My Shattered Dreams

Moses had a pretty remarkable life. From the very beginning, his life was an adventure. But with all that he experienced, he simply longed for one thing. Moses, at the end of his life, was on a journey to see the promise land. He had faithfully followed all but one instruction from God and the result of the relatively minor incident of losing his temper, at least according to scripture, was that he was denied entrance to the promise land that was just within grasp. Deuteronomy 34 details the events of his death, but there is one verse in particular that is sums up the ethics of God in this passage, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

The question I have to ask myself as I read this is, “Why?” Here is this guy that dedicated his life and sacrificed his well-being repeatedly to serve God for what appears to be motivated by not much more than a deep desire to connect with a heritage he never really felt a part of. So how can God strike him down so mercilessly? Perhaps the story of the death of Moses is just a way for the story teller to interpret the event. Maybe Moses climbed that mountain and had a heart attack. Maybe he died some time earlier, but the narrative necessitated the image. Maybe we could put some evangelical slant on this to show us that the Promise Land is not some place here on earth, but that the real promise land is heaven. I guess. Any of these could be true. However, these would still mean that God at least allowed Moses to die before his entrance into the promise land for no real point.

I have chosen this passage for a couple of reasons. The first is because is demonstrates how modern Christianity has shaped an inconsistent personal ethic. As Christianity has tried to understand the ethics of God based on passages such as this, it has shaped an ethic of God that can explain his actions and therefore shape our understanding of those actions. However, what typically is happening is that we use a form of convenient relativism. The church, despite its awareness, will often hold to a moral absolutism when considering God’s sovereignty in that there is right and wrong and that is that. However, it will also hold to a teleological ethic with grace. This means that the determining factor is not so much about right and wrong, but about the consequences of the sin. The inconsistency lies here in the motivation, not to sin: because it is wrong or because it has negative effects. However, again, when the church will discuss the behavior of Christ it will often discuss it from a deontology paradigm in that he was acting according to a duty to God. Similarly, the church will hold to a virtue ethic when discussing discipleship. This means that the pursuit to be obedient is because it builds a strong character. But the church is unable to recognize that virtue ethics is inconsistent with absolutism and teleology. Ironically, virtue ethics may be what holds us to deontology even though virtue, in one sense, is something that deontologists would reject.

Here is my first point- modern Christianity with an attempt to guide its ethics and understand the actions of God has based what it has attempted to discern is the ethics of God in scripture. But since God transcends ethics and defines pure ethics, he is not subject to the same rigidity that we are. This is not to argue that God is unethical, but that we simply can’t understand why he acts the way he acts. But that is the trapping of the modern church: it NEEDS to understand God in order to have intimacy with Him (or her or it or the event of). When we attempt to understand the universe by defining the character of God then we end up placing whichever preconceived ethical description of God works. At one point we will propose that God was testing us while at another point we will believe the enemy is pressing down on us. Ultimately this leads us to read scripture about all things working toward good or knocking and receiving as an assumption that this is a description of God’s ethics. But it isn’t. It is a description of intimacy and purpose experienced.

This leads to the second reason I have chosen this passage. Moses assumed that his reward for a life of dedication would be to lead his people home. But for whatever reason, this didn’t happen. There was a time when I hoped that my future laid in highly successful ministry. When I left the church I found something that actually brought me much closer to my strengths and interests. I began to explore what success would look like if I stayed on that path. After receiving my doctorate in August I began to look for new opportunities. I felt that I had a good handle on my gifts, talents, strengths, and the opposites of each of those pretty well. I also knew that I wanted to get back to doing something in ministry, but in a different way. I had a plan of success that awarded the opportunity to make great contributions to ministry as well. It hasn’t panned out. In fact, earlier today I received another rejection letter. I currently have a job that I like and am in no hurry to leave, but I had a plan and that plan isn’t working out. I am realizing though that my plan has had very little to do with intimacy or purpose, but with success. My point is not about “the best laid plans of mice and men”, but how I attempt to understand why those plans don’t come to pass. This is something that I can’t quite work out: is it better to humbly serve in contentment or to pursue excellence and vision? I don’t know, but what I do know is that my goals have been neither. They have been rooted in validating myself. And maybe that is the real point. We all know that things rarely work out the way we want them to, but where does that need for them to work out in a certain way or have some reason for them not working out that way come from.

Moses experienced a dream shattered. While my reality ain’t too bad, I too am dealing with a shattered dream. In his sermon titled “Shattered Dreams” Martin Luther King Jr. gives two pointers on dealing with shattered dreams:

1. “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”
2. “Courage to be.”

In my attempts to grow spiritually I have too often attempted to understand why things don’t work out the way that I want them to. And I have allowed my identity to be shaped by my conclusions. There have always been answers to that question even though they just as often contradicted each other. Seeking the answer, however, in some formulaic attempt to understand God will likely always lead to despair (recognized or not). What I am just now coming to see is that my plans have had very little to do with anything other than needing to have greater certainty. So here is the convoluted mess I have gotten myself in: I make plans that result in a success that will validate my insecurities, but when the plan doesn’t come to fruition or I find that I don’t feel any more validated I try to understand why God has allowed my noble plans to fail. And rather than seeing it as an opportunity (regardless of why) I layer it with some form of other certainty that will provide immediate relief, but all that I am really doing is working against my real goal of intimacy and purpose. So rather than understanding my shattered dreams I am trying to learn from them in the hope that I will someday develop the courage to simply be (whatever that means).

A LESSON FROM MLK

Since the shooting in Tucson there has been a lot of debating what should be blamed for the shooting: political rhetoric, unproductive gun regulations, or ineffective mental health services. I think it is important to keep in mind that as tragic as this situation was, it is a cold reminder that we live in an unsafe world. The unreasonable belief that we can ensure our safety causes more distress than results. However, there is also little doubt that things could be done to make a positive impact. That positive impact could be in the arena of safety, but more significantly a cultural evolution. Each of the potential causes should be addressed. The political climate is toxic and is inevitably holding back and real progress. Mental health services that are effective and efficient are in the best interests of everyone. And, to the indirect point of this blog, gun laws need to be addressed.

There are two distinct sides to the argument regarding gun laws. On the side that supports gun ownership there are a lot of valuable and reasonable arguments (in the midst of a lot of redneck arguments). These include the constitutionality and historical tradition of gun ownership, the unfair punishment toward the far more dominant group of responsible gun owners, the potential impact on negating or stopping violent crime of violators, the ability for violators to have guns regardless of gun laws and the need to level the field, and on. Then there are a lot of valuable and reasonable arguments supporting stricter gun laws including the likelihood of innocent people being killed by guns, a misinterpretation of the context of the constitutionality of gun ownership, and systematic impact that stricter gun laws would inevitably have on gun availability for criminals. I tend to be on the ladder side of the argument and was quick to agree with those who felt that the love affair that America has with guns and violence is systematically unhealthy.

As I reflected on why I support stricter gun laws I ran into some hypocrisy. My basic belief is that responsible gun ownership still has a negative effect on the culture of violence. The potential good that could come from gun ownership doesn’t negate the negative impact that it has. For the sake of society, a stand has to be taken against the glorification of violence, regardless if it is done “responsibly” or not. However, I like beer. I like it a lot. I am a responsible drinker, but usually have something in the fridge. But I can’t deny that alcohol has a negative impact on society. Not only does it impact violence, dangerous driving, health problems, and more, but it is an escape for many from the struggles of this life that lead to addiction. I am not sure how to reconcile this inconsistency. Now I could reconcile it by arguing that nothing is inherently good or bad, but can be used for good or bad and that therefore I could have the same dilemma with sugar. But to be a little more pragmatic about it, there are obviously some things that have a much more significant negative impact than others. So in the spirit of all things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial- I have to either reconsider my views on gun ownership or alcohol.

However, my struggle is a moral issue: is it okay to own a gun and is it okay to drink beer? I would have to say yes to both. Despite my feelings on the negative impact that I believe gun ownership has on society, because I believe this to be a moral issue, I am forced to believe that, as long as either is done responsibly, each is permissible. However, the current debate is an ethical issue (not simply a political one). That is when I go to the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: a man who has given me significant direction in my recovery in Christianity. In response to an argument that morality can’t be legislated, King stated:

“Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there’s half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also. So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government.”

POWER IS OVERRATED

(image: http://sfgospel.typepad.com/sf_gospel/comics/)

There are not many lessons I actually remember from youth group or church camp, but there is one that I do remember. I don’t actually remember any specific teaching, but I remember there being something that a lot of youth ministers, camp preachers, and Christian leaders talking about- the power of God. Here was the basic outline of the power of God sermon.

1. A little bit of Greek razzle-dazzle to show the connection to the Holy Spirit and dynamite.
2. Then into a description of omnipotence and omnipresence.
3. Then there might be a story from the Old Testament of a religious hero or a reference to Acts.

4. The stage would then be set to build a case:
a. The vastness of the universe
b. Creation(ism)
c. A wealth of scripture references pointing to the power of God
d. And maybe even some end times thrown in
5. It was then time to move into a practical application demonstrating the power of scripture (the written word, not so much the revelation of Christ) in our lives.
6. And then the bold leap to the power we have as believers:
a. With access
b. And presence of the Holy Spirit

It is not my intention to devalue the power of God or even the inherent power we have through a relationship with God, but I think that it is important to put the talk about victory, strength, and power, and all that other language that has found its way into motivational Christianity into a little perspective. The entire story of Christ is one of service and humility (he may very well return as a lion, but the access we have to God came in the form of a lamb). Paul makes it clear that the weakness of God is more powerful than the strength of man which implies there is a weakness to God. This means that we have to balance the propaganda and marketing of Christianity with the reality of a God that ultimately offers free will. And even though the greatest demonstration of the power of God is seen in his willingness to forgive and give mercy, the intrinsic brokenness of that has to be recognized.

Where does this need to ensure that Christianity is linked to power come from? There is no doubt that there is also a lot of talk about humility and brokenness in the church. But somehow all that has to end up referencing how we have access to power. What if the point is to seek out ways to understand, to borrow from the language of Caputo, the weakness of God? What if the story of us in relation to God doesn’t just preface with weakness, but rests soundly on weakness? What if we abandoned the need to quantify God and his interface with us in such a way as to make sure that God is relevant for a society that values power and victory above all else? And what if we begin to abandon the need to understand God in such a way as to exploit him to meet our own agenda?

As applicable as naming God as a king may be to ensure that we are on the winning side, the process of naming him at all objectifies God. Peter Rollins states, “We misunderstand the truth of faith if we think that the nature, revelation, and event of God can be torn apart from each other and compartmentalized in isolation from one another.” A Christianity that is rooted in modernity and borrows most of its language from the middle ages has a deep seeded need to identify God as all powerful and make a superhero out of him because that somehow that makes us able to understand God and this life that really makes much less sense than I think many of us are comfortable acknowledging. However, in the process of naming God we have come to only relate with him in a way that requires that we understand him first. But ironically, in naming him we isolate ourselves from him because we have made him nothing more than an object. The same epistemology is then translated across the spectrum in that we must name and objectify the world that we live in and are ultimately attempting to escape. By labeling God in such a way that he has power of anything in this life that is unpleasant and then covering us with the same ability objectifies our experiences and our God so that even though we can make sense of them we are completely isolated from them.

What then we live by is a worship of power. By defining God so that we can understand him so that we can be sure that we have power over the challenges of this life. And it works. Every culture throughout history has developed some idea of God to explain, give comfort, and empower its people. Those who have used this need for power to exploit people have in turn gain even greater power. So then what would it look like if we began to worship a weak God: a God that is more adjective than noun? What if we embraced a God that, while still has power, relates with us in weakness? And what if we quit attempting to understand God and explain the circumstances of this world for the purpose of coming into intimacy with God? Ultimately this becomes an issue of trust. Trusting in God on the basis of rejecting a grand narrative and fully embracing the experiences of this life take away our power. The way of the world is a way of power. We are called to go against that flow. So is it possible to be strong enough to be weak?

BUT WHY?- AN ARGUMENT FOR BEING DISCONTENT

“Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why'?”(Robert F. Kennedy)

Yesterday morning my five year old wanted to get on the computer about twenty minutes before we needed to leave for school. When he asked me I was trying to finish up a few things before we left and couldn’t give his request the attention he wanted me to give to it. My response when he asked, therefore, was, “No.” He asked back, “Why?” My reply was, “Because I said.” And as the story goes for so many parents who have this same conversation, Brennan asked back, “But why?” I replied again, “Because I said so.” This went on for a couple of minutes. I later realized that I should have praised his persistence. His dissatisfaction with a simple and typical response is the very thing that I have built my spiritual, professional, and personal life on. Robert F. Kennedy said, “Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why'? I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not'?” I guess I would rephrase that for myself to say, “Some people are satisfied to ask, “Why?” I exist with the need to persist with, “But why?”

Before I entered into this new ground I was often able to add to conversations I had with my friends here in west Texas and was even occasionally commended on what I had to offer. However, since becoming what many of my still very good evangelical friends would consider borderline hell-bound, I have not been able to participate in conversations as I used to or encourage people with the deep insight that I was able to occasionally pull off. Despite feeling as though I am actually able to relate with people across the faith spectrum much better, I typically feel as though I hit a threshold of comfort with my perspectives pretty quick. But I don’t feel as though I have a choice. The typical and often well rehearsed responses just don’t cut it or me. My dissatisfaction with the typical responses shouldn’t be interpreted as an insult to those who are content with them, but I simply am far too aware of my dysfunction to find peace in answers that seem so superficial. This has earned me the title of postmodern by some (others have a term for me that isn’t as objective.) But I don’t consider myself a postmodern. Postmodernism has provided me an avenue to ask many of the questions that I have. Postmodernism is largely influenced by existentialism and I would consider myself an existentialist, but the Book of Ecclesiastes, Job, and The Psalms are also existential writings. I would say that for the most part I am uncomfortable with labels, but if I had to label myself I might call myself post-evangelical, which would mean I am still an evangelical, just with doubts. I wouldn’t call myself a liberal even though if you took my political and religious beliefs and put them on paper they probably would be pretty liberal. But postmodernism fails to acknowledge the questions of purpose that I feel are still far too important to dismiss. Postmodernism attempts to differentiate between what can and cannot be deconstructed, but unfortunately I feel like it has done a poor job at this, and I don’t think it has adequately clarified what truth means.

There are many who have struggled in the same ways as I have with their faith and the institution that promotes it who may have also felt that they no longer have a place to go. Their faith is still central to who they are and they still long for a community that develops it, but they feel that if they were open about how they really felt and thought that they would be identified as a heretic (or liberal which is the same thing in west Texas). All that I can really offer is comfort related to what is a defining characteristic of what I know believe: the tension that exists between who you are in this struggle and the world around you that doesn’t understand is shaping you in ways that are far more significant than the end goal of finding your fit. For those who have left the church because they have been hurt by it at least have the comfort of rejecting the church, but for those who are simply looking to embrace something new in Christ, we must recognize that not only are we trying to find meaning, purpose, and intimacy the tension, but that we represent an unidentified tension for others. My old friend Soren Kierkegaard tells us that there are many kinds of despair, but that we all have to experience it fully if we are ever going to escape it. An acknowledgement of one’s discontentment is the only path to peace- a path that I, unfortunately, feel that I will be on for a long time.

BEYOND RIGHT AND WRONG- Part 2

So why is this so elemental to my own spiritual journey? Because the rationalism and absolutism of modern Christianity allows no room for what is ethical (the ethics beyond ethics). Relying on principles, morals, virtue, or even theological absolutes is counterproductive to participating in the reality of Christ. Those things, while having formative value, are ultimately destructive to our ability (or more so Christ’s ability in us) to reconcile this world’s reality and the reality of God. Freedom in Christ frees us not from sinful behavior (again, perhaps at the formative levels it does), but from the burden of consequences and duty of this world for obedience to God. This, by no means, devalues morality. In fact, in many ways it enhances the value of it. Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law. When we strive for an obedience to God as the highest level of ethics then it predetermines a moral character that we are able to deviate from safely. It also is required for us to deviate from it. Humanism and relativism allows us the opportunity to not ever deviate from an absolute morality. But the challenge here is not to act as we see fit, but the freedom to deviate from what we know to be moral when a greater truth exists. The goal in this approach is not to alleviate morality, but to perfect it.

And perhaps this is the theological difference between modern and postmodern Christianity. And perhaps this is best seen in II Corinthians 5:21 which states, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.” Substitutionary theories of atonement easily see that this is proof that Christ became a sin offering, taking our place on the cross. This perspective easily is able to draw a direct correlation between our sin and the sacrifice of Christ. However, I have a lot of problems with these approaches as they contradict many aspects of Christ’s teachings and ministry. (I blogged on this topic in an entry titled Symbolic Atonement). For modern theology, Jesus becoming sin, as stated in II Corinthians, makes perfect sense because it would show that Jesus, because he was without sin, took on the burdens of the cumulative sin of humanity in order to meet the Old Testament standard. But if the substitutionary theories are wrong, as I believe they are, what could it mean for Jesus to become sin?

Perhaps, II Corinthians 5:21 describes the ethics of the Kingdom of God. By the time Jesus began his ministry the Jewish faith authorities had been able to define “sin” as the laws to follow in order to ensure a “healthy” faith community. Through Jesus’ ministry we came to see that sin is not a behavior, but a separation from God. While we still see sin in the context of behavior, the ancient idea of sin had become very humanistic. However, to demonstrate this, Jesus regularly sinned in order to serve his neighbor and love his father with greater obedience. From healing on the Sabbath to celebrating during the fast, Jesus made a habit of sinning. In a dynamic relationship with Christ we too will often be called to sin in the same way, in a way that betrays the morality of Christianity for the purpose of practicing greater charity, justice, and love. Jesus became sin to show us that it isn’t about sin. While morality (the law) may have value, being obedient to a greater ethic (grace) is the measure of spiritual maturity (if there is such a thing). Perhaps the ethics of the Kingdom of God require us to sin for the purposes of charity, justice, and grace.

This takes us to something I have mentioned in a previous post, what then is the perfection of Christ discussed in the Book of Hebrews? Perfection, as discussed in Hebrews, is a track that Jesus was on, not something already achieved at the onset of his ministry. The perfection discussed in Hebrews was the perfection of purpose. For Jesus, his perfection culminated in our reconciliation to God. We too share in that journey with perfection being obtained in similarly reconciling others to God through grace and mercy. The transcendence, possibly, to obtain the knight of faith status that S.K. discusses and a more perfect ethic that Bonhoeffer discusses is through the embrace of the reconciliation ministry of Christ, a ministry that often, if not always, challenges us to sin. So what a great irony we are presented with (an irony that Bonhoeffer and S.K. would appreciate): perfection comes through sin.

Here is why this is so revolutionary for me. Sin, in modern Christianity, is that thing we are rescued from and then avoid at all costs, while for me, being still rescued from the separation from God that is definitive of sin, spiritual maturity (if there is such a thing) requires me to experience, share, and contemplate on Christ in the midst of sin. For where sin increases, there to so does grace. Kierkegaard describes the self as the relationship of itself to itself. I believe that what he means by this is not only that we must reconcile who we are to whom we must become, but that our identity is best expressed in the that “thing” that is experienced in trying to reconcile these two things. Absolutism has nothing to do with type of ambiguity. But for those who have been unable to see God through such rigidity, giving permission to experience Him in the turmoil makes perfect sense. Institutionism (the invisible force that exists within the institution that promotes stability and maintenance above all else) is unable to approach faith in this way because it goes against the character of institutionalism. I do believe churches, however, are able to approach faith from this perspective, but it first must make intentional efforts to reject the institutionalism that largely shapes its governance and structure. But more significantly and more important to my own spiritual development, Christianity (the religious expression of faith in Christ) is counterproductive to this form of faith development. Christians must too reject the absolutism of the religion if they want to participate in the reality of Christ. My prayer is that I can adequately embrace such a reality while in a community that has embraced a similar ambiguity.