We had about a dozen people at Pub Theology last night over at Right Brain Brewery in the Warehouse district.
There’s nothing like coming in from the cold in Northern Michigan to a good brew and good conversation with friends and strangers!
On tap last night:
time
eternity
reason
ghosts
Here were the topics and quotes to get conversation rolling:
1. What about time? Does eternity exist?
From Introducing Radical Orthodoxy by James K.A. Smith:
“Modernity eternalizes the present. A modern ontology is characterized by a flatness and materialism that ultimately lead to nihilism – a loss of the real squandered into nothing. When the world is so flattened that all we have is the immanent, the immanent implodes upon itself.”
“Only a participatory ontology – in which the immanent and material is suspended from the transcendent and immaterial – can grant the world meaning.” 2.Is reason reliable? Immanuel Kant in the introduction to Critique of Pure Reason: “Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.”
More from Introducing RO: “The myth of secularity relies upon the modern dualism of faith and reason.”
and
“We must protest equally against assertions of ‘pure reason’ and ‘pure faith’ as against theology as an internal autistic idiolect, and against theology as an adaptation to unquestioned secular assumptions… The apparently opposite poles are in secret collusion: the pursuit of pure faith is as much a modern quest as the pursuit of pure reason.” We must seek a via media in which the theoretical foundations of secularity are dismantled – whence the spaces for public discourse will provide new opportunities for the expression of a properly theological account of reality
3. What about ghosts?
——-
I don’t have time to give a full recap here, but there was some good debate about modernity/pre-modernity and conceptions of time. About what does it mean to be fully present in the here and now, and does this present awareness become overbearing when approached from a materialist perspective? There was no consensus on that, though one person, referencing Eckhart Tolle, noted that ‘all we really have is the present moment’.
Is reason reliable? Again, some good discussion, and general agreement that it is. No consensus on faith/reason as a false or appropriate division.
There were also some ghost stories shared.
Have a thought about the above topics? Post a comment below.
Came across this post today at darkhorse… some raw potency at work here… –
Mirari non rimari sapientia verum est To see and not to inquire is true wisdom
–
I see the innocence of a suburban lawn mower, and the progress from pushing to riding, and I see the oil gushing from a hole in a pipe in the Gulf of Mexico, and I see that oil in the stay-cold Big Gulp the suburbanite is drinking as he mows and I see him drinking the oil, or is it Coke or is it corn syrup or is it oil does it matter, and I see a film in which the middle and upper classes eat and drink oil and shit beautiful gourmet meals into immaculate toilets and the rest of the world living in the sewers fighting over the bones and after the rest of the world eats the crumbs under the tables the rest of the worlds’ bones are compacted and crushed and become the next layer of oil or the fertilizer under a suburban lawnscape and by drives the happy sixteen year old on the cell phone so driven so successful so happy this is what everyone would do if they could isn’t it isn’t this what everyone wants why shouldn’t I enjoy it I do my service projects I go to church I am a good person I am nice and there she goes with her cell phone and her hideous grin is the innocence of every corporation licking its chops and innocence always drives consumption cause hey ya gotta eat and this country was never meant to lead we were only meant to develop the systems of satisfaction of efficiency we are proud of our breakfast cereals we are proud of our hard smooth roads we are proud of the effort we make for no return we make effort so the more effort we make the more pointless can be the reprieve, the more intense and stupid and stupefying the violence and I must go mad I would grow my own vegetables but I am too busy with fulfilling an academic resume for an academic status quo that now disappears into the trash can of neoliberal society and everyone buys the social sciences and everything is monetized sorry grandpa we can’t monetize your wisdom you are for the incinerator sorry New Orleans you already enjoyed yourself you accepted poverty that is your cardinal sin you are now punished for your hedonism and decadence we let you die a profound thesis is that there are no natural disasters anymore every disaster is a referendum on our values they only happen to those we don’t care about we don’t care about New Orleans we want it die we want the gulf to go away we only want the engine of work the technocratic machine and I see the confusion of the obese in my neighborhood they are thinking so hard, thinking about oil and guns and transactions, because these are swimming around in their cells, in their cancer, the cancer they are ingesting to become the research specimens of the petrochemical industry that makes the chips that makes the soda that makes the cure for cancer you are what you eat you eat what you are and there is no reprieve the system is itself a cancer that can only follow its own logic profit profit profit but why do you work for that which is not bread you cannot eat profit and profit does not make bread it only makes more profit the apocalypse is long, and excruciating, and slow torture, nothing happens in the blinking of an eye, every day is torture, and they don’t know it on 19th street but the decorated houses celebrating the prom king and queen will one day be against the law because poverty and happiness are oil and water they can’t mix but oh they can and the secret is we need nothing, we are sources not consumers we are creators not consumers we are suns and stars we explode at every moment with life.
“Set the sails of fear, the winds a-stirring…”
~ Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem
If science conflicts with theology, what should give way?
In the past, the church excommunicated the likes of Copernicus and Galileo for their findings which differed with the prevailing theology of the day. And this was based, it was argued, on Scriptural grounds. Of course, later the church had to admit it was wrong, and theology had to adapt to science.
This continues to play out today over the issue of creation and evolution. Are the two ‘theories’ truly at odds? Could God have been involved in creating over long periods of time through evolution, or does evolution necessarily imply there is no God? Or perhaps could evolution show that God, and even we ourselves, are different than we’ve thought?
Two religion professors at Calvin College, the Christian Reformed church’s official college, are asking hard questions about evolutionary science and Reformed theology (much of this blogpost comes from Roxanne Van Farowe’s article in the latest issue of The Banner).
Harlow and Schneider
Professors Daniel Harlow (pictured left) and John Schneider (right) of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., published scholarly articles asserting that strong evidence from both biblical studies and science creates conflicts with parts of the historic Reformed confessions and requires theological explanation.
In particular, they question whether Adam and Eve actually existed, whether there was a literal Fall, and whether we need to reinterpret the doctrine of original sin as presented in the Reformed confessions.
The papers were published in The American Scientific Affiliation’s journal Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith.
Harlow wrote that he was exploring from the perspective of mainstream biblical scholarship, which is that “Adam and Eve are strictly literary figures—characters in a divinely inspired story about the imagined past that intends to teach primarily theological, not historical, truths about God, creation, and humanity.”
Harlow also wrote, “Genesis 3, read in its immediate context, does not depict the man and woman’s transgression as an act that infected all subsequent humanity. . . . For teaching about the Fall and original sin, then, we must wait for Paul and the church fathers.”
Schneider wrote that the traditional understanding of the Fall does not fit with current science: “[T]he narrative of human evolution makes it very hard, if not impossible, to maintain [the position that human and demonic creatures are responsible for evil]. For it seems, on this science, that not just natural evils . . . but also the disposition for human moral evils, are practically part of God’s original design.”
It appears the two are coming under some heavy fire, because their teaching conflicts with the historic confessions of the church.
The articles in question were approved by the college, yet college president Gaylen Byker said at a faculty senate meeting that the two professors had violated the Form of Subscription, according to the college’s student newspaper, Chimes. (The Form of Subscription requires Calvin College faculty to teach and write in accordance with Reformed confessions.)
But should theology really trump science?
Calvin physics professor Loren Haarsma co-wrote a book on Christianity and evolution with his wife, Deborah Haarsma. He said that a conversation between academic disciplines about hominid/human evolution is overdue on the campus.
“The fossil evidence does not point to a single pair of ancestors for the human race,” he said. “We feel we have to ask these questions because our study of God’s world has forced us to ask these questions.”
But theologian Al Wolters, a professor emeritus at Calvin’s sister school, Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, does not agree with the two professors’ work.
“The issue of the historical Fall is a cornerstone of Christian beliefs, shared by all major branches of Christendom,” Wolters said. “To openly explain it away as myths and literary devices to square with scientific evidence is a pretty momentous step to take.”
In 1991, synod (the CRC’s annual leadership gathering) had stated that “all theorizing that posits the reality of evolutionary forebears of the human race” was ruled out by Scripture and the confessions.
However, Synod 2010 removed that declaration from its position statement on creation and science.
Here’s what others are saying in reaction:
“Let’s be honest here. There are ulterior motives to all the theories, exegetical mythology, and redefinitions. That would be that people want their human reasoning to usurp God. They want to be their own god and determine their own truth. They also want the Bible to be open to reinterpretation because then it will excuse any and all ungodly behavior. People support evolution and strive to make science their “God” because they love themselves and their sin.”
“Forget their jobs; they should be excommunicated. Such heresy and conformism to the rhetoric of today’s dogmatic worldly “thinkers” is intolerable. Without an Adam, who needs a second Adam?”
“Harlow is making an argument for his position that Adam and Eve were simply literary figures. That is the main point of the article. Instead of creating humanity “very good” as scripture says, Harlow sees original sin as part of the evolutionary and original genetic make-up of humanity (proto-humanity). It is very different from an Augustinian view. In Harlow’s view of original sin (quoting and agreeing with others) original sin was something humanity was intrinsically created with but only came to realize later in time after the process of evolution took its effect.”
“The point of the article is seen when Harlow clearly says that “In current Christian thinking about Adam and Eve, five basic scenarios are on offer,” and then proceeds to list them. He then says that the last one, the literary theory, is “a view that is largely unknown in evangelical circles,” and then he goes on to explain that theory and the appeal of it. He does seem to be siding with the literary theory, but the paper is nonetheless clearly presented as one option only out of many acceptable ones.”
“How exactly does a literary idea of creation eliminate the possibility of a personal God? And didn’t God not send Jesus until about 2000 years ago? Doesn’t that leave a lot of humanity missing out on a crucial piece of revelation? The Christian faith, after all, is a faith that happened at a certain point in history, with some coming before and some after. How would this view of creation be different?”
“It is crucial to read and think about the Bible. But if you take everything at face value, don’t bother applying the considerable resources and discoveries humanity has at its disposal, and refuse to accept things that are nearly irrefutable and that don’t present any sort of danger to the Bible or Christianity, you’re doing a disservice to yourself, all those around you, and God.”
Here is the comment I posted on the article’s page:
As a pastor I can understand being held to teach in conformity with the form of subscription, even if I don’t prefer it. But does it really make sense to force professors in the sciences such as the Haarsmas to be bound in their teaching by late-medieval theological documents?Additionally, Wolters’ argument that “the issue of the historical Fall is a cornerstone of Christian beliefs, shared by all major branches of Christendom” is not really an argument that supports that the historical fall actually took place. It merely underlines the fact that it is an historically important doctrine. Just because we’ve always thought “X”, does not provide evidence that “X” is actually the case.Not that I am disagreeing with him, and I know he would say more given the space, I just think we have to use better language than saying, “Well this is just too important to change.”
People also thought slavery was pretty important (economically) and also thought it was important that the earth was the center of the universe (theologically).
We’ve since thought otherwise.
What do you think? Post a comment to continue the discussion.
“He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” ~Acts 14:17
Paul speaks these words to a crowd that is unfamiliar with the God of Israel. They are worshipers of the Greco-Roman pantheon, confusing he and Barnabas for Zeus and Hermes.
He attempts to correct their confusion not by denouncing Zeus and Hermes, per se, but by pointing to the natural world, and saying, this is all the result of God.
Wheat Field in Rain by Van Gogh
Look about you, says Paul, the valleys and plains are fertile. The rainfall here is fairly abundant. Those large drops of water are gifts from the heavens, bringing life to the verdant earth, which in turn sprouts crops – grains, vegetables, fruit, which in turn fills your bellies as you sit around fires and tables with those you love.
At those meals, as the shining faces of those you love reflect back to you the very joy you yourself feel, the goodness of life assaults you. Your heart is filled with joy.
Paul’s declaration of God to these people is based on the natural world. On the common joyful experience of life shared by all humanity.
Revelation 4:11 puts it this way: “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created.”
Perhaps our joy is rooted in God’s joy. God created the world for his pleasure, and invites us to join him in that.
So Paul says: rain comes from God. Rain leads to crops. Crops lead to food. All of this fills our hearts with joy. But how do we get from rain to crops? And how do we get from crops to food? What is missing in this equation?
Farming by hand
Work. There are some natural crops that will grow, to be sure, but when the time is taken to consciously plant and tend and harvest – the more fruitful it is for us and others.
And I think it’s understood in what Paul is saying, that work is part of what fills our hearts with joy.
Work and joy? Unfortunately, that is a rare combination today.
When you ask someone what gives them joy, or about what’s great in their lives – too often work is not a part of it. We sort of ‘put up with work’ so that we can then do the other things we really care about. By and large work is not what gives us pleasure.
In today’s economic reality, we have separated work and joy.
Wendell Berry, in an essay entitled “Economy and Pleasure” notes in regard to God’s delight in creation: “This bountiful and lovely thought that all creatures are pleasing to God – and potentially pleasing, therefore, to us – is unthinkable from the point of view of an economy divorced from pleasure, such as the one we have now, which completely discounts the capacity of people to be affectionate toward what they do and what they use and where they live and the other people and creatures with whom they live.”
Yet Berry notes we are not unfamiliar with pleasure:
“It may be argued that our whole society is more devoted to pleasure than any whole society ever was in the past, in the fact that we support a great variety of pleasure industries and that these are thriving as never before. But that would seem only to prove my point. That there can be pleasure industries at all, exploiting our apparently limitless inability to be pleased, can only mean that our economy is divorced from pleasure and that pleasure is gone from our workplaces and our dwelling places.
More and more, we take for granted that work must be destitute of pleasure. More and more, we assume that if we want to be pleased we must wait until evening, or the weekend, or vacation, or retirement. More and more, our farms and forests resemble our factories and offices, which in turn more and more resemble prisons – why else should we be so eager to escape them? We are defeated at work because our work gives us no pleasure. We are defeated at home because we have no pleasant work there either. We turn to the pleasure industries for relief from our defeat, and are again defeated, for the pleasure industries can thrive and grow only upon our dissatisfaction with them.”
And Berry, like Paul, encourages us to turn to the natural world:
“Where is our comfort but in the free, uninvolved, finally mysterious beauty and grace of this world that we did not make, that has no price? Where is our sanity but there? Where is our pleasure but in working and resting kindly in the presence of this world.”
Paul says – this world is filled with evidence of God. And these good things: rain, crops, food, work – these are evidence of God’s kindness – they give God joy, and in turn ought to give us joy.
And where does our dissatisfaction with work lead us?
“As evidence of the fact that we don’t like work,” Berry says, “we have mechanized and automated and computerized our work. But what does this do but divide us ever more from our work and our products – and in the process, from one another and the world?”
Berry concludes: “In the right sort of economy, our pleasure would not be an addition, or by-product or reward, it would be an empowerment of our work and the measure by which we gauge such work. Pleasure, he says, perfects work.”
Part of the problem is that we associate work with “drudgery”, especially hard work. And so we attempt to remove drudgery from our lives, and assume that if things are easier, we will be happier.
Wendell Berry gives a personal example:
“I can say, for example, that the tobacco harvest in my home area involves the hardest work that I have done in any quantity. In most of the years of my life, from early boyhood until now, I have taken part in the tobacco cutting. This work usually occurs at some time between the last part of August and the first part of October. Usually the weather is hot and the work is extremely demanding. Because all of the work still must be done by hand, this event has maintained much of its old character; it is very much the sort of thing the agriculture experts have had in mind when they have talked about freeing people from drudgery.
“That tobacco cutting can be drudgery is obvious. But for me, and I think for most of the men and women who have been my companions in this work, it has not been drudgery. None of us would say that we take pleasure in all of it all of the time, but we do take pleasure in it, and sometimes the pleasure can be intense and clear. Many of my dearest memories come from these times of hardest work.
The tobacco cutting is the most protracted social occasion of our year. Neighbors work together; they are together all day every day for weeks. The quiet of the work is not interrupted by machine noises, and so there is much talk. There is talk involved in the management of the work, speculation about the weather, and there is much laughter. Because of the unrelenting difficulty of the work, everything funny or amusing is relished. And there are memories.
The crew to which I belong is the product of kinships and friendships going far back; my own earliest associations with it occurred over fifty years ago. And so as we work we have before us not only the present crop and the present fields, but other crops and other fields that are remembered. The cutting is a sort of ritual and remembrance. Old stories are retold; the dead and the absent are remembered. Some of the best talk I have ever listened to I have heard during these times, and I am especially moved to think of the care that is sometimes taken to speak well – that is, to speak fittingly – of the dead and the absent. The conversation, one feels, is ancient. Such talk in barns and at row ends must go back without interruption to the first farmers. How long it may continue is now an uneasy question; not much longer perhaps, but we do not know. We only know that while it lasts it can carry us deeply into our shared life and the happiness of farming.”
The happiness of farming. The happiness of work.
Sadly, becoming more and more rare.
And it seems the more and more we’ve come up with processes to mechanize work, the freer we have felt to destroy the world that God created for his pleasure, rather than live in harmony with it. We now can farm tracts of land that would have been incomprehensible without machines, even if the land is not best suited for it, or a loss of topsoil is the result. Or we can strip mine in ways that give little thought to what we are doing to the land, or clear cut forests with little thought to the local culture and economy, shipping the ‘resources’ elsewhere, and leaving a wasteland behind. We use poisons and toxins to make sure the crop is not hindered by insects or disease, forgetting that our “technological fixes” while providing a bumper crop now, undoubtedly involve larger costs later. Technology is not the problem in and of itself. It can be a great good. It is technology without conscience that gets us in trouble.
We need less people to work, because we have replaced them with machines, because we value efficiency over process, because we value the dollar over everything else. And what has this done but force more and more people from rural life into cities, where there is no such work to be found, yet they continue to go under the myth of ‘progress’ and ‘new opportunities.’ The result is higher unemployment, and higher dissatisfaction with life, and a further distancing ourselves from work that gives us pleasure, and so we come up with whole industries to make us feel better about our lives and forget our misery. In other words, things that drug us to continue heading in the same miserable direction without once considering what might be the root cause of our unhappiness.
God has created a world for his pleasure, and invites us to join him in the delight. But when we despise those gifts, when we think we can outsmart God by constant and further industrialization and destruction of the world he has put under our care – and then live for the weekend – I think it seriously hampers our ability to preach a sermon like Paul is preaching in Acts 14.
We must find our pleasure again in God and in the world he delights in and has put under our care. That care requires work.
Perhaps most of us are not farmers, yet we can support local farmers who operate with the above mindset, shopping at local farmers markets, we can participate community-supported agriculture. We can tend our own small gardens and put our hands in the earth. We can get involved in our local watersheds and rivers, helping protect forests and becoming more conscious of how each activity we engage in impacts the people and world around us.
And we can delight in our own work – whatever it is. Work that operates in harmony with the world around us, that respects it and seeks to sustain and delight in it, such work must also bring delight and pleasure to the Creator.
The natural environment is not something simply to be used for our own ends. It is not just something given to us to “grow the economy.”
It is, as Paul reminds us today: a window into the divine, a picture of the wonder of a God who said, and still says of his world today, “It is good. Very good.”
So good, in fact, that he’s decided not to scrap it. Maybe it’s time for us to support that decision.
Well, I am a reader. You could say an avid reader. It is, no doubt about it, one of my favorite activities in the world. A good book, a reference book, a history book, and a cup of coffee and I am in my own world. Diving into the knowledge, the stories, the history within two covers, printed on paper – a piece of life, captured in words – is a magical experience. I love books. But is it the book itself that I love, or the content for which the book is a vehicle? In ancient times, before the printing press, knowledge and stories were shared orally, then initially printed in the form of cave drawings, early alphabetic attempts, etchings on stone, writing on skins and scrolls…
For the last several hundred years we’ve had books. A big step forward. Well now we have not just books, but devices that can contain thousands of ‘e-books’, and the ability to read them in a fashion somewhat similar to an actual book, thanks to e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle. Will it catch on?
It seems at some level is already has. Thousands of Kindles, Nooks, Sony and other e-readers have been selling.
Yet I resisted this digital phenomenon, citing my love for the book itself and the experience that came with it – it’s own history, former owners, dusty look, leather-bound cover, or crinkled paperback existence. How could you replace the beauty of a worn-out spine or the smell of a printed page?
But after my recent move, and carry box after box after box of heavy books, and knowing that I would continue to add to this collection – I decided I had to at least give the e-book thing a try.
So about two months ago I broke down and bought a Kindle. I was worried for the most part about the reading experience. I knew it would be great to have access to so many books at once, and be able to carry them with me, and be able to highlight, take notes, find definitions of words in a second – but would I actually like to sit down with a digital device and read? Could this experience really emulate reading an actual book?
The answer is decidedly yes. The Kindle arrived, and I had bought the corresponding cover for it – which makes the whole thing look much like a book, and you have to open it like the cover of a book, so there are some nods to the traditional printed counterparts. After charging it up, and loading a few free books, and buying a couple others, I started to use it. And I found that not only is it acceptable – I love it! It is actually easier to read than an actual book, because there are no pages turn. This means I can read with one hand, or with no hands, I can read while eating and use the side of my hand to ‘turn a page’. The digital ink technology mimics printed ink, and is no worse for the eyes than reading an actual book. It turns out that I am more interested in the content of a book than I am in the book itself. But don’t worry – I am not turning turning my back on my printed pieces. In fact, I just had some built-in bookshelves put in at my house to house the collection my wife and I have, but the fact is that I can only take so many books with me at a time, and the Kindle ups that amount incredibly.
And of course the fact that there are millions of free e-books in the public domain, including tons of theological and historical texts – not to mention thousands of literary classics – and you really can’t go wrong. At $139, my Kindle paid for itself an hour after I had it out of the box, downloading plenty of free material, as well as newer books at discounted prices. I find myself reading more and more these days – and when I’m reading a real book, I actually get nostalgic for my Kindle.
So if you’re also a serious reader, you may want to give an e-reader a second look. And for my part, the latest incarnation of the Kindle, the Kindle 3 – graphite with 6″ pearl e-ink display, a battery that lasts a month, the ability to hold 3,500 books – is the best of the bunch.
And now, of course, you can subscribe to Pub Theologian on your Kindle and read it anywhere, anytime!
We say that we want the future to be “bright,” “promising,” “open.” The force of the future is to prevent the present from closing in on us, from closing us up. The future pries open the present by promising us the possibility of something new, the chance of something different, something that will transform the present into something else.
Let us make a distinction here. There is a relatively foreseeable future, the future for which we are planning, the future on which we are all hard at work, the future we are trying to provide for when we save for our retirement or when a corporate team sets up a long-term plan. Let us call that the “future present,” by which I mean the future of the present, the future to which the present is tending, the momentum of the present into a future that we can more or less see coming. I have no intention of lightly dismissing this future. Institutional long-term plans, retirement plans, life insurance policies, plans for the future education of our children, all such things are very serious, and it is foolish and irresponsible to proceed without them.
But there is another future, another thought of the future, a relation to the future which is the future that is unforeseeable, that will take us by surprise, that will come like a thief in the night and shatter the comfortable horizons of expectation that surround the present. Let us call this the “absolute future.” When it comes to the relative future, the future present, we have “reasonable expectations,” “cautious optimism,” “bulls and bears,” but as regards the absolute future we must be like the lilies of the field who sow not, nor do they reap, but who are willing to go with what God provides, which also means that they are ready for anything. For the relative future we need a good mind, a decent computer, and horse sense, those three; for the absolute future, we need hope, faith, and love, these three.
With the “absolute” future we are pushed to the limits of the possible, fully extended, at our wits’ end, having run up against something that is beyond us, beyond our powers and potentialities, beyond our powers of disposition, pushed to the point where only the great passions of faith and love and hope will see us through. With the “absolute future,” I maintain, we set foot for the first time on the shore of the “religious”…
With a notion like the absolute future, we move, or we are moved, past the circle of the present and of the foreseeable future, past the manageable prospects of the present, beyond the sphere in which we have some mastery, beyond the domain of sensible possibilities that we can get our hands on, into a darker and more uncertain and unforeseeable region, into the domain of “God knows what” (literally!). Here we can at best feel our way, like a blind man with a stick, unsure and unsteady, trying to be prepared for something that will take us by surprise, which means trying to prepare for something for which we cannot be prepared. We cross over the border of rational planning methods, venturing into the sort of thing that makes corporate managers nervous, venturing out onto terra incognito.
The absolute future is not much help in planning an investment strategy, where the idea is to guess the trends; nonetheless, as every fund manager eventually finds out, it belongs irreducibly to the structure of life in time. This is the sphere of the impossible, of something of whose possibility we just cannot conceive. But of course, the impossible happens, which is the import of the story of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary. So it is not simply or absolutely impossible, like “p and not-p,” which would reduce it to incoherence, but what the French philosopher Jacques Derrida calls “the impossible,” meaning something whose possibility we did not and could not foresee, something that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, that has never entered into the mind of human beings (1 Cor 2:9).
So I am plainly advising us to revisit the idea of the impossible and to see our way clear to thinking the possibility of the impossible, of the impossible, of the possible as the “im-possible,” and to think of God as the “becoming possible of the impossible.”
Commentary on Torah Portion Sh’mot (Exodus 1:1-6:1) written by Rabbi Marc Wolf, Jewish Theological Seminary.
The past ten years have brought us blogging, Googling, YouTubing, tweeting on Twitter, and updating our Facebook statuses. Each progressive step (if we really want to call it progress) has brought new meaning to here and now. What these technologies have demonstrated is that we have a virtual obsession with being current—with letting people know exactly what we are thinking, doing, or experiencing.
At first, the obsession was casual. We blogged about our lives and posted videos on YouTube, highlighting the trivial and the sublime. We reacted to news stories, ranted about airline service, waxed philosophical about politics, and inspired an audience of millions-and in some cases there actually were millions in the audience. Who didn’t enjoy watching the hit counter exponentially escalating on the video of “Jill and Kevin’s Wedding Entrance” (currently at over 38 million views and definitely not an example of the sublime) or feel provoked to act by “The Girl Effect” as it landed in inboxes and on blog posts? We have been amused, moved, enraged, and entertained as we demonstrated with our comments in online forums.
But our fixation didn’t end there.
As we moved through the decade, we discovered that blogging was too demanding for people with day jobs, so Facebook blossomed and our “friends” found out who we were, what we liked, and how many friends we had in common. We filled the space between blogging and Facebook by tweeting constant notifications of every twist and turn in our daily lives.
What has ultimately emerged as the years and technology progressed over this digital decade is our complete and utter infatuation with the present. We are driven to update, to tweet, to post, to capture this moment. Now. The present.
Interestingly enough, as much as Jewish institutions have benefited from the technological advances of this past decade (you may be hearing this as a JTS podcast), Judaism itself sees the present not as something we can capture at any given moment, but rather as elusive, or better yet, impossible to articulate.
This week, Moses encounters God for the first time after fleeing the oppression and injustice he witnesses at the hand of the Egyptians. Tending the flock of his father-in-law, Moses guides his sheep deep into the wilderness where he experiences a revelation of God in the Burning Bush. He comes to learn that this God of his ancestors has recognized that it is time to redeem the people and bring them to their destined land. When Moses questions whether he is fitting for the task presented to him, God reassures him, insisting that the Divine Presence will be with him (Exod. 3:1–12).
While Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob experienced God in a similar formulaic manner, Moses’s experience differs significantly in the verses that follow.
Moses said to God, “When I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.” He continued, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh sent me to you'” (Exod. 3:13–15a).
Moses comes to know God by a completely different name that is unique to his experience. But what is it about this particular appellation? The Torah and rabbinic literature are replete with names for God, but Moses alone comes to know God as Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.
Rabbi Alan Lew, (z”l), understands this moment as teaching us more about Moses than God. It is Moses’s consciousness that defines his relationship with God. His presence of mind at the burning bush inspires his understanding of and relationship to God:
Eventually, Moses will ask God God’s name, and God will reply, Eyeh chasher eyeh, “I Am That I Am,” or “I Will Be What I Will Be” (the tense is not clear), and then later, simply Yud Hey Vov Hey, the verb “to be” in the present tense. The name of God is the only way to express present-tense being in the Hebrew language; you cannot say, “I am tall,” you can only say, “I tall.” Only God can be the absolute present tense; humans can only approach this state. Even when we are present, mindful, flush with our experience, there is still a synapse of milliseconds between the experience itself and the time it takes our nervous system to process it. (One God Clapping, 260)
Moses is truly in this moment. That is why he comes to know God as “The Present.” He is, as Buber would suggest, in an “I and Thou” relationship with God. Present in the present, so to speak. As Rabbi Lew puts it (his passing last year left us wanting more instructing on living this teaching), “we are never really in our experience, just watching a movie of what happened several milliseconds ago, but the closer we get to being present, the closer we get to God.”
Our challenge for the coming decade is to redefine the present not as a time period, but a state of mind, and devote more of our time to updating our mindset rather than our Facebook status.
The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (z”l) Hassenfeld.
QOur church can’t seem to get an effective outreach effort going. What’s working these days?
A Recently I read about one church’s attempt at outreach that included hiring a petting zoo and giving elephant rides to get people in the door so the church could hit them up with a gospel presentation. With all due respect to that particular effort, I have a hard time believing that God needs a circus in order to connect with people in our communities.
A more effective and natural means of connecting with your community is to get involved with events and things already going on. As one critic of the church recently quipped, “How come you Christians don’t show up at anything that you can’t control?” That’s hard to hear, but worth considering.
Check out the community events calendar in your local newspaper and get involved! You’ll find things like book clubs, poetry readings, musical performances, ecological preservation gatherings, neighborhood association meetings, and more! Certainly these are the kinds of things Christians also enjoy and love, and they provide a natural platform of common interest on which to build relationships without any pretense or ulterior motive. There is certainly nothing wrong with having outreach events, but perhaps it’s our turn to show up.
——————-
QI often wonder if I’m a genuine Christian because I’m not actively sharing my faith. My attempts at outreach or evangelism seem phony and inappropriate. What should I do?
A If you’re trying to talk to someone about your faith because you feel pressured to or because of some misconception about what a genuine Christian is, your attempts will be phony and inappropriate.
In our cultural context today, relationships are the most fertile ground for the gospel. The days of showing up and knocking on people’s doors with a “plan for their life” are over. Think of the last time a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon knocked on your door. What was your reaction? Exactly.
Now think of the last time someone shared with you a favorite recipe or a story about how his child just learned to ride a bike or about a great movie she just watched—no doubt it was natural and unrehearsed. Sharing a story about God can and should be just like that.
A true Christian witness doesn’t need to think about saying the right thing or inserting the right verse because his or her life is focused on following Jesus and living out the kingdom of God. This kind of authentic faith speaks for itself.
Develop friendships with people outside of your Christian circle—people you meet at the bookstore, a favorite restaurant, or at the office. Invite a casual acquaintance over for dinner. Offer to help him with a house project. Get to know her over coffee. Seek such a person out as a friend rather than as a target, and your words and life will be seen and heard differently.
In this context faith issues can become a natural part of your conversations, rather than a forced and sudden presentation. Relax and entrust the whole thing to God. As you do, you’ll find that God has a way of arriving in unsurprising ways and places.
A church in west Michigan recently decided that it is no longer a “church,” but a religious community open to all beliefs.
Many are responding by declaring this a tragedy.
Now there is certainly something to mourn when a community seems to turn its back on its original tradition. Yet I wonder if the common reaction that this is a horrible and tragic event is the only way to view this. Perhaps our own response is in some ways the tragic one. We see this development and fear. We fear the unknown. We fear different beliefs. We fear unbelief.
But maybe there is a bright side here. This community is not turning its back on Christianity so much as openly welcoming people of various beliefs. There is something to admire in this, I would think.
Too many of us instantly invalidate any belief systems other than our own. We hear the words “Jew,” “Muslim” or “atheist” and assume there is nothing useful or valid in such perspectives. That itself is a tragedy.
Perhaps in our Christian religious communities, we have become like some of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, who had no space for anyone who had a thought or perspective that didn’t line up with their own. Jesus spent time with those who were marginalized in his society. Perhaps these people are the marginalized in ours.
In that light, maybe a church that decides to open its doors to such folks is not descending, but ascending. How? By acknowledging the image of God that is present in all of us — and being honest enough to engage and respect people with the positions they actually hold, rather than make sure they submit to a full doctrinal examination before they even are allowed in the door. One would hope that becoming more like Christ makes you more Christian, not less.
I wonder if this community, in making space for more than Christianity, will facilitate more honest interactions and conversations between Christians and those of other faiths than will ever happen in our traditional churches.
Some of you are thinking, “A worship service is really a gathering to worship God, and a Christian worship service is a gathering directed toward the triune God of historical Christianity, so clearly it is entirely appropriate for such a gathering to be strictly ‘Christian.'”
Yes. I agree. But the truth is, most people of other faiths would likely never even contemplate showing up for a gathering at our churches, and I can’t help but think that Jesus, in all his Jewishness and lack of proper attire, might not be welcome there either.
The communities I grew up in were not lacking in such churches.
What they were lacking were places where the religious space is open to honest dialogue and interaction, where people can be respected — whatever their views.
Far from a tragedy, I would say this change is a welcome addition to the spiritual landscape.
—– Bryan Berghoef is the pastor of Watershed Church, located at the Village in the Grand Traverse Commons. He also facilitates weekly Pub Theology conversations at Right Brain Brewery and is a member of ACORD: The Area Council on Religious Diversity.
OK, I’ve come across many other theories/takes/reviews of the finale that are more hopeful than mine, so I’m going to repost my favorites here (so you’re not all depressed by reading mine):
It seemed to me that the finale demonstrated that everything in Season’s 1-5 WAS incredibly important and REAL. (struggles with good and evil, faith and science, humanity vs the divine, mystery vs. fact)…. That there was huge significance to their actions and a greater purpose. I saw the sideways timeline or ‘hereafter’ as their ‘awakening’ persay… only in that could they finally grasp the fuller meaning of their journey , they got the impact of something bigger and insight into the significance of their actions… and in essence found peace and moved on. I also got the impression that the ‘moving on’ was just the start of another journey with greater dimension. I found it very hopeful. It seemed like only the characters ‘got it’ at the end… and appropriately… we won’t get it fully where we sit in time.
———-
From Andy:
The ending of Lost somewhat blew me away last night. What do you make of the show, and what does it all mean? Here’s my best theory.
Let’s say you could go back and try to live your life again with the knowledge you have now. Would you? Have you been face-to-face with your own brokenness, and would you re-do something if you could? I think we all have regrets- and the Losties have bigger regrets than many of us do. And when they set off a nuclear explosion to “reset” the clock of human history, they reset themselves (a kind of re-incarnation) with the wisdom gained on the island. Sawyer doesn’t turn to a life of crime, Ben Linus finds contentment in service, etc. But there is something missing. Love. None of them have the person they loved in the original timeline. And so Desmond is on a journey to reintroduce these characters to the love that they are missing.
And as Jack saves the island and leaves Hurley and Ben to run things (what a team!), the real story is how the characters have found love (and therefore some kind of redemption) and can break free from the cycles in which they have been trapped. That could explain why they go into a church with more symbols of Far Eastern religion than I have ever seen in a church. It’s because they are breaking the cycle and love truly is setting them free.
And that’s why Ben can’t go into the church. His love has always been for Alex, and she is not there yet. He is a person who has never really received love in his entire life, except from Hurley to some extent (being recruited). He still has to work out what love really means.
In short, the finale surprised the daylights out of me. But in the end, it went deeper than “what happens when the smoke monster dies?” and went to the very heart of being human – a longing to love and be loved. And so I might be in the minority, but I am gradually falling in love with the end of Lost.
———-
From Dennis:
You can interpret LOST to have some Christian themes – afterlife and redemption and ekklesia (community / needing others) and tons of subtext spirituality. But those themes are not exclusively Christian. So, aside from the philosophical undertones and the ending that will leave everyone talking… what has been the writer’s underlining message?
For me, I believe the message is one of redemption – but I think it was encapsulated in the idea that we need help from others and we need to work through our issues within community. After watching the recap show and rewatching the Pilot, I see this theme developing. And from two generations that prize community SO much, while achieving so very little of it — the desire for community is a powerful one.
I think most poignantly was John Locke’s final words to Jack, “I hope somebody helps you as you have helped me”.
Live Together, Die Alone. Namaste.
———- From “The Guy Who Supposedly Worked at Bad Robot”:
Sideways world is where it gets really cool in terms of theology and metaphysical discussion (for me at least — because I love history/religion theories and loved all the talks in the writer’s room about it). Basically what the show is proposing is that we’re all linked to certain people during our lives. Call them soulmates (though it’s not exactly the best word). But these people we’re linked to are with us duing “the most important moments of our lives” as Christian said. These are the people we move through the universe with from lifetime to lifetime. It’s loosely based in Hinduisim with large doses of western religion thrown into the mix.
The conceit that the writers created, basing it off these religious philosophies, was that as a group, the Lostaways subconsciously created this “sideways” world where they exist in purgatory until they are “awakened” and find one another. Once they all find one another, they can then move on and move forward. In essence, this is the show’s concept of the afterlife. According to the show, everyone creates their own “Sideways” purgatory with their “soulmates” throughout their lives and exist there until they all move on together. That’s a beautiful notion. Even if you aren’t religious or even spirtual, the idea that we live AND die together is deeply profound and moving.
It’s a really cool and spirtual concept that fits the whole tone and subtext the show has had from the beginning. These people were SUPPOSED to be together on that plane. They were supposed to live through these events — not JUST because of Jacob. But because that’s what the universe or God (depending on how religious you wish to get) wanted to happen. The show was always about science vs faith — and it ultimately came down on the side of faith. It answered THE core question of the series. The one question that has been at the root of every island mystery, every character backstory, every plot twist. That, by itself, is quite an accomplishment.
How much you want to extrapolate from that is up to you as the viewer. Think about season 1 when we first found the Hatch. Everyone thought that’s THE answer! Whatever is down there is the answer! Then, as we discovered it was just one station of many. One link in a very long chain that kept revealing more, and more of a larger mosiac.
But the writer’s took it even further this season by contrasting this Sideways “purgatory” with the Island itself. Remember when Michael appeared to Hurley, he said he was not allowed to leave the Island. Just like the MIB. He wasn’t allowed into this sideways world and thus, was not afforded the opportunity to move on. Why? Because he had proven himself to be unworthy with his actions on the Island. He failed the test. The others, passed. They made it into Sideways world when they died — some before Jack, some years later. In Hurley’s case, maybe centuries later. They exist in this sideways world until they are “awakened” and they can only move on TOGETHER because they are linked. They are destined to be together for eternity. That was their destiny.
They were NOT linked to Anna Lucia, Daniel, Roussou, Alex, Miles, Lupidis, (and all the rest who weren’t in the chuch — basically everyone who wasn’t in season 1). Yet those people exist in Sideways world. Why? Well again, here’s where they leave it up to you to decide. The way I like to think about it, is that those people who were left behind in Sideways world have to find their own soulmates before they can wake up. It’s possible that those links aren’t people from the island but from their other life (Anna’s parnter, the guy she shot — Roussou’s husband, etc etc).
A lot of people have been talking about Ben and why he didn’t go into the Church. And if you think of Sideways world in this way, then it gives you the answer to that very question. Ben can’t move on yet because he hasn’t connected with the people he needs to. It’s going to be his job to awaken Roussou, Alex, Anna Lucia (maybe), Ethan, Goodspeed, his father and the rest. He has to attone for his sins more than he did by being Hurley’s number two. He has to do what Hurley and Desmond did for our Lostaways with his own people. He has to help them connect. And he can only move on when all the links in his chain are ready to. Same can be said for Faraday, Charlotte, Whidmore, Hawkins etc. It’s really a neat, and cool concept. At least to me.
————- From Nikita:
I have to start by saying that I loved the ending, every bit of it and I don’t agree with the idea that i’m not critiquing the show logically. We’re dealing with a show that’s fundamentally about science vs faith and the reason why it became so famous is that every season finale gave people the opportunity to answer the questions, based on their own personal beliefs. If the writers had sat down and given us a detailed a=b and c=d finale, the basic appeal of the show is just “lost”. I hated the episodes about the temple as much as the next person, but the show started with these total strangers who we discovered were connected to each other and ended with them knowing how they were connected to each other….i can see why so many people would hate that, but you have to give the writers some points for being so poetic about it.
The numbers were around much before the Dharma initiative, which we know from the names in Jacob’s cave. My guess is, Jacob wrote a whole bunch of names with their respective numbers on the cave walls and the island, in all its mysterious glory, gave special importance to 4 8 15 16 23 and 42 coz those just happened to be the numbers of our beloved Losties.
And as far as why Aaron was still a baby in the Church is concerned, my only guess is that we have to try and understand what exactly Christian meant by “there is no now”. This limbo that the losties were in isn’t in any real time that we can identify or even comprehend. It’s completely a mystical/religious concept and even though I don’t have an exact answer to it, I only know that Aaron as a BABY was connected to these people and not Aaron as a grown up.
Loved the show, loved the finale, loved being lost (couldn’t resist the pun :D)
NEW YORK—Desperate fans of the recently concluded television series Lost are speculating that the program is continuing on in a parallel dimension somewhere, and that alternate versions of showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are currently writing new episodes of the series. “It’s very possible that a sideways world running concurrent to our own exists, and that a facsimile of myself is happy, fulfilled, and already gearing up for the season seven premiere of Lost,” said 36-year-old Kevin Molinaro, who, along with more than 20 million other hopeless fans, has recently booked multiple roundtrip tickets from Los Angeles to Australia in hopes of traveling through a vortex in the space-time continuum. “I just have to find a way to get there. We all do.” According to data from Google analytics, searches for “How to build/detonate/use a hydrogen bomb to open up a multidimensional wormhole” have increased 10 millionfold since the episode aired.
—————-
And the last link I’ll put is an excellent review that is part critical, part hopeful, perhaps the best I’ve read, from Amy @ a chase after wind: LOST: Time to Let Go
We had about a dozen people at Pub Theology last night over at Right Brain Brewery in the Warehouse district.
