Multivocality

And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is some thing in you that wants to move out of it. This very wish, if you use it calmly and prudently and like a tool, will help you spread out your solitude over a great distance…

We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation…

Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something… to become world…

Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion… is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough…

The love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.

{Rainer Maria Rilke}

Letters to a Young Poet #7

Merging and surrendering, ebbing and flowing, bordering and protecting, practicing boundaries and pushing boundaries – these are the tasks in the breathing-in-and-breathing-out of human relationship, of being human.

This is true internally as much as it is externally. Diana Eck muses on the traffic of voices in every person, suggesting that our recognition of multivocality is the foundation for navigating the external plurality of perspectives in the world: “Our prospects for pluralism surely begin with our ability to give voice to the diversity of voices within ourselves, not all of which we exercise at the same time, but which comprise the complex web of connections we call identity" (Diana Eck, Prospects for Pluralism, 746). The appreciation of multivocality in all of its dimensions is the primary boon from my seminary experience thus far. What follows are a few brief reflections on multivocality, diversity, and identity.

Farid Esack’s essay, In Search of Progressive Islam Beyond 9/11, begins with an ‘Ali Shari’ati quotation: “It is not sufficient to say that we must return to Islam. We must specify which Islam” (Omid Safi, Progressive Muslims, 78). Individual religions function as a sort of microcosm. Islam is in itself an array of theologies, traditions, and cultures. Jewish identity draws deeply from its multiplicity of con/texts and results in a vast variety of midrashic (expounded and expansive) manifestations. The term “Christian” is an applicable unit of cultural classification, but Christianity is in no way unitary.

Religious diversity represents and affects the reality of global pluralism. In a pluralistic world, where difference matters, a nuanced understanding of difference is the difference between perpetuating old habits of prejudice and finding our way beyond mutual misunderstanding. "To bypass the pursuit of deep diversity is to fail an elemental test of fidelity to the world (Pamela Klassen & Courtney Bender, After Pluralism, 10). Our (multi)vocation as relational citizens of the earth is to delve into diversity, and to experience the intersections and explore the divergences within.

Navigating deep diversity is foreign terrain for every one involved. Diversity is essentially and perpetually foreign. Conflict is inevitable. Conflicting interests, conflicting expressions of ideas, and conflicting vocalizations of life experience are present in every encounter. Conflicts that are too volatile to ignore erupt, thus forcefully demanding the bulk of our attention. Attending to conflict in quotidian encounters, however, helps establish an understanding that conflict is not a thing to be feared.

Conflict is a navigable aspect of human relationship, and navigating conflict is a reputable means of personal, social, and spiritual formation. It is not a thing to be feared but engaged. Yet attending to conflict without fear requires that we must cross lines of difference with ears open to other voices. Cultural fluency is a core competency for those who intervene in conflicts or simply want to function more effectively in their own lives and situations (Michele LeBaron, Culture and Conflict). Fluency takes persistent attention. “In practice many of us are not adept at thinking through the issues of voice, so strident is the push toward the unitary, the unequivocal” (Diana Eck, Prospects for Pluralism, 753). Fluency takes practice. Fluency is difficult. Ignorance is easy, but with Rilke “we must trust in what is difficult” and honor the friction that results when bodies touch.

During our wedding ceremony my wife and I read our self-crafted vows and committed to a love that consists of two solitudes that border and protect and greet each other. We were careful not to commit precisely to the brand of marital love that our inherited tradition urged, where one is absorbed into the other. We were intentional about committing to a mutual relationship that would continue to contain and catalyze the multitudes that comprise us each. And then we took Communion. This image parallels the exploration of my own inheritance and vocation that I continue to engage in. As I craft a vision of my vocation (can a call be crafted?) I am often fixated on the horizon, but I believe I ignore my roots at my own peril. My relationship with Christianity continues to be tortuous. I am not willing to be absorbed by Christianity. I am committed to evading any simple categorization. But my multitudes unambiguously intersect with Christianity’s multivocality. I push against my inheritance, but I press into its soil for sustenance all the same.

Marc Gopin insists, “Peacemaking requires… a constant moral calculus of silence and activism, pushing the envelope and maintaining relationships” (To Make the Earth Whole, 98). The many voices of the many selves in the many traditions of the multitudinous world resound and clamor. To find peace within myself does not require the repression of my particularity, nor does it require a final conversion to a fixed tradition. To realize peace in the world does not require the silencing of differing voices, nor does it require some final act of justice. Making peace/shalom/salaam is being engaged in the calculated process of active contemplation and contemplative action as we merge and surrender with one another, border and protect our common dignity, and pour over the porous boundaries that make up who we are.

Ethos

When people ask me what I study they invariably put me to the task of telling them just what it is that I intend to do with a degree in religious studies once I graduate. I tell them this: I want to contribute to an ethos of religious understanding in our religiously complex and confused world.

My rote answer functions for those fragments of interaction with the people I meet from day to day. But it really isn’t sufficient in the end. It doesn’t offer much substance or nuance. It actually forces my listener to fill a rather gaping hole. They have to decide on the definition of “religious understanding”. They have to imagine what it means to respond to religious confusion. I think it’s okay, even important, to raise these sorts of questions. But as a student of religion and an advocate for peaceful engagement across religious and ideological lines of difference, the onus is on me to be more specific and to cast a concrete vision of what an ethos of religious understanding might look like.

That means that I have to do more than simply suggest that religious understanding is a possibility, something that I believe in. I have to address religious confusion head on.

The matrix of religious confusion tends to thicken wherever multiple communities are attempting to put a common resource to divergent uses. Jews and Christians, for instance, share a sacred text. This is a reality that could potentially enrich both communities, but all too often it results in either party claiming that their interpretation is authoritative. This happens between different denominations of a single religion as well. Whenever multiple parties make confident claims about a multivalent source, and when those claims don’t align, it is easier to retreat to the corners and cliques of certainty than it is to continue to engage each other across lines of difference. This blind privileging of one’s religious perspective tends to discount the validity of the religious other. The idolizing of one’s own perspective typically results from a cankerous closed-mindedness.

People suffering from closed-minds do not usually identify with their closed-minds. They identify as a sort of Christian, Muslim, atheist, humanist, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, animist, Pagan, or something else. Closed-minds are dispersed amongst us. Yet I really believe that authentically closed-minded people are a minority. There are Christians who claim their understanding of the Bible is the equivalent to universal truth. And there are Muslims who hold the Qur’an in similar fashion. And humanists who think that their assessment of social or scientific data is incontestable.

And you know what? I think it is important for these people, who purposefully or inadvertently glorify their view while espousing intolerance of others, to be able to openly make their claims. I think it is important for these people to bring their claims of authority into the public square, rather than retreating with them into enclaves of intolerance. They are welcome. I don’t say this because I think the world particularly needs closed-minded representatives from the many religious and ideological traditions. I say this because I think that they need people like me. And people like you. I think they need diversity. Which isn’t to say that I think they need to change their identity, or even concede their fundamentals. I think they can be distinctly themselves without keeping their minds closed to the others with whom they share the world. Encountering others is exactly what these people need. Encountering others in the world has the potential to both open their minds and amplify their identities.

In the chaotic matrix of multi-religious and trans-ideological engagement we are forced awake to the others whom we encounter. In public spaces designed for engagement and disagreement we all hone our identities, holding to those things that enable us to live ethically and creatively, while hopefully dispensing of those things that block our capacity for love and civic survival.

An ethos of religious understanding would look like an open field, wide open, even open to the closed. In the field we would explore personality, identity, and belonging without restraining any of them. We would look curiously and receptively at the others all around us. My vision of religious understanding is not about isolating or defining one religious or sacred truth over another. It is about being in open and confident relationship with others. These relationships are not a context for unilateral conversion; they are a matrix of mutual transformation and personal amplification. But this sort of thing requires that we all show up in the first place.

Buckskin Gulch

Hello old friends. I was away last week traipsing through the Buckskin Gulch and on into the Paria River and along the canyon it cuts. It's good to be back home... but oh was it ever good to be away.

I cherish times of being elsewhere, just as I cherish times of being near. I think that we all have to continually create our own mini-utopias; that is, our own little "no-places" of retreat and solitude and privacy. Just as we need to engage in the solemn practice of transparency and in the frivolity of personal divulgence. We must come and we must go. We must hold and we must share. And always we must be shifting our posture, craning our neck, fluttering our eyes open to the monumental moments of momentum that tumble us through life and into each other.

I took this picture last week. It speaks to me of movement, light, spaciousness, and timelessness.

Camino

I walked el Camino de Santiago a few years back. I backpack with my dad frequently (Paria Canyon in ten days). This looks like a special movie: The Way.

Photoduet

My friend Andrew and I decided, since we're both super keen on toying with our cameras, to do a photo project together. For the next month or so, if you're interested in following some of my (and his) creative outlets then link over to our tumblelog: smallpostcardsbigphotos.

Our concept is simple and fluid. He lives in a small town in upstate NY. And I live in the big windy city of Chicago. Often times a small, post-card-sized image manages to convey a powerful message or emotion. Small town/Big city. Small postcards/Big photos.

We have 21 themes. We'll each post one photo a day that matches the theme for the day. We'll do this for three weeks, then gauge our enjoyment and yours to decide if we want to keep it going. We begin tomorrow, September 1st.

http://smallpostcardsbigphotos.tumblr.com/

thought samples

Here are a few articles I squeezed into my day today:

One on the complexities of the "ex-gay ministries" that are championed in some conservative Christian circles.

One by my man Zizek with a pretty excellent paraphrase of Ephesians 6:12 included.

A brief one (as it were, by the man who more or less introduced me to the depths of Zizekian thought) challenging radical theologians to be unafraid of tapping into biblical texts and making constructive claims.

And a follow up on the Wild Goose Festival, which I mentioned in my June 3rd post. What's the difference between having a "welcoming" posture toward LGBT identifiers and being "affirming" of and allied to the LGBT community? This article touches on attempts of some Evangelical Christians to wizen up and get with the picture, the WHOLE picture, of human rights.

All sorts of fodder for all sorts of angles and thoughts. Just a sampling of what my mind has been tackling these days.

ditching the double standard

A lot of people default to a double standard when it comes to the Christian symbolism used by Anders Breivik, the accused Norwegian terrorist. They will go to great lengths to deny "Christianity" had anything to do with his murderous rampage. They are careful to preserve the sanctity of the label "Christian", yet they are unhesitant to link "Muslim" with "terrorist" as if the two are indeed a compound word.

For example, I just read a Washington Post article on the recent Norway tragedy, and found myself responding to one of the comments at the base of the article. The article is definitely worth reading and contemplating. So is my post...

@collenut - I understand Thistlethwaite's argument to be more complex than you suggest.

You said that by “ticking a Facebook box and citing language that he clearly doesn't understand [Breivik does not make himself] connected to anything Christian.”

To use your example: by ticking a Facebook box and citing Christian language (regardless of how coherent the citation) Breivik DOES indeed connect himself to at least two Christian things - 1) he's connected with some sense of Christian self-identification, and 2) he's connected to Christianity as an interpreter of Christian language.

The first connection seems easily dismissible, since his self-identification seems absurd in light of his violent acts... but it's the double standard and default assumptions surrounding the religious identity of terrorists that Thistlethwaite is arguing against - her Juergensmeyer quote sums this up - "If bin Laden is a Muslim terrorist, Breivik and McVeigh are surely Christian ones."

Perhaps Thistlthwaite is suggesting that if representatives of the political right wish to detract Breivik's Christian self-identity, then they must also be prepared to treat Islam with the same grace as they are treating Christianity. They must be willing to apply the same benefit of the doubt to Islam. They must resist the Islamaphobic impulse to automatically HONOR the self-identification of Muslim terrorists while automatically DISREGARDING the self-identification of Christian terrorists.

I think that Thistlethwaite’s main point, however, deals with Breivik’s second point of connection to Christianity – he is connected to Christianity as an interpreter of Christian language, of Christian narrative, history, and tradition. She is clear that Breivik’s violence does not implicate Christianity as a whole (just as Muslim terrorists do not implicate Islam as a whole). What I understand Thistlethwaite to be arguing is that – right, left, or center – other self-identified Christians need to respond to Breivik’s interpretations by considering the complex connections between the array of sources (religious and political) that fueled his (mis)interpretations.

As she wrote in “When Christianity Becomes Lethal”: “It is absolutely critical that Christians not turn away from the Christian theological elements in such religiously inspired terrorism. We must acknowledge these elements in Christianity and forthrightly reject these extremist interpretations of our religion.”

softapocalypse

Driving up Lake Shore Drive last night en route to a reunion with some dear friends whom we haven't seen for several (too many) weeks I proclaimed to Lauren: I know what I'm going to write my thesis on!

Now, understand that this is not the first time I've made the claim out loud to her (she's totally an amazing sounding-board, the best a grad student could ever ask for). And for each time I've claimed it out load there have been a handful of other similar inner-claims that I've kept to myself.

Also, this is not a terribly urgent matter. I've decided to go to CTS part-time beginning in the Fall, which means I'll be kicking around the CTS community for another couple years, and won't be writing my thesis until next year, Fall 2012-Spring 2013. I'm rather ecstatic about spreading my grad experience out. I consider it an opportunity to delve deeper into the subject matter I'm exploring and to work up a more solid foundation for that penultimate plunge into thesis writing.

The realization that I had while on LSD (Lake Shore Drive) was boosted a bit by this video, an animated companion to a Slavoj Zizek lecture. It's worth a watch (or two or three if that's what it takes to track with it). The bit that I'm ruminating on doesn't come in until the end when he suggests a sort of soft-apocalypticism. What might it look like, from an ecological standpoint, to critique the hard-core apocalypticism found both in popular media and fundamentalist Christianity while arguing for the necessity of a soft-apocalypticism in our scientific, social, and theological language? It needs refining I know. And is subject to change, but what do you think? I welcome any of your offerings of insight.

Zizek is exploring a different question and domain. But, like I said, it's good stuff - as are some of the other RSA Animate videos I've perused. Enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g&NR=1

What kind of real is heaven for?

As I suggested in the previous post, I am rather obsessed with my own story. I am taken with the intricacies of my cultural and religious heritage. That being the case my ears pique when I here a story that is in anyway similar to mine, even if ultimately it is radically different. So I was tickled to discover that Colton Burpo, the protagonist of the bestseller “Heaven is for Real”, is a Wesleyan pastor’s kid. I am, or was at one time, a Wesleyan pastor’s kid. I thought this was ironic because the Wesleyan Church is not a big entity in the Christian empire. Wesley himself had a strong and lasting effect on Christendom, but the Wesleyan Church (not to be confused with mainline Methodism) is more of a mousy presence. But Colton’s father, Todd Burbo (who collaborated with Lynn Vincent, Sarah Palin’s ghost writer), managed to raise quite a ruckus when he published the story of his son’s near-death experience and brief visit to heaven.

There are plenty of reviews online that discuss the book’s claims. According to the record of sales those claims have a lot of clout in the readership of the American public. There are plenty of discordant reviews that rough house with the book’s implications, providing not an ounce of credulity to Todd Burpo’s claims. Perhaps the American public is credulous, or perhaps merely curious. But there’s something that tugs at the heart when people get more than speculative and start offering narratives of eyewitness certitude about postmortem reality.

As a fellow Wesleyan PK I can’t help but side with young Colton. (There is an oath that we all take, and it can’t be broken regardless of whether or not our pastor parent remains in good standing with the Wesleyan denomination.) The boy, quite apparently, had an incredible experience. One that I hope, despite the patronage of publicity, he is able to continue to claim as his own. But I can’t bite my tongue (without considerable pain) on one point that I find problematic.

Does the boy’s testimony of his experience amount to empirical proof that the popular evangelical images of heaven are really for real? Is this it – the proof that the public has been waiting for? The book concludes that the boy reported things he couldn’t possibly of known without actually visiting heaven. Can you argue with this evidence?

Between the two options of credulity and curiosity, I would suggest siding with the latter. Near the middle of the book the author describes the occasion that his son told him about meeting Jesus in heaven. Colton’s father is careful not to ask leading questions. With methodical devotion he is careful not to mar the evidence of the innocence of his son’s testimony. Colton described his encounter with Jesus, providing details about Jesus’ eyes and dress and “markers”. Todd Burpo puzzled over what his son meant by “markers” until it dawned on him… stigmata. He coaxed his son to describe Jesus’ markers and the boy stood pointing to the centers of his palms and the tops of his feet to show where the red markers were located on Jesus’ body.

This episode frames what could be considered the crux of the book, from chapter 12 “Eyewitness to Heaven”. Todd Burpo resolves from this incident that the evidence pointed to the fact that his son had visited the real heaven and, unprovoked and uninformed, Colton was describing his first hand encounter with Jesus. Colton’s encounter secured the traditional images of heaven as conclusively true, and it confirmed the reality of heaven as dauntingly irrefutable.

Again, I insist that I have no qualms with Colton’s powerful experience and vivid visions. I think of the potentially traumatic incident of emergency surgery that the boy (and family) went through, and of the healing and consoling effect that his vision of heaven had for him. I think this is beautiful. I think of the inspiring nature of the young Colton’s testimony, and the way that it must have moved his family and community to tears and celebration. I am thrilled by these happenings.

But why take this occasion and be so emphatic that it is incontestable proof that the piecemeal conglomeration of heavenly images used in most American evangelical churches is the absolute truth about the nature of the afterlife? And why insist that it is an undeniable indication of the complete, unadulterated, inerrant and consummate truth of the exceptionality of a very particular branch of Christian teaching about the gospel of Jesus? Is that necessary? Is it honest?

I learned in my 9th grade physiology class at a conservative Christian high school from a devout Christian teacher about the physiology of crucifixion. I remember this lesson more vividly than I do the lecture on the movement of blood through the heart or the synaptic leaps that occur in brain activity. It was detailed and disgusting. And one of the details I learned was this: Had Jesus been nailed to the cross through the centers of his palms as is portrayed in popular art the weight of his body would have pitched him down off the cross. The nails in his hands would not have been sufficient to support his body on a cross. His fleshy hands, lacking adequate bone support, would have ripped apart and he’d have fallen forward to the ground. Victims of crucifixion were not nailed to the cross through the palms of their hands but in their forearms, between the ulna and the radius, providing adequate structure to support the weight of their bodies and the duration of their torment.*

Colton pointed to the centers of his palms in recollecting his vision of Jesus’ “markers”. Does that inconsistent detail negate the value of his transcendent experience? No, I genuinely don’t think it does. Does it discredit Todd Burpo’s and Lynn Vincent’s use of Colton’s experience as forensic proof that the evangelical Christian gospel is universally and empirically a closed case? I think so.

It’s unfortunate that some lackluster adults used the images described by a playful and insightful child to narrow the expanse of truth to a very closed vision of reality. It’s problematic that they’re ending the conversation – about life and God and truth – by insisting on the final word. Perhaps by favoring our impulse for curiosity and resisting the temptation of uncritical credulity we can hear Colton’s story and keep the conversation alive.

*(Note: A scientist with an alternative conclusion regarding nail placement, but who also concludes with "It's never finished... It's always open.")

two influences

While conversing with friends the other night, over a flight of local whiskeys at Chicago’s Watershed, something became apparent to me. I spend a fair amount of time pondering my religious heritage, sifting through my memories with the same care I use when I sip from a tumbler of nuanced rye. I isolate the traditions and encounters that have informed my convictions about religion. I conjure the occasions, adventures, predispositions and relationships that have composed my sense of spirituality. I let this variety play on my tongue then I feel it meld together and slide down my throat, warming my heart on the way by.

The piece that caught my attention the other night was how distinct yet similar my two most recent religious influences are. The first influence is comprised of the voices and ideas I’ve encountered in the evangelical emergent movement since reading A New Kind of Christian almost ten years ago. The second has included the academic forays of the CTS portion of my journey. The thoughts and thinkers that I have encountered while at CTS and those engaged in the emergent conversation are don’t really cross paths. These two primary influential pools have very little to do with one another. Nominally at least. For I find them to be intimately connected, if only in my own faith, seeking, and understanding.

In each there is a commitment to openness, dialogue, difference, engagement. Each pulls from a multiplicity of voices, traditions, and opinions. And both are committed in a firm and flexible way (yes, I said firm AND flexible) to Christian exploration and relation with the divine.

It isn’t a big deal that these two forces come at much of the same material in much the same spirit. It’s not profound. But it has been a formative and pleasant inner-dialogue for me. It is a dynamic interaction that I have been engaging ponderously, and it is one that I thought worth sharing.

If you want a general idea of what this intersection sounds like in words not my own, there’s a decent interview on one of the podcasts I listen to regularly – Homebrew Christianity. The interview captures elements of each force – CTS and emergence - quite well. (It does not address CTS explicitly, but rather the academic and political elements of theology that I have encountered at CTS.) Tripp Fuller of Homebrew interviews Gareth Higgins and they discuss an event going on later this month that will likewise incorporate this CTS-esque element with the momentum of the emergent conversation.

I am going to be involved that weekend with a different event here in Chicago, one that is sure to change the world, or at least this Midwestern fringe. So I recommend that if you’re in my hood, come check out the intersection of art, justice, and spirituality being hosted by my personal muse and guru. If you’re anywhere near North Carolina then gander off for a Wild Goose chase.

tomorrow?

Apparently it's time. How are you feeling about that? (Oh yeah, by the way...)

easter

I shared a moment of mystique last night when my friend shared his reflections on holy week. While holding 2oz of Glenlivet 18 and receiving the magnitude of his generous gesture the clock scrolled from yesterday to today. And like that, it was Easter.

I do not have polished reflections to share today. But I have been half-mindful of the sanctity of this week as it has played out in the lives and faith of so many. And I have been heartily lungeing toward the hint of new-life that this season portends. In this process I've scooped together bits of poetry and pieces of thought that I've salvaged from various encounters in the last handful-or-so of years. These are my meditations as I keep stride with the buds that are emerging on the trees in the neighborhood. They may seem random, but for me they're quite connected with one another.

~I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. (Alice Walker)~

~For me being a Christian is a romance, a pilgrimage into the unknown, a process of continual conversion. (Alan Jones)~

~And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. (Kahlil Gibran)~

~It is a modern folly to alter a corrupt ethical system, its constitutions and legislation, without changing the religion, to have a revolution without a reformation. (Hegel)~

~You are in love with me, I shall make you perplexed. Do not build much, for I intend to have you in ruins. (Rumi)~

~A Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and who has at least some dim and half-baked idea of whom to thank. (Frederick Buechner)~

~This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow again and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn. (Bernard DeVoto)~

~...That we may exist to honor God and enable questioning open minded people to discover for themselves the significance of Jesus Christ. (On the front placard at St. Martin in the Fields)~

~And this. (Lauren Znachko)~

own it

Religious ideas are sticky for a lot of people. As in: People get stuck in them. Since I posted "hells bells" a couple of weeks ago I've been wanting to toss something at you to consider the sticky nature of religious ideas, and to prompt some thought about the danger that is inherent in getting stuck in a particular religious idea in an absolute way.

One of the ways to explore a religious idea is to track the history of the idea. It's important to track the history of (religious) ideas, because we fool ourselves when we think that they are static and fixed. Like any idea, religious ideas have a past. Religious ideas did not emerge ex nihilo, and if you hold a religious idea as true in one way or another, and use that idea to inform your understanding of the world and your interactions with others then you owe it to yourself, your religion, and your relationships to do your homework and consider the evolution of religious ideas.

I'm going to offer a brief example, just something to provide some momentum in case you feel so inclined to heed my suggestion. While it's still fresh, let's take a look at Hell. And after this I'll lay off of the morbid topics for a while. Promise.

I anticipate feedback similar to some of the comments on the "biblical" post - and that's okay, I understand that this is a controversial and intimidating topic, I understand that for some people a literal interpretation of the idea of Hell is a lynch pin in their worldview. It is my opinion that Hell is an idea that has built on other ideas and that has developed and shifted in Christian thought. I recognize that by not asserting that Hell is an absolute reality that has always meant the same thing (namely, postmortem everlasting torment for unsaved individuals) I am challenging something that is central to some Christian theologies. I understand that and I am okay with it.

We're going to do this bullet-point style, try to keep it brief. I'm hoping that this is more catalystic than conclusive. Proverbial food for thought. Something to chew on; but by no means anything worth gnashing your teeth over. Here it goes...

A bit on Heaven first

• There are 7 or 8 different words that are translated as "heaven" in the Christian Bible - a few in Hebrew, the rest in Greek
• They all have to do with the sky, with the air, with the celestial heights, loftiness, the horizon
• Basically "heaven" functions as a point of reference - Where is God? Up there. Heaven.

A bit on Copernicus

• Before him, the universe revolved around us - the "up there" swirled and twirled around us. We were the fixed point of reference.
• (His ideas weren't precisely new, these ideas were floating around before him, but for one reason or another he gets credit in the West)
• After Copernicus, "up there" got traded in for "out there"
• In other words, a change in worldview resulted in a change in meaning. Heaven no longer means the high up, lofty place (because thanks to Copernicus "up" is kind of arbitrary).
• Heaven isn't "up there" (its biblical use) but is "out there" (like a different dimension or realm). The idea of Heaven shifts. Ideas do that.

Hell the concept

• Just like Heaven, the idea of Hell (the one that is likely in your head right now, though no doubt it varies amongst my readers) was a long time in the making
• Complex and poignant images from the Bible
• + Various imaginative cultural portrayals (Dante, Milton, Blake)
• + Personal imagination and disposition
• = Crystallization of contemporary concept of Hell

Hell the word

• Hell is an English word. (Remember, the Bible was not written in English. So "Hell" is not, strictly speaking, in the Bible.)
• The English word Hell derived from its Germanic parent around 725 CE
• "Halja" = to conceal, hide, cover - (As in the now outdated use: "helling potatoes")

Hell in the Bible

(These are words that get translated into English as "Hell" - obviously different translations will vary. I think these numbers are from the NRSV. Not a precise or complete word study, but should be informative. Feel free to look into it for yourself!)

• Sheol (Hebrew, 31x) - grave, pit, retreat, subterranean place of the dead, leveling place
• Abbadon (Hebrew, ??x) - destruction, perish
• Gehenna (Greek, 12x) - literally "Valley of Hinnom", garbage dump outside of ancient Jerusalem, site of ancient pagan sacrifices
• Hades (Greek, 10x) - grave, place of the departed, (god of the) underworld
• Tartarus (Greek, 1x) - deepest abyss, (actually a verb in the NT, tartaroo)

Mix it all up

• So behind the word "Hell", depending on the text it is used in, there are a variety of meanings
• death, pit, destroying fire, afterlife, etc
• (Only about 20% of the usages are associated with fire)
• Hell in the English New Testament is always connected with the judgement of right and wrong actions.
• Pauline texts deal with judgement as well, but they have no mention of Gehenna or Hades.

What do we make of all of this? Do we read "Hell" in the Bible and assume that every occurrence of the word is referring to a lake of fire (as in Rev. 20) or that every occurrence is referring to the afterlife or that every occurrence is referring to punishment? It doesn't seem that that would be an honest way to honor the complexity of the use of the term in the Bible. I suppose it's an option, but it's not the only biblical option.

If you opt to interpret Hell as a literal fiery abyss, or if you opt to interpret Hell as a figurative annihilation, or if you opt to interpret the idea figuratively in Hellish manifestations on earth - regardless of what you think Hell is or means, own up to it. There are a lot of options. Do your homework, and chose well.

responsibility

I have been wanting to throw a quote your way that functions as a satisfying summary of the thoughts I was trying to convey in my "biblical" post (note the stream of comments as well), but I can not remember which article or book or blog I snagged it from. So know that this is not mine, and if it is yours then feel free to claim it and thanks for letting me borrow it:

"The Bible is a complex, multi-voiced document. It's teachings can be harmonized only by imposing onto the Bible a uniformity that is not in the text itself... We have to accept responsibility for our interpretations."

Along with these thoughts regarding sacred text, consider some of the current controversy regarding sacred law: Is Religious Law Dangerous? It likely depends on the way that law is interpreted and imposed.

stirrings of change

Go: here. Join in. Beautify the world. It's fun.

hells bells

The eternal-fate-of-everyone-who-is-and-ever-has-been is big news these days. I suppose eternal fate is a topic that has tended to stay near the top of the list of human concerns for quite some time now. But Rob Bell’s new book on the topic (I hesitate to say new take on the topic, as would he I’m sure) has ruffled some conservative evangelical feathers while igniting vogue-esque anticipation amongst some of the Christo-chic.

I doubt that I’ll get to “Love Wins” anytime soon – my book shelf is already sagging with the weight of enough intellectual stimulation to drive me orgasmically into the next eon. But I tell you what, the video-peak got me excited; excited that an articulate voice is entering the fray of the public sphere with a nuanced message about God and love and the dilemma/delight of being human.

As with any God/human themed message, this one has been quick to incur comments and critique. Rob Bell is not a Christian! Rob Bell is the coolest Christian! It is not biblical! It is so timely!

I don’t think the point is whether Bell’s message is Christian, quasi-Christian or unchristian. The point is: Can you join the conversation from wherever you are (as a Christian, quasi-Christian or unchristian) and offer (and receive) an edifying insight?

I found it interesting last night at the start of class - before launching into Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology volume II (wherein Tillich himself offers a bit of a nuanced message about God and love and the dilemma/delight of being human) – my professor mentioned seeing “some evangelical TV preacher on Good Morning America the other day.” She didn’t know who, but there was “a bunch of hype around this new book of his coming out because he stopped believing in hell or something; and,” she said, “I couldn’t really figure out what all the hype was about because to me it just sounded like he was someone with a seminary education.”

Now, I don’t share that to laud seminary (cause Laud knows that that there is plenty about seminary and seminarians that deserves no praise). Or to suggest that only the opinions of those with official theological educations should be valued. I thought it was interesting because it clued me in to the wider sphere of Christian conversation – wherein there are plenty of thoughtful, committed Christians (right here in America even, and in Chicago, just across the lake from Grand Rapids) who have no idea who Rob Bell is.

I know who he is. I like him; I like the way he postures himself – secure in his identity as a Christian and a seeker, and therefore capable of extending a solid embrace to the diverse spectrum of humanity around him. But a lot of people don’t know him. And as far reaching as the social media bullhorn is, and as adept as Bell and his crew may be at using it, his voice can’t and won’t reach everyone.

Which is to say: 1) To those of you who are so vehemently intimidated by Bell’s message, relax, calm down, he isn’t taking over the world or (gasp, even worse) Christianity – he has a voice and he’s using it. Use yours. Don’t squander your voice on rash, pithy polemics. Honor the conversation, and try to be constructive. 2) To those of you who think Nooma videos are sufficient sources for all of life’s decisions, maybe you should also loosen your fixation a bit. They are really cool and creative. But so are you – so hop up, off your ass, be inspired for sure, but get out there and engage the world with an expression of love and truth that is rooted firmly in the ground on which you stand.

biblical

"I don't believe that. It's not biblical."

You've likely heard it said. Or perhaps a variation...

"It's true. I know it's true because it's biblical."

You've heard it said. Possibly you've even said it yourself. For many Christians it is common to acknowledge something (e.g. a belief, a social issue or behavior) as biblical or non-biblical. It is a functional point of reference. It effectively communicates that a person considers something to be either valid or invalid; condonable or condemnable.

The term is handy. It's a pocket-sized-explanation that can be pulled out and applied to a number of situations. It is abundantly useful. But maybe a bit too useful. And maybe, if we're not careful, the overuse might slink toward abuse.

I think it's time to consider taking a closer look at this particular piece of Christian parlance.

I don't want to suggest that you or anyone else cease using the term. But if you use it, consider also unpacking what you mean by it. Don't assume that what you mean by "biblical" is self-evident. Try not to use "biblical" as a win-all trump card.

For example, perhaps your belief about afterlife is shaped by certain texts in the Bible. Does that mean that your belief about afterlife is biblical? It might. But why not explain yourself a bit more. Which texts? And why do you read them the way you do? Do you know anyone who interprets them differently? How do you respond to them?

If you answered the final question with - "Their beliefs are not biblical" - then scroll up, start over, try again.

By all means, believe what you believe. But take responsibility for it. Don't prop your beliefs up next to the Bible without considering the implications. The Bible is loaded. If you push it, it's going to push back.

ash

Have you read about the Homeland Security Council's hearings scheduled to begin tomorrow? Or did you see the front page article in the New York Times yesterday about the crowds gathering around one woman's anti-Muslim message?

It's discouraging to be working so hard on understanding the religious traditions, symbols, and discourse that intersect in today's global context - to have my nose in books aiming me at being better able to advocate for religious understanding - and then to come across such rampant, unbridled instances of religious misunderstanding (and ignorance!) being amplified by pundits and political figures.

I say "unbridled", but that's not true. Both articles that I linked to above effectively bridle the mis-placed slant that is being unambiguously applied to American Muslims. And there is plenty more critique, thank God. I say "unbridled" because I haven't done anything to rein it back. Unbridled, as of yet, by me.

So consider this my contribution to the pursuit of religious understanding. (It is a thing that we pursue, by the way, regardless of how impossible it may be to ultimately attain.) Today is Ash Wednesday. It is a day more or less designed to humble us (the Christian population of the world) and remind us of our finitude; remind us that we are not and do not possess, in any conclusive form, the answer to the human situation.

Today I have an ashen cross on my forehead. I have tear stains on my cheeks. I have a heavy heart. I heard this poem (by a Muslim mystic), and it helped:

Troubled?

Then stay with me, for I am not.

Lonely?

A thousand naked amorous ones dwell in ancient caves beneath my eyelids.

Riches?

Here’s a pick,

my whole body is an emerald that begs,

“Take me.”

Write all that worries you on a piece of parchment;

offer it to God.

Even from the distance of a millennium

I can lean the flame in my heart

into your life

and turn

all that frightens you

into holy

incense

ash.

my vote on election

In my Dangerous Religious Ideas class we've been discussing, for several weeks, the religious teachings of election/chosenness as manifest in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Next week we've got to take a bit of a stance by drawing up a conclusion. I'm not big into conclusive conclusions. But here's what I'm working on... hopefully it'll serve to keep the discussion going:

The doctrine of election is not consistent in religious consciousness. Historically the inconsistent understanding of election, taken from the multivalent sources of religious traditions and texts, functioned at least partly as a check. It prevented any one, absolutist stance from being ultimately imposed. This accountability inherent in diversity, however, does not absolve the doctrine of election from its inherent dangers. While it has the potential to protect the self-concept of a vulnerable group, it does so to the detriment of that group’s potential for influence and longevity in the modern context.

The doctrine of election has, at times, functioned as a crutch to get vulnerable groups on their feet and advancing in solidarity with one another. Once a group is up and walking, no longer limping under the load of other groups’ despotic ideals, the crutch becomes useless except as a bludgeon with which to subjugate yet other more vulnerable groups. Even in the hands of a vulnerable group the crutch doubles as a weapon, and the contemporary crutch is far too explosive to ignore, let alone condone. We must seek other ways to ensure each group its particular stride in the global walk of life.

A commitment to the struggle against oppression and injustice today has to deal with the present context of heightened global awareness and multiplicity. Dealing with the present context requires that we be able to distance ourselves – if not entirely, at least episodically – from the exclusive and supersessionist claims of our traditions and sacred texts.

This necessitates a mature acknowledgment of the capacity for humans to be more than one thing at a time, i.e. the capacity for humans to be at the same time individuals and participants. The doctrine of election does not foster this confidence but caters to the incoherent fear that in cooperating one loses one’s identity, and in participating one becomes negligible. Only by moving beyond the doctrine of election can we authentically engage the differences between others and ourselves without absolutely dismissing their faith-perspectives as antiquated or errant. There is not a fixed solution to today’s situation in any faith tradition. Therefore none of us have been elected to share the solution. Though we may all have a part in sharing in the solution. Each faith tradition, if alive and lively, does have the capacity to actively engage the contemporary context. We must collectively commit ourselves to the continual process of nurturing identities that are both secure and pliable.

getting personal, going political

I was jarred and confused with myself a couple of days ago when a professor at the seminary, who I was meeting for the first time, asked me about my focus of study. Confused because at this point in the game I feel strongly as if I should have a ready answer to such an inquiry, but instead I strolled along beside him asserting that, “I don’t really know, it’s hard to say.”

And that’s true. It is hard to say. And not least of all difficult to toss my convictions, my concerns, and my ambitions into the condensed setting of a thirty second encounter. But I think I do know really. And hard as it may be I think I need to take opportunities like that to try and say something of what I am doing here.

There are two re-emerging themes in my ever-active mind. [Correction: I shut it down for a few rounds of Angry Birds every couple of days. But aside from then, the themes continually surface in my thoughts.]
1) Advocating an ecological consciousness and mindfulness of our connection to the earth.
2) The pluralistic dynamics (especially pertaining to religious diversity) inherent in contemporary society.

Neither of these subjects of contemplation makes me particularly remarkable, especially as one who calls CTS home. At CTS social-mindedness is the norm, and social action is foremost on the agenda. That’s why I’m here. Not to refine my ipseity, but to be one amongst a group of thoughtful and committed humans intent on spiffing up the world.

But I do believe that I have something specific, even particular, to contribute to the mosaic of history. And part of being here is to risk putting words to what that contribution might be.

So the next time I get a chance to toss my ambitions into a sound byte I might say something like: I am here to amp up the call of the wild; to nurture eco-mindfulness; to treat the earth (in all its grit) as metaphor and context for mutli-faith encounter and (inter)action.

And if I have the time I might risk saying that I am an aspiring political-theologian with a taste for wild places. Which would require some parsing of the title; and would lead to me pulling this gem out of my pocket:

“What is at stake in theological thinking today is not tinkering with the religious self-understanding of religious institutions and still less with providing nostrums for a narcissistic spirituality, but rather of trying to think resolutely and lucidly about a future for humanity and for life itself in the face of the menace of self-inflicted biocide. Real theological thinking is directed toward the question of the deliverance of the earth and the earthling from the empire of avarice, arrogance and violence.”

I’m here rehearsing the various ways that the symbol of God functions in the world (past and present). I’m using the classroom as a tuning fork, finding my pitch, so that I can join the chorus of the community. And staying on my toes in case I get a chance to chant a solo.


[Several voices contributed to this post: Margaret Mead’s “Never doubt…” quote, Theodore Jennings’ quote above, and Elizabeth Johnson’s “The symbol of God functions.”]

snow day flirtations

The early Valentine I received today:

My heart is strangely warmed. Thanks babe. Love you too.

Narratives

I had intended to write more blogable entries while schlepping about these holy plots of land. I have been plodding through my experiences with the discipline of daily journal writing, doing my best to set one word next to another in an attempt to find some sense of cohesion and meaning in the situation on the ground in Palestine/Israel. But – and this is really no surprise – my entries have taken shape as rambles and disjointed thoughts, pulling from a hundred moments a day and as many emotions, sifting through layer after layer of narrative only to arrive at the end of an entry (and the end of each day) exhausted, frustrated, resigned, and all too ready to slap my head down on a flat pillow and stretch my legs to the edge of the narrow bed that cradles me.

In broad strokes we have gone from historic Jerusalem, through the sacred spots of the three monotheistic traditions, into a Bethlehem that is diced up by the ominous presence of a twenty foot wall, and for days now we have been hopping from one living room or lounge to the next hearing from residents and grass-roots leaders, lawyers and clergy and students and activists, farmers and veterans about the their pieces of this complex tapestry. They have shared their space, their values and perspectives, their initiatives, and when at all possible they have extended what little hope for peace and coexistence there is in their hearts.

I have learned a lot about Judaism. A lot about the state of Israel. And a lot about the conflicting claims placed on plots of land, not to mention a bit about the dilemma that those claims pose to the land itself. Yesterday, for instance, we learned about the politics of water in the Golan Heights, which for a boy who grew up flipping faucets on and off without a second thought as to its source of origin, was an illuminating discussion. We began today with a clip from Life of Brian that ironically and comically shed significant light on the complexity of any situation (which to date has been every situation, at least in this place) where there is an imbalance of power. One would think it would be quite simple to diagnose the goods from the evils. But one would be wrong. One would only need to sit in the living room of a Palestinian family on one side of the wall, feeding their gold fish and talking about the latest Pixar movie one day, and then sit down in a dining room on the other side of the wall to share Shabbat dinner with a young family of five the next to know that they are wrong about the ease of diagnosing any situation of conflicting interests.

One needs to encounter the other, to hear their narrative, their angle, to be afforded the opportunity to ask questions and push into their story to understand that claiming a monopoly on truth or a monopoly on what makes sense or claiming to know what solution is the right solution is rooted in immaturity and ignorance.

From what I’ve seen and heard it strikes me that those who are most honest about life in the midst of conflict (and what life isn’t in one conflict or another?) accept, even embrace, the need to release the simplistic notion that an ideal is possible. Ideals clash. Absolutes collide. It takes courage and grace and a ridiculous amount of hope, but it seems necessary to consider the other’s presence as essential to one’s own wholeness. Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Love your next-door enemy. It is not the proximity of conflicting narratives to one another that causes violent conflict; it is the fear of the other and hyper-insecurity about oneself that escalates our natural differences into occasions of hostility and brutality – whether verbal or physical. It’s not okay anymore, if it ever was, to shun diversity. The fear of multiplicity arises from a craven heart or an ignorant one. It is not okay to pretend like human homogeneity is an option. It is okay to be yourself, embodying your narrative, while accepting the other and honoring a plurality of voices.

Coexistence is possible. I’ve seen it. Peace is more elusive – both in reality and in any definable form. Perhaps the elusive nature of peace is a practical trait. If peace was static and could be enshrined in one place or fixed into some society, it would be missing elsewhere – another human community or the ecological neighborhood we are a part of. Our actions, habits, happiness, and security impact the lives and presence of others. Perhaps the best peace is an elusive peace, one that is always being hoped toward but never quite reached. For if I am at peace then my neighbor may be suffering, and that is not just. But if we both attempt harmony, while not neglecting the reality of our differences, perhaps we may transcend inert coexistence and participate, as broad conduits, in the dynamic and enduring flow of peace.