TRAVERSE CITY (AP) – Surrounded by some new art, and sitting beneath a sign that designated the space as purgatory, about fifteen people of various lineage gathered at the Pub during Holy Week, or more precisely, on Maundy Thursday.
What exactly is Maundy Thursday?
Great question – but they weren’t there to answer that. (Though it’s apparently also known as the Thursday of Mysteries.)
Some wonderful brews on tap, not least of which was the Darkstar Stout flowing from the cask. (You can never go wrong with the cask).
First topic:What is your earliest memory?
if i could only remember back far enough...
There were several good ones. Here’s a taste:
– “I remember being spoonfed a sundae by my mother at Dairy Queen while sitting in the stroller…”
– “There was an old barn across from the apartment complex we lived in. I remember distinctly sitting on the hill by our apartment, watching a large barn across the street burn to the ground. I was three.”
– “Something about being on the stairs, and my sister wasn’t around yet, which makes it about the only memory I have from then.”
– Mine: “I was probably four, in the basement with a friend. My mom was doing the laundry in the room next to us. We were throwing plastic bowling pins up at the naked lightbulb. Eventually we managed to hit it – throwing glass and darkness all over us. There were screams.”
– “My earliest memory is of my older brother having his dirty diaper changed, which means I must have been about six months old. Wait… that can’t be right.”
– The best one: “I have no particular memory of my early years. Just some vague feelings.”
open for interpretation
There was general debate about when the earliest you can remember is… Some said three, others said four. One claimed to have a memory from much earlier.
I noted that my kids watch videos of themselves from when they were babies and toddlers, and we all sort of wondered about what that would do to their memories as they grow up. (I make a year-end video of the kids every December – Lubbergho. Perhaps I’ll post one on youtube one of these days).
It was a great opening conversation, and we went various places from there, hitting on a few of these topics:
1. Have you ever felt truly alone?
Describe the situation. What did you do?
Are there practices that help you in those moments?
2. What is your favorite day of Holy Week?
Do you connect more with Good Friday or Easter?
3. What do you believe happened on the cross?
4. “To believe in the gospel in today’s day and age, one must first understand that language does not only denote objective realities.”
5. Does all knowledge derive from experience?
6. Do atheists get respect in our culture? Why/Why not?
one tasty beverage
We wrapped up the evening by musing on the following poem:
Alone
I am afraid
The gulf between us is vast
As all eternity
The frozen hand of death
Touches my throat
Catching my words unspoken
Alone we die
Together we live
Reach out now
Help me live
In love together
We cannot die
If you have a thought on the above, or an earliest memory you’d like to share, post it below!
It was a 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!
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.
