Theology

Pub Theology Recap May 12

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.)  🙂

Pub Theology Recap May 5

Free at last.

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.”

And yes, the monkeys…

Pub Theology Recap April 28

He knows where you live

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pub Theology Recap April 21

I'm a bit frightened by this

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!

Pub Theology Recap April 14

ápropos?

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!

A Common Table

In his introduction to the book The Post-Evangelical, Dallas Willard notes: “Often we create ‘marks of group membership’ by making definitive statements from a particular interpretation of the Bible.  So for example, issues such as whether you believe that women should be allowed to teach or whether Christ will return soon after the millennium begins may be used as tests for whether or not you believe the Bible – and that test, in turn, may be used as a test of whether you are a Christian.  And so on. The question moves from ‘Where are you before God?’ to ‘Are you a member of our group?’.  Once we make that move, we risk smothering Jesus in a heap of trivialities.”

In lieu of such a definitive statement, here is an attempt at describing our posture of faith:

A Common Table

As Willard noted, statements of faith can often be used as litmus tests to help someone determine whether people are ‘in’ or ‘out’, or whether or not this church ‘has it right’.

So rather than making a long list of what we do believe or don’t believe, we’d prefer to think of a table which gathers us together and invites us in, at which all are welcome, and at which we can experience life together.  This table denotes some things that are central to our understanding of faith, but the table is not meant to keep people in or out, but rather, to draw people into the center of life with God.  A table evokes things like food, meals, shared experience, laughter, tears, confessions, obsessions, accomplishments, rejections, love and sorrow, bread and wine, newness… and community.

In the picture, you notice three words – God, Jesus, resurrection.  Those represent what you might call our ‘working understanding’ of the Bible and the life and message of Jesus:  that God has presented himself to us through the person of Jesus, who on the cross showed us that God is love, that God is present with us in suffering, and that God sought ultimate justice by submitting to injustice.  Yet this could not hold him down, and in the resurrection we find that God is not done with this world, but is in fact, transforming it.

All of this can be understood by the declaration ‘the kingdom of God is at hand’, which was central to the message of Jesus.

That is what we come to the table understanding as central to our life as a faith community.

Perhaps you noticed that the words are somewhat faded.  This denotes to us that God is not always obvious in our world, and even how we understand these concepts of God, Jesus, and resurrection are not always cut and dried.  There is room for questions, even for doubt, as God is always bigger and beyond our conceptualizations of him, and we all, like Jesus on the cross, experience moments of his absence (indeed, some would say this loss of God is the moment of true faith; for a God who is obviously present requires very little faith).  We trust that though presently we ‘see through a glass darkly’, one day we shall see ‘face to face’.  So while we may each have differing perspectives on various doctrinal issues, our common core understanding is that we encounter God in and through the person of Jesus, that we seek to be disciples who walk in the way of the cross, and that the resurrection means real hope for people here and now and that we can anticipate one day a new heavens and a new earth, a world where God is ‘all in all’.

If that sounds like a life worth living, or a community worth experiencing – we invite you to pull up a chair and join us.

What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

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

a good book

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 Lostthe 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.

–Post any thoughts or comments below–

Continental Philosophy, or What I Understood Of It

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

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

Here are some common themes, borrowed from wikipedia:

  • First, continental philosophers generally reject scientism, the view that the natural sciences are the only or most accurate way of understanding phenomena.
  • Second, continental philosophy usually considers these conditions of possible experience as variable: determined at least partly by factors such as context, space and time, language, culture, or history. Thus continental philosophy tends toward historicism. Where analytic philosophy tends to treat philosophy in terms of discrete problems, capable of being analyzed apart from their historical origins (much as scientists consider the history of science inessential to scientific inquiry), continental philosophy typically suggests that “philosophical argument cannot be divorced from the textual and contextual conditions of its historical emergence”.
  • Third, continental philosophy typically holds that conscious human agency can change these conditions of possible experience: “if human experience is a contingent creation, then it can be recreated in other ways”.Thus continental philosophers tend to take a strong interest in the unity of theory and practice, and tend to see their philosophical inquiries as closely related to personal, moral, or political transformation.
  • A final characteristic trait of continental philosophy is an emphasis on metaphilosophy. In the wake of the development and success of the natural sciences, continental philosophers have often sought to redefine the method and nature of philosophy. In some cases (such as German idealism or phenomenology), this manifests as a renovation of the traditional view that philosophy is the first, foundational, a priori science. In other cases (such as hermeneutics, critical theory, or structuralism), it is held that philosophy investigates a domain that is irreducibly cultural or practical.

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

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

Postmodernism, Culture and Religion 4

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

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

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

So what was I doing there, as a pastor?

Caputo, Malabou, and Goodchild

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

John Caputo

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

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

Peter Rollins

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pub Theology Recap March 31

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!

Pub Theology Recap March 24

Nothing beats a good porter

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!


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