The Image of Fish

 

 

The complete survey from which these data has been taken is found here.

 

 

 

 

This is the next in the series of posts I'm doing about Aesthetic  and Embodied Perspectives of Theology. Here I'm talking about philosopher Mark Johnson's The Meaning of the Body. Johnson is the co-author, with linguist George Lakoff, of the the pivotal text  Metaphors We Live By, which is a foundational piece establishing some of the key ideas in conceptual metaphor. 

 

Info about Kant's Aesthetics is here and here.

 

My Reading List

Berleant, Arnold. “Aesthetic Embodiment.” Online here.

Thiessen, Gesa Elsbeth.Theological Aesthetics: A Reader

Johnson, Mark.The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding.

Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just.

Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory.

Kehl, Medard.The Von Balthasar Reader.

Oliver, Kelly. Ed. Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Work of Julia Kristeva.

Crowther, Paul. Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-Consciousness.

 

This winter I was asked to consider writing a piece "Envisioning the Future within our Quaker faith." The article was to be published in SPARK, the newsletter of New York Yearly Meeting (composed of 90ish congregations), and would have gone out in the spring. Well, it came at a great time for me as I was considering lots of things related, and so I wrote a piece in response. Turns out though, that folks did not publish it for one reason or another, only referencing it in the newsletter and putting it up online. Anywho, I felt like there was some power in it, and continue to feel this way, and so I've reposted it here in hopes that Friends find some use of it. Please re-post, reference, and comment as you please.

 

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Where Are We Now?

 

I have been been sitting for weeks with the question posed to me in the request to write for this issue: How do I envision the future of the faith of the Religious Society of Friends?  Over and over, in trying to sit with the future I have been driven back towards the present. How are we to get there – wherever “there” might be – if we don't know where here is?  What is our tradition about? What is at its core? Why do we worship? I found myself scarcely able to imagine the future given that I had a hard time even grasping the present. 

It is not that I haven't considered these questions. Far from it. It is that I am unclear that my responses to them would be anywhere near to normative. And that is when it Opened: the way forward is not in there being some “normative” response to those questions, but in having some response. In our Meetings and homes we ought to be really asking these questions and expecting responses. Why do we come to Worship? Do we really believe in Discernment? Do we even believe in God? What do we even mean by “God”? Can we unite with our Faith and Practice? If not, then what? We are all doing each other a great diservice by not having these conversations out in the open. 

Contemporarily, we Liberal Friends tend to resist articulating our beliefs. “All are welcome,” we say, and “none are turned away.” With this I unite. But what happens when someone comes through our door because she wants to know what we believe? What happens when someone believes something and isn't sure they are welcome to believe it for lack of conversation? My hope for the future of our tradition is not one in which all agree, but one in which we are impelled into the transformation of inner and outer lives, concieved, nurtured, and pruned in discerning worship, the result of which ripens into Justice and the fruits of the Spirit. My hope for the future of our tradition is that we might then be empowered and encouraged to speak – regularly and profoundly – of our experiences of the Divine. Towards that broader vision I offer my perspective in hopes that you will offer yours. This is how Truth prospers with me.

I am agree with Friend Patrick Nugent as he writes that “whenever goodness radiates and transforms the heart, whenever the conscience rises up and stands in the revealing and liberating light of goodness, there, whether named or not, is the Bread of Life which never fades away, the redeeming presence of the risen and living Christ.” I stand with him and our forebears in the belief that practice of a full and authentic Christianity is grounded in experiences of Real Presence, mediated via the gift of the Holy Spirit and actually discernible in worship. My faith's power is not in a mere ethic of compassion, an eternity of heavenly compensation at some later time, or the warm glow of community life in the present. My work is to practice coming into that Light, Life, and Power which takes away the occasion of all war, that Presence of God in which we are perfected – if only for a moment – and in which we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The path is to live lives that more and more readily resemble those moments revealed in prophetic ministry: to realize that we need not “build up” the Kingdom because it is already here among us, if only we would enter it.

I believe that much of contemporary progressive Christianity – including our own Religious Society – has become too close a bedfellow to generic liberal social concern and has turned too often to rationalism and modernity for its identity, becoming habituated to a pattern of accepting a series of “second bests” instead of waiting on the liberating power of God which insists upon justice in the present. I know that much of the history and narrative of the Christian tradition is dubious and – to be frank – hard to swallow. I know this and yet I know that there is no nourishment in the desert of doubt. I believe Paul Ricoeur was correct when he wrote that we are called beyond the desert of criticism to a Second Naïveté. Yes, there are times when it is best we not eat, for there is sickness to be purged, but we must acknowledge that hunger cannot be fed with starvation: eventually there comes a time when we are to take up the knowledge and precision gained through the wielding of our hermeneutic of suspicion and step with it out beyond doub'ts edge back into a place of surrendering belief. Not as naïve children, but as people of faith working on the basis of the substance of things hoped for but as yet unseen, trusting that in our faithfulness we will be led towards justice, granted compassion, and met with community.  By virtue of our baptism in the Spirit we are called to this: belief.

And so… I believe in the resurrection of the Body: as people of God we are called into a new life, into a new way of living on earth, while still in the flesh and with our feet yet made of clay.  I believe that the story and hope of this new birth were with Jesus in his life and death and I believe that in his refusal to submit to the Powers and Principalities he offered even them the opportunity for redemption. We are called to do no less. I believe these things because they are what seem most right in the moments when I have been held under the Holy Power of God's Spirit poured out.  And yet, even as I am held in this power I feel called to resist the temptation to allow my sense of certainty to reign above my hospitality; to resist placing my sense of the truth over and above others. I feel called to proclaim my testimony as exactly that: a concrete witness to the experience of God's transforming capacity my life and flesh and not some idealized and absolute external theology or creed. 

I believe that the Living Water is yet live and that we are each invited to drink at that place of nourishment there beyond the desert, wherein we might also partake of the Bread and enter the Kingdom, for it is already here among us. If only we would enter. Enter and share the story of the land beyond.

We gain so much from hearing one another speak from hallowed places. Let your life speak. 

 

Things mentioned in this video:

Postmodernism, Culture, and Religion Conference

John Caputo

Caputo's Keynote Address at the Conference

Cyborg Philosophy

Ray Kurzweil

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6, Episode 12

 

 

As usual, I've said most of the things I think are important above in the video, but the basic gist is this:

This is a post for two separate sets of people. The first is the world of the general internet community and the second is a group of students in the Thurman/King School and Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School for Christian Leadership. It has come about because I'm teaching a one-time evening seminar to this group on the topic of "The Emerging/Emergent" church and was asked to address the issue for folks that were interested in but didn't have any personal ties. Ok, so now onto the point(s).

If you are NOT in that class, the favor I'd ask is that if you've got another perspective and/or resource that you want to pass along to those students, please post it in the comments and I'll make sure folks get to see it. I'd love for this post to become a living document, so please post away:  personal narrative, resource to read, or otherwise. I'd love to have as many voices as possible on this doc.

If you ARE in that class, please watch the video above and then look at some of these links below and the comments section. Try to read and/or watch at least two from the "Insider Perspectives" section and at least one from each other section. It would be great if you checked them all out, but getting to at least one each should give us grist for the mill. If you have any questions please be in touch and I'll see you in April!

 

Insider Perspectives

Julie Clawson: Personal Account and a HUGE  list of other links to follow if you're interested.

 

Todd Thomas: A Great (Quick Blog Post) 

 

Nadia Bolz-Weber: Another Great (Even Quicker) Post

 

Christianity Today Article (2007)  

 

Emergent Village Values and Practices 

 

 

 

Outsider(ish) Perspectives

 

New York Times Article 

PBS Documentary

 

Shane Clawson: Sojouner Blog Post "On the Sloppiness of Naming"

 

 

 

More Critical Perspectives

 

Strong Biblical Perspective: Charges that Emergent –> Catholic Mysticism –> Dark Forces

 

Critical though Informative

 

 

 

On The Difference between Emergent/Emerging

 

Ye Olde Wikipedia

 

Mark Driscoll’s take on it

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miscellaneous Things I Mentioned in the Video

 

Phyllis Tickle's The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why

 

My "What is Post-Modernity?" Video

 

Criticism of Postmodernity being uncompatable with Christianity

 

 

 

 

A week ago I started to roll out a mini-experiment with the hopes that others would join in.  While details can be found here, the basic gist of it is that I would love to hear from folks about how it is their scholarship feeds a contemporary living faith. My inspiration in this comes from Diana Butler Bass who suggests that with some work we can find moments in history (and theology I might add) that, upon contemporary reflection, pave the way towards a more hopeful, vital, and hospitable future. 

My big wish is that other folks out in the world of the internet will join me in explicitly commenting on how it is that their scholarship feeds a vital contemporary faith.  That tired "well scholarship is important because without it we wouldn't know what has happened before," line won't cut it.  Why exactly do certain and particular events or thinkers inspire you, or give you hope? In attemping to show a few ways that folks might attempt this, I made a short (and ridiculous) film about Origen and Allegory, I did an audio recording about Maximus the Confessor and Theosis, and now I'm closing out the trio with a good ole' fashioned blog post about the Gnostics and the Divine Spark.  

If you are reading this and are a seminarian or arm chair theologian who hasn't yet considered making their work publicly available, please, please, consider doing so. I think that those of us who are blessed to be able to persue scholarship (formally or not) miss out on a great opportunity to share when we keep our work to ourselves. It doesn't have to be perfect for it to serve as useful to another.  Exhibit A? This page.  We're all just trying to figure things out, and I hope you join the conversation. If you have any questions or comments, say hello in the comments below, or via direct contact with me. And now, without further adieu…. 

 

The Gnostics and the Divine Spark

 

The process by which I decided to wrestle with this topic went a little something like this:

 

Me1: So I want to think about history and what in it might bear some hope for the future.

Me2: Thinking about history, eh?

Me1:Yeah, you have a problem with that?

Me2: No, its just that… well, history is pretty big.

Me1:Good point.

Me2: How about you think about what issues you struggle with in the present and see if anything in the past might shed some light on them.

Me1: That's a great idea, I think I'll use that as my topic!

Me2: Glad I could be of… wait. What? 

Me1: Light.

Me2: …?

Me1: What?

Me2: You are going to search for hope in the history of light?

Me1: Yup.

Me2: Do tell.

Me1: Well, in the Religious Society of Friends we talk a lot about the "Inner Light" and the theology around that seems to be pretty sloppy.

Me2: Ok… and that is historical because…

Me1: Because it seems quite similar to the Gnostic idea of "Divine Spark."

Me2: Wait… how did… where did that come from?

Me1: Not sure actually. Think I read it online somewhere once.

 

As you can see, my thought process was incredibly thorough and well-thought out. 

 

My premise was essentially that since I was having this hang-up around what exactly is meant by the idea of “Inner Light,” it might be of some use to see what thoughts have been had about another group of folks that had the idea of some illuminating mark of God being present within.

So what's at stake here?  Well, the basic issue is that a number of Friends I know (generally tending to be on the Liberal, Universalist, and Progressive end of a spectrum) often make use of the phrase “Inner Light,” as if somehow some portion (or a miniaturized replica) of God resided inside each of us.  That kind of thing sounds something like, “Well, we can each believe whatever we want because we each have access to the Inner Light.” It functions something like a get of jail free card for theological discussion.  Now I'm all for pluralism of a sort, but this kind of argument isn't the way I would want to get there.

I think it is telling that the Early generations of Friends tended to use the phrase “Inward Light,” which suggests that the Light is indeed coming from somewhere, namely, God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. As articulated in the second generation of the Religious Society by the Apologist Robert Barclay:

"By this Seed, Grace and Word of God, and Light wherewith everyone is enlightened, we understand a spiritual, heavenly, and invisible Principle, in which God as Father, Son, and Spirit dwells: a measure of which Divine and glorious life is in all men as a Seed, which of its own nature draws, invites and inclines us to God; and this some call vehiculum Dei, or the spiritual body of Christ, the flesh and blood of Christ, which came down from heaven, of which all the saints do feed, and are thereby nourished unto eternal life."

Apology, Proposition 6.8

 

Ok, so where do the Gnostics fit in, and what is the argument that the Gnostics have anything to do with Friends? Well, the Gnostics had this idea they called the “Divine Spark,” and for obvious reasons relating to the nature of any metaphor about internal lighting, there is some overlap.

While there are certainly good places (like here, here, or here) that folks can read about Gnosticism, for this little foray into Divine Sparkiness, suffice it to say that Gnosticism seems to be a form of dualism wherein the manifested physical aspects of the present world were considered evil and a pure spiritual nature, from which we descended, was desirable (mighty Greek if you ask me).  As Stephan A. Hoeller writes:

“A human being consists of physical and psychic components, which are perishable, as well as a spiritual component, which is a fragment of the divine essence, somethings called the divine spark.” 

Stephan A. Hoeller's Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing. pg. 18

 

Now dualism aside, this idea seems to be in some resonance with the Early Quaker ideas about the Inward Light.  

 

Variously referred to in Quaker Founder George Fox's journal as   “Christ Within,” “Inner Light,” “That of God in every man,” and “The Seed of God,” the belief was that there was some essential aspect of humanity that was directly responsive to the Holy Spirit, without need for mediation by a priestly class.  Each could, by virtue of this “Inward Light,” hear and respond to the Divine.  [Side Note: This all being true, Friends have nonetheless noted for hundreds of years now that discerning God's Will is most fully possible in community, not as individual interpretation.]

Important to this principle is that this Light was accessible to all people.  As Fox wrote:

[The Light is] nigh unto all men and women in the whole world, and in them, if their soul and breath be in his hand. Here you may see the eternal, infinite hand of the incomparable God, in whose hand is ‘the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind' in the whole world; for ‘God breathed into man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.’ God, who is immortal, has the breath of all (and all immortal souls) in his hand, and none can fall out of his eternal hand.

 

Marcus T.C. Gould's The Works of George Fox, Vol. VI pg. 333

 

So like the Gnostics, there is this eternal essence associated with some higher calling.  Seems compatible so far.  Until we learn about who responded to this higher calling and by what means:

[In Gnostic thought,]revelation is possible only because within the Gnostic there somehow pre-exists a disposition, a capacity, a potential fitted for testing and getting to know that particular reality. Only like can, in fact, know like. Only spiritual beings can perceive, receive and understand the spiritual. 

Giovanni Filoramo's A History of Gnosticism. pg. 40

 

Uh oh…  An elitist spirituality in which only certain people can perceive the true nature of this particular reality (knowing of course that a truer reality exists in which the evils of the material world have been abandoned)? Yup.  

"People are generally ignorant of the divine spark, [which] is stirred by the call of the ultimate Divine by way of divine men, or messenger of Light. [These messengers] descend from the highest spiritual realms to call souls back; they come to restore the human spirit to its original consciousness and lead it back to the Divine.” 

 Stephan A. Hoeller's Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing. pg. 18

 

So the metaphysical dualistic split between materiality and spirituality is reflected in practice: some people are “asleep” in the material world and unaware of the Divine Spark within them, requiring other people (sent from the highest spiritual realms) to wake them up.

I entered into this little hunt thinking that I'd find something there that might be of use and, backwardsly, I have: it isn't that in Gnostic thought itself I find some resolution directly, but it does point me towards some clarity on why the same issue bugs me in my own context hundreds of years later.  If there is something residing within all, but not everyone is accessing that which is within them, well, why is that?

I feel like there is a distinct, though perhaps subtle, difference between the positions where: 

A) Everyone possesses their own (to use the Gnostic phrase)  “fragment of the Divine” which can be woken up by special “pneumatic” humans who are “awake” and have access to the special Gnosis knowledge that resides within the fragment/spark.

and

B) We each have been made in God's Image and every one of us, being partly of the breath of God, can discern aspects of God's will, acknowledging that this discernment is  best done in community 

 

Even as I wrote that I realized how fuzzy this stuff can be.  Bottom line? I think the idea that there is special interior knowledge that only some elect humans can access is a dangerous one. Is it my experience that some people are more faithful and seem to live more righteous lives? Yes indeed, but I do not think that is due to some special essential difference between them and other people, rather, it is because of choices made that bring themselves into right relationship with God.  Againg, George Fox:

…the spirit of man [sic], is the candle of the Lord, and the candlestick is every man's [sic] body, mind, soul, and conscience, that with this spirit their candle being lighted, and set up in its candlestick, they may see all that is in the house; and with this light they may see Christ that died for them, and is risen for them: so come by this light, which is life in the word, to be grafted into Christ the word, which was in the beginning, which lives and abides, and endures for ever. 

Marcus T.C. Gould's The Works of George Fox, Vol. V pg. 356

 

Without the presence of some common knowledge that we can all work together to live into, the life of faith becomes secretive and individualistic, or worse, cabalistic. And that pretty much clarifies the issue I think: if our theology is somehow hidden or secret — regardless of whether that is because we believe in special pneumatic humans who have access to special knowledge or because we are afraid to talk to one another about about it for fear of offending or being cast out — well, then the opportunity to grapple with discernment together in community is pretty much shot.  The hope then, I suppose, is that we recognize that without frank, open discussion and connection to one another we miss out on any truly egalitarian exploration of faith.

 

Alrighty. So this is my second foray into history hunting for hope. I'm doing this one with audio to point out that there are a number of ways that people can get their thoughts out there:  as I mentioned in a post a bit ago, I am hoping that others with join me in this exploration of tradition.  The video on that link explains the thrust of my invitation more fully, but suffice it to say that I would love to hear from folks about how it is their scholarship feeds a contemporary living faith.  If you have notions about how that might happen, or examples of it happening, send them along.  Either in the comments below, or via direct contact with me. Anywho…

So the above audio is about Maximus the Confessor and his ideas about Deification (Theosis), and the sources referenced in it are below in the order of their appearance audition.

 

Biographical Info

George Berthold's Maximus Confessor. 

The Catholoc Encyclopedia, which is now online here.

 

General Comments on Maximus' Theology

George Berthold's Maximus Confessor. pg. xiii-iv

 

Overview on Theosis

Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov's "Introduction" pg. 1-13

 

Maximus on Theosis 

Elena Vishnevskaya's "Divinization and Spiritual Progress in Maximus the Confessor" pg. 134-42

Maximus' Capita de Charitate. 1.31

Maximus' Mystagogia. 24

 

Among the Progressive Christian circles of which I am typically involved, theological stances range widely, from a version of Universalism that looks askance on traditional Christian language to a form of exploration with "ancient-future" practices and traditions.  Common throughout these encounters though is the pesky question of what to do with tradition(s).

Whether it be the various flavors of orthodox thought (not even needing a captial "O" here) asking us to maintain certain types of historical interpretation and practice, or radical post-Christian theology suggesting we ought to jettison that which has come before, a significant challenge that faces the modern Christian is to figure out where we stand in relation to the rest of the Christian stream, including the part of that stream that predates us by decades and centuries.

Into this mix, Diana Butler Bass steps with her 2009 book, A People's History of Christianity.  A compelling read, Bass's text riffs off of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States with the claim that regardles of what side of the religious aisle you are on, chance are that "the history" and tradition in which you think you need to place yourself is not the only story.  That is, whether you want to reject it or embrace it, Bass suggests the questions to ask are not about rejection or acceptance, but about the "it." What history exactly are you embracing? Rejecting? Is that the only history there is? In rejecting much of Christian Tradition do we throw the baby out with the bathwater? In accepting only once perspective on the past do we miss out on equally true means to depth in faith? Yes indeed, to both, says Bass.

The problem, she claims, is that "the" history that most of us refer to as Christian history is a story of domination and conquest, and while that certainly is present within the tradition, there are also many other storied streams that flow right up to the present, paralleling narratives of compulsion with ones of compassion.  Once we become aware of this she contends, then we can look to history with a different eye, finding the traces of thought and action that are often overlooked.  Doing this then allows us to search out moments and events that, upon contemporary reflection, might become sites of "a vital, hopeful, hospitable, and open faith — a faith that can heal, reconcile, and bring peace." This compelling articulation leads me to an invitation.  

In the next few post on TIoF, I will be engaging in my own hunt for hope in history AND I would love to hear about your own: where do you find vitality, hope, and hospitality in moments, figures, events, or streams of thought from the past?  Put another way, what particulars of your understanding of tradition point you towards a living faith today and how do they do that? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, or, even better, your own blog posts that you share. Writing, video, music, photography… you name it and I'd love to see and share it.

 

 

If you are just interested in reading the Minute of Travel, click right here, otherwise, here goes:

 

This post serves a kind of two-fold purpose, the latter of which is more significant:

 

1) to share with my extended community the Minute of Travel I now carry, and 2) to explain my sense of what a Minute of Travel is, i.e. to articulate my understanding of ministry and carrying a concern within the tradition of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

 

The former I want to share because there are those with whom I have connection that might want to see the document, that latter because I think it might be worth sharing another perspective on ministry and travel as Friend. I'm bothering to type up all this so that Google can find it and so that it is in the Cloud in the event others might want access to text. There is not a whole lot written on this topic and I thought it might be of use/interest to someone out there.

For the purposes of trying to make this accessible to those who might not know Quakerese, I'll try to articulate things in such a way that they avoid jargon unless it has explanation.

 

[Note: I am part of a local Meeting congregation that is in the unprogrammed tradition of the RSoF, what is often referred to as Liberal Quakerism and is associated with two of the four sub-sects of of the RSoF. Through New York Yearly Meeting (which is something akin to a Conference in other denominations) I am connected to Friends General Conference and Friends United Meeting. The other two forms of the RSoF are the small numbers of Conservative Friends and the Evangelical Friends Church International] For more info about these sub-types of The Religious Society of Friends, check out this video around minute 2:03.

 

If that was enough, and now you're just interested in reading the Minute of Travel, it is still right here, otherwise, here is the rest: 

 

Short Version

A Travel Minute is a document issued when someone feels called to Ministry outside of his/her local congregation. It states the nature of the ministry to which the indivual is called and bears the endorsement of at least the local congregation. Depending on the extent/breadth of the work the person anticipates, sometimes it will have endorsements from Quarterly Meetings (composed of multiple local Meetings) and/or Yearly Meetings (composed of many Quarterly Meetings). My minute was issued and endorsed by Rochester Monthly Meeting on April 18, 2010, endorsed by Farmington-Scipio Regional Meeting on May 23, and endorsed by New York Yearly Meeting on November 13. More-or-less, the Minute is documentation of a gathered congregational body's clearness that the contents of the Minute are right and true by their discernment.

Long Version

Often times people (sometimes Friends themselves) are under the impression that The Religious Society of Friends (RSoF) has no ministers. This is wrong on at least two counts.

First, two of the four (Friends United Meeting and Evangelical Friends International) strands of the RSoF regularly do appoint or "raise up" pastors to assist congregations with their growth and life in the Spirit. These congegations are often referred to as Pastoral or Programmed Meetings and sometimes as Friends Churches.

 

Second, and more theologically significant, even aside from the pastoral tradition, the RSoF has always had ministers: it is not that ministers were done away with, it is that the notion of laity was abolished. All were/are called to ministry and if some are called to it more than others it is not because of any special merit, marking, or reward. We are all one in the Body of Christ.

 

My own service falls within the second category in something referred to as Traveling in the Ministry, meaning that while I continually return to, and am grounded and held accountable by, community there, the work I do is primarily outside of my congregation.

Often times when a person Travels in the Ministry they do so under a particular "Concern," that is, a certain topic to which they feel called to support and/or bear witness. Most famously, 18th century Friend John Woolman travelled in the Ministry with a concern for the abolition of slavery, moving from congregation to congregation worshipping and praying with people as he shared his sense that God was calling them all to live in greater integrity, freeing all slaves. Contemporarily there are Friends traveling under a concern for the right care of the earth, for the end of torture, and for the full extension of rights to the GLBTQ community, among other things. Historically, these travelling Friends would have often been "Released," or financially assisted so that their worldly economic obligations did not hold them back from service. This rarely occurrs today outside of travel stipends that Meetings can provide for the person to help them get from place to place.

My own "Concern" is somewhat less bound than the ones mentioned above: I sometimes will go to a place without knowing exactly what I am to do there other than listen faithfully and respond as I might. This means I am not always sure what content will be present if I am asked to preach, what precisely will happen at a retreat if I am facilitating, and/or if I will even give vocal ministry when I travel to be present somewhere. Traditionally, this was called Travelling in the Gospel Ministry, and I understand a significant amount of the work I do to be some mix between this calling and an awareness that I am sometimes of use to people by means of offering fresh articulation or a new persepective. Some folks have begun to use the phrase "a Concern for Deepening Faithfulness," and I feel this is accurate as well. Whatever the category, I understand my Vocation to be about listening, being present, and offering whatever I can as needed.

When I head out for some place with a sense that I am travelling there under a sense of this concern, I bring a copy of the minute with me and when I am finished there, someone will take the copy and mail it back to my Meeting in Rochester, attaching an accompanying "endorsement" note sharing their experience of worshipping with me. The note ranges in length from a few sentences to several paragraphs, and serves to keep the congregation apprised as to my work in the world. Traditionally Friends traveled in pairs as per Acts, so there is often someone else with me while I am serving, but that person is not usually from the community to which I am going, so it is useful to9 hear form them directly. When it comes time to consider whether or not it is appropriate to issue a new minute of travel sometime in the future, congregations will sit in discernment with their own sense of the Friend as well as all the endorsements (some of which may be critical) that have been received since the last minute was issued.

Central to all of this, and one of the primary reasons that Friends originally did away with paid clergy, is the idea that the ministy I do isn't mine, and that the spiritual gifts that I employ are not actually in my possesion. That is, I am a steward of gifts that have their origins as charisms of the Spirit for as long those gifts reside in me and since we cannot know the mysterious mechanism(s) by which such gifts show up in the first place, we ought not pretend to know when they might depart. The regular return to worshipping bodies to consider the minutes of those travelling is a matter of routine discernment: Is there a new Concern? Does the person still carry the gifts that were noted in the last minute? Have they left? Deepened? Been replaced by others? The idea is that travel in the ministry should be grounded in a congregational body that looks after the personal and spiritual welfare of the individual, nurturing and pruning as need be so that the work they are engaged in is the work to which they are called, not just a doing of things out of some sense of ego-pleasure, obligation, or personal momentum.

That about does it in terms of the general other than to note that most of the time once a Meeting has become clear that someone's leading to travel in the ministry is rightly ordered, the Meeting appoints a committee of three to five people to routinely worship with the traveler and assist in discernment, support, and grounding. These committees go by different names depending on the practices of the Meeting, but usually are named one of the following: Anchor, Support, Nurture, or Oversight Committees.

Having said all that in the abstract, I would just point folks still interested to the minute itself, which I feel is pretty much resonant with my my own sense of things as pertains to how it is that God is opening in my life. [Nerd Note: I am particularly pumped about the inclusion of the word "catalyst," in the minute as the chemist in me is aware that the catalyst in a reaction is what allows the change to take place, it isn't the actual means of reaction or the end product. I don't want to ever forget that I am not the message: I am the messenger and I bear witness to a great Good News beyond me.] As I continue to rejoice and find fellowship and service beyond just the Religious Society of Friends it may be that the Anchor Committee appointed to discern with me may have to grapple with language that reflects this broader denominational sense of leading, but we shall see. For the moment I think it is a dang fine reflection of what I aspire to. I'm hardly there every day, but at least I know it is there on the edges calling me. I am grateful for that and the community that supports me in that work.

 

If folks have questions or comments, I'd love to see them below.   

 

I'll preface all this by noting that what follows is thoroughly not a tracing of the Death of God Theology or Philosophy; mostly it is my perspectives on the whole "God is Dead," thing as it currently stands.  As such, if you are unfamiliar with the "Death of God," thing, the names Friedrich Nietzsche, William Hamilton, or Thomas J. J. Altizer, you might want to check out the wikipedia article on it, and then poke around on the web for a bit.  There is a lot to read about it around.

Also of note: I am not in favor of jettisoning tradition because it is tradition.  I think there is a place for denominational work.  I'm not sure what that place is exactly, but that has more to do with my ignorance of ecumenical geography than it does with any theological position.

 

Yeah.

 

Clarification of Terms

Given the hot topic that "death of God" theology was, and is, it seems worth considering what is actually meant by the phrase.  More particularly, I want to express what I mean by the phrase, and why I think it is an idea with which it is worth grappling. After a brief consideration of what I mean by the phrase I will explore some of the related topics that provide some of the foundation upon which theological grappling may well take place. 

When I refer to the death of God I refer to my sense that (1) Our conceptualizations of God and the word God itself are in need of substantive reformulation.  People have been so swayed by unfaithfulness, judgment, and oppression that terms which resulting in one feeling a century ago sometimes drive people in the opposite direction in the present.  (2) Our traditional liturgies and theologies need to be renewed because they do not adequately speak to the experience and condition of contemporary people of faith.  This is not to be done for the sake of popularity or so as to avoid controversy, but rather because certain ways of thinking about, and naming, the Divine that may have previously "worked" to inspire, drive, and comfort people no longer provide sustenance or succor.  It is not so much that God is dead as that our naming of God no longer seems appropriate or fitting: (3) Our techniques for naming God ought to die.  And be renewed.  The classical traditions and methods still surely point to an abiding reality, but they do so in a way similar to calling a grown man named Timothy "Little Tim-Tim." There must be a better way to point to our faith and practice than what has been done.  Or, in the very least, it is worth the attempt to discover if there is a way.

The InterVarsity Dictionary of Theology entry for "Death of God" closes with  the following question.  "If we agree that God is too transcendent to be described in words, or too immanent for his acts to be distinguished from those of nature and man, then what do we have but a dead, or non-existent God?"  There is such a great wealth of ideas in this question that it seemed worth exploring it in detail for what might recovered in answering it.

 

Too Transcendent

That God is too transcendent to be described in words is a notion I often encounter, especially among progressive Christians, who often extend the idea by commenting that we shouldn't even be expected to be able to describe God because God is such a mysterious force/being/presence.  The results of thinking such as this is that God is left as an utterly amorphous, vague idea, an abstracted mystery that then allows for some very dubious theology to be done.

For Progressive people of faith, I feel very strongly that the desire to leave God almost entirely unarticulated comes as a response to an over-articulated demand for God to be a particular way coming from a more vocal Christian Right.  More or less, what I am suggesting is that the fuzzy theology of many liberal Christians is a sociological result of the  hardline, aggressive stance of some conservative Christians.  Because "they" are clear in their theological tenets and sometimes act in ways that we feel are judgmental and inappropriate, and "we" do not want to be like that we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, jettisoning not only judgment, but also clarity.  

One of the struggles that I believe we face is that even the language we use to talk about talking about God is marred with the marks of a Hellenization that does not well suit the numinous.  When we postulate that God may be too transcendent, we seem to be articulating a vision of God that is somehow fixed "out there," something akin a quasi-Platonic Form of Divinity.  Indeed, Plato's description of the Form of Beauty seems not too far removed from how many talk about God: "It is not anywhere in another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else, but itself by itself with itself" (The Symposium, 211b).  That is, the transcendent Form is so far removed from our world and our experience of the world that the best we can hope to do is experience some lesser reproduction of the thing.  The result of this thinking then, is that the best we can do when attempting to articulate something transcendent is hope to name some flawed copy of the thing we actually sought to speak.  I reject this construction.

Given that Hellenized thought is so profoundly foundational to Western education, culture, and theology, it would be naive to presume any capacity to be able to reject it wholesale and still be considered to be in conversation with the tradition, so I reject it knowing that I will hereafter always stand as a possible hypocrite to my own claims, knowing that I can easily far into the type of categorical and Wholly Other thinking that I am dismissing.  That being said, I think that what is called for is not a rejection of talk about God because God is unnameable, but a rejection of colonizing talk about God because God's name has been used to oppress and destroy.  We are called not to abandon attempts to name our experience, but to acknowledge that our attempts will be provisional and contextual, not eternal and utterly accurate.

 

Too Immanent

The fear that God becomes undifferentiateable from the natural world seems to be a hold over from a fear of the physical.  Rather than issues of Immanence and Transcendence being opposite ends of a theological continuum, I believe they are both a response to those same Hellenization processes which thrust God out into the aether.  When God is a bounded being that can be intellectually placed somewhere  - even if that where is "beyond all experience" –  then any claim to God being present in the physical world is simultaneously a claim to placing God within reach.  The issue, it seems to me, is not about whether God is "here" or "there," but that fact that we think God is categorically place-able in anything.  

The phrase  "too immanent for his acts to be distinguished from those of nature and man," suggests that if God is seen to be immanent, then somehow we will lose the capacity to discern God at all.  But what then of the God of Scripture? Of Liturgy?  Would we not still experience a sense of communion in prayer even if we did allow ourselves to panentheistically name the Pretense as present in the world?  Where and when did God inform us that we lived in a polarized world where things are only made in two shades?

A key seems to be in remembering that in Jesus Christ we have the bridging mediator that guides us to the cross and the rebirth in which the heavens and earth converge.  The Holy Spirit which persists is our guide  in present days.  A guide into new territory which has yet to be named.

 

The Death

Essentially, what I would like to call for, to proclaim, is that "death of God" theology has died.  That is, it no longer captivates, inspires, accurately speaks to the condition of contemporary people of faith, etc.  Rather than a consistent fixation of the end of an era of classical God-talk, I am much more interested in its renewal.  It strikes me that the task of the theologian is always four-fold: Recover, reclaim, cast off, and create.  There is certainly a wealth of information and passion to be recovered within the traditional modes of theological discourse, and some of it ought to be reclaimed for its use in building up the true church of believers in the Body of Christ. And some of it needs to be jettisoned as a nothing more than a historical, philosophical artifact and vestige.

I am interested in that which comes after the casting off of old clothes, the encounter with the open air after centuries of enclosure.  What wondrous words might we find to articulate our sense of the Divine in this world?  What a glorious bricolage we may find.