Tag Archives: Jesus

February 20, 2013 · 7:34 pm

Of Gulls and Men

Flock_of_Seagulls

A Reflection for Lent

I read Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck recently.  There’s this terrific moment when one of the main characters, Pilon, has a sacred encounter with sea gulls:

“These birds are flying across the forehead of the Father.  Dear birds, dear sea gulls, how I love you all.  Your slow wings stroke my heart as the hand of a gentle master strokes the full stomach of a sleeping dog, as the hand of Christ stroked the heads of little children.  Dear birds,” he thought, “fly to our Lady of Sweet Sorrows with my open heart.”

And then he said the loveliest words he knew, “Ave Maria, gratia plena –”

There was, nor is, nor ever has been a purer soul than Pilon’s at that moment… A soul washed and saved is a soul doubly in danger, for everything in the world conspires against such a soul.  “Even the straws under my knees,” says Saint Augustine, “shout to distract me from prayer.”

Pilon’s soul was not even proof against his own memories; for, as he watched the birds, he remembered that Mrs. Pastano used sea gulls sometimes in her tamales, and that memory made him hungry, and hunger tumbled his soul out of the sky.  Pilon moved on, once more a cunning mixture of good and evil.”

We looked at Jesus in the desert at our house church gathering this past Sunday, and noted how this episode of temptation came right after a high point: his baptism in the Jordan River.  Is this paradigmatic of human life?  Are we most vulnerable when we’ve just come through a profound spiritual moment?

Lent is a season to consider new spiritual practices, or to incorporate some new habits.  Yet, as Augustine notes, even our best intentions are easily undone by distractions shouting at us from around and beneath us.  This is probably true these days as ever, amid Facebook notifications, Twitterfeeds, and busy schedules.  But that also makes this season of Lent as needed as ever.

In the coming weeks, we might do well to intentionally spend some time in the straw, adding a new spiritual discipline or practice, while paying attention to what it is that distracts us from these higher pursuits.

And who knows, perhaps a moment of sublimity such as Pilon knew will come our way.

Just watch out for Mrs. Pastano’s tamales.

–
Bryan Berghoef writes and tweets from the nation’s capital.  His book: Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation, and God invites you to engage in deep conversations over a good beer.  You can follow Bryan on Twitter @bryberg.

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February 18, 2013 · 5:06 pm

God Doesn’t Need our Help, But He Asks for It

helping-hand2

James K. A. Smith wrote a new blog post this morning: God Doesn’t Need Our Help. And since, per usual, no comments are allowed, I thought I’d respond with a post of my own.  And, per usual, your comments are welcome!

He begins with this notion that there is now a “new apologetics” afoot in Christianity to make the faith more palatable in an age of intellectualism and postmodernity:

In our age of post-Christian anxiety, where so many worry about young people leaving the faith and the implausibility of Christianity in a secular age, we get a new apologetics.  The goal of the new apologetics is not to prove or defend the puzzling and scandalous aspects of orthodox Christianity.  Instead, the goal is to show that “authentic” Christianity, or the “true” Gospel, is not offensive–that the “God of love” worshiped by Christians is pretty much the God you would want.

I’m guessing that the efforts he has in mind are generally emergent-style approaches, such as Brian McLaren’s “Naked Spirituality” or Rob Bell’s “Love Wins.”  These folks make God so warm and fuzzy as to remove all objectionable content, Smith is arguing.  One wishes he would provide specific examples, and then counter with a better approach.  He does gloss over a few such theological touchstones like hell and the atonement, but fails to articulate what he feels is an insufficient understanding, or how he would like it framed.

He goes on to note the dubious path of this ‘new apologetics’:

That presents a challenge, of course, but the challenge is not located where you might think.  Instead of spending its energy on articulating, explaining, and defending the coherence of biblical, historic Christianity (including all the “hard truths” that attend it), the new apologetics expends its energy convincing the skeptic that all sorts of aspects of “Christianity” are, in fact, non-essential accretions or downright deformative perversions of “true” or “authentic” Christianity.  This is undertaken in the name of removing “intellectual hurdles” to the Christian faith.  If you look again at how many new apologists frame their “reconsiderations” of hell, or the doctrine of the atonement, or the doctrine of original sin in light of evolutionary evidence, or traditional Christian sexual ethics, I suggest you’ll often find they “frame” their project something like this:

“These are aspects of Christianity that are just not believable today.  But that’s OK, because it turns out that they’re also aspects that are not really biblical and not really Christian.  So don’t let those things stop you from believing.” [Then cue your favorite tale about "Hellenization" or "Constantinianism" or "fundamentalism" here.]

Where to begin?  First of all, most efforts I am tuned in to that are rearticulating the faith have nothing to do with making Christianity more palatable, but with honest attempts to engage the biblical and historical material, and go where the evidence leads.  He intentionally twists this around, noting that many begin with deciding something is not believable, then attempt to justify it biblically and historically.  Is there any evidence that this is the actual motivation of these “new apologists”?  It is quite a charge to make, and we might wish to have this in hand before agreeing to the point.

Smith wishes that this new approach would spend its energy “articulating, explaining and defending the coherence of biblical, historic Christianity (including all the “hard truths” that attend it).”  Yet the hard truth here is that a single, unified “historic Christianity” simply doesn’t exist.  It’s a convenient fiction by which we tell ourselves we are simply walking the path that began with the first disciples undistorted down to our day.

As Harvey Cox notes in The Future of Faith: “When I attended seminary, most historians conveyed the impression that once upon a time there was a single entity called “early Christianity,” but that gradually certain heresies and schisms arose on the margins and disrupted the initial harmony.  In the last few decades, however, all these assumptions have proven erroneous.  There never was a single “early Christianity”; there were many, and the idea of “heresy” was unknown.”

Speaking Of…

Are some folks interested in changing theology to make it more ‘believable’?  Probably.  That may well be true in certain cases.  But many, many folks I study and read are simply interested in studying the biblical and historical record to know what a text or doctrine actually meant when it was written, and the context in which it arose. The consequences for theology only come later, if at all.  It strains credulity to imagine this hard work of studying, gathering and analyzing all the evidence from linguistic, archaeological, cultural, literary and historical sources is done simply for the sake of inventing a more believable Christianity!

In fact, Smith himself would prefer us to begin with the answers, pay attention only to evidence that supports his version of orthodoxy, and ignore everything else.  Which does the very thing he claims the “new apologetics” does: it makes Christianity more palatable for his particular audience.  Smith teaches at Calvin College, a private, Reformed institution.  [Cue your favorite tale about “John Calvin” or “Heidelberg” or “ham on buns.”]

This version of the faith is meant to be more amenable to his audience, precisely because it is the same version that his students’ parents hold and the same version his administrators hold, not to mention the donors who fund the whole enterprise.  In seeking to display honest attempts at understanding the Bible and church history as dishonest marketing efforts for Christianity, Smith succumbs to his own charge: he defends the status quo under the guise of honest theological discussion.

Instead of having a response to those who may look at early church doctrine and the influence of Hellenization (i.e., being shaped by Greek thought and philosophy), he wants us to ignore it.  Instead of acknowledging the troubling political realities surrounding the church councils at which some of the core doctrines of “historic Christianity” were founded, Smith would prefer us to just ‘take their word for it’ and carry on, because ‘there’s nothing to see here.’  Who cares if Nicea was presided over by a corrupt Roman emperor who had power and national unity in mind rather than any real interest in theological accuracy?  That’s no business of ours!  Our charge is to assume they got it exactly right, and continue to uphold the “hard doctrines” upon which our forebears spent so much personal capital.  Speaking of ignoring intellectual challenges.

Listen to Calvin College’s own statement of its calling, as articulated by Neal Plantinga:  “We [Christians] learn to distrust simple accounts of complex events and to be prepared for the place human irrationality has in the course of human history. All this equips us to understand the world in which we are to be peace agents. Just as no CIA agent would be sent to an area of which she was ignorant, so it’s folly for us to expect to serve and transform a world we do not know.”

Indeed.

Smith argues that such a “new apologetics” (which, by the way, is a convenient title for something that doesn’t exist) avoids intellectual rigor, but it is clear enough that he is the one advocating for ignoring historical realities that might challenge one’s doctrinal heritage.  Yet to articulate that would ruffle some institutional feathers (something a few of his colleagues learned is not to be done).

I hate to break it to Jamie, but there is no “new apologetics.”  However, there is renewed interest in discovering more closely what was going on in the first century in Galilee and the Ancient Near East, what was behind early church councils that codified doctrines for all time, and what it might look like to live out a meaningful Christian faith today.

Old Faithful

Smith then goes for the bread and butter of his audience:

But it seems to me that this sort of project is predicated on a particular account of faith that is often left implicit.  In particular, it seems to assume that if someone is going to come to believe the Gospel they must be convinced since their belief is a matter of their choice.  Or at the very least, the intellectual hurdles that stand in the way of their believing must be removed.  If we do that, then the way is clear for them to choose to believe.

The new apologetic, in other words, is fundamentally Arminian, perhaps even Pelagian (and yes, I know the difference*).  The drive to eliminate intellectual and “moral” hurdles to belief is a fundamentally Arminian project insofar as it seems to assume that “believability” is a condition for the skeptic or nonbeliever to then be able to “make that step” toward belief.

While this might confirm a lot of prejudices, it should be said that this is an odd strategy if one is an Augustinian or a Calvinist–since in an Augustinian account, any belief is a gift, a grace that is given by God himself.  So if God is going to grant the gift of belief, it seems that God would able to grant and empower a faith that can also believe the scandalous.  In other words, God doesn’t need our help.

Here Smith attempts to resuscitate a long-dead theological squabble because he knows mere mention of the word “Arminian” still might rankle a few folks in West Michigan.  To get non-Reformed folks up to speed: Arminianism is based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) and his historic supporters known as the Remonstrants. It is known as a soteriological sect of Protestant Christianity. The crux of this  Arminianism lay in the assertion that human dignity requires an unimpaired freedom of the will.  In other words, one can choose faith or resist it.  One can choose to follow Jesus, or not. (Seems fairly obvious on the face of it).

Ah… but how do we pair this common sense, seemingly obvious reality with the doctrine that God has elected people before they were born for either heaven or hell?  Forget common sense: nobody chooses Jesus.  Jesus chooses you.  In a word, Arminianism attempted to give people dignity, to show that faith is not a farce, and that God, in essence, hasn’t rigged the game.

But let’s wake up to the fact that such arguments are about things that have little or nothing to do with a life of actually following the very earthy (and earthly) Jesus of Nazareth, whom one can scarcely imagine had time for such esoteric theological squabbling.  Smith is worried we might violate a theological construct from the Middle Ages that almost nobody cares about today.  Rather than constructively present a coherent theological impetus for engaging the world and society today, including concerns about peace and conflict, environment and ecology, and human sexuality, Smith would rather us look worriedly over our shoulder at a conflict from 600 years ago about something that no one can figure out conclusively anyway.

But Smith knows this much: in Calvinistic circles, accusing your opponent of being an Arminian ends the argument.  Case closed!  They’re heretics, so they’re obviously wrong.

In Closing

Jamie Smith’s conclusion: God doesn’t need our help.  He can choose us or not.  He can save our world from ecological or military disaster just fine without us.  He can grow his church without us (wait, I thought we were the body of Christ… but I digress).  Why worry about new constructive efforts for living out the faith today?  Why bother with things like Christian education?  Why even write blog posts on the topic?  Such human efforts are surely irrelevant in the face of this austere and omnipotent Calvinistic Zeus. God must be genuinely grateful for such an eloquent defense of his inscrutable ways (though God knows he doesn’t need it).

Much of this seems contrary to the picture one finds in the Scriptures: a God who willingly partners with humanity, and sets them as caretakers over his entire creation (The original Hebrew hides this line in chapter 2: “Just kidding, Adam!  Don’t need you at all.  Especially if you mess things up.”).

All through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures God not only needs our help, he asks for it.

A Jewish perspective (which, by the way, precedes later “heretical” developments like Pelagianism or Arminianism by just a wee bit) is that God has chosen to partner with humanity.  That he does, in fact, need us, and has chosen to need us.  To say otherwise is to belittle the hard fought efforts of people such as Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., and many, many other unheralded people of faith who work hard every day to bring a bit of God’s healing into this broken creation.  And more specifically to Smith’s point on belief: God has used men and women to carry the message of the gospel to people far and wide so that they would believe, from the very beginning.

As Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus:
“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

God doesn’t need us?  Someone forgot to tell that to Jesus.

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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.

–
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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December 28, 2012 · 11:05 am

A Naive Approach to Interfaith Dialogue

You really believe that? So naive.

You really believe that? So naive.

My book, Pub Theology, has been out for about six months now.  I have heard from readers all over, nearly all of whom have really enjoyed the book.  The reviews on Amazon are all positive.  The Goodreads ratings are great.  This is a bit surprising to me, as I expected a certain amount of push back from readers.  Perhaps they have been biding their time.  A disappointed reader recently responded to the feature review of Pub Theology posted at the Englewood Review of Books.

Check out this response from Alex:

I am nearly finished with Berghoef’s work, which I had high hopes for. I appreciate points of your review, but I have to say that I do disagree about some of Berghoef’s intentions. If it were merely a monograph to discuss active listening in interfaith settings, I would be all ears. But within that framework he exposes that he is not a Christian living in a pluralistic world, he is a pluralist. I don’t say this with disrespect but in recognition that he is seeking to shed the “exclusitivity” of fundamentalism and traditional Christianity while learning what it means to “climb to the top of the mountain” of understanding and knowing God, asserting that multiple faiths can be incorporated into Christianity without any taking priority. (See his illustration of the telescope for an example). In establishing pub theology, he is also seeking to deconstruct Christian theology into a more cultural friendly model. I admittedly am frustrated with what you call his “whimsical” approaches to these gatherings. I too believe that there needs to be real listening and understanding, but I would not go so far as to say that this negates some central tenets to my own faith. I think that I can still be an “orthodox” Christian while also dialoguing with other faiths. From Berghoef’s Reformed background, he seems to posit the rigidness and fear of that upbringing as something that all people universally experience with tradtional (sic) Christianity. I would say that his context is dictating his views of others’ experience with the church in a way that molds his book. Maybe I am not progressive enough, but I don’t see religious pluralism as the necessary next step for Christianity, remembering that Jesus calls Himself the “way, truth, and the life.” The trouble I have with this multi-faith approach to God is that many of the faiths mentioned, at least in their primary Scriptures, see themselves as the sole route to God. To omit this is to in some way neglect what is a central part of the different faiths represented, and it’s a naive approach to interfaith dialogue.

These are just some of my relatively disjointed thoughts, but I’ve been wrestling with this book and needed to get them out.

Alright.  There we go.  That wasn’t so hard, was it?  If you’ve read the book, I’d be interested in your thoughts about the above.  If you haven’t read the book… what are you waiting for?  (Spend $10 of your Christmas cash and start reading now on your Kindle).

I actually really appreciate where Alex is coming from.  I’ve encountered others who have had the same frustration.  I expected more people would have this same concern, and probably they do, but for whatever reason haven’t voiced it.  But that very frustration highlights to me why the book (and the gatherings) are needed!  Too often Christians can only contemplate a space in which they are allowed to have the final say, they are allowed to ‘be right,’ and the forum which purports to be an open dialogue really masks for the latest in a clever church outreach attempt.  People should be treated like adults.  We shouldn’t need to try to con anyone, by attempting to ‘be relevant’ and hang out at the pub, while secretly just waiting to do our evangelistic duty, all the while despising pubs and beer and anyone who wonders if God actually exists.  We shouldn’t say we’re having a conversation where all are welcome at the table and there’s no requirement for any particular faith, and then turn around and make it into a Bible study or recruitment session for a particular church.  A true open space will be divested of hidden motives to convert.  A true open space will allow for anyone present to have the floor, and even, the final say.  If we really trust in the Holy Spirit’s ability to work, we should never have to resort to manipulative tactics.

Further, a true open space will also require its attendants to be honest.  And, yes, this will lead to disagreements.  There will be times where I, as a Christian, flat out disagree with a Muslim, or an atheist, or a Buddhist, about some central issues!  I find God most fully revealed in the person of Jesus.  I don’t expect a Muslim or Jew to agree about this.  And the book notes that disagreements will occur – and even highlights this with some actual pub theology dialogue.  (I actually think much of Alex’s concerns are addressed in the book, but then I often don’t land where he wants me to, hence the frustration).

Here is how I responded to him:

Hi Alex-

Glad to hear you are reading the book, and I share your high hopes for it. :) I entirely appreciate your comments and your frustrations, and am glad you posted them. Also, before I forget, I’ve spent significant time in evangelical settings, so I think I have a fair grasp of (and to an extent have been shaped by) this perspective as well.

pub theology picThe book is meant to draw us into a setting of conversations where we actually do encounter others. Part of that requires at least sitting down to the table as a “pluralist,” in the minimal sense of: I believe all people are created in God’s image and have something to teach me. This does not necessarily mean everyone is right, or all paths lead to God, or anything of the sort. At that point you’re reading into what I’m saying (or not saying). I’m pretty sure I don’t make any claims in the book as to people’s eternal destinies. (Though I do hope and trust that God’s grace and mercy are much wider than I can imagine).

When discussions happen with people of various (and often competing) worldviews, there are going to be disagreements. Yes. Absolutely. Perhaps I could have articulated this more strongly in the book (though I think it is evident in some of the pub anecdotes and elsewhere). There have often been evenings at the pub where I have, as a Christian, flat out disagreed with people over important issues. An honest discussion demands this.

However, the point of the book is not to give an exposition of my own theology (though it arises at points), but rather to encourage the setting in which true and good dialogue can happen, and indicate ways in which one’s own faith or perspective (regardless of which kind), can be broadened.

I intentionally don’t show all of my cards, or even give the hoped for “But you’re going to tell everyone Jesus is the only way to God, right?”, because I want people to live in the tension. The tension of true interfaith connection, in which we hold the possibility (even if we don’t embrace it), that “the other” may well be right, and we are the ones who need to learn. As I note in the introduction, for too long the church has taken the place of preacher and teacher, and perhaps it is our turn to listen. Your comments indicate the discomfort that arises with such tension. You want to enter such discussions, not really to learn, but with the safe knowledge that you are right, and anticipating the moment you can share that. (Ironically, we Christians often come to such discussions hoping others will be open to our perspectives, while having no intention of being open to theirs).

You may not be in a place where you have something to learn from others, which perhaps might indicate your frustration with the book, and that’s fine. But many, many others have found the book to be a welcome volume which allows their own doubts, questions, and answers to be honestly wrestled with.

The book is not a defense of the Christian faith, or any other faith, though I write it as a Christian. It is simply one person’s experience of engaging others, and realizing that our world will be a better place if we can all sit down together and talk, instead of dismissing each other from our own safe enclaves.

I have no grand project of converting others at Pub Theology, except to this: to be a better person — one who loves more fully, questions more broadly, listens more intently, and hopes more strongly. I trust that at the end of the day, God’s purposes will happen, and the truth will win out.

As Augustine put it: “The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.”

God doesn’t need me to sit at the pub and tell everyone they’re wrong if they don’t believe a particular (often, narrow) version of Christianity. He needs me to create a space of hospitality, where all are received and welcome, and where his very way is incarnated and on display. Where saints and sinners are equals. And occasionally [in fact, often!], yes, I tell people about Jesus.

—
What do you think?  Is Pub Theology a ‘naive approach to interfaith dialogue’?  Or is it a needed shift toward creating true spaces of connection in our communities?

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May 30, 2012 · 12:11 pm

Saving Institutions 2

Recently Andrew Sullivan noted that “Christianity is in crisis” and encouraged readers to simply follow Jesus and leave church, institution, and organized religion behind.  Forget the church.  Follow Jesus.

Many sympathize with this impulse, as noted in my most recent post.

What, after all, do institutions have to offer us other than a slow process, outdated organization, and mired traditionalism?

Diana Butler Bass, despite her critiques of the institutional church, notes that perhaps things are not as dire as Sullivan imagines.

In a recent column, she noted:

Three deceptively simple questions are at the heart of a spiritually vibrant Christianity–questions of believing, behaving, and belonging.

Religion always entails the “3B’s” of believing, behaving, and belonging. Over the centuries, Christianity has engaged the 3B’s in different ways, with different interrogators and emphases. For the last 300 years or so, the questions were asked as follows:

1) What do I believe? (What does my church say I should think about God?)
2) How should I behave? (What are the rules my church asks me to follow?)
3) Who am I? (What does it mean to be a faithful church member?)

But the questions have changed. Contemporary people care less about what to believe than how they might believe; less about rules for behavior than in what they should do with their lives; and less about church membership than in whose company they find themselves. The questions have become:

1) How do I believe? (How do I understand faith that seems to conflict with science and pluralism?)
2) What should I do? (How do my actions make a difference in the world?)
3) Whose am I? (How do my relationships shape my self-understanding?)

The foci of religion have not changed–believing, behaving, and belonging still matter. But the ways in which people engage each area have undergone a revolution.

As Sullivan rightly points out, political partisanship has exacerbated the crisis of Christianity. But the crisis is much deeper than politics. Much of institutional Christianity is mired in the concerns of the past, still asking what, how, and who when a new set of issues of how, what, and whose are challenging conventional conceptions of faith. The old faith formulations were externally based, questions that could be answered by appealing to a book, authority, creed, or code. The new spiritual longings are internally derived, questions of engagement, authenticity, meaning, and relationship. The old questions required submission and obedience; the new questions require the transformation of our souls.

Far too many churches are answering questions that few people are asking. This has left millions adrift, seeking answers to questions that religious institutions have largely failed to grasp.

But this may be changing. Around the edges of organized religion, the exile Christians have heard the questions and are trying to reform, reimagine, and reformulate their churches and traditions. They are birthing a heart-centered Christianity that is both spiritual and religious. They meet in homes, at coffeehouses, in bars–even in some congregations. They are lay and clergy, wise elders and idealistic hipsters. Some teach in colleges and seminaries. They even hold denominational positions. Not a few have been elected as bishops. The questions are rising from the grassroots up–and, in some cases, the questions are reaching a transformational tipping point.

The crisis is real. Like Andrew Sullivan, I feel its sad and frustrating urgency. But I also know the hope of possibility, for every crisis bears the promise of something new. Endings are also beginnings. Indeed, without death, resurrection is impossible. Imaginative, passionate, faith-filled people are enacting a new-old faith with Jesus and are working to change wearied churches. It is the season of resurrection, and resurrections always surprise.

I would like to share her hope, and that is one of the reasons I continue to work within a denominational context – there are many voices encouraging us to live into this new era of faith and searching, to authentically understand, experience, and embody our faith.

Sullivan notes that Christianity is failing — and failing fast.

Sullivan wonders what–if anything–might come next. He identifies a saint–Francis–as a model for renewal based on “humility, service, and sanctity.” But he also likes a philosopher–Thomas Jefferson–as one who charted a reasonable and moral Christian path. Weaving together spirituality and reason, Sullivan holds out for a resurrected Christianity.

However, he does not know how this might happen: “I have no concrete idea how Christianity will wrestle free of its current crisis.” He intuits that a new Christianity must arise, “not from the head or the gut, but from the soul.” That faith will come through a “new questioning,” by addressing concerns that initiate “radical spiritual change.” But his questions remain somewhat vague, and his answers vaguer.

So is the church finished?  Will the new Christianity be free of institutional baggage?

Butler Bass isn’t so sure:

What Sullivan apparently does not know is that some Christians, from pews, pulpits, and classrooms are asking the right questions–and are working toward a spiritually renewed and intellectually credible Christianity. These new questioners make up what I call America’s “exile” faith communities–the creative but often ignored Christians found in liberal mainline churches, emergent evangelical gatherings, and progressive Catholic circles. With growing awareness over the last two decades, they have been engaging this crisis, listening to the grassroots questions of American religious life, and constructing new patterns and practices of faith.

That is my experience as well, particularly reinforced after a recent church planting conference at Solomon’s Porch where I encountered Lutherans, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, Episcopalians and many, many others living out their faith in new denominational communities.  New life is springing out of the old, yet much work remains.

I asked this question in my last post, and ask it again:  what about you?  What constitutes living, breathing, authentic spirituality?  What role does church or institution play in that?  Does it get in the way?  Is it irrelevant?  Does it have a place?

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May 1, 2012 · 2:15 pm

Master and Apprentice

“Always two there are, master and apprentice.” ~ Yoda

On Sunday at Watershed we looked at John 5:19-20 and saw it as a ‘parable of apprenticeship.’  (Wes Howard-Brook)

Jesus watching the Father to see how he acts, and to act likewise in the world.

watching, learning, doing

We noted that throughout history, fathers have taught their sons a particular trade.

NT Wright notes:

“This is becoming more rare today in the Western world, but there are still plenty of places where it is the normal and expected thing for sons to follow fathers into the family business.  And, particularly where the business involves working at a skilled trade with one’s hands, apprenticeship means literally being side by side, with the son watching every move that the father makes and learning to do it in exactly the same way.  That is how many traditional skills are handed down from generation to generation, sometimes over hundreds of years.”

Listen to John 5:19-20 in light of this:

Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.  For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”

NT Wright notes that Jesus is explaining more fully how it is that Israel’s God is working in a new way, and how he, Jesus is watching carefully to see how it’s being done, so as to do it alongside the father and in keeping with his style and plan.

This is exactly what Jesus has said earlier in v.17:  “My father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working.”

In my reading this morning at the home of my new Minnesota couchsurfing friends (though I guess I’m the one who’s couchsurfing!), I came across Mark Scandrette’s Practicing the Way of Jesus.  (Apparently he’ll be at the conference later this week).

An appropriate book in light of what we studied together on Sunday.  Here’s a taste from the first chapter:

“In a holistically-oriented culture, skeptical people are less convinced by purely rational arguments about why Christianity is true, and more curious to see whether Christian belief and practice actually make a positive difference in the character of a person’s life.  Knowing the transformational promise of the gospel, it is fair to ask whether a person who claims to have a relationship with Jesus exhibits more peace and less stress, handles crisis with more grace, experiences less fear and anxiety, manifests more joy, is overcoming anger and their addictions or compulsions, enjoys more fulfilling relationships, exercises more compassion, lives more consciously or loves more boldly.  In any culture, but especially in one that yearns for holistic integration, the most compelling argument for the validity of the Christian faith is a community that practices the way of Jesus by seeking a life together in the kingdom of love (John 13:35).

And yet, a tremendous gap exists in our society between the way of radical love embodied and taught by Jesus and the reputation and experience of the average Christian.  We simply aren’t experiencing the kind of whole-person transformation that we instinctively long for (and that a watching world expects to see).

This suggests the need for a renewed understanding of the gospel and more effective approaches to discipleship.  Though our understanding of the gospel is becoming more holistic, our most prevalent formation practices don’t fully account for this.  We can be frustrated by this gap and become critics, or be inspired by a  larger vision of the kingdom and get creative.

I believe what is needed,   in this transitional era, are communities of experimentation — creative spaces where we have permission to ask questions and take risks together to practice the Way.”

If you haven’t read Scandrette’s book – pick up a copy, or borrow a friend’s.  Hoping to get a copy for the Watershed library!

Love to hear thoughts/reactions on what it means for us to be apprentices, disciples, to be those who live in the way of Jesus, and don’t just talk about it.

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April 8, 2012 · 10:27 pm

I Need the Resurrection

Four echoes of Resurrection hope

Read during Easter worship at Watershed, 2012

I need the Resurrection
*
because my sister is sick
and can’t afford insurance,
because I’ve told a weeping Haitian mom,
“No, I can’t take your son home with me.”
because I’ve been rushed off a Jerusalem street
so the police could blow up a package that could’ve blown up us.
Because I’ve exploded
in rage
and watched their tiny faces cloud with hurt.
because evil is pervasive
and I participate.
I need the Resurrection
because it promises
that in the end
all wrongs are made right.
Death loses.
Hope triumphs.
And Life and
Love
Prevail.

 

I need the Resurrection

because I’m tired and worn
the hours are long, the pay not enough
the second job barely covers the costs
for the kids to eat
the rent to be paid;
because life throws you some pitches
that you just can’t hit.
Because she left, and
I stayed.
Because some days a good cup of coffee
just isn’t enough.
Because I’m tired. . .
I need the Resurrection
because night gives way to morning,
darkness. . . to light
and because one day: all things will be new.



I need the Resurrection
because this life is so wonderful
despite its fragility;
the softness of dew on the morning grass
The house quiet while all are yet asleep
The promise of a new day.
Because each day comes and goes
And so many have now gone too.
I need the Resurrection
because I want one more day
with those who have already
Gone to sleep.
One more hello
One more long afternoon on the front porch
Telling stories

I’ve heard so many times
But long to hear again.
I need the Resurrection
because the story must not end.

I need the Resurrection

Because life has never
been as it should be
for me
or, I guess, for you.
I’ve never seen a rainbow
Or a lily. . .
a mountain, or a tree.
Yet these ideas are more
than just ideas,
and one day, I shall see.
I need the Resurrection
Because I long to touch, and feel, and smell
and wonder over
forever… this
Clean earth… which has been sullied.
One day, renewed.
And one day, as I use my senses
to drink deeply of all that is,
I shall see that Creation
Crowned, with a King.

*first story courtesy of Kara Root, pastor of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota 

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February 16, 2012 · 3:35 pm

Is God a Person?

Post by Richard Rohr

To get a proper divine conversation started and going, we all have to think of God as a “person” somehow. Otherwise there is no reciprocity, mutuality, give and take, no ONE to love, no “I and Thou”. Humans only know how to relate to other persons initially. But if you stay there too long, you pay a big price, because God ends up being on the other end of YOUR conversation, which keeps God SEPARATE and somehow in need of daily “appeasement”. True intimacy is pretty hard to experience at this level, at least for long. The whole point of prayer is to lead you to experience and say what Jesus finally says “I and the Father are one!” (John 10:30). Then you do not pray to God as much as you pray THROUGH and WITH God. (Note how the official liturgical prayers end “THROUGH Christ our Lord. Amen.”)

Eventually you must stop looking AT reality, and you will learn to look OUT FROM reality! This a major and heart stopping change, and admittedly most people never go to this mystical level–because they were not taught very well, frankly. It is not because they are not worthy or incapable, but they usually feel unworthy and feel incapable. They are not.

 

When prayer naturally matures, God is not so much “A Person” out there, that I must cajole, adore, and obey, but God has become the VERY GROUND OF ALL BEING, which is in dialogue with you, loving you, receiving your praise, calling you forth, forgiving you, and revealing a gracious divine will in all things as they are. Prayer is now all the time and everywhere, as long as you are conscious and awake!

 

At this point it is still OK to think and talk of God as a person–as long as you know it is not really true–in the way you ordinarily use that phrase! God is no longer a mere person, but ALL of reality itself has become PERSONAL, relational, dialogical, giving and receiving, loving and lovable. God cannot be localized here or there any more (Luke 17:20), but as the old catechism said “God is everywhere”. This is a major and important maturing in one’s relationship with God, yet so few spiritual guides know how to lead us across when we think we are losing our initial faith. You indeed are! But you are finding a much deeper faith, and you must go through this necessary trial and darkness to grow up spiritually and experience true and full intimacy with God (Read St. John of the Cross, if you doubt me.)

 

For Christians, the paradox is resolved in the Trinity. They can continue to relate to Jesus PERSONALLY, but when their prayer becomes fully Trinitarian, as we see in the Christian mystics, God is not just A person that they have a relationship with, but God is RELATIONSHIP ITSELF (internally in God) and draws everything into that ONE DIVINE DANCE (externally in the universe). More and more people, I am finding, are ready for such adult Christianity and such mature spirituality (See Hebrews 5:12-13). Only then does “everything belong”, and only then do we get off the childish teeter-totter and fall onto a solid ground of joy. But it will surely feel like falling! Don’t be afraid.

–
What do you think of Rohr’s contemplative/mystical approach?  Would love to get your comments! 

 

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January 6, 2012 · 12:04 pm

Pub Theology Recap January 5

 

Great night at the pub last night.  Nine of us grabbed a pint and settled in for a good discussion, huddled around the table as if seeking respite from the snow drifts just outside.

Jesus and Mohammed

A. showed up, who promptly styled himself ‘kinda the local guru.’ Then quickly thought better of it and shifted to ‘kinda the local guy.’ He’d been reading up on the history of Islam and noted to us that “Mohammed had to work hard.  He fought with people, he had enemies, he bled.  He worked to establish a religion.  Unlike Jesus.  Jesus didn’t have much opposition.  He had it easy, just healing people and floating on the water.  Mohammed though, man… that guy…”

I asked him if he had converted to Islam, with this newfound admiration of the prophet (PBUH).  He said no.

After that little soliloquy we hit the sheet. First question, “Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?”  Most people admitted that they did not.  R. said that she often takes the New Year as a time to take stock of where things are in her life and seek to continue to grow both personally and professionally.  I noted that I sort of do the same.  N. (who brought the pretzels) noted that her son always resolves to give up crack cocaine.  That way he never fails to live up to his resolution.

We spent some time discussing why resolutions tend to be individual (we can’t make anyone else do something), but also noted the benefits of making resolutions with someone else or with a community of some sort (accountability, mutuality).  We wondered about a couple in a relationship making resolutions.  S. noted that she sort of does that with her husband, but that then they tend to pursue the resolutions individually, or each in their own way.  Yet there is something about a communal effort that can create energy and certainly can hold one to what one has said.  The other S. noted that companies and organizations often do the same thing but call them ‘goals’ or ‘plans.’

Then the question (contributed by C., who was down in Kzoo doing PT South) was: “Should Pub Theology have a 2012 resolution?”  At this point the question of location came up, with RBB’s upcoming move to 16th Street.  We had heard that the pub portion of the new location was not going to be as big a priority, so it is unclear whether there will be adequate space.  There is talk of something new coming into the Warehouse district to take RB’s place, perhaps Short’s or someone else.  It would be tempting to stay.  Another possibility is the new Filling Station brewery coming in by the library.  In any case, Pub Theology resolves to keep meeting (wherever we end up) and being the place in Northern Michigan for beer, conversation, and God.

Topic 2: “Individualism is a poor container for the Gospel.”

This was generally agreed, as S. (with the glasses) noted that “We can’t all play a solo at the same time.”  The other S. (reading glasses) noted that individualism tends to cause people to apprehend what they believe is true about the world and why, rather than take someone else’s word for it, or simply buying into the community’s agreed upon take, and tends to cause people to move away from faith, so yes, it is a poor container for the gospel.  B. highlighted the fact that Christianity is not meant to be an individualistic faith.  It is not simply ‘my spirituality’ or ‘me and Jesus.’  Rather, it is meant to be experienced in community, lived out in community, and that when a group of people together take following Jesus seriously, and live into the Gospel, and live out the Gospel, that it is a powerful statement to those looking on.  R. worried that such a focus on community would drown out people’s ability to be individuals.  That there would be space for the ‘other’, whether that is someone divorced, or gay, or recovering, or whatever.  B. noted that ideally the Gospel is inclusive and calls for a community that is open. Such a community ought to reflect the diversity of individuals who all come together because of who God is and because he has made and called each of them.  It was concluded that there is such a thing as good individualism, and good communalism, but that both can go awry if we are not careful.

Topic 3: “In light of the 2012 end of time idea, do you think the redemption of Christ will come in this world — or does it require a new world?”

S. noted that there were 3 billion people on the planet when he was born, and there are now over 7 billion.  R. (who refuses resolutions) noted that “The world will end.”  B. asked, “Who here thinks they will live to see the end?”  Most people said no.   But then N. (who was back at long last! and brought the chips) blurted out, “What are y’all talking about?”

As the rest of the table continued to debate the end of the world, I got up to get another pint.  This time a Dark Squirrel Lager.

The last three questions all sort of related:

4. What would have to happen for the believer not to believe?

5. What would have to happen for the unbeliever to believe?

6. Is theology (or what kind of theology is) compatible with belief in the constancy of nature?

I don’t have time (or the recall) to give you the rest of the conversation.

But a few highlights:

R. asked, “Why does it say unbeliever?  Shouldn’t it be nonbeliever?  What does unbeliever mean?”

N. (chips) pleaded, “Damn it!  Call it Spirit, energy, essence, whatever!  We all believe in it.”

N. (pretzels) noted, “It’s time to start preaching the stuff we’ve known for 200 years.” (referring to biblical scholarship that is often known about by seminaries and preachers but kept from the congregation because ‘they’re not ready for it’.)

And a couple more from the ‘local guru’:

“I think about time differently than most people.”

“Are any of you communists?” (This out of nowhere, in the middle of a completely unrelated discussion)

“Do you think it’s better to show weakness, or to hide weakness?”

And that’s a wrap!  If you were there and care to fill us in on more of what happened, feel free.  If you weren’t there, but have any thoughts on the above topics – post them below!

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October 25, 2011 · 4:52 pm

Common Sense Jesus?

Some fun in light of a recent politician’s statement about Jesus:

“For over 2,000 years the world has tried hard to erase the memory of the perfect conservative, and His principles of compassion, caring and common sense.”

What do you think?  Did Jesus have an uncommon amount of common sense?

Consider the following from the site Common Sense Jesus:

–
and finally:

What do you think?  Was Jesus all about ‘common sense’?

I tend to agree with this blogger:

I’m pretty sure Jesus’s principles were anything but common sense. In fact, in my recollection, they were the complete opposite. The story of the Gospel is Jesus openly challenging the prevailing norms, social structures, and power dynamics of his day and turning them on their heads with a radical message of humility, non-violence, selflessness and faith in the seemingly impossible.


But what do I know?  I have been accused of lacking common sense myself.

Post your thoughts below!

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