TheoSpora

Well, thanks for not letting me off the hook. Before we go much further, I want to add a caveat to the conception of God and God's relationship to evil.

No one knows truly how this relationship plays out. All I offer is one person's attempt to reconcile God will the pervasive evil in this world. That said, I appreciate all of the comments and careful critique of my thoughts. It helps me clarify the road I am taking and makes the journey all that much more fun. It also gives me the opportunity to test and write out my ideas in relationship to the wonderful thoughts and question you pose. So... Here we go again!

Bad Alice wrote the following:

Let me play devil's advocate. If God created us and lets us operate in perfect free will, it seems that he could also have created other beings with the same option. I tend to cringe when anyone talks about 'spiritual warfare,' but sometimes it seems as if there is more than self-interest at work in some of the most grotesque manifestations of evil. Also, if there is a spirit realm why wouldn't it contain evil forces as well as good forces? And if there isn't a spirit realm, why not?

Thanks for such thought-provoking posts. Boy am I glad there's someone willing to do all the philosophical legwork--I don't think I could get through a book on process theology.

First off, since I don't believe in a "Devil," I wonder if we will have to find another term for it ;).

My take on what I would term "senseless evil," or that evil that seems beyond self interest, is that it is a search for purity in a world of beauty. I am still working out this concept, but it has to do with aesthetics and the idea that optimal perception of the world is found in beauty - the contrast between what is and what could be in a unified object, rather than found in purity - the quest to attain one particular pole in a polemic at the expense of the other.

Like I said, I am still developing the concept, but it plays out in this way - Hitler, the instigator of probably the single most "senseless evil" event in the world, was on a search for purity in the German race, therefore he went to any length possible in order to insure that optimal conditions for purity could arise by exterminating those things he found unpure. A more recent example, though on a smaller scale, would be in extremist religious factions like the Taliban or even Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (Yes, I did just equate Falwell and Robertson with the Taliban. The hate that these to preachers inspire is worthy of the comparison). Their search for purity in a morally ambiguous world is misguided and ends up producing more harm than good. The religious views they espouse harm other people which is inexcusable and unnecessary.

As to spiritual warfare, yes it seems as though God could have created other beings with perfect free will, even those of a spiritual nature. However, we have no evidence, biblical or otherwise of such a creation, literally or figuratively. We have "sons of God" as the only other "human-like" created beings. Almost all ideas of spiritual warfare are out of literature, Milton especially. His work is the reason why we place "Satan" in the Garden, rather than reading what is actually there. His work is where we garner this idea of spiritual warfare, of "sons of God" who turn and wage war against heaven. It is his work that feeds our imagination when it comes to the battle over our souls.

Moreover, I would say that these "sons of God," whatever they are do not have the free will we associate with humanity. We are unique in that right and responsibility. For me, this comes down to the nature of God again. If we posit, as I have, that God is good, then could God create beings of an entirely evil make-up, such as we attribute to "evil forces?" And if God could or did create such beings, would that logically negate God's goodness? Nothing in the literature that we produce on the Spiritual realm says that a "demonic force" can be redeemed, therefore, they have no choice but to be evil and then must have been created that way. The result of this is that God is good and evil because God has placed beings that interact in this world in only a context of evil. God is therefore responsible for the evil in this world. I am not yet willing to make that claim, nor do I believe I ever will be able to make it.

But it is a nice segway into Malcolm's comments:

I think it's time for you to try a Jungian perspective. James Hillman's Kinds of Power and Carl Jung's Answer to Job are both excellent sources, and they don't overlap. In the mystery of it all Jung really stretches me to conceive that God is in fact ultimately responsible for the evil. That thought is problematic only if I think of it in a willful way -- that is, God's willfully creating evil. If I think of it in a willing way, as in God was/is willing to allow evil, then it's a different matter. God is willing for evil to be, I think, because that's the only way we as human's capable of responding to his love can be free to do so.
[The willing/willful distinction, by the way, I owe to Gerald May, he defining sin as willfulness. Which reminds me of something else -- John McQuarrie (sp?) a British theologian, defined God as "He who lets be."

Malcolm, I do so miss the days when you and I sat in a mall food court over Chik-fil-a and found meaning in our theological struggles and triumphs. I long for that kind of connection with someone out here and remember our times together fondly.

As you know I am nowhere near the Jungian scholar that you are. I know very little of his theory and what I remember, I like. The concept that sticks out, and I could be misusing it here is the shadow self. That part of the self that is capable of misusing our humanity and abusing the possibilities before us. I would agree with everything you said, except for one point - that God is ultimately responsible for evil. I am still not sure I want to go that far. I am willing to say that God gives us perfect free will, which can result in our making choices that result in evil outcomes.

The question then becomes (for me at least) is God indictable for the decisions we make as individuals who have not been coerced into making one particular decision among many possibilities?

Am I indictable if you decide to murder your neighbor? As a friend of yours who has a personal relationship with you, it would not be my fault that you committed the crime. However, to a lesser extent, there could have been decisions that I could have made that might have helped you arrive at a different outcome. Fault would fall to me, only if I made you believe that your only possibility was murder. I am still not quite sure about this rationale, what do you think?

Malcolm and Bad Alice, thank you for your thoughtful comments and questions. As I continue to read and "converse" it is helpful to have others on the journey who can offer different points of view. I thought the two of you might be interested in a couple of resources. They are not quite the light reading that some enjoy, but they have had a small impact on what you have mentioned here and I thought of these authors when I read your comments:

Kathleen A. Sands, a new author to me, has written a book entitled Escape from Paradise where she discusses evil as competing goods. She is a feminist theologian who whose take on evil is unique and challenging, but I believe that there is a lot of merit to how she chooses to discuss evil and tragedy.

John Hicks is a theologian who writes a theodicy of protest. His article in a book entitled Encountering Evil by Stephen Davis is short but challenges the assumption that God is good and he believes that God is ultimately indictable for the evil in the world.

These are not easy reads, but judging from the thoughtful comments and poignant questions you have offered they might be helpful in the long run. Thanks again

grace and peace

All right, here goes a completely inadequate response to the great questions that were asked about my last post.

First, as to Tod’s question about whether this God resembles the George Burns character in Oh, God!, I have no idea. I have not seen the movie in many years; and when I did see it theology and theodicy was not at the forefront of my thinking. Therefore, I couldn’t say, but if someone else has an opinion on that I would love to hear it.

Second, maghretta said the following:

Disinterested caring looks like the work of God to me, and good in the face of evil looks like the powerful work of God.

Do you mean that those actions God takes are suggestive rather than coercive in effect? Or do you mean that the only action God can take without coercive effect is to reveal a possible path of action to us? He can talk to us, but he can't touch us?

As to your comment, I would agree about the latter wholeheartedly. I believe that is what I meant by saying that God’s possibilities are ultimately effective (effective as an alternate way of defining powerful). Good in the face of evil is one of the most powerful acts of human beings, and in effect God. At these times human faith in God’s possibilities are at their most congruent.

As to the former, disinterested caring is an oxymoron to me. How can you care about someone without taking interest in them? It would be a going-through-the-motions-oriented action that, in my humble opinion, would arise from a human possibility rather than God’s ultimate possibility for any given interaction. To be disinterested is in effect not to care about outcomes or the interaction, and while the action may still produce a good outcome, it would not function at its best because the possibility arose from human concern rather than an act that belies the possibilities that God offers at any given moment. Being uninterested in the other is being ultimately concerned with the self. Self-interest is by definition the root of sinful action in most modern and postmodern theologies.

Let me try to move on to your questions. First, whether God’s actions are suggestive or coercive in effect. At first I said yes, but the more I thought about it, I decided I would want you to define suggestive. Even the word suggestive can be understood as coercive. Therefore, I would say that God’s desires are always present in every moment. That given the paths we have taken to get to a certain point, there is a possibility present in any moment that, if chosen would be more revealing of God’s love in the world. Your second question is closer to what I believe I was trying to say by writing about theodicy.

As to whether, God can talk but can’t touch us, my answer is an unsatisfying, it depends. I would describe being touched by God as an internal feeling of congruence with God’s possibilities. Therefore, I would say that we can be touched by God inasmuch as we can live out God’s possibilities of love, care, and respect in the world. However, given human beings penchant for self-interest, God’s ultimately effective reality for most people amounts to talk rather than feeling truly touched by God’s possibilities.

Next, Bad Alice stated and asked the following;

What you are describing sounds very similar to how God was talked about at a Unity Church I used to attend, and in my glancing acquaintance with New Thought. Do you think that evil is purely human--there is no "adversary," Satan, force of evil, etc? I find your ideas very intriguing, but a bit difficult to square with the power of a creator God. If God can be only love, and we are his creation, then how did our ability to do evil things develop? If evil is a byproduct of free-will, then God was able to establish a system in which evil is pretty much inevitable.

I want to begin here with a statement made by David Ray Griffin in God, Power and Evil: A Process Theodicy. This statement is a basic atheistic argument that there is no God.

1. God is a perfect reality (Definition)

2. A Perfect Reality is an omnipotent being (By definition)

3. An omnipotent being could unilaterally bring about an actual world without any genuine evil (By definition)

4. A perfect reality is a morally perfect being. (By definition)

5. A morally perfect being would want to bring about an actual world without an genuine evil (By definition)

6. If there is genuine evil in the world, then there is no God. (Logical conclusion from 1 – 5)

7. There is genuine evil in the world. (Factual statement)

8. Therefore, there is no God. (logical conclusion from 6 – 7)

The result of this logic is that theologians have to work around some of these points if we are to attempt to reconcile our belief in God with the fact of evil in the world. My choice was not to give up the moral goodness of God, and rather redefine how God is powerful. I also do not believe in an “adversary” and I think that our conceptualizations of Satan are more projections resulting from an inability to take responsibility for the evil that we bring about in the world through our actions or inactions as it relates to God’s possibilities. I think that evil is human, through and through, and it is a result of God’s commitment to human freedom. (In July and August of 2005 I wrote a couple of brief ideas about this under the heading of Theological Propositions, little did I know at the time I was beginning a process of internalizing some of the tenets of Process Theology, you can find the posts here, here, here, and here). If God does not coerce then there is the possibility that any given human will not choose God’s effective possibility leading to a less than effective interactivity. Where evil arises, for me at least, is through human self-interest that ultimately breaks the interrelated world that God has created.

Rather than evil being inevitable in God’s established system, I would say that evil was possible in the system established by God, due to a commitment to freewill. With true freewill, God cannot know what possibility we will choose; if God knew, then freewill is in jeopardy and God becomes indictable for the evil in the world. This, for me, would be ultimately antithetical to God’s loving nature. God’s presence in every moment of human history assures that God is able to provide possibilities that would reveal God’s love, care and respect in the world. Humans, on the other hand, have a choice of possibilities and the inability to be perfectly moral in their choices…

This is a huge post, I appreciate it if you stuck it through to the end. I hope it begins to clarify some of the things I was talking about. If not, please question, reframe or rework it and let me know so that we can do it together. Theology is best when not done in a vacuum. Theodicy, which reaches into the depths of human finiteness to understand the infinite, should never be left to one person to try and figure out. Thanks for commenting and making me think more about what I claim...

grace and peace

This is the first edit of something I have been working through over the past few weeks. It is a result of some reading, some questioning, and stepping out into some frightful non-Reformed territory. I realize that it's written structure is not the best. I also realize that my ideas are new only to me, in the sense that they have not been voiced together in this way before now. I also know that God is ultimately a mystery, a vast unexplorable Other. Rather than doctrine, I think these are my hopes about God in a post-Holocaust world.

These thoughts were mine, now they are ours, have at them...

To say that God is all-good, that God’s initial aims for human relatedness are meant to mirror the love, respect and care that God has for humanity, excludes a traditional idea that God is all-powerful. To be all-powerful is to be capable of all possible forms of interaction, forms that run the gamut of good and evil, forms of interactions from freedom to control. Therefore, if God is all-good, that is God is ultimately concerned with interactions that reveal the loving, respectful, and caring nature of God, then God cannot have the power to intentionally inflict pain and suffering, or acts of evil, through human interactions with self, other and the world. God cannot will these types of interactions, because it is beyond God’s absolute loving nature, even though God must ultimately function within a reality where these types of interactions are prevalent due to the inability of humanity to effectively relate God’s aims in their interactions. God’s all-powerfulness, or omnipotence, is limited proactive and reactive interactions that reveal love, respect and care in the world either through a possibility initiated by God or a possibility offered as a reaction to evil acts committed by human beings.

We can say that God is all-good and all-powerful inasmuch as acts of care, respect and love occur when humans interact in such a manner. Such acts reveal the nature and power of God and God’s activity in human history. Moreover, acts of care, respect and love are at their most powerful when they are reactions to or usurpations of acts of evil. God’s power lies in the ability to contrast God’s absolute good nature with the changing landscape of human interactions that ultimately miss an aimed for mark creating an evil result. Any time a human being contrasts an act of evil with an act of love, care or respect, God’s ultimate power and goodness is known and felt. Power has too often been associated with force, coercion or control. We must begin to think of power differently if we wish to apply it to God. Instead, I believe that if we wish to apply the term power to God, then we must begin to define it by God’s ability to act effectively within the parameters of God’s commitment to goodness and human freedom.

Before elaborating further on the effectiveness of God, human freedom must be understood. If God is coercive then human beings have no freedom. Moreover, God’s actions are in the present. The implication of God as the great “I AM” helps us understand how God sees God’s self interacting with humanity. The eternal nature of God is bound to the distinction that God makes for God’s self. God is timeless in as much as time has occurred. God is the God of ancestors, and the God of the moment that occurs for all of humanity. God’s future knowledge is bound to the eschaton, an event that stands outside the scope of human events. The relationship between God’s active possibilities in the present and human freedom to choose whether or not we will listen to these possibilities is troublesome for those who posit God as outside of time. For humans to have freedom, God cannot ordain the choices we make. Moreover, God cannot know which choice we will act upon; to do so is to insinuate that God foreordains evil acts that we commit on a daily basis.

God’s covenant is to continue in relationship with humanity, and God does so be offering pro- and re- active possibilities in order to continue effectively relating to the world through God’s goodness. God is a revealer of possibilities, that is God offers possibilities of interactions leading to loving, respectful, or caring outcomes that mix with the possibilities created through a particular human being’s own creative visions of interactions based on past and present experiences. Thus human freedom is assured, as the human may choose any of the multitudes of possibilities in front of them regardless of the possible outcomes. Moreover, because of God’s eternal relatedness to human history, God continues to offer possibilities related to the choices and experiences of human beings, even sympathizing and/or celebrating the outcomes of interactions.

God’s power is related to the ultimate effectiveness of the possibilities God offers to any particular human being; God can be said to be ultimately powerful because God’s possibilities are ultimately effective. Evil possibilities and actions are the domain of humanity. They are the result of the freedom to interpret a possibility, an inability carry out God’s possibilities or even an intentional ignoring of the possibilities that God offers through any given situation.

This is where my current journey begins...

The day after I finished reading Elie Wiesel’s Night I happened upon a picture of Auschwitz in a recent edition of National Geographic magazine. Wiesel’s book was a horrific account of suffering and regret during his internment in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, and Auschwitz was his home for much of that time. Through his prose, Auschwitz became a surreal place to me, a place where life was denigrated, families torn apart, and faith stolen. This account of the Holocaust made real for me something that I had always thought but never really articulated: that we not only have the power to destroy ourselves, but we also have the capacity to intentionally carry out that destruction. Elie Wiesel’s words sparked my imagination to create mental pictures of that place and time. However, it wasn’t until I came across the photograph that my interest in the problems of theodicy peaked.

I sat in my office and opened the magazine to an article on modern Buddhism. As I flipped from one page to the next Auschwitz suddenly unfolded before my eyes, covering two pages. A red brick gatehouse grew from a serene field of bright green grass. Train tracks, beginning separately, melded into one as they silently worked their way through the gates. Razor wire stretched into the horizon creating a shimmering ominous net. It could have been anywhere though; nothing in that picture gave life to the idea that around one million Jews and prisoners of war died under the watchful eyes of the guards in the gatehouse. It was a threatening picture but it was also mute, telling none of the secrets that lived on the other side of that fence.

There was little silence for me though. Instead, I heard Elie Wiesel’s laments from behind the gate house. I heard him weep and cry out in anguish to God. I could imagine his face, gaunt and vacant, staring out from behind the fence. His words interpreted what I saw, darkening the green grass and filling the blue skies with thick gray ash. The clean lines and vacant tracks became dirty with soot from the haunted trains that entered full and left empty. Wiesel’s voice wasn’t the only one I heard through this picture, because Auschwitz was not alone.

A Buddhist monk sat cross-legged, meditating in the middle of the train tracks; a ghostly shadow shrouded in a black cape, blocking the tracks as he faced the horrors before him. His prominence in the picture brought back memories and childhood visions long since pushed aside. I have always been amazed by the tenacity of nature. Where I lived as a child, huge Oak trees would buckle the sidewalk as they grew and stretched their roots underneath, protesting the restrictions to life imposed by the heavy concrete. In fields long forgotten, flowers and trees grew on the husks of burnt brick buildings, reclaiming the land as their own. In the summer, kudzu, a prolific large-leafed vine would snake its way across unkempt land covering whatever stood in its tracks. To me, the solitary Buddhist grew from the tracks like a black iris blossoming in a polluted river. His presence held back those haunted trains for a moment as he meditated amidst the pain that permeates the soil. I can only guess what his meditations held, but I imagine that suffering, death and cruelty must have ventured through those moments. How could someone sit before this monument to inhumanity and not feel the voices and ghosts that permeate the heavy air? Moreover, to believe that one’s meditations or actions can affect a place is to hope that that place can be redeemed as well.

What I saw in that picture was a small attempt to reclaim the space through reflection on the horrors that we are capable of committing. The monk sat there like a single vine of kudzu creeping along the tracks, growing amidst the atrocities yet not entirely destroying the evidence. His presence, for me, was a stark contrast to Elie Wiesel’s journey within those gates.

What was created by the Holocaust are wounds that will never fully heal. But what I saw in that photograph was a stitch, a small suture that pulled together one corner of an open wound. It was something powerful that closed a miniscule segment of a gaping wound formed by an evil act perpetrated in this world. The monk’s presence to the evil, presence against the evil and cathartic response of meditation created a powerful moment of contrast that held both hope and horror captured in that photograph. For me, his presence contrasted the story and presence of Elie Wiesel created without diminishing his pain and grief.

It is through beauty – through intensely contrasting elements – that we can begin to think about the relationship between Wiesel’s work and the National Geographic photograph. These two artistic mediums, the prose of a survivor and the photograph of a visitor, provide the kind of contrast that opens the doorway to constructing new ways of working with the problem of evil as related to the traditional Christian understandings of a good and all-powerful God. Logic and proofs can only advance the relationship between these three facts (a good God, an all-powerful God, and the presence of evil) of Christian theology so far. Due to their overwhelming contrast, a purely logical proof becomes arguable, eventually leading us to pick sides, often choosing between an ever dwindling God whose power or goodness shrinks under the weight of the problem of evil, or trivializing evil and the pain and suffering of those who have experienced evil through an allegiance to some far off eschatological hope.

grace and peace

One year; that is how long this fine piece of subjective theological journalism has been out there. One year of writing, of complaining, of observing my life and letting a vastly anonymous world read about it.

In that time, I have move halfway across the country; I became a god-parent to our niece; I have been to Alaska, New York, D.C. Atlanta, Charleston, Morganton, Baltimore, Charlotte, Moab, Houston, and Denver; I have completed one quarter of doctoral work; My wife and I left everyone we know and live in a place where we still only know a few people. It has been a busy year and the next one looks to be about the same.

Over the last month alone several new journeys have arisen in my life. Apart from the travel plans we have (Seattle, New York, Charleston, among the other random places we will probably visit), my professional life is in a state of upheaval.

During my sabbatical and the six weeks I had between fall and winter quarter (a break that is too long in my opinion) I began re-evaluating the theology that I have held dear for many years. This new path of discovery began with two very different experiences. First, I have been working with a professor on an article about pastoral theology, formation and theological education. It will be published in a journal this coming fall and the writing and researching process has been time-consuming and wonderful. Second, I spent about two to three hours a day, Monday through Friday, reading and writing on theodicy and tragedy.

As a result, some of the theological formulations that I have grown comfortable with have been challenged. I was once, and still in some ways am, beholden to Reformed Theology. However, since my encounter with the problems of evil, writings on the Holocaust, and my work with aesthetics and pastoral theology, I have started reading about Process Theology. This, to say the least, has left me reeling for the most part.

Imagine, if you will, you, sitting in a coffee shop. You have no one to talk to, and have occupied my time with reading Elie Wiesel’s Night, an account of his years in Auschwitz. Moreover, You decided to get ahead for your Theodicy and Tragedy course by reading Louise Erdrich’s love medicine, and two other unassigned readings by Elie Wiesel (just so you know, Elie Wiesel is the one who is thought to have coined the term theodicy, which basically means any attempt to reconcile God’s omnipotence and goodness with the prevalence of evil in the world). Moreover, imagine that you just completed a quarter of work where you took all of your creative energy and twisted every theo-experiential notion that you had known to create something new. Finally, imagine that everything you ever thought about God, didn’t work when you finished reading and with your creative energy swirling, you decide find something that does work…

Welcome to my world!

So, I am embarking in this year, this second blog year, on a new theological journey for me as I attempt reconcile what I am learning with what I know. Process theology is a nasty pair of words for some people. Many claim that it is too humanistic and limiting of God’s power to affect the world. As I dive into this new theological pool, I hope to share some of what I am thinking and how it relates to what I have thought in the past. My first posts will reflect some of the thoughts from these past six or so weeks of silence and then we’ll see what happens next. Until then…

grace and peace

I am going to rest for now. This has been a labor of love, mostly, for almost a year. Now, I am going to take a break and re-evaluate. I began this venture selfishly. I needed an outlet for all of the crap that runs through my head. I needed a place to vent frustrations, a place to explore who I was and was becoming. For almost a year this blog has been a good place for that.

However, over the past few months I have felt as though I don’t have meaningful things to share or discuss. My writing has taken a turn from personal exploration to writing for an audience. I have become obsessed with numbers and comments and that was never my intention. Therefore, I want to step back and take a break and re-evaluate the role and function of this medium.

If something comes, then I will post it, but I am planning to take December off in order to establish some distance and gain a little perspective on what this means to me. Thank you for reading here, for being a part of this journey, and for listening to a white middle class male bitch about his neuroses. I will return in the first week of January, around the one year anniversary of Theospora, to visit again with you.

Have a great holiday season; enjoy the sights, smells and people that make it special.

grace and peace

Jason

“The courage to be,” that is the reason it has taken me so long to write on this image; that and two long papers that have consumed most of my waking hours recently.

The Courage to Be is the title to a book written by Paul Tillich, it is also part of what I see in this photo. How many of us truly have the courage to be who we are? Whether our lives are filled with the rain showers of doubt or the blossoms of growth, do we every feel as though we truly have the courage, the will to move beyond the facades we create and truly live?

I was about twelve or thirteen when I lost what little courage I had. It is amazing what I allowed others to take from me, destroying a burgeoning self-concept. I spent a number of years stomping that fledgling self into submission, catering to the will of others; all in the service of building a façade that placated rather than challenged others.

I will be the first to admit that my challenges are small compared to those that others face. I don’t have to face racism constantly, nor am I put down because of my gender. I don’t have to face “coming out” to family and friends and the fear, misunderstanding and hatred that occurs. I don’t have to face discrimination, except for that which occurs within my soul.

It is abusive, what we do to others and what we often do to ourselves. We highlight differences and exploit perceived weaknesses. We chose to separate by not choosing careful words when we speak to one another. Pain is prevalent because pride and power are pervasive. When I pretend to know something and I make it a law unto myself, then I rob you of the power we might share in a relationship. When I do it enough, I am nothing more than a master at the manipulation of my internal and external worlds.

The courage to be means giving you the courage to be as well. It means hearing your stories as a way of knowing who you are, not as a means for gaining the upper hand. It means equality in the way I relate to you. By making room for your courage to be, I make room for me to grow as well.

For better or worse, we sometimes become reflections of what we think others see in us. I am more apt to believe in myself when others believe in me and vice versa. However, at some point we must develop a “bullshit filter.” That is, we must construct a lens whereby we can detect the messages we receive from others and decide whether they hold some truth for us. It is not enough to merely recognize falsehoods. If impressions are false, we must then have the courage to say so and right what wrongs we see.

I wonder what lies beneath all of the piercings and tattoos. I wonder what story each of them tells. If they could talk what narratives would they tell? A lot of pain has gone into this image. Each hole, each tattoo is accompanied by pain that cannot be avoided. Pain, and I imagine beauty as well…

grace and peace

Source: Unknown
Title: Unknown
Year: Unknown

What is this?

I am beginning to wonder if I will ever again think that the value of theology lies in elucidating moral arguments. As Pat Robertson makes headlines again with the following statements, I feel as though theology, nay, Christianity is losing touch with the world.

Conservative Christian televangelist Pat Robertson told citizens of a Pennsylvania town that they had rejected God by voting their school board out of office for supporting "intelligent design" and warned them on Thursday not to be surprised if disaster struck.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said. (Reuters)

It is too easy to condemn remarks and thus implicitly condemn the man as well. If I am truly going to live what I say, then I have to believe that there is beauty in what Pat Robertson claims, as well as, in him as a child of God. The difficult part for one as fallible as myself is finding said beauty.

When I see art that disturbs my sensibilities I don’t run from it, nor do I tell myself and others that it is not art because it displays the horrors of the world from that artist’s point of view. Instead, I try to stay with what is disturbing, attempting to make the connections between body, heart, mind, and soul that are being pulled in the encounter. I can’t say that I always succeed, but I believe I am better for the effort.

Theological statements such as the ones that Pat Robertson likes to make are not art per say, but they do reveal something of his beliefs about who God is and how God is active in this world. However, I wish to treat his statement as though it were a picture, a window that looks in on God. If we were to do that, what would we see from this particular instance?

The first thing we might notice is that God is vindictive, especially over small injustices. Robertson’s statement implies that God turns away from God’s own creations because of the choices we make. Moreover, implied in the statement is that God sends disasters to areas in order to inflict punishment. I realize that Robertson is a little ambiguous on that particular point, but notice that he uses the term “when” instead of “if” while referring to disasters. Finally, there is the assumption that human beings have the power to remove God from their presence. Ultimately, Robertson’s God is a God of definite morality, a God whose ultimate concern is of right and wrong.

The second and possibly more powerful statement that Robertson makes is an anthropological one. Namely, that humanity can control God’s actions through the choices we make.

The question we must ask is where is the beauty in that statement concerning God and God’s relationship with humanity?
I believe that beauty is found in the desire to elucidate God’s interactivity with humankind. However, I can’t buy into Robertson’s criteria of who God is. Coming out of a basic premise that God sits in judgment of all the things we do, we cannot help but draw similar conclusions that Robertson draws. God can’t help but be vindictive if we tie God’s hands and limit God’s power to judgment alone.

I, like, Robertson also believe in God’s active power and presence in the world. However, my criteria, my base belief is that God is love. Love being defined as supportive, hopeful, joyful, realistic, forgiving, and so on. For me, a God whose power is focused on wreaking havoc and causing disasters over the smallest slights is a God that I do not know. Moreover, I believe that God does not play a role in “sending” natural disasters to punish people for their actions. Furthermore, I am not sure that we can remove God from our presence. Certainly we can make choices that counter God’s love and desire for us and for humanity, but does that mean that God gives up and leaves? Therefore, while Robertson and I agree that God is concerned with humanity, fundamentally, he and I disagree on the basis of that interaction.

As to Robertson’s second statement concerning anthropology. He and I would probably have a harder time connecting around this point. I cannot faithfully say that anything I do causes God’s will to bend or change.

There is beauty to what Robertson proposes, namely that God is an active part in our daily lives. However, without considering love and faithfulness as the foundations of God’s interactions with humanity I feel as though his views become skewed. As a part of the theological milieu, I have to wonder if his statements are helpful to the people of God as they continue to seek to bring about God’s kingdom on earth.

For me, it continues to drive home the point that a theology solely concerned with morals is inadequate in describing God’s work in this world. Rather, it may be that a theology of aesthetics, a theology concerned with the beauty of the relationship between God and humanity might help to balance and reveal a different character of the one we call God.

It is easy to separate, to isolate, to move away from one another. Why not park myself down in front of a television? Why not shut the door to the other homogenous houses in my neighborhood? It is easier that way, that American way. I don’t need you to tell me anything that I don’t already know.

I can just live in my black and white world, warmed by the glow of reality as my television tells what life is like…

Sometimes isolation is not intentional, sometimes it comes about through the forceful separation of I from Thou, of me from you. Sometimes I do it, sometimes you return the favor. Relating has never been easy, not since we decided that theology has more to do with right or wrong than with what is beautiful and glorious.

When did morals become God? When did we decide that we knew what was right and who was wrong? Oh what a joy it would be to slough off this mortal arrogance, to find the hidden beauty inside, to open the doors of our homes and step out into the yard so that we might begin to see one another again for the first time.

We are not meant to experience reality through the pixels of a television. We are not meant to find what is right or wrong in our neighbor. We are meant for beautiful things, for wandering the world, and wondering about the created image that lies within all of us. “God’s children” is not a category or exclusive club; it is us, broken, battered, beloved and beautiful.

Fling open the doors that keep you inside. Open them wide and see and smell and taste the world in all its colors and splendor. We are not meant to be numb or dumb to those around us. We were meant to live…

Artist: Roger Brown
Title: Talk Show Addicts
Year: 1993, Etching and aquatint, 22 1/4 x 29 3/4 in.
Retrieved from: Leonard Koscianski

What is this?

This picture is the cover art to Robert Capon’s Parables of Grace. It was the first meaningful image of the Prodigal Son that I found while I was in Seminary, and I used it again in a study on the parable during a Lenten series at my former church. I am still trying to figure out how to do this, so I thought I would re-post this as a separate post rather than beneath the picture. I think it might work a little better even though you have to scroll down to see the picture this references

I want to be that guy. I want to be the one with arms open, welcoming the stranger, the oppressed, the poor. I know that I have given much in my lifetime; I also know there is more within me that I hoard. As much as I could be the guy with no shoes, I am more like the guy with the multi-colored coat, the one with resources and means and influence.

I want to be the guy that is admired by animals. I want to be the one that is seen by ducks and geese and dogs. They know who is gentle, they know who will treat them kindly and they draw near to that person. I want to be a friend to the environment to the only world that I will probably ever know. I want to co-create heaven on earth not reside in the hell that all too often invades my view.

I want to be the guy who is surrounded by people. Not because I am funny or share my stuff, but because I respect others and give them the opportunity to be who they need to be. I am getting better at this, getting better at listening and allowing others to teach me about who they are, but I have much to learn still. I don’t reach out as I could, preferring to remain quiet and as part of the scenery rather than the action. Then again, without people like that there would be no scenery.

Rather than being the guy with the wide-open arms, I more like the one with the crook in my hands. I am part of the background looking longingly in on the action. I do my work, I take my part in life seriously, but I am just not there yet. I have the clothing necessary to be the guy in front; it’s just that I would rather hold my crook than open my arms sometimes.

The good news is that I know where I am, where I stand in life, and I also know where I want to be. I could be picking fruit in distance, oblivious to what is going on around me; blindly doing my work not seeing the human drama that unfolds before me. I am close enough to know the good life when I see it. I just need to learn to take part, to believe that I can lay down the security of my crook and open my arms to those who need them. The work I do, I believe, is important. However, nothing should be more important than the lives in front of me.

We are, if nothing else, about community. If the church is not the guy with the open arms, then the church is useless. We become nothing more than a social club full of wallflowers. In our communities of faith we can afford to be bold. We can afford to look out at the landscape and see those who have been beaten down through oppression, violence, poverty, and ignorance and we can open our arms and damn the theology that separated us in the first place. So, I guess that I not only want to be that guy, but I want the church to be that guy, that woman, that boy, that girl, that child, that adult, that person that sees the humanity in all of us and opens wide in order to offer the greatest embrace we could ever feel.
grace and peace

Paul Tillich as a Chaplain in World War I was comforted by Botticelli’s Madonna and Child with Singing Angels (Plate 2). “Writing many years later, Tillich declared: ‘That moment has affected my whole life, given me the keys for the interpretation of human existence, brought vital joy and spiritual truth’” (Brown, 1990, p.91)

“Clearly we should add, however, that perhaps some art allows one not only to think more but also to feel more, and that in both of these ways together it manages to mean more, possibly even letting one be and become more.” (p.92) I have been reading Frank Burch Brown’s Religious Aesthetics - where the preceding quotes come from - for a paper and have been thinking about what visual art means to us.

Therefore, I have an idea for an experiment or experience whichever you prefer. I have this theory that visual art can help us connect to something deeper in our lives through engaging the senses, imagination, and language centers of our brains. What I am proposing to do about this theory is post a picture a week on this blog (assuming I can find a good place to host them). What I would ask from you (my two or three readers) is that you write about the picture. This could be creative fiction, theological ramblings, experiences, whatever comes to mind when you see it.

I would love to hear what speaks to you when you encounter something visual. My plan is to post the picture and then follow up with my own thoughts a couple days later, to allow a blank slate for those you who wish to try the experience. I would propose that you post your story, thoughts, ides, or experiences on your own blog with a trackback or link to the picture so that I can read what you have written. If you don’t have a blog, then feel free to post it here in the comments. I would just like the opportunity to read what people have written and comment if possible.

This is a process that I want to engage in for its creative potential and the possibility of reaching the depth of our emotional and mental processes. My hope is that some of you might take the journey with me and see what comes. Don’t wait for someone else to write one first, I will do my best to be that first person. Whatever comes to the surface of your mind through this process is good material to work with, be it happy, sad, joyful, painful, depressing, or so on. Your thoughts and experiences are as valuable as mine and I will respect what you have written as if it were my own.

If you have any thoughts let me know, I will try to post a picture or a link to a picture at the beginning of next week.

grace and peace

It is really amazing how easy it is to get caught up in school. I can read for days on end, especially books that appeal to the disciplines I identify with: pastoral theology, arts, and formation. I can sit in front of books- thick, heavy, weighty tomes –and only come up for food, water, and to grunt at passers by. I love exploring new ideas, thoughts and theologies. I am, at this moment, in the middle of six books dealing with things from process theology to religious aesthetics to philosophy. It is sometimes hard to keep them straight, but each holds my interest in different ways.

We are assigned pretty close to a book a class a week. This week it was neurobiology and pastoral theology, care and counseling, it was fascinating. The idea of neuroscience and its relationship with narratives, memories, rituals and imagination was really interesting. We spoke with the author of the book via conference call for about an hour, looking at the finer points of his arguments and then peering out over the horizon to the new science that was occurring as we spoke.

It is a different experience reading someone’s passion and then being able to ask them questions about what they have written. We then spent another two hours talking about the implications of this research with communities that have experienced a life of oppression. I did not realize that pain experiences actually have the effect of shrinking the brain physically, shutting down processes that could be utilized to help pull people out of the ensuing depression, pain and grief. We discussed this in the context of Katrina and the neurological implications of the devastation on the mind.

The professor had a surprise task at the end of our three and a half hour discussion. Basically, we had to answer a comprehensive exam question with two minutes of preparation and be critiqued by our colleagues. My heart leapt at this task, anxiety maximizing its presence in my mind and manifesting itself as a pronounced stutter. I survived, and even passed according to the professor. Being put on the spot like this has never been one of my strong suits. I like time to reflect and organize my thoughts; silence to weigh my words and collect any stray wanderings. This was not my element, but watching another do it gave me the confidence to let all hang out as best as I could. At the end, it was good and exciting and actually relieved some future stress related to the whole idea of comprehensive exams.

The quarter is winding down here, and there are only four or so classes left. I am working on several things including: a short paper on the study of religion from the viewpoint of Emile Durkheim, a syllabus for an entry-level undergraduate class in comparative religions, and a paper on Pastoral Theology and Visual Arts. I am also trying to figure out what I will take at the beginning of the year. I think it will come down to three classes, an unbearable burden according to many. I think that I may try Existential Theory and Therapy, Theodicy and Tragedy, and an independent study related to Pastoral formation culminating in a co-authored article with one of my professors. The professor hasn’t decided whether or not to do the article so I am not sure if that one will come through.

This first quarter has been a busy one, full of affirmations and frustrations. My world seems petty and small compared to the things that have happened in “real” life. The national unity in the face of Katrina is beginning to wear off. People who were not directly affected are starting to forget the devastation that has occurred. This is not a bad thing, but it can’t be all good either. My wife and I are looking forward to entertaining family soon. Her parents will be the first to visit us since the move and it will be nice to encounter friendly faces from back east. We continue to miss our friends and colleagues back home. I have the month of December off, and need to figure out what to do other than study Spanish and my LCSW material…

grace and peace