This is why theologians get paid the big money [insert ironic chuckle here].

We are supposed to know what is going to happen when we die and why.

Let me be straight up and, on behalf of a whole bunch of us, say: We don’t. For sure. We have hunches, we have hopes, we have hints, but we don’t really, really know.

It’s tricky, right? There are texts that can really scare the dickens out of a person. Take a look at the one you mention: Hebrews 10:26-31.

And why stop there?

Matthew 7:13, Luke 16:26, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Revelation 20:13-15 all can be cause for deep fear and even despair….and there are a lot more where these came from.

Of course, other texts aren’t so frightening, and actually suggest a wider door.

1 Tim. 2:6, 1 Cor. 15:22, Romans 5:17, Col. 1:20, 1 John 2:2.

Of course, each of these texts are bound to the verses before and after it, and bound by the author’s historical context, and many can be interpreted a number of ways.

My point here is that the Bible (in the cases listed above, the New Testament) isn’t as monolithic as one might believe.

Not that it is a huge surprise for those who read my blogs carefully, but I am of the mind that the question of what happens after we die is largely a theological question, and that in the end, we have to humbly say that we don’t know…and that we will not be paralyzed by that notion.

The way in which you phrase your thoughts, however, raises some interesting questions. You begin by saying that “If we are saved by God’s grace….” and close by wondering if we can “fall short of God’s grace.”

My immediate thought is, saved from what?

My second thought is, what is grace?

And my first answer to the first thought is, sin.

And my first answer to the second thought is, the gift of something undeserved.

And so two theological questions:

If we really believe that God offers grace (an undeserved gift) to we who sin (namely we who reject God in favor of something else) then:

1. isn’t the demand to repent, to stop the sin, to pray, etc…..aren’t these all acts to make us deserving of grace? And along side of that (this doesn’t cut into my two questions, btw! ), then what is grace, really? Can we fall short of something we don’t deserve in the first place?

2. Who doesn’t sin, and (again, still part of the same question!) who is aware of all the ways in which one sins? Is it ever possible to confess and repent of all our sins?

These are just beginning questions. Then begins a whole run of ‘em.

Like,

Are all sins choices, or could there be sinful behaviors which are bound up in mental illness, in fatigue, in family systems?

Do we really want to say that only Christians are going to heaven…and does even Scripture make that case?

Is this a slippery slope to universalism?

And if “all people get into heaven,” then what’s the point of believing?

Ah, but then there are counter-questions:

Like, if a person believes to get into heaven, isn’t the integrity and authenticity of the belief self-serving, since it appears to be motivated by a protecting one’s own eternal hiney?

When does one believe “enough” to be in God’s good graces?

Is there anyone who is purely good? And even if not entirely good, are there parts of people which are fundamentally good, and then are those parts not in need of salvation….and what would that mean?

But don’t good deeds matter somehow?

And yet if we say that they do, then don’t we say that we in part can save ourselves?

And what happens if we’ve lived a pretty good life, and in the moment that we allow ourselves to wonder these sorts of things, get hit by a car? What is going to be God’s final answer?

Regardless of how one comes down on the question of heaven/hell, salvation/damnation, this much is safe to assert is true:

If one says that they believe in God, then there are implications for how they live their lives, for the choices that they make.

We all mess up, sometime quite gloriously, even those who say that they–and in fact really do–believe.

There’s a reason why we have the word “grace,” in other words. We need it.

But generally, if one says that something is core to who they are, then they live life consistent to that notion: not to get something, but because they can’t help but to live in such a fashion.

I tell my husband that I love him not to get him to love me, but because I love him. I play with my kidlets not to get them to respect me, but because I adore them.

Actions are an expression, in other words.

And let it not be missed that some of the most life-giving people are those who are not connected to any one particular religious tradition.

So the point is not to “diss” confessing and repenting and praying and discerning what is faithful and striving to live accordingly.

The point is to rather raise the question about whether these are pre-reqs for salvation…and if we answer that they are, well….who doesn’t fall short of that?

It’s all clear…as mud.

Peace,

Anna

God continues in the passage to describe Himself in relationship to mankind as the “God of your fathers”, etc. It would be nice to better understand what God meant (or Moses’s interpretation) of that event.

________________________

Wowza. There’s something to keep a mind moving in the morning.

In short, in Exodus 3:13 and following, God lets God’s name slip. YHWH.

But the name YHWH has been keeping people awake ever since, and apparently you too have maybe lost a few minutes wrangling with it.

Why YHWH? What does that mean?

Bernhard Anderson, Old Testament theologian, calls this text “one of the most cryptic passages in the Old Testament.”

I’d add that to your fantastic adjective “expansive!”

To Moses’ “simple” question, God offers three responses.

1. “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be;”

2. “I am;”

3. “The God of your ancestors…”

We have been terribly interested in this “be-ing” piece, this name that in Hebrew is rendered YHWH.

The first person form of the Hebrew word for the verb “to be” is ‘ehyeh. In Hebrew, it would be spelled (transliterated into English now of course!) HYH, namely “I am.” The third person form of this verb (namely “he is”) is YHWH.

Anderson lays out three different ways of thinking through this odd choice of a name, and I’ll lay them out in turn. (All of the following is found in Understanding the Old Testament, 4th Edition, p. 60 and following).

1. One line of thinking puts out there that originally in the text, the word was based on the Hebrew verb for “cause to be,” as in “He makes things happen.” In other words, in the context of the text, it reads, “I bring things into being.” This works nicely grammatically and theologically, if the agenda were to make the case that God was the creator of all things. Martin Noth notes that the “to be” verb used here does not imply merely “existing,” but rather active being, movement. (Exodus: A Commentary, 1962, p. 45).

2. Another theory is that YWHW should be understood simply as “I am.” Some, says Anderson, don’t particularly like this approach, because the idea of thinking about God in some eternal sort of way wasn’t really an issue for the ancient Israelites; it’s actually more of a Greek concern.

That said, the Israelites were concerned about developing an idea about God who was, is, and will continue to be involved in history. Another twist on this approach maintains that the point is that YHWH is, rather than other gods. Anderson quotes R. de Vaux who wrote that the implication here is that YHWH “is the only one who exists for Israel.”

3. Last is the idea that the name means “I will be,” in a future-bound sort of way. Here is a sense of comfort and promise. Moses will not be going forth alone, but rather with God, and the Israelites will not be left alone, but will be with God. As Anderson writes, “…the divine name signifies God, whose being is turned toward the people, who is present in their midst as deliverer, guide, and judge, and who is accessible in worship.”

That said, the text suggests that God is not 100% sure that it’s a good idea to reveal the divine name, for fear that people will try and use it for their own purposes. Think, for a moment, of how wars, church battles, justifications for personal deeds, are engaged with the assumption that “God is on my side.” So the interpretation above implies that God retains control of God’s identity, as in, “I will be whom I will be, not whom you want me to be.”

Still, once you know the name of someone, you can be in relationship. A name can be said in gentleness, love, anger, rejection, consolation, jest. With this in mind, that God offered YHWH suggests God’s willingness to be vulnerable and accessible. In other words, not only the name is of interest here, but the very offering of the name is too. See Terrance Frethiem here, in Interpretation: Exodus, pp. 64 and following.

Much more could be said regarding the name YHWH. Anderson concedes that the “honest truth is that we do not know for sure the source from which Moses received the name Yahweh.” That said, he goes on, the most important matter is what the name meant to early Israel. Here, it seems as if the name YHWH was bound up with the Exodus event, a God who, to quote Exodus 20:2, “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

To that degree, the name YHWH could continue to have relevance for those who call still upon that name. God continues to be, to be creative, to be involved, and to bring new things into being.

That’s what it was like to be in Germany.

Europe illuminates a part of me that is otherwise not seen, sometimes even by myself.

Kathleen Norris writes about the notion of “Spiritual Geography,” this idea that a person is shaped not only by people and events, but also by place.

I imagine that implicitly, we know this to be true, but that we’re not often called to think on it, because we don’t often leave places of familiarity.

When I first arrived in Germany in 1999, every night, for many, many nights, I was exhausted, physically tuckered out by thinking in, reading in, writing in, speaking in, dreaming in, German.

Clearly that part of my brain, that part that concerns itself with new language, was weak, out-of-shape, ignored.

And it needed rest to meet the new day.

That experience, by the way, consoles me as I look at my sweet boy Karl, who tires so easily (and is sleeping beside me this very moment) because his brain is engaging in mental Pilates every moment of every day.

Returning to that place, however, I found myself in a home that I never would have known that I had, had I not made the strange choice to sell all that I owned (or store it with my parents, God bless them) and move to a foreign land with a foreign language and foreign ways.

Suddenly, this last trip, I realized that the foreign had become the familiar.

Now, this is not to say that I am enamored with all that is German, with all due respect to that fine land.

Customer service?

Often enough, I found myself missing the idea of a Wal-Mart Greeter–and I never even shop there!

Heightened formality?

I ought to, but don’t, do hierarchy so very well.

Lots of people in little space?

This introvert yearned for open prairie.

But that said, savoring extended meals outside with the background music of contented conversation–and even accordions, which generally make me want to curl up in the fetal position and weep?

Insert longing sigh of satisfaction.

Progressive medical care available to all?

Humaneness in action.

Raising children with the collective agenda to appreciate and respect nature’s wonders?

Isn’t that how it should be?

And the tangible history of thousands of years can’t help but remind a soul that they are not alone in time or space.

With that, the soul becomes acquainted with the past, and the present, and the future–and itself–in profound ways.

My point isn’t that you need to see the the familiar land only in the rearview mirror.

My point, vis-a-vis this evening’s blog, is that if one only lives “safely” by never venturing forth, never challenging the known, never availing oneself to the possibilities that newness extends, never considering that one might be wrong, one might never realize that home still has the light on a bit further on down the road…or at the very least, there are some souvenirs to be had to adorn your homey mantel.

Engaging new thoughts about God, truly “pondering anew, what the Almighty can do,” tends to exercise a part of the brain somewhat content with not moving particularly much.

And the process is exhausting, and somewhat scary, just like our first many days in Germany. Just like it is for Karlchen.

However, one has the distinct possibility of discovering a home one never knew one had. Who knew that there is an active–and fruitful–Buddhist/Lutheran dialogue? Who knew that women medieval mystics were in part behind the regularizing of Holy Communion? And for some, who knew that Jesus was not a Christian, but a Jew?

Worst case scenario, one learns to appreciate–and understand–even more one’s home-of-origin. For instance, my English grammar benefitted tremendously by learning the difference between the nominative and the accusative case alone, not to mention my discovery of etymologies heretofore unknown, and a new distinct ability to remember German surnames thanks to knowing what the name originally meant…sometimes in awfully amusing ways.

Learning about religious history, ecumenical dialogue, feminist and liberation and African and Black theology makes me tired, exhilarates me, and brings me home to new places.

—————–

As an aside, Karlchen is making wondrous newness too. Watering eyes, relaxed muscles, emerging complex speech, and new bodily functions.

Was it scary, and is it still?

I cannot express how deeply that is true.

But living, loving, mothering, is.

So we wait, and weep, and hope, and rejoice when the foreign becomes familiar again.

Peace,

Anna

I have not been lax in thinking, however.

This summer has been as crazy-busy as it is hot.

OMG open house in April.

Wedding in May.

New husband in China and Thailand for two weeks.

Family from Alaska in June, their visit culminating in a first-ever, 100% attended family reunion on my mother’s side here in Sioux Falls.

And now we sit in Düsseldorf, Germany.

We find ourselves here, in the land where I did my doctoral work, and in the land where the accident occurred, that event which killed my first husband and caused my son to suffer a traumatic brain injury.

Frankly, I never considered coming back here. The memories, both good and painful, are so vibrant that even imagining the place causes a visceral reaction in me, a palpable sense of presence even from the distance of time and place.

Yet here we are.

Germany offers stem cell therapy, you see, an approach to healing not yet available to us in the United States. We learned about this opportunity through our acupuncturist, also a “novel” approach to healing in the States. But the novel stopped my son’s seizures after only three weeks, and has kept them thus at bay for over a year and a half.

So I told our acupuncturist that she had convinced me that there was a lot to be said for “fringe” approaches, and if she knew of any other any other fringy possibilities out there, I was all ears.

She told me of stem cell therapy, and put me in touch with a colleague of hers, who then put me in touch with the XCell Center in Düsseldorf.

And several months later, Karl is now resting tonight after having 11 million of his own stem cells injected into his traumatized brain.

Whew.

Needless to say, I have a nice glass of red beside me.

Hope and I? We have a dicey relationship.

On the one hand, whether we realize it or not, just swinging our legs out of bed is a hope-filled move. Hope, even subconsciously, allows us to function. We hope that we will have a good day, that we’ll get to work on time, that our loved ones will get home safely, we marry, we have children. All are trajectories of hope.

But sometimes hopes are dashed.

Quite literally, actually. Mine were dashed across a street 6 years ago, almost to the day.

And ever since then, hope and I haven’t made nice with each other, precisely.

So I hope for Karl’s complete healing from his brain injury, and everything I do is geared toward making that hope tangibly true.

The reality of that occurring is slim. And so then, what good is hope?

So I have come to wonder about the toxicity of hope; that is, can hope itself be detrimental? thwart one’s acceptance of reality? allow one to live a quixotic life built on vanities and illusions?

Yep.

But the danger of succumbing to hope’s opposite, despair, is equally numbing.

And I don’t particularly like the blandness of mere optimism either. I am optimistic that Karl’s present fever will go down.

But I’m not here to get a fever and reduce it.

I’m here to get Karl walking and talking.

So I have made peace with hope in the same manner as I engaged my first pregnancy, a pregnancy which ended in miscarriage. I had been told that many first pregnancies end in miscarriages, almost as if my body needed to learn what to do. And when I did miscarry, I grieved, but I did not despair….and we did not give up, and were blessed with Karl, and later Else.

I refuse to give up on the possibility that Karl can heal. And I insist upon going to great lengths to make the impossible possible. My vocation as mother calls me to that pursuit. Karl himself teaches me about the art of joyful defiance.

And, vis-à-vis God, it gives me an opportunity to remind God of God’s promises, and as I explained to a dear friend lately, I do so in a hold-God-accountable-to-God’s-promises sort of way. It is manifestly evident in Scripture that God has as God’s agenda healing. Perhaps it’s the Jew in me who feels quite comfortable pointing that out to God.

So the doctors and nurses and drivers and care-givers here, consciously or not, are ambassadors of healing. Their professionalism and clear recognition of the stakes demonstrate empathy and determination to patients and families who tend toward the isolated and exhausted. That the staff here engage in this sort of novel procedure is itself a tangible act of hope. Many of those who travel here, myself included, were told to suppress even optimism.

One last note. Germans have “doch,” a fantastic word which can be translated as an innocent, “I think you are mistaken,” to a sharp and sometimes rude rebuttal, the likes of which ought not be written down in this blog. Karl and I have a “gig.” I ask him, “Karlchen, when the doctors said that you would never talk again, or walk again, or laugh again, or make mischief again, what did I say to them?” And he says with a smile, “Doch!”

I said it in the latter sort of way.

Doch=spoken hope, and suddenly I understand hope against hope.

Peace,

Anna

I stumbled on it while preparing for last night’s forum sponsored by 1Sky and Repower America about Christianity and the care of Creation.

Below, as my next post, I’ve pasted the text of my presentation. As always, I look forward to your responses!

_____________

Christians aren’t so much called to be successful, but rather faithful.

Depending on your perspective, this is either freeing or a real bummer.

Generally, it is safe to say that “success” tends to be associated with a decent and stable job, family, comfortable house, good reputation, etc.

But the trouble comes when we Christians reflect upon the one who is the foundation for our beliefs: Jesus.

He had none of these.

And yet he was faithful.

Christians believe that Jesus came to deliver soteria, a word often translated as “salvation,” but which in the Greek implies health, healing, and wholeness…the sort you don’t have to wait to die for.

And so he was in the business, so to speak, of restoring, forgiving, feeding, serving. Now.

It can’t be overlooked, of course, that he did also end up on a cross.

Sometimes being faithful is risky business.

Now, typically, Christians have looked to the cross as being primarily about the forgiveness of sins: “Jesus died for you.”

And while I’m all for that, the last 70 some years of theology has begun to wonder if perhaps there might more to his death than the forgiveness of sins.

Nobody is objecting to the forgiveness of sins, to being justified by Jesus’ blood, mind you. But after Auschwitz, it is difficult not to wonder whether justification has to have something to do with justice.

In other words, did Jesus die for more than just sin? Did Jesus die not only for the sinners, but also for those, or for that, which are sinned upon?

And it’s out of that idea that Christians recognize that God is in solidarity with those who suffer, that Jesus isn’t the only one to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”, that God feels our pain more deeply than do we, and, again, that Jesus came to bring soteria–health, healing, and wholeness–to those who suffer, because from a Christian standpoint, if God’s primary agenda were death and decay, then Jesus would still be dead in the tomb.

Instead, Christians believe in Easter, an empty grave, an announcement that life, not death, has the last word.

Now, what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

Perhaps surprisingly, lots.

Many Christians look at Jesus’ life ministering to the oppressed and outcasts, and his death on the cross, and see that God is interested in attending to the crushed.

And so a movement has begun that asserts that while God is concerned with the well-being of all people, God has preferential concern for the poor, for the voiceless, for the subjugated.

Feminist theologian Sallie McFague states that “nature is the new poor,” and that we would do well to “integrate needy nature and needy people.” (Super, Natural Christians: How We Should Love Nature, 170.) I think she’s absolutely right. And in fact, they already are related; areas of environmental degradation directly correspond with areas of communal poverty–one need only look to the effects of BP on the local economies of the coast to see this to be so.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has put out a fine Social Statement about ecological concern entitled “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice.” (http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Social-Statements/Environment.aspx) It states, “When we act interdependently and in solidarity with creation, we do justice. We serve and keep the earth, trusting its bounty can be sufficient for all, and sustainable.”

That’s fantastic.

It goes on to say that through participation, sufficiency (that is, having what we need, and not what we want), and a sustainable lifestyle, we can honor God’s creation by acting out just living for all creatures.

Now, to some, this seems like an extraordinary leap. A theologian named Gordon Kaufman points out that the main vocabulary of Christianity–like sin, salvation, forgiveness, repentance, hope, faith, love, righteousness–all concern human relationships. (“The Concept of Nature: A Problem for Theology,” Harvard Theological Review 65 [1972]: 350, as discovered in Paul Santmire, The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology [Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1985], 6.)

In fact, the New Testament is hard pressed to demonstrate a real pattern of concern or interest in an ethic toward the land. One can argue that’s because they were anticipating Jesus to return at any moment, and their attention was focussed instead on evangelism.

And while Walter Brueggemann, the Old Testament scholar, points out that the Old Testament has no “environmental agenda” that we would recognize as such, “land is a central, if not the central theme of biblical faith.”

He writes these stunning words to make the point.

“Place is space that has historical meanings, where some things have happened that are now remembered and that provide continuity and identity across generations. Place is space in which important words have been spoken that have established identity, defined vocation, and envisioned destiny. Place is space in which vows have been exchanged, promises have been made, and demands have been issued. Place is indeed a protest against the compromising pursuit of space.”

He goes on to worry about how having land, i.e., power and wealth, “can…be…the enemy of memory,” namely forgetting what it is like to have no place, and therefore no identity, no power, no promise. (The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith, 2nd edition [Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2002], 4)

But Wendell Berry, author, philosopher, and advocate of the earth, speaks about the Jewish-Christian tradition of scripture reading and worship as showing a “pattern of reminding.” (Wendell Berry, “The Responsibility of the Poet,” What Are People For? [San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990], 91.)

So, although the New Testament leaves a bit to be desired in terms of specific references about respecting and stewarding creation, it does have a fine pattern of reminding for those in pain, threatened by death, devoid of hope–like speechless nature.
And it has this key event, this resurrection story, which tells us that now that we who can speak know that death isn’t final, there is more to do with our lives than preserve them.

We can instead be faithful, even, and perhaps these days most precisely, on behalf of all creation.

It’s not even particularly theological.

One of the troubles with many conversations about homosexuality is that the conversation is reduced to sex.

This tendency shows forth in a variety of ways: the previous ELCA policy which allowed gays and lesbians to be pastors as long as they weren’t in a relationship; the notion that homosexuality is sinful and must not “be acted upon;” the idea that one can “love the sinner but hate the sin,” the sin being, of course, physical intimacy.

Obviously, what makes the difference between “just friends” and “boyfriend/girlfriend/lovers/spouses” (gosh, that sounds jr. high-ish) is that there is some level of touch. Sexuality is part of the equation. And clearly sexual expression is to be taken seriously.

But I think that it is also true that touch, even something as simple as a gentle pat on the back, or sitting with arms touching each other on the couch watching a game, has some element of sexual intimacy to it. And I believe even tame sexual expression to be a natural and healthy demonstration of mutuality, of trust, of shared experiences, of affection, or of love. And aren’t even more intimate expressions of love binding and celebratory of the gift of relationship?

So, in addition to coming to a different theological conclusion than those who oppose the recent ELCA decision, there’s another dimension of my position:

I fear that forced celibacy translates into forced isolation.

I fear that to forbid touch is to encourage loneliness, despair, and alienation.

I fear that this is a terribly cruel prohibition for those who are not called to celibacy.

I fear that when gays and lesbians are told that “they can be gay” but “they may not show it,” gays and lesbians are implicitly being told that they are not allowed even the most mundane, common, garden-variety joys of companionship.

Healthy relationships manifest healthy touch.

So while obviously the notion of healthy sexuality must be addressed in the context of the conversation, it ought not be the conversation.

I doubt that the fundamental cornerstone of committed homosexual relationships is really sex per se…any more than it is amongst heterosexual counterparts.

Instead, I venture to throw out there that the fundamental cornerstone of committed homosexual relationships is cooking together, traveling together, balancing the checkbook together, going to movies together, enjoying a sunset together, buying a new tomato plant together, building a deck together…and that out of these shared experiences comes a desire to share touch.

Here and here are the links to the two blogs in question. Have at those and this one if you wish!

And then on to Exodus, and some blogs on creation in preparation for an upcoming public forum I’ve been invited to participate in on environmental stewardship.

Peace!

But that is because not only am I “with children,” but I am now also “married,” as of May 21.

Wedding preparation on the heels of the OMG open house, and then moving belongings, and having a “familymoon” with the kidlets for several days (just returning last night) gained almost the entirety of my attention!

The festivities were just that; festive. There was a contagious tenor of glee and of gratefulness for new beginnings. And that dear friend of mine and preacher of ours, the good Rev. Lori Hope, hit it out of the park.

Much has been written about love, and much has been written about marriage. Allow me, in the spirit of this new event in my world, to add a couple of not particularly novel thoughts.

I always have thought that it is important to note that at the Last Supper, Jesus does not say, “Like one another, as I have liked you.” Instead, Jesus said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.”

Sometimes it is possible to love someone and not, in the moment, like them so particularly well. Joseph Sittler once stated that when one is married, at least there is someone at home you don’t want to talk to.

Love, as far as we Christians see it displayed in Jesus’ death on the cross, is demonstrated by deep and profound vulnerability and forgiveness…and again, the promise of new beginnings and joy for life.

That’s not a bad way to ground a marriage.

Love, that is, is not just being twitterpated, is not just romance, is not just sexy…though it can be that–and hopefully is that!–for years to come.

It is work, it is partnering, it is sacrifice, it is vulnerability, it is humility, it is gentleness of spirit, it is compassion.

I am grateful that my husband and I share some key understandings: we are broken; we can be wrong; neither our actions nor we are beyond forgiveness; humor is a blessing; we are worthy; we are cherished; our lives are gladdened by the other in it.

We are looking forward to building a family which is grounded in these same notions, and stewarded in service together.

So, with that, let the new beginnings begin, along with the new bloggings!

Peace,

Anna

Naturally, I’ll start to answer this question with….psychology!

Donald Winnicott (1896-1971) was a British psychoanalyst who researched differing parental styles and their effects on children.  To sketch out the points relevant to this cool question, at one end of the parenting spectrum is authoritarian parenting; at the other, attachment parenting.

Children raised in a household with authoritarian parents have little, if any, opportunity to develop their own selves.  Instead, they are forced to craft their being according to the parental demands and expectations.  The primary parental goal is obedience; when the child is perceived as being disobedient, they are punished.  The parent determines everything, e.g., when and on what basis the baby gets fed, gets affection, and gets affirmation.  The relationship created is based on fear and/or obligation; less on love and respect.  The child conforms into what the parent wants, and develops into what Winnicott named “a false self.”

On the contrary, children raised in a household with parents who invest themselves in attachment parenting are not only allowed, but encouraged, to develop their own identities.  They are expected to make mistakes, and are loved in spite of them and through them.  The primary parental goal is love, and the relationship created is based on trust and engenders respect and investment in each other’s lives.

Enter Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament theologian, who likes Winnicott.  In a fantastic book called Israel’s Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology, Brueggemann wrote, “I propose that if God is experienced in doxology as always unqualifiedly good, fixed, sovereign, in charge, never acting, never impinged upon, it leads worshippers who are docile, passive, and who finally act in bad faith to please God, whatever they may in fact feel.”

So the upshot is that Bruggemann sees that just as some children learn to appease the parent preemptively, so too do some people of God.  That is, out of fear of being damned or punished even in the here and now, people do what they think God wants.  Even praise can become “false” because it is based on doing what God demands as opposed to welling up out of thankfulness and trust.  Lament is not an option, anger, questioning, dispute unthinkable.

Yet in that process, the children/people of God have little if any ownership of the task at hand, let alone in their relationship to God.  They become automatons, puppets, of their parental figure.

Yuck.

Now, I imagine that it is possible that God could have chosen to script our lives for us, or to give us absolute direction.

But would that not have created something like a world of chess, with one player moving “us” inanimate, wooden pieces around?

Or, even if one assumes that the “pieces” can lift up their heads and receive a hint of a nod from the divine player, would the chess piece have real ownership in the move, or take pride in the win?

And in point of fact, one doesn’t know what the best move is until one sees what the next player does…which is impossible until the second player sees how the first moves….or unless we’ve got a player who can see into the future, who knows a plan.

In short, I think that are troubles with hoping for a God-of-the-billboards (and who hasn’t wanted that on occasion….):

1) We could easily become passive participants in life–and even the word “participant” would be called into question, as we would lose ownership in our own choices, waiting for the “dictate” to come from on high;

2) The implications of a God who would give us clues, if not out-right directives, would include a God who then also knew the future…which would imply a God who already had life all laid out…which would also imply that we have no choice, either in small things (do we cross the street at this corner or the one up the block?) or in big things (do I take this job/marry this person/have children).

Of course, this raises the interesting question, ready for another blog….does God know all things?  Does God know the future?  Or is God on the edge of God’s divine seat too?

3)  We would lose out on the dynamism of a living relationship, developing into Winnicott’s and Brueggemann’s “false self.”  We don’t know our uniqueness, our own quirks, our own complexity, because we are so busy trying to appease God’s threatening anger and judgment.

4)  Sometimes, life is messy.  There might not be clear-cut, black and white answers in a given situation.  Sometimes no choice is purely good…or purely bad.  Sometimes we have to do as Dietrich Bonhoeffer did (German theologian who has been elevated to saint-like status in the Lutheran church–for participating in an assassination attempt against Hitler) and do what we think is best in a messy, messy world, trusting humbly in God’s grace.

What do you think?

Okay, Anna, you hooked me.

1) Why does mankind exist; in an otherwise previously perfect world?

2) An axiom of religious belief is that mankind needs God; does God also need mankind?  How much?  Have the needs changed over time?

Response:

Well.  There’s one for you.  Several actually.

And if the number of books scattered about my table, and the post-it note tabs extending from the pages, and the time spent mulling and investigating since I got this one are any indication, there’s a lot here to consider.

You’ve seen me use Capon already.  Here’s another Capon quote that is apropos.  It’s from his Romance of the Word: One Man’s Love Affair with Theology.

“Let me tell you why God made the world.

One afternoon, before anything was made, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit sat around in the unity of their Godhead discussing one of the Father’s fixations. From all eternity, it seems, he had had this thing about being. He would keep thinking up all kinds of unnecessary things – new ways of being and new kinds of beings to be. And as they talked, God the Son suddenly said, ‘Really, this is absolutely great stuff. Why don’t I go out and mix us up a batch?’ And God the Holy Spirit said, ‘Terrific! I’ll help you.’ So they all pitched in, and after supper that night, the Son and the Holy Spirit put on this tremendous show of being for the Father. It was full of water and light and frogs; pine cones kept dropping all over the place, and crazy fish swam around in the wineglasses. There were mushrooms and mastodons, grapes and geese, tornadoes and tigers – and men and women everywhere to taste them, to juggle them, to join them, and to love them. And God the Father looked at the whole wild party and said, ‘Wonderful! just what I had in mind! Tov! Tov! Tov!’ And all God the Son and God the Holy Spirit could think of to say was the same thing:’Tov! Tov! Tov!’ So they shouted together ‘Tov meod!’ and they laughed for ages and ages, saying things like how great it was for beings to be, and how clever of the Father to think of the idea, and how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing And for ever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the son drank their wine in unitate Spiritus Sancti, and they all threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia saecula saeculorum, Amen.

It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I’m afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can.”

Can’t go wrong with Capon.

We’ve got humor, joy, wine, and theology.

What more could a person want?

“From all eternity, it seems, he had had this thing about being.“

Recall that at the burning bush, when Moses was just minding his own business shepherding, God attempted him to convince him to give up his day job and instead save his people.  And after excuse after excuse (it’s really a marvelously funny little story) a bewildered and vexed Moses says, “Well, and anyway, who would I tell them sent me anyways?”  And the response was, YHWH.

Which is bewildering and vexing in and of itself, because ancient Hebrew didn’t exactly put a high premium on vowels.  (Think b-d…bad? bed? bid? bod? bud?)  HOWEVER, we are pretty sure that it has something to do with be-ing.  I AM is our best guess.

And that great turn of phrase, “From all eternity” makes reference to the creation of things…I AM can’t help but bring things into be-ing.  It’s a habit.

But why?  Why did God bother?

As I’ve often said, when you got yourself 7 theologians, you got yourself 17 opinions.

I could prove my theory here, but I’m going to bottom line it for you, a brief summary of the spins on the question about why God created.  Naturally, we will end up with more questions, and a smattering of possible responses.

Jürgen Moltmann, German theologian, believes that God created because God willed creation.  It’s not an accidental emanation, not a by-product, but a divine choice.  It is “ecstatic love: it leads him to go out of himself and to create something which is different from himself but which non the less corresponds to him.”  It’s much like a couple who choses to have children, not because they are incomplete and unsatisfied amongst themselves, but because there is an exuberance of their shared love that can not be contained.  In fact, many feminist theologians note that there is a stunning parallel between the child in a woman’s womb and the creation of the world in God: dependence borne out of love and sacrifice and a desire to uphold and protect all the while being aware of the reality of risk and suffering…and doing it anyway.

But then the theologian/scientists are fascinated with the question of freedom: how much freedom would God have had to create the world?  Mark Worthing points out Stephen Hawking’s observation that “At the big bang and other singularites, all the laws would have broken down, so God would still have had complete freedom to choose what happened and how the universe began.”  But Worthing points out that Einstein wasn’t content with this sort of thinking, instead crying out, “What I’m really interested in is whether God could have made the world in a different way!” His question was echoed by William Stoeger (and retold by Elizabeth Johnson) who asked at the Catholic Theological Society of America whether if the universe’s clock were to be unwound and rewound, would it turn out exactly in the same way?

And then there is the question about the nature of God.  Ted Peters makes the frustratingly obvious point that “…prior to the creating act, God is not yet a creator.”  And in that relationship, Peters says, not only is creation per se created, but also a relationship between the creator and creation.  Worthing uses Thomas F. Torrance to make the same point.  Torrance writes: “Any attempt to explicate knowledge of God outside of or apart from those structures of space and time [that God created] is inevitably and essentially irrational.  We cannot know God apart from the way in which he interacts with the world he has made or apart from the way in which we are constituted his creatures within that world….It is only from within the …universe and through the medium of its contingent realities that we may articulate the knowledge God gives us of himself, even though he infinitely transcends the universe.”  Upshot is that if we don’t pay attention to the creation, we can’t expect to have a sense of the creator.

Which brings us to yet another question at hand: Did God create once, or does God continue to create?  It is a question that unfortunately has often been presented as an either/or: creatio ex nihilio, creation out of nothing, or creatio continua, creation in continuance.  That is, did God create once and call it good, or does God continue to be involved, calling new things into be-ing?

Peters, for one, likes the notion of both, in tandem.  ”The first thing God did for the cosmos,” he writes, “was to give it a future.”  So Peters thinks that God created, and then continues to create from that gift of the future–from the future.  That is, says he, “To be is to have a future, God’s future.”  We are gifted another present moment from the future.  Bernhard Anderson observes that “It is significant that prophetic portrayals of God’s future are sketched not in unearthly terms but in terms of a transformed earth in which justice and peace will prevail.”  God likes the world, and seeks to reconcile and redeem it, not destroy it.  This is awfully Moltmann-esque, architect of the Theology of Hope, a wave of theological thinking that has transformed reflection about God and the world since the sixtes.  He believes that Christians live according to a theology of promise, one which speaks not only of God as the creator, but of a new creation–one to which we can attest and model.  ”God,” says Sallie McFague, “is on the side of the oppressed to liberate, heal, and include them.  That is God’s main activity–and ours–in relation to creation.”

And then what of the relationship between humanity and God?  Whereas Psalm 104 names humans and animals as enjoying equal status before God, Anderson doesn’t miss that overwhelmingly, scripture depicts humanity as a special, articulate presence before God.  ”They are made for conversation with God, for a dialogue in an ‘I and thou’ relation….”

In steps process theology, a tradition that actually has its roots in philosophy.  Its line of thinking teaches that God and creation respond to one another.  Rather than a plan, there is a vision.  Hans Schwarz sums up Alfred North Whitehead’s thinking by saying that “[God] confronts what is actual in the world with what is possible for it, and at the same time provides the means of merging the acutal with the possible.”  Process thought, asserts Schwarz, believes in a God who is infinite and finite, or as Charles Hartshorne stated, “the integrated sum of existence.”  Because God is not a tyrant or a dictator, God persuades rather than orders…which eliminates God’s responsibility for evil, according to David Ray Griffin.

And then you’ve got the feminist theologians who have contributed such rich notions of the Trinity to contemporary conversations about God.  Karl Rahner gave us conceptual idea of the “immanent Trinity,” namely the relationship of the Trinity within itself, and the  ”economic Trinity,” namely the relation of the Trinity to the world, and feminist theologians have adopted it.  Who God is within Godself bears upon the sort of relationship that this God has with that which this God has created.  ”At the heart of holy mystery,” says Johnson, “is not monarchy but community; not an absolute ruler, but a threefold koinonia.”  And she believes that friendship characterizes this relationship best, as well as God’s “friendliness” to the world, vis a vis hospitality, forgiveness, meal sharing, and equity.  ”The trinitarian symbol intimates a community of equals, so core to the feminist vision of ultimate shalom.  It points to patterns of differentiation that are non-hierarchical, and to forms of relating that do not involve dominance.”

And I haven’t even begun to touch on nifty words like Shekinah, zimzum, and kenosis.  You have no idea how many post-it note stickies are calling out to me even now.

But because it is almost midnight, I will close with some words from Grace Jantzen, who wrote this:

“…God as portrayed in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ conception of him is above everything else a God of love…But love that loves nothing is impossible.  If God is essentially and eternally love, then God must have loved eternally.  He has not existed for endless ages in isolation, nor can he look forward to a long solitary retirement after the duties of this workaday world are done and the universe disposed of.  Rather, he has poured himself out, and will continue to do so, in loving manifestations of himself, in ways which, doubtless, we cannot even guess.”

I am hopeful that there are one or two things to continue to mull for you all!

Peace,

Anna

]]> http://omgcenter.com/2010/04/does-god-need-humanity/feed/ 1 http://omgcenter.com/2010/04/easter-life-overcomes/ http://omgcenter.com/2010/04/easter-life-overcomes/#comments Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:30:41 +0000 OMG http://omgcenter.com/?p=302 So there you have it.

The Christian faith grounds itself here, in this strange Easter event, this claim that a dead guy is now alive.

Now there are all sorts of legitimate, constructive, “you can’t be serious” comments to write here.  And mark my words, I will write them, because I have uttered them on at least 523 occasions.

But for the moment, let’s linger in this Christian mystery, this strange-to-swallow faith claim upon which we Christians base our religious underpinnings.

It makes no sense.  I know that.

But when you get right down to it, very little does, regardless of one’s religious sensibilities.  We even built an amazing, fascinating, bazillion dollar atom smasher-smusheroo to learn more about the beginnings of creation because, in short and with all due respect, nobody has a for-certain, for-sure, beyond a doubt, clue. (Sure is fun wondering, though).

We do have faith, however, that somehow, the world began, and here we are, and now we do something with that.

So out of all the interesting, provocative, tantalizing, plausible places into which we could place our trust, Christians pitch our tents by the empty tomb.

For Christians, ideally, faith in this particular interesting, provocative, tantalizing, plausible places has certain implications.

Like we believe that life overcomes death.

Like we believe that there is more to do with our lives than preserve them.

Like we believe that death is real, and life is real-er.

So into this mysterious world with its mysterious histories and stories, Christians are sent out to be ambassadors of life.

To life!