Tag Archives: faith

May 13, 2013 · 6:20 pm

Tomorrow’s Theology. Today’s Task.

A recent article in The Banner, the online and print magazine of the Christian Reformed Church, began with the following:

I suspect that a thousand years from now Christians will look back at the 21st century and say, “How could Christians have let themselves think that?” They’d have in mind our theology—some of the doctrines that are so precious to us and that we consider to be the backbone of Christianity.

Some saw this as provocative. Some as overstating the case. Others as unthinkable.

My thought was, “People are already saying this now.”

EvolutionGodThe article more or less centers around the issue of evolution, which, at least in one form or another, has attained a near consensus status among scientists as being part of the process of the development of life on earth, including all animal life. Animal life includes people, which is in many ways where the rub is.

Are we, as C.S. Lewis puts it in the Chronicles of Narnia, the “sons of Adam and daughters of Eve”?

Scientists argue that it is not genetically possible for present DNA diversity to have issued from a single pair of ancestors in recent history.

So the writer of the provocative article in the Banner rightly notes that we must begin to assess certain readings and/or doctrines which seem to rely upon a view of the world which may not, in the end, be accurate.

Yet some would say, can’t we just read the Bible literally?  Well, no. At least not accurately (with regard to science. Or literature).

As Pete Enns put it in a Biologos article:

The biblical depiction of human origins, if taken literally, presents Adam as the very first human being ever created. He was not the product of an evolutionary process, but a special creation of God a few thousand years before Jesus—roughly speaking, about 6000 years ago. Every single human being that has ever lived can trace his/her genetic history to that one person.

This is a problem because it is at odds with everything else we know about the past from the natural sciences and cultural remains.

There are human cultural remains dating well over 100,000 years ago. One recent example is 130,000-year-old stone tools found on Crete. (Their presence on an island presumes seafaring ability at that time.) Ritual/religious structures are known to have existed as far back as 40,000-70,000 years ago. Recently, a temple complex was found in Turkey dating to about 11,500 years ago—7,000 years before the Pyramids.

In addition to cultural artifacts, there is also the scientific data from the various natural sciences that support a very old earth (4.5 billion years old) and the evolutionary development of life on it—things most readers of this Web site hardly need me to point out. Most recently, the genetic evidence for common descent has, in the view of most everyone trained in the field, lent great support to the antiquity of humanity and sharing a common ancestry with primates.

So reading the Bible literally is problematic for scientific and historic reasons. And there is another reason:

There is a third line of evidence that is a problem for a literal reading of the Adam story. Archaeological evidence gathered over the last 150 years or so has helped us understand the religions of the ancient Near East during and long before the Old Testament period. As is well known, Genesis 1 and the Adam story bear unmistakable resemblances to the stories of other peoples—none of which we would ever think of taking as historical depictions of origins.

Bingo.

And many people realize this, and have realized it for some time.

But apparently not certain readers of the Banner.

Objections ranged from: “Asking a whole lot of big complex questions without any attempt to answer it is not helpful” to “This article should have never made print” to “This article implicitly affirmed a lot of heretical propositions” and finally, “Is it possible to overture Synod to remove and replace the editor of the Banner for behavior so damaging to the well being of the churches?”

There were many more reactions, some of which were very thoughtful, others of which were more of the above (and worse!).

Was it a perfect article? I suppose not. But neither was it terrible. It opens the door to further dialogue, and that’s what we need. It is OK to ask a lot of big questions. And not only OK, imperative. Asking questions is an important, crucial step in learning anything.

Whenever you are no longer allowed to ask questions, you can safely assume you’re no longer in a good place.

We should be asking questions, and not just about tomorrow’s theology a thousand years from now, but about what we might, by grappling with Scripture, science, and the best of human understanding, believe today about ourselves, our world, and God.

Many are already doing it, and we should join them.

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A few recommended resources:
Looking for the Missing Link – a documentary by my friend Leo Hagedorn
The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins – Pete Enns. One of the best works I have read regarding how we are to read Adam through the biblical lens, both as understood in Genesis, by Israelites and Jews, and by Paul and Jesus.
Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All The Answers Learned to Ask The Questions – Rachel Held Evans
Network for Science, Technology, and Faith – the Episcopal Church

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April 23, 2013 · 2:38 pm

The Pistol-Packing Pastor

pistol-packing-pastor2

The LA Times had a story recently about a pastor who carries heat: “He shows others how to put their trust in God and take their security into their own hands.”

From the story:

BEAUMONT, Texas — Two years ago on Super Bowl Sunday, Pentecostal preacher James McAbee was getting into his car after services when he heard a commotion. He saw two men break a window and enter a church hall that was being renovated.

McAbee called 911. The dispatcher said it would take officers at least 11 minutes to respond.

He lingered outside for a moment, frustrated.

“I could hear them snapping the lumber and carrying the sheet rock,” McAbee said.

The pastor drew a .380 pistol he wore in an ankle holster and burst into the hall — only to find two adolescents.

McAbee, who’d had a troubled youth, saw himself in the pair. He lowered his gun to offer some fatherly advice, but the older one, a 17-year-old with two outstanding drug warrants, rushed the pastor with the pointy end of a broken 2-by-4.

“I got my gun back out in time,” McAbee said. “He froze in his tracks. I said, ‘Son, you better not move or I’ll put one right in your watermelon!’”

The pastor held them until police arrived.

Some laud this pastor as exemplary, and he’s become known as Triple-P: “Pistol-Packing Pastor.” He began teaching gun classes shortly after he earned his nickname, and cites Scripture that he says justifies the classes: Psalm 144:1, “The Lord has trained me for battle”; and Luke 22:36, in which Jesus instructs the disciples to arm themselves.

I actually posted Luke 22:38 earlier today on Facebook:

So they said, “Lord, look! Here are two swords.”
He answered them, “Enough of that!”

Typical translations will have Jesus reply: “That is enough,” but I like this version. It’s as if Jesus is dismissing such talk. Yet in either case, Jesus is noting that his disciples are not to be about aggression and violence. Two swords would be laughed at in the face of even the smallest contingent of Roman or Herodian soldiers. He would face their worst, and was not about to respond in kind.

RELATED: Christianity, Gun Violence, and the Nihilism of Mike Huckabee

But back to our pistol-packing pastor:
He was expecting more than 100 people to attend his latest class, mandated by the state for concealed handgun licenses. The class costs $50, and in recent months, McAbee’s business has tripled and he’s trained more than 1,000 people.

What do you think? Is he doing a good thing? Is it possible to teach someone to trust in God and take security matters into their own hands? My own sense is that the need to carry the gun points to the opposite of trust in God. “Sure, I’ll trust you, God, up until the point I actually need to trust you. At that point, I’ll take care of things myself, thank you.”

There’s more to the story:

Guns were a normal part of McAbee’s life. He was raised in the small town of Clover, S.C., where his grandfather took him hunting. His mother worked in law enforcement and carried a gun.

One day at the range, his mother accidentally shot and partially paralyzed herself. McAbee was 9.

He grew up caring for his mother, and the stress took a toll. As a teenager he started using drugs and stealing to feed his habit.

When he was 18, McAbee was caught breaking into an elderly neighbor’s house. He was convicted of burglary, aggravated assault and battery, and served 21/2 years in a maximum-security prison.

There, McAbee felt called to preach.

This is a fascinating story. This guy spends over twenty years in prison because his mother shot herself with her own gun, yet he’s still enamored with them. Amazing. In prison he finds God. You’d think perhaps he would turn over a new leaf in regard to guns. The story continues (you’re not even going to believe this part):

In 2008, his mother again wounded herself with her own gun. Weakened by the shooting, she died later that year.

Seriously? She does this twice?! And she worked in law enforcement. You’d think this would be it for McAbee and guns. There’s no way he can look at one and say, “Hey, this is a good thing, more people ought to have these…” Except he does.

McAbee’s attitude about guns was unchanged: “Don’t blame the tool.”

Don’t blame the tool. Indeed.

MacAbee was hired three years ago at his present church, which is in a low-income neighborhood where gun crimes and celebratory gunfire is not uncommon. The day after Obama was re-elected, he bought an AR-15 assault rifle for nearly $1,000. He noted: “If the thugs are going to have one, I’m going to have one too.” If he insists on referring to people in his neighborhood as thugs, people who need the kind of help and life his church can offer, he might as well be armed. And apparently he is.

On occasion, the article notes, McAbee wears two guns to church — the .40 on his hip and the .380 in the ankle holster. His wife also carries a concealed gun. Neither has a safety on the guns they carry, and they like to keep a bullet chambered.

“People think I’m a gun nut and gun crazy, but I’m not. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I believe the Bible teaches peace. But that doesn’t mean I should let them hurt me,” he said.

That’s like saying: “I believe the Bible teaches peace. But I don’t actually believe in trying it for myself.”

Imagine if Jesus had said, “My way is peace, and how dare you lay a finger on me, Pilate! I’m locked and loaded, baby!”

I invite you to read the rest of the story and draw your own conclusions.There’s been obviously tons of talk about guns of late, beginning with the Newtown tragedy and recent attempts at gun legislation. There are differing perspectives as to what the second amendment should mean today (or even meant originally).

Personally, I am amazed that someone who spent most of his adult life in prison and lost his own mother due to guns would have such a perspective. My own sense is that a ‘pistol-packing pastor’ is an oxymoron, and such an example doesn’t teach people anything about trusting in God, or about the way of Christ.

But I could be wrong about that.

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February 5, 2013 · 10:33 am

The Larger Hope

Came across this selection from In Memoriam A.H.H., by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  Terrific stuff – if you’ve never read the entire poem – it’s worth it.  It was a favorite of Queen Victoria, and considered by many among the greatest poems of the 19th century.  Guess it’s poetry week around here.

From Wikipedia:

It is a requiem for the poet’s Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna in 1833. Because it was written over a period of 17 years, its meditation on the search for hope after great loss touches upon many of the most important and deeply-felt concerns of Victorian society. It contains some of Tennyson’s most accomplished lyrical work, and is an unusually sustained exercise in lyric verse. It is widely considered to be one of the great poems of the 19th century.

hands_hope

From In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
 
That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubble to the void,
When God has made the pile complete.

Behold, we know not anything,
I can but trust that good shall fall.
At last –far off– at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring
 
The wish, that of the living whole,
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have,
The likest God within the soul?

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope
And gather dust and chaff, and call,
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.

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January 28, 2013 · 3:35 pm

Religion May Not Survive the Internet, Then Again… It Might.

"Does your pastor know that?"

“Does your pastor know that?”

The End of Religion?

An article appeared several days ago on Salon.com entitled: Religion May Not Survive the Internet.  (Originally written by Valeria Tarico for Alternet.)

I was curious about this, so I checked it out.  Perhaps my favorite line was the following:

“Tech-savvy mega-churches may have Twitter missionaries, and Calvinist cuties may post viral videos about how Jesus worship isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship, but that doesn’t change the facts: the free flow of information is really, really bad for the product they are selling.”

I get it.  There are many approaches to religious faith that seek to maintain a following through controlling what information is accessible (and acceptable) to its adherents.  I recall a church expressly forbidding its members from reading books by a certain author.  Not just: we disagree with that theological approach, but: “If you want to be a member here you will NOT read those books.”  The article states: “Such defenses worked beautifully during humanity’s infancy. But they weren’t really designed for the current information age.”  Precisely.

To me, such an approach to faith and to God is getting it backward, and perhaps its for the best if these narrow religious approaches do not survive the internet.

After all, when did telling a group of people not to do something prevent everyone from doing it?  It’s a losing approach from the start, particularly in today’s info-accessible age.

The article goes on to note:

“A traditional religion, one built on “right belief,” requires a closed information system. That is why the Catholic Church put an official seal of approval on some ancient texts and banned or burned others. It is why some Bible-believing Christians are forbidden to marry nonbelievers.  It is why Quiverfull moms home school their kids from carefully screened text books.”  (This really does happen!)

Per my recent post on Harvey Cox’s book The Future of Faith, I think there is a shift in religious circles away from exclusive focus on “right belief”, particularly of the closed-system sort, toward a faith that embraces mystery, and seeks to engage one’s life in all of its facets (spiritual, emotional, physical; work, play, relationships; art, nature, beauty).  Less and less folks are content to be told: “You have to believe this, and you cannot read this.”

I hope the Internet does as the author of this article suggests: kills such approaches.  Perhaps they’ve been allowed to thrive for too long as it is.

"This online communion just isn't the same."

“This online communion just isn’t the same.”

My own sense is not that religion will not survive the internet, but the converse: religion will thrive in the age of the Internet.  A healthy approach to religion embraces the free flow of ideas.  This is exactly the idea behind my book: Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation, and God.  That our faith grows when exposed to a diverse set of ideas and approaches, and that when we don’t engage  other religious and philosophical approaches, it stagnates, closes in on itself, and eventually goes on life-support.  The faith life of many is being given new life as the Internet age opens up new vistas of spiritual perspectives and practices.  Additionally, through online connections many new relationships are allowed to begin and flourish as people find willing conversation partners and co-collaborators.

The Salon article goes on to praise the wonders of science (who am I to argue?), but goes further than I would in declaring that science and a materialist worldview are as sufficient as, or perhaps superior to, any religious approach.  I certainly wouldn’t go that far, though I sympathize with the desire to see humanity move toward a more open, inquiring approach to life, one that doesn’t see differing ideas as competitors as much as different lenses through which to look, and through which one might see something one hadn’t noticed before.

Does the Internet spell the end of faith?  Maybe for a few (like those who aren’t allowed to use it).  But for myself and many others, it is a resource that allows us to engage God and each other at new levels.

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January 2, 2013 · 5:43 pm

The Return of Faith

Sometimes a step back is necessary for us to move forward.

Faith vs. Belief

Every once in awhile I run across a book that keeps me up late and has me excited to wake up in the morning.  Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith is one such book.

In the first chapter he notes that contrary to earlier predictions, faith and religion are as vibrant as ever.  But things are shifting.  People are turning to religion more for support in their efforts to live in this world and make it better, and less to prepare for the next.  “The pragmatic and experiential elements of faith as a way of life are displacing the previous emphasis on institution and beliefs.”  In short, Cox claims that we are moving from an era of ‘belief’ to an era of ‘faith.’  But aren’t belief and faith the same thing, you ask?  No, and understanding the difference is vital, not only for one’s own spiritual journey, but for grasping the undercurrents of the larger shifts in the world of spirituality.

An excerpt from Chapter One:

It is true that for many people “faith” and “belief” are just two words for the same thing.  But they are not the same, and in order to grasp the magnitude of the religious upheaval now under way, it is important to clarify the difference.  Faith is about deep-seated confidence.  In everyday speech we usually apply it to people we trust or the values we treasure.  It is what theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965) called “ultimate concern,” a matter of what the Hebrews spoke of as the “heart.”

Belief, on the other hand, is more like opinion.  We often use the term in everyday speech to express a degree of uncertainty.  “I don’t really know about that,” we say, “but I believe it may be so.” future_faith_book_520Beliefs can be held lightly or with emotional intensity, but they are more propositional than existential.  We can believe something to be true without it making much difference to us, but we place our faith only in something that is vital for the way we live.  Of course people sometimes confuse faith with beliefs, but it will be hard to comprehend the tectonic shift in Christianity today unless we understand the distinction between the two.

The Spanish writer Migual Unamuno (1864-1936) dramatizes the radical dissimilarity of faith and belief in his short story “Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr,” in which a young man returns from the city to his native village in Spain because his mother is dying.  In the presence of the local priest she clutches his hand and asks him to pray for her.  The son does not answer, but as they leave the room, he tells the priest that, much as he would like to, he cannot pray for his mother because he does not believe in God. “That’s nonsense,” the priest replies. “You don’t have to believe in God to pray.”

The priest in Unamuno’s story recognized the difference between faith and belief.  He knew that prayer, like faith, is more primordial than belief. He might have engaged the son who wanted to pray but did not believe in God in a theological squabble.  He could have hauled out the frayed old “proofs” for the existence of God, whereupon the young man might have quoted the equally jaded arguments against the proofs.  Both probably knew that such arguments go nowhere.  The French writer Simone Weil (1909-43) also knew.  In her Notebooks, she once scribbled a gnomic sentence: “If we love God, even though we think he doesn’t exist, he will make his existence manifest.”  Weil’s words sound paradoxical, but in the course of her short and painful life—she died at thirty-four—she learned that love and faith are both more primal than beliefs.

Debates about the existence of God or the gods were raging in Plato’s time, twenty-five hundred years ago.  Remarkable, they still rage on today, as a recent spate of books rehearsing the routine arguments for and against the existence of God demonstrates.  By their nature these quarrels are about beliefs and can never be finally settled.  But faith, which is more closely related to awe, love, and wonder, arose long before Plato, among our most primitive Homo sapiens forebears. Plato engaged in disputes about beliefs, not about faith.

Creeds are clusters of beliefs.  But the history of Christianity is not a history of creeds.  It is the story of a people of faith who sometimes cobbled together creeds out of beliefs.  It is also the history of equally faithful people who questioned, altered, and discarded those same creeds.  As with church buildings, from clapboard chapels to Gothic cathedrals, creeds are symbols by which Christians have at times sought to represent their faith.  But both the doctrinal canons and the architectural constructions are means to an end.  Making either the defining element warps the underlying reality of faith.

The nearly two thousand years of Christian history can be divided into three uneven periods.  The first might be called the “Age of Faith.” It began with Jesus and his immediate disciples when a buoyant faith propelled the movement he initiated.  During this first period of both explosive growth and brutal persecution, their sharing in the living Spirit of Christ united Christians with each other, and “faith” meant hope and assurance in the dawning of a new era of freedom, healing, and compassion that Jesus had demonstrated.  To be a Christian meant to live in his Spirit, embrace his hope, and to follow him in the work that he had begun.

The second period in Christian history can be called the “Age of Belief.” Its seeds appeared within a few short decades of the birth of Christianity when church leaders began formulating orientation programs for new recruits who had not known Jesus or his disciples personally.  Emphasis on belief began to grow when these primitive instruction kits thickened into catechisms, replacing faith in Jesus with tenets about him.  Thus, even during that early Age of Faith the tension between faith and belief was already foreshadowed.

Then, during the closing years of the third century, something more ominous occurred.  An elite class—soon to become a clerical class—began to take shape, and ecclesial specialists distilled the various teaching manuals into lists of beliefs.  Still, however, these varied widely from place to place, and as the fourth century began there was still no single creed.  The scattered congregations were united by a common Spirit.  A wide range of different theologies thrived.  The turning point came when Emperor Constantine the Great (d. 387 CE) made his adroit decision to commandeer Christianity to bolster his ambitions for the empire.  He decreed that the formerly outlawed new religion of the Galilean should now be legal, but he continued to reverence the sun god Helios alongside Jesus.

Constantine also imposed a muscular leadership over the churches, appointing and dismissing bishops, paying salaries, funding buildings, and distributing largesse.  He and not the pope was the real head of the church.  Whatever his motives, Constantine’s policies and those of his successors crowned Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire.  The emperors undoubtedly hoped this strategy would shore up their crumbling dominion, from which the old gods seemed to have fled.  The tactic, however, did not save the empire from collapse.  But for Christianity it proved to be a disaster: its enthronement actually degraded it. From an energetic movement of faith it coagulated into a phalanx of required beliefs, thereby laying the foundation for every succeeding Christian fundamentalism for centuries to come.

The ancient corporate merger triggered a titanic makeover.  The empire became “Christian,” and Christianity became imperial.  Thousands of people scurried to join a church they had previously despised, but now bore the emperor’s seal of approval.  Bishops assumed quasi-imperial powers and began living like imperial elites.  During the ensuing “Constantinian era,” Christianity, at least its official version, froze into a system of mandatory precepts that were codified into creeds and strictly monitored by a powerful hierarchy and imperial decrees.  Heresy became treason, and reason became heresy.

…Neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation did much to alter the underlying foundations of the Age of Belief… The Age of Belief lasted roughly fifteen hundred years, ebbing in fits and starts with the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the secularization of Europe, and the anticolonial upheavals of the twentieth century.

Still, to think of this long middle ear as a nothing but a dark age is misleading.  As we have seen, throughout those fifteen centuries Christian movements and personalities continued to live by faith and according to the Spirit.  Confidence in Christ was their primary orientation, and hope for his Kingdom their motivating drive. [I cut a fair bit of this and the preceding paragraph for the sake of brevity.]

Now we stand on the threshold of a new chapter in the Christian story.  Despite dire forecasts of its decline, Christianity is growing faster that it ever has before, but mainly outside the West and in movements that accent spiritual experience, discipleship and hope; pay scant attention to creeds; and flourish without hierarchies.  We are now witnessing the beginning of a “post-Constantinian era.” Christians on five continents are sharking off the residues of the second phase (the Age of Belief) and negotating a bumpy transition into a fresh era for which a name has not yet been coined.

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So, can we make a distinction between ‘faith’ and ‘belief’?

The book, as best I can tell (I’m into Chapter Four), dives further into this delineation, into what got us to where we’ve been, and what might move us forward into the future.

Terrific stuff, and as I read it, it seems to make a decent amount of sense.  And perhaps more pertinent, it seems to connect with what we find in the text: Jesus himself and the earliest believers, it seems, were not motivated by assent to a list of beliefs, but rather a deep-seated and profound faith that God was doing something new and his kingdom was breaking into the world in unprecedented ways.

I find that for some time perhaps I’ve been losing faith in belief, even as my faith continues to grow in new and exciting ways.  It is encouraging to consider this larger movement of God’s Spirit in the world, which, despite our best efforts to constrain it, continues to “blow wherever it will.”

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October 1, 2012 · 1:42 pm

‘Spiritual but not religious’: A Response

Mind open, mind closed.

The real reason ‘spiritual but not religious’ is a cop-out
A guest post by Robert Kroese

Robert Kroese is the author of Mercury Falls, Mercury Rises, and many other engaging apocalyptic adventures!  This post was originally published on his blog at robertkroese.com, and was a thoughtful response to Alan Miller’s post.

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Recently I ran across a blog post with the title My Take: “I’m spiritual but not religious” is a cop-out. I read the post with interest because I’ve often thought this very thing: that claiming to be “spiritual” isn’t an answer to a question about one’s religious beliefs, but rather a way to avoid the question while sounding like one has put some thought into it.

Sadly, the post almost immediately devolves into unverifiable, baseless generalizations. For example:

Those in the spiritual-but-not-religious camp are peddling the notion that by being independent – by choosing an “individual relationship” to some concept of “higher power”, energy, oneness or something-or-other – they are in a deeper, more profound relationship than one that is coerced via a large institution like a church.

Whoa, what now? That’s a bold statement. And it doesn’t appear at the end of a chain of rigorous reasoning or citation of studies about beliefs; it’s just thrown out there, as if it’s a brute fact of reality. The author follows this up with all manner of other vague and unsupported statements, somehow managing in an 800-word blog post to attack moral relativism, a culture centered on “feelings,” and megachurches — and going on to defend “old fashioned” values and the King James Bible (which has done all right for 400 years without his support, thank you very much).

Hidden in that rhetorical avalanche are two short paragraphs that I think actually come close to dealing with the matter at hand:

The trouble is that “spiritual but not religious” offers no positive exposition or understanding or explanation of a body of belief or set of principles of any kind.

What is it, this “spiritual” identity as such? What is practiced? What is believed?

The problem, as these paragraphs indicate, isn’t that “spiritual but not religious” is a bad answer to the question “what are your religious beliefs?” (as Miller seems to argue in the rest of the post) but rather that it’s a non-answer.

Imagine a group of plane crash survivors stranded on an island, debating the best way to get off the island. Some argue that the best way is to build a signal fire. Others argue that they should try to build a raft. Still others say that trying to get off the island is a waste of time; that they should focus their efforts on basic survival. Finally one person pipes up with, “Well, I don’t agree with any of you, but I definitely think we’re on an island.”

The man isn’t wrong, but his answer doesn’t get them anywhere. It doesn’t add anything to the discussion. It’s just an acknowledgement of the predicament. And worse, it’s an answer that seems calculated to put the speaker above or outside of the arena of discussion: “Have your petty disagreements amongst yourself; meanwhile I will sit here and contemplate the ocean surrounding us.”

Let me clarify that I’m not saying that the “spiritual but not religious” person is being intentionally smug or provocative, but that this is how is answer is going to be received by people who have been pulling their hair out trying to figure out a way off the island. It could be that he has already considered and rejected as wanting all possible attempts to get off the island and possesses some knowledge about the island that the other survivors aren’t privy to. But if so, then he’s doing a disservice to the other survivors by not sharing his knowledge. And if not, then he’s just wasting their time by pointing out the obvious.

The “spiritual but not religious” label points to three possibilities, as far as I can see:

1. The person has done a thorough study of the world’s religions, found them wanting, and took a different path.

2. The person is largely ignorant of religious beliefs but has been blessed with a mystical understanding that allows him or her to see the shortcomings of any “man-made” religion, and took a different path.

3. The person is largely ignorant of religious beliefs, has no real wisdom to offer, and is parroting an answer that he or she has heard various celebrities use in interviews with some success.

Without lapsing into pure cynicism, I’ll point out that (1) requires a lot of work, and (2) requires that the person be able to see a reality that is evidently hidden to most of the world’s traditional religious believers, whereas (3) requires only pure ignorance, which is in bountiful supply on this planet.

Of course, answering a question about religious beliefs by saying “I’m a Baptist,” “I’m Jewish,” or “I’m an atheist,” isn’t any more inherently difficult than saying “I’m spiritual but not religious.” In other words, there are lazy and ignorant Baptists, Jews and atheists as well as lazy and ignorant “spiritual-but-not-religious” people. Some Baptists have thought long and hard about what they believe and why. Others are just parroting answers they learned in Sunday school. But to their credit, at least they are answering the question.

Further, it seems odd to me that “spiritual but not religious” is such a common answer to the question about one’s religious beliefs. If you really want me to believe that you’ve made a deliberate choice to walk the road less traveled, then you might try giving a different answer to a question about your religious beliefs than that given by, say, Lady Gaga. Otherwise, aren’t you just a Gagaist? What’s the difference between you and every other “spiritual but not religious” person? If there is a difference, then tell me what it is. If there isn’t, then you’re just a member of another vaguely defined religion.

If you are asked about your religious and you don’t really have any religious beliefs, I suggest saying, “I don’t really have any religious beliefs.” If you have some vague belief that people have souls and that there are bad consequences to immoral behavior, say that. If you think that we’re all part of the Great Mystical Oneness, then say that. Saying that you’re “spiritual” doesn’t communicate anything. And saying that you’re “not religious” only communicates that while you may not know what the answer is, you suspect that most of the answers other people have come up with are wrong, or at least deficient.

You might have some really interesting thoughts about God, souls, sin, redemption, justice, forgiveness, love, purpose and oneness. But if you start out by saying that you’re “spiritual but not religious,” I’m going to seriously doubt it.

This post reflects the views of its author.

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March 20, 2012 · 10:43 am

Up There

Some Thoughts on Belief

There’s been a lot of talk lately at the pub and in the press about faith and belief.  An apocryphal story has been told that says something very profound about the nature of belief in our society.

The story is told of Yuri Gagarin, the first Russian Cosmonaut and the first person to have gone into orbit and in outer space. When he came back to the earth, there was a reception for him in the Kremlin. During the course of the reception, Nikita Khrushchev, then the general secretary of the Communist Party and the head of state, slowly led him in the study and said, “Comrade Yuri, you are the first man to have gone into space. I want to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer from you. Out there in space, was there a heaven? Were there gates of pearl? Streets paved with gold? Angels? God? Did you see anything like that?”

Yuri became very grave in his face and said, “Comrade, I cannot tell you the lie. Unfortunately, there is a heaven. I saw the gates of pearl and the angels there.”

Khrushchev said, “Well comrade, this is what I always feared. But you know that you cannot say this to anybody else, because the Communist Party depends on NOT having heaven up there.”

Then he was taken on a world tour to further propagate this great achievement of the Russian State.

He also came to the Vatican, and he was given a reception in the Vatican and a private audience with the Pope.  The Pope also took him aside and asked, “Brother Yuri, you are the first one to have gone into outer space.  Now tell me, did you see a heaven and God and angels and Peter standing at the gates of pearl?”

Yuri was reminded of the warning given by Khrushchev, so he said, “Holy Father, I am so sorry to tell you but there is no such thing up there.” And the Pope said, “This is what I always feared. But you know you cannot talk about this outside.”

What might this story tell us about belief in our culture?

Mike Friesen recently asked on his blog, “How important is belief in God for Christians?”

He notes:

“Growing up in an Evangelical church, I thought that belief was the most important thing to Christian faith. We placed enormous emphasis on the Bible as the end-all-be-all of the Christian faith (unfortunately, we never developed real spiritual practices). And, as I get older, I find myself reading the bible more, loving the bible more, and caring about what the Bible says and what it means for not only my life, but for those around me. I find the authority in scripture. When I turned 16, I began having thoughts like: Do I believe in God? Or, do I believe in my pastors beliefs in God? Do I have my own answers? Or, do I have the answers of those around me?

Does one believe in God, if they just believe the teachings of their pastor? Maybe a better way is to say, by believing in the Christian religion, does religion believe for me? And, does what makes you a good Christian come from a checklist of beliefs?”


Marcus Borg notes that faith and belief have shifted in our culture over time.  (Below excerpt from: Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: A Thinking Person’s Guide to the Bible)

“The modern preoccupation with factuality has had a pervasive and distorting effect on how we see the Bible and Christianity.

Christianity in the modern period became preoccupied with the dynamic of believing or not believing. For many people, believing ‘iffy’ claims to be true became the central meaning of the Christian faith. It is an odd notion – as if what God wants from us is believing highly problematic statements to be factually true. And if one can’t believe them, then one doesn’t have faith and isn’t a Christian.

The thoroughly modern character of this notion of faith can be seen by comparing what faith meant in the Christian Middle Ages. During those centuries, basically everybody in the Christian culture thought the Bible to be true. They had no reason to think otherwise; the Bible’s stories from creation through the end of the world were part of the conventional wisdom of the time. Accepting them did not require ‘faith.’ Faith had to do with one’s relationship to God, not with whether one thought the Bible to be true.

For me, being Christian is not about believing in the Bible or about believing in Christianity. Rather, it is about a deepening relationship with the God to whom the Bible points, lived within the Christian tradition as a sacrament of the sacred.”

What do you think?  What does belief entail?   What role does it play in the life of faith?  Do you resonate with any of the thoughts and questions above?

Post your thoughts or comments below!

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May 19, 2011 · 2:41 pm

Stages of Faith

Stages of Faith: Human Development and the Quest for Meaning
James Fowler, Ph.D. is a developmental psychologist, a United Methodist layperson, and Director of the Center for Faith Development at Emory University. He is the premiere pioneer of the study of Faith development, and his book Stages of Faith (1981) is a ground-breaking classic. Fowler identifies six stages through which pilgrims of faith invariably travel.  Below are summaries of the stages drawn from various sources as well as the book itself.  Read it through and see what you think.


Steps on the journey

The first stage:
Intuitive-Projective faith
This first stage usually occurs between the ages of three and seven, and is characterized by the psyche’s unprotected exposure to the Unconscious. Imagination runs wild in this stage, uninhibited by logic. It is the first step in self-awareness and when one absorbs one’s culture’s strong taboos. The advantages of this stage are the birth of imagination and the growing ability to grasp and unify one’s perception of reality.  This age perceives the world through lens of imagination and intuition 
unrestrained by logic e.g., lives in a magical world in which anything is
 possible.

The second stage: Mythic-Literal faith
Symbol and ritual begin to be integrated by the child. These symbols, however, are one-dimensional. Only literal interpretations of myth and symbol are possible. Here the child develops a way
of dealing with the world and making meaning that now criticizes and 
evaluates the previous stage of imagination and fantasy. The gift of this 
stage is narrative. The child now can really form and re-tell powerful
 stories that grasp his or her experiences of meaning. There is a quality of
literalness about this. The child is not yet ready to step outside the
stories and reflect upon their meanings. The child takes symbols and myths
 at pretty much face value, though they may touch or move him or her at a 
deeper level. Here one sees the world as a story–concrete, literal, narrative family of
 ritual and myth e.g., “In the beginning, God created the . . .”


The third stage: Synthetic-Conventional faith
The majority of the population finds its permanent home in this stage. Usually arising in adolescence, it is a stage characterized by conformity, where one finds one’s identity by aligning oneself with a certain perspective, and lives directly through this perception with little opportunity to reflect on it critically. One has an ideology at this point, but may not be aware that one has it. Religious concepts are “tacitly” held – the person is not fully conscious of having chosen to believe something. Thus the name “Synthetic” – beliefs are not the result of any type of analytical thought. Any attempts to reason with a person in this stage about his beliefs, any suggestion of demythologizing his beliefs is seen as a threat.  Those who differ in opinion are seen as “the Other,” as different “kinds” of people. Authority derives from the top down, and is invested with power by majority opinion. Dangers in this stage include the internalization of symbolic systems (power, “goodness” “badness”) to such a degree that objective evaluation is impossible. Furthermore, while one can at this stage enter into an intimate relationship with the divine, This stage develops in the teenager to early adulthood or beyond, sees the world through the lens of 
the peer community e.g., unconsciously “catches” faith, values, and way of 
thinking from peer group or subculture. Tends not to question the accepted
ways of thinking e.g., “if the Bible says . . . it must be true” or “if my church says . . . then it’s the Truth.”   At this stage it is difficult dealing calmly and rationally 
with issues that touches on one’s identity.

One of the hallmarks of this stage is that it tends to compose its images of
 God as extensions of interpersonal relationships. God is often experienced
 as Friend, Companion, and and Personal Reality, in relationship to which I’m 
known deeply and valued. I think the true religious hunger of adolescence is 
to have a God who knows me and values me deeply, and can be a kind of 
guarantor of my identity and worth in a world where I’m struggling to find 
who I can be.

 At any of the stages from two on you can find adults who are best described by these stages. Stage Three, thus, can be an adult stage. We do find many persons, in churches and out, who are best described by faith that essentially took form when they were adolescents.  The name “conventional” means that most people in this stage see themselves as believing what “everybody else” believes and would be reluctant to stop believing it because of the need they feel to stay connected with their group. It turns out that most of the people in traditional churches are at this stage. And in fact, Fowler comes right out and states that religious institutions “work best” if the majority of their congregation is in Stage 3. (Now THAT explains a lot of the preaching we hear that sounds destined to discourage people from questioning! To properly assure their continuance, churches apparently need people to remain in Stage 3. )

When a person cognitively realizes that there are contradictions between some of his authority sources and is ready to actually reflect realistically on them, he or she begins to be ready to move to the fourth stage.

The fourth stage: Individuative-Reflective
This is primarily a stage of angst and struggle, in which one must face difficult questions regarding identity and belief.  It is ideal that a person reach this stage by their mid-twenties, but as has already been discussed, it is evident that many adults never reach it.  If it happens in the thirties or forties or even later, it is much harder for the person to adapt.  At this time, the personality gradually detaches from the defining group from which it formerly drew its identity. The person is aware of him or herself as an individual and must–perhaps for the first time–take personal responsibility for his/her beliefs and feelings. This is a stage of de-mythologizing, where what was once unquestioned is now subjected to critical scrutiny. Stage four is heavily existential, where nothing is certain but one’s own existence, and disillusionment reigns. This stage is not a comfortable place to be and, although it can last for a long time, those who stay in it do so in danger of becoming bitter, suspicious characters who trust nothing and no one. But most, after entering this stage, sense that not only is the world far more complex than his or her stage three mentality would allow for, it is still more complex and numinous than the agnostic rationality of stage four allows.

Meanings in stories become separate from the symbols themselves, so the stories are demythologized. (In losing the literal meaning of the religious symbols, people can lose ALL meaning of the symbol and that is how you wind up with so many atheists and agnostics at this stage.)  This process can result in grief and guilt in some cases, and can take several years to work through. But in the place of the literal symbol, the person gains the ability to make comparisons and whatever meanings they retain are explicitly held (and thus more authentic in that they are personal.)

The strengths of this stage lie in the capacity for critical reflection (and the willingness to face truths that may cause distancing from comfortable thought patterns and thus pain.) But a weakness of this stage is that the person may put excess confidence in the rational, conscious mind, thus ignoring unconscious and spiritual forces that become more prominent in the next stage.

Stage five: Conjunctive faith
Here one moves from stage four’s rationalism to the acknowledgement of paradox and transcendence. It is in this stage that, in Washburnian terminology, one chooses regression in the service of transcendence.   One develops a “second naivete” in which symbolic power is reunited with conceptual meanings.  It was Barth’s and Ricoeur’s common conviction that theological interpretation of the Bible ought to lead us beyond a critical preoccupation with the text to a fresh encounter with the divine reality to which the text bears witness.  In this stage a person grasps the reality behind the symbols of his or her inherited systems, and is also drawn to an acknowledging of the symbols of other’s systems. People in this stage are willing to engage in dialog with those of other faiths in the belief that they might learn something that will allow them to correct their own truths. To get to this point, it is critical that the person has moved through the demythologizing phase of stage four.  This stage makes room for mystery and the unconscious, and is fascinated by it while at the same time apprehensive of its power. It sees the power behind the metaphors while simultaneously acknowledging their relativity.

In stage five, the world is re-sacrilized, literally brimming with vision. It is also imbued with a new sense of justice that goes beyond justice defined by one’s own culture and people. Because one has begun to see “the bigger picture,” the walls culture and tradition have built between ourselves and others begins to erode, and one can work through one’s cultural and psychological baggage. Stage Five is a period when one is alive to paradox, and, though it is not easy to live on the cusp of paradox, one understands that truth has many dimensions which have to be held together in paradoxical tension.  It is an overwhelming, ecstatic stage in which one is radically opened to possibility and wonder.  One becomes committed to a form of justice that extends to those outside the confines of tribe, class, religious community or nation.  With this very inclusive worldview, people at Stage 5 are in an excellent position to make important contributions to society.

Stage six: Universalizing faith
The final stage is reached only by the very, very few. Examples Fowler names are Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa.  In a sense we can describe this stage as one in which
persons begin radically to live as though what Christians and Jews call the
“kingdom of God” were already a fact.
 These people experience a shift from the self as the center of experience.
 Now their center becomes a participation in God or ultimate reality. There’s 
a reversal of figure and ground. They’re at home with a
 commonwealth of being. We experience these people on the one hand as being more lucid and simple than we are, and on the other hand as intensely
liberating people, sometimes even subversive in their liberating qualities. Persons described by stage six typically exhibit qualities that shake our usual criteria of normalcy. Their heedlessness to self-preservation and the vividness of their taste and feel for transcendent moral and religious actuality give their actions and words an extraordinary and often unpredictable quality. In their devotion to universalizing compassion they may offend our parochial perceptions of justice.

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April 18, 2011 · 11:23 am

The Future

A recent article in the Banner asked about the ‘future of the Christian Reformed Church‘.

A conference I attended wondered about the ‘future of continental philosophy‘.

There is much talk about our ‘economic future’, as the market has betrayed us (how dare it!), and we realize we’re not as invincible as we thought we were.

Apparently we should all invest in futures.

What does the future hold?  These are good and important questions.

The article on the CRC noted:

“The Christian Reformed Church is much different than it used to be. Forty to fifty years ago you could identify a Christian Reformed congregation by its style of worship. That is no longer possible. And the denominational loyalty we once counted on seems to be on the way out too, especially with younger folks. Historically we’ve also been held together by what we call “our three Forms of Unity”: the Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort, and Heidelberg Catechism. But today it’s not uncommon to discover that many members of Christian Reformed churches have no idea what those documents are all about. (Recently a minister told me he was not in favor of adopting the Belhar Confession as a creed to be added to the three we already have. He said it would simply be another irrelevant document along with ones already on the shelf.)

A feature article in the November 2009 issue of Perspectives stated unequivocally that our sister denomination, the Reformed Church in America, has run its course: “It has sprung debilitating leaks which can no longer be plugged. It is time to look for a new vehicle, or coalition of vehicles, to move the church faithfully and compellingly into the twenty-first century.” Is the CRC on the same road?”

I think this is probably the case, and it might not be a bad thing.  The author of the article, Alvin Hoksbergen, thought so as well:

“A growing number of our congregations are ignoring or downplaying their historic Reformed, Calvinistic roots. One way they do so is by identifying themselves as “community churches.” It seems the intent is to distance themselves from unappealing events of the past and emphasize what it means to be Christian rather than Reformed. This is understandable, and much can be said in its defense.

The current emphasis on ecumenism has great appeal. We need only think of the days when most Protestants thought Roman Catholics held to a different religion. It was not uncommon for youngsters in our catechism classes to ask whether Roman Catholics would one day go to heaven. I remember how surprised I was to learn that young folks in Roman Catholic parishes asked their priests the same question about Protestants. Thank God we have moved beyond that day.

There is much that’s refreshing about what is happening today. Generic Christianity is not the curse we may have thought it would be. The 12 articles of the Apostles’ Creed briefly summarize what it means to follow Christ. Our three Forms of Unity do not have that function. We are properly embarrassed about the hostile language historically used by those documents to denounce fellow believers with different theological emphases. So you can understand why some may think it helpful to take the name “Christian Reformed” off the marquee and identify themselves primarily as community churches.”

This makes sense, and certainly reflects my own faith community.

A comment on the article summed up the transition seen in many churches like this:

“The new model of church (the community model) is one where the heirarchy is flattened, the focus is on Scriptural discourse and conversation, there is allowance for multiple opinions, its multi-cultural, the congregation is well-educated, and diversity is appreciated and respected. What’s important in these churches is not that they adhere to a doctrinal line, but that they are authentic, loving, Jesus-honoring and relevant to the community in which God has placed them.  Christianity is greater than our CRC denomination; we are but one expression of his truth (and a pretty culturally constrained one at that).”

Well said.  Does the Christian Reformed Church have a future?  I’m not sure.  I certainly appreciate the roots it has, the foundation it has given me and many others.  I suspect that as long as there are people who continue to drag their feet on issues like women in office, or becoming truly open places where people of all orientations and backgrounds are respected and welcome, or honest, academic pursuit regarding the question of origins, we will continue down the road of irrelevancy.  But all that aside, is this the kind of question we ought to invest our time and energy in?  Aren’t there bigger concerns in our world than one single denomination (and a small one at that)?  Aren’t there bigger issues worthy of our attention?  What would be gained by a strong CRC future?  What would be lost in a future without it?

The author of the article gave some hints as to how he thought it could contribute (a long quote here):

“There is more to our future than considering the benefits of today’s ecumenism and the structures that have been part of our history. There are also the biblical insights contributed by Calvinists throughout history.

Granted, there are things that we should move beyond, but we must not lose sight of the fact that Calvinists had significant influence on the development of society in North America. By the time of the Civil War, nearly two-thirds of the colleges in the U.S. had been founded and were controlled by the theological heirs of John Calvin.

I cannot recount in this article the large number of theological insights contributed by the Calvinistic/Reformed tradition, but I can mention two that could make a significant contribution today if they were proclaimed by Reformed congregations.

The first concerns the matter of justice. It is beyond dispute that justice is required in our society, and many of our pastors preach about the need for it. But in its debate whether to adopt the Belhar Confession, the CRC is deciding whether the promotion of justice should be tied directly with our denominational identity. May the biblical concept of justice be left to the whim of individual members?

If we officially adopt the Belhar as a fourth Form of Unity by synodical action in 2012, we will be a church that takes a prominent stand about the relationship between justice and love. There is nothing irrelevant about that.

A second relevant contribution relates to our society’s economic meltdown. What brought this about? The secular government concludes that human greed stands close to the center of the problem. Perhaps had we as a denomination been on top of our game, we would have proclaimed this before it was announced by economic strategists.

While some Christian economists present theories about how believers can get back on top of the current financial crisis, Reformed believers would encourage them to acknowledge the role human greed plays. Reformed theology states unequivocally that human sinfulness lies at the heart of the economic problems we face today. Perhaps Reformed leaders have had little to say about that because we as a denomination have moved away from what it means to be Reformed. John Calvin would have nipped this in the bud long ago.

Where are we going as a denomination? If we do not come to a fresh and relevant understanding of what we have to contribute as Reformed Christians, our future may not be long-lived. But should we gain a new and vigorous appreciation of who we are, we may have a lengthy and productive ministry ahead of us.”

I love what he has to say about justice, and I think we ought to echo that — not just as a Reformed community, but as a biblical one.  As a Jesus community.  A prophetic community.

Regarding his comments on greed, I have to disagree.  Here’s a comment I posted in response to the article:

“Regarding the comment in the article about our current economic crisis, what the author fails to realize is that preaching about greed is what has gotten us into this mess in the first place. We practice an economic model that is built on greed – free market capitalism. The more everyone buys and seeks to have, the greater the market will do and the more jobs there will be and ultimately everyone will reap the benefits! Whenever I try to have a conversation with someone about alternate economic approaches, it always comes back to: “But man is fallen, so we need a system built on greed.” 

When it all comes crashing down we should not be surprised, nor should we then blame the greed we sought to build it on in the first place. We ought to just blame ourselves. 

Does our denomination have a future? Perhaps. But the bigger question is – what is the future of our nation and our world, economically and otherwise… These are more important questions – you might even call them kingdom of God questions – than whether or not the CRC lasts another 50 years. The church ought to be a conduit to the kingdom, not an end in itself.”

What do you think?  Does the CRC have a future?  Does it matter?  Which futures are most important?  How do we know?  Are different people called to invest in different futures?  How does one know where to concentrate one’s energy?  Post any thoughts below!

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April 16, 2011 · 3:23 pm

Pub Theology Recap April 14

ápropos?

It was a surreal night at the pub, which began with the ominous hint that we might be meeting in purgatory.  That clarified a lot of things for everyone, like why we’d all had feelings of being stuck, of going in circles, of having been here before.  Or something like that.

The CEO Stout was back on the board, which pleased many folks, as did the Fat Lad, an  imperial Russian oatmeal stout.  I stuck with the Black and Blue Porter, a roasty porter fermented with Michigan blueberries.  It’s better than it sounds (the blueberry is subtle).

So, a nice turnout this past Thursday, and we began with the question of anxiety.

First Topic:  In what ways has your faith been influenced by anxiety? Fueled anxiety? Calmed anxiety?  How has anxiety played a role in your spiritual journey?

The first respondent noted the way that faith can cause anxiety.  The example was being in a challenging situation, and finding oneself wanting to pray or make some sort of request of God, even though she wouldn’t normally consider herself a person of faith.  This then could cause a sort of anxiety:  why am I doing this?  Is there some deep-rooted spiritual reality within me, or is this just a culturally and socially-conditioned habit?

Another person noted that faith often calms anxiety.  It is a realization that things which are out of our control are in God’s hands, and this brings an enormous sense of calm and well-being.  That reminds me of something Jesus said: “Do not worry about your life… Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things… therefore do not worry about tomorrow.”

Someone countered with: “But if it’s out of your hands, why are you worried about it at all?  Why bring in God to the situation?  It’s out of your hands, so worry about the stuff you can deal with, and leave the rest alone.  It will take care of itself whether God is involved or not.  (And it often seems he’s not).”

just another beer in purgatory

I could resonate with all three of these comments, at least in part.  On occasion there are times I wonder if I’m not just talking to myself when I pray (if I’m honest), or if God really is paying attention or cares… but at the end of the day, my experience more generally is that prayer does give me a connection with the divine, and my faith allows me to *trust* that God is there, whether I always feel it or not, and this does give me a sense of calm, and respite from anxiety.  He’s working things out in his ways, his timing, and ultimately it’s not up to me.

What about you?  How does worry or anxiety play a role in your faith journey?

 

Second Topic: Is theology simply archival, or is there more work to be done?

 

In other words, has all the real theology already been done, and our job is simply to dig in the archives, or the library, pull the dusty tomes off the shelves and memorize what’s already been accomplished?  There was one sarcastic yes (it’s simply archival), but everyone generally agreed, theology must be an ongoing discipline, a necessary engagement for everyone and every generation.  We didn’t spend much time on this, but my own sense is not that we reinvent theology every generation, but rather that we build upon the foundation we’ve already been given, with the occasional need to deconstruct former assumptions.  We certainly don’t start from scratch.  We have been handed a tradition, and it is our job to be faithful *within* that tradition, which does not mean being slaves to it, but reappropriating and rearticulating it for today.

Third Topic: “We have not allowed the meaning of the facts of our infinite universe to affect us and our view of God.”

 

This one came out of a paper delivered by Lissa McCullough at the Future of Continental Philosophy Conference, entitled:  Affirmations, Negations, Counter-Reformations:  How God Outgrew Religion.  In other words, much of our theology was developed when the idea that man was the center of the universe and the crown of God’s creation was taken for granted.  But once it was noted that the earth is not the center of the universe, nor even our own galaxy or solar system, this idea was necessarily strained.  The contention in the paper was that “We have not allowed the meaning of the facts of our infinite universe to affect us and our view of God.”  In other words, we haven’t experienced it.  We still talk in ways that seem that God is concerned primarily with not only humanity, but each of us individually.  That claim was pressed by Lissa, who noted that rather than being us who killed God, it was God who killed man, the God who is de-centered and apparently loves galaxies (of which there are, at last count, at least 500 billion), each containing millions of stars and possible worlds like ours.  Her contention is that our God is too small, and we need to realize that God is clearly a universal God, not simply a tribal God.  Giordano Bruno (b.1548), an Italian Dominican Friar who was also an astronomer noted that we must seek “joy in the infinite… joy in an infinite universe which is the image of a God who is not simply anthropocentric.”

Fourth Topic: “It’s impossible to escape the constraints of language and objectively say whether our beliefs are true or not.  Whatever your choice, faith is required.”

 

In other words, we cannot move beyond language into the actual.  All our words are approximations, attempts at describing the actual which is always in some sense beyond us, and certainly beyond our conceptualizations of it.
A couple of quotes help here:

“Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own—unaided by the describing activities of humans—cannot.” – Richard Rorty

“The truth is that there is no answer in the back of the book to which there is assent, no final arbiter who will finally adjudicate rival claims – not in this life anyway.  And most of those who want absolutes tend to accept authority only if that authority makes the absolute claims to which they are already disposed.  At this point we only have perspectives on ultimate truth and not ultimate truth itself.” – Walter Brueggemann
-
I think these are helpful perspectives for us to carry what many call a ‘chastened faith’, or a hermeneutic of humility.  Yes we have God’s Word, as Christians, but there are endless interpretations of those words by well-meaning Christians throughout history.  It seems when the church acts on certainty and an unwarranted confidence that its views and perspectives and understandings are absolutely right, it tends to cause serious problems in the world.

There are absolute truths, of course.  But no one has indisputable access to them.  We grasp them, as believers, by faith.  A faith that is humble, but hopeful.

(And gets us out of purgatory).

Have a thought on the above?  Leave your comment below!

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