This is a reflection on the Pew research which shows a diminishment of global Christian population share from 35% in 1910 and 32% in 2010. At first, if one looks at raw numbers, it appears as if Christianity is growing like crazy. This is because there were only 612 million Christians in 1910, but there are now 2.18 billion: An apparent increase of 353% in 100 years! However, in that same time world population has increased 383% from 1.8 billion in 1910 to 6.9 billion in 2010.
This is interesting because Christianity is supposed to be a growth religion- a missionary religion- not a maintenence religion. This stat does not seem problematic until one factors this lack of statistical increase compared to actual population growth. It shows that even though more total people are Christians, the message and vitality of Christianity is slipping as a proportion of culture as a whole.
See the Pew Religion research stats here: http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-worlds-christian-population.aspx?src=prc-headline
Even if one juxtaposes the diminution of Christian dominance in Europe and the USA with the rapid growth of Christianity in Asia and Africa, the problem still stands. For on one hand: What culture has not been evangelized more, and in more ways, than the USA? And yet, the "market share" of Christianity here has STILL decreased from well over 90% in 1900 to just under 80% today.
And in many (not all) African and Asian countries where Christianity is growing, it must be noted that Christianity is socially favored and politically expedient in those cultures, in similar ways to how Christianity was culturally favored during the epoch of European "Christendom". In a century or two, when Christianity is no longer a novel or liberating force in those countries, but rather the religion of status quo, will it also cease to grow? As sociologist of religion Philip Jenkins writes in several works- notably "The Lost History of Christianity"- the fate of Christian churches and Christian populations is often tied to being on the "winning" side of political and cultural power. When Christianity ceases to be tied to the powerful, it historically has died out (especially in Asia in from 700-1400 CE).
So, if one looks at the last century of statistics in an admittedly pessimistic way (as I am now), it seems like Christianity as an organized cultural form is on a long spiral downward. This means that the discredited "secularization" hypothesis of the 1960-70's (which said that all advanced societies were heading toward irreligion as spiritual categories were filled by post-enlightenment thought and practice) is not entirely discredited. It may not be that people are leaving the Church in droves to be atheist or agnostic, but it does appear a slow statistical trickle of Christians are leaving for something else.
So, if we live in a world that is slowly becoming post-Christian- at least post-Christian in a communally organized sense- what does Christ have to offer that merits a reversal of this trend? Note I say Christ (the person, and the organic body through which he works today) and not Christianity (that cultural instrument which has allied with political powers and cultural principalities throughout history).
What does Christ have to offer a post-Christian world?
I want to hunch the outline of an answer to this question. And note that this is a hunch, not a well researched hypothesis, and an outline, not a nuanced exposition.
My hunch comes from the following sources: The perpetual discomfort that sensitive people have felt as regards cutthroat consumer capitalism, ranging from the anti-slavery movement of the 1800's to the social gospel movement of the early 1900's to the hippie protests of the 1960's to the Occupy movement today; The constant drive that cultures seem to exhibit toward a recognition of the sacredness of human life, and the rights and responsibilities that entails, from the women's movement of the early 1900's to the civil rights movements of the mid-1900's to the Arab Spring of today; The revolutionary communal movements of the late 1800's-mid 1900's, which led to a brief flourishing of socialist and communist states, but which have collapsed completely (as the Soviet empire) or partially (as in the socialist-tinged capitalism of Europe and China).
What I see in all of these diverse movements is a general drift toward a dual recognition of the sacredness of the individual person, as well as the need for interdependence as a community, in which all work together, all are valued, all are responsible, and none can manipulate, control, use, or abuse "the Other". With this dual personal/communal ethic comes the economic ramifications of distributive justice, in which the just society makes sure no one is left out in the process of rewarding the achievements of the leaders of society. This distributive justice is the social outworking of interpersonal love: A love which values and welcomes "the Other" in whatever forms she or he may present themselves to us.
So human culture seems to have an inherent yet flawed, identifiable yet stuttering, movement toward the following values:
- Personal sanctity
- Communal interdependence
- Distributive justice
- Interpersonal Love
What does Christ have to do with this striving? Put simply: Everything.
I would argue that the gradual realization of these values is what Christ's Holy Spirit is pushing God's people toward throughout the entirety of the Scriptures. I would say that these values are exactly what Jesus lived and taught. And I would go further and say that Jesus' bodily resurrection is a kind of "down payment" or promise that it is precisely these values that win in the end. These values are vindicated by Christ's defeat of death, and thus we can stake our life on these values.
Furthermore, the trajectory of Christ's life and teachings, as well as the later New Testament, as well as the great Ecumenical Councils of the Church, point us to a God who is the Source and Wellspring of these values. In fact, these values are a reflection of the mutually self-giving, other-centered, interpenetrating Love which is the eternal nature of the Triune God.
SINCE God is, eternally, three sacred Persons, sharing in an utterly interdependent life together, as they distribute the nature of God equally to all three, by sharing in the same Love, THEN we have an eternal basis for striving after the values of Personal Sanctity, Communal Interdependence, Distributive justice, and interpersonal Love.
I would go on to argue that the reason why the great socialist and communist states of the 20th century failed was, at least in part, because they did not have this metaphysical grounding in God as the source of their communal life. As a result, they had to deify someone or something to take the place of the vacuum of God in the center of their "political ontology" (to borrow from Zizek). Thus they deified the State, or the Party, or the Great Leader, with disastrous consequences which destroyed the sanctity of the person (in mass killings of political dissidents) and interpersonal love (in the paranoia of the police state). These God-absent dreams of a worldly utopia rightfully imploded under the weight of their own inefficiency and injustice.
As a result we have been left to the whims of an equally monstrous consumer capitalism which tries to uphold a charade of personal sanctity (under the mask of greater personal choice and more personal wealth) by destroying all communal interdependence and loyalty to anything bigger than our own selfish desire to consume. The regnant capitalist system uses our God-given desire for freedom and choice, and turns into a system of social control, in which we neatly conform to marketed identities supplied by slave laborers across the ocean, while corporations who are treated like persons exist as parasites sucking out the life of both consumer and producer. All of this while religions of every type are robbed of their prophetic voice by being made into yet another "lifestyle choice" for the individual consumer who goes "church shopping" just like they go shopping for food, clothes, or entertainment.
But, the system is not sustainable, and the cracks are beginning to show. We see financial meltdowns, protests in the streets, debt crises big enough to wipe out national economies, and crises of identity that leave people feeling restless, meaningless, hopeless, and helpless. We see the problems of capitalism, but there seems to be no other solution. The socialist systems have all imploded. And how can we bite the hand that feeds us, or refuse the very tit we suck from?
Yet, just because the socialist movements were often anti-God, we cannot therefore fail to recognize the God-inspired hopes for justice and community embedded within them. Nor can we fail to see why thinkers such as Marx so naively rejected God in the first place: The name of God and the claims of God were so long used to justify oppression and to oppose movement toward justice that it seemed to these thinkers that the only way to get to justice was to jettison God. And in this, at least part of the blame rests squarely on the Church for colluding with the powers and principalities of the world to make God's name a synonym for oppression and abuse. Following Paul, I say: As it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Rom. 2:24 paraphrasing Isa. 52.5 and Eze. 36.23).
And, as I have shown above, this drive toward God's Love and Justice is still alive today, and still witnessed by mass movements that dream of such Love and Justice. And God's Name is still used as a justification for violence and oppression by Conservative Christian Capitalist politicians in the USA, by Islamic Fascist Terrorists in the Middle East, and by homophobic zealots in Africa.
If we can rescue the Name of God- the Name of God we find in Christ- from cultural slavery to power, oppression, and violence, then the Word of Christ can speak something new to post-Christian culture. I say "If we can rescue" as if we have the power to do it, and we don't. Rather, if we just let Christ be Christ and speak as Christ in Love and judgment upon our culture, then we can hear afresh the Word of God that has been held in cultural oppression.
What Christ has to offer a post-Christian world is precisely a third alternative beyond the traditional "right/left" or "capitalist/socialist" or "conservative/progressive" dichotomies. Christ offers us the very model of servant-leadership which embodies the values which we strive after. But beyond this, embedded in Christ's Life, is the very God who is Love. In Christ's life, death, and resurrection we are offered a window to see into the very life of God. And what we see in God is the Trinity: A God who is the very goal we are striving after when we strive for love, justice, community and individuality.
This Triune God who is a community beckons us, through Christ, by the Spirit, to enter into communion with Godself. This God becomes the Source and Ground for our communal life together, a Source which was denied by Marx and parodied by the great communist states. It is ultimately because they cut themselves off from this Source that they failed in bringing about the values they desired.
And this leads to perhaps the greatest thing that Christ offers a post-Christian world. It is something even beyond the Trinitarian moral and social values outlined above. It is something we badly need, and without it, the cycle of personal guilt and social violence will keep spiraling into destruction. It is forgiveness. We need an ontological, metaphysical grounding for the practice of forgiveness. We need someone who can assure us that forgiveness is really available, really worth it, and really conforms to the nature of reality.
And we find this in Christ. In his resurrection, we see that the Love of the Triune God is stronger than death, violence, or guilt. We see that God can actually heal death, violence, and guilt. And if we are going to "right the wrongs" of culture and re-build something that works, we are going to need tons of forgiveness: For our own mistakes and the injustice of others. Only through this forgiveness, which is only offered through Christ, can we find the strength to reconcile with each other, and begin again to work for justice and love.
Through Christ we can forgive. We can return to the Triune Source. We can find the Divine grounding for our hopes and dreams. And in so doing, we can work together to create the kind of community Jesus taught and lived, a community he called simply "The Kingdom of God".
2011-12-16
Remembering Hitch
RIP Christopher Hitchens. May Christ have mercy on him. He was a good man. Theologically misguided, but fundamentally driven by a sense of justice that is not accounted for by his own worldview. I will miss the challenge his writings brought to me.
http://m.npr.org/story/143595854?url=/2011/12/16/143595854/writer-christopher-hitchens-dies
http://m.npr.org/story/143595854?url=/2011/12/16/143595854/writer-christopher-hitchens-dies
2011-11-27
On weight lifting when you are older
A friend of mine who recently lost a bunch of weight asked me about working out. He asked me because I used to give advice on how to work out when I was younger. You see, I used to be a college football player and power lifter. And like many who lifted heavy iron when younger, once "real life" set in (including marriage, kids, grad schools, jobs, and "adult" responsibilities), I have fallen out of shape, and fallen into being about 50-70 lbs over-weight.
This summer I made a pretty good start at loosing weight. I lost about 15 lbs and have kept it off for 6 months. But what I did that has helped even more is that I have kept working out on weights and cardio for the last 6 months consistently. It's a personal best since college. I have gained a bunch of strength and muscle tone back (although nowhere near as much as I once had).
But I also had to re-train on how to work out as a late-30-something with less testosterone, and far less free time, than the collegiate version of myself, along with several nagging injuries left over from high school and college sports. In particular, I have a rotator cup that is glitchy, a lower back that is much more prone to injury, and tennis elbow from typing too much (let me get this straight: Powercleans with 200-300 lbs when I was a teen didn't tear up my forearms, but grad school typing did???).
Anyway, my re-immersion into working out on a weekly basis has brought me a tiny bit of wisdom I shared with my friend. And now I guess I will share it with everyone else too…
Here are five principles I try and follow working out:
1. Try and work bigger muscle groups first, and move to smaller muscles (generally, this means starting with Leg/Groin area, then chest and back, then shoulders, then arms and calves, ending with abs).
2. Work harder in less time. I prefer to do 1-2 sets per exercise, but go to absolute failure on each set, rather than doing 3-5 sets and arbitrarily stopping at 10-12 reps. It is the last few reps that go to failure that cause the muscles to grow. I normally try to use a weight that will cause me to go to absolute failure in 12-18 reps, but I don't usually count reps. I just go until I can't push or pull it anymore.
Not counting reps (on most exercises) has been a big help to me. I find that I don't compete with myself at every workout, trying to get just one more rep on every set. Instead, not counting reps lets me focus more on the form of the exercise, rather than clawing to get some arbitrary number. Typically I will only count reps on one set of squats, chest, and back. Then I will base my workout weight for other exercises on what I can use for for 12-18 reps on that. Also, when I was younger the preferred rep range was 6-12 reps. That kind of weight injures me easily these days. Better to keep lighter, with better form.
3. A strong core (abs and lower back) will lead to a strong everything else. Thus, make sure you are doing your lower back and hamstring stretches, as well as crunches and superman exercises for basic core strength. My favorite core exercises are:
- Crunches [http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/RectusAbdominis/BWCrunch.html],
- Leg Lifts [http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/RectusAbdominis/BWLyingLegHipRaise.html],
- Superman [http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/ErectorSpinae/Superman.html],
- Side Bends [http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Obliques/DBSideBend.html]
4. Make use of compound exercises as much as possible. Compound exercises are those that use multiple muscle groups [such as squats or bench press], as opposed to isolation exercises that target only one muscle group [such as leg extensions or dumbbell flyes].
5. Good form trumps high weight. If you are using high weight and doing it with bad form, you are asking for an injury. Drop the weight down to make sure you do the right form, and do it to failure.
And a bonus 6th principle: As long as your knees and lower back are healthy, the SQUAT is the best full body exercise God has given to humanity. Especially the wide-stance, feet-facing-outward, squat-to-90-degrees kind of squat. The distribution of weight down your entire body hits every muscle group, and will cause toning and strength for every muscle group.
I also try to only do exercises I can do at home, or in ANY gym, using bodyweight or dumbbells. For squats I will use barbells because of the sheer weight involved for me. There are several reasons for this. First, there is something psychologically gratifying about lifting one's own body, or a set of weights, and seeing it move from your own effort. I get a lot more psychologically from having free weights in my hands or on my back than seeing a machine move. Second, dumbbells do not really require spotters to be safe. Even with barbell squats, you can just let the weight slip off your back if you get into trouble. However, if you are doing barbell bench or incline press, you can do real damage to yourself if you do not have a spotter. Third, you can literally find free weights anywhere. You don't have to rely on any special equipment only found in a few places. Fourth, free weights allow for you to use the right form for your body. Many machines can be wrong for your body bio-mechanically (especially if you have odd proportions, like my squatty legs and long torso!).
As far as nutrition goes, if you are going to start working out regularly, you need to work on getting protein in. I would suggest finding a WHEY protein powder that mixes easily and that you like the taste of. Then get a shaker or Nalgene bottle, and mix it into 8 oz of cold water or milk. You should be able to get 30-40grams of protein per serving that way, with few calories. If you are working out on a regular basis, you should probably aim at 0.5-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight if possible (so, for a 250 lb person, it would be 125-250g protein per day). if you are not working out regularly with weights, you don't need this much protein.
As far as getting ideas for exercises, I will give you my favorite routine in a second. But if you want a great website that offers a directory of exercises, AND how to do them correctly, I recommend:
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html
That site also has some really good ideas for exercise routines. I would suggest a one-day, full-body exercise routine. Here are some good suggestions:
http://exrx.net/Workouts/Workout1LPP.html
Here are some other good suggestions from other sites:
http://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/dumbbell-only-home-or-gym-fullbody-workout.html
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/iovate5.htm
And a bit more advanced:
http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/forget-steroids-5-fullbody-workouts-for-serious-gains.html
And this guy is a little crazy (and a bit flamboyant), but he is an older bodybuilder who works mainly at home, and knows how to deal with lower back pain. He has some really good advice for the older weight lifter:
http://scoobysworkshop.com/
His page on lower back pain is darn-near gospel-truth. Great advice:
http://scoobysworkshop.com/preventing-lower-back-pain/
Finally, how would I put together a full body workout for a beginner? Something like this:
Full Body Workout using Bodyweight and Dumbbells (maybe Barbells too if you want):
A. Legs, Buttocks, Lower Back: Squats [Bodyweight, Dumbbell, or Barbell]: 2-3 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
B. Pecs, Frontal Deltoids: Incline Press or Bench Press [Dumbbell or Barbell]: 2-3 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
C. Upper Back, Lats: Pullups [Cheating or Assisted], or Bent Rows [Dumbbell or Barbell]: 2-3 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
D. Deltoids, Traps: Upright Rows or Deltoid Side Raises: 2-3 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
E. Hamstrings: Stiff-Leg Deadlifts focusing on Hamstring Stretch: 1-2 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
F. Calves: Calf Raises using Body Weight on Stair [Single leg or Double leg]: 1-2 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
G. Triceps: Reverse Dips or Narrow Grip Pushups: 1-2 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
H. Biceps: Dumbbell Curls: 1-2 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
I. Abdominals: Crunches and/or Leg Raises: 1-2 sets x failure at 12-18 reps
J. Lower Back: Superman: 1-2 sets x 3 reps x hold for 30-60 seconds per rep.
Notice the following:
- You can alternate or superset each of the paired exercises (A-B, C-D, etc.). They hit separate parts of the body, therefore you can do one set while the muscles of the other set recover. This will make your workout faster AND more aerobic.
- Exercises A-D require 2-3 sets because they are bigger muscles, while Exercises E-J require 1-2 sets because they deal with smaller muscles.
- If you don't have time for the full workout, you can split it into 2 days simply by doing A-D on Day 1 and E-J on Day 2.
- REST: I would rest or do cardio for at least 2 days after you get done with the routine. A teenager with tons of testosterone could probably do only 1 rest day in between workouts. But that ain't us anymore.
The workout I personally do is a variation of the above workout [and can be found at files.me.com/bostianbunch/5kfldq]. It includes a list of calories expended in working out and cardio, as well as a calorie list. I use it for diet as well. My diet was going great over the summer. Not so much during the school year. I also intentionally integrate spirituality and prayer into my workout routine, as is shown on the workout sheet. I often pray between sets (and sometimes during!) and use the workout as a time to meditate and intercede for others.
2011-11-12
Must we become [worldview] Jews to become Christians?
The following is a letter I wrote to Bishop NT Wright about his constant emphasis on the 1st Century Jewish background of the New Testament. I am a big admirer of Wright, and I think he is largely right on in his "New Perspective" on Paul, as well as his strong emphasis on Resurrection as THE Christian Hope. I think his emphasis on the historical and cultural context of the New Testament is also right and necessary. Yet, sadly, it is also inaccessible for most people. If he responds to this email, I will post the reply.
__________________________________________
Dear Bishop Wright,
Greetings from a long time admirer and reader of your works. I have made it through most of your 3 volume opus on Christian origins, and many of your other more popular works, as well as dozens of papers, articles, interviews, and recordings on the internet.
I am also an Episcopal priest who works with teens as a school chaplain and religion teacher (and formerly a college and youth minister). Over the years I have taken many of the ideas I first gained from you and implemented them for a much younger audience.
I finally have obtained a copy of "Justification" and am reading it. From my read this time, I had a question occur to me that has never occurred before. It could be asked of any of your works, really. It just became apparent to me with this book.
The question has to do with your (rightful) emphasis on the 1st century Jewish background of the NT, especially the Pauline material (since Paul, unlike Jesus, addresses much of his work to Gentiles as well as Jews).
It strikes me as very right- self obvious really- to insist on a careful reading of the NT material within the thought-world of First Century Judaism. It seems quite right to refer to extant 1st century Jewish works (cf. 4 Ezra) to make your case for the contextual read of the NT. And it seems "meet and right" for you to question Western, Modern, and Reformed assumptions about the "clear meaning" of Scripture on the basis of such a Jewish read of Scripture.
All well and good.
But the average seminary trained cleric- let alone the average Christian or non-Christian- does not have access to the type of data you are referencing. Furthermore, as you well know, us [post]moderns are coming at the text from a very different worldview. And even for the minority of us that are fluent in NT koine Greek (as I am), our knowledge of the Biblical text is so influenced by modern English translations (cf. NIV, ESV, NRSV) that we tend to automatically import their gloss on the meanings of controversial terms (cf. dikaiosunee, pistis/euo).
So we have a situation where (a) knowledge of 1st century Judaism is almost essential to understanding the NT; (b) the overwhelming majority of clerics and lay persons do not have this knowledge; with the result that (c) Average Christians and their pastors cannot simply read the NT text (even in Greek!) and truly understand it, but must rely on an ancient worldview they do not have access to for the proper interpretive lenses.
It seems that we open up a postmodern, epistemic version of the Acts 15 problem: We are, in effect, requiring 21st century Gentiles to become 1st century Jews (in worldview) to become Christians (or at least, right-thinking Christians).
The obvious alternative is to create some sort of universalized, de-historicized, de-Judaized Gospel that is communicated propositionally in terms acceptable to the philosophy of the current age. And the result of this can be anything from bland liberalism to rabid fundamentalism to Nazi holocaust.
Is there a way out of this dichotomy of scholarly historicism on one side and radical de-historicism on the other? if I must accept this dichotomy, then I side with you on the side of Jewish context.
But is there some sort of easily communicated, easily summarized, easily accessible way out of this epistemic conundrum that is analogous to the Acts 15 settlement over the physical/ritual Judaization of early Gentile converts?
Thank you for your time.
May grace and peace fill your life,
Nate Bostian
2011-10-10
Friend or Frenemy? A Review of Peter Rollins' "Insurrection"
As a "frenemy" of Christ, Rollins maintains a place for God, at the cost of flattening God into just a Name for the structure of human psychological experience. As such, his thought is helpful as a bridge to Christ, in the same way that pantheism, panentheism, psychoanalysis and even Marxism can be bridges to Christ, all of which offer various points of commonality and intersection with Christ while also displaying broad areas of discordance. Here are some of the theological moves that Rollins makes in the book:
His key theological code-words are God, Truth, Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. He does not seem to mind if these ideas are given "historic" content as things that happened in space time and which are cognitively affirmed as such. But for Rollins this affirmation is irrelevant, usually distracting, and simply meaningless for the postmodern person. Rather, their true meaning and relevance comes from their identity as descriptions of human experience.
GOD: For Rollins, God is the undeconstructable, unconditional, unselfish Love which elicits our total decision to affirm and support "the other". In this schema, God is not some "Big Other" that can be loved as a person in an "I/Thou" relationship, but rather God is the very act of Loving which allows us to treat other humans as "Thou". God's transcendence is not as an entity outside of our historic existence, but rather is "transcendence-in-immanence" as the ever deepening immanence we find as we explore the un-ending depths of our beloved (whoever that may be). To say it in a way Rollins does not: God is no longer a self-subsistent noun beyond us, but solely an immanent verb which proceeds from us, and binds us together, as an epiphenomenon of our consciousness.
To put it into Jack Caputo's terms (who Rollins draws heavily on): God is that which is undeconstructable and which deconstructs all of our social constructs. Thus God can be seen as the Love which critiques all our personal relationships, or as the Justice which critiques all our social Laws and Institutions. God is therefore a "weak force" which is constantly at work in our conscience, evaluating and interpreting our experience. God is not, and never can be, a "strong force" which exerts coercive power as an entity outside of the human self (because there is no such thing as a personal entity outside of human selves!). Caputo also names this undeconstructable weak force as "The Event". What makes an historic activity or happening into an "Event" is simply the force of human interpretation and evaluation. Before becoming an Event, an historic happening is simply a collision of matter and energy at a specific time. But, in the process of being experienced and interpreted by humans, it is given significance and meaning as an "Event". This meaning-making process, imbued and shot through with undeconstructable Justice and Love, is the weak force of God. God is the process of conflict and evaluation we call "Event".
Although Rollins never mentions his name, I think that Immanuel Kant is sniffing around somewhere at the root of this idea of God as a structure of consciousness. For this God is a sort of absolute demand for absolute Love which operates as a continual weak force in our consciousness of events. This is very close indeed to Kant's concept of the "categorical imperative" which is both absolutely universalizable to all sentient beings, and which treats all sentient beings as ends and never as means (which is a very German, cold, categorical way to express the ethical force of "Love"). I think it would be fair to say that God, for Rollins, is The Categorical Imperative, but not as a cold-blooded mental calculation, rather as a hot-blooded angst-filled passionate embrace of the Other. And following Kant, Rollins is quite allergic to hypothesizing about any metaphysical realities beyond the physical, even to the point of rendering irrelevant certain questions of whether various historical events actually happened. Thus, with Kant, Rollins relegates all of his theologizing to the realm of phenomenal empirical experience, and leaves questions of noumenal realities unasked and unanswered.
Of course, it is easy to see why Rollins (and others) call this "a/theism". It affirms God while also not affirming God. It affirms God without affirming a personal "Big Other" with whom we must deal and to whom we are accountable. Does Rollins' God "judge" us? Yes. But only with the judgment we judge ourselves with, because God is in the end our own judgment. But isn't there something to Rollins' God that is unconditional and undeconstructable? Yes, but only insofar as we allow it to be undeconstructable to us. We can completely, and permanently, ignore the "weak force" of unconditional Love, if we wish. Rollins offers us God without God, in the same way he offers us "religion without religion" (a frequently quoted catch phrase from Derrida).
It is a refinement of 1960's "Death of God" theology using the scaffolding of deconstruction rather than existentialism (and deconstruction, by the way, is a better scaffolding for this view of God). It is not a God of pure immanence or historical process, like the God of Hegel's panentheism or Spinoza's pantheism. Rather, it is God as a re-naming for a universal structure of human consciousness. As such, Rollins' God it is rather akin to a Zen Buddhist rendering of "Nirvana", in which we reach the overcoming and superseding of human experience within the very process of human experience. This supercession is neither a person nor a power nor a place, but a negation of all of these in the very process of a whole hearted affirmation of life. To which the postmodern hipster can shrug and say "Sure, if that's what you mean by God then I can roll with it." This is not God in any realistic sense (in terms of their being real universals or entities outside of empirical experience). But I suppose it is a sort of stepping stone to a realistic affirmation of God for those who are unconvinced.
TRUTH: Once we see how Rollins un/defines God, everything else pretty much falls in line. Following the idea that God is another name for the psychological structure of a hot-blooded categorical imperative, Truth is simply the psychological structure of adapting one's experience to the absolute demands of this categorical imperative. For instance, we come into an encounter with "the other" with a whole series of learned behaviors, values, and assumptions. As "God" exerts the "weak force" of Love upon our consciousness, all of these behaviors, values, and assumptions are over-turned to make room for a deconstructed way of embracing "the Other". Truth is found for Rollins precisely in this process of overturning. Or as Rollins says it "Truth is conflict". Note that Truth is NOT the solution we reach on the other side of conflict (for this is bound to be deconstructed once again as we encounter ever-new "others" to Love). Rather, Truth is the process itself. Truth is conflict itself.
What this means is that Truth is not an entity to discover or uncover. Truth is not a body of facts to construct. Truth is not even the conformity of our inner Reality "in here" to external Reality "out there" (for I doubt Rollins holds that there is an "out there" out there, only our interpretations of "out there"). Truth has nothing objective, absolute or permanent to it. Truth is another name for the psychological process of conflict resolution.
INCARNATION: For Rollins, the Incarnation does not first and foremost refer to an Event in space-time by which a Reality called God enters into human existence as a person named Jesus. This could or could not have happened, and is fairly irrelevant either way. Rather, the records we have of Jesus are a kind of example of what it means to have a human life fully yielded to the psychological process of God. Rollins does not say that we could as easily pick another exemplar to base our discussion of "Incarnation" on, but it is easy to imply this. Yet, Jesus does offer a commonly agreed upon place to step off into the idea of a fully yielded human life, fully open and receptive to the absolute call of this weak force of Love within us all. This is what Incarnation is: The fully yielded life that sacrifices everything for the sake of the God of Love. For Rollins, this is also called the "sacrifice for religion", in which we give up everything FOR God (and remember, God here defined, not as a person, but as a process of Love). This is juxtaposed with the "sacrifice of religion" in which we give up everything INCLUDING God (which we will discuss below). The importance is to note that, once again, a key term in the lexicon of theology (Incarnation) has been all but drained of any particular content, and made into the name of a universal process.
Indeed, in one section of the book, Rollins details the theological idea of kenosis, which is the emptying of Godself to enter into human life as Jesus. Rollins quotes the main text for kenosis, the Pauline Christ hymn of Philippians 2, in which Paul writes that in Christ "God emptied himself and took on the nature of a slave, being found in human likeness…" The problem with this affirmation by Rollins is that, if God is the psychological structure that Rollins claims, there simply was nothing there to empty out in the first place. For if God has no transcendent reality outside of historical process or psychological experience, then there is no transcendence to empty out to become a specific human person. Jesus becomes simply a person who is supremely aware of the psychological structure of God/Love/Justice operative in him. Jesus then is not a non-contingent, eternal, transcendent person who leaves behind glory and power to become finite, temporal and contingent. Thus, the idea of the self-emptying, self-sacrificial Love of God manifest in us, which is one of the most important existential truths of Christianity- one which has supreme value for Rollins- is suddenly undercut. There is no longer an event in "the life of God" which corresponds to this genuine emptying if God is simply the psychological process Rollins claims.
Rollins keys heavily on Jesus' experience of God-forsakenness in the Garden, Trial, and particularly in the Crucifixion where Jesus cries "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In addition, he adds powerful narrative testimony from Mother Teresa and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, both of whom had long-lasting experiences of "God forsakenness". Rollins then launches into several chapters exploring how, for Jesus and many of the great saints, genuine spirituality has always included radical doubt, deep anxiety over guilt, death and meaninglessness, and a pervasive sense of longing for God in the absence of God. Rollins makes a case that this is not merely a problem to "get over", but rather an integral part of spirituality itself, not to be ignored, denied, or medicated. He also makes a case that in most of Christianity, this is precisely the function of our liturgies, sermons, and spiritual practices: We use them as a crutch, offering false certainty, quick solutions, and never make space to discover and explore these "dark areas" of spirituality.
This is powerful, and is worth reading the book in itself, despite any other defects. His analysis of the bankruptcy of Christian spirituality in this regard is both breathtaking and remarkably accurate. His analysis of the psychological and social mechanisms we use to avoid this "dark night of the soul" that Jesus experienced in Crucifixion is right on. And to most of the things associated with this theme, I say "Right on! Amen!"
However, again, the emphasis is ultimately not on the crucifixion as a space-time event, and it is certainly not upon God-in-Christ taking upon Godself the consequences for the brokenness of the world. For Rollins, I doubt if such an event is even thinkable, because God is not a Person to whom we can relate, but a process through which we interpret and choose. So, whatever happened to Jesus on the cross, it did not have some sort of universal effect on the world, but is rather a great illustration of a process we all go through: We all have doubt, anxiety, and a sense of divine absence. To explore these experiences fully is our participation in the crucifixion. In the crucifixion, we experience the "sacrifice of religion", in which we loose God Himself (just as Jesus shows us), and die to ourselves and religion. To deny these experiences and somehow hide from them is to deny the crucifixion.
RESURRECTION: Rollins is fond of using Bonhoeffer's phrase to describe resurrection life: It is to live without God while existing before God. It is to encounter the absence of God, radical doubt, and deep anxiety head on, and then, without blinking, to give oneself fully to a whole hearted affirmation of life anyway. For Rollins, there is no difference between an internal "self" which believes certain things and wants certain things, and an external life which never quite actualizes what we really want. Rather, what we do IS what we really believe AND who we really are.
We may tell ourselves stories that we are the type of person who wants to help the homeless, or be devoted to God, or stand for justice. But that is just a mask, just a fictional story we tell ourselves to feel better about ourselves, if we do not actually DO these things. We are what we believe, and if we want to see what we believe, we need to look at our acts in the world, not to the stories we tell ourselves or the beliefs we hold.
Thus, for Rollins, to deny the resurrection IS NOT to deny that a certain event happened in space and time to the dead body of Jesus, making him alive again. This is, again, fairly irrelevant to the true meaning of resurrection. Denying or affirming the resurrection has almost nothing to do with one's beliefs or stories. Rather, to deny the resurrection is to fail to actually live out the unconditional demands of Love and Justice. To affirm the resurrection is to accomplish Love and Justice to the best of our abilities. This new life of Love and Justice, despite all our doubts, anxieties and feelings, is the true definition of "eternal life". Eternal life is not something that happens beyond historical process. Like God, it is not transcendent in that way. Rather, like Rollins' God, eternal life is a "transcendence-in-immanence" that gives our lived experience infinite, eternal depth here and now.
Two problems arise from this concept: First, it does little justice to people who cannot actualize the values and beliefs they really feel. What about the elderly, handicapped, or psychologically damaged? These people do not have the linkage between mind and body that allows them to fully actualize themselves. What about those who have dependents looking to them for food, medical care, and shelter? These people cannot abandon those who need them, in order to pursue a search for an "authentic life". The truth is that Rollins' collapse of the inner and outer person works great if someone is a pretty healthy person of means, who can choose to do whatever they want, to be as authentic as they feel they need to be. But for the vast majority of the population who is not as young, healthy, educated, and un-attached as he is, it is substantially harder to live radically. Another way of saying it is this: Rollins' a/theology is great for unattached young hipsters who have time and leisure to sit around pubs discussing this stuff, but whether it would work for people with families and responsibilities is doubtful.
The other problem is simply that, in the words of Rollins' friend Rob Bell, it does not affirm that "Love Wins" in the end. And it does not affirm that Love Wins in the end, because it does not affirm that in the historic life of Jesus of Nazareth, Love won in his actual resurrection. Rollins claims that if we believe that there is some telos, goal, or purpose at the end of history, it deletes our motivation to create our own destiny right here and now. The argument could run like this: If God is going to make everything come out right in the end, why bother working at it right now? Thus, for Rollins, we have to live as if we have complete uncertainty about whether God's purposes will prevail at the end.
And for Rollins, this is not just an argument about some people going to heaven and others suffering in hell. Even if we assume (as I do) that God will reconcile all things in heaven and on earth to Godself through Christ (cf. Col. 1:15-20), and that NO ONE is ultimately left out of God's Love, it still robs us of motivation to live into the resurrection right now. For Rollins, to live into the resurrection is to create our own destiny as we live into complete uncertainty, and embrace life as it is, doubts and pain and all. To have any inkling of future certainty takes away from authentic life and responsibility now.
I think, in this, he is simply confusing the crucifixion life and the resurrection life. Yes, the crucified life- to which we are all called- is to tread a path of doubt, anxiety, and God-forsakenness with Christ. But the resurrection life is to hope against hopelessness, on the basis of God's victory over death in Christ, that God's Love wins in the end regardless of how dark things look right now. With Rollins, I believe it involves embracing life as it is, warts and all, and creating our own destinies through God's Love. But there is one important difference: I hope with an undying hope that God will take my attempts at living into the resurrection and weave them together with all the saints across time into a beautiful tapestry that will be revealed in the End. In this, God's telos is not some micro-managed, pre-determined blueprint of future affairs (which would in fact rob us of motivation to live authentically now). Rather, God's telos is a promise that however it happens, God will find a way to make sure Love wins in the end, and that all are brought this Love found in Christ. This open-ended telos frees us to embrace life fully, without fear of failure, to become who God made us to be, knowing that God can use both our successes and failures for future glory.
OTHER THEMES: Once we step outside of this train of themes I describe above, Rollins' work is very helpful in many other ways. His constant psychoanalysis and social analysis of the manifold ways we continually pull the wool over our own eyes is brilliant. It is a great adaptation of many of the themes one can find in Marx, Lacan, and Zizek (who combines both Marx and Lacan). In particular, I loved Rollins' use of the recent Batman movies as an illustration of how consumer capitalism masks the ways we are complicit in the misery of much of the world. While Rollins nowhere flies the Marxist flag, it is clear that there is a great deal of neo-marxist economic analysis behind his parables and observations. And this is a very good thing. Because in the Western world, the economic basis of society has shifted so far "right" that we have no real alternative to cutthroat global corporate consumer capitalism, and no real way of conceiving life outside of this God-less system. One of the themes I would have loved for Rollins to explore further is how our economic system functions as a surrogate "god" with all it's talk of the "invisible hand" and "omniscience of the market" and such. If ever there was a social case for divine absence, it is in our economic and marketing system. But I digress. The social and psychological insights of the book are well worth the read, and the challenge.
OF GODS AND MEN: It just so happened that, as I was finishing the book, I was invited to watch and discuss the 2010 French movie "Of Gods and Men". It details a true story about a small monastery of Trappist monks in Algeria, in 1996, during the Algerian civil war. Of the 9 monks that were there, 7 were martyred under mysterious circumstances. The movie explores their trials and discussions as they made the painful decision to stay rather than flee. A decision which cost most of them their lives.
Throughout the movie, these men wrestle with most of the issues raised by Rollins. They struggle with their own complicity in the sickness of the social system. They struggle with radical doubt, unknowing, and a profound sense of divine absence. They struggle with the absolute call to love their enemies, as well as the townspeople who depend on them, as well as themselves. And constantly, their discussions and struggles are rooted in their daily practice of the liturgy, and a careful consideration of what it means to follow the implications of the Incarnation. And not the Incarnation as merely a psychological category, but the Incarnation as an historic person. In addition, the ancient liturgy itself- contrary to Rollins' caricatures- was the site of their most profound wrestlings with doubt and divine absence. It was in the process of chanting the old songs and psalms, hearing the ancient writings, and doing the old rituals, that they found the materials they needed to wrestle deeply with their "dark night".
In this story I found- in accordance with the lives of the great saints and martyrs of the Church- that Rollins' critiques are best answered by a full and robust commitment to God, Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection as historic events first and foremost, and only following this historic realism, do they become existential categories for human psychological and social action. And not only that, but a commitment to the ancient liturgical practice of the Church is the site and source for the formation of these truths into Christlikeness in the lives of the people who practice the liturgy. This liturgy is not the consumer-driven drivel that one finds in many American churches, but the rich, deep, boring, predictable, ancient, seasonal liturgies of the traditional churches and monastic orders. The truth is, as illustrated by the martyrdom of these monks, that the ancient beliefs and practices of the Church are the most effective and time-tested way to produce people who fully live into the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
This is, in fact, what one also finds in the lives of the saints that Rollins himself mentions- Teresa and Bonhoeffer- who both engaged in daily liturgy, and treated the story of Jesus Christ as historic, even when they did not FEEL the power of that affirmation for extended periods of time. In distinction to Rollins' ideas about how a "Divine telos" robs us of the motive to live into justice and love now, we find that those saints and martyrs who believed most that God would somehow use their feeble deeds to contribute to the ultimate victory of Love, are the very ones who stood most firmly for justice and love in this life.
In the end, Rollins could be called an expositor of a sort of Zen Buddhist Psychoanalytic Marxism, in which the relevant categories for human psycho-socio-economic experience are keyed to certain Christian terms, which have been reinterpreted and redefined, not as signposts pointing to space-time events with subjective existential impact, but as the very categories of human existence themselves, without referent to any space-time events other than what is immediately accessible to all people at all times. Thus, Rollins' a/theology is a sort of continuation of the modernist theological move to elevate universal form, structure, and method over any particular content. In this, Rollins is yet another heir- albeit a fairly Marxist heir- of the bourgeois theological modernism of Schleirmacher.
in fact, one of the things that bothered me most about reading Rollins is the same feeling I get from reading Schleirmacher or Kant. And that feeling is that, beneath all the beautiful words, I feel like a linguistic slight-of-hand has been pulled. The trick this time is that: "When we talk about God, we are really just talking about ourselves". Rollins represents yet another post/modernist triumph of the universal, therapeutic, psychoanalytic, and performative over the particular, historic, substantive, and real. And for all of his talk about deep love and respect for "The Other", it seems that Rollins is very allergic to allowing God to be a full participant in Otherness. God does not get to act on God's own, nor reveal Godself to humanity in an historic sense. Rather, God is strictly tied to us as an organ of our own experience, which collapses "The Other" into "Just folk like us". Rollins speaks a great deal of his pyro-theology as one of "subtraction" or "burning down". And this is true. For what we get is a deletion of many aspects of God's reality and our own. What we need instead is a theology that embraces all sides of the paradox of human and divine reality- immanence AND transcendence, particularity AND universality, history AND psychology, interpretation AND realism- and holds them in unresolvable creative tension. Rollins, like many others through the ages, simply alleviates certain tensions and paradoxes by cutting off or burning away the parts he feels least comfortable with.
The historic Christian faith, which treats Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection as first and foremost historical, can deliver everything Rollins' merely psychologized faith does. It can explain ongoing feelings of divine absence, how it functioned in Jesus' life, and how it functions today as a path to draw near to God through Christ, even when we do not feel it. It can explain the need to work for Justice and Love. It can give us a reason to live boldly into this life and create our destiny with God in Love. But not only can it do what Rollins' psychologized faith does, it can do more. It can posit an historic epicenter for the actual revelation of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It can posit that God is not just the power of Love flowing through us, but also a Person to whom we can know and relate to, in Love, as "I/Thou". And it can posit a promised hope that, no matter how badly we fail, or how courageously we act, we can be assured that Love will in fact win in the end. To sum it up, the ancient, historic Christian faith offers all of the insights and benefits Rollins does and more, without leaving us bereft of a truly transcendent God who reaches into space and time to become one with us in an historic human life, death, and resurrection.
So here's my recommendation: Buy the book. Rollins is a much better writer than I am. Enjoy it. Wrestle through it. Take his implications on how to live the Christian life seriously. But beware of the underlying metaphysics which reduces theology to merely psychological processes.
2011-09-15
Ockham Rap
The Ockham Rap
Copyright (c) 2011 by Nathan L. Bostian
His name is William of Ockham
And his philosophy's rockin'
Metaphysical speculations
Are what he's blocking
We rely on too many causes
To explain our problems
Like using angels and demons
To try and solve 'em
When a simple explanation
Based on sense and sight
Would completely describe
Almost anything, right?
This is called Ockham's razor
A speculative saber
Cutting off extra entities
Like they were shot with a phaser
Like when you use three factors
To describe what two factors do:
Why do you use that third factor
Like some kind of fool?
Simply! Says this guy!
On crutches don't rely!
Rid yourself of superstitions
And all excessive replies.
The only things that exist
Are the things themselves.
No need to resort
To abstract universals!
In fact we have no need
For disembodied spiritual forms:
They are all just names
We give to categories and norms
We call this Nominalism
To break you out the the prison
Of confusing individual things
With the Names we give em
For instance: A dog is just a dog
Not an instance of dogness
And fog is water droplets
Not the essence of fogness
So don't think a human person
As part of abstract humanity
And don't use the category "fish"
When you deal with a manatee
Stick to simple, direct,
Particular observations
And never multiply entities
To try and explain them.
This is the Philosophy of Ockham
In a nice little rhyme
And it led to empirical science
In a few centuries time.
2011-09-12
The Moral Argument Against Religion
I am currently reading and teaching from the infamous books by Christopher Hitchens "God is not Great". In pondering Hitchens' arguments against God, I find myself continually underwhelmed (although very entertained). I do not find him persuasive, but rather rhetorically brilliant.
I think that the god Hitchens is arguing against is a god which I would argue against: A kind of "dictator in the sky" who cannot wait to damn the maximum number of people possible. The god he lambasts seems to be an evil elementary school principal writ large, and as such is the common concept of god among grade schoolers and teenagers. And since this is the age when a great many people stop going to Sunday School or challenging their ideas of god, it is also the god of a great many Americans.
So, what happens when a pre-adolescent concept of god is confronted with the complexities of adult life, especially the life of a foreign correspondent who has seen levels of human carnage and suffering beyond what most of us can comprehend? That god gets Hitch-slapped. And rightfully so.
I find Hitchens arguments very compelling against this pre-adolescent concept of god. But the problem is, I don't find that god to be God. God, especially as revealed in and through Jesus of Nazareth, is someone completely different. This God is expansive and embracing, the epicenter of the undying Love which humanity craves. This God does not abandon process and the messiness of life, but works through it, always offering healing, never withdrawing the hope of redemption.
This God is almost entirely untouched by Hitchens. In fact, I might even argue that Hitchens cannot grasp or identify this God as a possibility within the religious landscape.
Thus, when it comes down to brass tacks, I find that the most probable solution to the "big problems" of origins, cosmic rationality, the problem of suffering, the source of human religious impulses, and even the inspiration of the Scriptures and the explanation of the "Christ event", always point me toward a Relational, Personal God who allows creaturely freedom in order to make room for shared Love.
But, there is an argument which gnaws at me. And it is an argument against religion, rather than God.
For, while the evidence may point strongly to the high probability that God exists, and even that God became incarnate in a specific human life 2000 years ago, it does not necessarily follow from this that any particular group of people is practicing the remembrance of this in any authentic fashion.
Christian history is full of epistemic claims to try and demonstrate that certain communities practice the most authentic remembrance of God-in-Christ. These theories may focus on tradition, tactile-succession, doctrine, Scripture, continuance of miracles, etc. But the common denominator is that they focus on accurate knowledge, and knowledge maintenance structures, as the key to authenticity.
However, I generally find these theories less than persuasive.
Instead, I find a more pragmatic, moral way of demonstrating authenticity to be the most persuasive. For me, the question is: Which community generates the greatest amount of sanctity among it's members, as measured by the types of criteria specified by Christ and his apostles? Which community consistently produces Christians who bear the fruit of the Spirit, the virtues of Christ? Which community creates saints?
And the sad fact is, insofar as I spy the landscape, none of us does a particularly good job of this. Not even among- or even especially among- the leadership of the various Churches. We are all racked with corruption, selfishness, pride, vanity, and every other vice known across history. No community can, with a straight face, claim that even a strong minority of its members have been "holy", much less its leaders.
And it is not just a Christian phenomenon. No religion consistently creates saints. Not one.
And to frustrate the matter even more, there ARE shining individuals from other religions and philosophies who do actually show signs of "conspicuous sanctity". Individual saints not only come packaged in the Christian wrapper, but also as Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Taoists, Confucians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Agnostics, and even Atheists. There are Christlike people who may in fact reject, or not even know of, Christ.
This is not to say they produce saints at higher rates than Christian Churches. They don't. And I would imagine that the percentage of individuals who rise "above the bell curve" in any community is about the same across the board.
It is just to say that there seems to be very little correlation between the production of Christlike virtue, and following Christ in any of the existing Christian traditions.
And what is so troubling is that this is precisely the opposite of what Christ and his Apostles predicted. They predicted that one who followed Christ in faith would become Christlike. So, the existing communities of Christianity fail to produce what was promised. There may be isolated incidents of sanctity, but sanctity is not the rule. And it should be.
To look at it empirically, we may even say that the hypothesis of the Christian religion has been tried, and it has largely failed. It predicts one thing, but delivers another. It falsifies itself, based on its own claims.
What shall I make of this?
I could reduce my expectations of sanctity, both for myself and for others who claim Christian faith. This I do on a regular basis, but I know I am pulling the wool over my own eyes when I do it. It does not satisfy.
I could reject the whole project of "Christian Religion" as futile. But I don't think this is the way either. It turns me into a disconnected "autonomous" individual, which I think is part of the problem in the first place. We, as humans, need more of a communal identity, not less.
I could redouble my efforts to find some community that exhibits sanctity on a more consistent basis. But, given my experience such a community must be so small as to be almost cultlike. And if not cultlike, then almost certainly self-righteous and legalistic. Mormons come to mind (and their epistemic claims are unbelievable to boot!).
I could work from within a concrete community, in solidarity with struggling people, to actualize the holiness promised by the Lord, even if that community is flawed in a number of ways. I could believe that the only way to deconstruct and reconstruct "the institutional church" is to in fact be part of the institution of the church. Or put another way: The only way to "stick it to tha man" is to become "tha man".
That's what I do.
Because this type of argument against religion is not one which allows the arguer to stay objectively detached from the argument (not if they are anywhere near honest with themselves).
Because immediately upon charging a group of people with hypocrisy- with failing to live up to their own expectations- the accusation comes full circle:
What about me? Am I any better?
If I am better, why am I not doing something to change things? And if I am doing nothing to change things, yet I know how to change them, then that makes me an even bigger hypocrite.
If instead I am in the same boat as others, how can I cast stones? And if I am actually a worse hypocrite than some people, then it stands that I should join them to learn from them.
Thus, no matter whether I am better, average, or worse in terms of sanctity, the implication is clear: I need to be part of a community greater than myself in order to increase the sanctity of both myself and others. We can only be saints together, if we can be saints at all.
Or, to put it in a more pithy way:
The Church is full of hypocrites. And there is room for one more. So come join us.
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