A Provocation on missing the point of the Prophets

It has been years since I have read through the Hebrew prophets continuously. On this read through it strikes me that the “standard” American interpretation of these texts is almost perfectly engineered to get people to miss the point of the prophets. (Engineered by whom or what? This is a great question!) This “standard” interpretation is to treat the prophets as some cryptic road map to a mythic future “end times” scenario. This places our attention in the future, rather than God’s action, and our responsibility, in the present. 

Why is the Pope "changing" the Lord's Prayer?

Recently, a very thoughtful Roman Catholic student of mine asked me the following questions: "What do you think about the changes [in the Lord's Prayer] Pope Francis plans to implement? Will TMI be adopting the changes, or will TMI not? Is there a centralized Episcopal authority that decides things like that, or does it depend on the Priest/Pastor?"

In response, I sent him the following essay, in addition to the video posted above, which is a fairly good, basic level summary of the proposed "change". And it is important to note that while this "change" does involve altering the words, it does not actually change the meaning of the text, but actually better brings out the intended nuance Jesus almost certainly meant when he originally taught the prayer. But, before we get to that, we need to look at the diversity of translations of the Lord's Prayer.

The Enduring Challenge of Nietzsche

When teaching Introduction to Philosophy, we often end with a discussion of the "Masters of Suspicion": Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. These thinkers mark the so-called "Interpretive Turn" (or "Hermeneutic Turn") into what is often called "Postmodern" Philosophy*. What this means is that ideas and beliefs are no longer what they seem to be about, but must be interpreted to see what values or commitments are REALLY motivating these convictions. All three of these "Masters of Suspicion" insisted that surface readings of our ideologies-- ideas about God, ethics, beauty, social order-- missed the true deep intent of the discussion. The deep, structural insight is this: Our ideas are always about something other than what we represent them as:

Passage Meditation for Busy Humans

Recently I've started practicing what is called "passage meditation". This is where you take a short chunk of Scripture and repeat it prayerfully over and over for a period of time, until it is driven deep into your consciousness, and it becomes a kind of prayer or mantra for you. It is based on ideas such as this:

Psalms 119.11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

How does one hide the word of God in your heart? While there may be many methods, one sure fire recipe that has been used across time, across cultures, and across religions is this: Mindful, committed, intentional, repetition. Repetition. Repetition. When we repeat something over and over again intentionally, it will bubble up later in daily life, in stressful situations, and even in dreams. 

Christarchy 2018

A Sermon for Christ the King Sunday 2018. Based on Romans 6 and John 18:33-37.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. And in a democratic culture where we have no King, where we are free to pursue anything we can imagine, and purchase anything our heart desires, it can be hard to wrap our minds around what it means to think of Christ as OUR King. 

So, to help us wrap our minds around Jesus Christ as the King of kings and Lord of lords, I would like to begin with a story:

Virtue, Vice, and Cognitive Distortions

The chart above is also available in an INTERACTIVE PDF with live links to Scriptures and online materials that elaborate the brief descriptions in the chart.

For a long time I have had a fascination with the intersection of Theology, Philosophy, Psychology, and Pastoral Care. As a pastoral counselor, I have always trended toward the insight from forms of Cognitive Therapy that we tend to make ourselves miserable by the way we think, and the distorted thought patterns that govern how we process reality. As a philosopher of ethics and moral theologian, I have always been drawn to virtue theory as a way to describe how a person becomes more (or less) Christlike. 

In the Catholic Tradition, this centers on the Seven Cardinal Virtues as descriptors of Christlike character, and the Seven Deadly Sins as descriptors of the vices that inhibit Christlikeness. In fact, the Bible is full of lists of virtues (which describe Christlike character) and lists of vices (which describe selfish and sick character). However, I prefer to adapt St. Paul's list of the "Fruit of the Spirit" (cf. Galatians 5.22-23) as a more robust description of Christlike Virtue, with a corresponding list of "anti-fruit" (or Vice) which describes unhealthy personality traits.

A Provocation on the Humanist God

At this stage in history I feel the need to qualify the statement “I believe in God” with what KIND of God I believe in. It is no longer enough to consider God as merely the singular Divine Source and Destiny of all worlds, the Ultimate Reality in which all beings inhere, and Supreme Value toward which all beings are drawn. Because that template of God is used to support radically different visions of God’s character. For many God is at worst hateful and meddling (as in the God of so many Brands of angry Fundamentalism), and at best apathetic and neglectful (as in so many rehashed versions of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism). 

Rather, I see God in and through Jesus Christ, and ONLY in and through Jesus Christ. And the God I see in Jesus is a thoroughly HUMANISTIC God, because God became thoroughly HUMAN in Jesus. Jesus reveals God’s chief concern is humans, or more precisely, persons made in God’s image (since these are the only fully sentient, metacognitive, communicative persons we find on this particular planet). God wants persons, each and every one of them, to not only survive, but thrive, and have the opportunity to grow into the fullness of the Divine Potential embodied in them. 

Full human flourishing for every human life: This is what God wants for us, and what God has shown us, in Jesus Christ. Full freedom. Full capacity. Full healing. Full knowledge. Full bellies. Full minds. Full hearts. Abundant life for all humanity. As Irenaeus said: "The Glory of God is humanity fully alive!" This is the goal of the Humanist God, because Jesus is God incarnate in a Human life. We may need to widen this thesis to include other persons, once we discover or create other kinds of persons, who are also made in God’s image (whether Aliens or Artificial Intelligences or Genetically engineered beings). But for the last 10,000 years, it seems we are having a hard enough time grasping how much God loves all of humanity. So for now, let us start with humanity, and focus our attention on Jesus Christ, the Humanist God. 

A Provocation on Polytheism

I used to think polytheism was ludicrous. But if I didn't know better, I would think that old gods with names like Mars and Mammon, Eros and Eris, Thanatos and Dionysios, are actually orchestrating events in our society. What is more, it seems like they are all perfectly willing to dress up as Jesus of Nazareth, so long as we worship and sacrifice to the values they embody.

A Provocation on socio-economics and mental health

In our society we systematically deny the social aspect of psychological health primarily because of our economic system. The engine that runs our society is profit. Profit is driven by consumption. Consumption is driven by demand. And demand is driven by human cravings. So we have to develop a system that maximizes existing cravings (through greed, anger, fear, hedonism, addiction) while also creating new cravings for new products (think smart phones, social media, virtual reality... none of which existed 15 years ago). A society of people that deeply engaged in insatiable craving will necessarily be sick sick sick (ask Jesus and Buddha: They agree on this!). So, if we raise social awareness, we would heal people of social sickness, which would drive down craving, driving down demand, driving down consumption, driving down profit. And so the best way to keep the machine running is to deny the socio-economic aspect of mental health problems altogether, and create a myth that everything is the result of individual sickness and individual responsibility (this also drives up demand for pharmaceuticals to medicate and placate, thus creating profits for those corporations). And that is precisely the society we live in. This myth is the very essence of libertarian political and economic thought. 

A provocation on Spiritual Liberation

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom” (2Corinthians 3.17). This is a manifesto of Liberation. The Spirit liberates us from bondage to death so that we may be free to actualize our full potential in life. Thus the hallmark of the Spirit’s presence is precisely Liberation to Love, that is freedom to give ourselves for the abundant life of all. We are set free from selfishness and self concern and self serving, so we can engage with the life of the Other. Cf. Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity. Page 13. 

A provocation on Technology

“Any sufficiently advanced technology must be regarded as magic [or miracle]” (Arthur C. Clarke). Technology is miracle explained and magic democratized. Technology— the capacity to act and effect change— is unconditionally good in the same way as Creation is unconditionally good (cf. Genesis 1). But, like Creation— which is the environment upon which and within which we act technologically— Technology can be used for good (the giving of life and fulfilling of potential) or abused for evil (the taking of life and destruction of potential).