Denial of the Resurrection

Peter Rollins has made a challenging statement on his blog entitled, “My Confession: I deny the Resurrection”. The title is provacative, but I think everyone will enjoy the message. Here’s a taste:

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed. – Peter Rollins

I don’t personally think the story of Jesus’ resurrection has much (if any) historical merit. I agree with Marcus Borg who famously said about the empty tomb, “If I had to bet a dollar or my life, then I’d bet that the tomb was either not empty or there was no tomb.” The brilliance of Peter Rollins’ statement is that it dismantles all arguments on all sides of the divisive debate about the literal physical nature of the resurrection. What I hear in Peter’s claim is that acceptance of the resurrection story does not mean claiming intellectual certainty or even a remote hope that it literally happened. Faith is not what modern people often mean when they use the word “belief” as a type of intellectual confidence. Faith is not a measurement of our ability to claim certainty about improvable things. Faith is an affirmation through living.

I hope to affirm that the resurrected Christ lives and breathes today because we are his body that now takes up his cause. I agree with Saint Paul who hinges Christian faith on the resurrection of Christ back into the world. I agree that without Jesus’ message and values becoming real flesh and blood action in the world through us, then our simplistic truth claims and systematic beliefs become meaningless.

Many of my friends can somehow see this bigger picture of faith without discarding the more superstitious views most of us learned as children. For me, I just couldn’t get here from there. The superstitions often stop many people from ever looking for deeper meanings. I am so glad that Peter Rollins challenges the old debates and asks us to move past our disagreements that divide us. I don't think he is suggesting that those debates shouldn't happen, but I’m glad he’s offered this challenge to focus together on the bigger meaning of resurrection.

Hope On A Tightrope

I couldn't write a review of Cornel West that would do him justice, so I'll just leave you with a few of my favorite quotes from his latest book, "Hope on a tightrope".

The book also comes with a wonderful audio recording of Dr. West in dialog with Tavis Smiley.

“Real hope is grounded in a particularly messy struggle and it can be betrayed by naïve projections of a better future that ignore the necessity of doing the real work. So what we are talking about is hope on a tightrope.”

“It takes courage to interrogate yourself. It takes courage to look in the mirror and see past your reflection to who you really are when you take off the mask, when you’re not performing the same old routines and social roles. It takes courage to ask – how did I become so well-adjusted to injustice?”

"I’m a Christian, so I have Jesus in the temple. I have a martyr against the marketeers."

“We need to see the world from the bottom up – through the lens of the cross, but America is so cross-averse.”

“Democracies are predicated not simply on Socratic energy, the critical engagement, and examination of dogmas, but also on trying to shape a person’s character in such a way that whether one is Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, secular, agnostic, or atheistic, you must have compassion for something bigger than your own egocentric predicament. You must be able to make connections across difficult boundaries. In a real democracy, it’s hard to remain tribalistic or regionalistic in any narrow way.”

"The vocation of the intellectual is to turn easy answers into critical questions and to put those critical questions to people with power."

"I am no way optimistic, but I remain a prisoner of hope."

The Brain Science Podcast

I recently discovered Dr. Ginger Campbell's brain science podcast. Her most recent episode was a review of a book by Nancey Murphy and Warren S. Brown (professors at Fuller Theological Seminary). The book "Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?", is an interesting analysis of the latest brain science and a philosophical discussion of freewill, moral responsibility, and emergence theory. I've written about Nancey Murphy's work before so I couldn't resist this podcast. I'm hooked! The podcast can a bit heady (how's that for a nice pun?), but Dr. Campbell does a great job of clearly unpacking terms like reductionism, dualism, physicalism, materialism, monism, and emergence theory.

Enjoy!

On Being Certain

If you are curious about how our brains work and the theological implications of the latest discoveries in neuroscience, then you will enjoy this podcast interview with Dr. Robert Burton the author of “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not”. The author is interviewed by Dr. Ginger Campbell. She runs the BrainSciencePodcast.com and helps make this a very accessible interview despite the complex topic.

Dr. Burton’s assertion is that neuroscience is showing how what we call “knowing” is actually more of a feeling rather than a rational unemotional thought. When we say we know something, we are feeling that we know it in the same way we have other feelings and emotions (love, anger, pain, sadness, etc.). Our ability to know is never perfect, and frequently mistaken. This brings up interesting implications for Epistemology (The study of how we know what we know).

“Thoughts require sensory information (including circuits that tell us when we are thinking a thought). We “know” the nature and quality of our thoughts via feelings not reason. Feelings such as certainty, conviction, rightness, wrongness, clarity, and faith arise out of involuntary mental sensory systems that are integral and inseparable from the thoughts they qualify. The findings of neuroscience challenge our notions of reason and objectivity"

“Certainty is not a biologically justifiable state of mind. There is no such thing as an isolated circuit in the brain that can engage in thought free from involuntary or undetectable influences. We cannot do objective thought.” - Dr. Robert Burton

This is important information for our theological discussions because the myth of an autonomous rational mind is as misguided as the myth of a totally disembodied thinking soul. We are holistic beings of integrated bodies and brains. In other words, we only know how to know things by interpreting them through our senses and our relative perspectives. This is precisely why our own narratives play such large roles in individual positions.

If you would like more information, Dr. Campbell has a detailed review of this book in another podcast episode. I’m fast becoming hooked on her Brain Science Podcast as I work my way though 2 years worth of archived episodes.

Faithful Doubt

I've been in podcast heaven this week. Krista Tippet's Speaking of Faith podcast is a treasure. She recently spoke with author, poet, and doubter, Jennifer Michael Hecht about the history of doubt. I appreciate Jennifer's ability to rescue the tradition of skepticism from the anger of today's new atheists. Lately, I've come to see faith and doubt as complimentary ingredients in our cocktail of thought. When was the last time you enjoyed a glass of lemon juice or a spoon full of sugar? We may disagree about the perfect recipe for lemonade and some of us may opt for more experimentation over more traditional mixtures, but most of us will agree that the bitter-sweet sum of these ingredients is much better than its parts.

My Favorite Podcast

Tripp Fuller and Chad Crawford, have risen to the top of the emergent podcasting world. If you haven't already visited the HomebrewedChristianity.com podcast, then do it now. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Just go to the site now and get some tasty home brewed podcast goodness. Start off by listening to a great show with contemplative prayer guru Richard Rohr.

Why are you still reading this? Only a fool would keep reading my stupid blog. Get the hell out of here!

Holding Government Accountable

Since appointing William Lynn, a lobbyist for Raytheon, to the no. 2 position at the pentagon, Obama signed a much tougher ethics measure for executive branch appointments as his first executive order. Watchdog groups are asking for Obama to retract this earlier appointment that would clearly violate one of his first acts as president. I hope Obama can fix this or provide some kind of valid explanation. This appointment is being held up for further evaluation right now. I don't think it is enough to grandfather in this earlier appointment. I guess a lobbyist free Washington would be impossible at this point in history so it may take a few election cycles to flush them all out, but I really hope Obama's new executive order will squash this appointment.

Is this another valid case of not wanting to change too much too fast? Or is it the reality that keeping Robert Gates means living with his input in defense appointments?

Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon, with 2007 sales of $21.3 billion, specializes in worldwide defense and homeland security-related markets.

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[EDITED 1/24/09:]

According the Chicago Tribune, Robert Gates was responsible for this appointment (though the Obama Team approved it). Obama's executive order could create the first conflict with this holdover from the Bush administration.

...Gates pushed hard for Lynn's appointment and favored him over other officials suggested by the Obama transition team. At a news conference Thursday, Gates said he was impressed with Lynn and argued he should get the job despite the lobbying ban.

"I asked that an exception be made because I felt that he could play the role of the deputy in a better manner than anybody else that I saw," Gates said. - Julian E. Barnes - the Chicago Tribune
full article...

The Big Picture

The inauguration is over. Thanks to Boston.com for giving us this breath taking big picture recap of this great event. The world is hopeful again.

End of an Error - Start of an Era

Not only is this a monumental day for race relations in America, but I hope that it is the end of a political mindset. This country has been held in the grip of lies, propaganda, and political spin that caused the majority of Americans to distrust and loath ourselves. Thanks to the lingering effects of cold war propaganda, we lost the notion of "we the people". We've had a case of patriotic amnesia. For nearly 40 years we've been told "no we can't" when it comes our forefather's dreams of self-government. The neo-conservative mindset told us we are evil and we cannot govern. They told us we must turn our nation over to a few powerful business leaders who "know better". They told us that business interests would care for us while taking only a small fee for the service. They told us that in order to be safe, we must preemptively attack and kill "evil" in the name of "good". They sold us on the modern version of Pax Romana that created a false sense of peace through violent displays of power.

It is the way we read and interpret our history that determines our path forward. I have hope that today an old error is over. Today we begin a new era that believes our nation became great through patriotism and justice rather than greed and violence.

January Adventure 2009

This is a big week. I was lucky enough to start the week with five hundred (I'm guessing) progressive Christians at the January Adventure in Emerging Christianity at St. Simons Island, Ga. This retreat has become an tradition for me. It was the forth year I've attended and I've made many friends. This annual retreat is a progressive oasis in the desert of the bible-belt.

The speakers and topics this year were...

Marcus Borg - "Paul for the Rest of Us: A Radical Apostle for an Emerging Future."

Diana Butler Bass - "Tradition for the Rest of Us: Exploring the Past for an Emerging Future"

Yep, you read that right. The conference was about two of my least favorite things: st. Paul and church tradition. It wasn't as bad as that might sound. Marcus Borg, my favorite author, gave us a sneak preview of his yet to be released book on reclaiming Paul and Diana Butler Bass made a great case for the importance of remembering our history in order to create a progressive future. I enjoyed them both. Mostly I enjoyed being with a group of like minded progressive people. I love diversity, but sometimes you need to feel like you are in a safe place where you don't have to defend your views.

If anyone is interested, the speakers next year will be John Dominic Crossan and Paul Rauschenbusch. The dates and details will be available in a couple of months at januaryadventure.org.

WTF?

"murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time" - G.W. Bush 1/15/2009

Yep, he actually said that. I'm floored by what Bush said in his farewell address tonight. How could he say this with a straight face as he defends his own doctrine of using war to spread his ideals? I guess his excuse is that his ideals are not really "ideals". Can somebody explain this?

Goodbye George. You don't have to go home, but just go.

Jesus in CGI – Incarnation and Cinematography

CGI (computer generated imagery) has changed the way movies are made. Many people agree that the use of CGI as extravagant eye candy has decreased the overall quality of movies. I have seen it used well occasionally. Some of my favorite CGI scenes are the dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park” and the grand battlefield scenes in “The Gladiator”. Those scenes are beautiful and they make perfect use of CGI to help the author’s imagination come to life in a believable way. It doesn’t always work so well. The story line of the Matrix is one of my all time favorites and it’s a wonderful movie, but the CGI eventually becomes a distraction for me (even more so in the two horrible sequels). When the CGI effects steal the show, the overall value of the movie is diminished as the movie eventually becomes less real and more difficult to believe.

So what does CGI have to do with the theology of God becoming man? Our language about the incarnation of God into the world as the living Christ can bring the story to life or it can make the whole story look silly and unbelievable. The history of human theological endeavor contains a variety of hits and misses. Most of the misses might be blamed on too many philosophical special effects. We can find the first traces of this phenomenon by watching the story of Jesus develop over the decades between its earliest versions and the final full blow CGI presentation in the gospel of John. I’ve recently come to grips with John’s symbolic portrait of Jesus, but for many fundamentalists, the special effects have become the entire focus of their theology. Current flavors of fundamentalism rely heavily on a kind of CGI interpretation of God that fills in the gaps where human actors could not possibly succeed. By fixating on the imagery, the underlying plot is lost.

This brings us to an ironic twist. The idea of God becoming incarnate in Jesus was originally a beautiful attempt to show God as something more real, more human, and more in our reach. But like a cheesy summer block buster, Christianity may have allowed our thirst for action and larger than life cinematography to spoil the plot. I’m not suggesting that we take a Jeffersonian response that butchers the script and removes all the symbolic scenes, but if we continue to craft Jesus with heavy doses of CGI, we may undo what the plot of incarnation means to accomplish – show God as something we can access, relate to, and believe in.

Contrast those CGI movies with a movie like M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable”. Here we have the presentation of a comic book character (something outside of our experience and understanding) in a more down to earth package. This movie seeks to realize the unreal. The story suggests that a superhero might be more plausible than we first thought rather than using CGI to help us visualize something less plausible. This movie still coaxes our belief, but not by suggesting that we suspend our inclinations of reality. The result is a more authentic connection to the subject and a more believable story.

Modernity has left us feeling tired from the fight between secularists debunking the mythic CGI scenes in the Christian story and fundamentalists trying to blur lines with apologetic theological cinematography. Both sides of that battle have chosen a naive approach to studying myths. The postmodern response to this problem is to embrace the story without trying to defend its historicity. Postmodern responses transcend the modern era bible wars by seeking to make the values of Jesus more realistic now rather than insisting that the facts were real then. The result might mean fewer Christians waiting around to have our mistakes corrected in post-production and more Christians accurately portraying the values of Jesus in each scene of our lives.

Poking Fun at Fruity Computers

I've been in the technology industry for 20 years and I have to admit that I don't like Apple. They represent the worst aspects of American consumerism focused on Madison Avenue glitz that markets cool over substance. Here is the latest parody of this over hyped brand that has become the Tommy Hilfiger of technology.


Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Christ and Cosmology

Traditional understandings of the supernatural events surrounding Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and second coming (parousia) have faced many challenges by the development of cosmology. Just as the dualism of Plato and Descartes shaped incarnation and atonement, ancient and medieval cosmology has impacted the way Christians developed thoughts about Jesus’ survival and return. Attempts by the church to limit the development of cosmology have left very deep scars in the academic community. Copernicus and Galileo were not exactly awarded sainthood by the church. In chapter 4 of “Christology and Science”, LeRon Shults attempts to rethink this aspect of theology by humbly working with science rather than fighting it.

These cosmological developments challenge several aspects of traditional formulations in Christian eschatology, perhaps even more deeply than the rejection of empyrean sphere and elemental astrology by Newtonian mechanics. Here we have issues that go far beyond simply giving up the tiered hierarchical cosmos presupposed in some expressions of Jesus’ ascension. The idea that Christ will “return” from a place in the cosmos at a particular point on a timeline, simultaneous to all observers, is itself rendered problematic in light of relativity theory.

This clearly undercuts the whole enterprise of trying to determine the date for such an event on an (absolute) “time-line,” but it also opens up a whole range of new possibilities for Christian eschatology. The main point at this stage in the argument is that we must engage the cosmological assumptions of our own context, just as Origen and Thomas (and others) engaged theirs. Undoubtedly our current understandings of space and time will seem equally inadequate to future generations, but this should not keep us from embracing the ongoing theological task of reforming Christology.

We can no longer imagine Jesus going “up” into heaven or literally coming back “down” on a cloud. The Christian tradition has tried to uphold the intuition that the resurrection, ascension, and coming of Jesus are in some sense “bodily”. At the same time the tradition has wanted to affirm (with Paul) that Jesus became a life giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Again, the dualism of material and immaterial substances led theologians to some dicey conclusions. Fundamentalists continue to marginalize Christianity by setting it against science and suggesting that being Christian actually means adopting ancient or medieval superstitions (their "world view"). We do have other options. Some current day Christians accept science but don’t have any problems using religious metaphors that seem silly in the face of our present understanding of the world. Other people of faith abandoned the language completely (maybe even the term “Christian”). Bishop John Shelby Spong famously said, “Christianity must change or die”. To be honest, I’m not sure which option is better, but I’m not ready to give up yet. I’m still holding hope that Christianity can survive after the end of Cartesian dualism.

The latest scientific discoveries do present new metaphors for discussing what it might mean to transform our way of being and incarnating divine values. The very notion of matter itself has been refigured as a result of late modern developments in physical cosmology. Today even particle physics is not really about actual “particles”, but rather about relationships within a shared energy field. Matter is no longer center stage in the discussion and it has been replaced by concepts such as organization, complexity and information. Take for example the property of “wetness”, which is not a property of individual water molecules, but emerges when they are organized appropriately in sufficient quantities. Similarly, as chemical reactions in inorganic materials increase beyond the threshold of complexity they power what we have come to call “living metabolism”. It is the collective emergent properties of these materials that we call life. These new scientific understandings give us rich metaphorical language to describe the coming of Christ as a web of interrelated parts that bring about the emergence of a greater whole. The cosmology of the 21st century may well bring even more ways for us to imagine what the New Testament authors described as “the kingdom of God” and “the body of Christ”.