Just a few scattered and questioning thoughts regarding a couple of statements that are treated as truisms within certain contemporary Christian circles.
First truism: ‘God loves everybody equally.’
Is this really true?  Doesn’t it seem a little suspicious that this statement is one that is repeated ad nauseum by Christians who are well-situated in places of comfort and privilege within predatory and death-dealing societies?
So, even if this statement is true, shouldn’t we instead be emphasising that God’s love is one that calls the oppressed to liberation and the oppressors to repentance?  Isn’t it a little irresponsible and self-serving to neglect to mention that God’s love calls us to particular historical actions and ways of being?  Doesn’t this mean that, for those Christians mentioned above, it might be better to say: “God loves you, but God sure as hell hates what you are doing with your life”?
Second truism: “All sins are equal in God’s eyes.”
Is this a true statement?  Does it really reflect the way in which God engages sin within the biblical narrative?  In actuality doesn’t the biblical story show us that God thinks some actions are far worse than others?  After all, to pick just one example, doesn’t God permit drunkenness amongst the poor, while simultaneously condemning the wealthy who spend their money on booze instead on sharing their wealth with others?
Once again, isn’t it a little suspicious that this sort of thinking is popular amongst Western Christians of status and privilege?  Given that almost all areas of their lives are saturated with the blood of others, shouldn’t we think twice before we believe them when they tell us that ‘all sins are equal in God’s eyes’?

[At the ‘Amidst the Powers’ conference, I was invited to issue a five minute response to Stanley Hauerwas’ plenary, which was on the topic of war, its concomitant sacrifices, and the Christian alternative.  This is what I said.]

First, of all let me say thank-you to the organizers of this conference for providing me with the opportunity to respond to Dr. Hauerwas. Secondly, let me say thank-you to Dr. Hauerwas himself for presenting us with a lecture that honestly confronts the realities of our war-torn world, from the perspective of the Christian faith.

As I find myself largely in agreement with what Dr. Hauerwas has said, I would like to spend the bulk of my response proposing one possible way of filling out his understanding of how the existence and worship of the Church brings an end to war. I would like to propose that embodying God’s preferential option for and with the poor is a practice that reforms the habits of our imagination and offers us the moral equivalent of war, so that war becomes superfluous to the narration of our life together.

However, before I pursue this thesis, I feel that it might be useful to emphasise that Dr. Hauerwas’ remarks are just as relevant to those of us who live in Canada as they are to citizens of the United States. It is important to emphasise this point because, ever since Lester B. Pearson, Canadians have tended to view their international military exercises not as acts of war but as an essential element of peacekeeping. Thus, while we may view the US as a war-mongering nation, we have tended to view ourselves as a peace-loving people, engaging in peace-building activities around the world. Unfortunately, this view is entirely false. As has been well-documented by independent journalists, media critics, and various non-governmental organizations, the language of ‘peacekeeping’ is all too often an ideological gloss used by the Canadian government to disguise overt acts of aggression and war. Thus, for example, in 2004 when Canada was instrumental in overthrowing the democratically elected Haitian government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (in order to continue a brutal class war against the people of Haiti) operation “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) was created and Canadian soldiers were sent in with a UN peacekeeping force. Now “Responsibility to Protect” sounds a great deal more admirable than operations like “Desert Storm” or “Shock and Awe” but the actions taken and the end results are the same. The same should be noted of other Canadian military exercises – from the Balkans to the Horn of Africa, our so-called peacekeepers have have been used to exploit local conflicts in order to advance the interests of the Canadian government and various transnational corporations. These are the same interests that Canadian forces are serving in Afghanistan today. Therefore, when we residents of Canada listen to Dr. Hauerwas speak of the moral practice of war, we should be looking at ourselves and not at our neighbours to the South.

Having said that, I return to my suggestion that embodying the preferential option for and with the poor is the way in which the worship of the Church puts an end to war. Dr. Hauerwas has argued that the worshipping Church, existing as a social ethic, offers us an alternative to war and its concomitant sacrifices. This, I think, is an excellent point to make, but we must ask ourselves: how does the Church exist in this way? This is a question Dr. Hauerwas does not address in much detail, although he does touch upon the importance of being shaped by the liturgy and of living in a manner that is consistent with participation in the Eucharist. Again, another important point to make, but without filling out the concrete details of what it might look like to be shaped by the liturgy in general, and the Eucharist in particular, we risk continuing to live inadvertently contradictory and compartmentalised lives. Thus, while I’m sure that Dr. Hauerwas does not wish to divorce the spectacular from the real, or the spiritual from the political, the manner in which he addresses this topic risks allowing the listener to engage in this divorce and think that he or she is acting as an agent of peace by partaking of the body of Christ on Sunday – even though he or she goes on to support acts of war and violence simply by participating in middle-class life from Monday to Saturday – for war is not simply a force that gives us meaning, amongst other things it gives us the stolen resources and the bloodied but cheap goods upon which our daily lives depend.

Therefore, I would like to fill out Dr. Hauerwas’ conception of the worshipping Church as a social ethic be making explicit that this requires members of the Church to embody God’s preferential option with the poor. This, after all, is what true catholicity requires – the unity of the Church only takes place when the confessing members of Christ’s body (the churches) are united with the crucified members of Christ’s body (the poor). It is in this practice of concrete economic and political solidarity that the Church comes to embody a moral practice that is equal to the compelling, fascinating, and perversely beautiful moral practice of war.

Now there are many stories I could tell to illustrate this thesis – I could speak of acting as a human shield in front of a young drug dealer and the gunman hired to kill him, of giving the clothes off my back to a woman who was stripped naked by her pimp, of hosting sex workers at our home for dinner, and of allowing an old bank robber to find sanctuary on our couch – and all these things would try to express the intimate bond created amongst those who pursue this trajectory, not to mention the passion, beauty, and genuinely cruciform sacrifice to be found in such people and places. However, much like war veterans mentioned by Dr. Hauerwas, those who try to live this way, often find it difficult to speak of their experiences in normal, even Christian, communities. Such stories are too alien, too easily romanticised and perverted by both the teller and the listener, to mean much to those who do not share in them. Indeed, I suspect that the listener only comes to know the compelling nature of such stories, when he or she chooses to move into those narratives and personally embody them.

Therefore, I believe that Dr. Hauerwas’ plenary needs to be complimented with an invitation – come, taste and see that the Lord is good and to be found in the company of ‘the least of these’. For I know this much to be true: members of the Church cannot come to the table of the crucified Christ if they are not also sharing a table with the crucified people of today. To try and do so is, as Paul says, to eat and drink judgment upon ourselves.

Thank you very much.

Congratulations to Ian, the winner of last weeks ‘Biblical Studies’ book giveaway!  This week, the theme of the book giveaway is social and political commentary — as per usual, the winner will be selected at random.  Here are the books that are up for grabs:

• Two by Noam Chomsky, What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World and Profit Over People: neoliberalism and the global order;
• Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations by Michael Walzer;
• Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Unclear Age by Frank Furedi;
• The Globalization of Nothing by George Ritzer.

First of all, congratulations to Josh Chin, winner of last weeks Emergent giveaway.  This week, as we continue to celebrate the birth of Charles (by spreading the love), the theme of the books being given away is ‘Biblical Studies’.  The books included are:

• Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey by Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough;
• The New Testament: An Introduction by Norman Perrin;
• New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors by Gordon D. Fee;
• The Cross of Christ by John R. W. Stott;
• Old Testament Exegesis: A Primer for Students and Pastors by Douglas Stuart;
• Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries) by Derek Kidner.

I should conclude with a reminder and a clarification.  The reminder is that all of these books are used and most contain at least some markings made by prior readers.  The clarification is that only those who are interested in receiving all of the books mentioned will be included in the draw (this saves me hassle and money on postage).

As a part of celebrating the birth of my son Charles, I will be doing a series of weekly themed book giveaways.  If you want to receive the books mentioned just leave a comment to let me know, and the winner will be randomly selected.  Each week’s winner will be announced the following week when I post the next set of books to be given away.  Also note that all of these books come from my own collection and may contain some (usually minimal) markings in the margins and the body of the text.
That said, the theme of this week’s giveaway is the Emergent church and the books are:

• Brian McLaren’s ‘New Kind of Christian’ Trilogy (A New Kind of Christian; The Story We Find Ourselves In; & The Last Word and the Word After That);
• Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile by Rob Bell & Dan Golden;
• The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics by Stan Grenz.

Last night my wife gave birth to our first child.  Turns out that he is a boy.  Charles.  He is healthy and well, and weighed in at seven pounds, two ounces.  Mom is also healthy, after labouring for 18hrs.  We did a home water birth with the assistance of a few midwives, a friend, and my mother.
I have never felt anything like the way I feel now.  I have never felt happier.  I have never felt more at peace.  I have never felt more in love.  It’s indescribable.

Discussed in this series: Christopher J. H Wright, The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008).

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Introduction

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Christopher Wright’s latest book, The God I Don’t Understand, is an exploration of some of the ‘tough questions’ that confront those who confess the Christian faith and affirm the Bible, along with the God portrayed therein. Four focal points are chosen: questions related to evil and suffering, questions related to the divinely sanctioned slaughter of the Canaanites, questions related to the cross of Jesus, and questions related to the ‘end of the world’.

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Within this post I will first review Wright’s introductory remarks. I will then post some of my own thoughts regarding what Wright has written. Finally, I will post some thoughts from my brother Judah, whom I have invited to participate in this dicussion, and he will respond to both Wright and myself. This will be the pattern employed for the entire series, except at the end, when I will also respond to the whole of Judah’s remarks, and then allow him to respond one more time and conclude the series (NB: Judah will only be responding to a reading of my summary and comments, and not to a reading of primary text).

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For those who do not know Judah, I have invited him to respond for several reasons. First of all, he is a thoughtful and compassionate fellow with experience in both the academy (he received a Master’s degree in Restorative Justice under the supervision of Howard Zehr and is teaching part-time at a University in Ontario) and in social services, where, amongst other things, he has spent some years working in support circles for perpetrators and survivors of sexual violence both within his local community and within Canadian prisons. Secondly, I have invited Judah to participate in this dialogue because, although he has previously identified as a Christian, he no longer professes the Christian faith. Therefore, I think that Judah brings a doubly valuable perspective to the questions before us. On the one hand, he brings an ‘outsider’ perspective to the discussion – one that is essential for a genuinely honest confrontation with the questions under discussion. After all, despite our best efforts to remain objective, Christians are all too easily influenced by the to vindicate their faith (and their God!) and it often takes an outsider perspective to demonstrate how superficial or self-serving even our best efforts can be. On the other hand, he also brings the perspective of a former ‘insider’, and is, therefore, able to easily follow the discussion without confusion related to the terms employed, the events described, the overview of the Christian faith, and so on. Thirdly, I have invited Judah to this dialogue because I am tired of listening about confrontations between so-called ‘militant atheists’ and so-called ‘Christian apologists’ (don’t be fooled – this is just an ideological term for militant theists!) that are, for the most part, lacking in acts of genuineness openness to the other (each party comes with foregone conclusions), charity (each party is bent on destroying the other), and affection (each party views the other as an opponent). Consequently, I hope that the dialogue between Judah and I will demonstrate that openness, charity, and affection do not not have to be absent in frank discussions related to core questions and fundamental disagreements.

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Okay, then, on to the book.

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Summary: Preface & Introduction

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What becomes immediately apparent when one enters into Wright’s book is the tone which he employs to address the matters at hand. While many other Christians have approached the ‘tough questions of faith’ with self-serving pat answers or some sort of bravado that refuses to either genuinely listen to contradictory voices or plumb the depths of the problem, Wright enters into the discussion with the intention of being both honest and humble, confessing that some, or all, of these questions might not actually have any clear-cut answers available to us here and now. This, then, explains the title of Wright’s book, which differs from a good many apologetic efforts in speaking of a God the author does not undestand… instead of speaking of a God that the author has got all figured out! Of course, Wright explores these themes as a confessing Christian, and as a person who claims to both know and trust the Christian God, but he recognises that ‘knowing and trusting does not necessarily add up to understanding’ (13).

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Significantly, Wright highlights the observation that his lack of understanding takes various forms. Thus, there are things that he does not understand about God that leave him angry and grieved (like the reality of evil), things that he does not understand about God that leave him morally disturbed (like the story of the conquest of Canaan), things he does not understand about God that leave him puzzled (like stories related to the so-called ‘end of the world’) and things that he does not understand about God that cause him to be filled with gratitude and hope (like the cross).

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While highlighting that this absence of understanding is one that is reflected back at the contemporary Christian – both in the bible and in a good many hymns – Wright ultimately takes Psalm 73 as his guide for how he approaches these issues. Wright notes that Psalm 73 ‘begins by affirming the essential faith of Israel’ and only after doing this goes on to express profound anguish over the apparent moral and spiritual inversion that the author (like us) can see all around him’ (22). However, even in this outcry, the psalmist does two things. First of all, he is cautious to not carelessly broadcast his concerns, lest he unsettle the faith of others (Wright refers to this as the establishment of a ‘proper pastoral limit to the voicing of protest, and he seeks not to transgress this limit). Secondly, the psalmist engages in his protest within the context of worship which, without changing the harsh realities of the present, does infuse worshippers with ‘a transforming expectation from the future that is both sobering and comforting’ (23). Thus, within this context, the psalmist moves from faith, through protest, to a renewed faith. Wright, then, tries to take the reader down a similar road. He writes:

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In seeking to be honest and realistic, I do not want to upset further the faith of those already disturbed. Rather, I want us to face up to the limitations of our understanding and to acknowledge the pain and grief this can often cause. But at the same time, I want us to be able to say, with this psalmist (73:28), “But that’s all right. God is ultimately in charge and I can trust him to put things right. Meanwhile I will stay near to God, make him my refuge, and go on telling of his deeds” (23).

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Thus, Wright notes how his faith, his location, and his pastoral concerns impact and limit what he does and does not say about the matters under discussion. However, his view of these limits is one that appears to be positive—they are portrayed as both necessary and appropriate.

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Dan’s Response

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There isn’t too much that I want to say in response at this point. I have already highlighted Wright’s humble tone and I am glad to see a Christian writer who is trying to encounter reality-as-it-is without immediately fleeing into comforting or self-serving obfuscations.

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That said, there are two issues I would like to raise. First, it is worth asking ourselves how Wright’s particular context and commitments – writing as he does as a Christian rooted within the community of faith, and operating with the a priori assumption that God is in control and will make everything right in the end – do or do not facilitate his encounter with reality-as-it-is. That is to say, while I do not want to take away from the importance the Christian community plays in the formation of a Christian’s identity and paradigms, I would also want to stress the importance of being rooted in other places, especially when it comes to the questions under discussion in this book. So, while Wright wishes to explore these questions within a community of god-worshipping people, I would suggest that there is great value to be found in exploring these questions within a community of (apparently) godforsaken people. Thus, for example, in exploring the crucifixion of Jesus, let us not only do so in the company of those who meditate upon the crucifix, let us also ensure that we do so in the company of those who are crucified today. Of course, one does not always need to choose between these various communities; rather, one should strive to be rooted in both places simultaneously. For, as much as being within a faith community can sharpen our vision, solely privileging our rootedness within that community can also warp our vision (if, for example, we lose track of the fact that our particular faith community is also a community of, say, conservative middle-class white folk – for every community is a combination of religious, economic, political, ethnic, and other factors that need to be explicated and often challenged).

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To return, then, to Wright’s particular context, commitments, and a priori assumptions, my concern becomes that Wright is limiting himself to a group that is, oddly enough, both too narrow and too vague. On the one hand, by writing as a Christian, with Christians, to Christians, the perspective on the topics under discussion risks becoming too narrow because it neglects the riches that are to be found when we begin to ask these questions in other places, and in solidarity with people with other commitments – say with Native Americans who survived the traumas of Christian residential schools, or say with the philosophy of a Sartre, the stories of a Camus, and so on. We must ask ourselves: when we a priori accept that God is in control, and that everything will work out in the end, how much are we capable of genuinely plumbing the depths of these questions? If we are responding to evil and suffering by saying, as Wright does, ‘But that’s all right…’ how much are we genuinely opening ourselves to the stark reality of these things? So, to be clear, my concern at this point is not that Wright is discussing these things from a Christian perspective – after all, I too am writing from a Christian perspective; rather, my concern is that Wright is too narrowly limited to only a Christian perspective.

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On the other hand, the approach taken by Wright is also too vague in that it fails to account for the ways in which our Christianity, and our responses to the questions at hand, are conditioned by the economic, ethnic, and socio-political factors mentioned above. Of course, having read some of Wright’s other works (notably, in this regard, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God), I know that he is aware of these factors and has engaged them in a way that I admire… it’s just that I would like to have seen these things dealt with more directly here as well.

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The second issue I would like to raise is Wright’s pastoral concern not to deeply unsettle the faith of others or ‘upset further the faith of those already disturbed’. Now, I’m no pastor, but on this point I find that I completely disagree with Wright. It seems to me that one of the grievous problems with Christianity in our context is precisely how settled and undisturbed it is both by the God of the bible and by the world around us. Consequently, I think that faith – if it is to be genuine, take root, and lead to action that anticipates God’s reconciling new creation of all things – needs to be unsettled, disturbed, and thrown into crisis. Thus, unlike Wright, I do not think we should place any limits upon our protests and our outcry. Indeed, unless we have been confronted with such a cry, I do not know how we can determine if our faith is real. After all, the unfiltered, unconstrained cry of another shatters all the is illusory about my faith, and reveals whether or not my faith has any reason to remain. So, for example, I may think that an appropriate conclusion regarding evil and suffering is ‘That’s all right, because God is in control…’ until I try to say this as a way of comforting a homeless girl who was recently gang-raped and she responds to these words with an unfiltered cry. Then I quickly realise that this is actually a horrible thing to say both because there is nothing ‘all right’ about gang-rape and because asserting that God is in control is a way of telling the survivor that God permitted her to be raped. Consequently, returning to Wright, I cannot help but wonder if his pastoral sensitivity simply ends up maintaining the sort of faith that is illusory and damaging to those who have been thrown into the depths of the cry. (Of course, to be fair to Wright, we have not yet explored what he has to say about evil and suffering, and the great sensitivity he demonstrates in that exploration, but it is worth highlighting this quotation because it reveals where Wright wishes to lead the reader, and the assumption out of which he is writing.)

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Judah’s Response

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Hey Everyone – I’ve finally made it onto Dan’s blog, as a writer. Look out! Here’s my chance! Dan, along with my other 2 brothers, is one of my favourite people. We did just recently have an alcohol-fueled argument that degenerated into name-calling (on my part), but we love each other all the more for it (right, Dan?). He’s younger than me yet in so many ways he is much older and wiser, having taken on a lot of shit at a young age and continuing to do so throughout his adult life.

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I did stop reading his blog for a while though. For a time, it started to feel like the same old fundamentalist bullshit, but instead of asking Jesus into my heart I had to ask the poor into my home. Both things I’m not really prepared to do. Especially the Jesus one. Anyhow, I’ve started to read it again in the past few months and think that Dan is starting to adopt a bit of a softer, more patient tone with people….according to me anyways.

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As to Wright’s writing, I haven’t read it but I have a few thoughts based on Dan’s summary and response.

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(1) I agree with Dan as to the ‘that’s all right I can trust God’ comment made by Wright. No, in my opinion suffering and evil is not all right and I wouldn’t be willing to attach that kind of a statement to it.

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(2) Secondly, I personally am not willing to trust or wait for a god to work things out. If there is a god – he, she, it (I’m very tired of most xian others referring to god as a man) – seems to be totally absent and uninterested in human suffering or doing anything about it. Human beings have the ability and potential to wreak a lot of havoc, but even more so, the capacity to take care of each other. So, rather than wait for ‘god’ I’d like to see humans – xians, jews, muslims, hindus, buddhists, satanists, secularists, atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, etc, etc – band together more and do something about suffering and evil. I’m not willing to resign myself like Wright appears to suggest.

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(3) I also agree with Dan (this ain’t turning into too much of a debate) that his comment about being pastoral (when it comes to the ‘tough’ questions) is not healthy for Christians. Further, I would say it is condescending – as if he, or others like him, are the strong in the faith and they are the only ones who are allowed to truly wrestle with the most difficult questions. What’s he scared of?

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(4) I like his emphasis on not understanding…very refreshing!

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(5) This is fun – thanks for the invite Dan.

There have been a lot of memes thrown out there, but I thought I’d try something a little different.  In this meme, I invite any and everybody to share three doubts that they have, but try to hide or suppress.  So, even though this meme requires a little vulnerability, do feel free to add your own doubts to the comments section, or to your own blog.  Here are my three:
(1) Sometimes I doubt it all.  Sometimes I doubt what I have taken to be my prior and current encounters with God and wonder if they were something altogether different (manipulated experiences, emotional breakdowns, whatever).  Sometimes I wonder if I’m entirely wrong about this loving God person, because things are so horribly fucked and have been so horribly fucked for a long time.
(2) Sometimes I doubt the idea that any of us can ever be truly healed from our deepest wounds… at least here and now.  Sometimes I think that all we can do is learn to repress them, ignore them, and lie to ourselves about them… because even when I’ve thought my oldest and deepest wounds had covered over, I discover that they still split open at unexpected moments.  I’ve also witnessed this same thing in a lot of other people.
(3) Sometimes I doubt my ability to honestly encounter myself, let alone the world around me.  This, then ties into the last two doubts mentioned: (1) I might be wrong about it all, because I might be lying to myself about it all; (2) and I might be wrong about my wounds healing over, because I lie to myself about myself.  That is to say, sometimes I wonder if I have become so adept at deceiving others about myself, that I’ve lost track of the spots where I was being deceptive and the spots where I was being honest.  So, once you becomes encapsulated within an illusory projection of yourself, how do you get out?  Can you?  Sometimes I doubt it.

For some time, I’ve been thinking about writing a post arguing that the fundamental crisis of being, in our culture at this moment of history, is that of meaning.  Specifically, how we are no longer certain, and no longer know how to be certain, that anything, or any of us, have any fundamental meaning, significance, or value.
Tonight I sat down to write this post and let my mind dive into this crisis, seeking to face it personally (as it has been a crisis that has been weighing on me more and more over the last six months), while also trying to root it in it’s particular socio-historical context, and so on.  However, as I was writing, it struck me more and more powerfully as to how this crisis of meaning is related to one’s rootedness within the milieu of the bourgeois, the wealthy, the comfortable, and the privileged.  That is to say, for the vast majority of people in history, and even in the world today, the fundamental crisis of being isn’t meaning — it’s survival.  The crisis of being, for most members of humanity, is that one is unlikely to continue to be for much longer.  The crisis is not having any food to eat, not having clean water to drink, not having an immune system that functions properly, and so on and so forth.
Consequently, I became so ashamed of myself and my crisis of meaning, that I couldn’t bring myself to finish my original post.  Instead, I wrote this.