental your patriotism, the more practical are your politics."

Chesterton Reflection #3 - Liturgy

2008-11-28T10:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, so actually Chesterton was not writing an apology for litrugical practice in this section, but I believe that his comments are appropriately applied to this topic. Why? Simply because one of the modern assumptions about liturgical practice is that it is a dead ritual. It's just a bunch of programmatic crossing, bowing, mumbling and genuflecting that has no "spirit" to it. For now I will ignore the little asides about the "movement of the holy spirit" in worship and focus solely on the idea of repetitive worship unto itself, and how it is that such things can have meaning. Before Chesterton speaks though, I feel moved to say something on this topic.

Truthfully, most Christian churches have bastardized the entire concept of worship. They might be right in saying that liturgical worship does not "move" the person in the pews the same way that contemporary styles, with their constant plays on emotionality and sentimentality, are capable of doing. However, liturgical worship is also not trying to do such a thing. Ney, litrugical worship contends that worship is something different than these "seeker-sensitive" churches understand it to be. Namely, worship is 1. A duty and obligation of the believer to offer their sacrifice of thanks and praise, and 2. God-centered, not me-centered, worship.
Liturgy is in the style of the old Temple sacrifices. The people of Israel had a duty to offer the sacrifices in a set and orderly manner. The priest led the sacrifice and the people said "amen", which simply means "let it be", thus making it affective for them as well. Worship is a command of God, not simply an exercise in feel-good sentimentality meant for the exhaltation of the believer.
In order for liturgical worship not to become stale, the person must internalize a sense of awe at the ritual itself. The ritual must become an awe-inspiring act of worship, constantly guarded against vain approaches and the contempt of familiarity. I will now turn it over to Chesterton.

Chesterton:
"All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumptions that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. a man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. [...] The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, no absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it agian until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

Chesterton Reflection #2 - Tradition

2008-11-28T09:51:00.000-08:00

This is arguably the best single section of the book. It's the most cohrent defense of Tradition in the Christian faith that has ever been put on the market, and is put forth in about three extensive paragraphs. It's amazing how men of literature can say in a few sentences what it takes professional theologians volumes of painstaking research to produce. Unfortunately, with the appeal of learned men such as Chesterton we also have to accept the hacks. They are also men of popular language and common expression, but unfortunately they are very persuasive and economical in their expressions of falsehood and half-truths.

Chesterton: "I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. [...] If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our counsels. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross."

Nurses dominate

2008-11-24T20:31:00.001-08:00

Nurses have been rated the most ethical profession in America for the seventh straight year according to a recent Gallup poll. And rightfully so I might add. Go nurses! See it here

Chesterton reflection #1

2008-11-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

I have started re-reading GK Chesterton's book Orthodoxy. I had forgotten how many key lines it contained. He was a natural quote maker, and I am going to celebrate some of the most poignant passages with short reflections in the next few entries.

"The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Chrstian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone made because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful."

Here Chesterton is addressing something that has really only come to full fruition since his time was passed. Today we have the phenomena of benevolent secularism. That is to say, we see the majority of the industrial world following an ethos that can only be described as an emotionally dictated charitable Humanism.

Chesterton's point has become even more acute since these same people began collectively claiming to be more moral than their religious counterparts. Many of them will tell you, without pause, that they simply do not need religion in order to be good. Given that many of them are nice people, and do practice some fine personal works, it is a difficult issue to confront.

Yet although charitable Humanists are moral in their own ways, they can be painfully misdirected, and often entirely unintegrated. Their ideas of right and wrong are almost totally culturally conditioned without a religious system in place to cause any questioning of their assumptions.

Further, there are times when certain morals (such as pity) that are practised in isolation become problem causers. An example was given by Robert Bork, who pointed out how misguided liberal charity was when coupled with liberal moral allowance. As freedoms multiply and moral requirements and taboos are loosened, we see a greater inequality of outcomes. Those who use their freedoms for profit and progress profit more and more, while those who use their freedoms for vice and dead-end idealistic endeavors fall further and further behind. In the meantime, the insistance that society continually provides support for those who have fallen behind ensures that we have an ever-widening class of people who are supported after misusing their freedoms, by those who used their freedoms wisely, without the latter being able to put any stipulations on their money for future charity.

Bork's example is only one among many. I remember working for a charitable NGO and thinking of how disassociated their sensibilities sometimes manifested. For instance, they were all about liberating sexual rights for individuals and also in favor of providing for treatments should people encounter difficulties from their behaviors (pregnancy, STD's, emotional damage, etc). But the group was far less inclined to say anything on the matter of properly governing the sexual behaviors in such a way that people might not suffer as frequently from those problems. So were they really loving? i'm not sure.

What I would say is that people have become single-minded in their notions of virtue. For one person, hard work is the ultimate virtue. For another it is pity and charity. For yet another the apex of human accomplishment is a superior education, or money. What binds many of them together is the lack of balance, and this is at the heart of Chesterton's point. His entire first chapter was devoted to the idea of "lunacy" being the result of single-mindedly pursuing one line of thought to its rational ends, but without being informed by other lines of thinking; other disciplines that might challenge single-disciplinary conclusions. He summed it up this way:

"...the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard. For the moon is utterly reasonable; and the moon is the mother of lunatics and has given to them all her name."

A classic movie quote

2008-10-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

“There’s two dead women there… and two little kids. They scalped them all, all four of ‘em. Bounty hunters. The government down here pays 200 pesos a head for men, 100 for women and 50 for those kids. They kill any Indian and then claim they are Apache. I don’t see how any man can sink so low. Must be Texans… the lowest form of white man there is.” - Robert Duvall's character, the scout Al Seiber on movie Geronimo

Sermon on the Greatest Commandment - Matthew 22

2008-10-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God…

Some years ago when I was graduating from high school a man I looked up to told me that if I learned to love my neighbor as myself, then that’s all Christianity was really about. However much I did and do look up to this person as a mentor, I am actually going to disagree with what he said.

Today’s reading is arguably the most commonly quoted verse in the Scriptures. Even most non-Christians can cite some version of it. I think it’s even fair to say that it has become so common that perhaps we do not listen to it as carefully as we should. So let’s hear it again…

The Pharisees have come out to meet Jesus after they found out that he silenced their rivals the Sadducees. One of the Pharisees tests Jesus by asking him a legal question: “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He answers them by quoting two of the Mosaic laws: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Here’s where we need to be careful in our reading…

Again: The first and greatest commandment is to love God with everything we’ve got… Loving the neighbor comes second. We love God first, and by extension we love the neighbor. Much like we say in the Nicene Creed that we believe “in one God, the Father the almighty”, and it is only by extension that we can say Jesus is also God. We say it all the time – God from God, Light From light, True God From true God. So we then that we are not commanded in the first place to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are commanded to love our neighbors because of our love for God.

Now I realize that some of you may be muttering under your breath “wow, that’s nitpicky.” But it’s no small matter. What makes our Christian faith distinctive is not the saying ‘love your neighbor as yourself’. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Unitarians and Bahais can all say this without hesitation. What makes our faith distinctive is which God we are told to love, and what that God’s love looks like.

Let me give a brief explanation of why this matters, both to the Pharisees and to us.

First of all, notice that the Pharisees do not have any particular reaction to Jesus’ proclamation of the greatest commandment. His opinion that these two laws are the heart of the Mosaic law was absolutely normal for the Pharisees. Historically, it was the Rabbi Hillel, the greatest sage among the Pharisees, who is credited with founding this interpretation of the law a century before Christ. Any reader in the first century would have been aware of this, and would have expected the Pharisees to nod their heads.

If we can compare this story in Matthew with the same story in the Gospel of Mark, the Scribe who asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest receives his answer and says to him “You are right teacher, you have spoken truly.” Clearly what Jesus has said was not, in and of itself, terribly disagreeable to the Pharisees. It is a bad misreading to think that what was scandalous to people about Jesus Christ was his radical understanding of loving each other. That not only distorts the gospel, but paints a picture of the Jews as unloving neighbor haters.

Yet something does go wrong. By the end of today’s reading the Pharisees refuse to ask him any more questions, and a chapter later these are the same Pharisees who are leading the charge to kill him… What happened?

What puts Jesus on the wrong side of the Pharisees is that he destroys their idea of which God they think the commandment is talking about. The Pharisees are scandalized not by the morality that Jesus preaches, but by his claim to be the Messiah, and that God is only fully known through him!

In older times theologians have called this “the scandal of Christian particularity”, and it has always been the major source of hostility towards Christians from outsiders. And it still is.

Think about it this way: If someone asked any of us “what is the basis of Christianity?” and we said “to love our neighbor as ourselves”, they would not be terribly offended. In fact, everyone tends to like that part of our religion. But if we said “the basis of Christianity is to love God as he is known specifically in Jesus Christ”, well… the list of our opponents grows immensely.

Case-in-point: I ran across this little snippet in an Anglican blog out of London. The author is a member of All Souls Anglican Church, and he was talking about the visit of Mr. Julian Baggini, an atheist who covers religion for The Guardian newspaper. Mr. Baggini writes:

“Although an atheist, I can see that in its more thoughtful corners, religion has worthwhile things to say, and even good ways to live. That's why I went to All Souls, and it's also why on Saturday I debated secularism in east London in front of a Muslim audience. But at All Souls, I saw a side of Christianity that I don't like. They all seemed obsessed by salvation and glorifying Jesus.”

The blogger from All Souls, using that British flare for dry humor, heard this and remarked “Now there is an atheist money quote if I ever heard one!”

But here is the most interesting part. Mr. Baggini, an atheist, does not think that he can eliminate belief. So, he has decided to limit the effects of belief by supporting pluralism. Later in his essay he laments:

“Belief is not going to go away, and if we want those churches that thrive to be inclusive and, yes, pluralist in their approaches, we have to give support to those resisting the fundamentalist urge.”

Ah yes, the F word – fundamentalist. Funny, when I was a boy ‘fundamentalist’ meant someone who insisted on the literal, historical interpretation of the Bible. Now the word seems to describe anyone who is more religious than the person using it – in Mr. Baggini’s case, this means any Christian who spends their time glorifying Jesus.

So we see that to outsiders the priority of The Greatest Commandment is a big deal. If Christians speak primarily of social justice and loving their neighbors, the Julian Baggini’s of the world see us as a harmless bunch of superstitious morons, who can even be a good tool if led by more enlightened, secular minds. But those of us who, quote, “are obsessed by salvation and glorifying Jesus” – well we’re dangerous, and in desperate need of secular control!

It’s funny, Mr. Baggini’s comments are an almost perfect replica of the Pharisees in today’s gospel – as long as Jesus was content to just be a nice person, then he was a harmless fool. But once he claimed to be God, he needed killing.

Now I guess the question this raises is clear: If our specific commitment to Jesus Christ is so terrible to the outside world, why don’t we just give in? Why not just erase the whole Jesus part of this religion and stick with humanitarian efforts?

Although the theological answers to this question are many, I prefer to cite two things:

First, our faith simply will not allow this kind of convenient surrender. Think of the Nicene Creed that we say every Sunday. It does not balk on the matter of God’s specific identity: we believe in One God, One Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It is this God that early Christians died confessing. Historically, most of the martyrs of the church have not died because they were engaged in acts of social justice, but because they refused to worship the gods of Rome. They refused to bow down before the well-thought gods of Plato and the Stoics, and the Unitarians, and the Communists, and yes, even our current secularists.

Brothers and sisters, we are not the first age of Christians to be surrounded by religious alternatives. It has been a reality from the beginning, and previous generations did not see it as a reason to make our beliefs more socially acceptable.

Secondly, it is only when we accept and love God’s scandalous Otherness that we begin to understand that he loves differently than we do. Only when we first accept that God’s ways are not our ways can we begin to be instructed in how to grow in godliness.

Too often when we read the Great Commandment in reverse, we come away thinking that because I love myself, then I must love my neighbor, and then if I have a little bit left over, I can love God. The temptation is especially strong for the younger generations, of which I am a part. We are so strongly by Romanticism, we tend to think that “love” just means “to like a whole lot”. We read the Great Commandment as Jesus telling us to like each other and share happy feelings. Then we project that idea of love onto God.

But Scripturally, God’s love doesn’t look like that. In the Bible God is frequently angry with his people. There are many times in the Scriptures where God chooses to love us without liking us one little bit. God’s love is not the love of a friend, a colleague, or a social worker.

God’s love is the love of a Hebrew Father: It’s a love that sets boundaries, and is clear when we have stepped outside of them. It is a love that wants us to be holy and good more than materially successful. It is a love that tells us to tame our passions, not fulfill them. It is the love that bears with us even when we throw temper tantrums as children tend to do. It is a love that says “I know that you can never repay me for all I have done in raising you, but you can accept it with a glad heart.” It is a love that wants us to gradually mature into a child that will be worthy of its family inheritance – which in this case is the heavenly kingdom!

So we should not go forth after today’s reading thinking that our first job is to love our neighbors because we want them to love us back. That’s just human ethics. Instead, why not go forth and strive for a Godly love? Let us state with clarity to those who offend us “I may never like you, but because I am the servant of God and my savior Jesus Christ, I will still love you. I will still do right by you and wish you well.”

But if you take this challenge, beware. God’s love for people like us ultimately lands you on some crosses. And if they hated our master before us, do not think that you can take on his way of life without some acute pains. As the writer G.K. Chesterton reminds us:

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

Amen.

Reflection for The Bridge

2008-10-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

This semester I have involved myself in the Bible study of a campus ministry group called The Bridge. Although it is Methodist (pretty far from my religious sentiments) I have found the company excellent and the atmosphere pleasantly welcoming. In addition to this Bible Study group, The Bridge also does lunch for students once a week (which overlaps with one of my courses), and they publish a weekly newsletter. The newsletter contains a Reflection by one of the Bridge members. Last week I volunteered to write the reflection. Obviously this is for a popular audience and will not read as eloquent prose. Still, I enjoyed it. Here it is, as published:

Old Testament
"On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God."
Psalm 62:7-8

New Testament
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
John 14:27

God’s Peace, as it ever has been

by Ray Fulmer

Every Monday night - after long hours of teaching, learning, and testing - I look forward to winding down the night by walking my friend Amber to her car. We always have a number of things to talk about, but last night our usual chit-chat was cut short when her phone vibrated. It was a text from her brother: “The Dow Jones closed at -777, the largest single day drop in history. Remember to pray tonight.”

Amber closed the phone and without missing a beat informed me that she would not be praying for our stock market. I asked if she thought that it was a big deal, and her response surprised me. She said that she was not worried, and that we probably deserved it anyway. “Besides” she continued, “the worst that can happen is that we all have to live a little poorer for a few years. I’m cool with that. It’s nothing to worry God about.”

During my drive home I reflected on Amber’s attitude. I do not think that she was being sarcastic about not bothering God. I know that she is a prayerful woman. She was not planning to miss prayers that night; she was simply not going to bother God over the possibility of a little money loss.

Amber had done something very difficult – she had kept perspective. She has faith that God will deliver on his promises. We will be resurrected, we will live with Him forever, and in the meantime he loves us in our brokenness. Why get disturbed about the possibility of a lower standard of living, especially when we have little say in the matter? Her actions call to mind the “serenity prayer”, which is a prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr that I first heard at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It goes like this:

“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”

Amen to that.

Simply Stunning

2008-09-08T02:34:00.000-07:00

Although the weather generally has been nice beyond belief this summer, this weekend was particularly fine. In the wake of five days of rain (residue from coastal hurricanes) I set out to work on the deer land with Paul and Wes. It had to be exactly 80 degrees and sunny, while the shade made it feel like 75. This followed a Labor Day canoe trip with the homies that was fun beyond description. It's always funny to me how, after all of the beautiful places that I've been and all of the incredible things I've seen, from skyscrapers to castles to the Rockies covered in snow, the most beautiful thing in the world is still a day in the Ozarks, sitting in wooded hills or paddling down one of its lightly flowing rivers, with a bright sun in low heat, breathing air untouched by industrial pollution or smog.

Tojo didn't want to surrender - so what do we do?

2008-08-13T09:52:00.001-07:00

I've always thought that moral condemntation of the US dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a little myopic. Although I've seen countless documentaries on WWII and read more than a few academic articles supporting the notion that the bombs were actually a roundabout way to save lives, I know many intelligent people who disagree. I've been told (albeit without the citation of compelling evidence) that Japan was about to give up anyway, and that it was just a retribution. Some have even forwarded the notion that it was racist (a trump card in all debates that I consider BS until proven worthwhile). And of course, let us not forget the International Peace Museum at Hiroshima (or is it Nagasaki? I'd have to ask Wes...).

Not one to shy away from evidence (especially if it supports my position ^^), I ran across this juicy little tidbit in the news today. Apparently Japanese war minister Tojo wanted to fight on... AFTER the nukes. Now, while I'm not sure if he should recieve the Darwin award or the He-Man trophy for world's biggest balls (or both) I can say with some confidence that his voice probably held more sway in Japanese operational planning before the nukes, leading me to conclude against the idea that all the fight was out of Japan before the bombs were dropped.

Now even if I'm right, this is no "God Bless America and no place else" kind of issue. The bombs were at worst a terrible and avoidable humanitarian disaster, and at best a measure of evil that prevented a greater measure of evil. But we can never back off of this part - dropping the bombs was an evil. I firmly believe that many people will have to stand trial before the most holy on the last day for that decision, but I refrain from issuing a judgement on God's behalf. Even if you're not much on divinity, at least consider that we nuked two wonderful places, one of which had been the bastion of Japanese Christianity for centuries. It's the land that gave us all sorts of wonderful marvels from Japaname to Godzilla, video games to Honda, Samuri, green tea, sushi and Shoji. One could even make the argument that in many respects Japanese and Americans are more alike than most: We're equally industrialized, we have analogous vices, and traditionally have respected a similar set of personal virtues - albeit we have sought to pursue them in very different ways. Finally, Japanese and Americans are both fascinated by the other. We indulge in one another's culture with abandon, and the results have been mostly positive.

All that to say this: If there's one place where the idea of human brotherhood can be incarnate more than abstract to us, it's in our relations with the Japanese people. This should add immensely to our realization of the full tragedy that we were, at some level, responsible for.

So what to do with the seemingly contradictory positions that I feel gravely that an evil was done here, but equally strongly that it prevented a possibly worse evil?

First I would propose an old Byzantine church solution - we must call all sin, sin. I sympathize with the American policy makers who decided to drop the bombs. They were put in a lose-lose situation, and are now the victims of removed and judgemental historians who will never have to live with the consequences of having made different choices. As Theodore Roosevelt said (paraphrasing) the lauds of history go to the man in the ring, not the spectator. Yet I also must insist that we DID lose something that day. We lost a degree of innocence that will never be recovered.

Secondly, if it is true that we must love our neighbors as ourselves, then we must put the question in reverse - would we have been willing to die in that way so that an overall greater number of deaths might be prevented? For now I will rest my case on the hope, without resort to empirical evidence that I cannot provide, that I would be willing to make that sacrifice.

Rhythm of the Week

2008-07-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

It's nearly impossible for me to do anything productive on the weekend. My body seems to be programed with a circadian rhythm that is sensitive to the magnetism of Saturday and Sunday. No matter how hard core I can go during the week, replicating even a fraction of that effort on a weekend day takes a Herculean feat of willpower. I have issues dieting, exercising, and especially reading and writing anything academic. For now I cannot tell if I should exert some effort in overcoming this block, or whether it is not instead a gift of sorts. God telling me that if he worked at a 6:1 ratio, humans were meant to be least as relaxed.

A simple problem that I cannot solve

2008-07-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

One of the more difficult tasks facing inherent idealists such as myself is to what extent our faith groups must accommodate the cultures in which they reside.

There is a strange negative reciprocity within faith groups on how to do meaningful ministry in a culture that most regard as hostile towards basic Christian morals. On the one end you have the accommodationists, who can run the gammut from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. Both of them share the same basic idea, however different they may appear. They both buy into the model that says worship styles and ethical understandings are highly inculturated, and must be so, both for the attraction of new membership, and also for easing the transition between internal and external identity. They both tap into the same need to engage the culture on its own terms, and accept whichever of a couple of options we find ourselves left with. In this respect, they're very much in line with the two-party American political system.

Then there are the outcasts. I suppose my little Orthodox crew has to be considered as one of these as much as anyone. We tend to view that our culture is itself the problem, and conversion into our ranks is simply assumed to be a culutral change (or at least the choice of a distinctive subculture), and it is also assumed that some of our cornerstone teachings are too transcendent to be compromised. Indeed we tend to feel that any tweaking of the way we do this is a step in the wrong direction, as it threatens the intricate complex of interlocking self-definitions that make us distinct. For example, Baptist feel free to scrap whole forms of worship when they are deemed "not relevant" to youth, whereas most Orthodox pop gaskets if you propose even modest liturgical shifts.

So I find myself in this quandry. What is the balance? Should the particulars of worship forms and wording of dogmatic formulae be considered "packaging" that must shift in time and place, or is it true that shifts automatically represent a subtle departure that indirectly affect a longstanding ethos that has been responsible for creating those particulars. Can a non-Eastern liturgy really say the same thing? Must the spoon give way to the wafer, the wine to grape juice, and the daily repetition of set prayers to more emotive impromptus? Can the relatively simplistic "praise and worship" music of today truly touch the depths of spirituality of hymns that have been reviewed for hundreds of years for their precision and cyclic "feel" within a coherent cycle of worship?

Obviously I have chosen what I prefer, but I cannot help but look at those I consider very deep Christians who seem to have gotten there by other means. I also cannot help but look at those around me and wonder if the treasures I have found in accepting an alien brand of my faith can be meaningfully imparted in Greco-Roman clothing? Can I really see farmers in small town Arkansas ever coming en masse to be at home with methods and allusions that are not the creations of their forefathers? Or must I meet them "where they are"? And if so, what must be compromised to journey there with them?

It's a simple quandry, but one that I am completely unable to solve.

On the priesthood of believers

2008-07-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,
in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you
are God’s people;once you had not received mercy, but now you have received
mercy. Live as Servants of God. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to
abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct
yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as
evildoers, they may see your honourable deeds and glorify God when he comes to
judge. (1 Peter 2:9-12)

I was reading this verse today and thinking on a book I have been reading (The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with many other sources of input I've had as of late. Most of these sources have to do with our consumerism, both at the financial and cultural/personal levels.

It's difficult when you realize just how engrossed we are in consumerism; difficult on the soul. At least for me, there's a sense of anguish about the whole system. Must we be resigned to living in a cultural structure that is foundationally built on the peddling of unneeded, often unwanted, and even more often harmful goods?

As is often the case in such ponderings, one must eventually devlove the nucleus of an answer around some excellent advice from Fr. Hopko: "Try and think of the solution that involves as much of yourself as possible." That is to say, try and think of which form of solution you can affect the most by a change in yourself, and let the macro-problem fall where it may.

The more I look at it, the more I am convinced that Christianity is not a majority religion. It cannot be. Indeed, the life of a Christian is far less fulfilled when they are lured into believing that they live among a "majority Christian people." Such thinking perverts the point made by Peter from a responsibility into a right (specifically a bragging right). A person believing that they are a Christian person living among a Christian nation believes that Peter is speaking about a group right that they, and those around them with similar identity, inherently possess: We are God's people, therefore he loves us more.

Conversely, if you take my starting point, that Christianity is always a minority faith, even among a "churched" people, then the verse becomes one of resistance, intended primarily to be read by an embattled minority who understands themselves as an ALTERNATIVE to the world around them.

But what does it mean to be not only the nation of God, but specifically a nation of "priests"?

I believe the point lies in appreciating the role of the priest in Jewish understanding. The priest is not simply an interpreter of the Law - a role far more specified to the rabbis. A priest is essentially one who sacrifices on behalf of all the people. To be a priest is by definition to be "set apart", and one cannot be set apart if one is part of the mainstream. Indeed, the moral law given by God to govern the Jewish people was a much smaller than the elaborate laws given only to the priests. One could say, at risk of extreme simplification, that the book of Leviticus is a book of laws given over entirely to the specifics of being a priest-within-a-people; one who is set apart for special behavior, even among those who are ruled by God's law.

Practically speaking, this means that Christians are called to live in opposition to norms of the culture around them. Now this is not a culturally elitist point. All cultures (to my knowledge) contain both baptizable and irredeemable aspects. "Christian culture" is in fact a perpetual subculture of the few who have been truly transformed by God's love and sacrifice (God's priesthood, if you will). The paradigm of this love is the one who sacrificed himself for an unappreciative majority. He wished to save those who wished to kill him.

This last point cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Christians cannot realistically expect that people will come around, or at least not until they've gotten in their lashes on the backs of those who would try to save them. Druggies will not thank you for taking the crack pipe at the height of their habit, though they may retrospectively fight the habit for the honored love of a friend lost trying to save them. I believe the same basic logic works for people in general. The priests will initially be feared and loathed, precisely because they represent an uncomfortable alternative. They have chosen to put themselves under the stricter law; the harsher requirements.

And here I differ entirely with the Reformers. While we can all agree that one cannot "work their way into heaven" in such brutish form, I also think the wording of this passage excludes the possibility that our actions and virtues do not matter, or are not expected to be exceptional "among the Gentiles" - which is default for "nonbelievers". At some level Christians are called to model this alternative priestly life that they preach. We are not only to follow Christ, but to model Christ, in whatever broken form we can muster. Ultimately, the gentiles will not be drawn to something unless they can first say with some certainty "these people do represent something different from myself and what is commonly around me."

But what is around us? Honestly we can come up with plenty. But given my current readings and reflections, I think we are obliged to call out one of the strongest demons who we do combat with on a daily basis - Consumerism. This is the force that tries to control us by offering excessive bounties of goods. And I don't just mean STUFF. I mean those forces that try to commodify and secularize our very minds. I mean especially those forces that try and convince us that there is no unseen reality, and that our actions only have the consequences that we can measure in numbers and feel in physical and psychological damage. In short, Consumerism is the devil that tries to convince us that all of human interaction is easily categorized as a DEAL or a BARGAIN. That there is nothing sacred in life except sticking to promises we shake on with the contingencies we built into them. I can't think of anything that says "letter of the law and not the spirit" quite like this business model of living with others who we are supposed to treat as sacred vessels of God's creation.

Again I say, this demonic force is so large that its strongest power is in its sheer vastness. Nearly everything from the music we listen to, to the movies we watch, and the foods we buy, are tainted with its influence. Even our casual notions of "romance" are, on closer inspection, just creations of the demons of sales and marketing.

Take for example our expectant zenith of courtship - the diamond ring. Did you buy your wife a diamond ring? Don't think that has roots in consumerism? Look it up. Read on the history. We've been sold a bill of goods. It wasn't even a tradition until De Beers told us that it was, while at the same time sentencing the center of a continent to virtual slavery to provide our blood-soaked romantic baubles.

Before we can truly live lives differently from what is around us, we must first be aware of what it is that is around us. Be aware of where our food comes from, what our laws are based on, and generally we must become a more reflective people. Perhaps at the end of the day the fight against Consumerism starts with an understanding of how entranced we are by the aural culture and its neophilia. Perhaps being a nation of priests will only begin when we can first get some idea of what is profane, so that we might promote something sacred in its place.

But don't expect thanks. Questioning a lazily contented peoples' modus operandi, even at the level of something seemingly simply like a recent tradition manifested in a courtship bauble, is an invitation to harm. An apathetic pig with a full gut will tusk you for touching its trough of intoxicating slop, just as surely as a starving man will fight to the death for a morsel of grain. The sacrifice must be made with full appreciation that the majority will not love you for it, and will do unto you as it did unto your master, whom they hated first.

Idiocracy - The Joke is On Us

2008-06-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

Last night I finally got a chance to view the movie Idiocracy. The basic plot is that an average guy is frozen in cryogenic sleep for 500 years and wakes up to a world that is much dumber than the one he left, courtesy of the fact that dumb people have far more children then those who are intelligent.

But the plot isn't as important as the satire. Although it's a comedy on the face of it, I think that the biting social commentary is aimed at us, not at the fictitious "dumb people" in the movie. My guess is that it's precisely in our inability to get that the joke is on us that the movie makers get their ironic thrill.

The fact that the movie is aimed at us is made obvious when the main characters have a simultaneous epiphany - they realize that despite the stupidity and depravity of the people in 2505, their lives are pretty much analogous those the chracters were living back in 2007. That is to say, they are obsessed with money, sex and thrill-seeking; in short they are consumers, albeit ones who have lost the ability to couch their consumerism in gilded euphemisms.

The movie presents a hyperbole of how we already are, and asks us, via bathroom humor and crude sex jokes, to review the purpose of our own lives AND the integrity of our culture. In this latter point the movie is at its most subtle. In the idiotic future people still watch movies - they're just mindless (/plotless, literally), and they still have relationships - they're just shallow, and they still read - it's just trash, and they're still economically capitalist - they just have no ability to resist the punchlines of marketing.

Finally the movie is also a challenge to those few who DO understand that the joke is on them. It's a challenge to ask whether we're part of the problem or the solution. The main characters' little motto, borrowed from Thomas Paine - "Lead follow, or get out of the way" - turns out to be surprisingly prophetic in this slapstick distopian comedy.

Perhaps the entire movie can best be summed up when one distopian says to another "Wow you like sex and money too? No way! That's so cool. We should hang out."

Do the opposite

2008-05-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

A fitness coach recently gave a simple piece of advice to any of his proteges who wished to have a good body - Look at how most people around you live their lives, and do the opposite.

Truly the coach could not have forseen the way his advice would register in my mind. He was only saying, on the surface of it, that most people live a poor physical lifestyle, so you should be unlike them if you want a healthy body.

But as with all simple words of wisdom, the point can be extended.

One of my soap-boxes for quite some time now has been the way in which we carry on relationships. This runs the gammut from family to friends to romance and everything in between.

The time has come for some hard talks. On average, our interpersonal relationships fail. Let me repeat, because I don't think the point can be driven home hard enough: On average, we fail at relationships.

For the most part we have pathetically disrupted families, destructive romances built on nonsense and poor priorities, and while friendship is often demonstrated, I still have to say that co-dependence in self-destruction accounts for far too many "close friends."

With families the case is easily documented. On average, our marriages fail. On average, kids don't have two involved parents in their houses. On average we have no sense of greater family.

Romances are also a wreck. On average, we break up. On average, we have casual sex. On average, people cheat. On avearge we give our hearts away too easily, and recover them too effortlessly.

Friendships are more difficult to quantify, but I would still say that they suffer from general malaise. First of all, few people have friendships strong enough that they make any life plans around them. Secondly, the phrase "you're just a friend" has become the stock insult for would-be lovers who don't quite cut muster. Finally, we often think of "friends" as simply people we enjoy now and again. Nobody who we owe anything, but someone that we like to partner with in mutually destructive behaviors. Commonly we think of friends as people who love us no matter what, but not as people who will tell us biting truths with our best interests in mind.

So what to do? The best advice I've heard in a while was the coach at the beginning of this little schpeel - do the opposite. Prioritize your family and friends. Plan around them. Surround yourself with people who want the best for you, and not those who will buy you choclate ice cream to cheer you up from feeling fat. Don't give your heart away easily. Make sure there are tangible promises from a respectable source before allowing them any "rights" to you. And if something does go wrong romantically, do not treat it as some kind of game.

Get used to being single - we over date.

Become accustomed to friends who will critique you - we don't need "yes" men.

Love your family in tangible ways. Try to prioritize them over yourself at times.

and it goes beyond this...

Read, because most do not.

Read non-fiction, because most who read do not.

Exercise, because we're drowning in a sea of bodyfat and health difficulties.

Don't listen to relationship counselors, because they're the mouthpieces of a culture built on shitty assumptions.

Enjoy the outdoors, because we weren't meant to be lap dogs.

Work to live and not vice-versa, because nobody dies wishing they had another hour to give to the office.

Compete, because competative entertainment pushes us towards success.

Cook, because cuisine is an art of culture.

Be religious, because life without the sacred is boring.

Listen to different music, because top-40 kills brains cells and degrades women (even the women artists).

Be introspective, so that you can live a life worth living.

Give, because it isn't all about you.

Just generally do the opposite of a society that, on average, fails.

the Primary Intuition

2008-05-07T10:21:00.001-07:00

During my brief run as a Philosophy professor, one of the more interesting of my standing discussions is why people make a faith leap. Honestly, I do not find the "God-proof" arguments terribly compelling, and the good ones end up begging the question. For instance, I think the arguments from Religious Experience and Kierkegaardian Existentialism are persuasive, but not exactly "logical" in the sense of justifying the type of belief that religious conviction entails. If it was a purely intellectual decision, I believe that I would classify myself as an agnostic.

And yet my faithfulness is there. So I am left with the connundrum - how is it that I am drawn so strongly to a belief that is not based on the kind of empirical evidence that my secular beliefs are found upon?

In this little mini-quest of mine, the best thing I have to offer so far is a little reflection on the definition of faith from Hebrews 11:1-3

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

When I have presented this as an object of reflection to my classes on the nature of faith, I find that more often than not they get from it "faith is just a blind trust." The part of this analysis I find lacking is the "just" part. Honestly, the post does say that faith is blind, in that quite literally, it is not based on that which is seen. As a corollary, I would also have to say that it implies that if your faith is based on A,B,C proof-texts, it may not be the biblical faith that one really holds.

It's easy to focus on what the verse negates. It's easy to just say "ok God wants blind followers." It seems to excuse the problem of faith and reason in the minds of both believers and unbelievers alike, giving no real guidance as to what it might mean for a person to come to faith. But I think this is a bit lazy. If I'm reading it correctly, the verse actually DOES give a couple of really big hints.

First, it says that faith is based on hope, namely hope in the idea that there is an unseen reality that is, nevertheless, fully real. It can enter into our lives and affect us.

Hope is often the least emphasized of the three theological virtues (the other two being faith itself, and of course, love, the one most often emphasized). Yet I think that hope may be precisely what opens the door for faith and love. It's as if God is saying "Ok, I am telling you that there is a spiritual (read: immaterial) reality that is a counter-part to all that you do see. You can either accept or reject this proposition."

I call this call to hope the "Primary Intuition" of faith. If my reading of this verse is accurate, a person must hope for God. They must be open to the idea that all we see, hear, do, and encounter has a divine and sacred as well as a mundane significance. As we come to know God more fully this is fleshed out and developed in a more specific way, but I think it remains a pre-requisite for openness to God that we be fundamentally hopeful people. We have to be able to look at the world around us and say "This is not enough. There is more."

One might then ask "well don't we all hope for that?" To this I must answer in the negative. In all honesty, God is rather inconvenient for us much of the time. To truly believe that there is a force watching out and caring about all of what we do and think is frightening (or should be). It means that we are constantly accountable to another standard. There is never really a time when we are "alone", however much we may prefer to believe that we are. In short, we have no choice but to hold ourselves accountable to godly integrity. By integrity I mean, as I posted from coach Dan John, that we must always be true to ourselves in every situation. We cannot close the door and lose our responsibility to God. We cannot hide behind our rights as autonomous citizens, nor our conveniences of life. We cannot merely assert that we are the center of our own little one-person universe. We cannot persecute without fear of judgement. We cannot cheat and not get caught. We cannot lie and not be found out. We cannot hate our brothers and sisters without consequence. And perhaps most importantly, we cannot really believe that we are in complete control of our own (or even our collective) destiny.

I think the point here is that it establishes the Burden of Proof in the God question. If we look at reality and say "I want to believe that there is more", then God is a de facto answer. Because we yearn for a greater presence, we will choose to weight those things that support divine existence more heavily that those things which cause us to question.

Many I know who have chosen not to believe do so largley on the grounds that they would rather give up the pressures of living under the reality of God than the pressures of living under the nihilism of life without Him. This is not to say that they are immoral. Indeed I think some actually start out with a very humanitarian, ethical impulse. They want to believe that parts of their lives only have the values that they assign to them. Certainly our sexual ethics can be much looser if sex is only as important as we want to treat it (thus opening the door for the idea that it can be "harmless fun" or something of the sort).

Also, I think non-hope is a great temptation for those who wish to believe that we can assert a greater level of control over the visible world. Many humanitarian crusaders have difficulty (in my experience) coming to grips with how limited our little moral crusades really are. They wish to believe that somehow if we could just increase our education, think more clearly, and institute the right political mindset, that we could really change the way people are, and thus the normal functioning of our world. It's much easier in some ways to have this atittude that to understand that we are called to be better people out of love for our common creator, and not because we can expect to see immediate large-scale results from our undertakings and sacrifices.

Basically, it's a hard pill to swallow that the light has to shine through the darkness, but the darkness is often prefered by people. It's difficult to buy into a system that tells you up front "look, people are a rough lot. The more you love them, the higher and thicker your cross is libel to be."

The second difficulty of faith is to believe that this unseen reality is not only co-real, but actually MORE real than the concrete instances of our lives. Now, I am not saying that we should simply opt out of things of the flesh as if they were unimportant. What I am suggesting is that we have to act on the priorities of the unseen world first, and let them dictate how we live in the world we can see. For example, when we say that "marriage makes the husband and wife one flesh" we are clearly not talking about a literal mixing of DNA. What we're saying is that "as far as God is concerned, your salvation is now a matter of co-striving. Everything that happens to one happens to two. You are one accountable entity in the eyes of God." Further, you could no more break this bond before God than you could cut your own arm off. You must treat the other, with all of their faults in place, as if they were part of you, inseparable in spirit, mind, and pleasure.

But it is a joyous message too. It allows us to hold that, in spite of the seeming mundane and trivial lives we lead, we are of cosmic importance to the creator of all things. All of our life is covered in divine concern, and therefore everything we do has divine significance. All can be beautiful or ugly, all can be clean or unclean, all can be worship or idolatry.

Basically, it is the choice to believe that we matter beyond what we seem to. That we are paradoxically so insignificant to the cosmic order, and yet so meaningful to the cosmic King.

counselors

2008-05-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

Most people who are on MTV shows don't need air time, they need a counselor. Case in point: Tila Tequila.

when life becomes allegory

2008-03-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

Doing biblical studies has given me a deep appreciation for the way in which metaphors can become reality for us. Like when you're reading the stories of David and Solomon, or even something obscure like the early chapters of Joel, somehow with the movement of the spirit they can tell you something about "reality", almost as if there was some kind of magic waiting to be unlocked by the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Now I wonder equally how the reverse might work. I'm learning how life itself can become the allegory. It's as if each little episode of our lives, no matter how seemingly irrelevant, can also become a story waiting to be unlocked by the inspiration of the spirit.

These same stories are like paradigms that we all have to live out ourselves. We not only read about the prodigal son, we are him at times... and we can be the father at times... and the older brother at times. We all build the temple, and we all cavort with the foreign gods. We all raise up our voices in praise and promise as did Solomon, and display his cunning wisdom at times, and also at other times, his desecrating idolatry.

It reminds me of how things really don't change. I mean they DO, but so long as people are people, our entire lives are already written, couched in the tales of characters long past. We are all immortalized, with different details, in those texts of antiquity. Even the messages... occasionally we have the same realization, state them anew, and they are once again enlivening. And there are times when I hear lines, and they remind me of our inherent connection with these people of old. The same wisdoms, parroted again for the first time, enculturated into a totally different space and time.

What in particular brought about this little reflection? Hehe... check it out.

How silly.

How simple.

How poignant.

"There is nothing new under the sun." - Ecclesiastes

"It's all the same, only the names have changed." - Bon Jovi (Wanted Dead or Alive)

Words on integrity and relationships from Coach Dan John

2008-03-22T18:18:00.001-07:00

I really liked this little thing. It's from a letter written by Dan John, who is a well-known coach in the firtness and bodybuilding community, but also a Religious Education coordinator in the Roman Catholic church. Ostensibly he was talking about dating, but I liked the part on integrity and its connection to proper relationships; I don't think it has to refer only to dating.

Integrity is one of the things some people forget when they start getting
into
relationships. Integrity is being “one” person…so, on a date or just out
with friends, are
you the same person you are when you are with your family
at Thanksgiving? If you
change from place to place, event to event, you fail
the integrity test.

It is a great gauge for people you want to date, too. Watch somebody in
the school
cafeteria when the teachers aren’t around. Watch them when they
are with “less popular”
people. Watch ‘em. Someone who treats you like fine
gold and a disabled person like dirt is going to be treating you like dirt very
shortly, too.

A great clue for people is to watch how they act around their parents.
When I see
a student genuinely happy to see their folks, I know I have a kid
who acts the same at
home and school. Kids who are rude to their folks may
try to charm you but keep an eye
on your wallet.

If you are worried about introducing people you date to friends and
family, you
might want to put yourself through the integrity test.

-Daniel John (aka: Coach Dan John)

overt racism

2008-03-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

Well, one of my students is choosing to take an overtly racist position for her paper on abortion. The question for the essay reads: "Is an unborn essentially a human being who is in a stage of personal development, or is it essentially something less than human until birth or a certain stage of development?"

The real point is to get them to identify what it means to be "essentially human": What makes us what we are? How are we different than other animals? Do embryonic and fetal tissues share in those essential traits?

Anyhow, one of my students approached me with the question of what to do if ze (since it might be a man or a woman) thought it was ok to abort a black baby, but not a white one. I said well, it seems that you're proposing that race is an essential trait of humanity. The answer "yeah, basically."

As stoic as I typically am in the classroom (especially philosophy), it's difficult for me to stare down blatant, unrepentent racism in the modern world. I understand it as the product of a different place and time. I don't really judge racism in the American south a century ago, because it was a latent cultural assumption inherited from epochs of social conditioning. But today?

I mean seriously, which Sesame Street program did ze miss? Which of the millions of elementary indoctrination attempts, or MTV truisms didn't accomplish its brainwashing purpose? I'm a bit ticked. It's like hey, if you're going to brainwash people into being tolerance drones of all kinds of freakishness, at least make sure the good aspects of uber-tolerance are successfully imparted.

Besides, apparently this person doesn't have the kind of concerns that outweigh racism. For instance, I might think about being racist for a while, but then I couldn't watch Dave Chappelle's black white supremacist and bust out laughing. And what about all the hot Asian girls that are available to me as a single man? And then you've got the issue of Indian food. How can we live in a world where we can't acknowledge the objective superiority of spicy curry and nan to "meat'n'taters" ? Or there's the biggest issue of all: How can a racist live in a world where you can't pull for McFadden over Tebow for Heisman?

At this time and place of human history, I just don't get the impulse of racism...