Quotes

“They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself -- ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide. ” The Moviegoer, Walker Percy 

Part One of a Series on Death of God Theology: Eucharist as God's Perpetual Death

"You are sacrificing Christ all over again," or so the objection to real-presence in the Eucharist goes.

  The objection states that we continue to re-sacrifice Christ on the cross. Guess what? It's true, we do. In fact, we do so in many ways. But the taking of the Eucharist is an important, institutional, global and very visceral way in which we declare God is dead. God is no longer out there. God's death, if it means anything, means that God is no longer Other. God is not the Object but the Subject. As Heidegger states:

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself. ” 

By the eating of God, if you will, we face God's death and free ourselves. We take his death into ourselves in a very real sense. By re-sacrificing Christ we continually destroy the Other. We continually embrace the world we have all around us (yes, that is a reference to The Orphans) and live in a Spirit inhabited world. Thus, the common evangelical complaint gets turned on its head and can be embraced.

This is part one of an ongoing series as I read more about death of God theology/radical theology.
 

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 

Oddity

Christianity is not lived on Good Friday and Easter but rather is more often lived on Holy Saturday, the in between. In fact to state the following is not an extreme: life generally is lived on Saturday. The oddity of the death of Jesus is the sorrow and the abandonment that comes because there is now nothing. Nothing to do but weep with God. No one to follow but the emotions that come with the death of a loved one. There is absolutely nothing because Jesus is in the tomb.
   But there is something rather curious about this death, this nothingness, because of it we now see a God who wants us to live on and follow him despite the absence. In the nothingness of death there is a call.

Ode to the Dead

Here's to the dead. Not those who've gone before
only. But to those who stand at the door of their
own end. Here's to the endless line that stands
forever at death's door. Some knock, and some,

the tragic few, kick the door in, rushing through.
This is a toast to those who have crossed the
divide and torn the curtain in two. This is for
those who await the crashing. And this is for
those who were shoved through too soon.
Be at peace.

The Filling Full

Incarnation affirms humanity and redeems the material world and our bodies. And deems them sacred.
The cross sets the pendulum back in place between man and his God. No longer do we idolize man nor can we idolize God.
Resurrection defeats death by affirming life. And by affirmation negates any claim that has us floating off into the stratosphere.
Ascension drags the material world into the presence of the God who is spirit. This fills all the previous events full, affirming the immanence of God because the material is now before and embraced by him.