To get a proper divine conversation started and going, we all have to think of God as a “person” somehow. Otherwise there is no reciprocity, mutuality, give and take, no ONE to love, no “I and Thou”. Humans only know how to relate to other persons initially. But if you stay there too long, you pay a big price, because God ends up being on the other end of YOUR conversation, which keeps God SEPARATE and somehow in need of daily “appeasement”. True intimacy is pretty hard to experience at this level, at least for long. The whole point of prayer is to lead you to experience and say what Jesus finally says “I and the Father are one!” (John 10:30). Then you do not pray to God as much as you pray THROUGH and WITH God. (Note how the official liturgical prayers end “THROUGH Christ our Lord. Amen.”)
Eventually you must stop looking AT reality, and you will learn to look OUT FROM reality! This a major and heart stopping change, and admittedly most people never go to this mystical level–because they were not taught very well, frankly. It is not because they are not worthy or incapable, but they usually feel unworthy and feel incapable. They are not.
When prayer naturally matures, God is not so much “A Person” out there, that I must cajole, adore, and obey, but God has become the VERY GROUND OF ALL BEING, which is in dialogue with you, loving you, receiving your praise, calling you forth, forgiving you, and revealing a gracious divine will in all things as they are. Prayer is now all the time and everywhere, as long as you are conscious and awake!
At this point it is still OK to think and talk of God as a person–as long as you know it is not really true–in the way you ordinarily use that phrase! God is no longer a mere person, but ALL of reality itself has become PERSONAL, relational, dialogical, giving and receiving, loving and lovable. God cannot be localized here or there any more (Luke 17:20), but as the old catechism said “God is everywhere”. This is a major and important maturing in one’s relationship with God, yet so few spiritual guides know how to lead us across when we think we are losing our initial faith. You indeed are! But you are finding a much deeper faith, and you must go through this necessary trial and darkness to grow up spiritually and experience true and full intimacy with God (Read St. John of the Cross, if you doubt me.)
For Christians, the paradox is resolved in the Trinity. They can continue to relate to Jesus PERSONALLY, but when their prayer becomes fully Trinitarian, as we see in the Christian mystics, God is not just A person that they have a relationship with, but God is RELATIONSHIP ITSELF (internally in God) and draws everything into that ONE DIVINE DANCE (externally in the universe). More and more people, I am finding, are ready for such adult Christianity and such mature spirituality (See Hebrews 5:12-13). Only then does “everything belong”, and only then do we get off the childish teeter-totter and fall onto a solid ground of joy. But it will surely feel like falling! Don’t be afraid.
— What do you think of Rohr’s contemplative/mystical approach? Would love to get your comments!
Great night at the pub last night. Nine of us grabbed a pint and settled in for a good discussion, huddled around the table as if seeking respite from the snow drifts just outside.
Jesus and Mohammed
A. showed up, who promptly styled himself ‘kinda the local guru.’ Then quickly thought better of it and shifted to ‘kinda the local guy.’ He’d been reading up on the history of Islam and noted to us that “Mohammed had to work hard. He fought with people, he had enemies, he bled. He worked to establish a religion. Unlike Jesus. Jesus didn’t have much opposition. He had it easy, just healing people and floating on the water. Mohammed though, man… that guy…”
I asked him if he had converted to Islam, with this newfound admiration of the prophet (PBUH). He said no.
After that little soliloquy we hit the sheet. First question, “Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?” Most people admitted that they did not. R. said that she often takes the New Year as a time to take stock of where things are in her life and seek to continue to grow both personally and professionally. I noted that I sort of do the same. N. (who brought the pretzels) noted that her son always resolves to give up crack cocaine. That way he never fails to live up to his resolution.
We spent some time discussing why resolutions tend to be individual (we can’t make anyone else do something), but also noted the benefits of making resolutions with someone else or with a community of some sort (accountability, mutuality). We wondered about a couple in a relationship making resolutions. S. noted that she sort of does that with her husband, but that then they tend to pursue the resolutions individually, or each in their own way. Yet there is something about a communal effort that can create energy and certainly can hold one to what one has said. The other S. noted that companies and organizations often do the same thing but call them ‘goals’ or ‘plans.’
Then the question (contributed by C., who was down in Kzoo doing PT South) was: “Should Pub Theology have a 2012 resolution?” At this point the question of location came up, with RBB’s upcoming move to 16th Street. We had heard that the pub portion of the new location was not going to be as big a priority, so it is unclear whether there will be adequate space. There is talk of something new coming into the Warehouse district to take RB’s place, perhaps Short’s or someone else. It would be tempting to stay. Another possibility is the new Filling Station brewery coming in by the library. In any case, Pub Theology resolves to keep meeting (wherever we end up) and being the place in Northern Michigan for beer, conversation, and God.
Topic 2: “Individualism is a poor container for the Gospel.”
This was generally agreed, as S. (with the glasses) noted that “We can’t all play a solo at the same time.” The other S. (reading glasses) noted that individualism tends to cause people to apprehend what they believe is true about the world and why, rather than take someone else’s word for it, or simply buying into the community’s agreed upon take, and tends to cause people to move away from faith, so yes, it is a poor container for the gospel. B. highlighted the fact that Christianity is not meant to be an individualistic faith. It is not simply ‘my spirituality’ or ‘me and Jesus.’ Rather, it is meant to be experienced in community, lived out in community, and that when a group of people together take following Jesus seriously, and live into the Gospel, and live out the Gospel, that it is a powerful statement to those looking on. R. worried that such a focus on community would drown out people’s ability to be individuals. That there would be space for the ‘other’, whether that is someone divorced, or gay, or recovering, or whatever. B. noted that ideally the Gospel is inclusive and calls for a community that is open. Such a community ought to reflect the diversity of individuals who all come together because of who God is and because he has made and called each of them. It was concluded that there is such a thing as good individualism, and good communalism, but that both can go awry if we are not careful.
Topic 3: “In light of the 2012 end of time idea, do you think the redemption of Christ will come in this world — or does it require a new world?”
S. noted that there were 3 billion people on the planet when he was born, and there are now over 7 billion. R. (who refuses resolutions) noted that “The world will end.” B. asked, “Who here thinks they will live to see the end?” Most people said no. But then N. (who was back at long last! and brought the chips) blurted out, “What are y’all talking about?”
As the rest of the table continued to debate the end of the world, I got up to get another pint. This time a Dark Squirrel Lager.
The last three questions all sort of related:
4. What would have to happen for the believer not to believe?
5. What would have to happen for the unbeliever to believe?
6. Is theology (or what kind of theology is) compatible with belief in the constancy of nature?
I don’t have time (or the recall) to give you the rest of the conversation.
But a few highlights:
R. asked, “Why does it say unbeliever? Shouldn’t it be nonbeliever? What does unbeliever mean?”
N. (chips) pleaded, “Damn it! Call it Spirit, energy, essence, whatever! We all believe in it.”
N. (pretzels) noted, “It’s time to start preaching the stuff we’ve known for 200 years.” (referring to biblical scholarship that is often known about by seminaries and preachers but kept from the congregation because ‘they’re not ready for it’.)
And a couple more from the ‘local guru’:
“I think about time differently than most people.”
“Are any of you communists?” (This out of nowhere, in the middle of a completely unrelated discussion)
“Do you think it’s better to show weakness, or to hide weakness?”
And that’s a wrap! If you were there and care to fill us in on more of what happened, feel free. If you weren’t there, but have any thoughts on the above topics – post them below!
When I was little, there were many magical moments. One such moment happened when I entered the living room and found presents under the Christmas tree. Call it Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, or whatever you want – but it was mysterious, and I was in.
This was a wonderful time – and perhaps you can remember such a time in your own life. Or if you have kids, perhaps you know the delight in ‘playing along’ with the story, vicariously experience the joy and innocence once again.
But it can’t last forever – can it?
I suppose we could all mutually agree to believe what we know isn’t the case – and in some ways, you could say that given our Christmas-overkill every year we do exactly that. We reinforce the illusion, by some mutual agreement (which must be some marketer’s dream).
But then a ten-year-old who has figured it out says to her younger brother, “You know Santa isn’t real, right?” And Christmas is ruined. If only he could go back to his child-like faith.
I wonder if there are parallels to this scenario in the life of faith. Jesus certainly commends children as ‘the greatest in the kingdom’ and calls us to receive the kingdom ‘like a little child’. The phrase ‘faith of a child’ or ‘child-like faith’ does not actually appear in the Bible, though the idea is certainly present.
I often hear this referenced when someone takes part in a discussion about hard to understand issues or when learning something that might challenge an aspect of his or her faith that perhaps had been taken for granted.
“But you just have to have a child-like faith.”
OK.
Yes.
But what is a child-like faith?
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven
When Jesus mentions that children are the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he is noting their humility – not their ability to believe certain things about God, nor their ability to believe almost anything. In Matthew 18 he is contrasting children with those who argue and fight about who is the greatest. (Though I know some kids who have the same argument!).
In Mark 10 he talks about receiving the kingdom like a little child. Here I think the focus is being open to what God is doing in the world. This may be in contrast to those who were skeptical or critical of the things Jesus was doing as he proclaimed the kingdom – teaching, healing, eating with outsiders, etc. So there definitely is an element of openness and embracing what God is saying and doing. Children probably didn’t have the status of adults, and Jesus may be surprising his listeners with who is actually included in the kingdom – children, prostitutes, tax collectors. The kingdom is for ‘the least of these.’
Simpler Times
We all know there is something about grown-ups that gets in the way of relationships, that makes simple things more complicated, that is less willing to trust, and so on.
Further, in a complicated, intimidating world we want something that is easily graspable, something that we can hold on to easily, something that soothes and calms our fears.
Even David in the Psalms yearns for the simplicity of a child:
“I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
There is a time to just sit and rest in God. He is vastly greater than we are, and it is a great comfort to simply trust in his goodness. That is a very biblical thing to do and is one of the supreme joys of faith.
Growing Up
So what are we to do when things get complicated, as they inevitably do? I suppose we could retreat and ‘find a happy place’. Or plug our ears and simply ignore whatever is going on. Or say, “I just want a child-like faith.” Or tap our heels and say, “There’s no place like home.”
But we do not remain children. We grow up.
And that is not necessarily a bad thing.
The Apostle Paul noted as much:
“When I was a child,
I talked like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
Some say faith is becoming ‘too heady’. Perhaps we have Paul to thank for that. Or the church fathers. Or the desert fathers. Or the various councils that met early on to hammer out incredibly heady ideas. Or Thomas Aquinas. Or Duns Scotus. Or Anselm of Canterbury. Or John Calvin. Or the medieval scholastics who wrote volumes and volumes of incredibly dense theology.
The idea that faith is getting ‘more heady’ is probably not actually the case. In fact, perhaps we are coming out of a time of when the faith has been ‘dumbed down’, and now some are attempting to deconstruct a few of the concepts that came out of our dumbing down period (the explosive growth of fundamentalism in the 20th century). So maybe there is a reapprehension of the faith taking place. A return to thinking. This might be painful to some, but, in reality – this probably happens in every generation.
One might also point out that the very things we might call the ‘simple aspects’ of faith are themselves the results of some very heady dialogue, hard work and intense thinking. Let’s take one issue: the Trinity. As Christians we take this aspect of God for granted, but it took centuries of thought and argument for this ‘simple’ concept to be worked out. Or the divinity of Jesus. This also took centuries to work itself out. Or pick your favorite ‘simple’ doctrine. The idea that there was a pristine time when faith was simple and we didn’t have to think about things but just trust in God is an illusion.
Even in Jesus’ day children were expected to memorize vast portions of the Torah, if not the whole Torah itself. That’s way too heady for most of us. And that was the expectation for children. So perhaps the faith of a child is the faith of one who takes their faith seriously. Who takes God seriously. Who commits their hearts and minds to knowing God as well as possible, by taking the textual tradition they’ve been handed seriously, and when the kingdom is breaking in around them (even in unexpected ways!) – they are open to it.
Additionally, Jesus himself was one who did quite a bit of deconstructing of what many took for granted. “You have heard it said… but I say to you…”
So when we look for cracks in the settled foundations of our assumptions, perhaps we are simply walking in the path of the Master himself, who called us to be as children, without actually becoming children.
After all, when I was a child, I thought like a child.
But we are no longer children, and we must – at some point – put childish ways behind us.
An interesting night last week. If I remember right, I can’t remember what we discussed. So no recap, just the sheets:
Topics:
1. ‘The meal table is the birthplace of culture.’
How are we shaped by our eating practices?
2. “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
What do you think?
3. “There are no facts. Only interpretations.”
Discuss objectivity vs subjectivity.
4. “Inerrantist dogma is as much a human construction as the biblical criticism that inerrantists deride.”
5. Why does beer go through your system so fast?
6. Is there any divinely-infused meaning to human existence, or is it all just senseless?
Backside:
Local thoughts on the rapture (these are actual quotes):
“Hold on to what is going to be raptured out of here and forget the rest.”
“Forget your stupid careers and businesses.”
“Forget about how much gas is gonna cost. That isn’t the kind of thing we need to worry about.”
“We just need to get by until we can get out.”
“I’m not saying you should stockpile, but I think every Christian should have at least two or three weeks worth of food in their homes.”
“Take all your money out of the bank and go on a vacation.”
“There is no rapture.” (OK, this last one was me).
Old Jewish story:
A traveler arrived in a village in the middle of winter to find an old man shivering in the cold outside the synagogue. “What are you doing here?” asked the traveler.
“I’m waiting for the coming of the messiah,”
“That must be an important job,” said the traveler. “The community must pay you a lot of money.”
“No, not at all. They just let me sit here on this bench.
Once in a while someone gives me a little food.”
“That must be hard. But even if they don’t pay you, they
must honor you for doing this important work.”
“No, not at all, they think I’m crazy.”
“I don’t understand. They don’t pay you, they don’t
respect you. You sit in the cold, shivering and hungry
What kind of job is this?”
So… a good night at the pub last Thursday. So intense it took me a week to attempt to relive it. A nice group – some friends from in town, some friends from out of town, some other friends…
The topics, shorthand, were setup as follows: man vs. wild, soul vs. body, and interpretation vs. facts.
First topic: Like animals – we eat, sleep, defecate, and have sex. How are we different?
Interesting question. Everyone at the table finally admitted to participating in all the above activities. Wait, was I not supposed to share that?
“We are animals. Does anyone here think we’re not animals?” Steve had to know.
Silence. Crickets.
The non-animals among us refused to speak up. Guilty as charged. Apparently our initial dichotomy – ‘man vs. wild’ should be rephrased to: ‘man is wild’?
Brian noted the law recently passed in Florida which forbade sex with animals.
“Apparently it’s now illegal to have sex in Florida,” he quipped.
Clever.
Yet.
There are differences, aren’t there? You wouldn’t imagine a group of hyenas gathered around a table having existential ponderings. You don’t see chimpanzees inventing smartphones. You don’t see parakeets writing novels. So there are some differences. What are they?
Rational thought? The ability to step outside ourselves? The awareness of our own mortality? The ability to have empathy? The presence of a soul? The need to dispose of our defecation?
Well, we couldn’t let that one alone. Somehow we stumbled on the topic of privacy when it comes to going to the bathroom.
Courtesy flush?
“I can’t stand it when stalls don’t have doors.”
“Don’t you hate it when that guy just has to keep talking to you at the urinal? You know that guy.”
“One time, I was in a stall in a large bathroom near the beach, and I just started making loud painful groaning sounds. It was hilarious.”
Wait, what?
Speaking of, what do you make of the following:
“[T]he immediate appearance of the Inner is formless $h*t. The small child who gives his sh-t as a present is in a way giving the immediate equivalent of his Inner Self. Freud’s well-known identification of excrement as the primordial form of gift, of an innermost object that the small child gives to its parents, is thus not as naive as it may appear: the often-overlooked point is that this piece of myself offered to the Other radically oscillates between the Sublime and – not the Ridiculous, but, precisely – the excremental. This is the reason why, for Lacan, one of the features which distinguishes man from animals is that, with humans, the disposal of sh-t becomes a problem: not because it has a bad smell, but because it came out from our innermost selves. We are ashamed of sh-t because, in it, we expose/externalize our innermost intimacy. Animals do not have a problem with it because they do not have an “interior” like humans.”
Leave to Zizek to get all psychoanalytic about poop.
Yet perhaps he’s on to something.
In any case, isn’t there a Game 7 tonight? Spoiler: the Wings came up just short. Oh that’s right, that was a week ago.
We did spend some time on the idea of the soul. Is that a differentiating factor? Do all dogs go to heaven?
We started talking about the idea of the Christian hope in a new heavens and a new earth. I wondered, “So, what about dogs? I mean, I assume on the new earth there will be animals. Will they be the ‘same’ animals? I mean, will my dog Oscar that we had when I was a kid be there? Or will there just be some ‘stock’ golden labs who are like Oscar but aren’t actually Oscar?”
Compelling question. Unfortunately no one had a definitive answer.
“Much of the afterlife is simply speculation,” noted Kristen (not to be confused with Kirsten).
Agreed.
Somehow we stumbled on to the idea of biblical inspiration, and how to deal with some of the difficult texts in the Old Testament.
“When the Bible has God say, ‘Kill every man, woman, and child,’ is that really God saying that, or just the people saying God said that? Maybe they just slaughtered a group of people, and now they are attributing their actions to God’s commands to them, which sort of takes the responsibility off of them for what they’ve just done. History is written by the winners, so perhaps they’re just putting their spin on it. Or God did actually say it, and if so, what does that mean about God?”
“Well, maybe it’s neither of those – maybe it’s something else. History is often written by the winners – but the Bible seems an exception. Israel was not a great nation or empire, even at its peak, compared to Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and so on. Perhaps God is telling them these things, but he has a reason for it, and it’s reflective of the time, the culture, and how things worked then. If God was easy to explain, would he still be God?”
“Wait, is this the topic?”
“Who cares – this stuff is interesting!”
Indeed.
So we decided that we are all animals, but animals who care, and that makes us special. We also decided that some things, like difficult texts in the Bible, are a bit of a mystery, and we can have some flexibility in our understanding of them, and should allow our ideas of inspiration to have room for different readings and approaches to the text. Actually there were no group decisions.
A must read?
But on the note about challenging texts in the Bible, I came across a book recently that I’m intrigued by: The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries to Hide It). It’s written by Thom Stark and published by Wipf and Stock. (Hey – sounds like they publish quality books…)
Here are a few endorsements:
I learned so much from this book that I can strongly encourage anyone who is seeking to move from simplistic proof-texting to a comprehensive understanding of the Bible to read this book carefully.
–Tony Campolo
author of Red Letter Christians
Christians can ignore the facts that Stark brings into the light of day only if they want to be wrong.
–Dale C. Allison, Jr.
author of Constructing Jesus
This is must reading for Christians who have agonized over their own private doubts about Scripture and for others who have given up hope that evangelical Christians can practice intelligent, moral interpretation of the Bible.
–Neil Elliott
author of Liberating Paul
[W]ith the help of this book, we may discover that the Bible when we read it in all its diversity and vulnerability does bring healing words to those who keep listening.
–Ted Grimsrud
author of Embodying the Way of Jesus
Stark’s book effectively demonstrates how the Bible, in practice, is the most dangerous enemy of fundamentalists.
–James F. McGrath
author of The Only True God
The Human Faces of God is one of the most challenging and well-argued cases against the doctrine of biblical inerrancy I have ever read.
–Greg A. Boyd
author of The Myth of a Christian Nation
Stark provides a model for theology that is committed to hearing the voice of the victims of history, especially the victims of our own religious traditions.
–Michael J. Iafrate
PhD Candidate, Toronto School of Theology
This book is the most powerful antidote to fundamentalism that I’ve ever read.
–Frank Schaeffer
author of Crazy for God
Wow. Maybe I’ll read it. I downloaded the first chapter free on my Kindle. I’ll check it out and let you know if it’s as good as everyone says.
Here’s a summary:
Does accepting the doctrine of biblical inspiration necessitate belief in biblical inerrancy? The Bible has always functioned authoritatively in the life of the church, but what exactly should that mean? Must it mean the Bible is without error in all historical details and ethical teachings? What should thoughtful Christians do with texts that propose God is pleased by human sacrifice or that God commanded Israel to commit acts of genocide? What about texts that contain historical errors or predictions that have gone unfulfilled long beyond their expiration dates?
In The Human Faces of God, Thom Stark moves beyond notions of inerrancy in order to confront such problematic texts and open up a conversation about new ways they can be used in service of the church and its moral witness today. Readers looking for an academically informed yet accessible discussion of the Bible’s thorniest texts will find a thought-provoking and indispensable resource in The Human Faces of God.
From a reader on Amazon.com:
This is the book I have been waiting for my whole adult life. Like Stark, I was raised to understand the Bible as the inerrant word of God, “dropped from heaven”. I have been a Christian my whole life, yet I have increasing become uncomfortable with some of the difficult texts in the Bible and their implications on my faith and personal understanding of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. This has been compounded by the fact that I now have young children and am reading the Bible with them, struggling with how to present stories such as the Passover, wishing I could somehow skip over them. Stark addresses the difficult issues with precision, intellect, and devotion, never turning his back on Christianity. For me, the chains are off. Ironically, I can now read the Bible with more commitment. I don’t wish to skip over the difficult texts, I can address them again. My faith has been rekindled. Thank you, Thom Stark.
Good stuff! I think I’m getting a copy for Half the Sky, the Watershed Community Library. But I’m not here to sell books… (at least not yet.) 🙂
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.
A captive audience
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?
What meteor?
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.
monkey see...
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.”
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…
TRAVERSE CITY (AP) – Surrounded by some new art, and sitting beneath a sign that designated the space as purgatory, about fifteen people of various lineage gathered at the Pub during Holy Week, or more precisely, on Maundy Thursday.
What exactly is Maundy Thursday?
Great question – but they weren’t there to answer that. (Though it’s apparently also known as the Thursday of Mysteries.)
Some wonderful brews on tap, not least of which was the Darkstar Stout flowing from the cask. (You can never go wrong with the cask).
First topic:What is your earliest memory?
if i could only remember back far enough...
There were several good ones. Here’s a taste:
– “I remember being spoonfed a sundae by my mother at Dairy Queen while sitting in the stroller…”
– “There was an old barn across from the apartment complex we lived in. I remember distinctly sitting on the hill by our apartment, watching a large barn across the street burn to the ground. I was three.”
– “Something about being on the stairs, and my sister wasn’t around yet, which makes it about the only memory I have from then.”
– Mine: “I was probably four, in the basement with a friend. My mom was doing the laundry in the room next to us. We were throwing plastic bowling pins up at the naked lightbulb. Eventually we managed to hit it – throwing glass and darkness all over us. There were screams.”
– “My earliest memory is of my older brother having his dirty diaper changed, which means I must have been about six months old. Wait… that can’t be right.”
– The best one: “I have no particular memory of my early years. Just some vague feelings.”
open for interpretation
There was general debate about when the earliest you can remember is… Some said three, others said four. One claimed to have a memory from much earlier.
I noted that my kids watch videos of themselves from when they were babies and toddlers, and we all sort of wondered about what that would do to their memories as they grow up. (I make a year-end video of the kids every December – Lubbergho. Perhaps I’ll post one on youtube one of these days).
It was a great opening conversation, and we went various places from there, hitting on a few of these topics:
1. Have you ever felt truly alone?
Describe the situation. What did you do?
Are there practices that help you in those moments?
2. What is your favorite day of Holy Week?
Do you connect more with Good Friday or Easter?
3. What do you believe happened on the cross?
4. “To believe in the gospel in today’s day and age, one must first understand that language does not only denote objective realities.”
5. Does all knowledge derive from experience?
6. Do atheists get respect in our culture? Why/Why not?
one tasty beverage
We wrapped up the evening by musing on the following poem:
Alone
I am afraid
The gulf between us is vast
As all eternity
The frozen hand of death
Touches my throat
Catching my words unspoken
Alone we die
Together we live
Reach out now
Help me live
In love together
We cannot die
If you have a thought on the above, or an earliest memory you’d like to share, post it below!
It was a surreal night at the pub, which began with the ominous hint that we might be meeting in purgatory. That clarified a lot of things for everyone, like why we’d all had feelings of being stuck, of going in circles, of having been here before. Or something like that.
The CEO Stout was back on the board, which pleased many folks, as did the Fat Lad, an imperial Russian oatmeal stout. I stuck with the Black and Blue Porter, a roasty porter fermented with Michigan blueberries. It’s better than it sounds (the blueberry is subtle).
So, a nice turnout this past Thursday, and we began with the question of anxiety.
First Topic: In what ways has your faith been influenced by anxiety? Fueled anxiety? Calmed anxiety?How has anxiety played a role in your spiritual journey?
The first respondent noted the way that faith can cause anxiety. The example was being in a challenging situation, and finding oneself wanting to pray or make some sort of request of God, even though she wouldn’t normally consider herself a person of faith. This then could cause a sort of anxiety: why am I doing this? Is there some deep-rooted spiritual reality within me, or is this just a culturally and socially-conditioned habit?
Another person noted that faith often calms anxiety. It is a realization that things which are out of our control are in God’s hands, and this brings an enormous sense of calm and well-being. That reminds me of something Jesus said: “Do not worry about your life… Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things… therefore do not worry about tomorrow.”
Someone countered with: “But if it’s out of your hands, why are you worried about it at all? Why bring in God to the situation? It’s out of your hands, so worry about the stuff you can deal with, and leave the rest alone. It will take care of itself whether God is involved or not. (And it often seems he’s not).”
just another beer in purgatory
I could resonate with all three of these comments, at least in part. On occasion there are times I wonder if I’m not just talking to myself when I pray (if I’m honest), or if God really is paying attention or cares… but at the end of the day, my experience more generally is that prayer does give me a connection with the divine, and my faith allows me to *trust* that God is there, whether I always feel it or not, and this does give me a sense of calm, and respite from anxiety. He’s working things out in his ways, his timing, and ultimately it’s not up to me.
What about you? How does worry or anxiety play a role in your faith journey?
Second Topic: Is theology simply archival, or is there more work to be done?
In other words, has all the real theology already been done, and our job is simply to dig in the archives, or the library, pull the dusty tomes off the shelves and memorize what’s already been accomplished? There was one sarcastic yes (it’s simply archival), but everyone generally agreed, theology must be an ongoing discipline, a necessary engagement for everyone and every generation. We didn’t spend much time on this, but my own sense is not that we reinvent theology every generation, but rather that we build upon the foundation we’ve already been given, with the occasional need to deconstruct former assumptions. We certainly don’t start from scratch. We have been handed a tradition, and it is our job to be faithful *within* that tradition, which does not mean being slaves to it, but reappropriating and rearticulating it for today.
Third Topic: “We have not allowed the meaning of the facts of our infinite universe to affect us and our view of God.”
This one came out of a paper delivered by Lissa McCullough at the Future of Continental Philosophy Conference, entitled: Affirmations, Negations, Counter-Reformations: How God Outgrew Religion. In other words, much of our theology was developed when the idea that man was the center of the universe and the crown of God’s creation was taken for granted. But once it was noted that the earth is not the center of the universe, nor even our own galaxy or solar system, this idea was necessarily strained. The contention in the paper was that “We have not allowed the meaning of the facts of our infinite universe to affect us and our view of God.” In other words, we haven’t experienced it. We still talk in ways that seem that God is concerned primarily with not only humanity, but each of us individually. That claim was pressed by Lissa, who noted that rather than being us who killed God, it was God who killed man, the God who is de-centered and apparently loves galaxies (of which there are, at last count, at least 500 billion), each containing millions of stars and possible worlds like ours. Her contention is that our God is too small, and we need to realize that God is clearly a universal God, not simply a tribal God. Giordano Bruno (b.1548), an Italian Dominican Friar who was also an astronomer noted that we must seek “joy in the infinite… joy in an infinite universe which is the image of a God who is not simply anthropocentric.”
Fourth Topic: “It’s impossible to escape the constraints of language and objectively say whether our beliefs are true or not. Whatever your choice, faith is required.”
In other words, we cannot move beyond language into the actual. All our words are approximations, attempts at describing the actual which is always in some sense beyond us, and certainly beyond our conceptualizations of it.
A couple of quotes help here:
“Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own—unaided by the describing activities of humans—cannot.” – Richard Rorty
“The truth is that there is no answer in the back of the book to which there is assent, no final arbiter who will finally adjudicate rival claims – not in this life anyway. And most of those who want absolutes tend to accept authority only if that authority makes the absolute claims to which they are already disposed. At this point we only have perspectives on ultimate truth and not ultimate truth itself.” – Walter Brueggemann
–
I think these are helpful perspectives for us to carry what many call a ‘chastened faith’, or a hermeneutic of humility. Yes we have God’s Word, as Christians, but there are endless interpretations of those words by well-meaning Christians throughout history. It seems when the church acts on certainty and an unwarranted confidence that its views and perspectives and understandings are absolutely right, it tends to cause serious problems in the world.
There are absolute truths, of course. But no one has indisputable access to them. We grasp them, as believers, by faith. A faith that is humble, but hopeful.
(And gets us out of purgatory).
Have a thought on the above? Leave your comment below!
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.
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.
hurley!
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.
deconstructable
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.
Eventually you must stop looking AT reality, and you will learn to look OUT FROM reality! This a major and heart stopping change, and admittedly most people never go to this mystical level–because they were not taught very well, frankly. It is not because they are not worthy or incapable, but they usually feel unworthy and feel incapable. They are not.
