[Book Review] Discovering the God Imagination

July 15, 2011
book review, Bookses!, real church, spirituality, theology
2 Comments

Discovering the God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity
By Jonathan Brink
294 pages

This is a gutsy book. Author Jonathan Brink dares to suggest a new theory of the atonement. In many theological circles this is something that is not only believed to be utterly unnecessary, it’s akin to messing with the truth itself. Inconceivable! And bravo.

Brink respectfully addresses the problems found in the two most prominent theories of the atonement: the Penal Substitutionary Theory, which after all is said and done has the concept of a God who still seems pretty angry, and the Ransom Theory, which somehow has God beholding to Satan, as if God couldn’t just blow him out of the water if he were to so choose. In suggesting some new ideas, Brink works his way through the biblical text to develop a sound argument as bible scholars have always done. I found that his theory does not contradict our pet doctrines, but rather, it offers another paradigm for thinking all together.

I find Brink’s theory quite compelling because it addresses the saving nature of the atonement in every way in which a person can be saved. It goes to the core of the heart of wounded people, bringing a practical theology that not only does the necessary magic in the heavenlies (which the older theories emphasize), but brings healing to our hearts in the present. It is the only atonement discussion that I have seen that actually talks about transformation in ways that reaches into more of our human brokenness than a cognitive assent to a doctrine could ever do.

In short, Brink points out that even in the garden when this messy thing called the fall happened, God was not angry. He was deeply saddened, but not wrathful. For God had set up a question in the garden, posed by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent used it to call our identities into question. Who are we? If we are not like God (implied by the serpent), then are we lacking? Are we…evil? That is the conclusion that we drew and it has darkened our understanding about God and ourselves ever since. We have let of go of the God Imagination, which is God’s perspective of ourselves, and have exchanged it for a warped and harmful vision. The lie that we chose conceals our true selves, which is the first death. We now live under the burden of the lie that we are inherently evil and thus we act accordingly, all jealous and stingy and afraid. We also project our distorted view of ourselves onto God and assume that he feels that way about us too.

Brink emphasizes the fact that God has never reneged on his declaration that we are good. He makes a good argument that there never truly was a chasm between us and God. He says, “Ransom Theory and Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory get some of it right. Someone is receiving a ransom. Someone is being satisfied. Someone is being paid off. Someone can’t come to a sense of justice apart from sacrifice. But the entity making the demand is not God or Satan. It is us.” The cross was required by us. It is we who needed something as powerful and horrific and love-filled as the cross for the lie to be crushed completely. Brink adds, “love wins by going as far as we demand. Love takes on our worst by revealing its best….We needed something so inconceivable, so mistakenly loving. That it would shatter any argument we could make to the contrary.” Our hearts can change as we begin to grasp the God Imagination because Brinks says, “The beginning realization of belief is the starting point. It is the moment a very different possibility of life is created. To follow is to embrace the possibility of the good. But it is only by living into the Way of Jesus that we can begin to experience life. We live into faith, which creates hope, so that we can experience love.” This love then, says Brink, becomes the love that goes beyond ourselves and gathers in the other.

Because I work now as a therapist, I found that there is a lot of language that is familiar to me. There are terms such as “true self” and stuff about brain science. I am concerned that readers who might not be familiar with the rich concepts that go into understanding things like true and false selves will be tempted to write this book off as new age-y or too psychological. (Think in terms of new man and old man which are more familiar Christianized words, if that helps.) There are also some parts that probably need to be fleshed out more clearly. However, I find the concepts to fit well with much of the agreed upon ideas of what is “biblical”. I also find the concepts to be very welcome, because they bring erudite theological concepts down to the level on which we live, changing core beliefs about ourselves and God and helping to bring about healing in the deepest core of our beings. Brink asserts that we each can become one who overcomes.

This book is not an easy read. Hang in there with the wise and winding Socratic type logic that Brink uses. He will bring the concepts home to you. I challenge those who are reading from a theological bent to first of all, read it. Second of all, try to let go of the “this is where it differs from what I know so it’s wrong” thinking. Certainly there will be things you’ll disagree with, but there is something in this for you to hear as well. And I know, most regular folks don’t find books on theology to be very compelling reading. But I urge you to give this a try because I believe that this book nourishes our hearts into the stunning truth that the God of the universe truly understands human suffering, and would go to any length to demonstrate his love to us in a way that truly heals. That alone, is worth it.

What is with this rapture stuff?

May 21, 2011
church and culture, conversations, stuff to ponder
2 Comments

Why have so many people gotten so caught up in the rapture warnings of Harold Camping and his group? If you have been hiding under a very big rock, Camping and his followers are a Christian group that believes with absolute certainty that the rapture of the church, which is a belief that Jesus will take his followers suddenly up into heaven, will occur today, May 21, at 6pm ET. They have devoted their time and money to getting the message out in major cities in the US.

The idea has gone viral. This is due at least in part to social networking. Jokes and pictures have been passed around en masse on Facebook and Twitter. I stopped for coffee with a friend a few days ago where they had placed a sign that said: “The world is going to end so you might as well leave a big tip.” Facebook friends are offering “left behind” parties and invitations to post-rapture looting revelry. Many of us plan to be raptured with Bono at the U2 concert tonight. Some plan to fill blow up dolls with helium and release them into the air at 6pm. I am enjoying the humor and the ways in which people stop for conversations about it all. But I can’t help but wonder if there is something deeper going on.

Are we living in an age that has lost hope? The economic collapse has been an Armageddon of sorts for many who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Multiple natural disasters have taken the same from many, many others. Political unrest is increasing around the world. And always, people become cannon fodder for wars and selfish agendas. And through my years in ministry and in counseling practice, I have observed that the brokenness and dysfunctions in the lives and relationships of so many are getting so much worse. The sheer loneliness that I see is overwhelming.

Postmodern thought rose out of broken promises. Science was to cure all diseases and feed everyone on earth. World War I was the war to end all wars. The American Dream was to become a reality for all, well, at least if you are white and straight and American. A friend of mine once observed that much of what Hollywood is producing these days is based on nostalgia.  It represents a culture that is looking backwards for its source material, as if there is not enough hope to move forward. Disaster movies have increased in number as well. Something about the end of days has planted itself deep within our psyches.

However, the way a belief roots itself in our collective mindset is through images and stories that grab our imaginations. The narrative of an angry, raging wrathful God that will destroy everything in order to rescue just a few is the product of a system of theological thought that has garnered enough attention to solidify itself into fact. This scenario resonates with our experiences of fear and guilt and powerlessness. We project our stuff onto God and conclude that surely his primary posture towards us all is wrath. But it is only one system of thought. The Story of God brings many more images of hope for all, images that overcome. I do believe that somewhere down deep in our Image-bearing hearts, we know that hope that is only for a few is truly not hope at all.

We all know that there’s a whole lot wrong with this world. However, it seems that this world is crying out for something to answer the fear and guilt of the world with something real. They need more than the “accept Jesus or else” and “this world doesn’t matter” claims. People are desperate to know that God is not about creating a Thomas Kincade life that only a few can achieve. They need to know that God is about making all things new. It is time to tell a better story. After all, God has never reneged on his declaration over all of creation: “It is very good.”

Every week in church we repeat the words, “Christ is making peace amongst us right here, right now. Let us share a sign of peace.” Let’s offer what we truly believe. And if Jesus does come for us all tonight, may he find us living out our hope in the many creative ways in which we can help to restore the beauty of his dream for all of creation.

And if he doesn’t, please enjoy the humor of our friends who are releasing balloon people into the air and leaving clothes and shoes on the sidewalks and jumping on trampolines to get a head start. Humor reflects hope, too!

[May Synchroblog] Life Unfurling

May 9, 2011
reflections, spirituality, stuff to ponder, Synchroblog
30 Comments

(This month’s Synchroblog explores the topic of growing spiritually by learning to let go of things that may have hindered us on our journeys, even good things. I will add other bloggers’ links as they come in this week.)

I bought into the belief that life must be a certain way to really be successful and happy and full. I felt that if I worked and prayed hard enough, I’d find the secret to get there. That mysterious way seemed to come all too easy for some folks, who then looked disdainfully at what others like me had possibly done wrong to miss out. But I suppose that we all buy into the illusion that we have much more control over our lives than we really do, and that if we have a relationship with God that is just so, we can convince him to do what we want. Even so, housing markets plunge, friends betray, churches split, babies die, dreams fade. I am realizing now that my life will never become what I dreamed it would be when I was in my teens and twenties, when the future was made of possibility.

As I reflect at this point of my life, I realize that I thought my husband and I would have had more children, a bigger quiver to enjoy. I thought I would have my PhD or DMin by now. I thought I would have written many more books. I thought I would be in a very different career or perhaps be writing full time and living on a farm full of greyhounds and cats. I thought I would have shed false selves and false concepts of God and others much more thoroughly. I thought I would have learned better how to live in a way that would change the world around me in more significant ways. I thought I would have found the key to suffering well, and to sustained joy. I thought I would have loved better.

I have reached my 50’s, an age which for decades I thought impossible. Perhaps I really thought I would be 35 forever! It truly felt that way. I thought I was grown up enough and forever young at the same time. Now I understand writer Anne Tyler when she compared the later years of life to the end of a game of solitaire. At that point, most of the cards in the deck have been played and laid out, and there are fewer options left in order to finish up the game. And even when many of the cards have been played well, the reality is, you still may not win.

While all this might sound sad or heavy, it is truly not such a bad thing. There is much in my life to celebrate, much richness and blessing and much gratitude in my heart. There is fruit born from the past to enjoy and relationships to treasure and new seasons to explore. However, there is both a joy and a gravitas present in the realization that this is a time to “set my face resolutely towards Jerusalem”, as is spoken of Jesus. He set himself on a path of no turning back – to the place of laying all things down, even that of being God.

In Pixar’s beautiful movie called “Up” there is an old man who lost the love of his life to death. He and his beloved Elly had worked hard their whole lives but never were able to fulfill their dreams of adventure to exotic places. They had never had children, having been denied that dream as well. The old man had nothing left but his house and her pictures and unused tickets to far off lands. Finding himself alone in their once joyful home he entrenches himself grimly into the old patterns that had made up the lonely rhythms of his life for so long. He lives in what-should-have-been. He becomes a dead soul in a still breathing body.

A construction company threatens his staid existence and he battles back, winning nothing but a placement in an old folks’ home. It seems that what little life was left for him was also being taken away. He decides to flee. He fills hundreds of balloons with helium which lift his house aloft and away from all that had gone so wrong.

He finds a stowaway on board, a young and earnest Boy Scout named Russell. The natural curiosity and energy of youth messes up the old man’s world. However, Russell’s interference ends up putting them on a path to what was once the old man’s dream destination for himself and his beloved. They arrive at some beautiful waterfalls in South America. The old man wants to plant his house beside the falls and continue his routine of existence, living in the painful shadow of his past.

Of course, as is the case in any good story, more conflict and trouble ensues. (*This includes some hilarious dogs – this movie was obviously written by a dog lover!) Ultimately, the man must choose love for this small boy and other lonely, helpless creatures over his small, numb world. The clincher comes when he must give up his prized home. He pushes all his precious belongings out the door to make it light enough to fly again. He gives up all that bound him to a time long past. He let it all go for love. And he does save the day, gaining both love and his own soul back.

The secret is, life is a journey of kenosis. That is the word from Philippians 2 when Jesus empties himself out –of everything- for love. Life is a constant journey of letting go, of unclenching our fists and letting what we think we must have slip away. We can hold onto old dreams and regrets and expectations and demands and stay tethered to them. Or we can push them out the door and lighten the load for the journey ahead. Without letting go, there is no love possible, for real love does not grasp and cling. And without letting go, there is no more growth into our true selves, because our identity will always be shaped by false images and dreams of what “should” be rather than what is.

My pastor has been doing a lot of reflecting on resurrection life during this Easter season. She reminded us that Jesus came not so we can be good (do it all right) or nice (everyone will like me!) but so we can be made new. And she reminds us, we can’t be made new if we are clinging to the places where we have forged an image of life and God that keeps us safe and certain. Those things keep us restricted and bound to a flat existence – our own creation of reality. And hands that cling cannot open up to receive what is new. But if we choose the courage to begin to let go of what we are sure we know, of what is certain and safe, of what we feel should be, our hearts and minds can be released into in the flowing river of Life that is far mightier than our ability to harness and control. We become people of the larger Story, buoyed by its current and perhaps finding ourselves bumping up into the hope that is greater that what we could ever manufacture. Our emptied hearts just may make enough room at last to become filled and stretched out of size into love. And we just may lose our grip on certainty, watching it fall far behind us as we enter finally, finally, into faith.

Those who lay down their lives for my sake will find it. ~Jesus

Enjoy these Synchrobloggers:

John Martinez – Indiefaith 
Letting go of the Holy me

Beth Patterson “What is passed over is not love”

Jeremy Myers Help! I’m Lost and I Can’t Find Myself!

Marta Layton On Burdings, Blessings, Babies and Bathwater

Kathy Escobar Letting God Off The Hook

Alan Knox at The Assembling of Church – Where Did I Go? 

Crystal Lewis – What Happened When I Let Go

Pam Hogeweide at How God Messed Up My Religion – Letting Go of a Church-Centered Me 

K.W. Leslie at the Evening of Kent - Legalism, Anti-Legalism, and Anti-Anti-Legalism

Ryan Harrison  at How We Spend Our Days - Scraping the Barnacles 

Christine Sine at Godspace – Giving Up For God, What Does it Cost?

Liz Dyer at Grace Rules – What Do You Do When You Are Not Sure

Dan Brennan at Faith Dance – Letting Go for a Greater Good

Elaine Hansen – Recovering Control Freak – Let Go?

Wendy McCaig at View From the Bridge - Embracing the Grey

Chris at The Amplified Life - Seasons of Life 

Kerri at Practicing Contemplative - Synchroblog 

Jeff Goins What You Get From Giving



[Book Review] Half The Church by Carolyn Custis James

April 5, 2011
book review, church and culture, social justice
22 Comments

Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women
By Carolyn Custis James
Zondervan Publishing
206 pages, including questions for discussion
Zondervan gave me a free copy to give away – leave a comment and I will use a urim and thummim to decide who gets it. :)

I see what you did there, Carolyn Custis James. I do hope it works.

I wanted to review this book because it addresses gender-based injustices, one of the things that I am most passionate about in life. The title Half the Church is derived from Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. For those who already care deeply about these issues, that book will be a better investment of time and money. For those who are new to these issues and are curious, Carolyn Custis James’ book can be a good and heartfelt starting place, but it is frustratingly incomplete in offering what is truly needed to find the author’s goal of “God’s vision for his daughters”.

The book was birthed from the author’s awakening to the brutal treatment and lifelong misery that is endured by a large portion of the world’s population simply because they are female. It contains some heart wrenching stories of wife burnings, beatings, forced prostitution and rapes, forced and under-aged marriage, selective abortion, human trafficking, and the fact of the paucity of resources spent on girls in a world that prefers sons, to name just a few. Perhaps to keep her readers from turning away in distaste, the author somewhat underplays the raw horror of these and other injustices. The very real statistics are gruesome. There is an estimated 200 million women missing from the world’s population due to the discrimination and abuse based solely on being born a girl.

Part of the author’s goal is to awaken the church to these brutal realities, and to challenge us to move on the behalf of the powerless and voiceless, living a gospel of action and deed as well as word. James shows herself to be very wise in understanding that the conservative Western church that she addresses has been somewhat resistant when it comes to social justice issues. She is also aware that it tends to see it itself as a unique entity which looks with suspicion upon anything that is new to their understanding of things, no matter how much good might come from it. James treads on delicate and controversial topics, particularly theological ones, with a light but forthright touch. She understands where that part of the church is coming from and what they can and cannot handle. She approaches them with a style and language that will not close their ears.

James does make a strong attempt at defining the “vision for God’s daughters” in addressing the word used to describe woman at her creation, eser, which means helper. Eser does not refer to an assistant or handmaiden, rather, it is a word that is used most often in the scriptures to describe God. James likens it to being a warrior, which is empowering and sheds broader insight on the purposes of the creation of woman beyond childbearing. She also offers a compelling portrait of the leadership capabilities and the positive impact of women in society. The gist of her scriptural studies is to call attention to the essential dignity of womankind, which is something that must be held as absolute if abuses against women are to ever be stopped.

This is a book that needs to be read between the lines. There are some things that cannot be said outright without losing your audience, in this case I believe, the conservative Christians with a complementarian view of women.  (For those unfamiliar with this word, it is the theological view that although men and women are created equal in their being and personhood, they are meant to complement each other through maintaining gender-based roles and a husband-headship structure in marriage.) If you step on their views it is likely that your voice will be discounted. As I have said, James deftly skirts around the major landmines, such as the concept of wifely submission. She hints that the traditional view of submission just might create selfishness in men when they believe that women are meant to “pretend that they are less than they are” in their relationships with men. She laments that women are prized for their willingness to give in and this way of thinking leans too heavily on just a few attributes instead of embracing the “full range of qualities that Jesus displayed”. It is a shrewd and subversive way to show that the way in which submissiveness is taught in these church circles could be just as bad as the low view of women in the more troubled places in the world.

At this point, James refuses to take a stand on either a complementarian or egalitarian view of women. I think I understand her reasons. To do so would mean that she would lose much of her audience, particularly those who are complementarian if she comes out as egalitarian, which I suspect she is or soon will be. (Honestly, moving towards egalitarianism is inevitable if one continues to be passionate about gender-based injustice issues as a Christian.) But James squirms out from under the issues with a quote that insists that no-one can know what the 1 Timothy 2 passage means (that is the passage that seems to say women may not teach or have authority over a man). Actually, there has been a great deal of respected scholarly work done around that passage and other passages dealing with women (such as Ephesians 5, the “submission” passage) that can lead to a life-giving and dignifying egalitarian interpretation. To not at least acknowledge that when addressing the serious issues at hand borders on being irresponsible.

When we bring ourselves to the scriptural text, our underlying assumptions and attitudes should be challenged, and the ways in which we cooperate with the abuses of our surrounding culture should be disrupted. James gives a too easy way out to those who perhaps inadvertently support a view of women that enables abuses from facing uncomfortable but necessary challenges to what they believe. Despite all her compelling words, this group will remain largely unchanged. It is simply heart breaking that the Christian message in this part of the church in regards to women is no different from that of the “world”.

Herein lies the greatest weakness of this book. Her refusal to take a stand belies the very core of her argument. For the belief that women are limited to certain roles, that their voices are not as important, welcome or trusted in all arenas (including teaching men) and that they are to be subservient to men continue to feed the lies and misogyny that keep gender-based injustices in place. James admits that at the core of injustice lies the issue of power. Complementarianism lays power squarely in the hands of men. In not addressing this issue adequately, she becomes an accomplice to the view in the world that women are to be controlled and ruled over, and therefore can be treated as chattel.

Certainly, some will be offended by a proclamation of an egalitarian interpretation of scripture and some will turn away. Yet, because James believes in eser as the essence of woman she should therefore act as eser, a warrior for a reading of the Bible text that could shed more light on “God’s vision for his daughters” that can help to release them from the very cruelties she disdains. Ultimately, she does address the problem of gender wars in the church and acknowledges that a higher view of women will foster a healthier view of men as well.  We all are in need of a masculine presence that can engage in genuine partnership with women and that is much healthier and stronger than that of those who must quiet the voice of woman in order to serve their own egos. However, there will be no ‘blessed alliance” between men and women as described by James without an honest look at the complicity of the church in the oppression of women.

To be sure, there is a time when it is best to be very gentle and prudent in speaking a potentially disruptive message. But the issues of gender-based injustices are very real and many lives hang in the balance. This is not the time to pander to those who worship their dogma over the preciousness of people. Yes, to take a stand means she will lose readers and perhaps speaking opportunities. Yes, Zondervan would lose readers as well. (And money. ‘Nuff said.) Even so, it is time to take a stand, Evangelical Christian publishing world. It is time to take a stand, Carolyn Custis James. To do any less is an outright betrayal of those who need you most.


My 3 cents on Rob Bell’s new book

March 18, 2011
Bookses!, conversations, Kingdom, Living Orthodoxy, real church, stuff to ponder, theology
2 Comments

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rob Bell.

Well, there’s nothing like a good controversy to increase blog posts and book sales! Like many, I am saddened by the way the controversy is being handled. I chose to blog about this because it hits at the heart of something very dear to me: the oneness of the Church. Many who haven’t read the book (and probably some of those who have) may assume that Bell argues for an easy universalism, a cheap devil-may-care-and-nothing-matters-because-we-all-get-in sort of thing, and that there is no hell. Not surprisingly, many are on the warpath and are drawing dividing lines. I am simply hoping that we may foster some respectful consideration of one another.

Just to catch everyone up, the gist of the book is that the ideas Bell addresses have more to do with the nature and heart of God himself and the belief that “God is reconciling all creation to Godself” and that there is good reason to believe that he will succeed at this (hence the title, “Love Wins”.) Hell is a place we create for ourselves as we continue to resist and reject the life that God offers. I believe that opens up the door to larger ideas to discuss than just cheap grace.

To sum up this blog post (tl;dr): Relax everyone, and listen to one another.

Please consider:

1. This is not new stuff. This topic has been under discussion for 2000 years. Debate amongst Christians is not new either. Plenty of important issues such as, what is the exact nature of the atonement and what is hell and who gets to go to heaven and what does it mean to be saved and even how do we decide who is in the church have been discussed and debated zillions of times. There remains plenty of disagreement and we have survived and God still loves us.

There was a time during the formation of the early church in which the Apostles and others needed to keep the tightest reign on “sound doctrine”. This was particularly focused on what was understood about Jesus and the essence of the Good News. I can imagine Jesus’ followers standing around scratching their heads after he ascended back into heaven thinking, “What on earth just happened?” The early church leaders recognized that preventing confusion and lies about big, core issues like Jesus’ divinity and his death and resurrection were crucial to the budding life of this new entity called the Church and to the Kingdom Jesus had spoken about. They had to guard things carefully. And for them, it was truly an issue about for what and whom they would be giving up their lives. That’s a tad different than “my theological camp is superior to yours.”

Beyond the basics about Jesus, there has been and will continue to be much debate and questioning and rethinking doctrinal ideas within our ranks, just as there has been for 2000 years. It’s ok. Let’s use it for good and not for evil.

2. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition. We no longer have to sentence someone who disagrees with us to death or cover them in honey and push them onto an ant hill. This is probably what is most distressing about this whole kerfluffle. Christians are treating those who disagree with their stance badly. They judge and demean and slander. They feel proud of their “correct” position, and use it as a measuring rod as if it means anything about themselves and their relationship with God.

I honestly do not believe that when we stand one day before Jesus he will look at us and say, “So, I am concerned about your stance on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. Tsk. Tsk.” Or, “Were you dispensationalist or reformed?” No, I think he will be more concerned about how we treated the brother or sister who thinks about things differently. That truly seemed to be more important to Him. Oneness comes from making space for one another, not demanding conformity. And it also seemed to be his desire about how we are to show up in this world. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Jn. 13:35 That sounds like evangelism to me.

3. Dialogue is good for us. I recall a seminary professor from years ago who told us to be careful what we read because “there’s a slippery slope”. In other words, do not read anything that disagrees with our theological stance for to do so is dangerous because you might actually be changed by it. Back then, I never thought to ask what was at the bottom of the slippery slope. Now that I am older and wiser I have visited the other end of the slope, and you know what? Jesus is there, too.

If we do not allow ourselves to seriously engage thoughts and ideas that are different from what we hold, we stagnate. We also begin to believe we have actually apprehended and captured Truth, as if it all fits in our puny human minds. It creates a subtle shift in belief – right doctrine begins to trump the Person who is the Source of it all. Those who seem to be holding the “there is no more truth to be found” line (especially the neo-Calvinists/Puritanists these days) seem to hint that to not agree with them means you follow a different Jesus. (Some don’t merely suggest it, they state it outright. Seriously guys, stop it.) Sometimes it is expressed that to disagree with them puts your eternal security and even the quality of your personal character in jeopardy. That’s a lot of faith to be placed in doctrine!  And it follows that the issues at hand would become dividing lines in the church.

I must add though, that as much as the neo-Calvinists frustrate me (but they won’t take my blog seriously anyway because I am a woman so I can say whatever I want – ha!), they are not the only ones guilty of dividing church and community over a doctrinal position.

Perhaps we can try to value one another over being right?

4. Don’t you wish this were true? Why would any Christian not want there to be a way for all to be saved and go to heaven? Why is there resistance to believing that the work of Jesus on the Cross and the redeeming love of God could be that powerful? What does this say about us?

I think it might reveal something about our own smallness of heart. Our sense of justice often has much more to do with retribution and spite than with the desire to see all things set right. Admit it, often we need the idea of hell in order to feel that those who have hurt us will pay. There is something in us still that gets a smug satisfaction from seeing those who have hurt us stuck outside while we get treated royally.

I count myself in here. I do not have a heart that can forgive without some struggle. I don’t know that anyone does, really. I need the help of God to forgive. But I am drawn to the idea that God can make my heart a big enough space to receive all who come with Him –a heart that might actually be able to tolerate heaven and the magnanimous mercy and grace that is its essence.

I am not saying I don’t believe in hell- quite the opposite actually. I’m just saying that what we think about hell may say much more about our own issues than about God.

5. Won’t this belief kill evangelism? Perhaps it will, if selling a free ticket to heaven is the only reason to evangelize and if that is the full extent of the Good News. If there is more, which I would argue there is, those who hearts are passionate for it will continue the work of evangelism.

There is plenty to do. There is a Kingdom to co-create and usher in. There are mountains to bring down and valleys to fill. There is outrageous love to be offered.  There are outcasts to befriend. The message as we do these things is the same: This is Jesus, Son of the Most High. Hear Him!

Our love for one another as we do these things just might shine a light on what he is like for others to see and embrace. Whether you believe God tortures non-believers forever and ever without end or if you believe God allows us to create a hell of our own choosing, there is still work to be done.

6. Let’s face it, all of our theology is a “bottom up” effort. Theology is the product of our good and necessary attempts to make some sense of the mysteries of God. However, the only lenses we have is to try to comprehend God are our tiny, foggy selves. Therefore, all of our theology will have something of ourselves projected onto God, even with the Spirit’s help. God doesn’t seem to be too disturbed by that, being accustomed to our cute arrogance. I often wonder if he feels similar to how I feel about my cat when she believes she has caught the laser pointer beam in her paw. Her concept of reality is too limited to know that it’s made of light waves and not matter and she can’t possible catch it. But I let her enjoy her victory for a moment – and then I move the pointer.

I don’t know about you, but I am hoping that my concept of God continues to grow and expand and with it, my theology. For each of us, may God continue to “move the pointer” out from under what we think we know so we don’t get caught up in the lesser things that divide us. (Lesser than Jesus, that is.) God is far more good and loving than we can imagine and may it never be that we think we have him all figured out. In that light, may we humbly choose each other over the arrogance of thinking we know anything.

[February Synchroblog] Christianity and Creativity: Why It Matters

February 8, 2011
church, conversations, generative Christianity, Living Orthodoxy, reflections, spirituality, Synchroblog
23 Comments

Years ago, I attended a church that avoided beauty. They met in a little white steepled building with a wood paneled arched ceiling within it that I just loved. However, the rest of the furnishings in there were worn and sparse, making it look like a forgotten and neglected room in an old house. I happened to mention to a friend once that the sanctuary would look so beautiful if it only had a carpet with a rich, deep color to set off the earthy tones of the wood. My remark was met with a terse, “It’s not that sort of church.”

Being new to the faith and having not yet discovered my own voice, I recoiled in embarrassment. I had obviously missed something important or perhaps I was engaging in the dreaded sins called lust of the eyes or the pride of life. I learned to believe that beauty was something that should be suspect, and that my love of beauty could be a character flaw. I learned to not trust my inner senses.

I have since come to understand that those church folks were simply afraid, for beauty can be a perilous thing. It sparks the imagination and moves it beyond safe boundaries, carrying the soul away with it to uncharted and unknown places. If we don’t protect ourselves, we become caught up in it, far beyond the mind and beyond the words in which we have always felt at home and so confident of what we know.

Many others have described to me their experiences of transcendent beauty, whether it be on a mountaintop in the Rockies or during a sunset on the beach. And so often, when they have described their sense of awe, wonder and encounter with sheer Presence, it was tamped down quickly by a well meaning Sunday School teacher who wanted to protect them from those new age-y ideas. Like my little church, they felt it best to keep this experience of beauty reined in.

However, an essay about creativity and Christianity is, in effect, an exploration of beauty. Beauty inhabits the cutting edge of creativity, says John O’Donohue. He proffers the idea that beauty speaks of things beyond words and rouses memories hidden in the depths of our hearts- memories of things both ancient and beyond time. Beauty reveals the wholeness and holy order of things. Beauty infuses our creative acts with meaning.

Frederick Turner adds that beauty enables us to go with, rather than against the deepest tendency or theme of our universe. It calls us back to something deeply ordered and good. In other words, beauty leads us to truth. It speaks of God. Therefore, the church is the right place to develop eyes for beauty; to learn to truly see. For in our relativistic world that is embroiled in either polarizing arguments or apathy in regards to what is good or true, beauty is able to transcend.

Beauty calls forth from our hearts the capacity to love and gives us sight to find the sacred anywhere on earth. It sees beyond exteriors, even the loveliest ones that tempt us to get caught in measuring a person’s worth by their physical attractiveness or charisma. It also sees beyond off-putting exteriors and actions that offend those who only have eyes to see failure or sin. O’Donohue says that beauty creates in us a reverence of approach for each other. Beauty does not allow us to see a mere human being. Instead, it gives us eyes to see sacred space, a container of the Holy in the other. We are led to draw near to one another with quiet astonishment.

Beauty gives us eyes to see God in the most distressing of disguises. Years ago there was a huge kerfluffle about Andre Serrano’s photograph, “Piss Christ.” It is a disturbing portrait of a plastic crucifix submerged in a vial of the artist’s own urine. Many people were deeply offended at this, feeling that the photo was an act of blasphemy. It became a prompt for all kinds of philosophical arguments and meanderings.

I cannot say what was in the mind of the artist when he made it. But my first reaction was “Oh my, he got it.” For isn’t this idea the essence of the gospel? On the cross Jesus submerged himself into the depths of what is dirtiest and darkest about us, plunging into our refuse, our shame. The unabashed and unhesitating descent of God into our garbage is love in its most powerful manifestation. The cross is that scandalous and it is that beautiful. Typically, our religious eyes want to claim only what is most clean and acceptable as a fitting receptacle for God. Yet God came not for those who are already well, but for those who are in most need of healing. Eyes for beauty will illuminate the presence of God in those whom we are very certain are offensive to him. Eyes for beauty may also help us to see God in ourselves.

What is probably most surprising about beauty is that it is enhanced by flaws. O’Donohue says that the beauty that emerges from woundedness is a “beauty infused with feeling; a beauty different from the beauty of landscape and the cold beauty of perfect form.” This sort of beauty can compel us to cross the threshold of our separate selves into the experience of another in the form of compassion. It is the beginning of healing in the world. Some of the most amazing gifts in my life are my friends who are lifelong members of alcoholics anonymous. They trod along day by day, trading their thirst for the vine into thirst for the divine, carrying each other’s burdens and teaching the rest of us how to do it as well. Their lives have taken on a lovely Eucharistic shape. They exude beauty in a way that too few may ever understand.

Beauty illuminates the gospel story. It reminds us that the gospel is not a piece of theological doctrine to be apprehended, but a love story that tells of God breaking down walls of separation and then joining together God and man, heaven and earth, neighbor and enemy. Beauty “mediates between the known and unknown, light and darkness, masculine and feminine, visible and invisible, chaos and meaning, self and others.” Beauty transforms.

Ultimately, the question we must ask is not what is beauty, but who is beauty. I think it is right to say that God is beauty. To quote O’Donohue one more time, “When we claim that God is beauty, we are claiming for beauty all the adventure, mystery, infinity and autonomy of divine who-ness. Beauty is the inconceivable made so intimate, that it illuminates our hearts.”

Amen, church. Teach us to see.

* * * * * * * * *
Links to Synchrobloggers below. More will be added as they come in!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 196 other followers