I read the first few chapters of Garry Wills' Why Priests? last night. I chuckled a bit when I read about a "heresy" I didn't realize I was guilty of (to add the many others I'm very much aware of), namely that of the Stercoranists. These dangerous heretics asserted that the bread and wine of the Eucharist, after being ingested, were subsequently digested and then excreted. You know, like food.
So, if they're not digested (and excreted), then exactly what does happen to them?
Well, that's one of those questions you're just not supposed to ask, apparently.
It's best not to think about it.
February 20, 2013
February 18, 2013
The Hereafter
If you had asked me when I was a child what happens to us when we die, I probably would have said, "We go to heaven." On a superficial level I probably believed that. I imagine I believed that I believed that.
But I have some very vivid memories, from the time I was eight until I was into my late teens, of lying awake at night, unable to sleep, terrified of ceasing to exist after I died. Thoughts of the afterlife were of no comfort. I don't even remember having such thoughts. Death meant annihilation. Looking back now, this is what I really believed, and I lost a lot of sleep over it.
By the time I went to university I was, for all intents and purposes, an agnostic. I was also suffering through a period of depression that began in high school and didn't let up until halfway through my second year. That was when, very early one Saturday morning in January, I had an insight into something that happened when I was four years old, and had haunted me ever since. I'm not going to go into any detail about what it was—it's not at all relevant to this post—but suffice it to say, I was finally able to forgive someone for saying something that was really quite damaging to me, and for which I had been harbouring an almost-conscious resentment for the better part of twenty years (though, looking back, it was probably perfectly innocuous from his perspective).
My mind started racing and I had what I soon started calling, ignorantly but not entirely inappropriately, my "Zen experience." Actually, it wasn't a single experience. Over the rest of the weekend I had over a dozen of them. They were relatively brief, always came unexpectedly, and at first I found them quite terrifying. I thought I was losing my mind. But the insights I was having made too much sense, they were so inarguably true, that I was soon able to embrace the experiences when they came.
The most salient insight that occurred to me I later recognized as what the Buddhist tradition calls pratitya samutpada, which is translated in a number of different ways (e.g., "conditioned arising," or "dependent origination," among many others).
But accompanying it was something else, something not obviously related to that: I "knew" that death is an illusion; that is, it is not the end that I had previously imagined it to be; it does not entail the annhilation I had lain awake dreading as a child, but had, after several years of mind-numbing depression, rather calmly accepted as our inevitable fate.
I couldn't account for this "knowledge" (which is why I put it in quotation marks: I have no way of justifying it epistemologically). And I had no insight into what came next. But I was certain that it wasn't nothing.
And for a long time after that, I was content to leave it that: whatever came next was necessarily unknown. We could speculate; we could imagine an eternal heaven and hell, a temporary sojourn in purgatory, a cycle of birth and rebirth, or an existence as ghosts haunting the future owners of our homes. But these were, I thought, necessarily speculations, and nothing more than that. Given that we couldn't know (or even be reasonable confident) that one was more likely than another, it was best to remain agnostic on the subject of what comes next.
Basically I agreed with Martin Luther's approach to the matter, as described here by Marcus Borg:
But that will be the subject of an upcoming post. Maybe more than one.
Notes
1. Borg, The God We Never Knew, 175. Borg does not say where in Luther's writings this can be found.
But I have some very vivid memories, from the time I was eight until I was into my late teens, of lying awake at night, unable to sleep, terrified of ceasing to exist after I died. Thoughts of the afterlife were of no comfort. I don't even remember having such thoughts. Death meant annihilation. Looking back now, this is what I really believed, and I lost a lot of sleep over it.
By the time I went to university I was, for all intents and purposes, an agnostic. I was also suffering through a period of depression that began in high school and didn't let up until halfway through my second year. That was when, very early one Saturday morning in January, I had an insight into something that happened when I was four years old, and had haunted me ever since. I'm not going to go into any detail about what it was—it's not at all relevant to this post—but suffice it to say, I was finally able to forgive someone for saying something that was really quite damaging to me, and for which I had been harbouring an almost-conscious resentment for the better part of twenty years (though, looking back, it was probably perfectly innocuous from his perspective).
My mind started racing and I had what I soon started calling, ignorantly but not entirely inappropriately, my "Zen experience." Actually, it wasn't a single experience. Over the rest of the weekend I had over a dozen of them. They were relatively brief, always came unexpectedly, and at first I found them quite terrifying. I thought I was losing my mind. But the insights I was having made too much sense, they were so inarguably true, that I was soon able to embrace the experiences when they came.
The most salient insight that occurred to me I later recognized as what the Buddhist tradition calls pratitya samutpada, which is translated in a number of different ways (e.g., "conditioned arising," or "dependent origination," among many others).
But accompanying it was something else, something not obviously related to that: I "knew" that death is an illusion; that is, it is not the end that I had previously imagined it to be; it does not entail the annhilation I had lain awake dreading as a child, but had, after several years of mind-numbing depression, rather calmly accepted as our inevitable fate.
I couldn't account for this "knowledge" (which is why I put it in quotation marks: I have no way of justifying it epistemologically). And I had no insight into what came next. But I was certain that it wasn't nothing.
And for a long time after that, I was content to leave it that: whatever came next was necessarily unknown. We could speculate; we could imagine an eternal heaven and hell, a temporary sojourn in purgatory, a cycle of birth and rebirth, or an existence as ghosts haunting the future owners of our homes. But these were, I thought, necessarily speculations, and nothing more than that. Given that we couldn't know (or even be reasonable confident) that one was more likely than another, it was best to remain agnostic on the subject of what comes next.
Basically I agreed with Martin Luther's approach to the matter, as described here by Marcus Borg:
Luther expressed our not-knowing about the details of the afterlife with a particularly apt analogy: we can know as much about life beyond death as a fetus traveling down the birth canal and about to be born can know about the world it is about to enter. How much is that? Nothing. Yet the analogy affirms that there is something at the end of the journey.1When I first read this years ago it made a lot of sense to me. But I've done some reading over the past few years that has convinced me that we are not necessarily as in-the-dark as I previously imagined.
But that will be the subject of an upcoming post. Maybe more than one.
Notes
1. Borg, The God We Never Knew, 175. Borg does not say where in Luther's writings this can be found.
February 17, 2013
Who Picks the Pope
I have no intention of saying much on this blog about the upcoming conclave to elect the next pope, but I found a link to this article by John L. Allen, Jr., dated a few days before Ratzinger became pope, in a post on one of my old blogs. I thought this was an interesting bit:
[Ratzinger] was asked on Bavarian television in 1997 if the Holy Spirit is responsible for who gets elected pope, and this was his response: "I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope. ... I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit's role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined."
Then the clincher: "There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit would obviously not have picked."
January 25, 2013
Rachel Held Evans
Rachel Held Evans is a writer I've recently started to take an interest in. I read about her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town, some time ago, and put it on my "to read" list, but it's a long list and I haven't gotten around to it yet. But I've visited her blog a few times, and I really like what I've been reading. (That's not something I can say about a lot of Evangelicals!)
Her post yesterday, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart," was the best one I've read so far (today's follow-up: also good). She talks about the monstrous consequences of divorcing emotions from theology:
Yes, you read that right: if you were to die in a suicide bombing, it would be because God willed it, and it would be just and right and good.
If that's the case, what could it possibly mean to say that "God is love"? (1 John 4.8, 16)
(I hope the Rachel Held Evanses of the Evangelical world become more influential than the John Pipers.)
Her post yesterday, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart," was the best one I've read so far (today's follow-up: also good). She talks about the monstrous consequences of divorcing emotions from theology:
So long as an idea seems logical, so long as it fits consistently with the favored theological paradigm, it seems to matter not whether it is morally reprehensible at an intuitive level. I suspect this is why this new breed of rigid Calvinism that follows the “five points” to their most logical conclusion, without regard to the moral implications of them, has flourished in the past twenty years. (I heard a theology professor explain the other day that he had no problem whatsoever with God orchestrating evil acts to accomplish God’s will, for that is what is required for God to be fully sovereign! When asked if this does not make God something of a monster, he responded that it didn’t matter; God is God—end of story.)The Calvinist belief in the "sovereignty" of God—often understood to mean that God controls absolutely everything that happens, wearing the universe like a puppet—is probably motivated by a desire to glorify God, to ensure that God is not thought to be less than what God is. The irony is that it easily turns God into a monster, a sad fact that is well illustrated by a quote from John Piper that serves as an epigraph to Evans's post. She only quotes part of what Piper said; I'll quote a little bit more:
It's right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.
God is taking life every day. He will take 50,000 lives today. Life is in God's hand. God decides when your last heartbeat will be, and whether it ends through cancer or a bullet wound. God governs.
So God is God! He rules and governs everything. And everything he does is just and right and good. God owes us nothing.
If I were to drop dead right now, or a suicide bomber downstairs were to blow this building up and I were blown into smithereens, God would have done me no wrong. He does no wrong to anybody when he takes their life, whether at 2 weeks or at age 92.
If that's the case, what could it possibly mean to say that "God is love"? (1 John 4.8, 16)
(I hope the Rachel Held Evanses of the Evangelical world become more influential than the John Pipers.)
January 20, 2013
Water into Wine: John 2.1-11
Today we read John 2.1-11, the story of the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns six large jars of water into wine.
I have to admit, this is not a story I've given much thought to in the past. It's not simply that it's unbelievable,1 because there are other stories in the Gospels that are also unbelievable, but I have still found meaning in them. But this miracle story has always struck me as a little bit frivolous, like it's a silly party trick.
I've changed my mind about that, though, and the key is understanding the symbolism of the jars.
The stone jars, we're told, were "for the Jewish rites of purification" (v.6). They were made of stone because stone would not become ritually contaminated or impure. Normally a family would only have one such jar, but here there are six.
Some scholars claim that the reason for this is to give Jesus a large quantity of water to work with. "This exaggeration," says one, "owes to the narrator’s desire to represent a miracle of transformation of super proportions in this story."2 Another says, "the great quantity they contained," was meant to reflect "the fullness of Christ’s grace."3 Perhaps.
Some scholars, on the other hand, have suggested that the number six is meant to be understood symbolically. Andrew Lincoln, for example, writes, "The number six may well...represent the imperfection of insufficiency of the old order of Judaism."4 The transformation of the water into wine represents the coming of the new order represented by Jesus:
This Gospel's frequent portrayal of "the Jews" as Jesus's opponents is obviously problematic, and not something Jesus himself would have recognized. But we shouldn't forget that, during his actual lifetime, Jesus was often in conflict with some of his fellow Jews, specifically about their way of being Jewish.
Often the point of contention was the purity code of the Torah. Jesus had little time for the purity code, particularly when following it meant victimizing others. The concern for purity, for recognizing distinctions between "clean" and "unclean," belongs to a relatively immature (but very common) stage of religious development. It creates binary oppositions between classes of people, generally favouring one side to the detriment of the other.
Jesus sought to overcome this by promoting an ethic that valued compassion over purity, but the defenders of the purity system—people who benefitted from being in the favoured side of each binary—predictably resisted. His opponents were mostly Jewish, yes—but the kind of thinking he opposed was (and is) found in every religion, including our own.
The transformation of water into wine represents the transformation we are undergoing, and have always been undergoing: the growth beyond the divisive ways of thinking that denigrate large segments of humanity in support of one favoured class, people who resist the new order represented by Jesus, and the belief that "life...is to be enjoyed."
[1] That this is not an historical event would be affirmed by "virtually all mainstream scholars," according to Marcus J. Borg (Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, 57). While many scholars would dismiss it out of hand simply for being a "miracle," there are plenty of reasons someone who is open to the possibility of miracles might nevertheless arrive at the same judgment. The most extensive argument I've yet come across is from John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 2.934-950.
[2] Ernst Haenchen, John (Hermeneia), 1.173.
[3] George R. Beasley-Murray, John (WBC), 35.
[4] Lincoln, The Gospel According to Saint John (BNTC), 129. Raymond Brown dismissed the attempt to find symbolism in the number six as "farfetched" (The Gospel According to John [AYB], 1.100), but he didn't elaborate.
[5] Lincoln, 129.
I have to admit, this is not a story I've given much thought to in the past. It's not simply that it's unbelievable,1 because there are other stories in the Gospels that are also unbelievable, but I have still found meaning in them. But this miracle story has always struck me as a little bit frivolous, like it's a silly party trick.
I've changed my mind about that, though, and the key is understanding the symbolism of the jars.
The stone jars, we're told, were "for the Jewish rites of purification" (v.6). They were made of stone because stone would not become ritually contaminated or impure. Normally a family would only have one such jar, but here there are six.
Some scholars claim that the reason for this is to give Jesus a large quantity of water to work with. "This exaggeration," says one, "owes to the narrator’s desire to represent a miracle of transformation of super proportions in this story."2 Another says, "the great quantity they contained," was meant to reflect "the fullness of Christ’s grace."3 Perhaps.
Some scholars, on the other hand, have suggested that the number six is meant to be understood symbolically. Andrew Lincoln, for example, writes, "The number six may well...represent the imperfection of insufficiency of the old order of Judaism."4 The transformation of the water into wine represents the coming of the new order represented by Jesus:
In the Jewish Scriptures wine in abundance signifies the salvation of the end time—'The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when...the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,...they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine' (Amos 9:13–14; cf. also Isa. 25:6; Jer. 31:12; Joel 3:18)...In addition, wine stands for life and joy (cf. Ps. 104:15; Eccl. 10:19; Sir. 31:27–8; 40:20). In inaugurating the new order, Jesus provides life that is to be enjoyed.5Such a reading inevitably brings up the problem of anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel, which is obviously a matter of concern. But I would suggest that this text can be understood as conveying something that is actually faithful to the transformation that Jesus sought to bring about through his ministry.
This Gospel's frequent portrayal of "the Jews" as Jesus's opponents is obviously problematic, and not something Jesus himself would have recognized. But we shouldn't forget that, during his actual lifetime, Jesus was often in conflict with some of his fellow Jews, specifically about their way of being Jewish.
Often the point of contention was the purity code of the Torah. Jesus had little time for the purity code, particularly when following it meant victimizing others. The concern for purity, for recognizing distinctions between "clean" and "unclean," belongs to a relatively immature (but very common) stage of religious development. It creates binary oppositions between classes of people, generally favouring one side to the detriment of the other.
Jesus sought to overcome this by promoting an ethic that valued compassion over purity, but the defenders of the purity system—people who benefitted from being in the favoured side of each binary—predictably resisted. His opponents were mostly Jewish, yes—but the kind of thinking he opposed was (and is) found in every religion, including our own.
The transformation of water into wine represents the transformation we are undergoing, and have always been undergoing: the growth beyond the divisive ways of thinking that denigrate large segments of humanity in support of one favoured class, people who resist the new order represented by Jesus, and the belief that "life...is to be enjoyed."
[1] That this is not an historical event would be affirmed by "virtually all mainstream scholars," according to Marcus J. Borg (Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, 57). While many scholars would dismiss it out of hand simply for being a "miracle," there are plenty of reasons someone who is open to the possibility of miracles might nevertheless arrive at the same judgment. The most extensive argument I've yet come across is from John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 2.934-950.
[2] Ernst Haenchen, John (Hermeneia), 1.173.
[3] George R. Beasley-Murray, John (WBC), 35.
[4] Lincoln, The Gospel According to Saint John (BNTC), 129. Raymond Brown dismissed the attempt to find symbolism in the number six as "farfetched" (The Gospel According to John [AYB], 1.100), but he didn't elaborate.
[5] Lincoln, 129.
January 18, 2013
The Human Origin of the Bible
This post originally appeared on my first blog, Far from Rome, in August 2008.
Marcus J. Borg, in his terrific book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, describes two different ways of looking at the Bible.
The more traditional way is to see the Bible as a divine product:
I suspect a lot of people are somewhere in the middle, acknowledging to one degree or another than humans were involved in the writing, while maintaining at the same time that God was somehow involved, at least some of the time.
Borg anticipates this possible objection, but rejects it:
It does sort of raise the question, though: There are countless books that are "merely human" in origin -- why even bother with the Bible at all?
Some other time.
Notes
1. Borg, Reading, 22. [Back]
2. Borg, Reading, 26. [Back]
3. Borg, Reading, 27. [Back]
Marcus J. Borg, in his terrific book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, describes two different ways of looking at the Bible.
The more traditional way is to see the Bible as a divine product:
The inspiration of scripture is understood to mean that God guided the writing of the Bible, directly or indirectly. What scripture says, then, ultimately comes from God.1The alternative is to see the Bible as a human product, which is the way Borg proposes.
I suspect a lot of people are somewhere in the middle, acknowledging to one degree or another than humans were involved in the writing, while maintaining at the same time that God was somehow involved, at least some of the time.
Borg anticipates this possible objection, but rejects it:
Why see the question as an either-or choice? Why not see the Bible as both divine and human? In my experience, affirming that it is both only compounds the confusion.2The problem, he points out, is that when the Bible is seen as both divine and human in origin -- or partly divine and partly human -- it tends to lead to the attempt to separate what comes from God from what is merely human. To discern, in other words, what parts we have to take really seriously, and what parts we can dispense with. The problem with this is obvious enough:
[T]he parts that we think come from God are normally the parts we see as important, and thus we simply confer divine authority on what matters to us, whether we be conservatives or liberals.3So there are some people, for example, who insist that everyone observe the prohibition of homosexual behaviour, while showing little or no concern for those who violate the prohibition of planting two kinds of seed in the same field (Lev 19.19), or for women who braid their hair, or wearing gold jewellery (1 Tim 2.9).
It does sort of raise the question, though: There are countless books that are "merely human" in origin -- why even bother with the Bible at all?
Some other time.
Notes
1. Borg, Reading, 22. [Back]
2. Borg, Reading, 26. [Back]
3. Borg, Reading, 27. [Back]
January 12, 2013
Speaking Christian by Marcus J. Borg
The use of Christian language “is in a state of crisis,” writes Marcus Borg in the first chapter of his latest work, Speaking Christian. Familiar words have taken on different meanings over time, but most of us are unaware of the change. The problem afflicts both Christian and non-Christian alike.
Christians, particularly in the U.S., are deeply divided between two different ways of using Christian language. On one side are those who “believe that biblical language is to be understood literally within a heaven-and-hell framework that emphasizes the afterlife, sin and forgiveness, Jesus dying for our sins, and believing.” On the other side are the rest of us, some unsure how to understand Christian language, and others who have moved on to some other understanding. “The differences are so sharp,” he says, “that they virtually produce two different religions, both using the same Bible and the same language.”
This book seeks to redeem some of the most important words Christians use, words like “salvation,” “redemption,” “mercy,” “sin,” and many others. The book has twenty five chapters, some quite short, and all but three of them devoted to just one or two Christian terms or concepts.
The primary culprits in this “state of crisis” are “the literalization of language in the modern period,” and the interpretation of this language within what Borg calls the framework of “heaven and hell” Christianity. Another is the widespread religious illiteracy of our increasingly secular age. (The reality is rather more complicated than that, but basically I agree with Borg on this point.)
Christians, particularly in the U.S., are deeply divided between two different ways of using Christian language. On one side are those who “believe that biblical language is to be understood literally within a heaven-and-hell framework that emphasizes the afterlife, sin and forgiveness, Jesus dying for our sins, and believing.” On the other side are the rest of us, some unsure how to understand Christian language, and others who have moved on to some other understanding. “The differences are so sharp,” he says, “that they virtually produce two different religions, both using the same Bible and the same language.”
Borg’s critique of the “heaven and hell” framework, by which he means the “understanding of Christianity that most Protestants and Catholics shared in common and thus took for granted not very long ago,” elaborates a point he’s made in some of his previous books (indeed, much of this book will be quite familiar to those who have read his previous work, which comes as no surprise—Borg has always been somewhat repetitious).
The widespread assumption, shared by both Christians and non-Christians alike, is that the Christian message is primarily concerned with the afterlife. Heaven is, according to this view, “the reason for being Christian”:
Life after death was so important in the form of Christianity that I absorbed growing up that if somebody had convinced me when I was twelve or so that there was no afterlife, I would have had no idea what Christianity was about or why I should be Christian.
Connected with this is “sin,” which is understood as “the central issue in our life with God.” What we need above all is forgiveness, which is where Jesus comes in. For many Christians, “what matters about Jesus is that he died for our sins, so that we can be forgiven and go to heaven.” And what makes this possible is “having faith,” which is generally identified with “believing, understood as affirming a core set of statements to be true.”
These four elements, all of which are quite problematic, combine to create a framework through which Christian language is commonly interpreted. So, for instance, “salvation” becomes synonymous with “going to heaven,” despite the fact that it rarely if ever has that meaning in the Bible. To be “redeemed” has come to mean being “saved from sin,” even though in the Bible it refers to being “set free from slavery,” sometimes metaphorically, and sometimes not.
Borg considers whether traditional language should be replaced rather than redeemed. One proponent of replacement, he says, is Gretta Vosper, a pastor in the United Church of Canada. In her book With or Without God, Vosper argued that Christian language is a serious obstacle to the growth of the church. Outsiders visiting a church are likely to be turned off by language that, even if not meant literally, will inevitably be heard that way, at least at first.
Borg, though, prefers redeeming the language, and I agree with him. I read Vosper’s book when it first came out a few years ago, and found it quite unsatisfying. It includes an appendix featuring some examples of the prayers she uses at her church, which are quite radically un-traditional. Language is such an integral part of a religious tradition that it cannot be replaced to any great extent without becoming another religion. There is much to be gained by reclaiming traditional language and much to be lost by replacing it.
Christians of a more progressive bent will find much to like about this book, particularly if they are new to Borg. Like all of his work, it is well organized and written with great clarity. Readers familiar with his earlier works will find few surprises, but will probably find it worth reading, as I did.
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