Critique of Aquinas' View of God's Activity in the World

Thomas Oord makes some excellent observations on Dodds' book reviewing God/Creation as Primary/Secondary Cause... basically, the answer isn't found in returning to the classical depictions of God, sin, man, and world, made under Aristotle and Aquinas. But in piecing together Relational-Process Thought with today's quantum/evolutionary sciences that put the word "M-O-R-E" into mechanistic scientism (e.g., God or world or creation as "efficient cause").

And what might that word "more" include? Words like "indeterminacy, free will, open, emergence, synchronicity, sovereignty, postmodern, epistemic humility, partnering, love, faith, weakness, teleology, mystery, renewal, incarnation, etc." Which may not be new concepts but when reconfigured away from classical theism into the lights of postmodern relational and open theism find enlivenment and hopeful approach.

Conceptual ideas that we have painstakingly been crafting within a framework of Emergence Theology and a Postmodern Christian faith these past two years since beginning this blog and become dissatisfied with arguments and theologies on both sides of the aisles. And what are those aisles? That of classic/enlightenment/modernism as conceived by fundamental and evangelical Christianity on the one side. As well as the sometimes irreverent cynicisms and shock theologies of progressive-evangelical / emergent Christianity on the other side (though we have ever leaned to this latter reawakening of the Jesus faith to our global world communities and responsibilities).

R.E. Slater
June 10, 2013

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Unsatisfactory Mystery of Divine Action

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/the_unsatisfactory_mystery_of_classic_theologys_theory_of_divine_action/#.UbTunZ-x4gE.facebook

by Thomas Jay Oord
June 9, 2013

I just finished a wonderfully accessible and clear book on God's activity in the world. It was written from an advocate of Thomas Aquinas's theology, and it addresses recent scientific theory and scholarship. I'll be recommending that serious scholars of science and theology read this book... even though I strongly disagree with its proposals!

I know of no finer, more accurate, or more accessible explanation of a Thomistic view of divine action than Michael Dodds’s recently published book, Unlocking Divine Action: Contemporary Science and Thomas Aquinas. This is an immensely important book, and those who care about issues of divine action would do well to read it. But this book only deepened my belief that the Thomistic approach to divine causation is unsatisfactory. We need alternatives.

Causal Categories

Dodds begins by rightly arguing that divine causation – the notion that God acts as a causal force in the world -- is a central concern for our time. Contemporary philosophy of science, however, has reduced the number of causal categories to just one: the category of efficient causes. We think today about causation in terms of the impact of one entity upon another.

Dodds uses Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to argue for additional categories of causation. Early chapters in the book explain accessibly Aristotle’s four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. Aquinas employed these four causes for his own theological work, believing them to give a full account of causality. We should use these four causes, says Dodds, to talk about causation amongst creatures and God’s own causal activity. The major contribution Thomas Aquinas makes to Aristotle’s scheme, however, is to argue that a result or outcome in the world can come through both a primary cause – associated with God – and a secondary cause – associated with creatures.

Because only efficient causality has remained in the contemporary scientific world, says Dodds, “the very success that science enjoyed by omitting causes that could not be measured eventually led to the conviction that such causes should not only be ignored methodologically but denied metaphysically” (50). This denial of additional causes led to philosophical reductionism: the basic parts of the world, which apparently persist via efficient causation, are the most real. Efficient causation consequently led to many scholars framing causality in terms of mechanism. The result of a mechanistic world led to scientism, says Dodds, which is the view that only science can give us truth about the world.

Causality and Recent Science

In recent years, however, change has been taking place in philosophy of science.  The theory of emergence now plays an important explanatory role, for instance. Emergence says that we should think of the natural world as comprised of multiple levels, and new features can arise at one level. These features cannot be explained simply by their parts or by what occurs at less complex levels. In addition, quantum mechanics suggests indeterminacy exists at the least complex levels of existence. This indeterminacy means not only that variance occurs at these levels of existence, but that we cannot be entirely certain about our observations. Dodds notes that evolutionary theory is becoming more influenced by notions of purpose and direction. This development places into question the rigid mechanism assumed by some philosophies of science. Perhaps most important to Dodds’s project is his claim that many now seek causal explanations that go beyond efficient causation. According to Dodds, science itself now cries out for causal explanations beyond efficient causality alone.

The reduction of causality to one category – efficient causation – led to the reduction of our ability to speak about God’s causal activity. Put simply: the scientific worldview seemed to allow no room for God to act. Many engaging science-and-religion scholarship today are searching for a theoretical and empirical space -- “a causal joint” -- at which God may work in the world. Dodd regards this search as the quest for a univocal cause, in which God actions are similar in kind to creaturely actions but do not interfere the laws of nature or creaturely causality.

Many theologians in the modern period, says Dodds, responded to science by accepting the philosophical limitation that causation comes only through efficient causes. Here, process theology and theologies espousing divine self-limitation come under Dodds’s scrutiny. Unfortunately, however, this section is one of the weakest in the book. The author misrepresents what the majority of process theologians have said (and the footnotes reveal a lack of research in this area). Perhaps more unfortunate, Dodds never addresses in this section the crucial question driving much of modern theology: Does or can God completely control others (act as sufficient cause)? This question not only drives quests to solve the problem of evil, it also plays an important role in philosophy of science questions about causal explanations.

A major segment of Unlocking Divine Action addresses new theories of contemporary science and how those engaging in science-and-theology research use these theories to speculate about how God acts in the world.  For instance, Dodds looks at how some scholars speculate that God might input information into the natural world to exert causal influence. He looks at the possibilities open to the science-and-religion scholars by the apparent phenomenon of quantum indeterminacy. Dodds explores the possibility of God’s influencing the emergence of new structures in the natural world. All of the proposals Dodds explores suggest non-interventionist types of divine action: God exerts causal influence without circumventing creaturely influence.

God is Not Like Us (at all!)

Dodds is not convinced, however, by recent science-and-religion proposals on non-interventionist divine action. His primary criticism is that most science-and-religion scholars think God’s activity is of the same general kind as creaturely activity. In other words, these theories presuppose a univocal understanding of divine and creaturely causality. Those who presuppose a theory of causality based on univocity, Dodds contends, inevitably wrestle with the question of God’s interference. “When divine action is conceived univocally with the action of creatures, divine being tends to be viewed univocally as well. A univocal God, however, is quite different than the God of the Christian tradition” (158).

Not only does Dodd think God’s being is altogether different from creaturely being, but by thinking of them as on the same metaphysical kind leads to worrying that God and creatures compete as causes. “When two men carry a table,” Dodds says by way of illustration, “the more weight one lifts, the less there is for the other to lift” (153). But “God is unlike all other things,” he Dodds. “Recognizing this, we should be cautious about trying to say anything about how God acts. God is totally other” (161). For this reason, Dodds says, “the mode or manner of divine activity will ever escape us” (169).

The alternative Dodds presents is a return to the past: the proposals of Thomas Aquinas. According to Aquinas, there are no real relations or mutual dependency between God and creation.  Creatures depend upon God and are related to God. But God has no corresponding relation to creatures, and God is not dependent in any way. With Aquinas, Dodds believes that “God’s action is fundamentally different from that of creatures” (171). “To predicate such a relation of God,” says Dodds, “would be to reduce God to the level of one creature existing beside another” (172). Instead, it is impossible to speak of divine action in any positive way: “our verbal and conceptual abilities should be utterly defeated if we try to speak of God, since God is utterly beyond the being of creatures” (174).

Primary and Secondary Causation

But if it’s impossible for us to speak of God, where does this leave the one who seeks to talk about God’s action in relation to science?

Dodds believes the primary/secondary theory of causation offers the best way to talk about divine action and creaturely causation. According to this view, every instance of creaturely causality necessarily requires God’s influence. But God acts as a primary cause and does not conflict with the secondary causes. After all, argues Dodds, “these causes do not belong to the same order” (191). God’s causality infinitely transcends creaturely causality. And this means that “when a primary and secondary cause act together, the effect belongs entirely to both. The influence of the primary cause does not diminish the action of the secondary cause, but enables it” (192).

It’s important for Dodds, however, to insist that “the use of secondary causes does not bespeak any divine limitation” (192). In fact, “God’s causality does not constitute a miraculous intervention; nor does it negate the real causality of all the natural agents involved in the evolutionary process” (202). Whenever an event occurs in the world, we can say both that God caused it and that creatures caused it.

Dodds admits that this proposal borders on incomprehensibility: “the notion of secondary causation is not an easy one to grasp” (207). But he agrees with Etienne Gilson that “we must hold firmly to two apparently contradictory truths. God does whatever creatures do; and that creatures themselves do whatever they do” (208). This double agency of the primary/secondary theory is a paradox. Both God and creatures can be the causes of what occurs in reality, because as the primary cause, God transcends all categories of creaturely causation.

The Mystery Card

This is where my dissatisfaction for the Dodds/Thomas Aquinas proposal comes out strongly. In essence, Dodds is proposing what Ian Barbour called the “independence” model for thinking about science and theology: science and theology are independent explanations, and the two have no overlapping commonalities. God’s action is independent from creaturely actions, and God’s action is in no way analogous to creaturely action. In fact, we cannot say anything positive about God’s causal activity or God’s being, because God is utterly beyond our language and categories of being.

In the end, then, it’s all about mystery for Dodds. It’s mystery in the unsatisfactory sense of our not even being able to offer any meaningful explanation for God’s causal activity in relation to creaturely causation. The primary/secondary theory of Dodds and Thomas Aquinas strikes me as an elaborate mystery card played to retain a role for both divine and creaturely causation – theology and science – without having to make difficult decisions about ancient questions – e.g., why does a loving and powerful God not prevent evil? – or contemporary scientific issues – e.g., how does God act as an efficient cause?

And as the book winds down, Dodds explores what his primary/secondary theme entails for providence, miracles, and theodicy [(vindication of the divine attributes, particularly holiness and justice, in establishing or allowing the existence of physical and moral evil) - dictionary]. He quickly appeals to mystery when confronted with the problem of evil: It is a problem “no theology can answer or ‘solve’” (240). Dodds is not willing to entertain any notion of divine limitations [sic, "process theology"], because he believes such limitations result in even greater theological difficulties. Dodds ultimately offers the unsatisfactory proposal that God allows evil without directly intending it [this is a very unsatisfying proposing and I address this here under several articles in the sidebars "Sin," "Suffering and Evil," and Sovereignty" - res]. He explores prayer and miracles near the end of the book as well, using the primary/secondary scheme [again, I address these here under the concept of "synchronicity" by tying it into our ideas of "Miracle" and the "Holy Spirit". - res]. Important questions about God’s ability to act as a sufficient cause to answer prayer or act miraculously are not addressed to this reviewer’s satisfaction. But this is expected after the previous and longer section on evil and Dodds’s repeated appeals to mystery.

The Causality of Love?

Dodds concludes the book with a short section he titles, “The Causality of Love.” As one who has published a great deal on the metaphysics of love, I was especially keen to see what he would write in this very brief segment. Dodds believes his primary/secondary approach allows us to say God acts lovingly and creatures can partner with God. But after reading earlier in the book that God’s causality and being are altogether different from creaturely causality and being, I wondered how words like “partnership” or “cooperation” or even “participation” make any sense when used in relation to God and creation. And what does “love” even mean when our language about God, according to Dodds, offers nothing positive about God’s being or relations. In short, the appeal to love fell flat.

Despite my strong criticism of Unlocking Divine Action, I think this is an important book. I will be recommending it often. To my mind, it illustrates why many today are seeking ways to talk about divine action other than what we find in Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Michael Dodds, and those who think similarly.

Sometimes I need a lucid book - and carefully argued thesis - to see clearly the need for something better. [AMEN and AMEN! - res]

Is Homosexuality a Sin?

https://christiangays.com/articles/kathlynjames.shtml

by Rev. Dr. Kathlyn James
Lake Washington United Methodist Church
Kirkland, Washington, 1997

Last August, we had a special Sunday in church called "Burning Questions," in which I responded, on an impromptu basis, to written questions from the congregation. At that time, I also promised to preach a series of sermons later in the year that would specifically address the top three, or most-asked questions submitted on that day. I have to admit, I could not have predicted the 'top three' questions that would come my way! They were: (1) Is homosexuality a sin? (2) Is there a hell? And (3) How can we forgive? This morning we begin by looking at the first of these: Is homosexuality a sin?

In preparation for today, I gathered together all the materials I could find on this subject. I gathered official denominational studies on homosexuality and the church -- not only the United Methodist study guide, but also documents from the Lutherans, Presbyterians, and the United Church of Christ. I also made a stack of books with titles like Living In Sin? by an Episcopal bishop, and Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? by two evangelicals. I eventually had a stack of books and papers a foot deep on my desk. I spent the next several days reading, making notes, and preparing a line of argument for this morning's sermon.

But long about Tuesday of this week, I stopped and asked myself a question. What was my goal -- what is my goal, in addressing this topic from the pulpit this morning?

As your pastor, I know very well that homosexuality is a tender subject among us. It is an issue on which, as Christian people, we have diverse opinions and often very complex feelings. But I also know that this is a real question among us; it is not just a theoretical one. That's why you raised it. There are parents sitting here this morning who are wondering why their child is gay, does it mean they've done something wrong, and has anyone else ever struggled with this. There are gay and lesbian Christians who are active members of the church, but who live in the closet because they don't want to lose their jobs, their homes, or your friendship and respect.

There are teenagers here who have contemplated suicide because they suspect they might be gay. Each of us here has our own background, confusion, and experience with this issue. It is time we talked about it.

My goal, this morning is to open the conversation. And this is the thought that occurred to me on Tuesday: what is the best way to begin the conversation? It's not by presenting a logical line of argument. That's how you begin a debate, not a conversation! The best way to begin a conversation, in which you want others to feel free to speak their mind, and no perspective to be silenced, is simply speak from your heart, out of your own experiences.

So let me set aside my pile of books and papers, this morning, and share with you at least part of my own journey around this issue. In the months ahead, beginning with the "dialogue" time immediately following church today, I invite you to do the same.

I grew up in an atmosphere of traditional values. My family belonged to a Congregational church in which, week after week, I absorbed a basically mainline Christian theology that emphasized the love of God for all people. I was taught that the most important thing in life is to love God, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In that environment, oddly enough, I don't remember one word ever being spoken about homosexuality. I don't even know when I first heard the term -- probably not before high school. When I did, it was not with any heavy overlay of negativity -- and in this, I have come to realize, my experience is very different from many people. I did not grow up being told homosexuality was shameful or sordid; I never had a bad experience such as being molested by a person of my own gender. Only as an adult do I realize what a tremendous impact such early experiences have in shaping people's attitudes toward homosexuality.

In fact, I had never met a homosexual person, as far as I knew, even into my twenties. This combination of influences meant that my attitude was pretty much "live-and-let-live." I didn't see how it hurt anyone, or how it threatened me, if two people of the same sex wanted to love each other and live together. What was the big deal?

It really wasn't until seminary, when I was thirty years old, that the issue acquired a human face for me. Her name was Sally. I was a commuting student at Vancouver School of Theology, with a job and a husband and three children in Seattle. I drove up to Vancouver on Mondays and came home on Wednesdays, so I needed a place to stay two nights a week. Sally had a studio apartment on campus that she was willing to share in return for prorated rent. Over the next three years, Sally and I became fast friends.

I had never met anyone like Sally. For one thing, she was much more disciplined in her spiritual life than I was. She got up at 5:00 every morning, which I thought of as an ungodly hour, and left the apartment for a walk or a bike ride, during which she would pray. She bought all her clothes at Goodwill and had only five changes of clothing and two pairs of shoes in the closet. She spent several days a week volunteering in a soup kitchen downtown. She kept a prayer journal. Basically, she put me to shame. But the most appealing thing about Sally was that she loved God. She laughed easily, loved life, loved people, was funny and fun. One night, as we were going to bed--each of us in a single bed lined against the wall, our heads in the corners and our feet toward each other --she asked if I wanted to pray. I had never prayed with another person before--at least, not like that, opening our inner lives before God, in each other's presence--and at first I was halting and shy. But over time we made a habit of praying together, and it was in the course of those years of praying, of being honest with ourselves as possible in the presence of God, that Sally came out to herself as gay.

It was no problem for me that Sally was discovering this--and I have to add here, that like most people, Sally discovered her sexual orientation; it wasn't something she decided. Isn't that true for you, that your sexual orientation is something that just seems "given"? It wasn't as if Sally woke up one morning and thought, "All things being equal, I think I'd like to be a member of a despised minority." It was more a process of discovering and owning the truth about her make-up as a human being.

But I soon learned what a traumatic discovery that would be. Sally came out first to herself before God, then to her family, then to the seminary, then to the church. I accompanied her in that process. When the Presbyterian Church kicked her out of the ordination process, I was stricken; how could they say that Sally was not qualified to be a pastor? She was the best student in her class, and a better Christian than I ever expect to be. I knew that she had been gifted and called to the ministry. Then Sally was fired from her job as the Youth Director at the church, because someone sent the pastor a letter saying that she was gay. All I could think at the time was; this is absurd, this is evil. Sally is great with those kids; why would people assume she is not (sexually) safe to work with them? Why did they think a heterosexual man or woman would be safer?

Things came to a head for me, one morning; when I was standing in the kitchen, pouring a glass of orange juice, and listening to Sally cry her eyes out on the bed. She often did, in those days. Finally I went over to her, sat on the edge of the bed, and began to stroke her hair. I was filled with helpless rage at the world, and fierce tenderness for my friend. I heard myself saying, "Sally, I don't know what being gay is. But if it's part of who you are, and if God made you this way, I say I'm glad you are who you are, and I love who you are, and I wouldn't want you to be any different."

As soon as those words were out of my mouth, I realized something. I had taken a stand. I knew where I stood on this issue. Sally did not deserve to be despised and rejected; it was the church that was wrong. After seminary I was appointed to serve Wallingford United Methodist Church in Seattle, which had decided some years earlier to become a reconciling congregation -- that is, a congregation that publicly states it is "open and affirming" toward all people, regardless of sexual orientation. From that point on, my learning curve was steep! One of my first pastoral calls was to a young man who had just slit his wrists with a razor blade. He explained that he was a Christian and couldn't deny it, that he was also gay and couldn't deny that either, even though he had tried. He had been told he couldn't be both. His father had called him "human garbage" and that "He was not fit to live". All I could do, in response, was to get down on my knees and ask for forgiveness for the church, for communicating to this young man that he was beyond the reach of God's love.

In the five years that followed, I had many such experiences. I had young men with AIDS look up at me with hollow eyes and ask, "Do you think I am an abomination?" I sat with young men calling for their parents as they died, parents who never came. These experiences had a profound impact on me. I kept going back in my mind, again, and again, to my earliest Christian training; the message that God loves everyone, and that Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. He didn't say, "love your neighbor, unless he or she happens to be homosexual." He never said one word about homosexuality at all.

Jesus spent his whole life going to the poor, the marginalized, the persons who were called unclean by their society, and demonstrating that God's love included them. He treated them with compassion. His own harshest words were for the Pharisees who believed that they were righteous in God's eyes, that others were not, and that God's judgments and opinions were identical to their own.

Which brings me to the question of what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. There is not time, this morning, to take up that question in depth -- we will have plenty of time for that later, in ongoing Bible studies and discussion. But let me say a few things here. The world "homosexual" does not appear anywhere in the Bible -- that word was not invented in any language, until the 1890s, when for the first time the awareness developed that there are people with a constitutional orientation toward their own sex.

In the whole Bible, there are only seven brief passages that deal with homosexual behavior. The first is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which I preached on last fall, which is actually irrelevant to the issue. The attempted gang rape in Sodom has nothing to say about whether or not genuine love expressed between consenting adults of the same gender is legitimate.

Neither does the passage in Deuteronomy 23, which refers to Canaanite fertility rites that have infiltrated Jewish worship. Passages in I Corinthians and I Timothy refer to male prostitution. Two often-quoted passages prohibiting male homosexual behavior are found in the book of Leviticus. Leviticus also stipulates that any man who touches a woman during her menstrual period is to be stoned to death, that adulterers are to be executed, that interracial marriage is sinful, that two types of cloth are not to be worn together, and certain foods must never be eaten.

I know of no Christians, no matter how fundamentalist, who believe that Christians are bound to obey all of the Levitical laws. Instead we are driven to ask deeper questions about how to rightly interpret Scripture, how to separate the Word of God from cultural norms and prejudices -- that is, how to separate the Message from the envelope in which it comes.

The final Biblical text that deals with homosexual behavior is found in Paul's letter to the Romans, in which he unequivocally condemns homosexual behavior. The background for his understanding was the common Roman practice of older males 'keeping' young boys for sexual exploitation, which he was right to condemn.

But even if this were not the case, even if Paul knew about and condemned all forms of homosexual behavior, even the most loving, what then? Paul also told women not to teach, not to cut their hair, not to speak in church. Do we follow his teaching? He told slaves to obey their masters not once, but five times -- are we prepared to say today, as Southern slave owners argued 150 years ago, that slavery is God's will?

The fact is, I am not a disciple of Paul. I am an admirer of Paul, but a disciple of Jesus Christ. Paul himself says that we should not follow him, but Christ alone. So I come back, again to the life and teaching of Jesus as the center of my faith. In that light all other biblical teaching must be critiqued. There are seven passages about homosexual behavior in the Bible, all of which are debatable as to their meaning for us today. There are thousands of references in the Bible that call us, as Jesus commands, to love our neighbor, to work for peace and reconciliation among all people, and to leave judgment to God.

When I was pastor at Wallingford, I put biblical and intellectual foundations under my "heart" experience of knowing Sally. In those years I also came to appreciate a community in which both gay and straight Christians could worship together, serve on the Trustees, sing in the choir -- simply be human together, trying to grow in the capacity to love God and neighbor without fear.

As a result, when you ask me, "Is homosexuality a sin?" My answer today is: "No." I may be wrong, and I ask God's forgiveness if I am. But I don't believe that sexual orientation has anything to do with morality, any more than being blond or tall or left-handed does. Homosexuals as well as heterosexuals can be involved in sexual sin, including promiscuity, infidelity, and abuse. And homosexuals as well as heterosexuals can love one another with faithfulness, tenderness, and integrity. The same standards of moral behavior should apply to Christians, straight and gay. That is what my life experience as a pastor has led me to believe.

When a homosexual couple comes to meet with me in my office, then, and asks, "Will we be accepted in this church?" I can answer, "I will accept you." But I can only speak for myself. What shall I say on behalf of our whole congregation?

 

I say, "Yes, you will be accepted here, as long as you aren't open about who you are and who you love?" Shall I say, "Yes, you will be accepted here, but you may not serve in any leadership positions." Shall I say, "Yes, you will be accepted here, but whatever you do, don't hold hands in church. Only heterosexual couples are allowed to do that." Shall I just say, "No." Or, perhaps, simply, "Yes."

The only way we will arrive at a consensus on how this question should be answered is by taking time, over the coming year, to examine ourselves, study the Bible, think, read, pray, listen, and share our diverse life experiences with each other, asking together what God is calling this congregation to do and be.

Let the conversation begin.

Amen.

This sermon is reprinted here with permission granted by Rev. James on July 29, 2011. She is now the Senior Pastor at the Edmonds United Methodist Church in Edmonds, Washington.

©1997 Rev. Dr. Kathlyn James. All rights reserved.

Used with Permission and Much Gratitude 

 

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Addendum

 

Below are four supplemental articles. The first, by the Gay Christian Network (GCN), which accepts both sexual preference and consensual sexual practice within a committed relationship (e.g., within a 'civil union' or 'marriage' as allowed by state law).

 

The second article accepts a person's sexual orientation but does not advocate its active sexual practice regardless of consensual commitment. This latter view is a moderation of the traditional Christian view but is unwilling to go beyond this admission for multiple personal or organizational reasons.

The third article pleads for reasonability and recognition of the innocence of children/teens/young adults caught in the malestorm of public opinion and prejudice.

And the fourth third article is another relational piece advocating care and love as God's servant in response to admission and honesty. It is reposted further below.

As you can tell, opinions run wide-and-deep across the world of Christianity, with its causalities lying all about smitten by the hot swords of sexual-gender discrimination and religious indictment. What's most at stake here is the view of what "sin" really is, and isn't, beyond the Western World's classical descriptions of them from Medieval times or earlier.

Too, the religious boundary layers of "God judging sin" when removed from today's gospel preaching is left at a loss just what to fill it in with if it doesn't have "people sins" to rail on. A small suggestion might be to remove that boundary layer completely and to fill in the center with the "Love of God through Jesus." Meaning that "gospel-proclaimers" lead-out first with "God's divine love for the sinner" over the classical theme of "God's divine wrath and judgment to the sinner." No, we are not saying that changing the lead-lines of the gospel changes the biblical truths of "sin and wrath," only that it changes our focus of Christ's truer intent of the delivery of "good news" to bring all men to the saving knowledge of God's redeeming love through His atoning work. Remembering too that a large part of that good news is the valuing of the human being placed within communities of loving individuals.

As such, we have presented how to do this very thing through the many past articles here at Relevancy22 dealing with a multitude of "sensitive" Christian areas through a number of voices and organizations. It is one thing to grow in one's faith, but it is another to thicken the walls of one's excluding ideologies and un-gospel-like folklores steeped in unbiblical (and extra-biblical) teachings purporting truth when in fact they are purporting one's own religious (selective) preferences within the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those barriers are un-Godlike. They are harmful. They are wrong.

Hence, the issues of gender-sexuality is ultimately about facing one's own gospel and determining just what it is - as a biblical "faith" or an "exclusionary boundary line" pushing social platforms of excluding segregation and bigotry. Put in the lights of sociological mores and cultural preferences it becomes readily understandable why these "hot-button" issues have so deeply conflicted Christianity's "old boy church clubs" by redefining those who are considered "in", and those who are considered "out" of God's love. However, the church of God is to work at bringing all the "out's" into itself - not by bullying, coercion, or through its personalized club rules (think denominational creeds and dogmas)... but by presenting the indistinguishing love of God which sees the legalism in man's religious heart much more readily than we do ourself. The Gospel of Christ is at war with ourselves, even as we are at war with God's redeeming love in all its impact and fullness of meaning to value each individual. That is, the follower of Jesus is to accept the one who is different from ourselves. To actively repair our relationships with one another so that a unified fellowship might be discovered, recreated, and fulfilled. The issue isn't "sin" but one of "love." Sin is the excuse NOT to love. Love is the reason we see the other filled with value, potentiality, wholeness, and fellowship.

So then, let us do some more soul-searching when determining just what we really are arguing to God about.... is it the sin of others? Or is it the sin of ourselves in not loving others different from ourselves? I would suggest that we attend first to the "log in our own eyes" and be properly chastened by the lines Jesus was writing on the sand to His detractors. Jesus was about a boundary-less church graciously seeking to serve those for whom He died. Not a fellowship which stamps-about an ancient Judea (like the Apostle Paul (Saul) once did) with the intent of throwing Christians into jail for Jewish heresy and blasphemy. Like Paul, we each need our own "Road to Damascus" and perhaps this is the time to allow God to begin blinding us by His love of redeeming light streaming to all who stand around us that we have "accused" as to the laws of man. May it even be so. Let us then love.

R.E. Slater

June 10, 2013

 

 

View 1: Accepting both Orientation and Relational Practice -

 

Homosexuality & Christianity

http://www.gaychristian.net/justins_view.php


 
View 2: Accepting Orientation but not its active Practice -

Gay Boy Scouts–So What?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/06/gay-boy-scouts-so-what/

 

 

 

View 3: Accepting Orientation and Involvement - 

 

Love Opens the Door:

A Plea to American Churches Regarding Gay Scouts

http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/southern-baptist-boy-scouts-love-opens-door

 

Says Rachael, "I'm beginning to wonder if what makes the Gospel offensive is not who it keeps out, but who it lets in. Samaritans. Gentiles. Women. Tax collectors. Prostitutes. The poor. The merciful. Peacemakers. Drunks. Addicts. The sick. The uneducated. The persecuted. Slaves. Prisoners. The naked. The hungry. The marginalized. The troublemakers. The oppressed. The misfits. The powerless. Children. A self-important cynic like me. An ethnic and sexual minority who, though the Bible forbade him from even entering a temple on account of his sexuality, turned to Philip and said, 'Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?'... Love need not agree or understand or have it all figured out. But love always opens the door."

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Daniel Dobson, son of prominent West Michigan minister,
talks about being a gay Christian

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/05/daniel_dobson_son_of_prominent.html

 

by Charles Honey, The Grand Rapids Press

May 29, 2013

 

A firefight on the road to Baghdad helped give Daniel Dobson the courage to come out as a gay man.

 

Dobson, then 18, had been in Iraq only a few weeks when his U.S. Army gun truck came under heavy fire from al Qaeda. He froze up momentarily with fear. But he reached deep in his gut to withstand the assault, helped by a note card he’d put on the windshield. It quoted the book of Hebrews:

 

“The Lord has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’”

 

The verse had been given to him by his father, the Rev. Ed Dobson, who had turned to it often in his battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

 

While that 2004 attack was terrifying, it helped prepare Daniel for an even scarier moment almost two years ago. He stood outside his parents’ door and repeated Hebrews 13:5-6 to himself. Then he told them, “Mom, dad, I’m gay. And I still love Jesus. And nothing else changes.”

 

After a stunned silence, he recalls, his father said, “We still love you. And nothing else changes.”

 

The relief of hearing that was “absolutely huge,” says Dobson, now 28. “It almost felt like I was able to breathe again.”

 

It had taken him 13 years to divulge his sexual orientation to his parents. Today, Dobson feels ready to tell the rest of us.

 

He will speak on a panel Thursday, May 30, at Wealthy Theatre about his experience of being a gay Christian. It will be the first time Dobson has spoken publicly about his homosexuality.

 

It’s another scary step, he admits, especially for the younger son of Ed Dobson. The retired pastor of Calvary Church is one of West Michigan’s most prominent ministers and a former top aide to the late Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority. Who knows how people will react?

 

Whatever the reaction, speaking out is the right thing to do, says Daniel, a recent film studies graduate of Cornerstone University.

 

“It’s morally right for me to do it,” Daniel Dobson tells me at a Grand Rapids cafe. “I feel I have something good to contribute to the conversation. Something positive.”

 

He wants people to know it is possible to be gay and a faithful Christian. The Bible passages often cited to condemn homosexuality don’t apply to two men or two women loving each other or gay marriage, Dobson argues.

 

“A lot of gays and lesbians are hurting because they don’t know it’s OK,” he adds.

 

Others also will offer alternative biblical perspectives in the Wealthy Theatre program. Panelists include Stephanie Sandberg, who directed the Actors Theatre production “Seven Passages: The Stories of Gay Christians”; Ruth Bell Olsson, president of the Grand Rapids Red Project for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; and Jim Lucas, longtime chaplain of the Gays in Faith Together support group.

 

The event was organized by Matthew Clark, a psychologist at Human Resource Associates. Clark, who is gay and Christian, says he regularly sees clients who struggle to reconcile their faith with what they have been told about what the Bible says.

 

“They’ve heard it’s a sin to be gay and that they’re going to burn in hell for it,” Clark says.

 

Daniel Dobson: 'A lot of gays and lesbians are hurting because they don't know it's OK.'

 

Clark offers them different views of biblical texts he says are widely misinterpreted. For many, it is a healing revelation.

 

“They get a huge burden taken off them,” Clark says. “They’re no longer feeling suicidal and depressed.”

 

Clark’s program follows the Boy Scouts’ decision to allow gay members and the coming out of pro athletes Jason Collins and Robbie Rogers. As in those cases, Daniel Dobson’s coming out will engender both praise and dismay.

 

But for Dobson, it’s a matter of personal integrity and biblical imperative.

 

He says he knew he was gay at age 13 but never acted on it. That seemed the wisest choice growing up in a conservative, evangelical world.

 

“I was thinking if I even talk about this I’m going to be ostracized, lose all my friends,” he says. “For a long time, I prayed I wouldn’t be gay.”

 

He kept his orientation to himself after enlisting in the Army, where he served two tours in Iraq. He loved the military -- he is still a specialist in the Army Reserve -- and did not want to jeopardize his ability to serve under the Army’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy then in force.

 

However, a near-engagement with a girl convinced him he could not live a lie. He questioned why God would make him gay and then damn him for it. But as he looked closer at the Bible, he found nothing condemning same-sex relationships between adults in the modern sense.

 

He finally resolved to tell his parents, Ed and Lorna, calling on the courage of combat and the assurance of God’s love.

 

“It came down to a matter of personal integrity for me, that I had to be honest with myself and with the world,” Dobson says.

 

He has learned much about integrity from seeing his father endure criticism for unpopular stands, and from hearing his mother quote biblical imperatives to do right. He also wrestled through Scripture with his brother, Kent, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church.

 

All this leads him to believe it’s time to speak out, both to help needlessly suffering people and to counter hateful Christian attitudes toward gays.

 

“Because of what Christians say about gays and lesbians, they don’t get to share Jesus at all. They hurt the kingdom and they hurt Jesus. What they’re saying cannot possibly be led by the (Holy) Spirit.”

 

I’ve long admired the courage of Ed Dobson. Daniel’s decision shows the same character. I hope even those who disagree with his theology will respect his integrity.


Charley Honey is a religion columnist for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press.

 

 

 

Games (Some) Theologians Play

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/

by Roger Olson
June 4, 2013

Comments

 

If you’ve been following my blog recently, you know that I defend the value and autonomy of theology as a definite discipline for the churches. In a nutshell, when theology (as I described it in my recent series What is Theology and Who does it? Parts 1-3) is abandoned or neglected, the church gets sick (and by “church” here I mean to include both the church universal and the individual congregation). When it is doing its job rightly and when the church is listening appropriately, theology is the conscience of the faith community especially in matters of belief. It steers the church toward right belief and away from wrong belief. And without that contribution, the church tends to become overly accommodated to culture, losing its cutting edge, or separatistic and sectarian, losing its contemporary relevance.

 

Having expounded and defended theology, however, I need to add that, unfortunately, many theologians have given theology a bad reputation. One way in which they have done that is by playing games with a serious subject. With these games they trivialize theology and suck its usefulness for Christians and the churches out of it.

 

I’m fond of reminding you that I’ve been involved in theological pursuits for over thirty-one years. That’s not to boost my ego but to explain why I think I have a right to speak about such issues. I’ve been teaching theology full time in three Christian universities for thirty-one years and during that time I’ve edited a well-known Christian scholarly journal (supported by approximately fifty Christian universities), written sixteen books of theology, contributed chapters to numerous edited volumes of theology and written too many theological articles to remember. I’ve served as consulting and then contributing editor to Christianity Today for many years and the magazine has published many of my articles and book reviews. I’ve been in the middle of several theological debates and controversies in which careers were at stake. I’ve served as consultant to several Christian organizations and spoken and numerous Christian churches, colleges, universities and seminaries. Much of that activity has been within the evangelical “world,” but some of it has been in the so-called “mainstream” Protestant “world” as well. I’ve participated in several series of ecumenical dialogues both in Europe and the U.S. I’ve been interviewed on many Christian radio stations and podcasts. I’ve been featured in several Christian magazines—including one in the Netherlands. I’ve been mentioned in the New York Times Books Review magazine and in Stern—the German equivalent of Time. I’ve hobnobbed in various capacities with leading “world class” theologians including Hans Küng, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Jürgen Moltmann. I served as president of the American Theological Society (Midwest Divison) and as co-chair of the Evangelical Theology Group of the American Academy of Religion.

 

All that is simply to say I have a lot of experience in the theological “world.” Whether I’ve made my mark there is for others to say; all I’m saying is that I’m no novice in it.

 

Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed a great deal of nonsense alongside a great deal of meaningful progress in theology.

 

Theologians are human beings and therefore finite and fallen; they are not automatically saints or even ethical people. Often they play the same games other scholars and academics play and make the same mistakes others make. Too seldom does anyone call them on them.

 

For all my love of theology, I must admit that some of its bad reputation is deserved insofar as theologians’ behavior is theology. I prefer to make a clear distinction between theology itself and the actual ways in which it is done by theologians. But I don’t expect everyone to recognize or acknowledge that distinction. Many people look at what theologians do and blame theology for that.

 

So what are some of these “games theologians play” that bring disrepute on it?

 

First, some theologians, like other scholars and academics, have enormous egos which show in one or both of two ways. Either they attempt to go “one up” over other theologians, considered their rivals, or they sniff around in other theologians’ writings until they find a flaw and then pounce on it and attempt to discredit them with them. All this is, either way, supposed to make them heroes. Fame and reputation are the goals. Theologians are no more gifted with intellectual humility than other scholars, unfortunately.

 

Christian theology ought not to be done this way. It may be standard, expected behavior in the academic world, among other scholars, but it is a disservice to the kingdom of God and the churches. Theologians ought to collaborate, congratulate and congregate, not compete.

 

Second, some theologians attempt to make names for themselves by being extreme in some way. It’s well known that books sell and followers flock when a theologian writes and speaks in strange “tongues”—proposing radical ideas previously unknown or at least undared (by Christians) and/or using shocking language. An obvious example, of course, is the 1960s “death of God” theology (so-called “Christian atheism”), but there are many other examples—both conservative and liberal. Especially since the 1960s theologians have competed with each other to shock audiences. A current example is the rise of “queer theology.” All one has to do is peruse the program book of the American Academy of Religion to see theologians and religion scholars attempting to outdo one another with shocking paper titles proposing theological ideas that would make the church fathers and reformers (to say nothing of the apostles!) spin in their graves.

 

Third, especially among conservative theologians, some take on the mantle of “self-appointed Grand Inquisitor” and become heresy-hunters in order to get pats on the back and upwardly mobile careers. This is especially effective for them in certain neo-fundamentalist circles and institutions. One conservative evangelical theologian invented quotes and attributed them to rivals and theologians whose reputations and careers he wanted to damage. (I know this because I was one of his targets and he attributed a damaging quote to me in a press release when I never said that or anything like it. His intention clearly was to damage me and the institution where I taught and to boost his image among fellow neo-fundamentalists.) Another conservative theologian writes books and articles mainly about alleged heresies hidden in plain sight (according to him) in fellow conservative theologians’ books and articles. He has gained a reputation as especially “discerning” among constituents, raking in much support for his “ministries.”

 

I have been in professional society meetings where theologians stood up during the Q & A time and attempted to humiliate presenters of papers or panel members by pointing out their alleged ignorance or lack of intellectual acumen. I have known theologians who set out to ruin rivals’ reputations with insults and innuendoes. One world renowned Protestant theologian told me to not write my dissertation on another theologian because “he stole his ideas” from him (I thought the evidence could just as easily point in the opposite direction!). At one professional society meeting, during the reception following the presidential address, a well known Protestant theologian interrupted my conversation with a well known Catholic theologian and, to me, in front of him, berated him, using vulgar language. But more subtly, some theologians set out to undermine their imagined rivals in order to boost their own reputations. It’s well known that they often use their graduate students to wage theological war on their rivals.

 

All that is to say that, in spite of its value to the churches, theology can be twisted and distorted by being practiced in harmful ways. Unfortunately, there’s no universal oversight agency to call theologians out on such behavior. (I mean “unfortunately” in a relative sense; in an absolute sense I wouldn’t want such a universal agency to exist. However, I think it would be good for the evangelical community to have something like an oversight panel made up of all kinds of evangelicals to call out theologians who behave badly.)

 

In my three part series on “What Is Theology and Who Does It?” I described theology (as I mean it) as a “servant discipline.” There should be no room in Christian theology for massive egos that specialize in mastery over others. Many years ago, in some Christian circles, theologians published only with their initials—for this very reason. I am not advocating that, but it illustrates a sensitivity to the true purpose of theology—not personal reputation but servanthood.

 

Theologians who are mainly concerned with making a name for themselves, iconoclasm, or heresy-hunting should be called out. I have done that in some cases, where I thought I could have some influence, by approaching them directly—via letters or e-mail messages. I’m advocating public shaming. Here I am suggesting that you, my readers, discern when a theologian is “playing games” such as I have described and avoid them. And suggest others avoid them. One way I have of doing that is by omitting their names from lists of recommended theologians—even if they are brilliant and influential.

 

 

Exploring Evolution Series - Tool Making and the Human Brain's Ongoing Evolution (Neuro-Genetics and Development of the Human Mind)

 The Brain Science Behind Our Obsession With Tools

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/nueroscience/the-brain-science-behind-our-obsession-with-tools-15549633

By Kiona Smith-Strickland
June 3, 2013

According to researchers at Princeton, your obsession with tools
may be the product of millions of years of evolution.

Animals as diverse as crows and chimpanzees create and use simple tools, but it's humans who take tool use to an unprecedented level. Only humans invest significant amounts of time in designing and creating complex tools, and only humans turn them into permanent, valued possessions. According to researchers at Princeton University led by neuroscientist Sabine Kastner, human brains are actually hardwired to love hardware.

Kastner's team compared human brains with monkey brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which produces an image of changing amounts of blood flow in different areas of the brain. When neurons activate in a given area, blood flow to that area also increases. Viewing images of these changes shows researchers how the brain responds to certain stimuli, such as pictures or words.

The brain handles information about objects mostly in the parietal cortex, found in the back of the brain. There a neural pathway called the ventral system identifies objects and sorts them into categories. This pathway is what lets us recognize that a table is a table, whether we're viewing it from across the room or from directly underneath, and it works the same way in humans and in primates.

Nearby, another neural pathway called the dorsal system deals primarily with information about where objects are and how to reach them. In the brains of the rhesus monkeys used in the Princeton study, that information is very basic, and "its only use is to guide reaching and grasping information," Kastner says. In human brains, however, that pathway carries much more detailed information about objects, and we use that information to interact with things in more complicated ways, such as making and using tools.

In fact, the Princeton study even found new areas in the human parietal cortex that show more activity in response to images of tools than to images of other kinds of objects. "There's no part in the monkey parietal cortex that compares," Kastner says.

Commenting on Kastner's findings, her colleague Melvyn A. Goodale of University of Western Ontario tells PopMech: "What's interesting was that there was more activity for tools than there was for simply graspable objects, so simply showing people a stick wouldn't produce as much activation as showing them a hammer." Goodale says that this may be because we immediately associate hammers with a particular action, but we don't associate such specific uses to nontool objects like sticks.

According to Kastner, even people who can't name tools usually have an immediate grasp of their use. "If you give them a hammer, they know what to do with it," she says. Of course, people's brains develop their responses to tools based on their experiences, and those experiences vary widely. "Obviously, a carpenter will have very different representations from mine," Kastner says.

Despite those differences, the human ability to recognize tools and their purposes is, to some extent, as universal as it is unique. "You see that in 2-year-old children—a ball rolls under a couch, and the child will get some kind of long stick to get that ball back. A tool gets invented. Humans can do that, as strange as it sounds, and most other primates in the world just cannot do that. How we reached that kind of flexibility, that is really something that we know nothing about," Kastner says.

She believes that these uniquely human aspects of the brain have evolved along with human tool use over the past 3.4 million years or so.

Which came first: the use of tools, or these changes in the brain? Researchers may never be certain, as the relationship is essentially a cycle. The constant use of tools, from stone hammers to minicomputers, has shaped human brains in ways that enable even more use of even more sophisticated tools.

Goodale says that natural selection probably drove the development of the dorsal system in ancestral primates, whose brains needed to make rapid calculations to grab moving insects or other prey quickly and accurately.

"Having got that in place, then having all kinds of other, more cognitive parts of the brain evolving in protohumans, then the fact that there was that dorsal system there that could be exploited by tool-using creatures led, I think, to even more specialization of the dorsal system for the use of tools," he says.

Kastner's discovery may be one of the first scientific insights into the evolutionary origins of tool use. "There are very few people that have ever studied tools," Kastner says, "and it's not easy to do."

The evolutionary processes that gave us our affinity for cordless drills is still happening, and at a faster pace than ever now that new gadgets and tools come along at such a fast pace. "I think that we will probably see that the brain can change much faster than we think. I think that in a hundred years from now, people will have different parietal lobes," she says.

related references -

Exploring Evolution Series - Early Tool Use by Humans

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More Examples - this time of Software Enabled

"Programming or Soft-Tool Agents"

Why I Prefer a Gospel of "Solidarity" over that of "Penal Substitution"

Give Tony Jones his due. If for nothing else he does speak his mind and usually hits the mark right on its head.... He is passionate and passionately speaks his mind.... Today's discussion focuses on the deficiencies of the Christian doctrine of "penal substitution". Not a discussion that we haven't spoken of here before, but because of its continued popularity among evangelical churches needs to be reflected upon from time-to-time.

 

Mine own prejudices against PRIMARILY conceiving the atoning work of Christ around this ancient idea provided to us through the Scriptures (and then turned around by the doctrine of Calvinism) is that it has created an attribute out of God's wrath rather than from God's loving mercy. But this cannot be.... Wrath is simply the result of loving mercy's judgment upon the wickedness sin causes and perpetuates. It is not an attribute of God but an action of God. To judge sin is reflective upon God's character of divine holiness and righteousness. Hence, God is a wrathful God when sin's injustice - and sin's crimes of hate - are repeatedly committed and perpetuated. God judges sin because His judgment derives from His intense love for mankind: as beheld in His love for mercy and forgiveness. A repeated theme found in the messages of the OT prophets and again through Jesus and the messages of the early church in NT.

 

Another problem with PRIMARILY conceiving the atoning work of Christ around the idea of penal substitution is that it creates a Gospel message that is intensely individualistic and not collective (me-and-God as versus us-and-God... my pain as versus our collective pain) which is yet another sociological marker of Western civilization's exhibit of Modernity over the countering, global, posture of Post-Modernal, communal responsibility. We become over-focused upon ourselves -  and not on that of others - and thereby speak of Jesus' atonement in personal terms of ourselves to the exclusion of its communal applicability to all men. But when we see Jesus' atonement in terms of all men, then we are better able to see the harm we have done to one another because of our sin. Surely we are forgiven by God's grace, but just as surely we have committed great wrong and undoing in society which must also be undone by our own hands.

 

Tony Jones goes on to observe, that this idea of Christ's sacrifice makes the Son more attractive to us than it does the Father because of Jesus' willingness to takes His Father's wrath upon Himself in place of our condemnation. The "Bully on the Block" seems to be an unappeased, and very angry, God - not the circumspect God of broken heart as willing Lamb who seeks man's salvation by His own personal sacrifice. Too often we confuse Jesus' lifework-and-divine-being apart from His Father's nature and divine attributes. However, we would do better to understand Jesus and His Father as one - and even more so, to see the Father through Jesus, and not through our ideas of what we think we know of God through Scripture ("Ye have seen the Father through me," says Jesus - John 14.7). Hence, we ultimately know God through Jesus, who perfectly pictures the Creator God through His atoning redemption for man's sin. If we do not understand God than turn to Jesus to understand God better.

 

Lastly, Tony importantly notes that God is too-often seen to be held captive to His own divine laws of righteousness, honor, wrath, and expiation (a legal term for sin's absolvement). And yet, God cannot be held captive to any part of His being - nor can His laws be so understood as to be misapplied about His own being. God judges sin not because of His laws but because of its wickedness. The Law simply points out to us its wrongness. To expect harm and folly, grief and strife, pain and pride and prejudice, if sin is given in to. These God would help lead us away from... and not towards. To use our willful freedom responsibly in loving actions toward one another... and not towards self-seeking greed and evil. Sin, in its ultimate definition, is the unloving use of free will. It is not a metaphysical entity but a description of us doing unloving things. Its the misuse and abuse of the freedom that God has placed within mankind's soul. A freedom which learns to love from the God of love as seen by His life of love on this earth in Jesus.

 

R.E. Slater

June 4, 2013

 

 

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Penal Substitution Dies on the Reservation

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/06/01/penal-substitution-dies-on-the-reservation/

 

by Tony Jones

June 1, 2013

Comments

 

I’ve been to Taizé twice, in France. Occasionally, Taizé goes on the road, as it did last weekend, to South Dakota. More specifically, the gathering was on Red Shirt Table, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, just miles from where I lived the summers of 1994, 95, and 96, in Manderson. I would have loved to participate, being that the gathering was a marriage of two of my favorite places in the world. But, alas, Taizé is not for me. It’s specifically for people under 35 — which I’m not — or faith leaders who were leading groups of people under 35 — which I’m also not.

 

Jason Micheli (subscribe to his blog!), however, is. He led a group of folks from his church in Virginia to SoDak last week, and, at my request, he sent this report:

 

Photo by Sydney Foster

 

Over the Memorial Day Weekend a few of us from my congregation joined between 1,000-1,500 pilgrims from around the world at for the Taize Gathering at Red Shirt on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

 

Taize is an ecumenical monastery in Burgundy, France. Every week the brothers of Taize welcome thousands of pilgrims to participate in the rhythms of their communal life, and once a year some of the more than 100 brothers take their ‘community’ somewhere else in the world for a pilgrimage gathering.

 

This year the brothers were invited by the Lakota nation to welcome pilgrims to Red Shirt.

 

Just as pilgrims do at Taize, we spent our time at Pine Ridge in worship (sung chants, sung prayers and a whole lot of silence) 3 times a day.

 

We shared simple meals of buffalo meat straight off the rez, and we shared our faith stories in small groups.

 

We listened to each other; in fact, listening was the primary reason we’d gathered. We camped in tents in a horse pasture and went, uncomplaining, without running water. For those few days at least, we did our best to approximate the simplicity and joy of what the New Testament refers to as the oikos: the ‘economy’ or household of God.

 

Our ‘sanctuary’ was a hollow carved out by the wind in the middle of the badlands. We sat in the prairie grass under the sun and stars.

 

Sunday night’s worship concluded with Taize’s traditional Prayer around the Cross. The cross is an icon of the Crucified Christ with water rushing out from his pierced side. For the prayer around the cross, the icon is taken out of its stand and laid on top of 4 cinder blocks so that it’s about a foot off of the floor and perpendicular to it. As the gathered sing, one by one, pilgrims approach the cross on their knees. Once they make their way to the cross, they place their forehead on the cross and pray.

 

The Prayer around the Cross is powerful to experience.

 

It’s just as powerful to watch so many approach the cross with devotion and seriousness. But it’s even more powerful to notice the patience and hospitality everyone affords one another during the prayer, for it can take a good long while for that many people to crawl to the cross and then pray on it.

 

Before the Prayer around the Cross on Sunday night, Brother Alois, the prior of Taize, invited us to place our burdens upon the cross, the burdens we suffer both personally and collectively ‘because,’ Brother Alois said in his simple yet incisive way, ‘Christ didn’t just suffer in the past. Christ still suffers today with us, with anyone who suffers in the world.’

 

His words hit me with converting clarity.

 

The prairie wind I felt blow across me could very well have been the Holy Spirit.

 

Because not one of us 1K pilgrims missed the clear, straight, connect-the-dots line he’d just drawn from the Crucified Christ to the all-but-crucified Lakota Indians on whose land we prayed.

 

When Brother Alois mentioned ‘collective suffering’ an accompanying illustration or further explanation wasn’t needed.

 

Sitting all around us were Lakota Christians, young and old, whose families had been herded like cattle onto a patch of land aptly named the badlands. Promise after promise made to them and treaty after treaty made with them had been broken- because why do you need to keep your word to cattle? There on the reservation unemployment is over 80% (just think what the average suburban street would be like with unemployment that high). As a result, alcoholism and hopelessness are nearly as high, and I can’t remember the last time I read a news story or heard a politician mention an Indian issue other than the name of a f&^*%$# football team.

 

We prayed that night just a stone’s throw from Wounded Knee, the site of massacre where a mass grave of over 300 innocents slaughtered by the U.S. Army little more than a hundred years ago. Afterwards the soldiers took gleeful pictures next to heaps of bodies of children and their mothers. Wounded Knee remains a festering wound of memory for the Lakota.

 

When Brother Alois mentioned the cross and collective suffering, we all knew what he meant.

 

And in one sense, nothing he said was revelatory or profound.

 

Yet here’s what hit me about what he said and from where he said it: the ‘traditional’ evangelical understanding of the cross, what theologians call ‘penal substitution,’ not only has nothing to say to people like the Lakota, penal substitution speaks no good news to them because it simultaneously privileges people like me.

 

Penal substitution is an understanding of the atonement ideally suited for oppressors and people who benefit from oppressive systems.

 

On the pop level, penal substitution is the understanding of the cross that says ‘Jesus died for you.’

 

For your sin.

 

Jesus died in your place. Jesus died the death you deserve to die as punishment for your sin.

 

Jesus is your substitute.

 

He suffered (suddenly I realize how the past tense is key) the wrath God bears towards you.

 

On the purely theological level, I’ve always had a problem with penal substitution. Quickly: penal substitution seems to make God’s wrath more determinative an attribute than God’s loving mercy. It easily devolves into a hyper individualistic account of the faith (me and God). God the Father comes out, at best, seeming like a petulant prick who bears little to no resemblance to the Son, and, at worse, the Father seems captive to his own ‘laws’ of righteousness, honor, wrath and expiation.

 

Forgiveness, it’s always seemed to me, shouldn’t be so hard.

 

And shouldn’t require someone to die.

 

I’ve always had my theological gripes with that way of understanding the cross, but when I heard Brother Alois introduce the Prayer around the Cross the this-world, moral deficiencies of penal substitution hit me like a slap across the face.

 

Saying Jesus Christ died for you, for your sin, for your sin to be forgiven is good news to… sinners.

 

But what about the sinned against?

 

What we flipply call ‘Amazing Grace’ is good news for wretches like Isaac Newton. For slave-traders and slave-masters. Thanks to the cross, they’re good to go. Their collective guilt and systemic sin…wiped clean by the blood of the cross.

 

Hell, we might as well continue in those sinful systems because what matters to Christ isn’t our collective guilt but our individual hearts.

 

Yet what about those whom the ‘wretches’ made life an exponentially more wretched experience? What about the millions of others whom those wretches, who’ve been found by this amazing grace, treated like chattel?

 

At the Lord’s Supper we proclaim that Christ came to set the captives free, yet we persist in an understanding of the cross that bears zero continuity with that proclamation.  We spiritualize and interiorize gospel categories like ‘suffering’ and ‘oppression’ and ‘deliverance.’

 

Because it suits us.

 

Because we are ourselves are not oppressed, have no actual desire to be delivered from our ways in the world and suffer only the affliction of the comfortable.

 

Penal substitution, I realized upon hearing Brother Alois’ words, makes the mistake of acting as though Jesus of Nazareth is the only one to ever be strung up on a cross of shame and suffering.

 

Sure, every single, last Lakota gathered with us was, on an individual level, a ‘sinner.’ Just as surely to focus so singularly misses the larger issues, for the Indians praying with us at Red Shirt have been sinned against by us actively for centuries and they are now sinned against by our cynical indifference.

 

To suggest the primary meaning of the cross is that Christ died for their oppressors’ sins is to perpetuate, in a very real way, their suffering.

 

If Jesus wept over Jerusalem, I’ll be damned if he doesn’t weep over a place like Pine Ridge. And if he called the Pharisees ‘white-washed tombs’ for turning a blind eye to Rome’s oppressive systems, I wonder what he might call us?

 

On my knees in the hollow that was our sanctuary and hearing Brother Alois’ words as they struck the ears of Indians along with mine, I realized that Christ doesn’t die for us so much as Christ dies as one of us. With us.

 

In solidarity with those who’ve suffered like him at the hands of empire and indifference.

 

Location, location, location. Real estate can make you hear the gospel with different ears — that’s what I realized at Pine Ridge.

 

The cross, I realized at Pine Ridge, is the opposite of good news unless it is today what it was for the first Christians: a symbol of protest, a demand for and a sign of an alternative to the world’s violence, a declaration that Christ not Caesar is Lord.

 

The primary message of the cross for someone like me, then, isn’t that God’s grace has saved a wretch like me though it can include that message.

 

No, the primary message of the cross is that it’s a summons to suffer, as Christ, for those whom the world makes life wretched.

 

Rather than Jesus being the answer, the solution to our selfishly construed problem, Pine Ridge has left me believing that the Cross is meant to afflict us with the right nightmares.