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Pub Theology Recap May 5

May 10, 2011 Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Pub Theology, Theology Comments are closed

TRAVERSE CITY – A high-energy night at the pub, highlighted by good conversation about the death of Osama bin Laden, an excellent selection of beers, and monkeys on the loose – all covered extensively by the paparazzi, who got wind of our topic. Also, the world is ending in 2036.

The evening began with a send off for Rebecca, who left early to catch a flight to Madrid. A week after recovering from her big thirtieth birthday party, she was ready to leave the country. So she bid us all sayonara, lugging her suitcase from the Warehouse district all the way to S. Airport Road.

After recently being blacklisted by the Record-Eagle, we were pleasantly surprised to find they still like us, and we welcomed in Jan-Michael Stump, photographer extraordinaire, who captured the highlight of the evening as first-time guest Sharon Moller explained to her husband Pete and the rest of us her own response to the news of bin Laden’s death. She echoed sentiments carried by many of us, that she was relieved in a way, but a bit troubled by the gratuitous celebrations carried out in the immediate aftermath.

Steve noted that he *would* celebrate if his death meant we could finally wrap up our ‘war on terror’, and realize that having a war against terror is a bit of a ridiculous concept. There was agreement around the table that that would indeed be a good thing.

Others fear that the killing of bin Laden would create more reprisals and backlash than it would actually accomplish any sort of diminishing of terrorism. Does fighting violence with violence really work? The Dalai Lama noted his own sadness at the event, though he said he understood why it happened. He wondered whether killing one man would bring more peace, or just new opportunities for more to step in and fill the void.

It was also asked whether or not this would turn bin Laden into some sort of martyr. Would he now become even more of a hero in death than he was in life for those who followed him?

The second major topic of the night was this: If the human race is wiped out, what will be the reason?
Keith D. felt it would be some sort of pandemic – a medical/disease scenario like a virus of some sort that would wipe us all out. Some felt it would be self-inflicted, such as a nuclear reality, or a longer-term environmental disaster making the planet unsustainable for human life. Brian with an ‘i’ was back and he felt it would be something like a comet or asteroid that would cause a dinosaur-like extinction, and that in fact there may be one already on its way. This caused us all to get another round. I couldn’t find anything on the one Brian mentioned – Xerxes, but did find a story on one named Apophis after the Egyptian god of death and destruction (how comforting!).

Here’s what I found:
“There is a large asteroid, made entirely of iron, currently speeding toward earth. Discovered in 2004, it’s called “Apophis,” after the Greek-Egyptian god of death and destruction. And the asteroid named after a god of death will be the largest and closest thing to come near Earth than any other object in recorded history. It will come so close, in fact, that it will actually be closer to the ground than orbiting communications satellites. It will be seeable with the naked eye as a point of intense light burning across the sky.

When will it pass near Earth? April 13, 2029. A Friday.

But that’s not even the scariest part.

Scientists are nearly certain that the asteroid won’t hit when it swings by in 2029. But there’s a possibility that, if Earth’s gravity affects the asteroid’s path enough, it will swing back around the Sun and strike the Earth on April 13, 2036.

So, if Apophis does hit Earth in 2036, where, exactly, will it hit?”

Good question – you’ll have to link to the article to read the rest, though it did note that an impact could ‘start a massive fire that would burn millions of acres, spilling tons of ash and debris into the air and plunging the Northern Hemisphere into darkness’. Also comforting.

The final topic of the night was a doozy – ‘Can God make a breakfast so big he can’t eat it?’ No one jumped on it, so we left the pub with visions of extra large omelets, king-size pancakes, and, to quote Obi Wan, feeling “a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.”

And yes, the monkeys…

Pub Theology Recap April 28

April 29, 2011 Culture, Philosophy, Pub Theology, Relationships, Theology Comments are closed

It was a light but enjoyable evening of Pub Theology last night. The art, on the other hand, was once again ominous and imposing.

The hyped-up “Duel of the Deities”, or whose God was ‘bigger and better’, was instantly over when I pulled out my article. Who could argue with a headline like that? 🙂

We began discussing breakast. What we had that morning, and what an ideal breakfast would be. Actual breakfasts ranged from oatmeal, to a scone, to yogurt. Ideal breakfasts included vegetable-heavy omelettes, bacon, homemade pancakes, French toast, and my fav – a Turkish breakfast comprised of cucumbers, tomatoes, feta cheese, olives, a boiled egg, yogurt, and toast.

The Presbyterian-heavy crowd had some thoughts on the second topic: are human beings sinful by nature?

I certainly grew up hearing again and again that I was ‘totally depraved’. That was hammered in pretty well. Sinful, broken, and separated from God, and barely tolerated by him. We connect this to original sin – the initial sin by the first human pair. Yet how do we balance this with God’s initial, earliest declaration of humanity as good? (Even very good!). One participant noted Matthew Fox’s book (no, not Jack from LOST) called “Original Blessing” which attempts to swing the pendulum this other direction, toward humanity as goodness. I haven’t read the book, but the idea makes sense to me. Our original status, you might even say, root status is that of being good, of being made in the image of God. If that were not the case, why would, according to the Christian story, God become incarnate as one of us? Why would he bother with us at all?

All of us agreed that we are broken, sinful, and all that, but that perhaps we ought to balance the story, and remember that we are, in the end, God’s good creation, indelibly stamped with his mark, and that God in Jesus is now a fellow embodied person. (Normally we would have a contingent who would have preferred different language than ‘sinful’ such as evolutionary tendencies, or biological imperatives, for example – in other words, interpreting harmful actions materially rather than theologically).

In the midst of conversation, we were able to sample some homebrew (under the table), including the incredible “Last Rites”, an imperial IPA. There was also some Scotch Ale of the sour variety (no comment). This balanced out the Raisin-Ade I had from the cask (very flavorful), and the Bitchin’ Brown, a very nice brown ale.

We pondered momentarily whether or not there is an ‘age of accountability’, an age at which one is responsible for one’s moral actions, or responsible for turning to God or not. In other words, does it make sense to say that a five-year-old who dies could be in hell? What about a twelve-year-old?

Conversation late in the evening turned to my unfortunate article headline in the newspaper. A couple who hadn’t read the paper or the article had the initial response: “Wow, that’s defamation of character. You should totally let them know how you were misrepresented.” Alas…

Pub Theology Recap April 14

April 16, 2011 Culture, Philosophy, Pub Theology, Relationships, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

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).”

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!

What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

April 13, 2011 Culture, Economy, Philosophy, Politics, Pub Theology, Readings, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

Taken from chapter 1 of John D. Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct:

Posed in the subjunctive, what would Jesus do or deconstruct, the question turns on the structure of the archive, of memory and repetition. How does the New Testament preserve the memory of Jesus? I prescind from all historical-critical questions here, which open up another abyss (about the arche itself). One abyss at a time! I treat the New Testament as an “archive,” a depository of memories, which presents a certain way to be, a certain “poetics” — not a politics or an ethics or a church dogmatics — that I like to call a “poetics of the kingdom,” which lays claim to us and which calls for a transformation into existence.

How are we to translate this soaring poetics into reality? Were this figure of Jesus, who is the centerpiece of this poetics, or theo-poetics, to return today, what would he look like? An illegal immigrant? A child dying of AIDS? A Vatican bureaucrat? And what do we imagine he would expect of us here and now? The question calls for a work of application, interpretation, interpolation, imagination, and self-interrogation, and all that is risky business. To interpret is always a high-wire act, balancing oneself on a line stretched across an abyss and in constant danger of constructing idols of its own imagining. The name of “Jesus” is too often a mirror in which we behold our own image, and it has always been easy to spot the sliver in the eye of the other and miss the two-by-four in our own. The question presupposes the inescapable reality of history and of historical distance, and it asks how that distance can be crossed. Or better, conceding that this distance cannot be crossed, the question resorts to the subjunctive and asks how that irreducible distance could be made creative.

cracked church wall — cracks let the light in

How does our distance from Jesus illuminate what he said and did in a different time and place and under different historical circumstances? And how does Jesus’ distance from us illuminate what we must say and do in the importantly different situation in which we find ourselves today? The task of the church is to submit itself to this question, rather than using it like a club to punish others.

The church, the archive of Jesus, in a very real sense is this question.

It has no other duty and no other privilege than to bear this memory of Jesus and ask itself this question. The church is not the answer. The church is the question, this question, the gathering of people who are called together by the memory of Jesus and who ask this question, who are called together and are put into question by this question, who stand accused, under the call, interrogated and unable to recuse themselves from this question, and who come to understand that there are no easy, ready-made, prepackaged answers.

The early church is a lot like the characters in the hit TV series Lost —the title is appropriate!-– waiting to be “saved,” which is the soteriological significance of that show where everyone is given a new being, a fresh start. At first, the survivors hang around on the beach waiting to get “picked up” (in a cloud, St. Paul said). After a while, they conclude that the rescue is not going to happen anytime soon and so they reluctantly decide to dig in and prepare for the long haul. Hence the existence of the church is provisional – like a long-term substitute teacher – praying for the kingdom, whose coming Jesus announced and which everyone was expecting would come sometime soon.

But this coming was deferred, and the church occupies the space of the “deferral,” of the distance or “difference,” between two comings. (I just said, in case you missed it, the church is a function of différance!) In the meantime, and it is always the meantime for the church, the church is supposed to do the best it can to bring that kingdom about itself, here on earth, in a process of incessant self-renewal or auto-deconstruction, while not setting itself up as a bunch of kings or princes. The church is by definition a call (kletos) for renewal.

That is why the church is “deconstructable,” but the kingdom of God, if there is such a thing, is not. The church is a provisional construction, and whatever is constructed is deconstructible, while the kingdom of God is that in virtue of which the church is deconstructible.

So, if we ask, “What would Jesus deconstruct?” the answer is first and foremost: the church!

For the idea behind the church is to give way to the kingdom, to proclaim and enact and finally disappear into the kingdom that Jesus called for, all the while resisting the temptation of confusing itself with the kingdom. That requires us to clear away the rhetoric and get a clear picture of what “deconstruction” means, of just who “Jesus” is, and of the hermeneutic force of this “would,” and to do so with this aim: to sketch a portrait of an alternative Christianity, one that is as ancient as it is new, one in which the “dangerous memory of Jesus” is still alive – deconstruction being, as I conceive it, a work of memory and imagination, of dangerous memories as well as daring ways to imagine the future, and as such good news for the church.

–Post any thoughts or comments below–

Continental Philosophy, or What I Understood Of It

April 11, 2011 Culture, Philosophy, Readings, The Text, Theology, Travels Comments are closed

Just recently returned from the fourth Postmodernism, Culture and Religion Conference entitled: The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion. The conference was at Syracuse University and included some of the best thinkers in Continental Philosophy. What follows will be a very poor, non-academic attempt to make some sense of the whole thing.

“What is continental philosophy?”, some of you might ask. Good question. When you find out – drop me a line. Actually, it often refers to philosophy that developed in the 19th and 20th centuries in mainland Europe, in opposition to much of the analytic philosophy happening in Britain. Important names paving the way for this include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger, among others.

Here are some common themes, borrowed from wikipedia:

First, continental philosophers generally reject scientism, the view that the natural sciences are the only or most accurate way of understanding phenomena.

Second, continental philosophy usually considers these conditions of possible experience as variable: determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history. Thus continental philosophy tends toward historicism. Where analytic philosophy tends to treat philosophy in terms of discrete problems, capable of being analyzed apart from their historical origins (much as scientists consider the history of science inessential to scientific inquiry), continental philosophy typically suggests that “philosophical argument cannot be divorced from the textual and contextual conditions of its historical emergence”.

Third, continental philosophy typically holds that conscious human agency can change these conditions of possible experience: “if human experience is a contingent creation, then it can be recreated in other ways”.Thus continental philosophers tend to take a strong interest in the unity of theory and practice, and tend to see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation.

A final characteristic trait of continental philosophy is an emphasis on metaphilosophy. In the wake of the development and success of the natural sciences, continental philosophers have often sought to redefine the method and nature of philosophy. In some cases (such as German idealism or phenomenology), this manifests as a renovation of the traditional view that philosophy is the first, foundational, a priori science. In other cases (such as hermeneutics, critical theory, or structuralism), it is held that philosophy investigates a domain that is irreducibly cultural or practical.

If any of that made sense, you’re in good shape. If not, read it again a time or two. Here’s a final thought: “Ultimately, the foregoing distinctive traits derive from a broadly Kantian thesis that the nature of knowledge and experience is bound by conditions that are not directly accessible to empirical inquiry.” In other words, there’s more than meets the eye. Sensory experience and the material world can only get us so far. If you’ve ever been to an evening of Pub Theology, you know these kinds of ideas come up again and again.

It is this line of thinking that makes continental philosophy more open to questions of God, theology and religion than its analytical counterpart. In this conference comprised primarily of philosophy and religion professors of secular universities, the themes of God and religion were ever present.

pcr4logo — Postmodernism, Culture and Religion 4

A few important names present included Catherine Malabou, Professor of Philosophy, University of Paris, John Caputo, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Syracuse University, Philip Goodchild, Professor of Philosophy, Nottingham University, Merold Westphal, Professor of Philosophy and Theology, Fordham University, B. Keith Putt, Samford University, Harvey Cox, Professor of Divinity, Harvard University, and Thomas Altizer, who was not formally involved in the conference, but did not fail to make his presence known through insightful and always lively comments and questions. Also there was Jim Olthuis from the Institute for Christian Studies. It was especially meaningful to have Caputo and Westphal there, as they are retiring from their academic posts (though probably not from writing and speaking!).

Paper topics that made complete sense to me: “Plasticity in the Contemporary Islamic Subject“; “Future Blindness“; “Postmodern Apocalypse: Placing Levinas & Derrida in Line with Transcendental Methodology“; “Non-Philosophy and Meaning-use Analysis: Explicating Laruelle with Brandom“, and finally “Dying to be Free: Extinction and the Liberation of Praxis in Ray Brassier’s Nihil Unbound.”

But for all the tough paper topics, there were also ones that made more immediate sense to me: “Does the Religious Intellectual Have a Future? Harvey Cox, Post-Secular Spirituality, and Living Religiously in Public“; “The Broken Binary & Interstitial God: Finding Faith in the Margin of the Text“; “Radical Theology and the Dangerous Memory of Jesus“; “‘Eating Well’ in Church: In-carnating an A/Theological Materialism”; and the very clear: “Philosophy is What it Eats.”

So what was I doing there, as a pastor?

Philosophy professors — Caputo, Malabou, and Goodchild

Great question. Mostly I needed an excuse to put a ton of miles on my new van. Actually – as soon as the first session started, Christy was wondering the same thing. The first presenter in the panel we chose started reading her paper and, while a very profound paper, almost never looked up and had very little voice inflection. In other words, she could have been reading an obituary or grocery list. I worried we had picked the wrong panel (there were often 4-5 panels on various topics going on at once). But then we remembered that this was an *academic* conference, not a *church* conference, and that at these things you read your paper, you don’t preach it. So once we were able to focus, and the big words and unfamiliar names began to become more familiar, we began to realize this was about stuff we care about. Stuff we all care about: issues of faith and reason; God and theology; knowing and unknowing; certainty and uncertainty; life and death. The very same things I deal with as a pastor, and we all deal with as human beings. Issues of vital importance for the Christian who is seeking to engage our world today. And not incidentally, a recurring topic that continually came up was, how do we connect some of this stuff to real life? How do we engage the culture in thinking seriously about important topics? It was cool to meet student after student (as well as professors) who thought it was excellent Christy and I were there. They wanted to know what we were doing, what our community is like, and how we apply of this kind of thinking to our work. (The irony is many in academia long for such ‘real-world’ activism, and how people like me, in the so-called ‘real-world’, long for the high-level thinking of academia. The grass is always greener).

A great example of how philosophy and life in the church connect is found in the book by John Caputo: What Would Jesus Deconstruct? In this book Caputo draws on the deconstruction tradition of Jacques Derrida to tear down some of the ossified walls that have built up in the church over the years – and allows the light of day to penetrate. This book is a delightful read and I would recommend it to anyone. From the backcover: “Many in the church who are wrestling with ministry in a postmodern era view deconstruction as a negative aspect of the postmodern movement. But John Caputo, one of the leading philosophers of religion in America and a leading voice on religion and postmodernism, sees it differently. In this lively and provocative analysis, he argues that in his own way Jesus himself was a deconstructionist and that applying deconstruction to the church can be a positive move toward renewal.”

John Franke, professor of theology at Biblical Seminary, notes: “This is a marvelous little book. It enables readers to understand deconstruction as the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God and provides a glimpse of what this concept might look like in the hands of Jesus as applied to the church. This will be difficult therapy, and many of us will be inclined to resist. However, let us remember that while discipline is painful in the moment, it produces a harvest of peace and righteousness in the long run. May the church learn from the wisdom found in these pages.”

Another person who has gained a lot of traction in making some of these connections is Peter Rollins, an increasingly popular writer and speaker. Pete has a PhD in philosophy from Queens University in Northern Ireland, and has made his readings of philosophy become incarnate in both his work at Ikon, a faith collective in Belfast, and in his books and speaking events. He recently spoke at Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, and his work is so intriguing in making real, tangible connecting points that he was the subject of one of the panel discussions at this conference. An excellent paper looking at his work theologically and philosophically was delivered by religion professor Creston Davis: “The Cosmic Double-Cross: The Psycho-Christ Event”, and another paper was delivered by sociologist Gerardo Marti entitled: “Peter Rollins and the Deconstructed Church: How Pub Churches, Continental Philosophy, and Provocative Preaching is Shaping the Future of Emerging Christianity.”

If you’ve read Pete’s book of parables: The Orthodox Heretic, and Other Impossible Tales, you’ll appreciate the power this kind of thinking can have to push us into rediscovering the kingdom of God in our thinking and acting.

Another very intriguing paper was delivered by Daniel Peterson of Seattle University and G. Michael Zbaraschuk of Pacific Lutheran University entitled: “Giving up God for Lent: Resurrecting the Death of God.” It gave a lot to chew on regarding whether in evangelicalism we are worshiping the God who is, or a God we have invented; if the latter, then perhaps that God needs to die.

One of things I took from the conference is that we may have very different ideas about what different parts of faith are – doctrines, teachings, etc., but the bottom line on many levels is – how am I living it out? What is the material reality present because of my theological convictions? How does this play out in real life?

In any case, it was an excellent time and will surely continue to push my own thinking, living and commitment to living out a life of following Jesus. Made some new friends, including our host Wendy DeBoer, PhD student at Syracuse, and Dan Wood, theology student at Loyola in Chicago (fellow crasher of Wendy’s pad), and other students from the Syracuse Religion Department and elsewhere, including a crew from Cornerstone University (fellow Michiganders!), Harvard Divinity School and UC-Berkley. Also hung out with some old friends, including Pete Rollins, ate some good food, and hit a post-conference party with most of the folks involved – where a bit of alcohol cleared up everything. Also met a professor from Dordt College at the conference – showing that this stuff infiltrates even the corn-fields of Calvinist conservatism! (OK, that was unfair).

So if we ask, along with Caputo, “What would Jesus deconstruct?” what would we find? The answer is, first and foremost, the church! See my next post for a deconstruction of that deconstruction.

Pub Theology Recap – St. Patty’s

March 21, 2011 Culture, Pub Theology, Relationships, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

Slåinte!

We began the night with a toast to Saint Patrick, that giver of good tidings and slayer of snakes:

Saint Patrick was a gentleman,
who through strategy and stealth
Drove all the snakes from Ireland,
here’s a drink to his health!
But not too many drinks,
lest we lose ourselves and then
Forget the good Saint Patrick,
and see them snakes again!

So clearly the early discussion was over snakes, and St. Patrick’s real name. Was it Maewyn Succat?

Topics for the night:

St. Patrick

Snakes

God

Straw

Dreaming

Seagulls

In detail:

1. St Patrick: a toast. See above

2. “I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that ‘all that I am,’ I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God.”

3. “We need God’s wrath in order to understand what mercy means.” Do we? What do you think?

4. “It’s all about God.” What do you think?

5. St. Augustine: “Even the straw under my knees shout to distract me from prayer.” Is prayer difficult?

6. Are you dreaming?

It was a lighthearted evening – everyone was happy to be out for Saint Patty’s. We expected to be fighting the crowds, but it wasn’t as busy as we expected. Perhaps the lack of a stout at Right Brain didn’t help; that and everyone was singing Irish tunes and watching MSU at Kilkenny’s. Regardless, we enjoyed talking about old Saint Patrick, favorite Irish tunes, and whether or not wrath is a good (or proper) motivator. Most came out opposed to wrath as a good motivator, and felt that it was setting up a non-logical argument. For example, you don’t have to say, “I really know how much I enjoy reading a book at the library, because I know other people are being tortured.” It seems one would feel motivated to go to the library and read by something positive, such as a goal to be gained, but probably not so much by a threat (though I suppose that could work in a pinch). There were other examples, but someone else will have to recall them.

Is it all about God? Someone responded, “Maybe for God.” We noted that a classic approach in some theological traditions is voiced by the likes of Jonathan Edwards: “the end for which God created the world was his glory.” In other words, it is all about God, not human happiness or purposes or anything else.

Someone wondered whether it’s “all about connection, or interconnection, and God is the ground and center of that.” I think that’s a decent way to put it.

We noted that it is indeed hard to pray, and focus, and be silent…. But that for many of us, it is a necessary discipline and one we need to pursue more often. Others felt that we needed to focus more on the present moment, on mindfulness, ala Thich Nhat Hahn or Eckhart Tolle. That we can find God or the sacred in every moment, such as washing the dishes or shoveling the driveway. Someone else noted that such moments could be improved by listening to an audio book or lecture, and that there wasn’t necessarily any virtue in the act or moment itself. Also asked, “Is it possible to not be present?”

We all pinched ourselves and concluded that we weren’t dreaming.

Backside bonus:

From Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck:

“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.”

Discuss the change in Pilon. Can you relate?

We all noted how we are all mixtures of ‘good and evil’, and how mundane, physical realities can break our highest spiritual moments, yet somehow those moments must happen in the mundane world, because that is where we live.

Also discussed was Pete Rollin’s parable: To Hell With Jesus

You sit in silence contemplating what has just taken place. Only moments ago you were alive and well, relaxing at home with friends. Then there was a deep, crushing pain in your chest that brought you crashing to the floor. The pain has now gone, but you are no longer in your home. Instead, you find yourself standing on the other side of death waiting to stand before the judgment seat and discover where you will spend eternity. As you reflect upon your life your name is called, and you are led down a long corridor into a majestic sanctuary with a throne located in its center. Sitting on this throne is a huge, breathtaking being who looks up at you and begins to speak.

“My name is Lucifer, and I am the angel of light.”

You are immediately filled with fear and trembling as you realize that you are face to face with the enemy of all that is true and good. Then the angel continues: “I have cast God down from his throne and banished Christ to the realm of eternal death. It is I who hold the keys to the kingdom. It is I who am the gatekeeper of paradise, and it is for me alone to decide who shall enter eternal joy and who shall be forsaken.”

After saying these words, he sits up and stretches out his vast arms. “In my right hand I hold eternal life and in my left hand eternal death. Those who would bow down and acknowledge me as their god shall pass through the gates of paradise and experience an eternity of bliss, but all those who refuse will be vanquished to the second death with their Christ.”

After a long pause he bends toward you and speaks, “Which will you choose?”

—
So, would you choose paradise with Satan or hell with Jesus?

There were differing opinions, and E. and B. disagreed and nearly came to blows over it:

“I would go to hell with Jesus.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“What? Of course you wouldn’t! NO ONE would! You’d choose heaven.”

It brought up some great discussion. Why do we follow Jesus? Because of the payoff? If I think I would choose hell in this scenario, do I choose to find Jesus in the hells of this world?

The night ended with a rendition of “Oh Danny Boy” and it nearly got us run out of the place!

Have a thought on the above? Post your comment below.

Pub Theology Recap March 10

March 11, 2011 Culture, Relationships, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

Well it was a fun night last night at Right Brain Brewery.

N. showed up with the usual goodies – this time pretzels (some even peanut butter-filled).

Then A. shows up with a heavy pan of Guinness brownies – complete with decorations. A delightful treat, and it was enjoyed by all. It said: “Cheers to our ‘soon to be’ PUBlished Theologian!”

I’ve been working on a few writing projects as some of you know, and I had written up a book proposal about Pub Theology, comprised of stories, thoughts and theology through the prism of our regular Thursday gatherings. I had sent it around a bit to get some feedback, and the consensus I received from Brian McLaren, Phyllis Tickle and others was that unless you already have a ‘market in hand’ – i.e., tons of readers of your blog (thank you, loyal few), hundreds or thousands of Twitter followers, and a large regular speaking audience, most publishers aren’t willing to take on a relatively unknown. So with that encouraging start, I sent out my manuscript to a publisher, and a few weeks later got a message back that my proposal had been accepted and they are willing to offer me a book contract! Very exciting. No contract has been signed yet, and I’ll wait until then before giving any more details.

In any case, it was a celebratory evening, and the rich Guinness brownies were just right with a cask-poured Black IPA.

The topics:

1. How can deprivation connect us to God?

2. Ignatius: “We must never seek to establish a rule so rigid as to leave no room for exception.” Never?

3. Does God force people to believe in him? Or does he let them choose? Discuss the differences.

4. “Trust in God could impose an additional burden…” Could it? How so?

5. “If there were no evil, there would be no good, for good is the counterpart of evil.” Your thoughts?

6. Who killed Jesus?

7. If you could ask God one thing, what would it be?

8. Is the church above the law?

So, we quickly skipped no.1, as it was not a night for deprivation. On to no.2 After Steve aptly pointed out that Ignatius was breaking his own rule (clever), we reflected on ways in which rules can sometimes get in the way of the thing they set out to address. We had some good examples, but I’m not sure I’m able to recall them here.

No.3 – Nearly everyone agreed (everyone who holds to a belief in God, at any rate), that God allows us some level of choice in choosing to follow him or choosing to ignore him. To say that we have no choice, and it is all predetermined, would sort of make a mockery of the whole thing, and remove any kind of responsibility, not to mention any chance of genuine relationship. That is not to say that God might not already know how things are going to go, but that is different than God making the decision for us.

No.4 – see the following quote:
“… trust in God could impose an additional burden on good people slammed to their knees by some senseless tragedy. An atheist might be no less staggered by such an event, but non-believers often experienced a kind of calm acceptance: shit happens, and this particular shit had happened to them. It could be more difficult for a person of faith to get to his feet precisely, because he had to reconcile God’s love and care with the stupid, brutal fact that something irreversibly terrible had happened.”

In other words, it is hard to understand sometimes why bad stuff happens when you believe that God is good and he has your best interests at heart. If you don’t think God is there, you assume bad stuff will happen at some point, but you don’t take it personally. We noted several instances of where we try to make sense of and draw meaning from tragedies and difficulties, also noting that for many people (even many of us), our faith gives us the strength to get through such situations, even when we don’t understand what God is up to.

no. 5 – we skipped

no.6 – who killed Jesus? My blog post on this got some conversation going earlier in the week. I tended to lean toward the creation being responsible for killing Jesus, not the Creator. Some versions of atonement theory lean toward the latter, but those paint a rather gruesome picture of God, in my opinion. Someone at the table noted: the Romans killed Jesus, what else is there to talk about?

no.7 – skipped

no.8 – Is the church above the law? We noted that there are instances where the church seems to get special treatment (see Catholic church and pedophilia abuses), and that that is bad stuff and should stop.

We enjoyed a visit from some newcomers – C, P and their son, A, on break from MSU. K and B made it out, as did S & R, and G & J. And of course, N., A., and me. A good night, all around!

Next week: Pub Theology St. Patty’s-style!

Pub Theology Recap March 3

March 7, 2011 Culture, Relationships, Theology Comments are closed

The Northern Hawk Owl amber ale in the cask set the tone for a nice, low-key evening of discussion, with some potentially hot topics. Great to have the wisdom of a philosopher again in our midst (C), not to mention the always insightful Presbyterian contingent (D and N), the resident a-theists (S & R), some new voices of wisdom (S, K and M!), and some of us who just like beer (J & A, and B). Not to be forgotten was the late arrival of our local fashion and health consultants (B and E). I am sure I have forgotten some others, but then I arrived at Right Brain at 2pm to reserve our usual seat -maybe I should rethink that strategy.

Topics:

Empathy

theories

freedom

where is Jesus?

hell

violence

evil

—
In detail:

1. Studies show that empathy is tied to our awareness of our own and others’ mortality. Will heaven be without empathy?

2. Was Jesus able to come down from the cross? Could he have blown it to a ‘million smithereens’ if he wished?

3. A physicist: “One must always allow for alternative theories.”
A theologian: “Using God as an explanation is not an explanation.”
What do you think?

4. ‘Freedom in Christ.’ What does(n’t) it mean?

5. What does it mean to say: ‘Jesus is here’?

6. “The traditional understanding of hell perpetuates the cycle of violence for eternity, and it is divine violence that does it.” Are we stuck with violence and evil forever?

7a. “Instead of bringing God to ‘unreached’ places and ‘unreached’ peoples, I find countless missionaries who say that, while this was how they once thought, time and again they find that these unreached places are the very sites where they must go to find God and to be reached. How many of us have learned too late that our initial idea, that by serving the world we will help bring God to others, has eclipsed the wisdom that in serving the world we find God there.” Is it presumptuous to ‘bring God’ somewhere?

7b. “There is no empathy in heaven, because there is no mortality. There is no empathy in utopia, because there is
no suffering.” In other words, those entering heaven will have to leave their empathetic sensibilities at the Pearly
Gates, because there cannot be empathy for those left behind. If there were, there would be regret and sadness,
and these are not permitted. What is interesting to note about the incarnation is that Jesus had to leave
‘heaven’ in order to properly empathize with us. Is heaven sterile?

8. “A story told often enough, and confirmed often enough in daily life, ceases to be a tale and is accepted as reality itself.” Discuss.

kiss_girl_hell_church_sign — This clears things up.

Through me the way into the suffering city,
through me the way to the eternal pain,
through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
My maker was divine authority,
The highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things
Were made, and I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, who enter here.

– Sign on the gate into hell, in Dante, Inferno, Canto 3

—-
It’s been a couple days since, so I’ll focus the recap to heaven and hell.

Heaven was an interesting topic, as a couple of people felt that a utopian heaven of perfection would be theoretically impossible because different people would have different ideas of what perfection is, and therefore it would be impossible for everyone to be the same amount of happy all the time, forever. In other words, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure – but how do you account for everyone without making someone upset? Some also noted that anything that was repeated over and over forever would eventually become hell, even if it started out as your favorite thing (I do love Tetris though). Others of us felt that God would be able to pull off something that gave each person meaning and satisfaction that would not result in stupefying boredom, and that the presence of God himself would preclude that (though isn’t he present now?). We also noted that heaven (or the new creation), may well be outside of time as we know it, and so it is hard for us to think about what that is presently like, this side of things.

If you’re going to talk about heaven, hell, you naturally think about those who ‘don’t get in’. Will people in heaven be aware of them? Will this go over well? (We noted that Jonathan Edwards and others said that the chief delight of people in heaven will be awareness of the suffering of the unrighteous in hell. “Hey Joe – watch this guy – he’s going to really burn in a minute” Can you honestly imagine?) Will everyone eventually be reconciled to God or will some people remain in suffering forever? Discussion on hell was interesting, particularly the fact that no one seemed interested in defending the traditional view of eternal, conscious torment, even as I attempted to articulate it. Ideas of separation from God, of loneliness, of constantly needing more of your own space (a la The Great Divide), as well as – ‘maybe we’ve just made a lot of this stuff up by misreading texts and importing assumptions’.

There’s been a lot of talk about hell and universalism of late with Rob Bell’s new book impending. A couple of good blog posts on hell have shown up this week, so I encourage you to read them over:

To Hell With It on Gathered Introspections, by the incredibly wise and wonderful Christy Berghoef. (no relation) Wait – she’s in the other room! OK OK > she paid me to link to her post. With dinner.

and

Can Anyone Explain to Me Why People Should BURN in Hell FOREVER? – by Kester Brewin

Check ’em out, and post your own thoughts on the above topics below, or join us next Thursday at 8pm at Right Brain Brewery!

Pub Theology Recap Feb 24

February 25, 2011 Culture, Relationships, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

A nice night of discussion at Right Brain Brewery, with old and new friends, and a nice pint of Pie Whole – brewed with a whole apple pie from Grand Traverse Pie Company – a nice applely, caramelly, pumpkiny brew. Discussion was so good, that we only hit the first three of seven topics. We’ll hold some over for next week.

Topics for the night:

good / bad

amulets

meaning

sasquatch

Longer version:

1. Ancient proverb: “Every time something bad happens, something good happens as well.”
Does it? Why? What is your experience?

2. The oldest known Hebrew Bible texts are silver amulets dated to about the mid-seventh century BCE. Amulets were worn as charms against evil or injury. Compare to usage(s) of the text today.

3. “Much desire to seek after God is nothing of the sort. For instance, to seek God for eternal life is to seek eternal life, while to seek God for a meaningful existence is to seek a meaningful existence.”
What does it mean to truly seek God?

OK so we didn’t really talk about sasquatch. At least not for long. 🙂 Discussion about good and bad started out with someone noting that he used to think along the lines of the proverb quoted, that bad things were accompanied or followed up by good things. However, after a series of seemingly senseless tragedies and difficult circumstances, he had moved to a more cynical place, where bad things ‘just happen’, without a deeper purpose or greater good behind them.

I noted that I like to think that a big picture view could step outside the bad things that happen and see them as part of a larger pattern or whole, and that somehow and someway God has purposes in what happens, and that even out of bad can come good. And this is a perspective that we are not privy to in this life. But I also noted that I have a very limited amount of what you could call ‘bad experiences’, certainly a lack of tragedies in my life – and that I’m not the best one to talk from experience.

Someone else noted that it is cruel and perhaps an insult to tell someone who is in the midst of a hardship that it is ‘for a purpose’ or that they have to just step back to ‘see the good’. It’s not an easy thing.

Maybe bad things just are. We live in a broken world. Bad things happen.

But I do believe that God often can use hard situations to bring about good things, but I don’t think those bad things happen expressly so that we can experience something good.

Most people felt the old proverb might be true in a very general sense, but certainly not as an axiom of how things always go.

Regarding the ancient superstitious use of texts of the Bible, it was noted that people still have many superstitions, and that we may even (mis)use the Bible that way today.

Regarding the third quote, from Peter Rollins’ book How (Not) to Speak of God, generated some interesting discussion. Someone asked if we are ever able to pursue God without some selfish or ulterior motive. Can we pursue God just for God himself? Or do the benefits – meaning, life, salvation, peace of mind – always blur our motives, or are the motives themselves? Is it wrong to seek God out of selfish motives? Is this the one place where hedonism is permitted, as no doubt John Piper and others would assert?

It was a nice, low-key evening, and we’ll save the other topics for next time!

A reading from the backside:
“The weakening of God into the world, described in the
Pauline language of emptying (kenosis), is paradigmatically
expressed in the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, the
birth, but also the death of Jesus. Kenosis is not a one-time-
only event occurring in the life and death of Jesus but the
ongoing history or tradition inaugurated by this event. This
process is ‘secularization’, which means not the abandonment
or dissolution of God, but the ‘transcription’ of God into time
and history (the saeculum), thus a successor form of death of God
theology. Kenosis, as the transcription, translation, or
transmission of God into the world, means establishing the
kingdom of God on earth.

For example, the commonplace complaint that the secular
world has taken the Christ out of Christmas and transcribed it
into “Happy Holidays” is to be viewed as still another success
on Christianity’s part. For now the Incarnation has been
translated into a popular secular holiday in the West, in which
the spirit of generosity and goodwill among all people prevails.
During the “holidays” this “spirit” of love becomes general
among humankind, which is what in fact this doctrine actually
means: its application in the concrete reality of lived
experience. The tolerant, nonauthoritarian and pluralistic
democratic societies in the West are the translation into real
political structures of the Christian doctrine of neighbor love.
When the transcendent God is “weakened” – or emptied – into
the world, it assumes the living form of Western cultural life.”
– John Caputo, After the Death of God

Post any of your own thoughts on the evening below!

Pub Theology Recap Feb 17

February 18, 2011 Culture, Economy, Politics, Relationships, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

Despite being displaced from our normal spot on the back pew, we had a good evening of conversation last night. Over a dozen people, including a couple of new folks, not least of which was my wife Christy. She made a rare late appearance, bringing sushi no less.

On to the topics:

Is anything really *new*?

progress

change

dualism

explosions

In detail:

1. Is there anything under the sun whereof it might be said, “This is new.”?

2. “Society determines what and how we know, and forms us into the kinds of people we are. Thus as members of society we are never truly free, but instead formed into the sort of people power decides we ought to be.” Fate, Determinism or freedom?

3. What is progress?

4. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?

5. “Religions admittedly appeal, not to conviction as the result of argument, but to belief as demanded by revelation.” Isn’t revelation an argument?

6. The Buddha: “The mind is everything; what you think you become.” Think about that.

7. Does theism necessarily imply dualism?

8. “Religion is most effective where it is least obvious.” Do you agree? If so, why?

9. “Religion is the metaphysics of the masses; by all means let them keep it. Just as they have popular poetry, and the popular wisdom of proverbs, so they must have popular metaphysics too: for mankind absolutely needs an interpretation of life; and this, again, must be suited to popular comprehension.”

10. Scientists discover that the explosion, which, in the Bible signals the divine message, was effectively the visual trace of a terrible catastrophe that destroyed a flourishing alien civilization. Likely?

11. “When was the last time someone questioned you about your faith? Whereas once the question would have been ‘are you a Christian,’ the phraseology is now more often along the lines of ‘would you call yourself a Christian.’

The first is an objective statement of being, an absolute. The second a subjective assessment – you might not call me that, but that’s what I call myself. Perhaps the move from objective to subjective ontology is part of a wider cultural shift…”

______________
Wow. That’s a lotta stuff. Someone was a little over the top in putting this list together.

Given the size of the crowd, we split into a couple of groups, and I was sometimes in on one discussion, sometimes another. Discussion ranged on what does ‘new’ mean, and does technology count as new? Obviously when Ecclesiastes was written and Qoheleth was musing on the endless repetition of the old which gets passed off as new, he probably did not envision someone at a pub in 2011 looking up his writings on their digital communication device in another language. That seems sorta new, or is it merely a repackaging of the old?

For that matter, is technology progress? Can progress be limited to things that seem to happen ‘out there’ in the culture, things in technology development, methods of science or learning… Is progress also related to things that happen to a person spiritually, socially, internally?

And speaking of internal development – are we free to develop and grow as individuals, or are we constantly being shaped by the cultural currents in society, by institutions, by ‘the powers that be’?

There was some talk of the Buddha, but I’m not sure that was fit for print here.

Regarding revelation, we pondered the difference between an argument based on reason, science, logic, etc., and that which comes via the divine or even through someone else or through intuition, what we might call revelation. Is revelation always personal? Does revelation happen en masse? How do you know when to listen when someone says, “God told me”? And what about when we are separated from said revelation by thousands of years and it comes via a canonical tradition which says, ‘This is what God has said.”? It was noted that people tend to be more and more skeptical of that which comes via revelation, we want cold, hard ‘facts’ which can be positively demonstrated. Yet is there more to life than ‘the facts’?

Regarding explosions and flourishing alien civilizations, several stories of the ‘paranormal’ were shared, including an out of body experience and a night-sky sighting that seemed to defy the laws of physics.

Also noted was the possibility of nano-bots running the universe once we hit ‘the singularity’, or of the world ending in a mess of grey goo, of the fact that nano-bots might be the means by which God brings about the new heavens and the new earth, that we ourselves might be more implicated in the final realization of the kingdom of God than we might think.

All in all, a good night, and the Dark Side chocolate stout was not to be missed.