Being God Equals Loneliness

How horrid it must be to be God, to be alone, to be utterly alone. God, who is the ultimate "something" there is (admittedly, that idea might be a linguistic creation) is in a state of ultimate loneliness. There are no others like God. 

(Yes, I know, we have the Trinity in Christianity. Yes, it is three persons in one (which, is again, important but often practically meaningless language) and all three are equally God and individual, yeah, I'm not going into the discussion of Trinity, suffice it to say: useful but at time impractical because of the language used.) 

But God, as unified whole, the most complete whole, is alone. God is the only one like, similar to, in any way comparable to, God. It seems God needed a mission - unless of course the idea that God has himself to entertain and find joy in is true then I am wrong - to provide himself something to do, to be less lonely. Maybe that's why humanity exists. 

We exist to glorify God and our glorification of him lets him know he is wanted (because everyone wants to be wanted). God created us to teach himself he is wanted. Maybe the courage of Nietzsche is letting God know he is unwanted. Maybe the courage of Christians is recognizing in Jesus that God doesn't want himself but rather wants us. 

Grace

I read in the bible of a being that, with “truth and grace”, came into our world. What exactly does it mean that Jesus came in “truth and grace”? What exactly is grace? The sphere of Christendom I have grown up in has defined grace as “unmerited favor” or another odd, but no less abstract definition. But Jesus came in “truth and grace” or, rather, “truth and grace came through Jesus.” Either way, somehow I think I’ve missed the point. Grace is not some abstract concept. It might explain why the other more liturgical denominations speak of “means of grace.” 

Means of grace: word and sacrament: visible, tangible. 

Jesus brought grace into this world via Incarnation. Incarnation: real, visible, malleable, tangible, felt, and not off in the world of concepts alone. A conceptual understanding of grace demands nothing of us, has no long lasting effect. Grace is not for one time, one conversion. 

Rather, it is for all time, always reforming, always converting, and always being felt. And if it is not tangible and real it seems meaningless and lacking. 

Grace is...real and maybe it’s too real for our own comfort and maybe that’s why we put grace in the world of ideas because if it’s a reality found in the physical world, then it demands something of us. In fact, it is all around us. 

Flesh: Introduction

I am nothing more than skin and bones, flesh on muscle on whitened bone.

I am from earth and to earth I will one day return.

My body, our bodies, are brittle, and subject to breaking.

"The flesh is weak," spoke the wandering teacher. If only he had known how very true those words are and continue to become. Little things, like the cutting of skin, the purging of the food from one's body, loathing oneself (a spiritual reality in a fleshy manifestation), the bodies we posses and find ourselves in are weak indeed. What significance does the flesh have? In light of the earthiness by which we are bound and developed what purpose does flesh have? To what end?

Christianity has often felt the lack of flesh in its theology. Flesh is important to the biblical narrative, in fact, I would argue, more important than the soul. Or, rather, souls are so tightly woven to flesh that separation is nigh impossible. The series here, hopefully, will be able to show how flesh refers not only to my body and its parts but to a different reality beyond that which we can see and touch and smell and feel and ultimately quantify. As well, I hope to show the the bible as a whole is a fleshy book, concerned primarily with things of the earth rather than mysticism or some sort of spiritualism.

The general outline will look like this:

1) Preliminary Thoughts on Flesh
Attempt to explain what I am referring to when I refer to flesh as well as teasing out what I see as the differences between "body" and "flesh".
2) Word about Flesh
What scripture has to say about flesh.
3) Word as Flesh
Scripture as flesh in Jesus.
4) Flesh Redeemed
Flesh saved from its abuse

Disbelief is Fidelity

It is not so much that I disbelieve all that is put under the banner of Christianity, my particular opiate of choice, but rather that I do not believe it enough. I have friends who believe more consistently than I and in some sense the easiest answer to why I don't believe as they do is: they are wrong. Or, more bluntly, their version of God is wrong. But that isn't right either. I refuse to believe consistently in some regards if only because I like to think I'm caring for others. My love for the Other demands I disbelieve that which my religion demands I believe.

Glory, Abused

The glory of God is the new Law. No longer are we enslaved to the Law of death. At the present we are enslaved to the Law of glory. Whatever one does is to be done to and for God's glory and instead it turns into a vicious cycle of guilt and demand. The death of Jesus speaks to us now, forming us, with the realization that on the cross God has already been glorified. In partaking of the cross (through Eucharist and Baptism and faith) we find ourselves partaking in the once and final act of glorifying God, the last need to do so has been placated and filled full. We are free to live in grace and folly.

Quote

“In the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. A mystery is, on the contrary, something that is revealed for our understanding, but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depth or the darkness of God. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.”

Kallistos Ware 

On Exchange

Previously I began to address the radical nature of law vs. gospel within the scriptural context. But, did not set out any nuance (mainly because I am not fond of nuance-ing everything). This post is an attempt at that.

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron?

Not only did death come via the Law but perfection could not be attained through it. The Law was created to pass away. 

For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also.

The priesthood is no longer with Aaron and his heirs but is now with Melchizedek and his heir. And with this heir there comes a change in the Law. But saying the Law has changed seems okay. It's kosher within Christian circles to say the nature of the Law changed but isn't set aside. Yet, the bible leaves us no room for the comfortable. 

The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless...

The Law was created to pass because it is weak and useless. The goal was perfection and the Law was useless in achieving this goal. Ergo, it has to pass. 

...and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.

This hope is one of an indestructible life. Again, the tension of death vs. life. Death in and by the Law and life in and by Christ. 

Through whom we live and move and have our being. 

On Law and Gospel

Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was...

The Law had a temporary glory, one which passed away into a newer, more full one. The language we use to discuss this is that of law vs. gospel. While accurate it isn't quite as blunt as the language of the bible. 

...For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 

What are these letters? ...The ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone... 

The letters that kill(ed) are/have passing/passed away, and are now gone/going. 

...The same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.

In Jesus there is freedom, a radical freedom, from these letters, this Law. It's not about a bunch of laws and some euangelion but about death and life. The Law brought death, but no longer because it is taken away. In its stead there is the Spirit which brings life to all. 

God Suffers

God the Father suffered loss.

God the Son suffered physical and emotional pain.

God the Spirit actively suffers.

There is plenty within scripture to suggest that God suffers. When we see the lowest of the low, the least in every way within society, there is Jesus, suffering along with them. When the Church suffers in some way God suffers. In the garden of Gethsemane we see a suffering God.

Only a God who suffers with us actively is a God who can truly save us.

On the Abuse of Truth

I feel bad for truth. It's been so abused of late. And more, I feel anger at Churches. There's this mentality that biblical faithfulness should trump all. "I want to be faithful to the bible," and the statement which underlies that one is this, "so I'll trumpet the biblical text from the rooftops exactly how it's stated therein." No, no, no. Can I say it any more clearly?

We, as Christians, tend to treat the lifestyles or actions we call sin as if they are some abstract idea/entity/thing/whatever that has taken hold of some group of people. This is where the problem lies. We, too often, tend to address the sins of people (when we also fail to have a clear, and effective definition of sin) without realizing they're still (shocker) human. They have feelings, emotions, reactions, thoughts, desires. They feel pain. The reason why people become so outraged at Christian ideals and call us bigots is because we forget their humanness in the desire to be faithful to a book.

Last I checked Christ calls us to be gracious in our speech. He wants us to speak with truth and grace. When we fail to speak truth with grace, in some ways, we fail to speak truth at all. It becomes a clanging noise. Just empty words which we shout in the name of biblical faithfulness and, therefore, words without meaning.

Questions for the Radical Theologians

1. How does Radical Theology stay within Christianity if it is, in many ways, a denunciation of the traditions we have held? Or, rather, Christianity has held.

2. What is meant by God is dead?

3. If God is dead and we must embrace that then what are we preaching?

4. What meaning do our beliefs have in a world where God is dead?

5. Is this about God transcendent versus God immanent?

Forgive me for any misunderstanding of this concept since I think this concept is rather important to the ideas behind RT.

More Thoughts on Doubt

In light of a previous post on the subject it seems appropriate to attempt to clarify or expound further upon the issue raised therein. Where is the line that Rilke seems to be drawing between a doubt that is a worker in your life and the implied giving in to doubt that becomes skepticism?

Doubt is the natural outpouring of the soul when confronted with the pain of reality, not even the pain necessarily but simply reality itself. It's simply wonder at what you do not know, or cannot know. More clearly, doubt is the experience of the soul. 

The line between doubt and skepticism is one of questions. With one the questions find their origin in a wonder that has been disciplined; in the other the questions are asked incessantly without ever disciplining and tailoring them to your needs, to becoming useful. Discipline and questioning, this, it seems, is the line.

One Way Out

The burden of unknowing and doubt lays heavy on any human heart which has attempted to live in the world. A burden which for the most part is furthered by the Church rather than embraced.

Mind you, this burden is not a problem to be solved, but embraced. Too often the Church has used St. Thomas as a means of saying: do not doubt! But this is as far from truth as one can get.

Doubt and unknowing: there can only be one way out (if, in fact, we can ever truly escape) and that is to go through them. Just as with the wrath of God, so with doubt.

Run towards the doubts and uncertainties, sprint even. For at the center there lies the cross, the greatest example of uncertainty. Doubt is part of existence, faith. Faith without doubt is boring, and a creation entirely planned is equally dull.

But:

“And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrased, perhaps also protesting. But don't give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers--perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.” Rilke 

On Christianity as Absurdity

"Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it." Vaclev Havel

Much of what I believe has become absurd, or seemingly so. I've come up against the limits of reason where one can do nothing other than embrace the absurdity. Is that not faith itself? To embrace the utter strangeness of the gospel, its inherently radical nature.

And maybe that's why Christians are so obsessed with having a rational explanation because we have to defend ourselves against the attack of atheists. But is this not the absurdity of the gospel? That we don't defend the validity of our beliefs because they cannot, in fact, be defended. This is not to say they're invalid but rather that the so aptly called 'Christ-event' is absurd and as such cannot be explained.

But once more we encounter an absurdity. By realizing the absurd nature of reason and going onward in faith we embrace absurdity once more. Absurdity is given up for lack of power and replaced by an absurdity of power in weakness: the cross.

To Be Determined

1.

My lovely dances in the moonlight

always moving, an image of fluidity

and grace. She always dances to a

specific rhythm and beat. Nothing 

can stop her and her indomitable

spirit. Her dance is a fight, a cry, a

raging against the sadness and the

deadness of the world today. My

lovely dances in the moonlight.

2. 

Oh, oh, look in the mirror young

one. Oh,

tell me what you see. See a light

shining in your eyes as you try to

smile. Those glittering moments

when you can see past the evil,

past the dark,

are fleeting. There and gone and 

back again like a ghost that never

can or ever will quit.  

3.
Not sure what this all means or even
stands for. Not really sure I want to.
But I can't say I never will know. To
search and wonder and pray and breathe
and sleep, that is the fullness of life. To
feel the curve of your lovers body on yours
and the smell of their sweat is the fullness
of being.

4.

I sit, silently.

5.

God, the silence that speaks, through whom
and in whom and by whom we live, move,
and have our being. 

On Heresy

  Heresy is a good thing. I know the church proper should be opposed to heresy but I honestly cannot find good reason to stand against it as it is. By this I mean, simply, that heresy, is over rated. It is a word thrown around in the church today, especially by Protestants who want to sound like they have some grasp and/or appreciation for church tradition, and is so often used (and abused, frankly) that it is essentially meaningless. So, how is a word that is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless, a good thing?

  Heresy is simply any doctrine/dogma/idea contrary to orthodox Christianity. Leaving aside the issue of what orthodox Christianity is, it would seem rather wrong of me to suggest that heresy is a good thing in light of this basic definition. But I will suggest such a proposition. And my basis for this claim is simply that seeking Truth (whatever that may entail or be) requires one to step on toes. Truth is to be sought and in doing so one may find that they are enjoining themselves with a heretical notion. And the notion that this is a bad thing, to enjoin oneself with heresy, must be done away with. Inherent in the search for Truth is the risk of heresy. Heresy serves two purposes in the church: 1) to cause reevaluation of dearly held beliefs so as to test whether those things are True and 2) to spur the Church proper into action (I am grateful to Dr. Michael Bauman for this clarifying point). As such heresy is a good thing. It serves a long run purpose. However, does this mean one should arbitrarily become a heretic? No. But one must accept that inherent to Truth seeking is the risk of heresy and that holding a heretical notion (if, indeed it is heretical) can be a good thing for your beliefs and the vitality of the Church. 

Vere Tu Es Deus Absconditus

  I am a Christian. I pray like crazy. And I grew up being told to listen in prayer. I've tried listening but nada. Exactly what is entailed in listening to/for God? The still, small voice? How does God speak? Through his word? Sure, but that's its own dilemma right there. So, I prayed and tried to listen and God was silent. What now? Silence, just silence.

 -"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"-

   I use apologetics to give reasons, primarily to myself now, for my faith. Yet, God escapes me. "Jonas, you need to have heart knowledge, too!" Well, how? Like stated above the silence is frightening and overwhelming. Apologetics is all well and good till it isn't.

 -"Pointless, because it seems to me like an attempt to put a grown-up man back into adolescence, i.e. to make him more dependent on things on which he is, in fact, no longer dependent, and thrusting him into problems that are, in fact, no longer problems to him."-

   I accept unknowing, the lack of certainty. Or, rather, I try to. I think hard and think well, attempting to use my mind to get somewhere with the unknowing and lack of certainty. But it's very obvious what I am doing. I'm finding certainty in the use of my mind to be uncertain. Oxymoron much?

 -"The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me."-

 

Anecdotes

1.
God is fully revealed in Jesus Christ, implications of this?

2.
Jesus demands something more from us than religious observance.

3.
God self-limits himself.

4.
A relationship not a religion is too weak; rather, a life instead of a religion.

Jesus Is Not For America

That's right.

Nor is America for Jesus. In fact, much of America is antithetical to Jesus. Or, more frankly, Jesus stands opposed to much of America (at least as it is).

Jesus stands and says love your enemies; America goes to war regularly and has since Vietnam (basically, we've been in a war for thirty plus years straight).

Jesus says turn the other cheek; America seeks its own interests and spits at anyone who gets in the way.

Jesus says he is the Light; America, via the mouth of George Bush, claims to be the light and hope of nations.

Don't get me wrong, America has some wonderful parts and facets. But as that shocking and odd band we all love states, "We've baptized the Empire into the Church and hailed it sanctification." The American Church has become pathetic. We've gone to bed with the State. Am I saying don't be patriotic? No, but consider your nationalism and hold it in check.

Quotes

"Generally speaking, women aren't very promiscuous. Males, by contrast, are extraordinarily slutty. And if that's the case, then why are women rather than men called sluts?

A psychological study in this regard. A group of researchers had attractive assistants approach men and women of the opposite sex on a college campus. After a few minutes of chit chat the assistant would sexually proposition the student. The question was, what percent of women would agree to have sex with an attractive man after a few minutes of conversation? And what percent of men would agree to have sex with an attractive woman after a few minutes of conversation?

Seventy-five percent of the males agreed to have sex. The women?

Zero percent.

Generally speaking, women are choosy and discriminating when it comes to sex. Men not so much. 

In short, from an empirical standpoint men are the whores.

And if that's the case, why are women always cast as whores, even in the bible, as the sexually insatiable ones?

It is a product of Freudian projection. Throughout history, religiously conservative males have had to confront one of the greatest sources of their moral failure: the male libido. The male libido--the fact that men are sluts--is a sore spot of any male community wanting to pursue purity and holiness. And what has happened, by and large, is that rather than admit that males struggle mightily in the sexual realm, males have externalized the blame and projected their libido onto women. Rather than blaming themselves for sexual sin males have, throughout history, blamed women for being temptresses. The Whore was created to be the scapegoat to preserve male self-righteousness. Rather than turning inward, in personal and collective repentance, men could blame women, blame the whores, for their sexual and moral failures. It's not our fault, the men say, it's the whore's fault.

Examples of this sort of projection are too numerous to list. Christian campuses and youth group talks are full of this sort of stuff.

But let me bring this back to whores and brides in Revelation. Given the problematic nature of this metaphor, how are we to approach these images in the bible? 

I'll tell you what I do. For me, I don't read the Whore as a woman. I read it as the Freudian projection it is. The Whore is the male libido projected onto women.

More simply, when I see the Whore in Revelation I don't see a woman.

I see a man."

Richard Beck