Illiterati Lumen Fidei May 14, 2012
Posted by Matt in music, spirituality.Tags: god, I Can't Stand It, illiterati lumen fidei, Jesus Etc, Misunderstood, Open Mind, theism, Theologians, theology, Wilco
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Or, how Jeff Tweedy helped write my personal theology
This weekend I will be afforded to opportunity to again see one of my favorite bands, Wilco, live and in concert. So, to ready myself for the upcoming show, I’ve been inundating myself with music from across their career, from old and new favorites to rediscovering those songs that have slipped through the cracks in my mind over the years. As I did this, I began to realize the profound beauty of the words and music, and just how much of an influence a well-written song can have on an obsessive music fan like me. In many ways, the poetry of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco mirror my own belief system and the spiritual progression I have undergone for the past several years.
“No love’s as random as God’s love / I can’t stand it / I can’t stand it.” (“I Can’t Stand It,” Summerteeth)
One of the first casualties in my move away from a belief system centered in classic theism was the idea of Divine Providence. I simply could no longer believe in a God who arbitrarily inserted itself into the world at seemingly random points in history to do things as innocuous as winning football games and as violent and awful as winning wars. Accordingly, God is always on the side of the victors. After hearing the name of God invoked in so many circumstances, you either become numb to it or you reject it as being logically incoherent. The realization that life is more a series of random variables than a carefully cultivated divine plan is quite liberating.
“You know you’ve got a God-shaped hole / You’re bleeding out your heart full of soul / You’re so misunderstood.” (“Misunderstood,” Being There)
The move away from a belief in theism is a difficult one, one that is fraught with anger and rejection, and that is something I discovered a few years ago as I began to speak these ideas aloud (or online), facing the inevitable backlash from many who have been important in my life. It’s a disheartening experience to face exclusion and dismissal from others, to realize that entire relationships are contingent upon the acceptance of a few axioms of faith.
“Our love is all of God’s money. / Everyone is a burning sun.” (“Jesus, Etc.” Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
So, what do we do with God if the Divine can no longer be looked upon to provide divine intervention? It seems as though we must look within, to search for those characteristics marking our own inherent divinity. There is perhaps nothing more God-like than the concept of love, that cosmic force that envelopes our being, that drives us beyond the realm of critical thinking and logic and into a radical concern for others that could ultimately cost us our own lives.
“Illiterati Lumen Fidei / God is with us every day / That illiterate light / Is with us every night” (“Theologians,” A Ghost is Born)
With God no longer being the classic, thunderbolt-hurling deity in the clouds, what is left?
Perhaps God is something bigger than that, something that we can’t know intellectually, something meant to be felt, to explored through different paths. Maybe God is ultimately indescribable and unknowable, but something to which we all have thoughts and inclinations. I like to think of God as the indwelling spirit of the universe, swirling about in the cosmos, bestowing life and love upon all its denizens. Is that the correct way to describe the Divine? Probably not, but it’s the explanation that works best for me at this time of my life, and that’s really the best we can do.
“Oh, I can only dream of the dreams we’d share / If you weren’t so defined. / I would love to be the one to open up your mind.” (“Open Mind,” The Whole Love)
Thanks for the great music, Jeff Tweedy and Wilco, and thanks for helping to open my mind. I’ll see you on Saturday.
Lenten Listen #12: Wilco – Summerteeth March 4, 2012
Posted by Matt in Lent.Tags: god, I Can't Stand It, Lent, Summerteeth, Wilco
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Wilco is one of a handful of artists who could be considered the best of the past two decades and this 1999 album, arguably their best (along with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) is all the proof you need. Like Radiohead, Wilco’s sound cannot be rationally pigeonholed. At times they seem to embrace their place among the alt-country elite, while at other times they seem to be grasping in a multitude of other directions, from Sgt. Pepper’s era Beatles to surf rock.
On this particular album, I like to consider the opener, “I Can’t Stand It,” and it’s lyrics steeped in religious frustration. I’ve been reading through the Old Testament since last Fall in my EfM studies and one of the things I’ve noticed is the seeming arbitrary nature of God. This song brings that out.
You know it’s all beginning
To feel like it’s ending
No love’s as random
As God’s love
I can’t stand it.
I can’t stand it.
Take a Deep Breath and Relax December 12, 2011
Posted by Matt in Christianity, movies, theology.Tags: god, It's a Big Old Goofy World, meaning of life, the big questions, The ravings of a madman, The Tree of Life
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It’s easy for me to get lost in my own thoughts.
Oftentimes I’ll get started on a track of thought, travel a ways, then do some research and slightly change course, then do it again and again until finally my mind is in some destination it never before considered. For the past week I’ve been pondering the film we watched last Sunday evening, The Tree of Life, plumbing its depths for meaning, trying to work out the abundant symbolism.
I have all of these ideas bouncing around my head from the film, all of the big questions asked since the dawn of humankind. What is the nature of God, the divine masculine/feminine paradigm? What is the nature of existence, the connectedness of all Creation? What is the meaning of it all?
So, I thought and thought about these and other issues and about how I could write about them and perhaps get some ideas out in the open. How could I encapsulate the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything into a series of blog entries without just giving the number 42?
Maybe I’ll get around to it soon when I have time to do it some semblance of justice. For now, I needed to just rest my mind for a bit, smile and take things easy. As the great prophet John Prince said
“Kiss a little baby
Give the world a smile
If you take an inch
Give ‘em back a mile.”
My Busy Brain December 5, 2011
Posted by Matt in movies.Tags: beauty, god, grace, the big questions, The Tree of Life
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Last night I had the opportunity to see Terrence Malick’s latest film, The Tree of Life, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since the credits finished rolling. It was incredible, beautiful, confusing, and ultimately an experience that defies explanation. I’ve never seen anything like it. If you have not seen it yet, I wholeheartedly endorse it, while at the same time I would warn you to not expect a traditional movie. Be prepared to confront the big questions relating to humankind: existence and meaning and God. Even now, hours later, I’m still going over and over it in my mind, trying to figure out what I witnessed.
So, my mind is too busy to come up with anything compelling to write about today. Hopefully, you’re having a good one.
On Kierkegaard and the Suspension of the Ethical November 21, 2011
Posted by Matt in theology.Tags: Abraham, Alameda, EFM, Elliott Smith, god, Isaac, Kant, morality, Soren Kierkegaard, teleological suspension of the ethical, theology
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I’ll return to the Awake My Soul series soon, maybe following the Thanksgiving holiday, but today I had another subject to bring up for discussion and perhaps find some additional insight.
Last week’s EfM (Education for Ministry) reading took me to the story of Abraham, namely that which regards his near-sacrifice of his son, Isaac. Now, I have read this story numerous times in the past, but this time I did so with a more critical eye and came away with some perplexing questions.
First, of course, I read the Biblical account, followed by the EfM notes regarding it, and then quickly reread Soren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, to give a little extra understanding and perspective on the story. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the patriarchal tale, but in case you are not, this recounts God’s telling Abraham to sacrifice the son promised to him, Isaac. Abraham goes to do so, but God stops him at the last minute, instead sending an animal for sacrifice, thus rendering the faith of Abraham as the standard by which to live.
The story bothers me on a number of accounts. What does it say about Abraham that he was willing to bargain with God for the lives of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, but went along unquestioningly when it involved his own son? What does it say for the character of God to order such an action, regardless of the fact that a scapegoat, as it were, was introduced at the last minute?
Kierkegaard explains this long-standing quandary by appealing to what he terms, a “teleological suspension of the ethical,” meaning that God’s ways are higher and more important than those principles we regard as moral, those presumably put in place by God. He goes on to call Abraham a “knight of faith,” for going against human moral conventions in his “infinite resignation” to the will of God and in his “absolute duty to God.”
In my view that makes God out to be quite manipulative and capricious, with an arbitrary attitude toward morality. Believe me, I’m no Kantian moral absolutist. I believe that laws and ethics have a highly situational aspect to them. At the same time, I do not at all buy into the maxim that “the ends justify the means,” a short sentence that can be used to justify everything from relatively inconsequential actions to dropping an atomic bomb.
So, I’m torn and like everyone else I do not have a satisfactory answer. Instead, I’ll turn to the tragic existentialist poet Elliott Smith, whose sadness and beauty shown like a dimly lit star, one snuffed out some eight years ago. These are the lyrics to his song “Alameda.”
You walk down Alameda
Shuffling your deck of trick cards over everyone
Like some precious only son
Face down, bow to the champion
You walk down Alameda
Looking at the cracks in the sidewalk
Thinking about your friends
How you maintain all of them in a constant state of suspense
For your own protection over their affection
Nobody broke you heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start
Walk down Alameda
Brushing off the nightmares you wish
Could plague me when I’m awake
And now you see your first mistake
Was thinking that you could relate
For one or two minutes she liked you
But the fix is in
You’re all pretension
I never pay attention
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can’t finish what you start
If you’re alone it must be you that wants to be apart.
On the Importance of Incarnation October 6, 2011
Posted by Matt in church.Tags: empathy, god, incarnation, Jesus
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Paraphrase of my priest and good friend, Patrick:
In God’s infinite experience and knowledge there was one thing that God lacked: the experience of being human. So, desiring that experience, God came down as a man and learned what it was like to be tired and hungry, thirsty and horny, and it gave him some sense of empathy for humankind. And, in turn, we learned something about being God.
Thoughts?
On Unknown Writers and Myths October 3, 2011
Posted by Matt in EfM.Tags: Documentary Hypothesis, EFM, god, inspiration, Marcus Borg, myth, Pentateuch, textual problems, truth
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After only two weeks of readings and meetings, the EfM (Education for Ministry) program I am involved with at our church has proved to be quite revelatory. Last week’s reading continued the introduction to the Pentateuch, as we this time looked at two major concepts of interest: the writers of the books and the concept of myth.
I had read about the Documentary Hypothesis in the past and had found it to be an intriguing alternative to the verbal, plenary inspiration that had long dominated my church experiences, but, despite i’s merits, this was the first time I had ever heard it spoken of in a church situation that wasn’t either mocking it or drawing an “us vs. them” line in the sand. In case you are not familiar with the idea, the Documentary Hypothesis makes the case that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses in the centuries before Hebrew was a written language, but that it was actually composed by four sources known as J, E, D, and P. This line of thought began a few centuries ago (CE 1685) when a French priest took note of the seeming contradictions and repetitions found in the text. Upon investigation, he also noticed a “regular variation in the name for God,” that some sections referred to God as Elohim (“the gods”) and some referred to an actual name, YHWH. Later scholars took this idea and partitioned the writings into sections along these lines, calling those parts referring to Elohim the “E” document and those referring to YHWH the “J” document (In German it is transliterated JHVH). As time went on and more biblical scholars investigated the matter, it became clear that two sources were not enough. They found that there were sections of E that were much different than the rest of the document. These sections dealt with temple worship, the priesthood, and the lengthy genealogies found in the text. Because of its concern with the priesthood, scholars called this the P document. Then another source, the D document, was also singled out. It included the “new Law” purportedly discovered in the Temple under King Josiah (621 BCE). These were then combined by redactors, or people who take already existing documents and weave them together to make a common document.
J is the earliest of the documents and dates to 950 BCE. E follows that around 850 BCE, D is from roughly 650 BCE, and P originated in the post-exilic period, 538-450 BCE. There were several other points of interest to me in the comparison of the four sources. For example, though J and E are both anthropomorphic (using human characteristics to describe God), J is more direct, with God coming down to speak to humans face-to-face, while E uses intermediaries like angels. Another difference that caught my attention was regarding miracles and natural happenings. According to the lesson, J and E describe “God’s use of natural phenomena,” that he sent plagues to Egypt and used an east wind to blow back the Red Sea, while P is more likely to use miracles, saying that it was the “supernatural rod of Moses which divided the water.”
Perhaps the most important thing in this section for me was the ease with which the Documentary Hypothesis can deal with textual problems, those things which are usually either glossed over or put through theological acrobatics to squeeze them into a predetermined perspective.
The second piece of subject matter revolves around the nature of the stories told in the text, most importantly, the concept of myth. Those of you who are longtime readers of this blog know that I have had a fascination with myth in scripture for some time. Back in December 2009 I wrote a lengthy series entitled, The Birth Myth, regarding the story of the birth of Jesus. Later on I touched on the Creation myth and then spoke of it again when I told of seeing renowned scholar Marcus Borg speak at the Lenten series held by Calvary Episcopal Church.
Myths are usually misunderstood in our post-Enlightenment culture, in which we tend to disregard stories for being unfactual, and therefore not important. Yet myths, as the lesson reads, are “the deepest expressions of truth that a culture or a people can speak.” The aformentioned Borg defines a myth as, “stories about the way things never were, but always are.” Myths are the stories that help us to understand our place in this world, in this universe, that aid us in finding meaning in life, in coming to grips with the human condition and how we relate to the Divine. According to the reading:
Myths are more than just bits of literature. They speak of the important things that lie at the heart of a religion. They are not just stories about things long ago, even very mysterious things long ago. They describe the deepest matters of life at any time. The point is not that long ago something happened that caused the world to be here; the point is that the world and all that is created (and is being created) stand in a particular relationship to the god or gods, and that relationship is described in the myth. Thus, the myth says something that is true about the world now, or at least something that the myth claims is true.
And later:
The myth that describes the point of view out of which you live your life, make your decisions, and hold your values, will express the most important depths of your life.
As we continue on with our study of Genesis, we will “study the myths of creation, sin and judgment in order to see how the people of Israel saw the terms of human life under God.”
It should be interesting.
Thoughts?
Reflections on Bishop Spong and Nontheism, Part 1 September 28, 2010
Posted by Matt in books, Christianity.Tags: A New Christianity for a New World, Bishop Spong, death of theism, god, human condition, Nontheism
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I recently read the book A New Christianity for a New World by John Shelby Spong and within its pages I found both reasons to rejoice for finding a somewhat kindred soul and reasons to reflect on my own faith and ideas about humanity and God. There are two major themes in the book, the first dealing with what he terms the “Death of Theism” and the second on building a new vision of Christianity in a post-modern, post-theist world. It is a brilliant book in many ways that disturbs and challenges the reader to closely examine the paradigm of belief in which they reside and to perhaps return with some unconventional conclusions.
Bishop Spong defines the term theistic God as such: a being, supernatural in power, dwelling outside this world and invading the world periodically to accomplish the divine will. This description of God, according to Spong, is dead. To further this idea, he looks at the roots of theism and the human knowledge in today’s world, coming to the conclusion that the two viewpoints are incongruous.
In the modern world we have a wealth of scientific knowledge as well as an awareness of things going on outside of our small sphere of influence, and these have greatly contributed to the supposed death of theism. The scientific world no longer sees God in terms of a chain of cause and effect. We know that sickness is not a reflection of God’s judgment, but that it is the result of germs, viruses, etc. Our knowledge of weather patterns, fronts, and other meteorological phenomena show us that harsh weather (droughts, floods, tornadoes, etc.) is not an expression of divine will, it is explainable. The security-producing role attributed to God (God will take care of you) only works until it doesn’t, and when that happens one’s faith is either destroyed or one is forced to perform theological acrobatics to retain their worldview.
Spong carries on the discussion by visiting the distant past, saying
For literally hundreds of millions of years, most of the living creatures who inhabited this planet were born, lived, and died with no conscious awareness of themselves. They simply passed through billions of life cycles, guided by biological instinct and environmental necessity in an apparently endless wheel of fortune, without any need, desire, or ability to raise questions of either mortality or purpose.
At some point self-awareness came into being and with that, “the trauma of self-consciousness,” as Sigmund Freud put it. Perhaps this is the manifestation of the “image of God” bestowed upon humankind in the creation myth of Genesis. As this realization of mortality grew, the early humans were gripped with anxiety. The relative shortness and uncertainty of human life became existential realities that could be thought of abstractly and anticipated consciously. So, with this realization, a need to find meaning, permanence, and stability in a chaotic world was born. This self-awareness and consequential anxiety compose what is known as the human condition.
Spong then goes through a series of subconscious statements that may have plagued the early humans as they came to grips with the trauma of self-realization.
“I am self,” was the first definition of self consciousness. This then led to,
“Perhaps I am not alone,” the conclusion reached by newly self-conscious being when it viewed the world as an objective other for the first time. Next, they said,
“Perhaps these powerful forces can be made to work for me or at least not against me.” Then, going a bit farther,
“Perhaps these powers are benevolent. Maybe they desire to help, watch over and protect me.”
Thus, the God understood theistically was a human definition, not a divine revelation.
Today, in Spong’s thinking, the theistic God is dead, run through by the sword of knowledge, but of course the human condition persists. The hysteria accompanying self-awareness and the anticipation of mortality continue to plague humans. This leads to a variety of reactions, from our Western dependence on drugs, a classification that could include something relatively benign like caffeine, something potentially destructive like alcohol, or even the rampant use of anti-depressants as prescribed by doctors, to the violent outbursts so often reported on today’s newscasts, to the rabid Christian fundamentalism shrilly proclaiming and condemning in pulpits across America.
With numbers declining and the world rapidly changing around them, Christianity stands at a crossroads. Theism is dying and atheism is an unfulfilling option, so perhaps there is another way – and that is just what Bishop Spong attempts to hash out in this book. He ends this section with what he calls the “profoundly religious questions of the new millennium.”
Is it not a possibility worth pursuing that our very self-consciousness might be the means by which our lives could opened to nontheistic dimensions of our existence, even nontheistic definitions of God?
Could not our growing self-consciousness also enable us to relate to that in which our being is grounded, that which is more than who we are and yet part of who we are?
Could we not begin to envision a transcendence that enters our life but also calls us beyond the limits of our humanity, not toward an external being but toward the Ground of All Being including our own, a transcendence that calls us to a new humanity?
Is there not a new maturity that can be claimed by human life when we cease the search for a supernatural being who will parent us, take care of us, watch over and protect us?
Is there not a new human dignity that can be found in the rejection of those groveling patterns of our past through which we attempted to please the theistic deity in the early years of evolutionary history?
In place of that groveling, are we not now able to open ourselves in new ways to discover the Ground of Being that is met and known in the self that is emerging as expanded consciousness?
I’ll tell more about his ideas later as I have time.
Yet Another Workplace Conversation March 9, 2010
Posted by Matt in Uncategorized.Tags: baby, cloth diapers, cubicle talk, eschatology, god, mark of the beast
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The conversation two cubes down began innocently enough. J (the guy who made the boldly racist statements a few weeks ago) and A (the no epidural guy) were talking about the upcoming birth of A’s first child.
A: We’ve decided that we’re going to use cloth diapers instead of disposable.
J: What? Don’t tell me you’re turning into one of those Al Gore tree-huggers.
A: Oh no, nothing like that at all. God gave man dominion over the earth so I’m not concerned with any of that. No, we’re doing it to save money.
J: Yeah, I hear ya.
A: My wife is going to stay home with the baby because that is what God said she is supposed to do. She wasn’t very happy about that at first, but I explained to her that God commanded that she be at home and that she could not go against the will of God.
I needed a coffee refill so I stood up, stretched, and walked by my two co-workers having this conversation.
J: I bet Matt knows something about this. He is one of those naturalist hippies.
A: Hey, Matt, I knew I should have asked you about this.
Me (with a deer-in-the-headlights look): Ummm…yeah?
A: What do you think of cloth diapers?
Me: Well, I think it’s a great idea. I have a good friend who did that for environmental reasons when his son was born last year. Ours were day care kids, though, and we couldn’t use cloth even if we wanted to. So instead of that, we increased the amount of our recycling to such a degree that our family of five produces less than 2 bags of trash in a week. Considering how low our amount of waste is, I don’t feel quite as bad about using disposable diapers.
J: See, what’d I tell you. Hippy.
I walked down the hall to the breakroom, refilled my cup, and strolled back to my cubicle. When I arrived at our area, A was still at J’s cube, but for some reason I was not privy to, the conversation had taken a drastic and more eschatological turn.
J: I’m tellin’ you. All these earthquakes are just another sign of the end. Our countries goin’ to hell and so is the rest of the world.
A: Hey, what’s this I hear about a chip they want to put in your hand?
J: It’s true! The government wants to embed a microchip in your head and hand, and they are going to tell you that it’s for commercial purposes, you know, so that you can buy things. In reality, it’s the mark of the beast!
A: Wow, oh man that’s scary!
J: I’m not making any of this up. It says it right there in the book of Revelation and our government is plotting to do it right now! So, if you are ever told to get this chip embedded, you tell them no! Of course, we won’t have anything to worry about because the rapture will come first. There will be no hope for those who accept the mark. No repenting.
A: Well, I don’t have anything to worry about.
J (with a look of sadistic glee): People will be covered with boils and there will be darkness and fire from heaven! Dragons and death!
The two of them looked at each other and shook their heads in wonder at the eschatological destruction awaiting the vast majority of the world. Then, noticing my presence outside his cubicle, J looked at me accusingly.
J: Of course, that’s if you take the book of Revelation seriously, if you believe the word of God to be literal truth. Some people (nodding at me) don’t.
I just smiled, nodded in return, and walked back to my seat. Some things just aren’t worth arguing.
