Peter Rollins - The Idolatry of God + Insurrection

"This book will offer a systematic frame within which to understand my project to date. The release date is 1st January. Sign up to my mailing list (on the right on my website) in order to get some advance excerpts. More information to follow."

Peter Rollins
May 5, 2012
Publication Date: Jan 2013
http://peterrollins.net/?p=3656

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Peter Rollins – a Narrative of Idolatry

http://masonslater.com/2012/02/21/peter-rollins-a-narrative-of-idolatry/

by Mason Slater

February 21, 2012

Peter Rollins was recently interviewed by Whitworth University about some of the themes in Insurrection.

I find myself especially interested in his push back on the idolatry inherent in the way we use God-talk as a talisman in our quest for a narrative that tells us why we are right/ good and they are wrong/ evil.

Not because right and wrong, or good and evil, don’t exist. But because we all too easily assume that we are “on God’s side,” that we are playing the role of the good and the right in the story being told. And we then craft a narrative about faith, or love, or politics that uses God-talk to reinforce that assumption without ever really allowing the living God to challenge our actions and our beliefs.

My Take on Peter Rollins

by R.E. Slater
June 8, 2012

I give the two following commentaries below as an example of the give-and-take debate between two friends involved with the formative [philosophical] topics of Insurrection. Having met Rollins personally, and following him here on this blog site, I continue to find his ideas and thoughts helpful in marking the distinction between Christianity as a religion and Christianity as a faith. I may get lost in his Christianized philosophical ideas, and I may wish he would use more familiar theological terms for me... terms that aren't stripped of their great theological wealth of meaning and expression for my faith... but when expressed in a philosophical vernacular seem to escape my appreciation for their criticism by one who is a philosopher first, and a theologian second. But even so, I must listen and glean by what he thinks important to state openly about the 20th Century Church.

Hence, when listening to Peter I try to glean what I can from his passion and then re-express it into the more familiar categories of biblical terminology. Which is what I think Jacob Clark tries to express of his frustration to us in his commentary below. Though I think I am more willing to give to Peter the benefit of the doubt and not hold him as critically to the theological "gun" of critique as some are currently doing. More rather, I try to (critically) import Peter's insights and concerns into my faith even while I try to appreciate his philosophically oblique/dense (that is, to me!) referential symbolisms and cultural imports on the Church's philosophically religious state and behavior. I do not, however, find myself, nor my faith, unhelpfully criticized when reduced to these philosophical introspections. On the contrary, I in fact welcome them as from a friend whom I trust and through whose eyes may see something I do not. But this does not mean that I avoid the hard work of interpretation from what I glean. All the more, I must listen and interpret where-and-when I can by Peter's insights as I extrapolate them into religious terms and Christianized categories, since that is more my background and experience.

Thus, for myself, Peter has provided important insights into my faith as well as the experience of my faith as a religion. And I find his criticisms relevant and valid for usefulness in constructing an Emergent Christianity that can both deconstruct itself while at the same time reconstruct itself into a more relevant postmodernistic expression for the witness of Christ to 21st Century postmodern cultures and religions of our day. As I take it, Peter is simply giving us more legs (or pillars) on which to stand up the Gospel of Christ to compete more effectively against the humanistic philosophies of our times. For this help I am thankful. But it is left to the Church to figure out how to effectively translate these insights from Peter Rollins, and other similar soothsayers like Peter Rollins, into the necessary relational experiences and expositional categories for people to hear, digest and respond to in their everyday confession, repentance and living faith.

R.E. Slater

June 8, 2012

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Book Symposium – Peter Rollins’s Insurrection

http://theotherjournal.com/churchandpomo/2011/10/31/book-symposium-peter-rollinss-insurrection-2/

by Chad Lakies on Monday, October 31, 2011 · Comments

This week bring us a new review of Peter Rollins’s Insurrection. Jason Clark offers an extended and thoughtful interaction with Pete’s work characterized by a pastoral heart. You can read about Pete and his work at his website. Clark is one of our contributors here at churchandpomo, and you can read his bio here.

Review of Peter Rollins’ Insurrection

Having contributed to a book with Pete Rollins,^[1] collaborating in person on that work, and having worshipped with Pete, I find myself for the purposes of this review, in somewhat of a quandary. Within that relationship, and knowing that Pete is reading and due to respond to my review, there is the temptation to simply offer praise due to a collegiate friendship, or to provide a critique as an alternative. Instead I wish to provide an extended review, that seeks to understand Pete, his current work, and larger writing corpus. This review has given me the opportunity to grapple with and seek to understand Pete’s work. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on how Pete’s work impacts upon my own Christian faith, as most others reading it make their own personal assessments.

Pete’s latest book Insurrection invites us to understand and explore his work as one of ‘pyro-theology.^[2] For Pete ‘pyro-theology’ is to ask a question that ‘ruptures’ and ‘re-configures Christianity’^[3] that also ‘overturns the Church as it presently stands’ in all its current forms.^[4] The hoped for outcome of this proposed theological method is a Church that is utterly different and yet is true to its previous incarnations.^[5]

By way of method, Pete suggests that it is in a question from Bonhoeffer that we find not only an example of this ‘pyro-theological’ method, but the question we need to ask today. This question is one where we ask whether religion is necessary to participate in the Christian life. It is this question we must respond to, if we are to be true to Christianity, and engage in these reconfigurations and over-turnings.^[6] Pete wants to get us to Bonhoeffer’s ‘religionless Christianity’. Pete would have us understand that the question by the early Church of whether Gentile Christians should be circumcised was an antecedent of his ‘pyro-theology’ theological method.^[7]

And it is here that Pete’s theological method seems most immediately problematic. For we might ask if the question of whether Christianity needs completely overhauling, and the Church replacing is valid for establishing his method. Pete does not seem to give direct warrant to that claim, other than to make statements in his work couched in generalizations. For example he talks of how ‘Church leaders believe on behalf of the community’ in the contemporary Church, thus denying all Christians the ability to experience the cross.

Many of us involved in Church life might take issue not just with such a premise and generalist claim, but the setting up of his work as an antidote to the whole and contemporary Church, in all its forms. I am sure in his planned response to me on this blog, Pete will be able to affirm that not all Church leaders are oriented and established around a disposition to keep people from the cross, and the struggles of faith and belief.

And then for a work that aspires to be a theological method, it is rather more one of philosophical theology, and I suspect better read as such. For Pete’s real focus strikes me as a philosophical reading of the nature of God, and the experience of faith within that. Whilst Pete signposts his work with theological words, such as God, Cross, Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, it is not the historic, confessional and traditional theological content of those terms that are his methodological horizon. And it is not that Pete even wants to contest such horizons. Rather it is that his philosophical method means that belief in those things seems irrelevant to his task. I was left wondering if for Pete those terms have their ‘true’ meaning solely as descriptions of the existential ‘events’ of Christian experience?

It is here that I think Pete leads us into an understanding of God, and an apprehension of Christian faith that Bonhoeffer would not have recognized, as ‘religionless Christianity’. For whilst Bonhoeffer and Mother Teresa may have navigated a ‘dark night of soul’, they did so with confessional faith, one with a deeply theological content, and their hope in a real historical resurrection. The issue of circumcision was not simply the removal of an external religious practice that stopped people from embracing the cross, and the loss of God for their religious experience. It was to a deeply somatic response, that relocated the nature of the experience of salvation into an even more intense and embodied experience; one where the heart that was now to be circumcised in regard to its desires and orientation. That internal circumcision was to now bring our lives, in all their aspects, into an experience of the cross. It was to bring the life we live in our bodies, into a very real experience of the God who was and is there in the cross, and into His body.

Here I suspect Pete and I argue for the same thing, but from different understandings of the cross. And like Pete I would agree that it is better to experience the cross, rather than have some religious belief in it—something that actually stops us from encountering it. But I do think that Bonhoeffer’s apprehension of the cross within ‘religionless Christianity’ was something very different to Pete’s proposals.

For one cannot read Bonhoeffer’s confessional theology without reading that the experience of the cross was more than a psychological dynamic, and one that changes all that we are, even our bodies themselves. In terms of how we apprehend the experience of the cross that Pete offers us, I am left wondering how ‘cerebral’ that psychological apprehension is, and how it requires a metaphysical locus that Bonhoeffer would have rejected. For Bonhoeffer asserts that God is simultaneously (a la Barth) ‘wholly other’ whilst shockingly immanent and intimate. For Bonhoeffer writes:

God as a working hypothesis in morals, politics, or science, has been surmounted and abolished; and the same thing has happened in philosophy and religion. For the sake of intellectual honesty, that working hypothesis should be dropped, or as far as possible eliminated. A scientist or physician who sets out to edify is a hybrid. Anxious souls will ask what room there is left for God now; and as they know no answer to the question, they condemn the whole development that has brought them to such straits. I wrote to you before about the various emergency exits that have been contrived; and we ought to add to them the death-leap back into the Middle Ages. But this principle of the Middle Ages is heteronomy in the form of clericalism; a return to that can be a counsel of despair, but it would be at the cost of intellectual honesty^[8]. …But all the time God still reigns in heaven… he remains the Lord of Earth, he preserves his church, constantly renewing our faith and not laying on us more than we can bear, gladdening us with his nearness and help, hearing our prayers^[9].

Pete not only empties theological terms, those used by Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa, the wider Church and ourselves of their content, he also presents them as universal processes and experiences. And they are also deployed rather confusingly by him, at least in my reading. For example, the resurrection appears to be subsumed into the crucifixion by Pete, as something that is merely an experience of the cross, or a means to experience the cross.^[10] So again I wonder if anyone reading Pete’s work for a theological method might, like me, be frustrated at his lack of attention to Christian theology, and wonder at his appropriation of Bonhoeffer.

As a further example, Pete spends some time reflecting on the Kenosis and Christology within Philippians 2, of the emptying of God himself.^[11] If I have understood Pete’s method, there is no God out ‘there’ in the first place, outside of our experience, to be emptied into the reality of and particularity of human experience; be that an experience that is somatic, psychological, emotional, spiritual, etc. Pete voids and evacuates the theological term Kenosis of any theological content and meaning. On reading Insurrection I was left with the anxiety that God is dead, there is no cross, just the idea of the cross, and that there is no place for God to be involved in my life at all.

Pete explicitly wants to remove the notion from us that loving Christ directly is possible. Rather, God is to be indirectly loved, as we participate in love generally.^[12] In the whole of Pete’s work I then found this sentence the most startling, ‘in the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, we discover that God is not something we encounter directly and thus is not something that we experience’.^[13] Not only does that leave me with no possibility of an experience of God as object and me as his subject, a sense of ‘otherness’, that I am his, and he is mine, but it also seems to elevate the love of love itself, as the telos to any ordering in our relationship with God. For Pete it is not enough to realize that we have desired the wrong objects in life, it is that we need to desire desire itself, as God is not an appropriate or possible object for our love. I doubt how many humans can live in this mode of love, let alone whether it is even Christian. And I do not make that statement lightly or casually. If God is not the object of my love, and me his, then what is the purpose in Christianity at all?

Or at least such an apprehension is the best I can hope for as an experience of God. And perhaps that is the intention of the book in any event.

The Jesus of Christianity as a real transcendent person, who becomes finite to us so that we might adventivally experience him, now seems lost to us as other theological terms are similarly emptied by Pete. The theology of the cross that the Church holds historically, presently and which it confessionally experiences in much of its worship, is shorn of all biblical narratives and paradosis, with crucifixion reduced to psychological process. I felt left with a Jesus who was only an exemplar of self-awareness of an existential experience. If this is the case, then perhaps Pete’s work might be less about a ‘religionless Christianity’, and more about Christianity without an historical, immanent, and risen Jesus.

Not that this is all a bad thing, as long as we understand that this is what Pete presents us with. And within that realization I find the most compelling element of Pete’s work, that there is a God-forsakenness intrinsic to the Christian faith, replete with doubt, mystery and question that is too often replaced with certainty to cover our fears. And I agree with Pete that Bonhoeffer does call us to refuse to let our Christian religious constructions stop us from an experience of the cross. Such experience is intrinsic to Christianity. For Bonhoeffer ‘religionless Christianity’ was about the loss of all that keeps us from the cross. Just as God despised the false religion that kept us from him, he seeks to bring us out from all religious life, even that set up within much that masquerades as Christianity, which is in fact something that keeps us from the cross.

I have already strayed too far into philosophical critique, which is not my natural domain, and with which I have no fluency or proficiency. But I have stepped into that domain, in order to attempt to interact with Pete’s work on his terms, and by that I have no doubt done him a great disservice.

But I have also approached his text on my own terms, and however non-philosophical my bent, I am left wondering how a real theology, a theology of the cross attends more fully and more immediately, and would be apprehended more readily by others. For the Church as it exists already carries within large segments of itself an understanding of the theologia crucis. Luther clearly observed and questioned how Christians would rather go to Easter Sunday for an experience of the theologia gloriae, bypassing the need to experience the cross, and participate in its God-forsakenness. Such theologies of the cross are readily available to us, are already part of much of contemporary church life, and are more akin to that which Bonhoeffer was building upon. Pete’s work would have been more compelling for me, if it at least gave greater nod to the Church’s theologies of the cross, especially those that attend to Bonhoeffer’s work, having invoked Bonhoeffer. Or at least the philosophy within those theologies. For there is a confessional Christian faith in which incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and parousia, are able to attend to the false comforts of religion, whilst allowing us the comfort of a real person to know and experience in Jesus.

If the idea of embracing doubt, mystery, and question are new to the faith of any of Pete’s readers, then his work may re-assure them (no pun intended) that such experience is deeply Christian. But I am suggesting that they then turn to the larger Church, and explore how that experience has been readily available and reflected upon for our apprehension. Such apprehension might be more easily retrieved from that location, than a complete overturning of the Church. And by that I am not saying that much that passes as the Church and Christian doesn’t need overturning!

As I conclude, I find that Pete’s work has forced me to (i) explore the philosophical dimension of some my own theologies, to be (ii) reminded (again) of the need to consider Bonhoeffer in my own ecclesial re-formulations, and (iii) the place of the cross at the centre of my Christian experience. Thank you.

As I finished reading Insurrection, I wondered if Pete’s latest work reveals most of all, the nature of his work as his own autobiography; as do most authors in their writing—as I know I do. Insurrection is perhaps best read as Pete’s escape from his own churched cages of Christian certitude and the theologia gloriae that bypassed the cross. It might become yours too as you read it.

And it is there that I find myself, despite deeply different theological convictions to Pete, with much in common. My own story of finding an experience of the cross, with my own apprehension of doubt, mystery, and question as central to my Christian life has taken and continues to take place. I have had and continue to have my own ‘dark night of the soul’.

Pete writes, ‘in crucifixion we are brought to a place in which we see the full weight of anxiety bearing down upon us without anything that would shield us’.^[14] I am wiling or at least wanting to reject all the ‘religion’ that would shield me from the experience of the cross of Christ. Yet Pete’s writing left me with a feeling that he has replaced one theologia gloriae with another; of human reason and existential experience that takes the place of experiencing the Cross.

I wonder that when Pete and I talk about the cross (which we have in the real time and space of a worship service), that whilst I thought I was talking about Jesus, Pete thought I was only talking about myself.

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^[1] Church in the Present Tense, McKnight, Rollins, Corcoran, Clark, Baker Academic, 2011.

^[2]Insurrection, xiii.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid., xiv.

^[5] ibid.

^[6] Ibid., xv.

^[7] Ibid., xii.

^[8] Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 187.

^[9] Ibid., p. 205.

^[10] Insurrection, p 123.

^[11] Ibid., p168.

^[12] Ibid., p123.

^[13] Ibid/, p123.

^[14] Ibid., p112.

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“Insurrection” Book Symposium – Rollins’s Response to Clark

http://theotherjournal.com/churchandpomo/2011/11/07/book-symposium-rollinss-response-to-clark/

by Chad Lakies on Monday, November 7, 2011 · 72 Comments

The symposium on Peter Rollin’s Insurrection has been a really great exchange so far. Katharine Moody engaged with Pete’s work helpfully on the level of philosophy, bringing Pete’s work further into conversation with one of his main influences, Slavoj Zizek. Jason Clark’s review approached Pete’s work from a pastoral perspective, offering some challenging reflections on Pete’s work with respect to situating Pete in relation to historical and confessional theology. Pete’s response to Clark is below. You can read more about Pete and his work at his website. Thanks for all the interaction in the comments. With this post, the Symposium concludes, but can the conversation can continue with your comments.

Ten Thousand Angels Are Not Enough: Reflections on Jason Clark’s Review

I appreciate the concerns that Jason raises in his reflection on Insurrection and will try to address what I take to be his main criticism. Before doing so however I just want to push back on one minor point. Jason seems frustrated that I make certain generalisations. But I am not so sure that this is, in and of itself, a problem. When one wishes to make observations concerning some underlying structural reality manifested in the historically concrete, one explicitly does this. We do not carry around maps the size of the territory we are seeking to explore. They are scaled down and, as such, miss the vast majority of minor, insignificant details. The purpose of the map is to accurately portray the information needed to get to where you want to go.

The issue then is not that I make generalisations (even multi-volume texts on specific parts of church history do that), but whether the generalisations are accurate descriptions of underlying structural tendencies.

So what are my generalisations? In brief the primary one is that there are two broad tendencies in the church today - either we find communities that explicitly treat God as a garniture of meaning (our faith gives us a way of understanding the world and our place within it, God acts as a being who offers happiness, satisfaction and bliss, i.e., is treated like a product etc.) - or we are free to question the idea of God as garniture of meaning while the liturgical structure we participate in continues to treat God in this way (thus acting as a type of security blanket). The map I draw won’t, of course, be a 1:1 of the territory it describes. The question rather is whether it puts its finger on a virtually ubiquitous underlying reality (and here, unlike elsewhere, I think I stand very close to the late Bonhoeffer). I then go on to try and show why this notion of God is problematic and how we might create collectives where the liturgical structure draws us into an encounter with our own brokenness.

Let us now consider what seems to be Jason’s main concern. He makes the case that I do not pay enough heed to the confessional theological tradition, that I am not interested in the historical context of the theological terms I employ and that I reduce central Christological claims to mere existential events. If we were to go head to head on these issues I would like to tease the claims out a little more and push back a bit. However, to a greater or lesser degree, I can agree with his assessment. My interest in this book (though not my sole theological interest) is to explore the existential import of Christianity (the subjective in Kierkegaard’s sense – meaning the way that its transforms our subjectivity).

An analogy might help to elucidate what I mean. If I am an analyst and someone comes to me to talk about their memories, dreams and fantasies I do not ask myself whether or not they are historically accurate descriptions of empirically observable situations. Rather I delve into the meaning they have for the individual. Together we explore their subjective significance. This does not mean that I judge them to be false in some objective way. Rather the question of historicity is bracketed out so that we can concentrate on the meaning and power of what is being discussed. I would, if I had space, argue that this type of approach to the faith is an eminently theological project and that if one wants to talk about the historical claims of Christianity a better person to dialogue with would be a well-trained archaeologist or historian.

To make his point Jason quotes me saying that God is not someone we directly encounter and thus not one we directly experience. His point, if I understand correctly, is that I am not interested in the objective reality of God, even rejecting the idea completely. As an aside the statement that he quotes can actually be seen as a rather orthodox one (there are many places throughout the Bible that speak of humans not being able to directly encounter God, let alone the ideas of God as found in the midst of service to the other). But the point that I am making (which he does not refer to) is not primarily related to this. Rather I am presenting the idea that the notion of “rebirth” does not, properly understood, actually describe an experience but rather the transformation of how we experience everything (just as one does not experience birth, for birth is what opens one up to experience).

This takes me to the heart of why I am interested in bracketing out the debates that saturate the popular arena of religious debate. To understand this let me take the example of the rabbi of Gur that I employ in The Fidelity of Betrayal. The story goes that during the Second World War he escaped from Germany and met with Winston Churchill to talk about the Nazi war machine. The story goes that this rabbi said, “there are two ways in which the Nazis could be stopped: the natural and the supernatural. The natural solution would involve 10,000 angels with flaming swords descending upon Germany. The supernatural would involve 10,000 Englishmen parachuting down from the sky.”

The point is that is if 10,000 angels with flaming swords descended upon Germany this would be a natural event. In other words these angels would act like other objects in the world; they would be seen, heard, and experienced. These angels would exist within space and time like every other object.

In contrast, the rabbi speaks of a supernatural response, namely 10,000 British soldiers descending in parachutes. Here the rabbi is hinting at a deep change in the hearts of the British that would precipitate such a drastic response. This change, for the rabbi, would be deeply supernatural because the change itself would not be something that could be captured in a laboratory or measured by reference to some purely utilitarian calculation. Unlike the descent of warrior angels, this change would not lend itself to be approached as a natural object to be reflected upon; it would not be made manifest to the senses but indirectly testified to in certain actions.

This no more excludes the possibility of phenomenon being influenced by something outside a closed system of cause and effect than it affirms them. Rather the point is that physical changes are natural insomuch as they take place in the natural realm. In contrast conversation on a miracle worthy of the name does not register it as an object that can be recorded and beamed around the world but rather refers to an event so radical that while nothing need change in the physical world nothing remains the same for the one who undergoes it.

Coming Home to Phillip Phillips "Home," Arcade's "Wild Thing's," & Guetta's "Titanium"

Phillip's new song "Home" bears an especial meaning for the Christian where God has become our rest and where we might become a "home" to those seeking God's rest as testimony to the birthing pangs of our spiritual renewal in Christ Jesus our Savior and Lord.

For further background please refer to the furthering link of Devising a Meaning for David Guetta's, "Titanium ft. Sia." Here I give an explanation to mortal rebirth whereas in Phillip's Home we may find its spiritual completion.

Afterwards I thought I might also include the soundtrack to "Where the Wild Things Are," perhaps one of the profoundest movies I've watched compounding the sad tale of a lost boy feeling unloved and alone. (By the way, I much prefer Film Review No. 2 over the standard, very shallow, Film Review No. 1). When listening to both Home and Wild Things I find a tonal parallel that is reminiscent of the one to the other. Thus completing the circle started by Guetta's Titanium.

Enjoy.

R.E. Slater

June 4, 2012

Phillip Phillips - Home

PHILLIP PHILLIPS LYRICS

Send "Home" Ringtone to your Cell

"Home"

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home.

Where the Wild Things Are --TRAILER--

Where The Wild Things Are [Music Video] - "Wake Up" by The Arcade Fire

 Send "Wake Up" Ringtone to your Cell

"Wake Up" lyrics

Somethin' - filled up - my heart - with nothin' - someone - told me
not to cry. - but now that - I'm older - my heart's - colder - and  I
can - see that it's a lie.

Children - wake up - hold your - mistake up - before they - turn the
summer into dust - if the children - don't grow up - our bodies get
bigger. but - our hearts get torn up - we're just - a million little
gods causing rain storms - turning every good thing to rust. - I guess
we'll just have to adjust.

With my lightning bolts a-glowin' I can see where i am going to be when
the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lightning bolts a-glowin' I can see where I am goin'
better look out below!

Phillip Phillips - Raging Fire

Film Review 1 -

http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=19411

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

"Where the Wild Things Are"
Directed by Spike Jonze
Warner Home Video 10/09 DVD/VHS Feature Film
PG - mild thematic elements, some adventure action, brief language

The first twenty minutes of this creative, bold, and thought-provoking screen adaptation of Maurice Sendak's immensely popular 1963 children's book rushes at us in a torrential stream of images, movements, and loud sounds. Nine-year-old Max (Max Records) chases the family dog, exerts his power over a fence in an imaginary game, digs a snow igloo, attacks his older sister and her male friends with snowballs, cries after his igloo being destroyed, and avenges himself on his sister by some destructive acts in her room. At school he's shocked when his science teacher outlines a scenario in which the sun dies. At home again, he tries to get his mother (Catherine Keener) to visit the rocketship he's built in his room, but she's busy with her new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo). Max reacts by dressing up in his wolf suit, standing on the kitchen counter, ordering her to feed him, and then biting her in the shoulder.

Max, his mother tells him, is out-of-control! The fears of childhood come out as anger. Still dressed in his wolf suit, he runs out of the house and through the woods and sails away on a boat to another world. After a frightening passage through stormy seas and a climb up steep cliffs, he discovers that the island is inhabited by Wild Things — large beasts with horns, crooked teeth, big bellies, and voracious appetites. They are both scary and endearing.

Max immediately empathizes with Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), the wildest of the Wild Things, who nevertheless is feeling like nobody is on his side. He recognizes an ally in the fierce little boy who tries to help him knock down some houses. When the others hear Max proclaim his special powers to overcome loneliness and sadness, they decide this newcomer should be their king. "Let the wild rumpus start!" Max yells, and the whole band of beasts romp through the forest smashing things to smithereens.

Max relishes his role as the initiator. After the rumpus, they all collapse in a pile to sleep, a happy time for all which Max decides they can replicate by building a fort. It will be a Utopian place where only what they want to have happen will happen. But this turns out to be no easy task. Jealousies and competition in the community surface, which are aggravated by a mud clod war. Max's frustration builds. It isn't easy making all the major decisions as king. He has trouble with Judith (Catherine O'Hara); who is critical and negative; the goat-horned Alexander (Paul Dano), who feels put-upon and persecuted; and KW (Lauren Ambrose) who has an on-and-off -again relationship with Carol which is heightened when she brings two new friends into the community. A child of divorce, Max is particularly sensitive to their squabbling.

Spike Jonze who wowed the cinema world with Being John Malkovitch and Adaptation, has stated that Where the Wild Things Are is not a children's movie but a movie about childhood. There are layers and layers to this film, and we suspect that it may take several viewings for us to unpack them all. Certainly, it is much richer, deeper, and darker than the Caldecott Medal-winning children's book, and those who loved that story and its younger Max may not have the same response to the film. While some older children may connect with the continuum of emotions Max exhibits — from frustrated fury to ecstatic joy to compassionate empathy — adults will most likely be drawn to the valid points the film makes about fear and sadness and their connection to anger and aggression.

Long ago Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics wrote:

"Anyone can become angry — that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way — this is not easy."

We live in times when emotional ineptitude, violence, and recklessness are rampant in many segments of society. Where the Wild Things Are presents us with a parable about emotional intelligence as the antidote to the fear and rage which makes so many childhoods a never-ending nightmare. In the alternate world of imagination, Max is able to see his own inner dramas played out in the lives of the Wild Things — especially in Carol's mood swings. Max realizes his own limitations and that he can be more appreciative of the good things he has at home with his mother and sister.

The best fairy tales and children's books help youngsters come to terms with the shadow elements of life and the tricky emotions of fear, anger, envy, and anxiety about abandonment. This movie will do that for older children. For adults, it provides a haunting and soul-stirring reminder of the need for emotional literacy in order to deal with a world that often does not live up to their expectations or dreams of freedom and power. By the end of this magical story, Max gets it, and so will you. You might even find yourself joining him and the Wild Things inside and around you in a final howl!

Phillip Phillips - Gone, Gone, Gone

Film Review 2 -

Thinking Through and Feeling Where the Wild Things Are

http://mindflowers.net/2009/10/20/an-analysis-of-where-the-wild-things-are/

by Ryan McGivern

October 29, 2009

In my analysis of this splendid film, I want to state first off that I understand that I’m pulling some heavy interpretations that may come across like a 1:1 metaphorical statement about what the film is saying. While I believe that these insights into the film can help flesh out one way of seeing the film, I am totally open to many interpretations and understandings of it. That is a mark of good film: Debate and various parsings. What I do want to dissuade others from is a quick dismissal of the film as ‘depressing’, or ‘dark’.

When I have heard or read others’ reactions to the film including that it is boring, depressing, etc. I have not heard them relate to the film in its mythic level. This to me seems telling when the movie is essentially a step by step hero’s journey with resonances of course to pop-psych, religious, and spiritual motifs. If there are reviews of the film which include why it fails as a mythic quest, I have not seen them and I welcome being turned on to them.

So let me pull no punches. Right off I’ll tell you that I quickly saw the film taking a ‘vision quest’ or hero’s journey type of narrative. This influenced my entire viewing and once I’d locked onto that format, it was hard for me to not see it otherwise. This is the trap of all rigid worldviews, isn’t it? Well, I’m guilty here. But I will say that it made the movie flow quite coherently and endearingly so with fresh interpretations and statements about many of our contemporary conditions.

I’ll also say there’s a bounty of spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen it, stop here. Also: what’s up with people saying this is or isn’t a children’s movie? Why is that even on the radar? “Because of the book it derives its title and images from, you dullard!” you scream back. But Jonze has repeatedly said that it is an adult’s movie that is about childhood so enough of that. I would say that the youngest a person could be and enjoy the film would be roughly around ten years old.

So anywho: Max, the protagonist (and white male hero figure—haven’t we had enough of these? Didn’t Keanu kind of put the exclamation mark on that stereotype?) is a youth on the cusp of puberty and is living in a fantasy world of unbridled energy. He terrorizes the family dog, he believes that other’s attention should be unwavering from him, that his mother is an extension of himself, and that other’s should play by his own rules (the snowball fight that escalates to a level that is beyond his control or comfort). Ultimately, he is an unchecked ego in the full exuberance of childhood.

But his world is crumbling around him. His sister has developed friendships and possibly romantic interests that are consuming her attention. His mother and father are divorced and mother’s new romantic interest is invading the pacific and Max centered family unit.

We are to understand that Max’s life is an island where his needs and identity rule unchecked. Even from the title card credits, Max has scrawled his name over the production houses’ logos. His name gets etched into the boat, and he plants a garbage bag flag on his snow pile like a colonizing Lord. His interest in self expression and unique spirit are not at issue here. It is his inability to be responsive to the shared social world he is slowly being birthed into. He is reaching the ‘age of accountability’, individuation from his mother, and connecting his actions to consequences.

A number of important events lead to his hero’s journey or spur him on to his crises among the Wild Things.

He learns of the mortality or changingness of all things. Everything changes, flows, dies, transforms. Marriages dissolve, sisters grow up, new relationships begin, and the childhood years of irresponsibility ultimately end. This is a core tenet to many spiritual teachings. This knowledge pushes one to focus on the bedrock values within themselves and their society. Max is faced with not only the mortality of himself and others around him, but the world and indeed the solar system when the Sun itself will transform. We must come to terms with our Earth’s future demise—and face an ethical response to it and the other life that lives on it. Will we cower at this with ignorance or apathy? Will we foolheartedly welcome it with misguided apocalypticism, dreaming of a blood drenched and sword welding Christ? Or will we dissolve ego, see past the lies of a culture of rabid consumption, and humble ourselves in compassion? Anywho, I digress. Max sees death before him, like Guatama on his chariot ride.

Max experiences fear of loss. He had given his heart (in card form) to his sister. When his sister ‘betrays’ him by not standing up for him and his defeated snow fort, he tramples on the card he had made for his sister. His destruction of the heart shaped card is intended to hurt his sister but it hurts him also. One may never lash out at another, hate another, or withdraw love from another without harming oneself, after all. With the help of mom, he performs a mea culpa and tries to restore his sister’s room to its previous condition but as we know physical damages may be patched up but the emotional and psychological effects will ripple much longer. The buildings and neighborhood of New Orleans can and will be restored, but what of the people living there who experienced the largely racialized betrayal of their government? His loss of his sister and the loss of his mother are largely connected—as well as the loss of the father we can presume who is not seen in the film. His repentance towards his sister is connected also to the third event…

Max commits violences towards his mother. Standing on a table he screams, “Feed me woman!” Is this a gendered attack that he had heard from his father? The leering wolf-suited Max stars at his mother from the kitchen table, the demanding male in a house whose status as ‘head’ is being challenged all around. After the divorce, perhaps Max had become accustomed to being the only male presence in the house and now he’s got mother’s new boyfriend in the other room drinking wine and laughing. Max then lashes out and bites his mother-the mouth that like Remus and Romulus had suckled from a wolf had nursed at his mother is now like a wolf biting her. He then runs away into the night and thus begins his journey.

Like any good mythic journey, we’ve got to traverse water—the symbol of the unconscious. He sets off in escape, or adventure? We know that his is a journey that will resolve in his return. This is a circular journey, following the Eastern narrative. The hero leaves, finds his boon, wisdom, transformation, spirit animal, or weapon and returns to his fold.

The first thing Max sees is a fire on the hill. Is this civilization? Hope? A warming fire? No, it is destruction and madness. Appropriately Max finds Carol (the Wild Thing representing his dominant characteristics) crushing bird-nest-like houses. What should be sheltering and a symbol of safety is being crushed by Carol’s actions. I won’t get into too much detail (really?) about the Wild Things, but Max finds semblances of his sister, mother, facets of himself, and presumably others there. These are his spirit animals, perhaps, or his more properly his ‘demons’ in need of taming and stand-ins for the others in his life which he must live with ethically.

Max is crowned King. Of course! This is his new snow fort, his world and he is the unquestioned ruler of it. This is the seductive power of the Dark Side, if I may borrow from Yoda. It is a human experience to want to rule, command, dictate. We may not seek CEO positions or great wealth. We don’t need to. This comes in many expressions: wanting to win each argument, defend yourself when you’re in the wrong, disregard others, etc. The Wild Things reveal that many kings have died and been eaten by them. As it is! Yes, the combat we must face daily with our desire to be right, be served, be gluttons, be God’s ‘elect’, be ‘better than’, is mortal combat. It is perilous. Max will only survive in the end by giving up his crown and declining kingship. This is the Christ teaching that we can all emulate. By accepting a crown of hardship and service to the marginalized and cast-off rather than glory we can survive and succeed in honor.

Max then goes through a journey that has meaning at personal, familial, and political levels.

He tries to create a mono culture—a universal and totalizing system. He is King and his saying is final. This is the desire of egoistic systems—Hegelianism, reductive materialism, maculinist systems of power, exclusivist religious systems, etc. This does not work. Communities, relationships, and power dynamics occlude a universalized or single, easy answer.

Max tries by his design to create a Utopian community. Again, a ‘city’ (really just a bigger bird’s nest) is made with hopes that technology and progress will cure the ‘ailments’ of ethical relations. It does not. There remains in some progressive circles a believe that if only our technoscientific knowledge could be harnessed and a ‘green economy’ created, we would enter a new age of human development. However, as Max finds out, dynamics of power remain: A Wild Thing questions his favoritism of Carol and asks “Can I be your favorite color?” No matter how many solar panels we may make, we as a global community, still need to deal with and find justice in matters of class, race, ‘gender’, ‘sex’, and sexuality.

In even universalizing systems, difference must be accounted for. Difference is an important developmental step to undergo also. How does one deal with ‘difference’? Usually we call it ‘evil’, heretical, bad, impure, ‘against nature’, ‘them’, etc. Max is no different. He separates the Wild Things into Good Guys and Bad Guys. This escalates from a play fight to a real fight and real violences and hurt. Again—I want to support many interpretations of this movie and I understand that individual interior battles and national political policies have overlap and there are many ways to view Max’s interactions with the Wild Things.

Most importantly, Max finally makes his transition. This occurs, unsurprisingly enough within the belly of a Wild Thing. This is the travel into death. The belly of the beast, The Grave, the Death Star’s trash compactor, Jonah’s Whale, Christ’s descent into Hades, and womb imagery and thus ‘born again’ language is the place of transition in many myths and Max is no different. It is here that he ‘faces’ Carol and has his vision or full repentance moment. He is pulled from the mouth reborn.

His first act is to find Carol quickly knowing he must return to his ‘real family’ and not finding Carol leaves his heart again. Mirroring the risk of giving his heart to his sister and overcoming his need to have his name proclaimed, he places a “C” in a heart shape for Carol to find.

But he cannot stay here. He has transformed. Carol finds the heart as Max renounces his Kingship.

Carol, the embodiment of Max’s old childish egotism cannot meet Max. He is already sailing for home and like we all must do, Max can only see his childhood years from a distance. We cannot say goodbye to our old selves, for we have moved on before we know it. Grief, repentance, or ego dissolution can accomplish this transformation of our person and no matter how we transform we are left to look at a distance at our old selves.

And how will we relate to our old self? The Wild Thing who is a Bull, figuring perhaps as the full grown and mature personality that Max will grow into asks Max: “Will you say nice things about us?” Max says he will.

We must look back at ourselves with forgiveness and mercy. The same compassion that we must extend to all life includes our pasts. Without regret and shame.

Max returns to the real world, barking at a neighborhood dog. He has changed but that does not mean he must leave his playfulness and joy behind. One may be childish without being a boor or self important.

His mother greets him at the door and no words are exchanged. This is the triumph of a script: allow the words to be said with knowing faces. They look at each other a mother and her reborn son. The movie closes as Max now watches his mother fall asleep, experiencing his mother as a separate entity—also human, fallible, vulnerable.

So I’ve gone on too long about this movie. But I loved it. Great acting, music, visuals, script….

And it has spiritual impact upon me. I’m cool with people disliking this movie, as with any other movie. However: I beg that one who dislikes the movie first question how they engage any movie that deals with mortality and the spiritual quest that underlies ethics. For I’m of the belief that without a clear stance on one’s feelings towards death and the mythic adventurous we undertake as humans love is stunted.

And love is what its all about after all.

Phillip Phillips - Where We Came From (Trio Version)

Of Things Mystical and Divine, Secret and Hidden, Laid Bare By Christ and His Word

One of my first experiences as a new Christian was to stumble into the Christian mindset that made Christianity a "mysterious" experience that was unexplainable and unintelligible. Later in life I've met other Christian groups that saw Christianity in terms of a "secret" or as a "secret society" that could only be discerned by the more specially trained or discerning within their sectarian order. Each of these groups fell within major Christian denominations and movements that were (and still are) popular. But each of those sentiments had inappropriately subscribed to several of the many forms of popular Christian mysticism and Gnosticism. Sometimes portraying themselves as a sectarian group and sometimes verging on raw cultism itself (where God, Jesus, and the Bible have lost all appearance of revelatory understanding). These well-intentioned believers were not especially helpful in my Christian walk or to the growth of my spirit in my ravenous desire to comprehend God's holy Word. They more-or-less were figures that needed instruction themselves but would not have it, or hear it, misled as they were by their own self-delusions and imaginations.

Unfortunately, this was also one of my first encounters with the very early forms of Emergent Christianity being ill mis-presented (and mis-understood) by its more faithful adherents. They had made the mistake of visualizing God into esoteric categories that made the Christian faith more like a secret assemblage of "Masonic-like" templed believers adhering to its various versions of religious orders, majesteriums and specially-endowed high holy priests and priestesses. Again, I was witnessing a form of sectarian, if not cultic error, smacking of Gnostic infiltration and good intentions. But woefully misguided. Even more, some of the leadership at that time was preaching a form of Judahistic Christianity (rather than the more proper, "Messianic" Christian heritage of the NT Christian beleiver) which compounded their error thricefold while failing to discern the continuities and discontinuities fraught within the revelatory movement of the God's redemptive work among mankind. They were misled and misleading, and I sadly witnessed gullible Christians eagerly devouring the many false teachings of these men and women who had no business shepherding God's people. They did damage. And they did it convincingly. And ignorantly. And I had little pity upon them but a lot of pity upon their sad, lost flock of woefully-begotten followers.

Consequently, Roger Olson in his article below rightly debates how a Christian should approach his or her understanding of Christianity, with antennae up and with an air of alertness that would not be misled by well-intentioned, but ill-equipped, would-be shepherds and disciplers in our lives, in the pulpit, and behind the radio (or Internet) mike. We are responsible to study the Scriptures and not be easily misled by the rampant errors of our day. And that would include the very comforting positions of our traditional orthodoxies and dogmas. We must always be willing to criticize our beliefs and determine where they are leading us or misleading us, helping us to grow spiritually or holding us back. A large part of this blogsite here continues to confront and debate some of our more popularly held ideas of Christian doctrines and theologies. I accept the fact that we must begin with where we are at before then beginning the arduous task of moving from our familiar paradigms and comfortable lodgings to the more radical lessons and unfamiliar paradigms unlearned and unthought. The trick is to get it "near right." And mostly, it seems, that we must always learn to listen (or listen enough) to be able to follow the Lord's leading and guidance. Hopefully here on this website we are presenting enough sensible discussions and information to help in the formative growth and maturity of our readership. Men and women who can lead others intelligently, capably, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. There is always more to be said, but we've started here, and in this way, so that the responsibility is place upon us as the vanguard of the body of Christ to help each other as a community to better speak and act upon what we've started to envisage and comprehend. It is not for naught that Christ has given to us a fellowship to work and debate within for history and dialogue are great teachers when it comes to absorbing radically new directions and ideas such is being experienced by the Church today. And must be experienced if it is to move properly forward as a witness to this world and in response to the Spirit of God who is building-out the Kingdom of our Lord through the Church of Christ.

And less I miss the further point of this subject, I must reiterate again that while this blogsite is about making plain what seems lost in the verbiage of today's contemporary Christianity, that I am not above using the literary tools of mystical prose to get across the sometimes arcane and devolved misunderstandings of God and the Bible. Sometimes the human language is at pains to explain our Creator-Redeemer and I must from time to time utilize metaphors, prosaic symbolisms, and similies to force our modernistic mindsets beyond our very earthly concepts of our sometimes too-mundane lives and minded focus upon our own well being, meaning, and purpose in this life. Sometimes by using narrative and stories. Sometimes poetry and prose. And at other times by using parables. But in whatever manner God has gifted us with the beauty of language with which we should never be shy in utilizing and incorporating into our worship and portrayal of our faith. But with the heavy distinction of avoiding the distraction of a mystical Christianity that embraces sectarian Gnosticism, if not bald cultism, which this can lead to. That is not what is in view here. To this end may God continue to raise up within His Church effective leaders, theologians, practitioners, and disciples of Christ to which we one and all must exclaim, Amen!

R.E. Slater

June 1, 2012

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A Mysterious Topic: Part 1
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/05/a-mysterious-topic-part-1/

by Roger Olson
May 31, 2012
Comments

A Mysterious Topic: “Mystery,” “Paradox,” and “Contradiction” in Theology (Part 1)

I was recently asked to preview the manuscript of a forthcoming book on theology and mystery. I promise to review it here when it is published. So far, however, the manuscript is open to possible changes by the book’s authors, so I don’t want to comment on it specifically. I have suggested some possible revisions and am trusting they may make them before the book is published.

My intention is not to tease you when I say that it is an excellent book and a badly needed one. For years I have thought about this subject and talked about it in my lectures and mentioned it in some of my books. My impression is that the average Christian has little to no understanding of what “mystery” means in theology. And, of course, it means somewhat different things in different types of Christian theology. In some of Catholic theology, for example, “mystery” has a technical meaning that is very close to and interconnected with “supernatural,” “grace” and “sacrament.”

The average Christian, I suspect, thinks “mystery” is something beyond all comprehension; it’s what you’re supposed to believe but cannot be explained or even expressed except in ways that require sacrifice of the intellect. The classical examples most people would give are the Trinity and the deity-and-humanity of Jesus Christ (what theologians call the “hypostatic union” of Christ). And, when first introduced to the orthodox versions of those doctrines, many, if not most, theological novices object that these formulas are attempts to explain what is essentially unexplainable—the mysterious.

Furthermore, most Christians, in my experience, blend together inappropriately concepts such as “mystery,” “paradox” and “contradiction.” Of course, these are not easy concepts to pin down, but I think a sound theology needs to distinguish them and relate them to each other very cautiously to avoid total confusion and even unintelligibility.

That word “unintelligibility” will probably spark some controversy. Should Christian theology be intelligible?

Here’s the problem I seem to be wrestling with. Many Christians, even some theologians, confuse "incomprehensibility" with “unintelligibility.” I believe an important task of Christian theology is to make Christian belief as intelligible as possible without pretending that God (and the “things of God”) can be made completely comprehensible.

I.  Esoteric

Defining terms is in order now. As I use “intelligible” I mean “capable of being understood and communicated without contradiction.” In other words, not esoteric. I believe Christianity, as a belief system, ought not to be esoteric. “Esoteric” means “capable of being understood only by special people with higher spiritual abilities.” It also usually implies something that should be believed but cannot be grasped by the mind’s normal functioning.

An example of something esoteric is astrology. In classical astrology (as opposed to many of its New Age versions), only special people with special spiritual wisdom and insight can grasp its truths and use it successfully. That’s why other people pay them.

There is an “alternative tradition” of “esoteric Christianity” going back to the Gnosticism. Its modern manifestations are lumped together as “theosophy” (including Anthroposophy).

(I won’t get into a discussion of the details of esoteric Christianity here. I only mention it to illustrate what I am opposed to as a Christian theologian in the orthodox tradition. Suffice to say that I once spent a couple years studying Rudolf Steiner’s esoteric Christianity and wrote a scholarly article about it in a journal devoted to new religious movements.)

I admit to being allergic to anything esoteric. “Esoteric” implies “hidden truth” or, when that truth is revealed (becomes “exoteric”), it implies truth that is not able to be grasped or understood without initiation by an “adept”—someone with higher spiritual capacities—and practice of some special spiritual technology such as yoga or Eastern meditation or chanting, etc.

II.  Mystery

“Mystery” does not necessarily equate with “esoteric.” That is, one can believe something is ultimately mysterious without believing it is esoteric. For example, in optics (a branch of physics) light is believed to have both wave-like and particle-like properties even though nobody (so far) knows how that can be the case. So, even to the scientist who studies light for many years, it remains somewhat mysterious.

Scientists study and talk about subjects that are mysterious using models. The models don’t make that which they model less mysterious; they make them capable of being studied, discussed and worked with. These models are “analog” and not “depicting” models. Nobody should imagine that a model of a molecule is what a molecule “looks like.” (Picture the typical DNA molecule—it’s a model.)

Now, back to theology. A mystery is what has been revealed but is beyond complete comprehension. We can’t picture it. We can’t point to something or build something and say “This is exactly what it is like.” We (Christian theologians) develop models of mysteries that more or less do justice to it. And often the models are meant to protect the mystery, not “explain” it as if the model we develop reduces it to something exactly like something created.

(1) The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, for example, as developed and expressed at Constantinople in 381 and as expressed by the Cappadocian Fathers (sometimes lamely and sometimes in a sophisticated manner) is a model—an analogue model, not a depicting model. The whole point of it, like (2) the hypostatic union doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ expressed at Chalcedon in 451, is to express that which cannot be pictured. Both models are meant to protect the revealed mysteries from alternative models that destroy them by reducing them to depicting models. In other words, these orthodox models are meant to protect mysteries without leaving them in the realm of the esoteric.

They are meant to make these truths intelligible (to anyone) without making them pictureable [because you can't picture them as much as you can relate them by analogy - res]. The realities they model remain mysterious, beyond creaturely comprehension. But they are not unintelligible - requiring sacrifice of the intellect or special spiritual capacities or spiritual techniques taught by an adept to understand.

Unfortunately, many Christians think the Trinity and the Person of Jesus Christ are esoteric mysteries—beyond intelligible thought. So just about any spiritual-sounding expression of them is okay. For example, “God is one and three,” left there without further explanation, is widely considered the spiritual expression of an unintelligible mystery. When I say “No, God is one being or nature, substance shared equally by three persons” they think I’m unnecessarily complicating the truth if not attempting to “explain” something that is ultimately mysterious.

When I ask them what they mean by “God is one and three” what I usually get is either a refusal to express it in any other words or modalism or tritheism.

In my opinion, what the fathers of Constantinople (including the Cappadocians) and Chalcedon where trying to do was not to “explain the mysteries” but express them and lay down rules for talking about them in intelligible ways that avoid sheer contradiction and reductions of the mysteries.

Much of what we believe as orthodox Christians is mysterious, but none of it is (or should be) unintelligible or esoteric.

III.  Paradox and Contradiction

All this brings me to two other concepts (besides “mystery”): paradox and contradiction.

I freely admit that paradox, which I define as apparent contradiction is inevitable and functions as a sign of mystery and of our finitude when confronting mystery. That Jesus Christ is both truly human and truly divine is a paradox—just as is that light is both wave-like and particle-like.

But there is nothing unintelligible about either of those paradoxes. Their paradoxical nature lies in the fact that we do not know how these combinations are possible. However, neither of them is a sheer contradiction. A sheer, logical contradiction is always a sure sign of error. And it always makes that which is contradictory unintelligible.

So what would be a “sheer contradiction.” Here’s one I once, in my immaturity, put forth (and was immediately corrected for it): “Jesus Christ is exclusively divine and exclusively human.” That’s not a paradox; it’s a sheer contradiction. When I said (or wrote) it, I was confusing “truly” with “exclusively.” They are not the same. One thing cannot be “exclusively” one thing and, at the same time and in the same way, “exclusively” another thing. It has to do with the definition of [the word] “exclusively” [linguistically].

Here’s another sheer contradiction: “Light is exclusively wave-like and exclusively particle-like.” That’s not just another way of saying “Light is truly wave-like and truly particle-like.” The first is a sheer contradiction and no scientist would say it. The second is a paradox; no logical contradiction is involved.

I believe a major task of theology is to exclude logical contradictions from Christian belief, make Christian belief as intelligible as possible, and yet protect real mystery as it was revealed. Critiquing and constructing models is what theology does.

I do not see any real contradictions about God or “the things of God” in revelation or the Great Tradition of Christian teaching. I see paradoxes and I regard them as tasks for further thought. For example, I believe “kenotic Christology” is a valid way of relieving some of the paradoxical tension in classical Christology (Chalcedon’s hypostatic union) that makes it appear contradictory at times. However, kenosis* is not itself part of orthodoxy; it is simply a theologoumenon—a theological idea for consideration.

Next I want to apply these considerations to soteriology.

*Ke·no·sis spelling [ki-noh-sis]. A noun. Category: Theology.

Definition: "The doctrine that Christ relinquished His divine attributes so as to experience human suffering."

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A Mysterious Topic (Part 2)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/06/a-mysterious-topic-part-2/

by Roger Olson
June 2, 2012
Comments

One way in which some well-meaning but misguided persons have attempted to resolve the seemingly intractable differences between divine determinism, including evil as part of God’s plan rendered certain by God, and creaturely free will as power of contrary choice, including evil as not part of God’s plan and not rendered certain by God but the result of creaturely decision and action, is appeal to mystery.

An old sermon illustration has it that absolute divine sovereignty, meticulous providence, and free will, power of contrary choice, are like two train tracks that seem incommensurable but somehow join in the distance beyond the horizon of human sight. Of course, any thinking person who hears that illustration immediately things to herself “But they don’t join in the distance!”

A perhaps more reasonable illustration, applied to salvation, that allegedly resolves the dilemma between monergism and human responsibility and decision, is the following: As one approaches the gate of heaven one sees a sign that says “Whosoever will may enter here freely,” but when the person enters and looks back at the other (inner) side of the gate one sees that it says “For you were chosen from before the foundation of the world.” Of course, any thinking person who hears that illustration in a sermon will immediately realize that it is meant only to illustrate (and therefore defend) monergism*.

*mon·er·gism  [mon-er-jiz-uhm] noun  category: Theology

"the doctrine that the Holy Ghost acts independently of the human will in the work of regeneration."
Compare synergism (def. 3).

syn·er·gism  [sin-er-jiz-uhm, si-nur-jiz-] noun 3. cat: Theology
"the doctrine that the human will cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the work of regeneration."
Compare monergism.

More sophisticated appeals to mystery to resolve the dilemma avoid illustrations such as those and simply say “It’s a mystery.” As I stated in Part 1, I have no quarrel with appeal to mystery in theology so long as it is not a resort to embrace of contradiction.

It seems to me, however, that appeal to mystery to handle the dilemma stated above necessarily involves one in contradiction. The dilemma is not between “God’s sovereignty” and “free will” as some state it. We who believe in libertarian free will (as power of contrary choice) also believe in God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign over his sovereignty and limits his determining power to make room for other determining powers.

The dilemma is between divine determinism (belief that God determines everything that is to happen even if only indirectly causes much of it) and limited providence—God’s governance of all that happens without determining it in every detail.

Those two cannot both be believed without falling into sheer contradiction. And sheer (logical) contradiction is always and in every context a sign of [theological] error. To embrace it in theology is a form of special pleading that removes theology from intelligible discourse and requires a sacrifice of the intellect. A person who embraces contradiction (which I’m not sure is even possible!) has no ground for objecting to others who embrace contradiction.

Several questions arise. First, does revelation communicate sheer, logical contradiction? I hope not. Some argue it does. For example, they point to passages that allegedly say that God is the author of sin and evil (or its designer and governor) and (others) that say sin and evil are creatures’ doing, not God’s. Both Calvinism and Arminianism attempt to resolve the apparent contradiction by privileging one set of passages over the other or finding a hermeneutical [theological]* “tool” such as divine self-limitation, prevenient grace, secondary causation, compatibilism, etc. that will relieve the paradox.

[*textual emendations mine own per previous definitions as used here in this blog space - res]

Some theologians (and non-theologians) prefer to simply let the contradiction be. To them, to use a popular saying “It is what it is.” So leave it alone. Embrace it.

Now let’s play with that idea a little to see what happens.

The preacher gets up in the pulpit and says “God determines everything including evil. God planned and rendered certain the holocaust [cause: humans] and the torturous death of a little child from leukemia [cause: nature]. And these horrible evils and instances of innocent suffering are the result of human rebellion and its resultant curse on creation. God does not want them to be, but allows them.” Who could blame his listeners who shake their heads in bewilderment and think either the preacher is nuts or they dozed off for a moment and missed something?

Even more to the point, imagine the theologian who teaches theology in a university and is invited to be on a panel with a variety of scholars from across the curriculum to discuss the nature of evil and its source. They all posit their theories and then it’s his turn and he says “God plans it and does it and God doesn’t want it and doesn’t do it.”

Surely his colleagues will press for further explanation and insist on it. Insofar as he refuses and simply rests with the contradiction his colleagues will simply write him (and possibly his theology) off as anti-intellectual if not unintelligible.

Now, the moment you go further and attempt to “explain” using concepts such as John Piper’s “two wills of God” you have abandoned contradiction (or at least attempted to) and attempted to resolve the paradox. That’s not what I’m objecting to. I’m objecting to those who say we should simply rest with contradiction and not attempt to reconcile the apparent opposites found in Scripture.

Let’s look at a specific example: Philippians 2:12-13 “Work out your own salvation…for God is at work in you….” Some (e.g., D. M. Baillie) have labeled this the “paradox of grace.” I have used that term myself. I’m okay with that. As I explained in Part 1, I find certain paradoxes inevitable signs of mystery. But is it a sheer contradiction? I hope not. One of theology’s tasks is to show that, even though we cannot plumb the depths of God’s agency and ours in salvation, thus reducing mystery to something completely comprehensible to the finite intellect, there is no need to embrace sheer contradiction.

Philippians 2:12-13 is not a contradiction once we see and acknowledge that our “work” is not the same as God’s “work” in salvation (including sanctification). Two different Greek words are translated “work” in these two verses. There’s our first clue that no contradiction is involved. However, knowing their meanings doesn’t automatically resolve the apparent tension. Theology steps in, however, to say that God’s work surrounds and underlies, enables, our “work” which is simply to allow God to do his work in us.

I use a homely illustration. Every summer here in central Texas I struggle to keep bushes alive. I turn on the outdoor faucet to which a hose is attached and drag the hundred foot hose around the house to a thirsty bush. I aim the spray nozzle at the bush and press the trigger. Nothing comes out. I go back to make sure the faucet is actually turned on. It is. Pressurized water is there in the hose. Then I realize there’s got to be a kink somewhere in that long hose that’s keeping the water from flowing. I track the length of the hose, find the kink(s) and straighten them out.

The water represents God’s grace; the kink(s) represents a wrong attitude or habit or desire that blocks up the flow of God’s grace in my life. My task is to remove those with the Spirit’s help.

The analogy breaks down, of course, in that, in my spiritual life, removing the “kinks” is just as much God’s work as mine, but I have to want it and permit it. The “energy” (one of the Greek words translated “work”) is all God’s. All I contribute is heartfelt desire, prayer and submission. That’s also “work” insofar as it’s not easy; it’s not what comes naturally.

Philippians 2:12-13 may express a paradox, but it doesn’t express a sheer contradiction. It would only be a contradiction if it said that salvation is exclusively God’s work and exclusively mine. It doesn’t say that. It implies a cooperation—a synergy. At least that’s the best way to interpret it.

If we are going to embrace contradictions, then theology really has nothing to do. Every apparent contradiction in Scripture should just be embraced without any effort to show how they are not really contradictions. The results of the deliberations of the councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon were explanations of how what Scripture says about God and Jesus Christ are not contradictions. They are mysteries, but not contradictions.

On this I am in total agreement with R. C. Sproul who emphatically rejects efforts by fellow Calvinists (and others, of course) to affirm contradiction. I have detailed that in [my book] Against Calvinism and cited Sproul’s works.

Mystery—yes. Paradox—uncomfortably yes. Contradiction—no. Admittedly it is not always easy to tell what’s a paradox and what’s a real contradiction. But some things are obviously contradictions. To affirm divine determinism and creaturely non-compatibilist free will is a contradiction. There’s no way around it. And it’s absurd. It makes Christianity unintelligible nonsense. That doesn’t serve anyone well.