L’Abri…take two

Well, tomorrow morning at 5:44 a.m., I will be getting on a flight to Boston to go back to the community at the lovely white house called L’Abri.

http://www.labri.org/mass/index.html 

I spent two weeks at L’Abri last summer, and I can honestly say that it changed my life forever. Last summer, my time at L’Abri opened me up to a new worldview, one in which I genuinely for the first time became open to the idea of God, albeit a concept of God that is very different than that to which I had previously held. These experiences at L’Abri became the starting point upon which a wonderful past year at Vanderbilt, including challenging courses and enriching friends and communities of faith, sent me into a new direction on my spiritual journey.

Thus, I am at a very different place in the journey than I was this time last year as I was heading out to L’Abri– I have different questions, a different worldview, and a different attitude. Largely, I think that much of this stems from a different concept of God. The thing about atheism is that it is totally dependent upon theism. Atheism is parasitic upon theism for its negation of the latter. Last year, I went to L’Abri struggling largely with the issue of atheism vs. theism, while largely leaning towards the former. Today, I am still an atheist with regards to the concept of God that I had last year. For so long, I had been trying to muster faith in some kind of being who existed somewhere ‘out there,’ much like an angry, and sometimes loving, old man in the sky. I couldn’t find that faith. I had been trying to understand why believing specific dogma about Jesus dying for our sins somehow enabled us to escape a literal Hell and enter into Heaven one day. I couldn’t understand. I was struggling to find any good reasons to believe that the Bible is so-called ’inerrant’ and ‘infallible’. I couldn’t find any such reasons. And I thought this meant that I had to chuck it all. Indeed, I still haven’t found that faith, that understanding, or those reasons. In some sense, then, I am an atheist…but only with regard to this kind of theism.

Apart from this particular model of theism for which I was trying to force myself into faith, I cannot today call myself an atheist…at least I don’t think I can. That’s actually one of the main reasons why I am heading back to L’Abri– to get ‘unstuck’ in every possible sense of the word. Perhaps the question that I was asking last year about the ‘existence of God’ is itself a contradiction. Perhaps God isn’t a being that either exists or doesn’t exist; rather perhaps God is the Ground of all Being, the Ground of existence itself. If the latter is the case, then God doesn’t exist. God is.

The second related question is that of revelation and how we know this God, the Ground of all Existence. I find a struggle between the literal and symbolic readings of many stories in the Bible. I can see how many of the stories are ‘true’ in that they speak to the human condition and perhaps symbolically point to a deeper reality. However, I simply cannot take many of them as literally and historically true. Thus, I must ask, are they ‘true’ at all?

And there is much, much more…but I am tired from a wonderful yet exhausting 5 week job as a counselor at the TN Governor’s School for high schoolers…and, I have to be at the airport in about 5 hours…so I am going to stop here. 

However, in final words, I will say that I have been trying to avoid putting too much pressure upon what must happen during these next 3 weeks. But that is very hard to do. Despite my efforts, I feel as though these nexts few weeks are going to serve as either a breakthrough or a breakdown of faith…without begging into the question, I already feel as though it is the former. I find myself being drawn more and more to the foot of the cross of the crucified and resurrected Christ— and more than that, to the Reality to which this cross itself points. While doubts often take over, something about the cross as well as our human condition, consumes the doubts into itself– and I am liberated, affirmed, reconciled, and Known. Through the cross, we are shown the image of a totally self-giving God, a totally selfless, personal, loving, and affirming core and Ground of all Existence. In all of this, we are called into a new Reality, a new way of Being, a new future all within the framework of promise and hope.

It’s a beautiful picture, and I think it’s true– but I don’t even know what it means to say that it’s true.

So, I’m going to L’Abri. Throughout all of this, I keep in mind the words of my friend, Ben: ‘the most we can do is throw ourselves on the infinite mercy of a God whose wisdom is made perfect in foolishness.’ I shall try. But I’m not sure that I really have any choice.

(I will be away from the internet while at L’Abri…however, I shall blog about my experiences when I return.)

Another kind of death

We are all familiar with physical death– with the pain it brings into our lives and with the anxiety that we too must face this annhilation of being. However, there is another kind of death with which me must deal as well; and that is the death that occurs in the midst of life itself. We all have people who are now dead to us– that person who was our best friend, who brought out the colors in life, who was always with us, and because of this, whose existence we took for granted since we assumed that they would never leave. But things changed. Slowly, but ever so surely, we drifted apart, until we look back today at this person and wonder how they could be the same one whom we loved so in days past.

No. You must be an imposter. What happened to that joyful smile, those adventurous eyes, and that imaginative spirit? How about the warmth and love that used to embody our every encounter?

No. You can’t be that person who was my best friend. For that person is no more. I see your smile in a photo and often long to be back in that moment. But that moment, like every other instant of sweet life is gone and is no more. It all is dead. You is dead. Yet here you are.

So I ask you, what did you do with you? Where did you go? I think it is my fault too, as I took you for granted and let you go so easily. Part of me has died with you. And I never said goodbye, because I didn’t see this happening until it was too late. But there is nothing more to say.

Except that I miss you, my friend. And I will always remember the times we had together, how you shaped me into the person that I am today.  And you taught me a lesson, albeit a lesson that is like fighting against the wind to follow.

We should never take for granted those whom we love. For if we do, sooner or later, things will change and before we know it, they are dead to us while still living. Physically, they are here. But neither they nor us are the same persons. And we will find ourselves stuck in the inbetween– between death and life, the no man’s land of loneliness.

And all we can then say is: I miss you, friend.

The Rose Factor– Check it Ooouuut…

If you’re interested in some music that can touch your core and transform your spirit, I suggest that you check out The Rose Factor at http://therosefactor.com/muzic__stuff. Thomas and Dita Rose help lead worship at Mosaic Nashville (the church that I attend when I am in Nashville) and are truly talented singers/songwriters/musicians.

Any of these songs can be our prayer. I usually live within the realm of “God I need You now,” and I will never forget the experience of hearing ”Beautiful Picture” for the first time. The words of the song express such beauty and, as I was accutely convinced at the time even as it seems now in moments of peace, truth.

To hear the songs, go to the website by using the provided link.

The hidden God

O my God how does it happen in this poor old world that Thou art so great and yet nobody finds Thee, that Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears Thee, that Thou art so near and nobody feels Thee, that Thou givest Thyself to everybody and nobody knows Thy name? 

- Hans Denk, 16th century German theologian, Anabaptist, and mystic

This quote expresses the depth of the question that has been pondered throughout the ages: Where art Thou o God? One does not have to be a skeptic to honestly wonder why it is that a supposed God of the universe is not more obvious to us. Why is it that people bustle around day to day, caught up in the mundane tasks of living, obsessing about things that are fleeting and never concerning themselves with the fact of death, the pain of existing, and the glory of life? If God is real, how can so many people ignore such a reality of existence? How can apathy concerning the ultimate questions persist?

I have a friend who has told me several times that if God would just do one miracle for him (maybe come down from the sky in a streak of fire or whatever), then he would believe in and worship God. Of course such a request, though certainly understandable, is not realistic. Even if such a miracle did occur, my friend could easily attribute it to a natural cause and as time passed, would begin to doubt the event. And this not even to speak of future generations who, if they did not see such a miraculous event first-hand, would not believe, just as my friend does not now believe. Fortunately, I think that there is another way that does not leave us asking for a literal action of the heavens breaking forth and fire appearing before we can believe. Rather, belief comes when our eyes are opened to the miracle of life. We are alive. Tell yourself that. Think about it. Let it bother you and shake you. You exist.

Sometimes as you ponder these things, a feeling washes over you, and you are actually aware that you are alive. Indeed, everything dances with life and exudes mystery. And in these beautiful moments, the hidden God is perceived– the God of Beauty, Truth, and Grace. You experience a peace that makes whole that which is fragmented. It is the healing of salvation.

And then you repeat the words of Denk. How is it o God that Thou art so great, yet hidden? But you have experienced the answer– because it could not be any other way.

Why I am A/Theist

Behold the Necker Cube: to see it, go to: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cyberlaw2005/sites/cyberlaw2005/images/ColouredNeckeCcube_image.jpg&imgrefurl=http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cyberlaw2005/CyberOne:_LAW_in_THE_COURT_of_PUBLIC_OPINION&usg=__nxkHbqZj6kxCxJMQj_ibtdda5QU=&h=377&w=403&sz=12&hl=en&start=34&um=1&tbnid=pMEU_2uDBRXfqM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnecker%2Bcube%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26rlz%3D1T4DMUS_enUS228US232%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18%26um%3D1

The Necker Cube best describes a common state in which I find my mind. In order to make this work, you must focus on the red dot. When you do so, the red dot will either appear as the point closest to you with the yellow side being the front face of the cube or the red dot will appear as the point farthest away from you with the yellow side being the back face of the cube. Most likely, your perspective will shift back and forth…once you focus in on one view (i.e. the yellow side forms the back face of the cube), you will get locked into it for a while; but when you allow your focus to shift, you will automatically move into the other perspective (i.e. now the yellow side forms the front face of the cube). And on and on. Try it for a while. If you do it for too long, it will drive you bonkers.

***

I can go on and on about the subject which I am soon to discuss. However, I am not going to do that. At least not now. My goal is not that my message is exhaustive; only intelligible and coherent. Besides, there is much, much more to come about this. Indeed, I have for some while been adopting this perspective and plan to make it a large project of inquiry and study in the future, even as I do now. So now, on to the issue at hand.

It has to do with so-called atheism and theism, and a way of being religious that transcends the split between these two tired poles. Before I can move on, I first must bring in my own mental Necker cube and the two ways of perception between which my perspective keeps shifting.

Perspective #1: This is the world of ‘classical theism’ (’classical,’ not in the sense that this is how the ancient people viewed the Sacred but rather that this is the way which has shaped our modern perceptions of religion) and its response of ‘classical atheism.’ Classical theism holds that there is a supernatural being (God) that exists independent of ourselves somewhere ‘out there.’ In this view, we can know things about God, and indeed are expected by this God to either act (which includes believing) or to be a certain way (i.e. holy, righteous, moral, etc…). The response to this view by classical atheism basically holds the negated view of everything for which the classical theistic position stood- so there is no God that exists independent of ourselves, and we are thus seen to be freed from the restraints unreasonably levied by religion. God is, so to speak, dead.

But what happens when there was no God to kill in the first place? I have for some time now been struggling with the tired debate between ‘atheism’ and ‘theism.’ I am now at the point where, though I find the content interesting, more often than not, I find it to be largely irrelevant. I reject classical atheism because I reject classical theism. Classical atheism (as perhaps best exemplified in a contemporary context by the writings of the New Atheists: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens) is not satisfying because it exists as a response to classical theism, which is equally not satisfying. I am not an atheist in the sense that Richard Dawkins would advocate– indeed I find his views regarding God and religion to be not only shallow, but also painfully simplistic. However, I think that he is correct in much of what he has to say against classical theism. In fact, the New Atheists make the jobs of those of us who are seeking Perspective #2 to be a bit easier, in that they obsess themselves with showing where classical theism is going ‘wrong.’ After all, though I am not a classical atheist (or, in this context, a New Atheist), neither am I a classical theist. And this leads me to Perspective #2.

Perspective #2: There is a middle ground, or rather perhaps I should say transcending ground, between/beyond classical theism and atheism– this middle ground is the domain of the Transcendent, the Sacred, Truth, Beauty, Mystery, and Life. Paul Tillich defines faith as a state of ultimate concern, and the fundamental symbol of that ultimate concern is God. Thus God is always present in any act of faith, even if that faith denies God. For as he says, “Where there is ultimate concern, God can be denied only in the name of God. One God can deny the other one. Ultimate concern cannot deny its own character as ultimate. Therefore, it affirms what is meant by the word ‘God’.” He goes on to remark that atheism can only mean the attempt to remove ultimate concern. The only possible form of atheism is that in which one is unconcerned about the meaning of one’s existence– it’s an indifference toward the ultimate question. And such indifference doesn’t meet the profile of any serious self-proclaimed atheist that I know of, certainly not Dawkins, Hitchens, or even Freud, Sartre, and Nietzsche, all famous ‘atheists’ who are/were nonetheless very concerned with the ultimate question of existence.

In contrast to the classical theistic view, this perspective holds God not just to be a figure somewhere ‘out there’ but as the very Ground of Being of all existence itself. There is Something rather than Nothing. Point made. There is Being rather than Non-being; indeed, the concept of non-being is possible at all only because there is being with which we can recognize it. Recognition and feeling presuppose being. Everything is within God. As Paul said in the book of Acts, “For in God we live and move and have our being.” But though everything is within God, God also transcends all. God is the infinite point that gives meaning to all things finite.

This view of God changes what we see as the point of religion. Indeed, the point of religion and the point of existing are one and the same. There is no more secular/sacred divide– all Reality and Truth are one. Through narrative, symbol, and ritual, religion puts us into contact with Mystery (God) and reveals to us that this Mystery is gracious. In the symbols of Christianity, this is exemplified in the self-empyting love (kenosis) that God gave away on the cross to the world that God embraces.  A huge difference between Perspective 1 and Perspective 2 seems to me to come down to the role of belief versus participation. In Perspective 1, it is important that you believe the ‘right’ things– whether in it’s atheistic or theistic form. In Perspective 2, the focus is not as much on the content of belief as it is the intensity with which ultimate concern (faith) is searched for and cherished, and in all of this, experienced. It’s about taking part in the Divine Mystery, about participating in the narrative of Being. And this narrative of Being is a cosmic and existential tale, centered in Being itself, God. The symbols within particular religions (for example, in Christianity, the cross) are ways to God, and indeed are salvation in that they lead to overcoming anxiety and other barriers that keep us from participating in and knowing God.

I want to share one more quote from Paul Tillich that makes my point better than I can make it myself. This comes from his meditation The Depth of Existence where he is talking about ‘depth,’ the dimension of inexhaustibility under the surface of perceived reality. This depth is experienced when we become aware of more, of the layers of reality. It’s like the process of getting to know someone you love– each day you learn more about them and hence know them in a deeper way. This also happens with ourselves. We experience the depth of our being everyday as we learn more and more about who we are. There is always a deeper level below the surface. And on and on. In the words of Tillich:

The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth…is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life…Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional you have learned about God, perhaps even the word itself. For if you know that God means depth you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life itself is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not. He who knows about depth knows about God.  (57)

The New Atheism is only as strong as the theism to which it responds. It does not, because it cannot, deal with such definitions of God and faith as described by Tillich above.

And this brings us back to the mental Necker Cube. I go back and forth between these two perspectives. Once I lock into one, it can be hard to shift into the other. But the shift does occur. It is a back and forth between two planes of viewing reality. Each time I shift perspectives, I encounter a series of anxious doubt and fear– I think that maybe I am wrong. Yet recently I have been drawn towards a God that I cannot deny. In the midst of the abyss of despair, God is the Ground of Being which Affirms all that is, even as God urges us forward into greater being.

Theism contains within it moments of atheism. Atheism can serve as a purifying element. But even more than that, true theism implies true atheism, just as Being implies Non-being. Being consumes Non-being with the gracious, affirming embrace.

And so I am A/Theist. At least I think so. For now. There are many things about this that I am having trouble understanding and resolving, not the least within the framework of Perspective 2. And then I wonder that maybe I’ve got it all wrong. And on and on. Journeying. Questioning. Answering. Just to question it all again. I think this is the experience of depth to which Tillich was referring.

This much I do know: I have been grasped by God. I Know and I am Known.

Facing up…

The human mind is not only, as Calvin has said, a permanent factory of idols, it is also a permanent factory of fears– the first in order to escape God, the second in order to escape anxiety; and there is a relation between the two. For facing the God who is really God means facing also the absolute threat of nonbeing.

-Paul Tillich in The Courage to Be, 39

 

Mountaintop Experience

I recently began a 5 week job as a residential counselor for the ETSU Governor’s School for the Scientific Exploration of Tennessee Heritage (that’s a mouth full). This is a program funded by the state in which some of the top incoming high school juniors and seniors from across the state spend 5 weeks on campus taking 2 courses for college credit. In addition to the courses, they will also participate in a number of fun activities. Today, we hiked Roan Mountain, located on the TN/NC border.

I’ve often heard the phrase “mountaintop experience” used to describe some sort of event where a person has an intense encounter that makes him/her high on life. Often this experience is related to spirituality in some form. Today, I think I finally really understood the analogy. I’ve had a spiritual dryness for the past month or so that oddly enough, has seemed unshakable. No matter what I read, where I go, to whom I talk, about what I think, what I hear, nothing can take away this disturbing dryness that manifests itself in a combined feeling of alienation, isolation, distance, and worst of all, apathy. And this all coming on the heels of a very unique semester where I have never felt more alive and spiritually vibrant in my life. So, it has been a frustrating setback to say the least.

However, today I discovered that it is not necessarily what I must do to feel alive again, but rather what must happen to me in order for me to feel alive again. I must be grasped by Something larger than myself, by Beauty and by Truth. And today on the mountain, I was indeed grasped.

As sappy and as silly as it may sound, mountains have always been a place of spiritual experiences. In many ancient religions, mountains were seen as being close to the heavens, and hence close to God/the gods. Certainly in biblical tradition, mountains were held to be a place where God was met and experienced by humans. Hearkening back to biblical tradition, think of Moses (the giving of the law on Mount Sinai), Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain, just to name a few.

Today, I found that there is something about breathing fresh, cool air; about feeling the wind brush your skin; about seeing white, puffy clouds fill the vast blue backdrop of the sky as on a painter’s canvas; about being surrounded by the luscious green mountains covered in trees and grasses; about seeing a winding trail stretching on in the distance, weaving in and out, just like the trail of life—there’s something about all of these things that made me feel fully alive, fully human. There’s something about these things that created a feeling of wholeness out of the fragments of my being, that connected me to something larger than myself, that made me yearn for more, for the Divine. Indeed, I was grasped.

Mountaintop experiences (whether literal or figurative) are important because they keep us going. They are the light that drives us forward through the darkness of despair and apathy. They are what tell us there is indeed more and that we can’t give up yet.

I was thinking today how cool it would be for a group of Life, Beauty, and God seekers to go on a mountain or otherwise out in nature to connect to God, both communally and individually. Church groups sometimes do activities together where they maybe hike or hang out for a picnic at a park. Why not instead plan a trip to go to the mountains or even to the night sky to meditate, pray, and experience the Mystery in whom we move, live, and have our being. And this not to just meditate personally, but also to share the journey with one another. That’s my suggestion for spiritual formation. We all need to be stirred, revived, and made alive again. And again. And again…

Some pictures from Roan Mountain today:

As we walked along this trail, a girl was facing the edge of the mountain playing Amazing Grace on her flute. It was one of those beautiful moments that you want to bottle up and keep in a timeless place.

Postmodernism and the Gospel

Our society is (and has been for some while) emerging from the era of modernity into that of postmodernity. Right now, we are in between this transition, with elements of both modernity and postmodernity penetrating our culture and thoughts. As with anything, there are many people who cling to the old, familiar thing as tightly as they can. I still remember back to 6 or so years ago when I heard a youth pastor give a sermon about the dangers of postmodernity and how we are called to stand firm in truth. On the other hand, there are always many people who cling to the newest thing just because it is new. Hence, there are many people who almost uncritically accept postmodernity in all of its aspects and claims. However, whether you love it or hate it, the fact is that postmodernity is here. In his book “A Primer on Postmodernism,” Stanley J. Grenz puts it this way: “Postmodernism poses certain dangers. Nevertheless, it would be ironic– indeed, it would be tragic– if evangelicals ended up as the last defenders of the now dying modernity. To reach people in the postmodern context, we must set ourselves to the task of deciphering the implications of postmodernism for the gospel.” (p. 10) And indeed, this is what Grenz does in the latter part of the book. I will summarize and share a few of the important points here.

Much Christian evangelicalism is characterized by a modern mindset. This is exemplified by the focus upon rational apologetics which seek to prove such things as the existence of God, the trustworthiness of the Bible, and the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. While a rational understanding of these things are important, it is not exhaustive. In fact, I would say that if anything, the rational attempt to “prove” the above things (which incidentally can’t be accomplished anyway) turned me away from God in my own journey rather than leading me to faith. The point is, these methods don’t work anymore (if they ever did). To be fair, they were a good try for their own modern context, which revered reason, science, and empirical “facts” above all else; but we are largely operating off of a different mindset now.

The other thing is that Evangelical systematic theologies focus upon the propositional content of faith and try to present Christian doctrine in a logical, rational manner. Thus, people are told that they need to believe A, B, and C, and if they do, they are Christians. I don’t know, while this might have worked in it’s modern context, this appears as a very unimpressive approach to postmoderns. We ask if that is all there is to it…if there is not more? If not, many of us want nothing to do with Christianity because we can find a more penetrating meaning for our lives elsewhere.

Grenz first points out one area in which Christianity can not agree with Postmodernism. Postmodernism essentially abandons universal truth and instead settles for a reality comprised of competing interpretations. Here, no one interpretation is better than the others because they are all just that: interpretations, with no ultimate standard by which they can be judged. Grenz calls this the loss of a “center.” This cannot be accepted within Christian faith because Christians do claim a center: the appearance on earth of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God. I would add that the Christian faith must hold God as the horizon of the absolute– Truth, Beauty, Love, Security. However, to say that Christ is the center and God is the absolute is not to say that we as humans have an absolute understanding of them. This is where postmodernism becomes useful again. With this absolute and center in mind, all we can do are approximate interpretations. The postmodern Christian claim would be something like we as humans, can never know absolute truth (because it is always filtered through our human perspective) although such absolute Truth does exist in God.

Now, finally, on to the four things that Grenz lists which we MUST pay attention to regarding the Gospel in a Postmodern context.

1. A Post-Individualistic Gospel– Modernism elevated the individual. Thus this radical individualism is also at the heart of many modern presentations of the Gospel. Emphasis is placed upon the state of the Individual before God and upon the Individual getting “saved.”Postmodernism is recovering the importance of the community and society in our process of knowing. Individuals come to knowledge by participating in particular communities which provide cognitive frameworks. In the Bible, the covenant with Israel (which is the paradigm for the New Covenant offered in Jesus) is communal, rather than individualistic. Through the covenant, God is seeking to save God’s whole people, Israel, and eventually the world. When the people disobeyed, they were corporately punished– exile. It wasn’t as much about individual judgement and reward, although there was a place for that too. I wonder how this communal understanding would influence our approach to the Gospel today?
2. A Post-Rationalistic Gospel– Modernism elevated reason. Within Christianity, this often leads to the conclusion that we reason our way to God via logical propositions; as a result, there is little room left for Mystery or religious experience. Claiming Mystery is not claiming irrationality; rather, it is claiming that the Divine transcends human rationality. Furthermore, postmodernism claims that truth is more than an assertion or proposition. It is an experience that we participate in. In fact, interpretive concepts and experiences are related– our concepts allow us to understand the experiences that we have, and our experiences shape our concepts. This brings us to the question of Christian terminology, such as “sin,” “grace,” “being lost,” “salvation,” “reconciliation,” etc… all words that can become mushy and totally lose their meaning in our heads. Grenz claims that these doctrinal terms have their meanings not in and of themselves but rather in their role of making meaning out of a transformative religious experience. Experiencing God is both facilitated and understood by appeal to these propositional categories. In this light, the goal in proclaiming the gospel is not about getting someone to affirm a list of “correct” propositions, but rather is about using these propositions, if applicable, to help others experience God and enter into the journey of trying to understand and unite with this reality.
3. A Post-Dualistic Gospel– The secular/sacred split that pervades our society is a child of the Enlighenment (as is the related split between mind/matter, soul/body). These splits must be bridged. A postmodern Gospel will have to take seriously a whole human person, rather than just being interested in saving “souls” while ignoring the physical. This holistic approach will place humans back into the environmental and social contexts which create and sustain them; thus, culture, society, and history must matter. And so too do relationships– not only with God, but with people and with the environment. This also means that the Gospel can’t just be concerned with saving “souls” from Hell, but rather must be about renewing all of existence and bringing it into the presence and being of the New Reality in God.
4. A Post-Noeticentric Gospel– This kind of Gospel must affirm that the goal of our existence goes beyond just trying to accumulate more and more knowledge. It realizes that knowledge doesn’t do anything in and of itself but is only useful when it is fostering wisdom and spirituality in the knower. Knowlege is important because through it, lives are transformed. And then action follows. Beliefs shape actions. Thus, the purpose of knowledge resides within actions that come from belief  as well as the initiation of personal transformation and increased experiences of the Divine, all of which lead to a New Reality and way of being.

So what does all of this stuff mean? Given the presence of postmodernity in our culture, many people are recognizing the need to make the gospel relevant for a postmodern culture. But how to do this? It is not unusual to see a church try to reach postmoderns by putting on a snazzy touch (by usuing tech savy videos, cool guitar music, different terminology, etc…) and giving contemporary examples for how people can live out the message of Christianity today. But the problem is that all too often these attempts to be “postmodern” are just a colorful veneer that is covering the same old modern theology underneath. Thus these attempts are not postmodern. A postmodern gospel involves not just the means by which the message is offered (i.e. church) but more importantly the content of that message. Thus a church does not have to become a so-called “seeker church” with a rock band and contemporary clothing to engage a postmodern culture. In fact, many postmoderns appreciate ritual, tradition, hymns, and especially an intimate community. And the great thing about seeking, worshipping, and experiencing God is that there is not just one way to do it– there are many, and they are all right in different ways. Churches need not be contemporary to engage a postmodern culture, although contemporary is OK too. In fact, I have noticed that many “contemporary” churches are actually rather conservative in their theology…whereas many more traditional, liturgical type churches are not so much.

So the question about what to do with postmodernism and the gospel is not so simple as to require a new style of church and then be done with thinking about these things. Actually, I would say that such a way of dealing with the issue is a rather cheap approach that in effect, completely avoids the heart of the matter. Rather, it requires a new orientation, one that does not rid itself of tradition, the Scriptures, and the creeds, but instead takes these things seriously by engaging them and rethinking what their message could mean for humanity today. If people do this rethinking  and searching with an authenticity and transparency, postmoderns will come back to church. Postmoderns are looking for answers, often very passionately. It’s just that sometimes, its easier to find answers outside of churches (whether that be from professors, friends, books, culture, science, classes, Hollywood, personal spirituality, nature) than it is in churches, where so many people seem to think they have figured out all the answers with certainty. However, much of this is changing. And I think that postmodernity offers a good reason for this much-needed change to come.

For much more on this subject, see Stanley J. Grenz’s “A Primer on Postmodernism.” It’s very accessible, yet well researched and documented.

Creativity and Bringing the Dead to Life– Night at the Museum 2

I don’t watch a lot of movies, but last night, I went to go to see “Night at the Museum 2.” I am no Roger Ebert, but I would give the movie a 5 thumbs up. As with the first “Night at the Museum,” this one was creative, exciting, hilarious, and adventuresome. And it also made me think.

The gist of the movie centers around a special golden tablet that brings the museum characters (mostly statues of famous people in history) to life at night. The first “Night at the Museum” movie took place in the New York Museum of Natural History. In the sequel, the Museum of Natural History is undergoing changes, and some of the characters that we got to meet in the first movie are being shipped out to the federal archives at the Smithsonian Institution in D.C. A few of the main attraction characters are going to stay behind in New York, along with the golden tablet. However, an impish capuchin monkey (one of the museum displays that comes to life at night) steals the golden tablet, and thus the tablet goes with the shipment to D.C. The problem is that the Federal Archives are home to many, many interesting (and not all so friendly) characters (watch out for the paintings!) that come to life in the presence of the golden tablet. The conflict arises with how to get the tablet and the shipped out characters at the Smithsonian safely back to the Museum of Natural History in New York. Larry to the rescue. And I won’t tell you how it ends, because I highly encourage you to go watch it for yourself.

But about the thought-provoking parts. At one point, whenever the characters (some power-hungry and evil and famous people from the past…Pharoah, Ivan the Terrible, and Al Capone) in the Smithsonian discovered the power of the golden tablet, one of them stated that “this tablet is powerful– it can bring the dead to life.” And the rest of the movie was about the good guys and gals trying to win the tablet, with its power of life, from the bad guys. The excitement initiated over this tablet and the fascination revolving around the power to bring the dead to life made me think of the central claim in Christianity, which is that death has been defeated by Life in the event of the crucifixion and resurrection of the God-man, Jesus. But in watching the movie, it seemed to me as though this power to come from death to life was presented in a hopeful yet unpromising way. Such a theme is OK to be the material of movies, of fantasy. It’s welcome and even splendidly exilarating there. However, I think this theme does something more…at least it did something more to me. I think seeing death overcome by life on the movie screen ignites within the moviegoers a hope that maybe the same could be true for real life. But I think that almost without fail that is as far as it goes. I don’t know how many of us, even myself, really believe that death is defeated. It’s not concretized in our lives. In the movie, we see a tangible occurence of once dead people (although not the “real” people, but statues) coming to life. In our lives, there is no such concrete occurence– we must take it in hope. Although to use the words of John Knowles, I often find this attraction to death being defeated by life to be a “hopeless joy” or an “intolerable promise,” because such hope is so beautiful that if it cannot be realized in some way, then it is the ultimate cause for despair.

Furthermore, as with every good movie that I see, I was left with a feeling of being let down once I walked out of the theater and returned home. There is something about the human spirit that is captured by great movies, literature, and artwork; and of course, there is something amazing about human creativity that can produce such novel works. Encountering these beautiful pieces of creativity always leaves me with a burning and somewhat despairing question: Why must “reality,” as we know it, be so boring? Wouldn’t reality be at least as creative as products that come from our own minds? Put in a different way, if our imagination can be so creative in movies, fantasy, and literature, why is our theology, our philosophy, our worldviews– our sense of reality– so dull? Would reality and God really be less exilarating than our movies and novels? Maybe this concern and these questions are an indication that reality is indeed not so dull. But here, I feel stuck in the box of my conditioned mindset to percieve reality. What’s “real” to us is what society says is “real”– our heritage coming from Enlightenment-based hyper rationality that enthrones the automonous human intellect within a mechanistic world. That can make for a dull worldview. A dull theology. A dull philosophy. A dull reality. Is there not more?

Cosmologists say that the cosmos is not only stranger than we can know; it is stranger than we can imagine. Wouldn’t reality, and all that feeds into our sense of it, be the same?

(Photo credit: The Film Stage.com)

What Faith Are You? Again…

A while back, I took the Beliefnet.com Belief-O-Matic quiz. This quiz is a compilation of 20 questions about a variety of topics ranging from your view of the afterlife to your understanding of salvation to your stance on social issues… Based upon the answers that you give for these questions, the quiz will match you to a percentage of coincidence with 27 different faiths. As the the Beliefnet.com website makes clear, *”a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.” The higher a faith appears on the list, the more in line it is with your thinking, even if there are some major differences remaining.

Last time I took the quiz in January, I came out as a Reformed Jew (100%), Sikh (99%), Baha’i (97%), Liberal Quaker (86%), Unitarian Universalist (79%) tied with Jain (79%). I posted the rest of the results on this previous entry from January http://evesutopia.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/what-faith-are-you-find-out/

Since my views on some issues have  evolved over this past semester, I thought I would take the quiz again as a way to see where I am now in comparison to then. I took the quiz this morning and apparently, I’m still a Reformed Jew. But some shifting did occur in between. The results are as follows:

1.	Reform Judaism (100%)
2.	Liberal Quakers (98%)
3.	Unitarian Universalism (94%)
4.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (90%)
5.	Baha’i Faith (89%)
6.	Sikhism (82%)
7.	Neo-Pagan (82%)
8.	New Age (76%)
9.	Secular Humanism (72%)
10.	Mahayana Buddhism (70%)
11.	Jainism (68%)
12.	Orthodox Quaker (68%)
13.	Orthodox Judaism (67%)
14.	New Thought (66%)
15.	Islam (64%)
16.	Theravada Buddhism (64%)
17.	Taoism (59%)
18.	Scientology (59%)
19.	Hinduism (49%)
20.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (48%)
21.	Nontheist (47%)
22.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (47%)
23.	Eastern Orthodox (40%)
24.	Roman Catholic (40%)
25.	Seventh Day Adventist (38%)
26.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (32%)
27.	Jehovah’s Witness (10%)

Again, as I noted the disclaimer last time, in no way can 20 questions reveal the complexities of faith. I’m not sure how well this quiz separates the core from the peripheral issues– for instance, if you disagree with a core conviction in one particular faith, yet agree with this faith on many of the particulars, I wonder if this quiz wouldn’t list you as being in basic agreement to the particular faith in question, and vice versa. At any rate, overall, it is an interesting, and perhaps useful, tool to use in order to chart out your spiritual terrain and evolution. I recognize that many people who hold to a particular faith have trouble entering into the territory of other faiths. However, we must recognize that all faiths and ideas have elements of truth within– if they did not, then no one would have a reason to be compelled to follow them. And other faiths and ideas can teach you much about the faith and ideas to which you currently ascribe.

As with last time, if you are feeling up to the challenge, take this quiz and find out where you stand. And take this quiz again from time to time to see how you are spiritually developing and changing. Feel free to post your results as a comment. I would be interested to know what people get. And, not to worry, you will not be held to the faith with which the quiz identifies you.

Here is the link to the site: http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx

(Photo credit: Cambridge Inter-Faith Group (UK) OLD homepage)