It was a nice evening this past Thursday. A couple of birthday beverages were definitely enjoyed: Pinetop was in the cask, and the Black (Eye)PA was back, and it was *black*. A small crowd made for good conversation.
The topics were all taken from various tweets that came across my twitterfeed:
Topics for tonight via Twitter:
1. #God is all about people, not theology.
2. You don’t have to believe in heaven to find life after death
3. I really enjoy that my OT Teacher is talking about how sometimes we use too much history interpreting our text. i respect that.
4. If misunderstood / used incorrectly, theology can be the handmaiden of Satan… #discernment
5. What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
6. I believe that there is no more important doctrine for the church today than this: _______. If we understand this doctrine correctly, we will avoid many traps
Marx
7. Alienation is at the root of Marxism and theology. The difference is defining the object and subject of the alienation. #marxism #class #god
Given that it’s been a few days, not much on the recap this week… though I do recall the answer for no.6 – any guesses anyone has on what to fill in the blank? Or what you would put there?
Here’s a poem (untitled) from the backside:
On a hill above the days of winter There stands a child as lonely as the snow He is a question looking for an answer If you don’t have it kindly let him go
He is the offspring of an ice-storm fire Brother to the forest and the sea He’s walked the paths of hell; the hills of heaven Looking for the why of what must be
Give him what you freely have to offer Or simply walk beside him for awhile Don’t ask of him that which he cannot answer Or judge him harshly when he does not smile
For he may follow visions you’re not seeing A message that your ears may never know He is a question looking for an answer If you don’t have it kindly let him go
1972
Love to have any thoughts you have on the above – as always feel free to post them here!
A low-key evening at the pub, and some very enjoyable conversation. The Black and Blue Porter was a nice addition on the whiteboard – a roasty porter with some blueberry mixed in (better than it sounds). Speaking of sounds, did I mention Gish was mixed in the soundtrack last night? “And she knows and she knows and she knows…” Excellent.
Topics for the evening:
Does love win?
forgiveness
heroic gestures
free gifts
the future
Topics in detail:
1. Does love win?
2. Is God’s forgiveness unconditional? Is it for everyone?
3. “The ultimate heroic gesture that awaits Christianity is this: in order to save its treasure, it has to sacrifice itself – like Christ, who had to die so that Christianity could emerge.” What might this look like?
4. Is there such a thing as a ‘free’ gift?
5. “Does the future of evangelicalism lie with progressives who can adapt and change or with conservatives who remain faithful to the old paths?”
6. “What is the biggest problem in the church: people can’t stand us or we can’t stand the gospel?”
7. “Conversation works in the foyer, but behind the pulpit clarity is king.”
—
So discussion began with number one. Does love win? What does that mean? Well, after reading the book my understanding was this: if the vast majority of people who have ever lived – billions and billions of human beings, created in God’s image – end up suffering eternal conscious torment and horrible suffering in hell, then love does not win. In other words, God cannot be rightly called good, loving, and all-powerful if this is how things ultimately turn out. He admits that if this is how things go, we can say God is all-powerful, but don’t call him good and loving, or call him good and loving, but clearly not all-powerful. Something like that. He does a much better job, so read the book if you want the straight scoop. Yet it appears that there are many many people who are not Christians, who don’t appear to ‘choose Christ’ or worship the God of the Bible. Will they all be in hell? And what is hell? Is it separation from God? Is it being in God’s presence but not being able to stand it or enjoy it? Is it death and annihilation? Will there be a chance for people to choose God after they die? Is there a statute of limitations on repentance that’s limited to this life? Here’s an excerpt from the book:
From Love Wins, by Rob Bell:
“Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormenter who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony.
If there was an earthly father who was like that, we would call the authorities.
If there was an actual human dad who was that volatile, we would contact child protection services immediately.”
Wait – did he get this off my blog post – An Angry God? 🙂 (which I wrote a week before Love Wins came out).
What do you think? Is this a picture of God you adhere to? Is it accurate?
a powerful symbol
On to topic no.2 – Is God’s forgiveness unconditional? Is it for everyone?
The first response:
“No, it is not unconditional. I grew up in the church hearing that if God forgives you, you’ve got to start living differently, otherwise it obviously didn’t make any difference, and in that case – you’re not really forgiven. There are conditions.”
Next response:
“What about God removing our sins as far as the east is from the west? And what about Jesus saying that we need to forgive people seventy times seven? Doesn’t that imply that forgiveness is unlimited, and therefore unconditional?”
Other examples came up: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son (all Luke 15, btw) – which all seem to note that forgiveness happens before repentance. That forgiveness happens regardless of our response or of our deserving it. So in that case, forgiveness appears to be unconditional.
So does God forgive everyone? If we are called to ‘love our enemies’ and forgive ‘seventy times seven’, and if while we were enemies, Christ died for us – doesn’t that imply that forgiveness is not based on response? Or at the least it seems unconditional. But does this apply to *all* of God’s enemies? Which would include everyone, right? It seems that there is a case to be made for this. That God forgives everyone, but not everyone chooses to accept that forgiveness, or live in the reality of that forgiveness. (There’s a nice chapter on this issue in Love Wins, by the way). Also, if we are called to forgive seventy-times seven (i.e. infinitely) and to love our enemies – doesn’t that also apply to God? Or does that not apply once you die? And someone asked, “How are we going to love our enemies when we’re in heaven and they’re in hell? That puts us in an awfully difficult spot. Or aren’t we supposed to love them anymore – which would make us held to a higher standard here on earth than in heaven, which is supposedly perfect.”
Other tangents that came out of this: was Jesus’ death necessary for God to forgive us? If so, then it wasn’t unconditional. It was dependent on a certain condition happening, i.e. someone dying in our place. *Or* was it the case that God unconditionally forgives – that is his nature – and the cross was the outworking of that reality – the expression of the love and forgiveness that God already extends (because clearly we see God forgiving in the OT, or was that just ‘provisional forgiveness’ but not the real thing? Or somehow backwards dependent on a future event?)
Another tangent: if Jesus ‘became sin for us’ and took on ‘the sin of the world’ – why would anyone be punished anymore? The theological way around this is that actually Jesus didn’t die for everyone, which again, isn’t really that good of news. Not to mention that it seems to deny the cross the fullness which it is due. But we have to explain why not everyone gets in, and also that God is all-powerful, so then we say that actually Jesus only died for those who actually respond to him. But then the offer of salvation to all people isn’t actually a genuine offer, and the whole thing unravels (or is given a fancy theological name).
Or could it be the case, that Jesus *did* die for everyone, and God *does* forgive everyone, but not everyone chooses to live in the reality of that forgiveness (see the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son). He’s standing right there at the celebration (heaven), but doesn’t join in the party (hell), despite the reality that the father says, ‘all that I have is yours’. (again, great chapter on this in Love Wins).
a free gift?
We skipped no.3, and went on to no.4 – is there such a thing as a free gift?
First response: ‘I was trying to buy something the other day, but there was a minimal debit card purchase amount, and I didn’t have any cash. The clerk decided to buy it for me. I was amazed. A free gift!’
Second response: ‘Was it actually free? He still had to pay for it.’
Here’s where the question came from:
Excerpt from The Puppet and the Dwarf, by Slavoj Zizek:
“Is there such a thing as a ‘free’ gift?
Or does such an offer aim at putting you in a position of
permanent debt? When the message is: “I don’t want
anything from you!,” we can be sure that this statement
conceals a qualification:
“…except your very soul.”
On a more anecdotal level, is it
not clear that when, in a lovers’ quarrel, the woman
answers the man’s desperate “But what do you want
from me?” with “Nothing!,” this means its exact
opposite?”
What do you think?
And a bonus post from the backside, from a blogger who has issues with some of the theology in Love Wins, as it seems many do, most especially over theories of atonement (relates to above discussion):
Posted on a blog:
“Any Christian worth listening to loves the cross and is
loath to see it robbed of its glory. To ridicule what the
cross accomplished is to make war with the heart of the
gospel and the comfort of God’s people.
J. Gresham Machen understood this well: They [liberal preachers] speak with disgust of those who believe ‘that
the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an
alienated Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner.’
It never seems to occur to modern liberals that in deriding the
Christian doctrine of the cross, they are trampling upon human hearts.
No doubt, some Christians get worked up over the
smallest controversies, making a forest fire out of a
Yankee Candle. But there is an opposite danger–and that
is to be so calm, so middle-of-the-road, so above-the-fray
that you no longer feel the danger of false doctrine. You
always sound analytical, never alarmed. Always crying for
much-neglected conversation, never crying over a much-
maligned cross. There is something worse than hurting
feelings, and that is trampling upon human hearts.”
We didn’t actually get very far discussing this post, but it isn’t exactly clear what is meant by ‘trampling upon human hearts.’ It seems it’s just a fancy way to sound theologically adept and serious, while making people afraid. It attempts to create fear when alternative ways of reading the story are presented, more than actually living in the delight of the story, which at its heart is a bit of mystery, after all.
Do you have a thought on any of the above?Post your comments below!
So… it’s official! I’ve been offered a book contract. The publisher is Cascade Books, a division of Wipf and Stock. They are out of Eugene, Oregon.
About Cascade Books: Established in 2004, Cascade Books is the most selective of the four imprints of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Under this imprint we publish new books that combine academic rigor with broad appeal and readability. Encompassing all the major areas of theology and religion, Cascade Books has published such major authors as Stanley Hauerwas, Jürgen Moltmann, John Milbank, John Howard Yoder, Margaret Miles, and Walter Brueggemann.
What’s the book about?
Well, it is a book about doing theology at the pub (>shock<). It will be comprised of stories, musings, and theology viewed through the prism of our regular Thursday evening gatherings.
Working Title: Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation, and God (what else?)
From the proposal:
From London to New York to Ann Arbor, people are gathering in pubs and bars to communicate, connect, and learn from one another over the topic of religion, of all things. In Pub Theology, pastor, writer, and pub theologian Bryan Berghoef draws from his own experience in one such setting in Northern Michigan. Speaking to fellow Christians, Berghoef explains how they must turn their evangelism mentality on its head: from being those who need to evangelize others to those who need to be evangelized by others. Through anecdotes, stories, and theological musings, readers will discover how to move from a place of preaching to a place of listening, from a place of teaching to a place of learning.
Tension:
Reality: We live in a culture driven by fear of ‘the other’. Other religious views, other sexual orientations, other political views, other ways of being in the world: these are no longer perspectives we read about in books or hear about on television. They are held by our neighbors, our co-workers, perhaps even our friends, but also by those we may never meet. We react to these perspectives too often from a perspective of fear. And we respond to this fear by getting louder with our message, by withdrawing ourselves from the culture to our own safe little enclaves, from which we toss grenades of ‘truth’ over the wall, often hoping to cause more damage than true positive change.
Hope: If the church wants to have an impact on an increasingly post-Christian and pluralistic culture, it must shift its emphasis from preaching to listening. It must move from the prideful position of teacher to the humble position of student. It is no longer our turn to stand and lecture. It is time for us to take our seat and listen. This is no easy shift. But it is critical. It is time for the church to move beyond its fear, to come out from behind the safe walls it has constructed and learn to actually inhabit this world we all share.
From the author:
“More than ever it seems that we as a culture are afraid of people who are different than us. This is especially true in the arena of faith. I have been involved in conversations about God at the university level, in Europe, in the States, in a Muslim culture, in the pews, on the streets, and in pubs. I am convinced that if we are willing to sit at the same table and listen, we will be changed from evangelists who see others as targets to convert, to fellow human beings – potential friends to love and understand.”
— Bryan Berghoef —
— If you have a story or thought from a night you’ve attended a Pub Theology gathering, post it here – you never know – maybe it’ll be in print!
We began the night with a toast to Saint Patrick, that giver of good tidings and slayer of snakes:
A Toast to the Saint!
Saint Patrick was a gentleman, who through strategy and stealth Drove all the snakes from Ireland, here’s a drink to his health! But not too many drinks, lest we lose ourselves and then Forget the good Saint Patrick, and see them snakes again!
So clearly the early discussion was over snakes, and St. Patrick’s real name. Was it Maewyn Succat?
Topics for the night:
St. Patrick
Snakes
God
Straw
Dreaming
Seagulls
In detail:
1. St Patrick: a toast. See above
2. “I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that ‘all that I am,’ I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God.”
3. “We need God’s wrath in order to understand what mercy means.” Do we? What do you think?
4. “It’s all about God.” What do you think?
5. St. Augustine: “Even the straw under my knees shout to distract me from prayer.” Is prayer difficult?
6. Are you dreaming?
It was a lighthearted evening – everyone was happy to be out for Saint Patty’s. We expected to be fighting the crowds, but it wasn’t as busy as we expected. Perhaps the lack of a stout at Right Brain didn’t help; that and everyone was singing Irish tunes and watching MSU at Kilkenny’s. Regardless, we enjoyed talking about old Saint Patrick, favorite Irish tunes, and whether or not wrath is a good (or proper) motivator. Most came out opposed to wrath as a good motivator, and felt that it was setting up a non-logical argument. For example, you don’t have to say, “I really know how much I enjoy reading a book at the library, because I know other people are being tortured.” It seems one would feel motivated to go to the library and read by something positive, such as a goal to be gained, but probably not so much by a threat (though I suppose that could work in a pinch). There were other examples, but someone else will have to recall them.
Is it all about God? Someone responded, “Maybe for God.” We noted that a classic approach in some theological traditions is voiced by the likes of Jonathan Edwards: “the end for which God created the world was his glory.” In other words, it is all about God, not human happiness or purposes or anything else.
Someone wondered whether it’s “all about connection, or interconnection, and God is the ground and center of that.” I think that’s a decent way to put it.
We noted that it is indeed hard to pray, and focus, and be silent…. But that for many of us, it is a necessary discipline and one we need to pursue more often. Others felt that we needed to focus more on the present moment, on mindfulness, ala Thich Nhat Hahn or Eckhart Tolle. That we can find God or the sacred in every moment, such as washing the dishes or shoveling the driveway. Someone else noted that such moments could be improved by listening to an audio book or lecture, and that there wasn’t necessarily any virtue in the act or moment itself. Also asked, “Is it possible to not be present?”
We all pinched ourselves and concluded that we weren’t dreaming.
“These birds are flying across the forehead of the Father. Dear birds, dear sea gulls, how I love you all. Your slow wings stroke my heart as the hand of a gentle master strokes the full stomach of a sleeping dog, as the hand of Christ stroked the heads of little children. Dear birds,” he thought, “fly to our Lady of Sweet Sorrows with my open heart.” And then he said the loveliest words he knew, “Ave Maria, gratia plena –”
There was, nor is, nor ever has been a purer soul than Pilon’s at that moment… A soul washed and saved is a soul doubly in danger, for everything in the world conspires against such a soul. “Even the straws under my knees,” says Saint Augustine, “shout to distract me from prayer.”
Pilon’s soul was not even proof against his own memories; for, as he watched the birds, he remembered that Mrs. Pastano used sea gulls sometimes in her tamales, and that memory made him hungry, and hunger tumbled his soul out of the sky. Pilon moved on, once more a cunning mixture of good and evil.”
Discuss the change in Pilon. Can you relate?
We all noted how we are all mixtures of ‘good and evil’, and how mundane, physical realities can break our highest spiritual moments, yet somehow those moments must happen in the mundane world, because that is where we live.
You sit in silence contemplating what has just taken place. Only moments ago you were alive and well, relaxing at home with friends. Then there was a deep, crushing pain in your chest that brought you crashing to the floor. The pain has now gone, but you are no longer in your home. Instead, you find yourself standing on the other side of death waiting to stand before the judgment seat and discover where you will spend eternity. As you reflect upon your life your name is called, and you are led down a long corridor into a majestic sanctuary with a throne located in its center. Sitting on this throne is a huge, breathtaking being who looks up at you and begins to speak.
“My name is Lucifer, and I am the angel of light.”
You are immediately filled with fear and trembling as you realize that you are face to face with the enemy of all that is true and good. Then the angel continues: “I have cast God down from his throne and banished Christ to the realm of eternal death. It is I who hold the keys to the kingdom. It is I who am the gatekeeper of paradise, and it is for me alone to decide who shall enter eternal joy and who shall be forsaken.”
After saying these words, he sits up and stretches out his vast arms. “In my right hand I hold eternal life and in my left hand eternal death. Those who would bow down and acknowledge me as their god shall pass through the gates of paradise and experience an eternity of bliss, but all those who refuse will be vanquished to the second death with their Christ.”
After a long pause he bends toward you and speaks, “Which will you choose?”
—
So, would you choose paradise with Satan or hell with Jesus?
There were differing opinions, and E. and B. disagreed and nearly came to blows over it:
“I would go to hell with Jesus.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“What? Of course you wouldn’t! NO ONE would! You’d choose heaven.”
It brought up some great discussion. Why do we follow Jesus? Because of the payoff? If I think I would choose hell in this scenario, do I choose to find Jesus in the hells of this world?
The night ended with a rendition of “Oh Danny Boy” and it nearly got us run out of the place!
Have a thought on the above? Post your comment below.
N. showed up with the usual goodies – this time pretzels (some even peanut butter-filled).
Delicious!
Then A. shows up with a heavy pan of Guinness brownies – complete with decorations. A delightful treat, and it was enjoyed by all. It said: “Cheers to our ‘soon to be’ PUBlished Theologian!”
I’ve been working on a few writing projects as some of you know, and I had written up a book proposal about Pub Theology, comprised of stories, thoughts and theology through the prism of our regular Thursday gatherings. I had sent it around a bit to get some feedback, and the consensus I received from Brian McLaren, Phyllis Tickle and others was that unless you already have a ‘market in hand’ – i.e., tons of readers of your blog (thank you, loyal few), hundreds or thousands of Twitter followers, and a large regular speaking audience, most publishers aren’t willing to take on a relatively unknown. So with that encouraging start, I sent out my manuscript to a publisher, and a few weeks later got a message back that my proposal had been accepted and they are willing to offer me a book contract! Very exciting. No contract has been signed yet, and I’ll wait until then before giving any more details.
In any case, it was a celebratory evening, and the rich Guinness brownies were just right with a cask-poured Black IPA.
The topics:
1. How can deprivation connect us to God?
2. Ignatius: “We must never seek to establish a rule so rigid as to leave no room for exception.” Never?
3. Does God force people to believe in him? Or does he let them choose? Discuss the differences.
4. “Trust in God could impose an additional burden…” Could it? How so?
5. “If there were no evil, there would be no good, for good is the counterpart of evil.” Your thoughts?
6. Who killed Jesus?
7. If you could ask God one thing, what would it be?
8. Is the church above the law?
So, we quickly skipped no.1, as it was not a night for deprivation. On to no.2 After Steve aptly pointed out that Ignatius was breaking his own rule (clever), we reflected on ways in which rules can sometimes get in the way of the thing they set out to address. We had some good examples, but I’m not sure I’m able to recall them here.
No.3 – Nearly everyone agreed (everyone who holds to a belief in God, at any rate), that God allows us some level of choice in choosing to follow him or choosing to ignore him. To say that we have no choice, and it is all predetermined, would sort of make a mockery of the whole thing, and remove any kind of responsibility, not to mention any chance of genuine relationship. That is not to say that God might not already know how things are going to go, but that is different than God making the decision for us.
No.4 – see the following quote:
“… trust in God could impose an additional burden on good people slammed to their knees by some senseless tragedy. An atheist might be no less staggered by such an event, but non-believers often experienced a kind of calm acceptance: shit happens, and this particular shit had happened to them. It could be more difficult for a person of faith to get to his feet precisely, because he had to reconcile God’s love and care with the stupid, brutal fact that something irreversibly terrible had happened.”
In other words, it is hard to understand sometimes why bad stuff happens when you believe that God is good and he has your best interests at heart. If you don’t think God is there, you assume bad stuff will happen at some point, but you don’t take it personally. We noted several instances of where we try to make sense of and draw meaning from tragedies and difficulties, also noting that for many people (even many of us), our faith gives us the strength to get through such situations, even when we don’t understand what God is up to.
no. 5 – we skipped
no.6 – who killed Jesus? My blog post on this got some conversation going earlier in the week. I tended to lean toward the creation being responsible for killing Jesus, not the Creator. Some versions of atonement theory lean toward the latter, but those paint a rather gruesome picture of God, in my opinion. Someone at the table noted: the Romans killed Jesus, what else is there to talk about?
no.7 – skipped
no.8 – Is the church above the law? We noted that there are instances where the church seems to get special treatment (see Catholic church and pedophilia abuses), and that that is bad stuff and should stop.
We enjoyed a visit from some newcomers – C, P and their son, A, on break from MSU. K and B made it out, as did S & R, and G & J. And of course, N., A., and me. A good night, all around!
The Northern Hawk Owl amber ale in the cask set the tone for a nice, low-key evening of discussion, with some potentially hot topics. Great to have the wisdom of a philosopher again in our midst (C), not to mention the always insightful Presbyterian contingent (D and N), the resident a-theists (S & R), some new voices of wisdom (S, K and M!), and some of us who just like beer (J & A, and B). Not to be forgotten was the late arrival of our local fashion and health consultants (B and E). I am sure I have forgotten some others, but then I arrived at Right Brain at 2pm to reserve our usual seat -maybe I should rethink that strategy.
Topics:
Empathy
theories
freedom
where is Jesus?
hell
violence
evil
— In detail:
1. Studies show that empathy is tied to our awareness of our own and others’ mortality. Will heaven be without empathy?
2. Was Jesus able to come down from the cross? Could he have blown it to a ‘million smithereens’ if he wished?
3. A physicist: “One must always allow for alternative theories.”
A theologian: “Using God as an explanation is not an explanation.” What do you think?
4. ‘Freedom in Christ.’ What does(n’t) it mean?
5. What does it mean to say: ‘Jesus is here’?
6. “The traditional understanding of hell perpetuates the cycle of violence for eternity, and it is divine violence that does it.” Are we stuck with violence and evil forever?
7a. “Instead of bringing God to ‘unreached’ places and ‘unreached’ peoples, I find countless missionaries who say that, while this was how they once thought, time and again they find that these unreached places are the very sites where they must go to find God and to be reached. How many of us have learned too late that our initial idea, that by serving the world we will help bring God to others, has eclipsed the wisdom that in serving the world we find God there.” Is it presumptuous to ‘bring God’ somewhere?
7b. “There is no empathy in heaven, because there is no mortality. There is no empathy in utopia, because there is
no suffering.” In other words, those entering heaven will have to leave their empathetic sensibilities at the Pearly
Gates, because there cannot be empathy for those left behind. If there were, there would be regret and sadness,
and these are not permitted. What is interesting to note about the incarnation is that Jesus had to leave
‘heaven’ in order to properly empathize with us. Is heaven sterile?
8. “A story told often enough, and confirmed often enough in daily life, ceases to be a tale and is accepted as reality itself.” Discuss.
This clears things up.
Through me the way into the suffering city,
through me the way to the eternal pain,
through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
My maker was divine authority,
The highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things
Were made, and I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, who enter here.
– Sign on the gate into hell, in Dante, Inferno, Canto 3
—-
It’s been a couple days since, so I’ll focus the recap to heaven and hell.
Heaven was an interesting topic, as a couple of people felt that a utopian heaven of perfection would be theoretically impossible because different people would have different ideas of what perfection is, and therefore it would be impossible for everyone to be the same amount of happy all the time, forever. In other words, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure – but how do you account for everyone without making someone upset? Some also noted that anything that was repeated over and over forever would eventually become hell, even if it started out as your favorite thing (I do love Tetris though). Others of us felt that God would be able to pull off something that gave each person meaning and satisfaction that would not result in stupefying boredom, and that the presence of God himself would preclude that (though isn’t he present now?). We also noted that heaven (or the new creation), may well be outside of time as we know it, and so it is hard for us to think about what that is presently like, this side of things.
If you’re going to talk about heaven, hell, you naturally think about those who ‘don’t get in’. Will people in heaven be aware of them? Will this go over well? (We noted that Jonathan Edwards and others said that the chief delight of people in heaven will be awareness of the suffering of the unrighteous in hell. “Hey Joe – watch this guy – he’s going to really burn in a minute” Can you honestly imagine?) Will everyone eventually be reconciled to God or will some people remain in suffering forever? Discussion on hell was interesting, particularly the fact that no one seemed interested in defending the traditional view of eternal, conscious torment, even as I attempted to articulate it. Ideas of separation from God, of loneliness, of constantly needing more of your own space (a la The Great Divide), as well as – ‘maybe we’ve just made a lot of this stuff up by misreading texts and importing assumptions’.
There’s been a lot of talk about hell and universalism of late with Rob Bell’s new book impending. A couple of good blog posts on hell have shown up this week, so I encourage you to read them over:
To Hell With It on Gathered Introspections, by the incredibly wise and wonderful Christy Berghoef. (no relation) Wait – she’s in the other room! OK OK > she paid me to link to her post. With dinner.
A nice night of discussion at Right Brain Brewery, with old and new friends, and a nice pint of Pie Whole – brewed with a whole apple pie from Grand Traverse Pie Company – a nice applely, caramelly, pumpkiny brew. Discussion was so good, that we only hit the first three of seven topics. We’ll hold some over for next week.
Topics for the night:
good / bad
amulets
meaning
sasquatch
Longer version:
1. Ancient proverb: “Every time something bad happens, something good happens as well.” Does it? Why? What is your experience?
2. The oldest known Hebrew Bible texts are silver amulets dated to about the mid-seventh century BCE. Amulets were worn as charms against evil or injury. Compare to usage(s) of the text today.
3. “Much desire to seek after God is nothing of the sort. For instance, to seek God for eternal life is to seek eternal life, while to seek God for a meaningful existence is to seek a meaningful existence.” What does it mean to truly seek God?
OK so we didn’t really talk about sasquatch. At least not for long. 🙂 Discussion about good and bad started out with someone noting that he used to think along the lines of the proverb quoted, that bad things were accompanied or followed up by good things. However, after a series of seemingly senseless tragedies and difficult circumstances, he had moved to a more cynical place, where bad things ‘just happen’, without a deeper purpose or greater good behind them.
I noted that I like to think that a big picture view could step outside the bad things that happen and see them as part of a larger pattern or whole, and that somehow and someway God has purposes in what happens, and that even out of bad can come good. And this is a perspective that we are not privy to in this life. But I also noted that I have a very limited amount of what you could call ‘bad experiences’, certainly a lack of tragedies in my life – and that I’m not the best one to talk from experience.
Someone else noted that it is cruel and perhaps an insult to tell someone who is in the midst of a hardship that it is ‘for a purpose’ or that they have to just step back to ‘see the good’. It’s not an easy thing.
Maybe bad things just are. We live in a broken world. Bad things happen.
But I do believe that God often can use hard situations to bring about good things, but I don’t think those bad things happen expressly so that we can experience something good.
Most people felt the old proverb might be true in a very general sense, but certainly not as an axiom of how things always go.
Regarding the ancient superstitious use of texts of the Bible, it was noted that people still have many superstitions, and that we may even (mis)use the Bible that way today.
Regarding the third quote, from Peter Rollins’ bookHow (Not) to Speak of God, generated some interesting discussion. Someone asked if we are ever able to pursue God without some selfish or ulterior motive. Can we pursue God just for God himself? Or do the benefits – meaning, life, salvation, peace of mind – always blur our motives, or are the motives themselves? Is it wrong to seek God out of selfish motives? Is this the one place where hedonism is permitted, as no doubt John Piper and others would assert?
It was a nice, low-key evening, and we’ll save the other topics for next time!
A reading from the backside:
“The weakening of God into the world, described in the
Pauline language of emptying (kenosis), is paradigmatically
expressed in the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, the
birth, but also the death of Jesus. Kenosis is not a one-time-
only event occurring in the life and death of Jesus but the
ongoing history or tradition inaugurated by this event. This
process is ‘secularization’, which means not the abandonment
or dissolution of God, but the ‘transcription’ of God into time
and history (the saeculum), thus a successor form of death of God
theology. Kenosis, as the transcription, translation, or
transmission of God into the world, means establishing the
kingdom of God on earth.
For example, the commonplace complaint that the secular
world has taken the Christ out of Christmas and transcribed it
into “Happy Holidays” is to be viewed as still another success
on Christianity’s part. For now the Incarnation has been
translated into a popular secular holiday in the West, in which
the spirit of generosity and goodwill among all people prevails.
During the “holidays” this “spirit” of love becomes general
among humankind, which is what in fact this doctrine actually
means: its application in the concrete reality of lived
experience. The tolerant, nonauthoritarian and pluralistic
democratic societies in the West are the translation into real
political structures of the Christian doctrine of neighbor love.
When the transcendent God is “weakened” – or emptied – into
the world, it assumes the living form of Western cultural life.”
– John Caputo, After the Death of God
Post any of your own thoughts on the evening below!
Despite being displaced from our normal spot on the back pew, we had a good evening of conversation last night. Over a dozen people, including a couple of new folks, not least of which was my wife Christy. She made a rare late appearance, bringing sushi no less.
On to the topics:
Is anything really *new*?
progress
change
dualism
explosions
In detail:
1. Is there anything under the sun whereof it might be said, “This is new.”?
2. “Society determines what and how we know, and forms us into the kinds of people we are. Thus as members of society we are never truly free, but instead formed into the sort of people power decides we ought to be.” Fate, Determinism or freedom?
3. What is progress?
4. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?
5. “Religions admittedly appeal, not to conviction as the result of argument, but to belief as demanded by revelation.” Isn’t revelation an argument?
6. The Buddha: “The mind is everything; what you think you become.” Think about that.
7. Does theism necessarily imply dualism?
8. “Religion is most effective where it is least obvious.” Do you agree? If so, why?
9. “Religion is the metaphysics of the masses; by all means let them keep it. Just as they have popular poetry, and the popular wisdom of proverbs, so they must have popular metaphysics too: for mankind absolutely needs an interpretation of life; and this, again, must be suited to popular comprehension.”
10. Scientists discover that the explosion, which, in the Bible signals the divine message, was effectively the visual trace of a terrible catastrophe that destroyed a flourishing alien civilization. Likely?
11. “When was the last time someone questioned you about your faith? Whereas once the question would have been ‘are you a Christian,’ the phraseology is now more often along the lines of ‘would you call yourself a Christian.’
The first is an objective statement of being, an absolute. The second a subjective assessment – you might not call me that, but that’s what I call myself. Perhaps the move from objective to subjective ontology is part of a wider cultural shift…”
______________
Wow. That’s a lotta stuff. Someone was a little over the top in putting this list together.
Given the size of the crowd, we split into a couple of groups, and I was sometimes in on one discussion, sometimes another. Discussion ranged on what does ‘new’ mean, and does technology count as new? Obviously when Ecclesiastes was written and Qoheleth was musing on the endless repetition of the old which gets passed off as new, he probably did not envision someone at a pub in 2011 looking up his writings on their digital communication device in another language. That seems sorta new, or is it merely a repackaging of the old?
For that matter, is technology progress? Can progress be limited to things that seem to happen ‘out there’ in the culture, things in technology development, methods of science or learning… Is progress also related to things that happen to a person spiritually, socially, internally?
And speaking of internal development – are we free to develop and grow as individuals, or are we constantly being shaped by the cultural currents in society, by institutions, by ‘the powers that be’?
There was some talk of the Buddha, but I’m not sure that was fit for print here.
Regarding revelation, we pondered the difference between an argument based on reason, science, logic, etc., and that which comes via the divine or even through someone else or through intuition, what we might call revelation. Is revelation always personal? Does revelation happen en masse? How do you know when to listen when someone says, “God told me”? And what about when we are separated from said revelation by thousands of years and it comes via a canonical tradition which says, ‘This is what God has said.”? It was noted that people tend to be more and more skeptical of that which comes via revelation, we want cold, hard ‘facts’ which can be positively demonstrated. Yet is there more to life than ‘the facts’?
Regarding explosions and flourishing alien civilizations, several stories of the ‘paranormal’ were shared, including an out of body experience and a night-sky sighting that seemed to defy the laws of physics.
Also noted was the possibility of nano-bots running the universe once we hit ‘the singularity’, or of the world ending in a mess of grey goo, of the fact that nano-bots might be the means by which God brings about the new heavens and the new earth, that we ourselves might be more implicated in the final realization of the kingdom of God than we might think.
All in all, a good night, and the Dark Side chocolate stout was not to be missed.
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.
Topics for tonight via Twitter:
