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Revisiting Original Sin

What follows in the next 2 posts is an attempt to address a theme that emerged out of some vibrant conversations I have been having this week. 

We have 3 good contemporary interpretations of ‘Original Sin’ on the table for discussion. I will call them:

  1. Evolutionary
  2. Realist
  3. Web -Networked.*

Evolutionary Types might talk about our ‘conflicted desires’ or ‘contradictory impulses’. This has been my favorite way to talk about what the ancients were attempting to describe with the idea of ‘original sin’ in the past. Something is wrong and we know it.

Even the Apostle Paul touched on the idea in Romans 7 by acknowledging that we don’t even do the good that we want to do! That is really saying something.

Evolutionary Types are fond of pointing to the conflicted nature of modern men to A) raise their offspring in a stable environment (like the mutually-beneficial social arrangement of marriage)  B) that is in conflict with another biological yearning to spread their seed far & wide to make more offspring. That is the most brute and easiest example.

Admittedly, this is not a very ‘christian’ perspective in some people’s estimation but I think that it illuminating.

  • Q: What if original sin is nothing more than what is going on at the ‘hard wiring’ level underneath the religions language?

Reinhold Niebuhr is famous for an approach called Christian Realism. He said some really interesting things about sin.

Aurthur Schlesinger Jr. says Niebuhr “emphasized the mixed and ambivalent character in human nature – creative impulses matched with destructive impulses, regard for others overruled by excessive self-regard, the will to power, the individual under constant temptation to play God in history. This is what is known in the ancient vocabulary of Christianity as the doctrine of original sin.”

James Cone summarizes this way:

“Because human finitude and humanity’s natural tendency to deny it (sin), we can never fully reach that ethical standard.”

He was speaking of love and justice. Cone comments, “Since Niebuhr saw justice as a balance of power between groups, whether classes, races, or nations, he saw it always in a state of flux, never achieving perfection in history.”

  • Q: What if original sin is better thought of as a deadly combination of human limitation and the natural tendency to deny it? 

A web approach can be heard from thinkers like Terry Eagleton in ‘On Evil’ and was suggested by Bo Eberly (also know as ‘Bo East’).

Eagleton on Original Sin:

“There is a sense in which freedom and destructiveness are bound up together. In the complex web of human destinies, where so many lives are meshes intricately together, the freely chosen actions of one individual may breed damaging, entirely unforeseeable effects in the lives of countless anonymous others. They may also return in alien form to plague ourselves. Acts that we and others have performed freely in the past may merge into an opaque process which appears without an author, confronting us in the present with all the intractable force of fate. In this sense, we are the creatures of our own deeds. A certain inescapable self-estrangement is thus built into our condition…

This is why original sin is traditionally about an act of freedom (eating an apple), yet is at the same time a condition we did not choose, and one which is nobody’s fault. It is ‘sin’ because it involves guilt and injury, but not ‘sin’ in the sense of willful wrong. Like desire for Freud, it is less a conscious act than a communal medium into which we are born. The interwoven of our lives is the source of our solidarity. But it also lies at the root of our mutual harm…

Original sin is not about being born either saintly or wicked. It is about the fact of being born in the first place. Birth is the moment when, without anyone having the decency to consult us on the matter, we enter into the preexistent web of needs, interests, and desires-an inextricable tangle to which the mere brute fact of existence will contribute, and which will shape our identity to the core. This is why in most Christian churches babies are baptized at birth…they have already reorder the universe without being aware of it.”

He goes on:

“Original sin is not the legacy of our first parents but our parents, who in turn inherited it from their own. The past is what we are made of. Throngs of ghostly ancestors lurk within our most casual gestures, programming our desires and flicking our actions mischievously awry. Because our earliest, most passionate love affair takes place when we are helpless infants, it is caught up with frustration and voracious need. And this means our loving will always be defective. As with the doctrine of original sin, this condition lies at the core of the of the self, yet is nobody’s responsibility. Love is both what we need in order to flourish and what we are born to fail at. Our only hope is learning to fail better. Which may, of course, prove not to be good enough.”

  •  Q: What if the doctrine of original sin is addressing a tangled web of human desires and destinies that lies at the core of every self but for which nobody is responsible?

In part 2  I will attempt to address how the tangled web of inherited meanings and desires plays out when pastoring – but for now I would like to hear your thoughts on these theories.

* I am not that interested in conserving outdated discussions of ‘essence’ or ‘substance’ and how classical, patristic or Calvinistic understandings of century’s past may have framed it.  But if that is where you are at, you can simply state that and let it stand on it’s own merit. I don’t speculate about the details of ‘an’ original sin even while I am interested in the reality behind the concept. 

3

When Good Is Not Enough (3/3)

This week I have been writing a little about my interest in Practical Theology (PT) and  the subsequent philosophical orientation with which I will be engaging research: social constructivism. 

I had some very heady (and public) conversations with colleagues this Summer who desperately wanted to paint me as a ‘Liberal’ who is afraid of my own shadow (afraid to admit it/come out of the theological closet, etc.)

My assertion was that, as a social constructivist, I am more in a agreement with communitarian concerns than I am with liberal loyalties. Communitarians have a very harsh critique of liberalism where it:

considers classical liberalism to be ontologically and epistemologically incoherent, and opposes it on those grounds. Unlike classical liberalism, which construes communities as originating from the voluntary acts of pre-community individuals, it emphasizes the role of the community in defining and shaping individuals.

While I clearly hold some positions that overlap with liberal stances, and while I do presently serve at a classically Mainline church that exists within the liberal tradition of church expressions … I do not do so as a liberal. I grew evangelical, went very charismatic and then emerged into whatever kind of deconstructed christianity this is.

I jokingly said that I don’t identify as a liberal for the same reason that I don’t wear a medium-size Tshirt. It doesn’t fit and doesn’t cover some things I find important (ie. my belly).Facade of St. Vitus Cathedral

The problem with being progressive:

I have flirted with the idea of just being a progressive even while I bristle at the notion of societal evolution, inevitable progress or the consequences of a colonial notion of ‘civilization’.

I realize that some liberals have engaged in post-colonial, feminist or liberation approaches – so that those concerns are not mutually exclusive.

So what do I mean when I say that Liberal doesn’t go far enough?

 Take post-colonial concerns

Classic liberalism has had two responses to the colonial problem. I will call them:

assimilation and reservations.

They can either come to us, act like us, learn to think like us, speak like us and live among us … or they can go over there and do their own thing without bothering us.

In fact, is it self-congratulatory either way. If indigenous folks assimilate we feel validated as open and accepting – even multi-cultural or diverse! If we ‘give them their own space’ we pat ourselves on the back for being understanding and accepting of other cultures. Let’s be honest – at least it isn’t conquest and genocide after all.

Neither one of those approaches is satisfactory. The first is unacceptable because it still presumes the hegemonic power of the dominant culture and it is looking at the indigenous community as something that needs to be absorbed, adapted or modified. The second is unacceptable because it sees the two cultures as incommensurable without realizing the power differential to  conquest.

I am not looking for a nicer, more gentle version of colonialism or empire. As a researcher-advocate, I want to hear the voice and experience of impacted communities in their own words. If that leads to an opportunity for partnership, great. If not, I have to accept that I am not in control of the outcome nor am I referee to make sure that people play by my rules. In the post-colonial context, indigenous peoples are not to be adopted & adapted … nor are they to be ‘left to their own devices’. Neither of these approaches is acceptable.

Something else is needed. Practical Theology and its qualitative methods provide me a starting point to engaging in a different way – one that addresses larger issues of systemic and institutional concerns, one that hears the voice of the communities most affected, and one that provides the possibility of change in the real lived experiences of those involved.

Let me give you an example. James Cone writes near the end of ‘The Cross and The Lynching Tree’:

White theologians in the past century have written thousands of books about Jesus’ cross without remarking on the analogy between the crucifixion of Jesus and the lynching of black people. One must suppose that in order to feel comfortable in the Christian faith, whites needed theologians to interpret the gospel in a way that would not require them to acknowledge white supremacy as America’s greatest sin. 

Then Cone comments on perhaps the quintessential evolving- liberal theologian that America has ever had:

Reinhold Niebuhr could write and preach about the cross with profound theological imagination and say nothing of how the violence of white supremacy invalidated the faith of white churches. It takes a lot of theological blindness to do that, especially since the vigilantes were white Christians who claimed to worship the Jew lynched in Jerusalem.

I hope that these past three posts have helped to clarify why Practical Theology holds possibilities for me as a discipline and why I have chosen a social constructivist orientation within the research.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read these 3 posts and to give me such high quality feedback and/or affirmation.

2

Constructivism or Critical Theory (part 2 of 3)

Warning: These 3 posts are very nerdy. There is a reason behind my madness … but just be forewarned.

Yesterday I admitted to social construction being my philosophical orientation within my chosen field of Practical Theology (PT). A constructivist view is important in (at least) two ways:

  1. It is an admission that we are all subjects of a constructed reality who are both actors and those who are acted upon within a larger structure of expectations, attitudes and behaviors that we have a) inherited b) been formed by and c) reinforced by our actions and participation.
  2. It is an acknowledgement that no one is a object to be studied nor are we objective – but that we are all subject who are acted upon and who act in accordance to our position within the given structures and our possibilities given our location within that greater culture.

Admittedly, this is not an easy position to take. It is a commitment. One must commit to exploring the world this way philosophically, experientially and intellectually.Boy at Cockflight_3

Here are 3 ways that this commitment plays out: 

Two weeks ago on Homebrewed released another installment of Mimetic theory (an early blog is here – another pod is to come this Fall). Girard and those who follow his line of reasoning say that we humans, even as babies, learn what to desire my mimicking (thus mimetic) those who care for us. We learn even what to desire (like what foods) by imitating them. Think of this as the outer edge of the ‘learned behavior’ line of reasoning.

Social Construction says that we are not individuals first. There is no access to a  pre-social self. We are formed, groomed and socialized into our families, tribes, societies and cultures and the we occupy and possess within that larger structure a place as subject. This subjective position means that we are actors – but not before we are acted upon. We are not objective in our perspective nor are we simply objects of study. We are subjects who have been subjected.

If you have read the above 2 paragraphs you will see why I put up such a stink this Summer about my approach not being ‘liberal’. I do not believe in the autonomous, selective nor the pre-institutional self. I am a social constructivist who believes that we are socialized, groomed and conditioned from day 1.  (more on this tomorrow)

This next section in admittedly technical but I think that is a fascinating snapshot of a larger landscape. 

I read an amazing article by Lynn Schofield Clark about the incremental difference between Critical Theory and Constructivism as it relates to qualitative research (which is what PT does). Critical Theory is something that I am very interested in employing in my research and that is why Clark’s clarification about how it impacts research is so important.

Both ‘critical’ and ‘constructivist’ approaches desire to “confront injustices in society”. They also both recognize the limitations of people’s opportunities and imaginations for changing unjust social systems due to due the inherent constraints of being a subject within that very system.

Both approaches have an Achilles’ heel. Critical theory has to try and get away from it’s Marxist origin which can overly reductive and materially deterministic. Constructivism (which is more humanistic) can be limited by attempting to validate its findings with claims inherited from the natural sciences. Critical researches are not concerned with seeking validation from the sciences because they are working more on the meta-theoretical.

While both approaches share a large amount of overlap, one glaring concern about Critical researches is:

 its tendency toward elitism. With its proponents’ commitment to the idea that research can bring about a better and more equitable world, critics charge that critical theorists tend to assume that they are not only more capable of analyzing a situation than most; they are better equipped to offer a proscriptive plan of action…

Further, critics charge that critical theorists can be unwilling to listen to the experiences of those most adversely effected by current policies and the status quo, as they tend to focus their analyses on persons and institutions in positions of power and authority. This, critics note, causes critical theorists to be out of touch with the very persons they purport to be most interested in helping.

This concern has given me pause to consider my approach.

The last thing I wanted to pass on is a great line from the Clark article about validity:

The research is valid to the extent that the analysis provides insight into the systems of oppression and domination that limit human freedoms, and on a secondary level, in its usefulness in countering such systems.

Tomorrow I want to talk about “when good isn’t enough” and why my post-colonial concern propels me beyond the liberal label.

4

Why I’m Into Practical Theology (1/3)

Warning: The next 3 post are going to be very nerdy. There is a reason behind my madness … but just be forewarned.

Philosophy is a hobby for me. I blog about it here a lot because I really enjoy the dialogue and I learn tons in the exchange of ideas. I have had to cut back on blogging as I am now preparing for my qualifying exams.  While I am getting a PhD in Practical Theology,  the inescapable fact is that the ‘Ph’ in PhD is philosophy.church-300x199

I often hear the old line that ‘we can’t believe our way into new ways of acting – but that we act our way into new ways of believing’. While I understand the direction behind the challenge, I am suspicious of it’s accuracy for two reasons:

  1. I have been deeply impacted by my studies and this has led to my behaving differently.
  2. I fundamentally object to the binary of belief and action as if they are two different things.

Believing something is an activity and we actively believe something. My mentor, Randy Woodley, is fond of saying ‘you don’t have to tell me what you believe. I know exactly what you believe – I can see it in what you do’. He says this in reference to a Native elder watching the perennial arrival of white missionaries come to the reservation.

I’m afraid that even my earnest desire to be what Donald Schon calls a ‘reflective practitioner’ betrays an underlying binary.

In my Master’s thesis on contextual theology – in a section highlighting the work of Paulo Freire – I wrested with this tension.

More than the believing of propositional truth, the praxis model invites encounters of “doing the truth” quoting Gustavo Gutierrez as saying “contemplation and practice together make up a first act; theologizing is a second act”.

This expectation both comes from and puts forward an understanding of epistemology that is significantly different than theoretical or speculative theologies.  It challenges theologies that are too general and assumed to be universal by questioning the very nature of knowing. Truth is not out there to be brought in; the truth is in here to be brought out.

That is how I got into Practical Theology. 

Rarely a day goes by without someone I meet, even check-out clerks at the grocery store, joking with me that theology isn’t practical.  I must have heard that 500 times in the past 5 years.

I don’t blame people for the misunderstanding. The field might better be called ‘the practice of theology’.  The truth is that the field of PT has changed radically in the past 30 years (more on this tomorrow). It used to be attached to things like homiletics (the art of preaching) or liturgy or pastoral counseling. It is no longer a ‘how to’ kind of field.

PT is really more sociology done with a theological lens – we use qualitative methods (vs. quantitative methods like statistics) to access ground level experiences and practices. Philosopher-types would  lump it in to phenomenology. The main focus of PT is to examine how a given issue of study is actually lived out in real contexts (locations and congregations). We use interviews, case studies, ethnographies and other qualitative methods to do our research.

Here is where the philosophy stuff comes in! When doing PT you must locate your particular approach within 4 generally recognizable categories. The  4 Philosophical Orientations are:

  • Postpositivism
  • Constructivism
  • Advocacy/Participation
  • Pragmatism

Postpositivism is mostly for those who want to report their qualitative findings in more quantitative terms (like for medical studies where stats are valued).

Constructivism is my orientation. It focuses on social and historical constructions and allows one to formulate critical theories about underlying issues.

Advocacy/Participation is the favorite of feminist approaches (among others) because it a) actually advocates for tangible change and b) it ensures that the group being studies is not exploited for the researches privilege.

Pragmatism is an approach that is problem-centered and is more willing to utilize different methods depending on the desired outcome of the research.

I hope you see now why I am into Practical Theology. I thought it would be good to introduce the everyone (including the Homebrewed crowd) to the discipline for 3 simple reasons:

  1. my blog style and topic selection is going to have to shift slightly as I prepare for these qualifying exams.
  2. Callid has begun his PhD in PT at Boston. So 2 out of the 3 theology nerds are in PT (and Micky Jones may be soon to follow). That is a lot of practical theology.
  3. Callid and I were talking and it dawned on us that even our friends don’t really know what it is that we do.

Over the next two days I want to build a bridge to what I will be doing and clarify a couple of things that are still left over from this eventful Summer.

8

That Liberal Label

It has been a while since I posted here and part of the reason for that is that I have embroiled in a bit of a kerfuffle. I didn’t go looking for it but it came and found me. Anyway, here is a part of my response to all of the hullabaloo.
Once is an incident. Twice is a trend. Three times is a pattern.

This the now the 3rd time this thing idea about shying away from the label ‘liberal’ has come up.

  1. I heard it for the first time almost 10 years ago: “Emergents are just cool liberals”. This came from conservative, evangelical and reformed folks who were squawking at the Blue Parakeets that were new to the yard.
  2. More recently Fitch & Holsclaw leveled the accusation in their new book Prodigal Christianity and Tony Jones took exception.
  3. Then last week the idea was suggested on a different blog that Tripp & I were really just closet liberals who where afraid of the label because of its intrinsic baggage.

I tend to bury my big point in the final quarter of every blog post. For the purpose of clarity I am going to begin putting them at the top of the post. Here is my main point:

There is nothing wrong with being liberal. It is one of many valid ways to participate in the christian tradition. If I were liberal I would be so proudly. I am not liberal. Liberal approaches do not go far enough to combat capitalism, address colonial consequences or repent of the Constantinian compromise that led to Christendom it’s subsequent horrors.

I am not liberal. While Tripp and I are left-leaning. We are progressive. We are postmodern in our approach. We are emergent in our expression. We are playfully heretical (in a good way) and we are innovative where appropriate given our christo-centric hyperTheism.

But I am not liberal. Liberalism doesn’t go far enough in addressing five of my biggest concerns:

  • Critique of Capitalism and Consumerism
  • Post-Colonial consequences
  • Continental Philosophy’s reflection on late modern thought
  • Criticism of Christendom (Western and Constantinian)
  • Our cultures’ dangerous cocktail of Nationalism and Militarism

I have written extensively about how Progressive is not Liberal and even got taken to task over at Scot McKnight’s blog for trying to make that distinction. I will say this again:

There is nothing wrong with being liberal. It is one of many valid ways to participate in the christian tradition.

If I were liberal I would be so proudly. But alas I am not.

One last thing in closing:  I understand the historic drift of the term ‘Liberal’. I know what it meant in the 1700’s (specifically as it relates to individualistic epistemology) and I understand what it has become in the late 20th century (a constellation of loyalties and identity markers). I also know about it’s demise as an impotent political approach and I get why some evangelicals are allergic to the term and thus why some would desire to shy away from it. I get all that. I even recognize the unique draw of its individualistic epistemology. 000_0008

What I am saying is that calling me a closet liberal who is afraid to be identified by the label is like saying that I don’t wear ‘medium’ sized T-shirts because I don’t like the letter M. It is to miss the point. I don’t wear medium sized T-shirts because they are not big enough and don’t cover some essential areas that I deeply care about.

i.e.  It just doesn’t fit.

 

5

Prayer as Poetry of Spirit

As a pastor I get to talk with a lot of people. The issue of prayer comes up more often than any other topic. I think I understand why but when any pattern is this consistent it piques my attention and compels me to dig a little deeper.Dark-Clouds

The problem, of course, isn’t for those for whom prayer is an automatic and assumed activity–nor for those who see no point in it. The problem, and thus the need for conversation, resides in those who are thoughtfully attempting to address how exactly a real God really works in the world.

To use a bowling analogy, there seems to be an illusive sweet spot we want to aim at between two proverbial gutters on either side.

The gutter to the left  is a mechanistic view  that too easily degenerates into prescriptive and formulaic constructs. The universe is not a machine and is not fueled by an individual’s personal piety, sincerity of prayer, amount of prayer, particular words and phrases, or purity of beliefs/doctrine.

The problem with many popular approaches to prayer is exposed when prayer appears not to work because certain outcomes were not achieved or no tangible evidence was produced. The difficulty then is the amount of time and energy one needs to invest to explain why prayer doesn’t always work. The explanations always seem to fall into the same worn ruts  involving God’s sovereignty, will and power. In the end these will always fail because God, after all, is not a machine and faith is not the product of an assembly line or factory.

The gutter to the right  might be called ‘cosmic coincidence’. One of the difficulties to being a person of faith is that it can be impossible to convince someone who wants to be cynical with enough persuasion as to disavow them of their skepticism. Somehow the concept of belief itself is elusive enough and just abstract enough to not provide the traction it takes to overcome the unqualified need for proof.
It is the narrow ground between these two gutters that I am attempting to navigate. I want to throw out a theory and get your feedback on.

My theory is that both the beauty and the power of prayer–and subsequently God’s work in the world– resides in the fact that God’s power is a low-level signal  being broadcast in the world on a weak enough frequency that two things happen:

  1. the transmission is subtle enough that those who wish to tune it out are capable of doing so. God’s work is not so obvious or overpowering that one is accosted by its blatant effects and thus would have to be in denial not to see it. The work of God in his gentle,  subtle, hidden, elusive at times and, as Jack Caputo says ‘weak’.
  2. at the same time, however, the work of God in the world is just consistent enough as to allow some to codify it and become prescriptive as to the optimal way to pray. Prayer works just enough of the time for just enough of the population for people to come up with formulas as to its power and how to tap into that.

Prayer is like poetry in this sense. Neither is so predictable as to allow themselves to be reduced down to a formula that can be perfected with simple repetition.

but at the same time–both poetry and prayer carry enough consistency to allow for them to be thought of as persuasive.

This is the beauty of prayer for me. am not praying to an interventionist God behind some supernatural veil asking for that Almighty but temperamental  being to puncture the membrane of the natural world and act in a coercive way.  The ancient images of God as warrior, puppet master or unseen mover don’t stand up to any level of scrutiny after the 20th century.

We know then what prayer isn’t… So what is it?

Prayer is the partnering of an open heart to participate with a God who is broadcasting a weak signal in the world  and which provides to every moment positive possibilities for every living thing  to bring about a greater good and beautiful flourishing.  As we participate in those positive possibilities we open up greater and more abundant possibilities in subsequent moments. As we resist the potential opportunities provided in the weak signal, we close down and crush possibilities for more abundant flourishing and beauty down the road.

In this way we acknowledge that prayer has just enough going on within it that those who prefer the formulaic or even mechanistic approaches of the past will continue to have just enough data to remain insistent. We also acknowledge that prayer will continue to be just elusive enough that those who wish to tune out the signal that is being broadcast by the divine to feel justified in doing so.

Prayer is the poetry of Spirit. It is not a math formula, a building blueprint, an assembly-line product or a battle plan. Nor is prayer a Christian form of meditation simply useful for aligning one’s heart and mind to the current running in the stream of the universe.

Prayer is a participation in an invitation to partnership that is being broadcast on a weak frequency in the world.

-Bo

________

I would love to hear your thoughts on this … I just have two requests:

  • Be careful using personal (private) experiences like speaking in tongues or being slain in the spirit as irrefutable evidence of the former ways of understanding that I am attempting to move us on from.
  • Don’t talk to me about miracles in S. America, Africa or Asia unless you are from those regions please. I will explain why I make this request in a post next week. 

 

1

When God Is Too Powerful

A dear friend of mine is in her final semester of a psychology degree. Somehow Martin Buber came up. The  famous work  of the Jewish thinker  – “I and Thou” –  is such a powerful idea from the early 20th century that is resonates in both psychology and theology.

Keith Ward explains in God: a guide for the perplexed:

“The word ‘thou’ in English has a rather peculiar history. In the sixteenth century, when the English Book of Common Prayer was first pieced together, it was the second-person singular personal pronoun. Just as in German and French, and many other languages today, it was used to signify an especially close and intimate relationship with the person to whom you were speaking. For formal occasions, or to people one did not know well, ‘you’ was appropriate. But for members of family and close friends, the correct word to use was ‘thou’.” *

Then something very odd happened to the English language. Everyone simply became ‘you’. No one used ‘Thou’ anymore and it became a very fancy and antiquated way to reference someone.
The problem is that is was still used to refer to God (in the books used by the church) and so:

“before long people thought that ‘thou’ was a special word only to be used for God – God being presumably very archaic – connoting very special reverence and respect. So, whereas the writers of the first Elizabethan prayer book had wanted people to address God in a very intimate, almost informal way, most people who love the prayer book now seem to think that it is important to address God as ‘thou’, because only that gives God appropriate respect. Ironically, those who insist on addressing God as ‘thou’ are doing the very opposite of what the compilers of the prayer book wanted.”

Do you see what happened?  Any words that get attached to our conception of God end up getting co-opted, absorbed and hijack by our conception of God.

We try to use words, phrases, pictures and metaphors to re-present the transcendent divine … but those words, phrases and metaphors end up getting codified then solidified then idolized.
In this way, our imagination becomes an image … and eventually becomes an idol.

I have argued this same sort of thing in “God never changes … or does She?” when it comes to masculine pronouns for god vs. thinking of god as a man.Hand_ofGod2

Instead of understanding Jesus’ language as relational – that Jesus calling God
‘Abba’ (some say “Father” but I like John Cobb’s use of “Pappa”) as saying “I relate to God as one relates to a loving Father/Parent” , we codified and solidified that language and now God is ONLY allowed to be called ‘He’ in some circles. Our imagination is then limited by the image which has become an idol.

Jesus and Unicorns

I run into this same thing when it comes to christology. People often confuse the two approaches of ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ with two results of ‘high christology’ and ‘low christology’. This is true of general theology and views of scripture as well.

Those who are convinced that God needs to be as big, as powerful and as all-mighty as possible are often caught in the slightly awkward position of having to stick up for, defend and police the opinions of other on behalf of this almighty being.

So often in these conversations I want to say “ Just because your god could beat up my god doesn’t mean that your conception in is correct.” Look, if we are just going make bigger and badder things up and then call that “High” … then I want a Jesus who rides a unicorn – cries magic teardrops that become diamonds and never lets anyone get sick or die. THAT would be a higher christology.

Why Are You Doing That?

Normally I wouldn’t go after this topic in such a way, but I have noticed that in our ‘culture wars’ there is a disturbing trend. Really good people with really sincere faith will give themselves permission to behave in really aggressive and judgmental ways and when confronted will respond with either “God …” or “The Bible …”.
That is just one way in which I know that we have a problem. Insisting on calling God ‘He’ (or ‘King’ or ‘Father”)  is the other.

The way that we imagine – or image – God is so powerful, that the words and phrases that we use to describe our conception get pulled into an orbit which threatens to change their very meaning. The gravitational pull of our language about God is so strong that it will actually warp the words themselves.

May god grant us the kindness and humility to recognize that all of our god-language, signs and symbols are provisional at best and to treat other people kindly and graciously as we walk together in common humanity as I and Thou.

Suggested Reading: 

* Keith Ward . God (2013 edition): A Guide for the Perplexed (Kindle edition). $9.99

Elizabeth Johnson. She Who Is.  Used for under $10

0

Process, Cicadas and Time

Three things have been rattling around in by cranium while I was away this Spring.

1. The cicada’s came back. Every 17 years the Periodical Cicada Brood II emerges to rollick in the Eastern half of the U.S. for a brief but frenzied round of sex and gluttony. We will not see them again for 17 years. It is a phenomenon that always garners it’s fair share of bewilderment and awe.

cicadas

It is appropriate that this baffles most of us. We are set to think in perennial terms and oddities like this don’t fit that narrative. Underneath the soil right now is a massive swarm that we will not hear a peep from until 2030.

2. I was listening to an episode of Smiley and West’s weekly radio show while I was fixing up my parent’s house. The guests were Maceo Parker and Bill Ayers (interesting mix eh?). It was pointed out that sometimes, things just take time. Ayers’ example: Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955. It was not until 1963 that the march in Birmingham took place.

Ayers points out that not everything happens in quick succession. He said this in reference to the Occupy flare-up last year and why it appears that not much has come out of them.

3. Tony Jones had the response to Jack Caputo’s address at the Subverting the Norm conference. Point 2 of Tony’s 13 points was :

Process theology had its chance. If process theology couldn’t get traction in the American church under the auspices of John Cobb in the 1970s, I doubt that it will gain traction with his acolytes. Outside of Claremont (and Homebrewed Christianity), I hear little about process theology. I am not saying that popular theology = good theology; that would make Joel Osteen a theological genius. What I’m saying is that process theology did not capture the imagination of a critical mass of clergy and laypeople in its heyday, so I doubt that it will today. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Cobb was ahead of his time, and the church is only now ready for process.

I know that Process thought will always be on the periphery. It will never be mainstream… and I am o.k. with that. Some things just work better as ‘catchers’ on the outside of the whirlwind.

Here is the thing: many Mainline, progressive or emergent church expressions don’t make that many converts. Some may even think that evangelism is wrong/trite/passé/ or coercive.

You know who does make a lot of converts? The evangelical-charismatic branch of the family. They do.

But not all of their kids or converts find the theological answer persuasive or satisfying after a while. So there is always a large supply of folks cycling out of the evangelical spin-cycle looking for better frameworks and answers … and it just so happens that Process thought can provide that.

Process thought interacts with both Biblical Scholarship and Science with flying colors.

Process even has a built-in interface for engaging other religions. It’s perfect for the pluralism that our world and time are calling for.

Yes – you have to learn some new words and it is admittedly clumsy to transition into from a classical approach. We all acknowledge that. But … and I can not overstate this … if your unhappy with the frameworks that you inherited, what have you got to lose?   Your faith?

If the alternatives are to either:

A) close your eyes and choke-down the medicine

or

B) walk away from the faith altogether

Then what is the harm is picking up some new vocabulary and concepts that allows you to navigate the tricky waters of the 21st century?

I mean, what else are you going to do for the next 17 years while we wait for the cicada’s return?

___

I have been enjoying 2 big books while I was away:

Modern Christian Thought (the twentieth century) and Essentials of Christian Theology – both have significant sections of Process influence.

Cicada Picture: H. Scott Hoffman/News & Record, via Associated Press

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Report Card For New Pope

This weekend I found two stories related to the first 100 days of Pope Francis’ tenure.

The first was a glowing review by an unlikely source. Esquire magazine had a blog that detailed some of the major  highlights.

It has now been a little over a hundred days since Francis took over the Vatican. He famously declared on his first day “The Carnival is over,” by which he meant that he wanted the Church to abandon its luxurious ways. But for Pope-watchers the carnival has just begun. There is serious upheaval in the Vatican, with outsiders brought into major positions of power, and Francis speaking openly of “a current of corruption” in the Curia, but, as an atheist, I don’t really care about any of that. I’m sure it takes guts and brains to try and reform the Church, but whether the Vatican is a strong or a weak institution is of the smallest possible concern to me. What is much more important is how he has used many small gestures to demonstrate the possibilities of compassion.

Read more: Pope Francis Awesome – Pope Francis Is Kind of Great – Esquire
Follow us: @Esquiremag on Twitter | Esquire on Facebook
Visit us at Esquire.com

The second story comes by way of the CBC news show the Current. You can listen to the fascinating segment about the attempt – and difficulties – related to changing the Vatican’s ‘bank’ system and some of the corruption that has recently been uncovered.esq-pope-xlg-14464425

These scandals are notable because the Institute for the Works of Religion (the so-called Vatican Bank) handles billions of dollars in trusts and holdings for the Catholic church. Pope Francis is attempting to change the culture of the hierarchy but scandals like this expose that corruption goes all the way to the highest offices.

Late last week, Italian police arrested Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a high-ranking cleric in the department that manages the Church’s assets. Monsignor Scarano was already under investigation for allegedly laundering money, using the Institute for the Works of Religion — the so-called Vatican Bank.

Now, he is accused — along with two others — of trying to smuggle $20-million-euros out of Switzerland and into Italy, tax-free and undetected by Italian authorities. The arrests came just two days after Pope Francis launched a campaign to clean-up the Vatican Bank, which for decades has been accused of money laundering, corruption and links with the mafia.

While the famous foot-washing of Easter week was a wonderful symbolic act, and while he may be a fun and friendly character … it is matters like this bank scandal (and the billions behind it) that will determine not just the public perception of Pope Francis but ultimately the sustainability of the global Catholic structure.

As you may know, I went out on a limb the day he was elected by saying that this would be a game changer – so I like to keep an eye on his dealings. 

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