Making the Bible an Idol

I really appreciate and share John Piper's love of the Bible and I think that underneath his narrow polarizing language there is a valid criticism of "trendy faith". His ability to inspire emotion is amazing and takes me back to my early childhood experiences of faith. However, I wonder if Piper is suggesting that we become blind to the Christ that lives in the world today in many people, places and things. Do you think he is so caught up in the particular stories that opened his own eyes to the love of Christ, that he now discounts the many ways other people find Christ?



It seems to me that sharing culturally relevant stories that communicate the central meanings about God’s love and community is not only ok, it is an act of being true to Jesus by imitating his own love of symbolic parables. Why must we favor our own stories and myths over the universal meanings hidden within them?

"The best way to waste your pulpit is to preach your own thoughts, instead of preaching God's thoughts" - John Piper

Isn't this another way for a preacher to say...

"Don't think, just check your brains at the church door. Of course, I can think because my thoughts are really God's thoughts."

If Piper really believed what he said, then why does he preach? Wouldn't he just read scripture from the pulpit? What is he really suggesting here?

The Bible is a lens to understand how particular people experienced God. We can learn so much for its texts, but when we make it an idol, it feels like we lose sight of the living Christ that is at work in the world. Christ is present. I’m in complete support of Piper’s devotion to Christ, but we shouldn't have to limit Christ to the works and experiences of the past.

Midrash and Allegory

Midrash texts make heavy use of literary allegory to illustrate meaning. A common technique is to tell us about new characters by having them replay events or speak words of older Biblical characters. In fact, in Jewish literature, every story that can claim inspiration must somehow be connected with a sacred moment of the past. This was something common to even the canonized Torah. The story of Joshua is told through the lens of Moses. Rich allegory is used to paint Joshua (Yahoshua, Hebrew for “Savior”) as the new Moses who takes over as the next heroic figure in Jewish antiquity. The Joshua story draws on symbolic acts of Moses including the way they told about the Israelites crossing the Jordan River in a miracle that is clearly an allegory to the Red Sea crossing a generation earlier. Even the Garden of Eden stories and their more developed Midrash complimentary texts appear to be formed as allegoric reference to the Promised Land.

Why is this important to Christians? To understand our own defining texts (the Gospels), we need to recognize their roots in Midrash. Long before western thinkers literalized our myths and symbols, Jesus (Greek for Joshua or savior) had his own life captured by writers steeped in Midrash tradition. Starting with a birth story that compares Jesus and Moses as survivors of infant genocide and ending with an ascension to the heavens that grounds Jesus in the legend of Elijah, the gospels tell us about Jesus through well known stories of Jewish antiquity. In between those two events, these symbolic Gospels include a story about the parting of heavens that is set in the Jordan River, another story about a walk across water, a dramatic set of new commandments delivered from a mountain, and a Palm Sunday donkey ride borrowed from the prophetic words of Isaiah. That merely scratches the surface of the allegorical texts in the gospels. All seem to point to the creative techniques of Midrash.

When studying midrash, students realize the question to ask of the texts is not, Did it really happen? That is a western question tied to a western mind-set that seeks by sensory perception to measure and describe those things defined as objectively real.
…
The proper question of the midrsh tradition is, what was the experience that led, or even compelled, the compilers of the sacred tradition to include this moment, this life, or this event inside the interpretive framework of their sacred past? What was there about Jesus of Nazareth that required the meaning of his life to be interpreted through the stories of Abraham and Isaac, Moses and the Passover, Exodus and wilderness, Sinai and the promised land, Hnnah and Samuel, David and Solomon, Elijah and Elisha, the servant figure and the son of man, Pentecost and Tabernacles, and a thousand other choices that served to incorporate the life of Jesus into the meaning of God known in the history of the Jewish people? That is the midrash question of which we were ignorant for so long, the question that could not be asked in any substantive way until we developed Jewish eyes and Jewish minds with which to read and understand our own holy gospel. – Bishop John Shelby Spong, “Resurrection: Myth or Reality” (p.9)

When I first began to look at the Gospels as symbolic narratives, I was concerned about the implications. Had we been lied to? Was this a 2000-year-old hoax? Was the modern liberal attempts to trivialize the stories the only way out of this problem? I think the answer to each of those questions is, No. Understanding the Gospels as products of Midrash tradition eliminates the intention of hoax and it provides for a reconciliation of ancient stories, modern scholarship, and postmodern deconstruction.

From Lament to Hope – Words Matter

Barack Obama made a speech yesterday that proved words do matter. Having a president with command of language, a cool temperament and a level head is crucial to our success as a nation. It would be a dramatic change to the present administration and the old methods of Washington politics.

The words of Rev. Jeremiah Wright echoed the Old Testament prophets. Obama correctly addressed the meaning of those words and placed them in the category of painful mourning. Those words remind us of the heartfelt cry of the book of Lamentations. The book of Lamentations is critical to the Old Testament message of eschatological hope. We need Lamentations. We must morn our loss of justice, our painful racism, and the exile from freedom just as the Israelites did. This is noteworthy during Holy Week. We cannot find our resurrection until we grieve our loss. There must be a Saturday, before their can be an Easter Sunday. Obama helped us feel that yesterday.

Obama's speech yesterday said all of those things to me. Essentially, he said the problem with Wright’s sermon was that he (or maybe the media's coverage of him) only got as far as Lamentations. Obama called us to move on and to recognize our progress. We live in a post-Easter world and to lament without hope would be to deny Jesus his vindication. Obama said clearly that we've already made great strides in this world and the kingdom of God is not only a possibility, but it is also a growing reality. The justice filled kingdom of God is at hand. Obama is proof. We need more of it.

God, damn the ways of empire! God, bring your kingdom in full!

Should God Damn America?

The modern Western strain of Christianity has nearly forsaken the ancient art of prophetic voice. Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been criticized for his recent prophetic language because so many of us forgot what a prophet sounds like. Didn’t anyone bother to check this guy’s first name? Compared to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, Rev. Wright is rather tame. In one sense, Rev. Wright was simply quoting Jesus.

The prophet Jeremiah calls Israel, a prostitute, a corrupt wild vine, a craving wild donkey in heat, and then he slings curses on their children and children’s children. That is only chapter 2! He does this for another 23 chapters. Why does he say such outlandish things? He is offering a bit of creative prophetic imagination that criticizes the rampant injustice in Israel as its wealthy elite ruling class had turned their backs on the ideals of Jewish community. Their covenant with God to create a just society had been broken by their greed and arrogance.

This is what the LORD Almighty says:
"Cut down the trees
and build siege ramps against Jerusalem.
This city must be punished;
it is filled with oppression. (Jeremiah 6:6)
...
Take warning, O Jerusalem,
or I will turn away from you
and make your land desolate
so no one can live in it." (Jeremiah 6:8)

I’m not sure how you hear that, but I feel certain the wealthy elite in Israel heard that as “God Damn Israel!” I think this message is particularly appropriate for us on the Monday of Holy week as we celebrate the day Jesus entered the political capital of Israel and staged a public protest as he echoed the words of Jeremiah (7:11) calling the Temple a “den of robbers”. A couple days later Jesus called for the complete destruction of the Temple. Jesus was clearly a “Jeremiah” style of prophet also as he was essentially suggesting that God would soon damn Jerusalem.

It is important to remember that all these prophets offer us a way out of God’s damnation. We often overlook the fact that when Jesus borrows the phrase, den of robbers, he was making an intentional allegory to the same argument Jeremiah had used against Israel. This is clearly stated in the verses just prior to verse 11.

5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. (Jeremiah 7:5-7)

Should God damn America? I think the choice is ours to make. Are any of these prophets expressing hatred for their nation? Absolutely not! Do they really desire the wrath of God to be poured out on their friends, family, and political leaders? No, not at all. These types of prophetic voices are legitimate criticisms with sincere pleas for change. We shouldn't be afraid of these types of statements. We should worry if they ever stop, because it would mean that all hope for change had been lost.

Can America stop our path to damnation? Yes We Can!

Emergent Theology and Midrash

The term Midrash describes a library of ancient Jewish commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures. One type of Midrash took the form of a collage. The creator of the Midrash might put one passage from the Bible on the center of a page. Then, he would surround the passage with a variety of commentaries pulled from different generations of rabbis. Each of the commentaries displayed a different perspective. Some often disagreed or challenged one another. It sounds like an Emergent Cohort!

This method invites the reader of Midrash into the process of interpretation. The reader can consider each commentary and allow the entire collection to speak. This act moves the reading of scripture from passive to active interpretation and from individual to communal meaning. It encourages the reader to wrestle with different perspectives. This visual form of exegesis allows meaning to emerge through the active dialog between the present reader, generations of ancient commentators, and the Biblical text.

Too often, our study of scripture devolves into a form of intellectual masturbation as we wrestle with texts on our own. Another common problem is when we let a single human authority dictate the meanings for us. Midrash combines generational wisdom, individual enlightenment, and a profound sense of community as we are encouraged to work together through the historic and present meanings. I appreciate this Midrash form of communal and inter-generational interpretation. Midrash forces us to move from a blind allegiance towards a holistic understanding of deep meaning. It helps us see the Bible as God's living Word not simply God's words.

Emergent communities are becoming more aware of the transcendent in popular culture. Music, art, poetry, and even movies are all thin places that allow us to glimpse the transcendent. One Emergent use of Midrash techniques is to borrow this notion of surrounding a passage of scripture with a collage of poems, lyrics, and pictures. I can imagine how effective that might be as a group activity. Combining ancient writings with layers of historical and current voices allow us to connect to our sacred texts.

Read more posts about Midrash

God Made Real

How does something outside of human reality become real to humans? God first became real to many of us through the love of our parents. For many, God becomes real in the story of Jesus. God becomes real when a hungry person is fed or a naked person is clothed. What makes God real for you?

To be honest, the traditional Christian view of a literal exclusive incarnation of God in Jesus makes the whole thing seem less real. I don't want a comic book superhero Jesus. It seems too convenient to slap the "real" label on all your own bizarre religions ideas and stories while labeling every other attempt to describe God as false. That view has taken something beautiful and used it to create division, competition, and even death. If I had not found another way to view the incarnation of God in Jesus, I probably would have left Christianity.

I prefer to understand incarnation as a metaphor describing the manifestation of God’s will done on Earth. This symbolic understanding is not meant to suggest that God is not a reality. The issue is not if God is real but how God becomes a reality in the world and in our lives. The ineffable reality (i.e. incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable) becomes manifest into the physical world as we carry out God's will. God becomes "real" as people embody the values, character traits, and priorities that we associate with God. Until it is felt or expressed, love is only a concept, but there are many ways to incarnate love. The Jesus of the gospel stories becomes the Christian incarnation of God’s word (logos, wisdom, divine reason). For Christians, the stories about Jesus portray the best example of how that might look in human form. Then in turn, Christians incarnate Jesus as we express his character in our own lives. Paul described those people living out Jesus' message as the symbolic body of Christ in the same way that Jesus had become known as the symbolic body of God. I agree.

John Hick has written a helpful article on his website called "Who or What is God?". Here is an excerpt:

The basic principle that we are aware of anything, not as it is in itself unobserved, but always and necessarily as it appears to beings with our particular cognitive equipment, was brilliantly stated by Aquinas when he said that ‘Things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower’ (S.T., II/II, Q. 1, art. 2). And in the case of religious awareness, the mode of the knower differs significantly from religion to religion. And so my hypothesis is that the ultimate reality of which the religions speak, and which we refer to as God, is being differently conceived, and therefore differently experienced, and therefore differently responded to in historical forms of life within the different religious traditions.

I don't think we should overlook or discount the impact of our experiences. For example, the I-Thou experience that one finds in prayer, mediation, religious ritual, or even in nature. Again, Hick has another great insight:

What does this mean for the different, and often conflicting, belief-systems of the religions? It means that they are descriptions of different manifestations of the Ultimate; and as such they do not conflict with one another. They each arise from some immensely powerful moment or period of religious experience, notably the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment under the Bo tree at Bodh Gaya, Jesus’ sense of the presence of the heavenly Father, Muhammad’s experience of hearing the words that became the Qur’an, and also the experiences of Vedic sages, of Hebrew prophets, of Taoist sages. But these experiences are always formed in the terms available to that individual or community at that time and are then further elaborated within the resulting new religious movements.

Piper on Prosperity

This video is getting a ton of exposure in the blogosphere. It features the modern poster boy for the reformed movement, John Piper. I can’t say much good about Piper’s theology, but the production value of this video is good and I do agree with his criticism of the prosperity Gospel. Here is my issue. How is Piper’s manipulative Gospel message any better? His Gospel also relies on a consumer mentality based on the same transactional model. Follow God and you get something in return and in addition you should follow God because he is powerful and demands it. Is a "stick" better than a "carrot"? Both seem to be based on emotional manipulation rather than sound logic.

• Prosperity Gospel says, follow Jesus and you’ll get a new car.
  
• John Piper says, follow Jesus and he’ll make you feel better in your loss.
  
• Prosperity Gospel says, follow Jesus and you’ll get a better job.
  
• John Piper says, follow Jesus and God will be your treasure.
  
• Prosperity Gospel says, believe in Jesus and he will lift you out of poverty.
  
• John Piper says, believe in Jesus and he will save you from hell.

Isn’t that the same consumer mentality? Aren’t both of these views simply creating a religion based on an individual cost benefit analysis?

What ever happened to the idea of following Jesus because he had some good ideas? I'm not wild about making it so complex and emotionally manipulative. I chose to follow Jesus simply because I agree with his message about non-violent protest against injustice and I have faith that his concept for a new way of life is possible. I agree with Piper that Christianity should be based on a life of sacrifice, but not because of a divine mandate or because God's ego demands obedience and worship. Shouldn't we sacrifice because we agree it is a better choice and it makes the world a better place?

Tony Jones Rocks!

After seeing this clip of Tony discussing the term "born again" with a reformed pastor and critic of Emergent, I'm more convinced that I like Tony Jones. He just made my list of top 20 people I'd like to have a beer with. Not only does Tony make wonderful points about some big problems with reformed theology, he also managed not to be an asshole in the process. That really earned my respect. I wish I could do that. I'm simply not an effective communicator and I am not nearly as cool as Tony in the heat of a debate. I have this type of conversation all the time and it never ends up this cordial. Maybe having a camera in the room helps keep the conversation more civil. Then again, maybe I'm just an asshole.

The clip below is part 3 of 3. The first 2 parts have some better debate and you can find those other clips on YouTube if you are interested, but I thought Tony's answer about being born again at the end of this clip is an Emergent classic. Rock on Tony!

The Metaphor of Incarnation

For Christianity, this is where the rubber meets the road. To be Christian in any way means that you somehow feel Jesus incarnates God. I affirm that statement, but it is simply too ambiguous to have any significant meaning on its own. Albert Mohler would also affirm this statement, but we would likely mean very different things. The issue for me is not “if” Jesus incarnates God. Instead, the issue is all about “how” that happens and what exactly we mean when we say it.

John Hick is an internationally read and discussed philosopher of religion and theologian. His many books have, between them, been translated into seventeen languages. I read his book “The Metaphor of God Incarnate” last year and it helped me to crack open the doctrine of Christology like no other book I’ve read. This had been something I avoided. Born and raised as a conservative Evangelical, I was taught not to ask such questions. These doctrines about Jesus’ divinity were supposed to be off the list of acceptable topics. It was never important what it meant, but only that you repeat it as often as possible and with as much emotion as you could muster. At some point in my journey, that shallow denial of reality was just not enough. I could no longer participate in a faith that required me to “check my brain at the door” and ignore the 300 lb gorilla in the room. I’ve learned in my lifetime that when people are afraid of questions, it is always because they know deep down that their answers are inadequate. Still, I'm not ready to give up my faith tradition.

John Hick has done a wonderful job of opening this language of incarnation without loosing its power to change our lives. Conservatives have treated the incarnation as a rare bottle of wine, hidden away in cellar, possessed, revered, showcased on Sunday morning, often treated as an object of pride and boasting, but rarely opened and enjoyed. However, Jesus is not an exhaustible resource. There is no reason to fear opening this bottle up and enjoying it. To follow Christ is to open the best bottle first and let it be enjoyed by all because this wine will never run out. A believable understanding of incarnation is necessary for the survival of Christianity in the 21st century and offers great hope for the end of divisive competitive religious polarization and war.

You can read a short essay by John Hick called “Believable Christianity” on his website. Here is a quote:

Am I suggesting, then, that we should drop the language of incarnation? No, I'm suggesting that we should understand it in a different way. The idea of incarnation is a powerful metaphorical idea. It means to embody some ideal or conviction in one's life. We all know what is meant when someone says that, for example, Nelson Mandela, after the triumph of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, incarnated the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. He embodied this in his life and actions. And the metaphor of divine incarnation, according to which Jesus embodied an overwhelming awareness of the goodness and love of God, is intelligible, believable, and morally challenging. The official dogma, on the other hand, is neither intelligible, nor believable, nor morally challenging. For if Jesus, as number two in the Trinity living a human life, was sinless and perfect, what sort of a role model is that for we ordinary human beings? We are not God incarnate, we are sinful, frail and imperfect, and we need a human model whom we can follow and by whom we can be challenged. And the human Jesus of Nazareth was just that. We can take him as our lord in the sense of - to use an eastern word now much in use in the west - our guru, someone whom we try to follow as our role model. - John Hick, 2006

I recongnize this is "too far" for many Evangelical rooted Emergents. They would prefer to keep a cork on this topic, but there is so much to be gained here. Many of the painful frustrations felt within the Emergent groups are due to an unwillingness to have this discussion. The result is often ambiguity, division, and confusion. It doesn't have to be that way. We've made theology so much harder than it has to be by attempting to literalize our metaphors and myths to the point that they become incomprehensible and bizarre. Incarnation is a beautiful story. Let's open it up and let it breath.

Emergent Change

I really enjoy the podcasts presented by Emergent Village. I highly recommend the latest podcast with Don Heatley of Vision Community Church. It's a message that many in the emerging conversation will enjoy.

“I find it so sad that this beautiful elegant universe that physicists are discovering is unfamiliar to so many Christians. There is a cruel irony that the reason for this ignorance is that so many Christians are still struggling with the discoveries of science in the 19th century – people like Charles Darwin – that they are not even up to the 20th and 21st century yet. All because their allegiance is to the words (small “w”) and not to the Word of God (capital “W”).”

This echoes my own personal view that Christianity cannot become post-modern until it first becomes modern. I think many people in the emerging conversation mistakenly assume being post-modern means returning to an ancient worldview and rejecting modern science and theology. Actually, being post-modern means we embrace and come to terms with the discoveries of modernity. Once we've done that, then we are free to move past the ancient vs. modern fights that developed as a result of modernity. Now we can rediscover how the deep truths wrapped in our ancient stories, myths, symbols, and rituals can still enrich our lives in a post enlightenment world with the realization that these stories are not literally true but eternally truth-filled.

A Just God

David Hilfiker is a physician and co-founder of Joseph's House. He's the author of "Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor and Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen". I just listened to Krista Tippett's interview with him on Speaking of Faith. I appreciate his insight into the issues of poverty in America. He gave an interesting answer to Krista’s question about his faith, his uncertainty, and his difficulty in defining the nature of God?

"I can’t even answer the question. I don’t experience God in ways that I recognize from what others say about their experiences of God. So, while I’m a member of our faith community, I struggle with the definition of being a Christian. What I know is that struggling with the realities of injustice and living in a community of people who are also struggling with those issues and are unwilling to settle for pat answers - those two things make a far deeper and richer life than any I could imagine any place else. It is that depth of life that I sense is as close as I can get to defining God."

What a brave and honest answer. Having a pat answer for spiritual experiences is not a sign of faith. Instead, faith is the ability to follow in the absence of pat answers. Hilfiker goes on to quote the prophet Jeremiah and reference Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on the passage.

“He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me? declares the LORD.“ - Jeremiah 22:16

"It’s not just that caring for the needy acquaints you with God, but caring for the needy is God." - Walter Brueggemann

Hilfiker didn't seem very confident in his ability to understand. But for me, his life and work explains it perfectly. He went on to describe why charity is not enough. We have to work to change the systems which institute injustice so that charity will no longer be needed.

Intelligent Design on Trial

NOVA will air a special called “Judgement Day – Intelligent Design on Trial” November 13th at 8PM. The show will unpack the important case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District which was reported to be a 6 week trial of testimony regarding evolution and intelligent design. Here are a few excerpts from the transcription which is also available online.

Q: Why is this topic—and the teaching of evolution—so important?

Paula S. Apsell[Senior Executive Producer of NOVA]: Recent polls tells us that 48 percent—almost half of all Americans—still question evolution and still believe that some kind of alternative should be taught in the public schools. What happens when half of the population doesn't accept one of the most fundamental underpinnings of the sciences? Evolution is the absolute bedrock of the biological sciences. It's essential to medical science, agriculture, biotechnology. And it's critical to understanding the natural world around us.

We're a country built on our command of the sciences and technology. But we now face a crisis in science literacy that could threaten our progress in these areas and ultimately threaten our quality of life. So, at NOVA and at Vulcan, we feel that understanding the importance of evolution, and enhancing science literacy in general, are more crucial than ever.

Dr. Kenneth Miller [A biologist testifying on behalf of evolution]:The whole idea of intelligent design is a confession on the part of its advocates that they actually can't get any evidence at all in favor of a designer. So what they resort to is the notion that it's either evolution or it's design. And if evolution right now, today, cannot explain everything, that lack of a complete explanation amounts to evidence for the other side.

Thank you Michael Westmorland-White for posting information about the show. Michael is a Baptist minister in Kentucky who has just made a series of well written posts about Creation and Evolution that includes a detailed exegesis of both Genesis creation myths (you did know there were 2 right?). His blog represents all the best qualities of the Baptist faith tradition.

Repent and Believe

My recent reading has forced me to reconnect with a time in my life when I was brainwashed by biblical literalism. I do realize that at the heart of fundamentalism is a sincere desire to please God and follow Jesus. That should be applauded even though we forgot to consider if God would really want to be pleased (as if he was a human). Many have mistaken what it means to follow Jesus.

N.T. Wright makes a great point about how biblical interpretation keeps growing as our understanding of its ancient culture expands. Wright points to a phrase in Josephus’ work (Life of Flavious Josephus; 110) when he confronted a rebel during the Jewish / Roman War, Josephus wanted to convince this rebel to stop the futile attempts of attacking the Roman Empire and look for other ways to achieve his desired results. Josephus told the rebel to “Repent and believe in me”. In Greek that is, “metanoesein kai pistos emoi genesesthai”. There is no doubt that what Josephus was attempting to do for this man was save him from obvious peril. Josephus had seen the carnage left by previous attempts at rebellion against the Empire.

Wright goes on to explain that going back to Jesus' call for repentance and examining it in context is what allowed Martin Luther to re-examine the medieval Catholic doctrine of penitence. Luther realized it was off base. He recognized that this concept of repentance wasn’t consistent with the process of individuals confessing and being forgiven by a priest. He realized these words used in the first century meant a call to stop your misguided actions. Wright points out that Luther only got the exegesis half right. What Luther missed was that the call to belief (pistos) was not a request to adapt to a new set of spiritual beliefs Instead, it was a request to change your entire approach. It was about believing Jesus’ methods were better than the methods of “this world”. It meant agreeing to follow Jesus’ example by stopping the attempts to change the world using the ways of the world (violence, coercion, and war) and using the powers of God (love, forgiveness, justice, and mercy).

The more I criticize fundamentalism the more I realize I need to repent from using the ways of the world (ridicule, mockery, verbal attacks, etc) and believe that Jesus’ methods of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and mercy are better tools to accomplish my goals. This is a hard lesson for me and I recognize that I’m effected by the disappointment of learning I was brainwashed most of my life. I feel cheated that much of this information was available but intentionally hidden from me by the ignorance of Christianity in the deep south. I feel there is a path forward within Christianity. We can find common ground but it starts by ending the demonization of anyone outside our own viewpoint. Liberals must begin to realize fundamentalists are good people who have real fears about the immorality surrounding them. Fundamentalists need to stop using their particular interpretations of the bible (fundamental doctrines) as if they were the actual texts. It might even be good if they learned what the word “liberal” really means. If they did, they might even start using that term to describe Jesus.

Divine Child Abuse or Cosmic Suicide?

This is the last post about my disagreement with the basic assumptions of John Stott’s book “The Cross of Christ”. After this, I'll try to wrestle with ways to build bridges between Christians with different theological views.

John Stott doesn’t describe how the divinity of Jesus could physically happen so I’m left to try and guess how he might imagine it. I guess he wants us to imagine that God is a physical being (atoms, molecules, flesh) or that God must be able to temporarily become physical matter and interact and possibly even mate with a human (a type of shape-shifting to human form as needed). This is again something commonly found in Greek and Roman mythology as the gods from time to time intervene in sexual relationships with humans to produce divine sons leading their people to victory. Both Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar had divine birth stories defining them as sons of god and they had corresponding religious narratives created to honor and immortalize their political achievements. Most modern religions have correctly labeled that type of thinking as ancient symbolism rather than historical facts. Fundamentalists insist on hanging the validity of their faith on the historical accuracy of these stories which often leads to missing the more than literal meaning. I don't want the validity and fate of my Christian faith to hinge on something that will not last much longer. I think there is a better solution.

Finally, Stott wants us to assume that any statement made by any biblical author is actually something said by God. This is more than saying the bible is “God’s Word”. It is saying that the bible is "God’s words" (plural). Even most modern Evangelicals wouldn’t take this hard line literalistic approach. This means that if one of the gospel writers has his Jesus character say something, then Stott wants us to assume that the historical Jesus said it and phrased it exactly as the character in the story said it. Even highly symbolic language in books like the Gospel of John are supposed to be historical accounts. That is a huge stretch and it forces us to do intellectual back flips in order to fill in the resulting holes in the theory. It eliminates the important factor of the author's intent which is actually the most valuable aspect of any story.

We are left with a choice between divine child abuse or cosmic suicide. Stott favors the suicide option by stressing the fact that it is God himself who sacrifices his own life on the cross. The biggest problem I've had in getting through this book is that it makes too many metaphysical assumptions and concerns itself mainly with arguing for one formula of cosmic atonement over another. These types of doctrines reduce Jesus to the level of a silly comic book character and I feel like this book spends page after page trying to decide if kryptonite will kill Superman or simply render him ineffective. At least it reminds me of an interesting song...

Vampire Theology

Just in time for Halloween, I’m continuing my thoughts on the classic theory of atonement described in “The Cross of Christ” by John Stott.

I’m beginning to realize that maybe instead of a sci-fi movie or Greek mythology, the appropriate analogy for his description of atonement might be a B-grade horror flick. To make his theory work, you must make another assumption borrowed from Greek philosophy. In order for atonement to have its purpose of securing a preferred status in afterlife (heaven vs. hell) their must be a dualistic separation between physical bodies and spiritual souls. In other words, there needs to be something immortal which could be “alive” or “animated” outside of our physical body and then “saved” or “condemned”. It is a clever but very ancient way of explaining human intelligence and emotions. We can thank Plato for this mind/body dualism but it may not have been applied to the life of Jesus until Christianity began spreading outside the ancient Jewish world.

Most people today would understand “soul” as a symbol for our passion, hopes, and purpose and we would recognize our highly refined intellectual skills as a product of evolution. But for fundamentalists, atonement theory requires an ancient application of the word “soul” as a ghost-like being living within our body and surviving after our death. It is debatable if Jesus would have had that view given his setting in 1st century Jewish culture. Jesus lived in a time where the worldview of his people was shifting to embrace the Greek philosophy so it is possible but not probable that he embraced that shift. That logic had not been deeply absorbed into the Jewish religion. Even if Jesus did embrace this dualistic philosophy, most modern biblical scholars find it hard to imagine that he would have understood an otherworldly aspect to the system of sin and forgiveness. For Jews, sins are clearly actions that have their origin and resolution here on earth so the idea of sin and forgiveness playing out in a cosmic battle with stakes that are beyond our sight seems to be out of context for Jesus. This might explain why the application of atonement theories on top of Jesus’ life forced Christianity further and further from its Jewish roots. Early Christian theologians like Paul were quick (and probably correct) to adapt his message to fit this growing gentile worldview. If messages don’t adapt to the overriding worldview of a population then they most likely die. This ability of these early Christians to adapt the message of Jesus into the worldview of other cultures may be a huge success factor in the spread of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world. Maybe we should learn from that approach.

It is more probable to assume that the problems addressed by Jesus were the same sins of injustice spoken about in the prophetic voices of Jewish prophets like Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah. All of the Gospel writers linked Jesus to the Old Testament prophets in their narratives by having him quote specific passages which symbolized his desire to continue their prophetic critique of the wealthy elite in Jerusalem. It makes sense to think that since he quoted them, he (and his narrators) agreed not only with the words of those prophets, but also their political meaning. That meaning is clearly the end of oppression by corrupt leadership and domination by a foreign empire.

Placing hope in medieval atonement theories has about as much as a value as a mystical clove of garlic. Remember, these theories came from the same people that invented the idea of splashing around holy water to fight off evil spirits and that wasn't even a movie. Still more to come…

For The Love of Zeus

I’m half way into “The Cross of Christ” by John Stott and I have to say I have a much tougher assignment in the book swap challenge with Jeremy (ReverendRockstar). He has given me a weighty book about the classical theory of atonement. I held this view at one point in my life so for me it is less about gaining new information and more about reflection and reconciliation. My first impression is that I’m not sure I realized how bizarre the fundamentalist faith of my childhood appears when viewing it from the outside looking in. I have found some positive areas for agreement and I’ll expand on those in later posts, but first I need to make a couple of observations.

As with most religious viewpoints, there are a few assumptions and biases that must be accepted before anything downstream can make sense. The first assumption of John Stott is a very strict theistic view of the divine that reminds me of the gods in Greek mythology. In order for the classical theory of atonement to work, God needs to be something like Zeus who is a transcendent intellectual being consciously controlling, manipulating, and sentencing mankind from some other remote planet or maybe a parallel universe. Stott doesn’t go into these ontological assumptions in this book. Maybe that is something my conversation partner Jeremy can clarify. I know that in my past, the reason I held tightly to ancient anthropomorphic images of God is because I had just never thought about any other options. For fundamentalists, the whole point of being Christian is to train people to adopt an ancient view of the universe complete with ghosts, demons, miracles, and supernatural after-life. Depending on what century you live in, it may also include a flat Earth and an orbiting Sun.

The questions I have at this point are: How much of this ancient worldview does a Christian need to hold and would it be a problem if that changes again in another 500 years? In this version of reality, where is this kind of God? Do I need to have an opinion about “his” location or for that matter “his” gender?

I realize that what I’m doing in this post is beyond the scope of Stott’s book. He begins with all this as assumption and it isn’t fair to critique his book for not explaining how he got there. That isn’t his intended purpose but his argument makes no sense without this lens imposed onto the narrative. The more I read, the more I feel like Stott makes the Bible sound like a science fiction movie or one of my childhood favorites "Clash of the Titans".

I thank God that I have more choices than strict theism and atheism! For me, God is not a Jewish version of Zeus but instead God is the ground of all being. God is not an intellectual being but the essence of all intelligence. I do think Jesus is divine, but "divine" doesn’t have to mean that his molecular structure was different or that his DNA was not a derivative of his earthly mother and father. I see Christianity as people embracing Jesus’ model for the ideal way to be human and participating in a society based on peace through justice (the promised-land and/or the kingdom of God). The issue for us is how we can each be transformed into our full potential as humans (born-again, resurrected, reborn) and then how we can make this unique vision of life a reality right here inside the space and time that we can control.

The Devil Made Me Do It!

Is the source of evil a demonic angel, the seed of an original sin, a psychological abnormality, or simply the product of our untrained minds?

Richard Beck has concluded his blog series on “Everyday Evil”. His conclusion suggests, what I’ve always stressed, that religion must contain practices to transform us at a psychological level. This is very much in tune with the Buddhist practice of meditation and its focus on transformation and development of compassion through mindfulness. This idea goes against the traditional Christian theological view that an external devil is the agent of evil and an external God is the agent of change. I posted this article by Pema Chodron last year, but I thought I would reference it again.

Sitting practice teaches us how to open and relax to whatever arises, without picking and choosing. It teaches us to experience the uneasiness and the urge fully, and to interrupt the momentum that usually follows. We do this by not following after the thoughts and learning to come back to the present moment. We learn to stay with the uneasiness, the tightening, the itch of shenpa. We train in sitting still with our desire to scratch. This is how we learn to stop the chain reaction of habitual patterns that otherwise will rule our lives. This is how we weaken the patterns that keep us hooked into discomfort that we mistake as comfort. We label the spinoff "thinking" and return to the present moment.
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It makes sense to address the psychological issues that are underneath our own problems rather than using the excuse “the devil made me do it” and focusing blame in a demonic cartoon character. Buddhist philosophy has helped me understand this practical aspect of faith which is applicable to all religions. In the Christian tradition, we have historically credited the holy spirit for this change and that has created a more hands-off approach on our part. But for me, the "holy spirit" is the anthropomorphic symbol of the life changing effect of living in a community of faith. We allow the fellowship and practices of that community to produce the fruits of compassion as modeled by Jesus and the early Christian community. In the end, I think both traditions have the same ideas about transformation, but I appreciate the fact that Buddhists seem less trapped by the literalization of their symbols. A symbol can easily become an object rather than a method for change. I agree with Richard Beck that we need practical methods to create change.

Postmodern?

Last Saturday night my home group discussed definitions of Postmodernism and its relationship to religion. I thought I would try to expand my views here even though I feel this topic has been beat to death. Most people define Postmodern thought as a rejection or reaction to modern scientific thinking. It is commonly viewed as a skeptical view of truth or a view that all truth is relative. I disagree with this popular definition.

First, we should note that modernism was the way people had come to think since the age of enlightenment/reason. It is a scientific view of the world. Modernity had a dramatic effect on religion since it was a time when science and religion fought for the truth about everything. Religion felt it was loosing its hold on truth (and therefore losing the battle for power) so it fought back with its own laws (doctrines) that looked and smelled just like science with all the trappings of rigid authoritative systems and theological claims. The modern mind thinks in terms of experiments, laws and repeatable patterns so the modern minds of religion in the last few centuries tried their best to build a case for religion on the same principles. The result was fundamentalist apologetics and that fatal flaw has led to wars, distrust, abuse, and may yet destroy religion completely.

In my mind, postmodernism is not the rejection of absolute truth. Instead, it is the full embrace of everything we learned during the modern era about truth. We have absorbed all of modernity's lessons about how to do science and how not to do religion. Both insights have been valuable and we learned from our mistakes. Rather than reacting to science with a fight for truth, postmodern people of faith no longer see science as something new, dangerous, or destructive to faith. A scientific understanding of the universe is now a normal part of how we think and operate. We’ve accepted modern science and its love of skepticism and questioning, and now we have moved on with the idea of finding a new place for religion. We realize now that every great discovery in life begins with the question "Is the current way really the best way?" The battle between religion and science for absolute unchanging truth is over and science has won! Science won precisely because it never claims to have the final answer. Science always questions itself and continues to learn while religions are built on the celebration of the way things were. Religion will never again be the holder of truth about how the universe works and God will never again be the unexplainable and shrinking gap in our current understanding of the universe. We may not have all the answers but science is the best tool for that job. Religion was destined to fail when placed in that role and during the modern era, religion lost its ancient job of holding truth. Now in a postmodern world, religion will no longer have any claim to knowledge of the creation of the world, the origin or man, or the ability to predict the future.

Does that mean that religions are finished and God is dead in post modernity? I don't think so. It does mean that we finally have a chance to put religion into a role where it can succeed and God is no longer held in a human box of understanding. In the postmodern world, religion is no longer where we look for truth about the universe but where we look for inspiration, critique, transformation, and motivation. That is where it has always served mankind well. In this place, religion is a big winner. In this place, God is not a shrinking set of truths but instead God is a growing source of transformation.

Pressure to believe

This video is already making its way around the blogosphere but I wanted to comment on it and find out what others think about how this effects our belief systems. In his posts on "Everyday evil" Richard Beck, a psychology professor at Abilene Christian University and blogger at Experimental Theology, raises the question about how religious communities develop using our physiological conditioning to conform.



I have 2 main questions. How much of what we believe is due to our subconscious desire to agree with our faith community? How much of what we often label "the conviction of the holy spirit" is the internal tension (tugging) that is created by this same drive to conform and respond as expected?

Whatever is happening in that video is magnified when applied to religious settings. I have experienced peer pressure in religion and I've seen it used to shape beliefs and produce particular physical responses to an emotional stimulus. It makes me wonder if most of what we have claimed as belief is due to the pressure to fit in with a faith community. Most of my life, I've felt like the people in this video who are shaking their heads and grimacing as they subconsciously agree with the group against their better judgement. I don't feel like churches do this intentionally, but it is nevertheless a powerful subconscious force that enables us to build beliefs in hard to believe things and create conditioned responses to sacred rituals.

You may think I'm claiming religion is evil and God doesn't exist, but I'm not. I am a big advocate of religion and I do believe in God even if it isn't the image of God I was taught in Sunday school. I'm simply suggesting that when we explain an aspect of nature as an externally manipulated event then we create all sorts of problems for later generations who are likely to find out what we label as an external miraculous force is actually a reaction to a chemical released by our brains. It isn't any different than explaining an earthquake as punishment for the sins of a city then scrambling to discredit science when an archaeological dig discovers that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were built on a fault line. If we make God equal to the gap in our current human understanding then we end up with a God that is constantly shrinking.

There is a silver lining to this issue because these same physiological forces can contribute to positive behavior which could allow our society to exist peacefully, but I think religious leaders should be more sensitive to what is causing people to fall in line. We have all felt that tugging feeling to perform by responding to worship experiences in the proper way and agreeing with the things that are taught in groups. I don't think there is anything wrong with peer pressure. It may be something that saves our lives by helping us shape our behavior in a way that affirms life and protects us from harm. I don't think religions should stop doing this, but I wish our religious leaders would correctly label the "spirit" that is doing the tugging.

It is hard to shake thoughts and beliefs that are deeply rooted in our psyche. At times it feels almost like an external force is pulling or pushing us to conform. Maybe that is exactly why we have traditionally described God as an "external force". Is it possible that much of what we mean when we use the term "God" is the collective will of our faith group which is proven here to be a very powerful force? If that is true, then I can certainly affirm that I believe God is real, that God has positively directed my life, that I'm committed to God, and that I deeply desire for God to be the driving force in transforming my life.

A relationship with God - Is this idea healthy?

It has become trendy in Christianity to talk about our relationship with God. However, I’m not sure that it makes sense to use the term “relationship” to define how we experience God. The problem with this term is that it is pre-loaded with our human understanding of what it means to have relationship with another human being and carries all the baggage of our faulty human relationships. Think about some of the aspects of healthy and unhealthy human relationships:

• Healthy relationships need a certain amount of honest revealing of our character, past experiences, goals, and motives to each other. The depth of the relationship depends on the amount of disclosure by both parties. Any clouding or misinterpretation of facts about our self, either intentionally or unintentionally, will create unhealthy relationships and lead to mistrust. This is probably why we attempt to describe God (theology) in order to establish a relationship. We have no precedent for relating to something that we we don't know so we manufacture knowledge for the sake of relationship.


• Clear, open, and frequent two-way communication is necessary. How long would a relationship last if phone calls were not returned for days, weeks, or ever. Could a relationship last with sketchy standards for open free-flowing communications.


• Physical proximity is vital. Without “face to face” interaction, healthy relationships cannot form or mature beyond a certain point. In a state of separation our imagination often runs wild and creates a false sense of reality. Long distance or Internet based relationships are modern examples of how relationships are unhealthy without physical proximity. This is probably why we create houses of worship so we can simulate physical proximity to God.


• The mutual need for relationship is crucial. If one person’s need for the other is not appropriately reciprocated, then an unhealthy dependency is inevitable. Dependent Personality Disorder or Codependency can manifest as the result of an imbalance in relationship needs. This is obviously a problem with traditional images of God.

Isn't any relationship with God going to face challenges in all four of these areas? If we attempt to explain our interaction with God based on our understanding of human relationships like a father or a king, then it feels like we are setting ourselves up for failure because God isn't literally our father or our king. Should we assume that the Bible's use of human relationships as metaphors for connection with God imply that those metaphors completely exhaust the meaning of our connection with God? The image of a father has all sorts of issues and the idea of having a king is down right distasteful to most modern western people. The goal of the bible is not to tell us which metaphor we have to use for all time but rather to suggest how certain people connected to God at certain points in history. For them, the idea of a good king who protects them and institutes justice and peace was a beautiful concept. That won't fly today.

Applying one of these metaphors to our connection with God becomes unhealthy if taken too literally and this mistake accounts for many of the problems with religion. We have traditionaly built an image of God that is destined to manifest unhealthy malformed relationships.

I am leaning toward other language to explain God and lessening my grip on any particular set of metaphors. We might try to imagine a fish that is sustained and suspending in life-giving water just as we are sustained in God. It might also make sense to think about the types of relationships we find in modern Chemistry. When Hydrogen “relates” to Oxygen it forms a wonderful transformation on a molecular level in order to form water. Another example is to imagine how DNA “relates” to life. Francis Collins, a Christian and physician-geneticist who was a leader in the Human Genome Project, calls DNA the “language of God”. This may be close to what Paul Tillich means when he talks about God as the ground of all being. In that sense, I would agree with the author of Genesis who tells us in creative poetic metaphor that God speaks life into being.