Frustrations in widespread news media - On the New York Times

As most everyone who reads this knows, I'm a pastor, and Lent is a bonkers season of the church year - which has meant that this blog found its way to the bottom of my priorities. Glad to be back, though.

That said, I haven't stopped reading. But as a change of pace, I'll be focusing on two articles I came across in the New York Times - both disheartening. Normally I want this to be a blog of appreciation, but sometimes I also feel salty. So there you go. I created "Why Read Theology" to encourage people to read more theology - and to spur myself into reading some theologians I haven't spent a lot of time reading, and revisiting ones that meant a lot to me. But sometimes, you've gotta read theology just to debunk and critique the stuff you come across every day.

The first article is an opinion written by Peter Atterton, called "The God Problem," found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/opinion/-philosophy-god-omniscience.html

All three are my reaction while reading article one

It is pretty terrible. I won't give a lengthy quote of it, but it's right there in its entirety if you'd like.

The second is an interview piece by Nicholas Kristoff with Serene Jones - president of Union Seminary. It's also... disappointing. Both in its content and in the content its spurred in my social media circles since it was published. You can find it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/opinion/sunday/christian-easter-serene-jones.html?fbclid=IwAR0iHt_mVuWqUM890qNE291zSauy5XHApOd1SdB0t0nKuHmt2iinDQtoQDc

My reaction like four paragraphs into article two

On the first article: Atterton believes that belief in God (and I believe that he means the Christian understanding of God based on who he cites) is incoherent because there are issues and seeming contradictions/paradoxes when we have to reckon with concepts like omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and moral perfection. There are a ton of issues with this article, but I'm just going to boil it down to this one: Atterton does not understand Christianity. He just doesn't. I don't even think he wants to. I can't say for sure why he doesn't want to try to understand it, I can't speak to his motivations. You can find other critiques if you'd like (leave 'em in the comments), but only someone who is utterly and completely uninterested in Christianity could say something like:

"I shall here ignore the argument that God knows what it is like to be human through Christ, because the doctrine of the Incarnation presents us with its own formidable difficulties: Was Christ really and fully human? Did he have sinful desires that he was required to overcome when tempted by the devil? Can God die?"

Really?

When writing an article about how the "omnis" and how "moral perfection" present logical dilemmas for people who believe in God - he is utterly uninterested in dealing with a central guiding concept that has defined orthodox Christianity since the beginning (or, if you're radically skeptical, since the Council of Nicaea): that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate. Any time we say any thing about God and the "omnis," we do so through the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as attested to within the New Testament. What Atterton rejects out of hand is the linchpin to making any kind of sense of every other issue he brings up if he is speaking to the Christian tradition in particular. Which is what I'm going to assume because he's writing without bringing up any theologians of other traditions - itself a grave error if he's setting out to talk about how all faith in God is "incoherent."

It's laughable, rather trollish image: Atterton tells us what's wrong with believing in God without actually engaging with what Christians say about God. He picks a fight with a straw man that's wearing a cross necklace. Sure, he pays a little lip-service to Aquinas, Plantinga, and Jerome citing them WRESTLING with the omnis and moral perfection, but not actually how they deal with the omnis in a charitable or recognizable way.

To use some classically Lutheran language - part of Atterton's problem (and there are many problems) in this article is that he's focusing all of his attention on what we would call deus absconditus, alternatively the "Hidden God," the "God of Nature," "The Naked God," and sometimes even "God of the Philosophers." This is the God that we set out to understand in our own terms: a God hidden among the omnis and expectations of our own tricky schemes. God's will becomes hard to separate from our own will. We set up the God we want, the rules we want, the ways we want and say "this is God, this is what God wants." That's not something we necessarily do all on our own, but something we also do as a society over generations. We speak of God as though God was not in the room. As though God is saying nothing.

The opposite of the Hidden God is the Revealed God - and Christians believe that the revealed God is Jesus Christ - life, ministry, death, and resurrection. Jesus is the Word of God, the image of God, the revelation of God, the Son of God, of one being with the Father, the self-expression of God, etc. We proclaim that there is no omniscient one apart from the one who was born of Mary, and knew nothing apart from crying, feeding, and excreting. We proclaim is no understanding of "omnipresent" apart from the the temporal man who taught the Jewish scriptures for three years, primarily among the poor. We proclaim that there's no "omnipotent" one apart from the one who was publicly executed by an empire in said empire's many expressions of oppressing a marginalized religious/ethnic population. This is the truth that our Christ-ian scriptures attest to in the New Testament. This is the message two-thousand years worth of faithful leaders were entrusted with (and were faithful to to varying degrees).

This is what we call "the Revealed God," God clothed in flesh, God made in some manner comprehensible and communicable. It's this God, who lives, dies, and rises, who also does stuff like "create" and "forgive sins," "cultivate just societies," "welcome the stranger," and drink an awful lot of good wine without harming God's self or others. And the revealed God seems a lot more interested in us being involved in those things than in sorting out leisurely mind games about "omnis" or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Indeed, as Christians we find all of those things remarkably linked to one another. We're awfully bad at them without God's help. Indeed, we confess that we need God's help, and the Holy Spirit is actually at work trying to get these things working among us all. And we only deal with concepts like the omnis, or morality, through this lens. Through the cross. Through Christ. That's how we understand God - not in our own terms - but in God's.

To simply dismiss the incarnation in writing about God in Western/Christian terms, is akin to saying you want write about physics, but couldn't possibly be bothered to learn about math. Read theology so that you don't sound like an idiot to Christians when you're an atheist who's making a critique about Christianity.

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On the second article - Serene Jones' interview. An old friend suggested it must be edited in some unfortunate way because it just reads far too cringe-inducingly to be truly legitimate. I hope that's true.

For the first three questions, Jones' responses are actually pretty spot-on. She kind of side-steps the issue of the bodily resurrection in ways that reveal that it's just not super important to her. Now me, I think the bodily resurrection is of grave (hem hem) importance. But a lot of better theologians than I am, and faithful believers formed differently from me are far more concerned with concepts like meaninglessness, spiritual oppression, shame, and other similar concepts that rob life of its value more than they are concerned with the bodily aspects of the resurrection. Bultmann, Tillich, MLK Jr., all sorts of good folks fit into that camp. They still believe that Christ is the answer - it's just that they are more concerned by lives ruled by despair than they are concerned about death. I can't fault them for that, the 20th century was a rough time for them all. It's a dark and grim thing to look at these survivors of many terrors (war, racial terror, etc.) and tell them what's good for them when they experienced the love of Christ in different language than we do. Jones has inherited the mantle of their language and it is good language. The dreaded "Liberal Protestantism" isn't always bad, everyone. Sometimes its' better equipped to heal people than the rigidly orthodox. Sometimes we have to see God at work in it.

My issue with Jones comes in the fourth question - and continues throughout the remainder of the article. Jones says: "For me, the message of Easter is that love is stronger than life or death. That’s a much more awesome claim than that they put Jesus in the tomb and three days later he wasn’t there. For Christians for whom the physical resurrection becomes a sort of obsession, that seems to me to be a pretty wobbly faith. What if tomorrow someone found the body of Jesus still in the tomb? Would that then mean that Christianity was a lie? No, faith is stronger than that."

What's wrong with wibbly-wobbly?

First part? Great. 100%. Love is stronger than life or death. Second part about the "physical resurrection?" Ugh. First off, no one will ever find "the body of Jesus" outside of the Eucharist and in the lives of believers in this pilgrim journey. In the most scientific terms - there can physically be no evidence of the body of Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, son of God, ward of Joseph. It's just not going to happen. To even bring up that possibility is just silly. No one would believe such a fanciful concept. There is no filled tomb of Jesus - and to see a filled tomb with Jesus' name on it categorically means none of the faithful will believe its' Jesus' historical tomb. It would just be the grave of some dude named Jesus who had a very coincidental name - and probably a forgery. Second, isn't it just a convenient and fancy idea for love to be counted as "stronger than life or death" if it isn't acted upon? The physical resurrection unites word with deed. Without flesh it seems like just an idea and a nice thought among ideas and nice thoughts. Preachers of the physical resurrection have to believe God has skin in the game.

The issue goes on: Jones calls the faith of those who care "too much" about the bodily resurrection "wobbly." That's rough - considering so many of the biblical writers and the theologians and saints of the church have found tremendous comfort in it. To know that Christ bears their wounds, to know that Christ's life was no trick, to know that life and body actually matter in the fullest and richest and most literal sense. They believed in the bodily resurrection - wobbles and all. And you know? Jones knows this, she's not an insular person, she has a whole faculty of brilliant people and has learned from some of the best. It seems really odd for her to make such a comment about the faiths of others as though hers were so much better for not getting into the "meat" of the incarnation and resurrection. We don't need to know the science of it, but to know that Christ's life is true, and true life lives on beyond death, in unity with God. And it's condescending as hell to say that the faiths of people centuries before her are wobbly, or haven't interacted with issues of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection.

We can say the same about her comment on Mary's virginity or the afterlife. It comes off with such a smug and uncharitable reading of others.

And yet - the reaction against Jones in a lot of corners of the internet seem SO MUCH WORSE. The ways she's dismissed as though she's a fool, or a prophet of a false god, or that Union is terrible. I've also seen these critiques combined with a heavy dose of misogyny. But the thing is - her critiques are often either valid or at least have a kernel of truth we must reckon with. I mean, we know that the resurrection has been used in some pretty terrible ways. There are ways to talk about the resurrection that DO sound like the divine child abuse that Jones criticizes. Human hatred justified through religion is dangerous (though hatred doesn't need institutional religion's help to be awful). Charlatans do misuse prayer in order to make us feel like our loved ones die for "not praying enough," and there are selfishly motivated, authoritarian, "orthodox" Christians, whether we like it or not.

Jones' fiercest critics seem to be blind to (or even supportive) of these things. Hearing them talk terribly about her as though SHE were the big problem, as though she were uninformed, is some pretty wicked stuff. We all can, and are called, to do better.

Read theology because there isn't one institutional voice for Christianity. A variety of thoughts and traditions keeps your mind sharp, humble, and willing to be corrected and guided by a Spirit who does love us and is working through us.

Living Freely: On Paul Tillich

If you know me as a theologian, you knew this post would be coming

"What is this New Being? Paul answers first by saying what it is not. It is neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision, he says. For Paul and for the readers of his letters, this meant something very definite. It meant hat neither to be a Jew or a pagan is ultimately important; that only one thing counts, namely, the union with him in whom the New Reality is present. Circumcision or uncircumcision, what does that mean for us? It can mean at the same time something very definite, but at the same time very universal. It means that no religion as such produces the New Being. Circumcision is a religious rite, observed by the Jews; sacrifices are a religious rite, observed by the pagans; baptism is a religious rite, observed by the Christians. All these rites do not matter - only a New Creation. And since these rite stand, in the words of Paul, for the whole religion to which they belong, we can say: No religion matters - only a new state of things...

[paragraph line inserted for clarity, because this paragraph is 3 pages long. Come on, Paulus! Could you have at least tried to be a little less German when writing to Americans?]

Let us think about this striking assertion of Paul. What it says first is that Christianity is more than a religion; it is the message of a New Creation. Christianity as a religion  is not important - it is like circumcision or uncircumcision: no more, and no less!... Christianity in the present world encounters several forms of circumcision and uncircumcision... [it] can stand for everything called religion [or[ secular, but making half religious claims. There are many great religions beside Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and the remnants of classical Judaism... There are secular movements: Fascism and Communism, Secular Humanism, and Ethical Idealism... they also claim ultimate truth and demand complete devotion. How shall Christianity face them? Shall Christianity tell them: Come to us, we are a better religion, our kind of circumcision or uncircumcision is higher than yours? Shall we praise Christianity, our way of life, the religious as well as the secular? Shall we make of the Christian message a success story, and tell them, like advertisers: try it with us, and you will see how important Christianity is for everybody? Some missionaries and ministers and some Christian laymen use these methods. They show a total misunderstanding of Christianity.

[another added line]

The apostle, who was a missionary and a minister and a layman all at once says something different. He says : No particular religion maters, neither ours nor yours. Bit I want to tell you that something has happened that matters, something that judges you and me, your religion and my religion. A New Creation has occurred, a New Being has appeared; and we are all asked to participate in it.... don't compare you religion and our religion, your rites and our rites, your prophets and our prophets, your priests and our priests, the pious among you and the pious among us. All of this is of no avail! And above all don't think that we are trying to convert you to English or American Christianity, to the religion of the Western World. We do not want to convert you to us, not even to the best of us. This would be of no avail. We want only to show you something that we have seen and to tell you something we have heard: That in the midst of the old creation there is a New Creation, and that this New Creation is manifest in Jesus who is called the Christ.

... [if] the Church which is the assembly of God has an ultimate significance, this is its significance: That here the reunion of [human] to [human] is pronounced and confessed and realized, even if in fragments and weaknesses and distortions. The Church is the place where the reunion of [person] and [person] is an actual event [through reunion to God], though the Church of God is permanently betrayed by the Christian churches. But, although betrayed and expelled, the New Creation saves and preserves that by which it is betrayed and expelled: churches, [humankind], and history.

Paul Tillich, "The New Being" in The New Being (Charles Scribner's Sons; New York, 1955) 16-18, 23-24
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Most of you who read this know that I always enjoy reading Paul Tillich. Tillich's writings kept me in seminary at a point when I nearly considered dropping out, kept me reading theology when I thought I was done with it, and helped keep Karl Barth (and more importantly, crazed Barthians) at arm's length while I was a student at Princeton. Thanks be to God. I don't always agree with Tillich, but almost without fail reading him does one of two things to me: either I'm drawn into a deeper fidelity to the Gospel in all of its radical defiance, independence, and desire to become incarnate and communicate grace among people who need it; or I'm given a really interesting perspective that I don't agree with, but am probably wiser for having approached with an open mind. In this case - Tillich's sermon "The New Being" does both. That makes it a very important reading for me.

One of the central components of Tillich's theology is his abiding love for and vehement criticism of the human cultural experience - both in its religious and secular forms. This sermon provides a great example of this tension. Tillich observes that religious and secular expressions of culture typically try to make destructive demands that don't just separate people, but often incentivize us to ignore, dehumanize, and harm one another. Folks make one another into enemies very quickly, and make every effort to justify it through their use of myth* - by "divine word" or by "how things really are." In this, the difference between religious and secular seem unimportant. Both result in hatred, exclusion, and death.

The Christian truth, as Tillich understands it, forces us to sidestep our myths*. Not to dismantle them, or destroy them, or ignore them, but to understand that there is something greater at stake and something that can be immanent among them, something that can reframe them, transform them, and transform us: there is a New Thing Happening All Together. There is a New Being - a new way of life, a new life of freedom, and it was given and made known in the fullness of the Christ and rooted in the very Ground of Being itself. This freedom breaks our divides, and turns us into disciples of the way, the truth and the life embodied, emboldened, and created by Jesus. Not the Jesus whom we use as a shibboleth to restrain some and cast away others - in the Jesus who lived as God lives, and who calls us to live in such a way - and indeed continues to call us through the Holy Spirit to reject sin and death.

It's not really about us, or our culture, or our myths*. There is no help to be found in any of those things. Our help is found in a God who frees us, who justifies us by grace through faith. Faith isn't necessarily cultural assent as much as it is an abiding trust and enrapt attention - or as Tillich describes it elsewhere "as being grasped by the holy." Having been grasped, we become witnesses - wherever we are, whoever we are. The New Being is at work outside of our cultures and our institutions - in the margins, among the lost and the rejected who are found and accepted - not by human hands but divine will. We see this makes God's work a little decentralized for Tillich - not necessarily kept within how we want to see things, but rather where God elects to work. The Church becomes immanent wherever the grasping Holy Spirit goes - it rests among the Church no matter its tradition. It abides, and drives us into true life - a life the world longs for, but cannot itself provide.

For as much as I love much of this, it's also where I criticize Tillich a bit (and where I actually turn Tillich over and against himself - because later in life Tillich develops a dialectical tension between 'Protestant principle' and 'Catholic substance' - more on that another time). What Tillich doesn't account for in this sermon (and is underdeveloped in this part of his career) is sacramentology. Tillich seems quite critical of religious rites and minimizes them as human acts which are meant to contain the work of God. He writes as though God is absent from them. But baptism isn't an independent ritual, magic spell, or divine fire insurance - it is the enactment of God's call to the Church to be known through Water and Word. God is actually involved in the process - present in the Word, present in the Assembly, present in the Water. We may say the same for Holy Communion. God creates the Church consistently through sacramental proclamation - and the promises made at baptism constitute our identity as Christians. These acts do not seek to "contain" God as Tillich fears, but properly proclaimed reveal God as a God who loves, judges, and saves. The sacraments are cross-cultural acts of grace, and life-long promises by God to the people, a grounding for faith and a place for people to hold.  Understanding Christ as one who was baptized and who asks us to baptize others in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to share the Holy Meal makes these things a little more nuanced than what Tillich suggests - participation in the New Being seems to have these things involved. When we tell people to be free of their sin, to be forgiven - we want them to be free wherever we go, and to know they are free and to share that incarnate freedom.

This kind of "openness" in theology, and Tillich's ambivalence towards Western Christianity in its destructive element s have been very influential to the discipline of theology itself, but also very welcoming to marginalized voices in academia. Tillich's work and life story, drew a lot of attention, and inspired other voices in the Church who experienced rejection and abandonment by institutions. The accessibility of his work for those who shared similar experiences of a sort, gave them a kind of academic "credibility" amid institutions otherwise prone to rejecting them over race, gender, etc. Which is bullshit - churches should've been listening to them from the get-go and not been creepy gatekeepers of the discipline. They shouldn't have needed an old white guy to justify themselves (Jesus, an executed young brown man did that well enough). Still, Tillich still provided an accessible theological outlet and entry point for many theologians who would have otherwise been relegated to the margins (and still are far too often - and keep me accountable to this as a guy who writes most often about dead European theologians).

Read Tillich (and especially his sermon collection "The New Being," and his second volume of Systematic Theology which "The New Being" seeks to illuminate) if you love culture, but you also think a lot of it is full of shit. Read Tillich if you love your religion, but also think that its institutions seem to make (and even double down on) some colossal and unjustifiable errors in judgment. Tillich himself had his issues (more on that some other time), but Tillich's theology rejects and challenges so much bullshit in the world. Tillich's theology (and his theological method) provides some of the clearest and most potent renunciations of white supremacy, fascism, racism, misogyny, and more ever written by a straight white man. And he both bodily suffered and spiritually thrived for it. Tillich's work uniquely equips people to look at the horrors of the world and find Christ among those who are suffering, and being killed. So read him some more.

*The term "myth" in this context is in a technical sense - it shouldn't be understood in the common sense of a fanciful, fictional, old story about supernatural beings - but more in the sense of "this is a story which helps us understand ourselves." The factuality and the historicity are less relevant than the impact it has on us. Consider the statement "George Washington was the father of our country." It's a very mythic statement, not so much concerned with "historicity," "factuality," or literal accuracy - but instead potentially reveals something about the values and sense of community held by the one who speaks the myth.

The Authority of the Good News - on Eric Gritsch

"The real issue between fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists is not biblical literalism (who wrote what and when) but inerrancy. Fundamentalists believe that 'all scripture is inspired by God' (2 Tim 3:16) and that 'no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation,' but is instead uttered under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:20-21). Fundamentalist interpreters of the Bible are not so much concerned about the historical accuracy of these two passages (whether, for example, 'all scripture' means only the Old Testament) as they are about their theological inerrancy. They argue that something 'inspired,' can never be false. Their interpretive (hermeneutical) key to Scripture is not the modern historical-critical method, but the rational harmonization of inspired inerrant truth with the faulty reading of sinful persons. Such harmonization rests on the assumption that biblical truth is 'supernatural' even though its communication is 'natural.' Thus, by attempting to reconcile supernatural biblical truth with the variety of literary data, fundamentalist biblical interpreters are caught in a peculiar tension between literalism and non-literalist harmonization...

What then is the distinction between the authority of the Word of God and that of the Bible? Does the latter guarantee the former, or vice versa? Is it the work of the Holy Spirit when I become converted by reading passages of the Bible? Or are the passages themselves so inspired that they overwhelm me to the point of submitting my life to the 'truth' that Jesus is resurrected and in charge of my existence? The answer to these question depends on the kind of theological and philosophical decisions one makes concerning 'authority.'

If God is to be identifiable with words, idea, concepts, and world views disclosed in the Bible, then the Bible is truly divine and the highest possible authority. If God is to be identified with a specific tradition, then that tradition is absolute in relation to other traditions. If God is to be identified with a particular way of thinking such as Aristotelian syllogism, then that mode of thinking leads to God. As one Roman Catholic theologian is reported to have replied to an observer who thought there was no difference between him and a famous Anglo-Catholic: 'We are the opposite pole from X. He holds every doctrine we hold, but he holds them all for the entirely irrelevant reason that he thinks them true.'

Those who are aware of the difference between God (who cannot be reached through any human enterprise) and the human mortal existence in space and time, will not have ultimate trust in the Bible as a book. They will agree with the best ecumenical insight that God's revelation in Christ is self-authenticating. The 'Word of God,' which has become the code name for God's revelation, is a force in which one can participate, but which cannot be controlled...

... the Word of God is always a living voice, a message which creates a gathering of people held together by the speaking, hearing, and enactment of the good news of divine care for God's creatures. The gospel, therefore, gives authority to the Bible, not vice versa.

The issue is not whether biblical studies are faithful to certain doctrines, such as inerrancy or infallibility, but whether biblical study liberates the student from the straitjacket of original sin, that is, the desire to control the object of study and ultimately God, and so to become idolatrous... Those who confuse the Bible's authority of law and promise confuse creaturely humanity with divine power."

Eric W. Gritsch, Born Againism: Perspectives on a Movement (Fortress Press, Philadelphia: 1988) 53, 58-60

Conversations with Fundamentalists can be a challenge for me. I know that most cultural understanding of Protestant Christianity is tied deeply to fundamentalism in the American context, I value ecumenism and long for a unified Church (or at least a church that can be united at least in things like poverty relief), and many of my parishioners admire fundamentalists. It's part of my job. And yet - some of the fundamentalist readings I've come across seem, well, fundamentally at odds with Christ as he was preached and given to me; not to mention scripture as it was passed on to me. And not just in arcane and dense ways, but in "That's Shift and Puzzle dressed in a lion's costume talking nonsense, not Aslan" ways (I'm aware of the irony of making a deep-cut CS Lewis reference in describing "not arcane") (come back some other time for hot-takes on problematic elements of 63 year old allegorical high fantasy literature for children that I'll always be fond of) (Sometimes I'm ambivalent about the battles I choose and sometimes I fight everyone) (don't hold your breath for "some other time).

Gritsch roots this struggle in biblical authority - not so much about whether the Bible has or doesn't have authority (it does for both Fundamentalist and Lutheran), but what the nature of that authority and truth is/are.

Fundamentalism begins with the assumption that the Bible is inerrant and accurate in supernatural terms, which is to say it is independent and superior to critical analysis posed "against" their understanding of the scriptures. The Bible is, in and of itself, accurate and truthful. And when we read the Bible and think like the Bible wants us to, we become faithful and special and holy. Our search for the truth within scriptures' pages is vindicated and our journey is complete - because we come to possess the truth.

But Gritsch, myself, and I would argue the wider Lutheran tradition, finds this understanding of the Bible's authority to be somewhat disingenuous and inaccurate. In fact, it comes to look a lot more like a spiraling authority grab. The argument starts off like this: "The Bible is true, and it tells me that xyz." And perhaps the Bible does. But the claim goes a bit further as soon as it's brought into question. Because as soon as the content of the verse come into question or nuance (say someone were to ask "What does that mean?" "What did the author intend?" "How does this relate to another verse that says something different?"). Once the Bible, which is supposed to be authoritative and clear is brought into question, a matter of interpretation has to come in and a great deal is at stake - indeed one's entire righteousness can depend on "possessing" the correct biblical interpretation. So the fundamentalist will have to resort to favored interpreters who they are confident hold the correct doctrine - usually ones who are confident and part of the in-crowd to their preferred cultural setting. This can mean a personal pastor, or a successful mega-pastor, or a smart-ass theologian who writes on the internet for a dozen or so people to read.

... But do they know best? How do we KNOW they have the right interpretation? How do WE know we believe in the right things about the Bible? Why should should we trust their instincts and their so-called certitudes - especially when we've seen many of the pious authorities fall into disgrace? There's a real vulnerability in fundamentalism towards authoritarianism, and when the authority isn't up to snuff - the consequences can be dire for their followers.

Gritsch's response, and my response, is that when we focus on Biblical authority in this way - we will only focus on our selves. In doing so, we will never truly take comfort in a God who loves the world, and a God who has saved us. Because the Christian faith isn't about what WE think, it is about what God has done. It's not about our decisions, it's about God's grace. The alternative is to imagine walking up to Jesus and saying "Yup, you sure are savior" as though he didn't already know, or as though he had no love or authority without you recognizing it.

Gritsch encourages us to find comfort and strength in God's exercised authority to save. We don't have to worry about getting the Bible "right" because we believe that God gets the Bible right. The Bible's authority is then a derived one - it testifies to Christ and Christ bears the burdens of our doubts, our struggles, and our burdens in the mystery of his life, death, and resurrection.

We are then liberated from the need to be "right" or to make ourselves "righteous" through works of brainpower, assent, cultural inheritance, or our teachers. We are liberated from trying "control" what God says or doesn't say in scripture. We can only testify to a God who puts an end to sin, and brings about new life - all through Christ - all through the Church - all through the Gospel, through baptism, the Lord's Supper, through those things that create faith.

I'll add my own comment here that Fundamentalism isn't limited to Evangelical Christianity. You'll find it wherever people are more concerned about taking control of certain "fundamentals," and seeking assurance in those fundamentals as opposed to what those fundamentals are truly "about." You'll find it getting really bad when those who hold authority over said "fundamentals" get their priorities out of line. Now, there is in fact time and space for authority, and discerning what belongs to and what doesn't belong to an organization - the Church can self govern in the same way that baseball league should to play baseball as opposed to soccer. But there can be an awful lot of extra and arbitrary rules in churches that don't exactly hold up to rigorous theological study, biblical scholarship, or ethical conduct in the light of Jesus' cross and resurrection.

It's worth noting that the text I'm bringing you today contains a great deal more content - not all of which is critical - of the born again movement in its assorted forms, and to a lesser extent the charismatic movement as they were prominent in the 1980s. It provides a good historical overview of the hows and whys and groundings of its thought - and a more nuanced appraisal of the two (particularly the latter).

Read Eric Gritsch if you've encountered a ton of Christians who make you kind of raise your eyebrow. Read Eric Gritsch if you... kind of disagree with a how fundamentalists talk about God but don't really know how to articulate it? Read Eric Gritsch because he finds hope in Jesus and wants to share that hope with you in a fairly accessible but academic way.

On the Sabbath as Theological Truth and Confession - Oswald Bayer

Here sits a tired theologian

"Festivals and holidays (holy days) make harsh demands on the old nature, for it means that we must cease from our work: 'For our sinful nature is very unwilling to die and to be passive, and it is a bitter day or rest for it to cease from its own works and be dead.' This has been a bitter pill for modern theological anthropology, right up to the theology of Barth and Bultmann, in which humans are always seen as active subjects, as doers (for Barth analogously to God). We see this most clearly in Karl Marx. For him, the world exists only in 'self-production' through human 'work.' However, this overlooks the power of the Sabbath, of Sunday, to establish life, because on the Lord's Day human work ceases and God is active. If we receive this power as a categorical gift, the urge to realize ourselves, not only in our work but also in our actions, even in the act of faith, must die. This is the harsh side of the divine service understood as a festival, a holiday. We emphasize it when we say that preaching is a 'remembrance of baptism' (memoria baptismi) and that Baptism itself is constitutive for the divine service as a whole. It is impossible then, to ignore what Paul says about dying in Romans 6.

This kind of dying, however, makes room for life... It means that God, and God alone, does his work in us...

If it is true that we must rest from our work, die to the old self, to let God do his work, faith is primarily neither theory nor practice, neither a speculative life (vita contemplativa) nor an active life (vita activa), but, to use Luther's term for it, a receptive life (vita passiva)"

Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way (William B. Eerdman's Press: Grand Rapids, 2007) 92-93

A few observations before I begin:

1.) This is coming out a day later than I had planned, because yesterday was a snow day, a holiday of its own sort.
1a.) Naturally, and in contrast to what Bayer would likely appreciate, I spent a good chunk of the day working on other things (newsletters, council reports, and of course household chores). Perhaps this will free up some time for me to enjoy my own sabbath day.
1b.) Mercifully there were also boardgames with my spouse, Neverwinter Nights, and a glass of scotch to close my night. Life has much to rejoice in.

2.) If it wasn't clear to you before, every theologian I've written about thus far has a wealth of wisdom that I barely scratch the surface of. This reflection by Bayer and on Bayer is no exception to the rule. I'm confident that I will write much more on Bayer (and the other theologians I've spent time on thus far).

Moving along,

I love this description of the true meaning of holiday, its association with death and resurrection, and what that means for the life, spiritual or otherwise, of all people.

Resting on a holiday (or any Sunday) is a lot trickier than people give it credit for. Sometimes people say the lack of blue laws effect the observation of the Sabbath. Perhaps they aren't wrong (though a thorough look at the longer scope of history will dispute it). They can't observe the Sabbath because they have to work, or the kids have a sport, or it's too early, or they get more out of brunch (incidentally - incentivizing/tempting other people to work).

And yet, so many people treat the Sabbath as though it is a work. People consider it a mark of pride for getting up on Sundays (or getting their children up on Sundays), and going to Church. As though it is something that we do to earn God's favor. In so doing - churchgoing becomes a work and a mark of pride as quick as anything else. So often, even our most "religious" appearances become signals to show to others or ourselves. God is not impressed.

We are more resistant to meaningful rest than we think we are. Many of us, even in our spirituality work ourselves to the point of death. We are slow to defy the modern myth that our capacity to "do, and to "prove ourselves" is what is important. Now Bayer puts this on Marx a little heavily, but it's by no means only a Marxist thing. If you have any doubts about "do"ing as the mark of one's value - simply listen to the way news programs and politicians speak of the poor, the unemployed, and the disabled. In my ears they're usually demeaned - either despised or sentimentalized (itself a "kinder" form of despising). Those who can't "do" much simply aren't given the same reverence as honor as those whom we believe can. There is little we want more than to be respected from our self-selected capacities - and we resist the idea of being defined by our weaknesses. We resist being defined by our lack of work.

Much of this resistance to resting relies on a critical misunderstanding of the Sabbath. When we understand the Sabbath as our choice - we rob its true nature as a revelation and as a gift. In the Holy Day, in observance of the Sabbath, we are kept from working to prove ourselves. We are revealed in our inability- in our helplessness and weakness. This is not the gift that people want. But in this gift, there is likewise a summons to the court of the One who has done it all. You are chosen! This is what matters, more than anything. God has made the choice, and has chosen to be with you. The Sabbath is the death of our own choices - and the reception of God's grace in Christ. In this - we do not simply find our own destruction - we find God's own favor and life.

Read Oswald Bayer because you're too damn tired of making choices. Read Bayer because you're sick of people showing off how pretty and precious they are. Read Bayer because he'll show you a life that witnesses to a God who slays and makes alive (but more on that another week), and chooses to do so to you.

Challenging traditional language for the sake of God's endangered people - On Delores Williams

"One of the results of focusing upon African American women's historic experience with surrogacy is that it raises significant questions about the way many Christians, including black women, have been taught to image redemption. More often than not the theology in mainline Christian churches, including black ones, teaches believers that sinful humankind has been redeemed because Jesus died on the cross in the place of humans, thereby taking human sin upon himself. In this sense Jesus represents the ultimate surrogate figure standing in the place of someone else: sinful humanity. Surrogacy, attached to this divine personage, thus takes on an aura of the sacred. It is therefore altogether fitting and proper for black women to ask whether the image of a surrogate God has salvific power for black women, or whether this image of redemption supports and reinforces the exploitation that has accompanied their experience with surrogacy. If black women accept this image of redemption, can they not also passively accept the exploitation surrogacy brings.

... For black women there is also the question of whether Jesus on the cross represents coerced surrogacy (willed by the Father), voluntary surrogacy (chosen by the Son), or both. At any rate, a major theological problem here is the place of the cross in any theology significantly informed by African American women's experience with surrogacy...

The practice [of historical theologians such as Origen, Anselm, and Abelard] was to use the language and sociopolitical thought of the time to render Christian principles [such as the atonement] understandable. This fits well the task of the black female theologian, which is to use the language and sociopolitical thought of black women's world to show them that their salvation does not depend upon any form of surrogacy made sacred by human understandings of God. This means using the language and thought of liberation to liberate redemption from the cross, and liberate the cross from the "sacred aura" put around it by existing patriarchal responses to the question of what Jesus' death represents.

... What this allows the black female theologian to show black women is that God did not intend the surrogacy roles they have been forced to perform...

... There is nothing of God in the blood of the cross. God does not intend black women's surrogacy experience. Neither can Christian faith affirm such an idea. Jesus did not come to be a surrogate. Jesus came for life, to show humans a perfect vision of ministerial relation that humans had forgotten long ago. As Christians, however, black women cannot forget the cross. But neither can they glorify it. To do so is to make their exploitation sacred. To do so is to glorify sin."

Delores S. Williams "Black Women's Surrogacy Experience and the Christian Notion of Redemption" Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today (Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis, MN: 2006) 19-32

Wow. That last bit is incredibly provocative. And I hated it the first time I read it. Then it started to do its good work on me. While I don't think Williams is strictly a Lutheran, this text does Law and Gospel to me.

Two essential things to keep in mind for everyone who does theology:

1.) Christian theology has historically been appropriated and weaponized against marginalized people. If his tomb was filled, Jesus Christ would be rolling in his grave. That people (even in high offices) within the Church have been harmful to others, and have used traditional doctrines in ways that really hurt people cannot be contested - it is a simple and lamentable fact.

2.) Mercifully, being at the right hand of the Father, Jesus instead chooses to send preachers and prophets within the Church to challenge it, and lead it out of sin. And there is always life to be found in Christian theology - in spite of (and perhaps to spite) the myriad ways it has been used to harm people. Faithful theologians do not simply parrot the lines that their predecessors loved, they bring Christ's life to people.

Delores Williams is a theologian who never fails to challenge me and give me life. I've wanted to write about her for some time. What I quote and speak of is only an aspect of her wider theological corpus. So I invite you to read much more. But I've been hesitant and perhaps still am hesitant to write about her for a few reasons. First - her words are a sword of the Lord to my ears - they condemn me and protect me at same time. Second, they reveal that my preferred language of the grace, solidarity, and love of God - the cross of Jesus Christ - can be harmful to people I want to help. And third - white dudes talking about womanist theologians can be patronizing - and I despise that and fear I might fall into that trap. But I want to do well by her words, and I want to honor her because she has helped me, and it's my not-so-well distributed blog so I can write about who I want.

Delores Williams is a Paul Tillich Professor Emerita of Theology and Culture at Union Seminary - and like Tillich, she refuses to witness to a Gospel of Jesus Christ that is bound to a culturally conditional experience. Even more, she is painfully aware of how sinister (or demonic, in the Tillichian sense) elements of culture can turn the most powerful and beautiful symbolic language which bears Gospel of Jesus Christ into bad news for the oppressed. The language we use can give death, not life. It can rob people of meaning, of their experience, and of the Truth, as opposed to giving, and illuminating the love and justice of God. Even the language I love most.

In this particular article - Williams witnesses to the experience of black women in the United States who have been sinfully pushed into roles of surrogacy - which could be the result of either violent coercion or social pressure. But when Jesus is put into a surrogate position (replacing humankind on the cross), there is the potential for misusing Jesus' name to justify human suffering, and divinizing oppression.

If, Williams puts forward, our suffering makes us "Christ-like", and if forgiving oppressors is "Christ-like," then can't the oppressors in some sick and twisted way turn themselves into the heroes of the story? Aren't they doing a favor to the broken and battered and abused - by making them models of "Christian" life?

And she's right. The ugly truth is I've heard those arguments before. I have heard men justify their own hatred and abuse, and their own right to not treat women as equals under God. I've heard men argue their own entitlement to forgiveness, and with forgiveness, their entitlement to never change or address their own shortcomings. The Christian use of the cross - originally intended as a subversion against Roman oppression and authoritarianism - can be fully reverted into a symbol of oppression again. When such a reversion occurs - traditional forms and language can do more harm than good. This doesn't mean we have to throw them away - but we have to be aware of our context, humble about our tradition, open to the experiences of others, and faithful in a God who loves the world.

This is Williams' skillful fight. When she "rejects" the cross - it's not really the Cross. Nor is it an attack on the incarnation. She objects to sin's power to warp the symbols of the Church. She challenges the Church's tendency to be satisfied with a status quo that does not reflect God's kingdom (or, to use a modern womanist parlance that I've seen gain favor - "God's kin-dom"). She uses the tradition, and her theological imagination, enraptured by the Holy Spirit, to envision new possibilities for proclamation to every age, for every nation. Because while God's life cannot be contained, it does choose to dwell among us. And this is Good News.

Read Delores Williams because sin has the power to warp even our most sacred symbols. Read Delores Williams because you know that the Holy Spirit won't stand for that - but continues to work for the liberation of the captives, and for life everlasting.

On taking part in God - Tuomo Mannermaa

"Union with Christ" containing many essays by Mannermaa and other representatives of the Finnish School of Luther Studies

" The theosis of a believer is initiated when God bestows on the believer God's essential properties; that is, what God gives of himself to humans is nothing separate from God himself.

God gives himself as the Word in the historical birth of Christ and in the spiritual birth of Christ in the faith of the believer.... [quoting Luther] 'Just as the word of God became flesh, so it is certainly also necessary that the flesh may become word... The Logos puts on our form and pattern, our image and likeness, so that it may clothe us with its image, pattern, and its likeness...'

... God is in relation to himself in the movement of the Word... In Christ the inner-trinitarian Word, which is the being of God, becomes incarnate. The presence of Christ's word and the word about Christ in faith are the presence of God himself.

This ontological basis has its epistemological side as well: the act of knowing and the object of knowledge are identical. God who illuminates and the illuminated heart, the present God and the God seen by us, are identical. God is both the object and subject, the actor and act, of faith.

...Christ himself, both in his person and his work, is the righteousness of man before God. Christ is both favor of God (forgiveness of sins, atonement, abolition of wrath) and gift (donum), God himself present. Faith means justification precisely on the basis of Christ's person being present in it as favor and gift. In ipsa fide Christus adest: in faith itself Christ is present, and so the whole of salvation.

... Faith means participation in the being and thus in the properties of God. And one of the properties of which the Christian in his faith partakes is love. Christ, who is present in faith as donum, brings love with him, because Christ is in his divine nature God, and God is love.

In love... believers give themselves freely to their neighbors and take upon themselves their neighbor's burden, misery, sins, poverty, and weakness as if these were their own burdens, their own misery, their own sin, poverty and weakness. Like Christ, then, Christians take upon themselves 'human nature', that is, the misery and burden of the neighbor... The Christian has become Christ to the neighbor: Christianus Christus proximi."

Tuomo Mannermaa, "Why is Luther so Fascinating?" in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther Braaten, Jenson eds. (Eerdman's: Grand Rapids, MI: 1998) 10-12, 13-19

Mannermaa's theology is rich material for reflection for countless reasons. He has endlessly encouraging, interesting, and sometimes contentious*, theological beliefs. But we could also richly observe his work in his ecclesiological, ecumenical and geopolitical context. That a Finnish theologian was working in close consideration of Eastern/Russian Orthodoxy in the 20th century, while Finland was a border state to the Soviet Union, had a considerable amount of its land seized by the Soviet Union following the Winter War and the Second World War, adds a really deep context to his words.

For what it's worth, there was a lot of really interesting, nuanced Protestant theology and church work being done on the borders and boundaries of the Iron Curtain - be it Mannermaa, or Jüngel, or Hamel. But it wasn't just theology at the border of communist dictatorships, these are distinctly Protestant theologies at the boundary of both orthodoxy and atheism. I think this makes Mannermaa and many others valuable partners for discerning how to do theology faithfully in "secular" environments.

But while his circumstances add a ton to Mannermaa, let's turn our focus to the content of his writing.

You ever find yourself becoming more like someone you love? I see it happen in myself from time to time with my wife - little things like how I say "well," or when I give someone a "look" that shows I'm judging them. On the same note, my wife occasionally makes bad jokes, which were almost entirely my realm before marriage. I'm not saying it's always a good trade. Similar things have happened in some of my closest friendships as well. But this doesn't happen through intentional affectation, so much as it happens through closeness and love. Apply that to Christ and the Church (which, incidentally is often described as Christ's Bride). This is a key to understanding Mannermaa - most known for his re-interpretation of Luther's works over and against the German traditions.

A lot of Lutheran theologians put their focus on justification, but for Mannermaa lasting hope is found in God's abiding presence as made apparent through the incarnation (God's becoming part of creation, or literally God's "meat-ification"). It's not like the declaration of justification doesn't matter, it is in fact the start of the whole thing for a believer. But the incarnation is a huge part of this.

The incarnation is certainly in part God's incarnation in Jesus Christ, but it also has a lot to do with Jesus Christ's indwelling in the life of the believer. Mannermaa wants you to know that Jesus Christ is really with you and for you. And even more than that - you are part of the life and being of God through Jesus. Just as God is really with Jesus and for Jesus, and God and Jesus are at one.

Mannermaa might be so bold as to say that God pursues God's self, God acts as God, through being Jesus Christ. Christ in turn acts and is God to us, and through him we share what God is. We take part in the being of God through being taken up in the being of God. And as the Word moves according to its own divine way, we find ourselves going to our neighbors in faith. This in turn is what it means to be free from the power of sin and death. This is what freedom means.

When we are free/freed, we have faith. In faith we turn with love to our neighbors and become Christ to them. This is not done in the absence or inattentiveness of Christ - as though he were unavailable. It is because Christ is really present, truly present, in us.** It is Christ's presence - within us, beyond us, and in the pursuit itself - that draws us to our community, our neighbors, etc., not his absence.

This gives us a really great framework not only for understanding sanctification/theosis, but also evangelism, stewardship, and the like. And those are just a few reasons that you should read Tuomo Mannermaa

* Warning, deep-cut Lutheran history and in-house disputes follow

While this blog is typically for a simple appreciation of theology - I find it difficult to talk much about Mannermaa and the entire Finnish school of Luther studies without appreciating its points of conflict with the wider Lutheran tradition. While Mannermaa's writings definitely bring up Luther's themes - many traditional Lutherans are fiercely opposed to him. The most frequent accusation is that Mannermaa's writings are a revisitation of the Osiandrian Controversy.

After Luther's death, Andreas Osiander argued a nuance of Luther's view that was unacceptable to most of his contemporary Lutherans. Lutherans argued that justification is something proclaimed to sinners in order to save them. God says "you're forgiven," (usually through God's people) and you are forgiven, as stubbornly, simply, and faithfully as that. Osiander appreciated this (and wouldn't necessarily disagree with it), but he added the nuance that salvation (and sanctification) happen through Christ's indwelling of the believer through faith (given sacramentally). He lifted up being made part of God's body through Christ. Osiander's opponents saw this "infusion" of grace as a prettier version of Roman teachings, and dangerously undermining the very comfort of the Gospel. In some extremes this may have been true, but it's hard for any reader of St. Paul and recipient of the sacraments to be unsympathetic. A functional middle-ish ground was lifted up in the Formula of Concord, and yet, language of indwelling has been viewed with suspicion in the Lutheran Church ever since. Mannermaa and the Finnish school are the most recent recipients of this important, but not schismatic, suspicion.

** Notice how this language of presence parallels the Lutheran understanding of Holy Communion, and meditate on that for a while. That's why Holy Communion and the Real Presence is so important for us - it has a lot to do with who we are and who God is.

God's Work has Earthly Consequences for the Church - on Gustavo Gutierrez

"The Gospel is primarily a message of Salvation. The construction of the world is a task for human beings on this earth. To state the question of a theology of liberation means, therefore, to ask about the meaning of this work on earth, the work that human beings perform in this world vis-a-vis the faith. In other words, what relationship is there between the construction of this world and salvation.

A theology of liberation, then, will have to reply first of all to this question: Is there any connection between constructing this world and saving it?

Thus our own question is posed. The theology of liberation means establishing the relationship that exists between human emancipation - in the social, political, and economic orders - and the kingdom of God.

... If we understand salvation as something with merely 'religious' or 'spiritual' value for my soul, then it would not have much to contribute to concrete human life. But if salvation is understood as passing from less human conditions to more human conditions, it means that messianism brings about the freedom of captives and the oppressed, and liberates human beings from the slavery that Paul VI referred to [PP 47]...

When we struggle for a just world in which there is not servitude, oppression, or slavery, we are signifying the coming of the messiah."

Gustavo Gutierrez, "Toward a Theology of Liberation" in Gustavo Gutierrez: Essential Writings ed. James Nickoloff (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, MN: 1996) 26-27 . (The reference to Paul VI refers to Pope Paul VI's encyclical Populorum progressio, a 1967 document dealing with economic injustice.)

Participation in the Church has earthly consequences - for indeed, God dwells with and chooses to be revealed through the Church (whether we like it or not). This is not necessarily through human "doing," but divine action manifested through human life. What else would it mean for the Spirit to dwell in and among humankind - and for that to mean anything in particular?

Following God's actions, we respond. Following the creation, we contribute and care. Following the incarnation, we are present with one another. Following death and resurrection, we live without lasting fear.

Gutierrez draws our attention to an important dynamic - orthodoxy (right thinking) cannot be separated from orthopraxy (right conduct). Neglect of one and neglect of the other go hand in hand. Closely linked with this is a concept that is central to Gutierrez, though not particularly brought up in the excerpt I provided: God's preferential option for the poor. The God of Scripture acts through the poor, the weak, and whoever is denied their humanity by others. God affirms in the poor a still greater humanity that would otherwise be denied them. The poor are not to be romanticized or idealized, but fed, strengthened, and given equal standing to the powerful (who, as Mary the Mother of Jesus reflects, are bound to be cast down).

Another thing I think we need to lift up is that Gutierrez doesn't call for us to be "successful." He's not writing some self-help guide to being your best self (whatever that would even mean). It is the struggle that he lifts up. Our very struggle reveals the presence of the Holy One. That doesn't mean our victory (though that would sure be swell). Sometimes what appears to be a victory can insidiously turn into a new tyranny. The church's greatest heroes are often enough its martyrs - who did not "win" in earthly terms. Christ's death did not put an end to earthly tyranny - but undermined its power over the actions and reflections of believers and calls us to struggle for the sake of the vulnerable.

There is much more I could add - about the role of culture, of politics, economics, history, the role of scripture, Gutierrez' relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, how he informs Protestantism  - but this is only a brief example of Gutierrez's writing - and a brief appreciation of one of the 20th century's foremost theologians. A time for these themes may come, but as for now let me simply provide one other wonderful quote:

"Accepting the kingdom of God means refusing the accept a world that promotes or tolerates the premature and unjust deaths of the poor. It means rejecting the hypocrisy of a society that claims to be democratic but violates the elementary rights of the poor. It means rejecting the cynicism of the powerful of this world. to be a disciple means proclaiming the liberation fo the captives and the evangelization of the poor (Luke 4:18-19) and lifting the hopes of a people that suffers age-old injustice. To accept the kingdom is to turn Mark's proclamation that "this is the time of fulfillment; the kingdom of God is at hand" into an initial historical reality. It is to find God in the dynamism that this kairos infuses into human history." (Gutierrez, The Kingdom is at Hand, 173)

And that is why you should read the theology of Gustavo Gutierrez.