Category Archives: Bible

Resources for Postmodern Preaching


Dr. David Teague, a former missionary who teaches at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts, has started the website Postmodern Preaching as a resource for pastors and others who find the old methods of Christian apologetics irrelevant to a culture with postmodern ideas about truth and knowledge. The essays on this site are succinct and readable, providing a good starting place for the would-be evangelist. Here are some highlights from his article on Cultural Pluralism:


In the postmodern world, all beliefs and belief systems are considered to be relative. We are told that there is no absolute truth. Faith is just a matter of private opinion. One person’s faith is no more valid or unique than anyone else’s.

So, how do we preach in a world that is culturally pluralistic? We do so by being aware of:

1. The spirituality of postmodern people
2. The uniqueness of Christianity
3. The need to be spiritually faithful yet also socially tolerant

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… Cultural pluralism…suggests that the difference between world religions is superficial. It makes us feel that our choice amongst these religions is as trite as choosing an item on a restaurant menu.

Dr. Daniel Brown argues that the difference between the world’s religions goes much deeper than that. Each religion represents a different worldview that affects all of life.

For instance, postmodern spirituality often confuses God and the created world. This makes people confuse psychological self-actualization with God. But this understanding is based on a worldview called pantheism.

It’s wrong to simply think that all religions are the same. Each religion is unique because each reflects a fundamentally different worldview. The process of choosing a religion, then, involves understanding which world and life view one wishes to adopt. It is in this way that we can understand the uniqueness of Christ….

Christianity is unique among the religions of the world because in it the transcendence and the immanence of God — his holiness and his love — become perfectly blended. As a result, the Christian worldview teaches that God is not the created world, but God can be known because he entered into the created world.

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…The cardinal sin of the postmodern world is intolerance. Yet, through the centuries, intolerance has characterized the followers of Christ. This is a handicap to the Christian message in a postmodern world.

Some Christian thinkers, to avoid being intolerant, have bought into the pluralistic vision that all religions are the same. But pluralism undermines Christ’s claim that he is Lord of all. When we adopt a pluralistic vision, we end up respecting other religions but not our own.

Is our only choice, then, between faithfulness and intolerance?

David Clendenin thinks not. He points out the difference between what he calls “social tolerance” and “intellectual tolerance.” (David Clendenin, “The Only Way,” Christianity Today, 12 January 1998, 40). Intellectual tolerance is when we say that all beliefs have to be respected as valid. This is the typical postmodern view. Social tolerance is when we say that all people have a right to their own belief, but not that all beliefs are valid.

Clendenin’s distinction helps Christians to be tolerant toward others, yet without fully buying into the pluralist vision. Being socially tolerant does not mean we have to sacrifice our own integrity. We can show respect toward all people while still disagreeing with them.

When we adopt an attitude of social tolerance, it enables us to discern the good in other religions. As socially tolerant people, we are free to find common ground with those of other faiths, even as we also affirm the uniqueness of our own faith….

The Bible is very clear that Christians are not to judge others. Judging is God’s right alone. When we truly understand this, it frees us. Our job is just to be faithful to God and to love people and to leave all the judging up to God.

Psalm 91: Because I Said So


I’ve always had trouble believing the more concrete promises of God: peace, food, shelter, protection, health. Spiritual ones are easier to fudge. I can’t see whether God has answered someone else’s prayers for discernment, peace of mind, comfort, or other invisible interior states. But I look around at the world where so many people are not peaceful, healthy, or materially secure, at least some of whom presumably are praying to God and are no less worthy than others (like myself) who have these blessings. Faithful people acting as God’s hands in the world can remedy some of these inequities, but not all. So what do we do about the many Old Testament passages where God seems to be promising something He hasn’t delivered?

I was reciting Psalm 91 the other night as part of the Compline (evening) service in the Book of Common Prayer:


1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say [b] of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.

8 You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-

10 then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;

12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

16 With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

As usual, I said this psalm with inner reservations that, if consciously articulated, would sound something like this: Statistically, some people will probably receive this kind of protection from God, but there’s no guarantee He will do it for me, since obviously there are other believers who suffer all the wrongs described in the psalm.

And then I thought: If we could look at our situation and logically deduce that we would receive these blessings, God would not need to promise anything. God’s faithfulness is highlighted by the fact that His promises contradict the logic of the world. We believe it against the evidence as proof of how much we trust Him.

I’m rather uncomfortable with this conclusion, having grown up as an intellectual first and a Christian second. It also doesn’t explain why some people don’t get those blessings, as I said before. Perhaps God wants us to get out of the whole game of comparing ourselves to other people as a barometer of whether He is working in our lives.


Psalm 131

1 My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.

2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

John Koessler on Holy Emptiness


John Koessler, chair of pastoral studies at Moody Bible Institute, wrote an incredibly moving essay in Christianity Today about how emptiness is the precondition for blessing. Once again Jesus reverses our worldly values, such that the depth of our neediness becomes the measure of God’s opportunity to fill us with good gifts. Some excerpts follow:


My mother was hungry most of her life. She cooked daily for us, but rarely sat down to eat. Unable to stomach the food she’d prepared for the rest of us, she ate her own meals at odd hours, nourishing herself on a strange combination of the ordinary and the exotic. One day she might eat a baked bean sandwich smothered in ketchup; the next, broiled lobster.

Mother blamed her eating habits on a childhood of poverty. Born six years before the Great Depression, her earliest memories were of hunger. Her family was so poor they often went days without eating. When there was food, it was never enough. Sometimes all they had to share between them was a can of beans.

Mother looked hungry. As thin as a wraith much of her life, weighing an almost skeletal 90 pounds, her erratic diet eventually consumed her, shredding her bowels and leaving her emaciated. Unable to keep down food, she died in a hospital bed connected to tubes that provided nutrients for her weakened shell of a body.

My father, on the other hand, died of thirst. A large man with a hearty appetite, his experience was the polar opposite of my mother’s. He was raised in comfort. The son of a medical doctor, he observed the poverty of the Great Depression from a distance, never worrying about his next meal.

He started drinking in his teens, I suspect. By the time he reached adulthood, he was a full-fledged alcoholic. He couldn’t start the day without a shot of liquid napalm, which he purchased by the half gallon. Like my mother’s strange hunger, his thirst for alcohol was the end of him. He spent the last days of his life waiting to have his dry lips moistened with a damp swab, unable to drink water because of his alcohol-ravaged kidneys.

Their experiences are not lost on me when I read Jesus’ blessing in Matthew 5:6. Blessed are those who hunger? Hunger and thirst signal need. They are symptoms of emptiness and unfulfilled desire. How can they be a source of blessing?

The fact that Jesus says he is talking about hunger and thirst for righteousness clarifies little. He seems to have put the emphasis in the wrong place. Why not, “Blessed are the righteous?” Hunger implies a lack of righteousness. Jesus’ proposal is so radical, it turns our notions of God and righteousness and blessing on their heads. He blesses what most of us would curse.

According to Jesus, when we draw near to the kingdom, it is better to come empty than full. We are tempted to think that righteousness is the condition we must be in to be blessed. Jesus says the opposite. Righteousness is the blessing; hunger is the precondition….

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Why is blessedness associated with hunger? Because those who bring their hunger to Christ will be filled with his righteousness. Thus, righteousness must be a gift before it can become a practice. The promise of righteousness is offered to those who are empty. It belongs to those who are aware of their lack.

We cannot labor for Christ’s righteousness. Even if we wanted to work for it, we could not expend enough effort to obtain it. If we wanted to buy it, we could not offer enough money. We can’t get it by loan. The only way to obtain righteousness is to receive it.

The language of filling in Christ’s beatitude underscores another important aspect of the blessing. Righteousness works from the inside out. We usually go about it the other way around; we try to work on it from the outside in, as if it were a matter of externals. If we worship in the right building, perform the right rituals, wear the right clothes, and are seen with the right people, we are righteous. If we read our Bibles and pray in the morning, give a tithe of our earnings on Sunday, control our tempers and restrain our passions the rest of the week, we are righteous.

But if we listen to Jesus, we begin to understand why he attracted the sort of people who came to listen to his preaching: hookers and thieves, trailer trash and lowlifes, people who dwelled on the outskirts, in places where decent citizens refused to travel. If we dare to hear Jesus rightly, we understand why respectable, law-abiding people such as ourselves wanted to silence him. It is because this word of Jesus has the power to strip us of all we think we’ve achieved. This beatitude robs us of what we thought we had acquired and leaves us naked, destitute, and empty. If we are to have righteousness as Jesus defines it, we must receive it like beggars, letting it transform us from the inside.

Above all, Jesus’ promise in this beatitude shows us that true righteousness leaves us craving more. We tend to think of righteousness as a standard. Like the little boy whose progress in growth has been marked inch by inch on the kitchen wall and compared to his father’s height, we hope that we, too, will measure up someday. Yet there is no limit to God’s righteousness, as if we could accumulate and eventually exhaust it. God has an infinite capacity for righteousness, and so do we. This is the secret to savoring the blessed hunger Jesus describes. Natural hunger is all about emptiness. The hunger Jesus blesses is about never being filled.

Such is our lot—and our blessing. As worshipers of an infinite God, we are always longing, always filled.

See also:
Book Notes: Jesus Mean and Wild
“The type of experience we’ll have with God for eternity: an endless falling in love, an endless fascination, an endless pursuing of the mystery of God — and the fact that we are never fully satisfied is precisely one reason we’ll find the kingdom of heaven such a joy.” –Mark Galli

Judith & Gerson Goldhaber: “Noah and the Flood” (excerpt)

Award-winning poet Judith Goldhaber and her husband, the artist and physicist Gerson Goldhaber, have just released a sequel to their well-received collaboration, the illustrated poetry book Sonnets from Aesop. Their new collection, Sarah Laughed: Sonnets from Genesis, embellishes familiar Bible stories with humorous and mystical elements from midrash and folklore. Willis Barnstone writes, “Sarah Laughed is utterly charming, poem and icon…In the best tradition of imitation it illumines the Abrahamic religions.” The Goldhabers have kindly permitted me to reproduce the following excerpt from their “Noah and the Flood” sonnet sequence:

ii. The Time is Coming

God spoke to Noah when he became a man
and said, “The time is coming — build an Ark;
storm clouds are gathering; soon you will embark
upon the seas, as outlined in My plan.
Make the Ark as sturdy as you can —
line it with pitch, strip gopher trees of bark
to shape the hull, and lest it be too dark
cut windows, and a doorway.” Noah began
to do what God commanded, but worked slowly,
hoping in time the Lord might change His mind
regarding the destruction of mankind.
He begged the wicked to return to holy
customs, but they answered him with jeers.
And thus went by one hundred twenty years.



iii. The Laughing Stock

At last the Ark was finished, and it stood
three hundred cubits long, and fifty wide,
three stories — thirty cubits — high inside
constructed out of seasoned gopher wood,
the laughing stock of Noah’s neighborhood.
“A flood?” the people mocked, “I’m terrified!
Look! Over there! Is that a rising tide
I see? Boo-hoo, I promise to be good!!”
But then Methuselah died, and a malaise
descended on the people, for they knew
that God had stayed His hand until the few
good men still living reached their final days.
A dark cloud veiled the sun; the sky was bleak,
and Noah sniffed the wind and said, “A week.”



iv. Bird to Bird

Compared to getting humankind to heed
the urgent warnings, putting out the word
to animals was easy. Bird to bird
the news was spread at supersonic speed.
By nightfall all the beasts of earth had heard
the message, and they readily agreed
to group themselves according to their breed
(scaly, hairy, hard-shelled, feathered, furred)
and line up in a queue beside the Ark.
Birds sang and cattle mooed and lions roared
as Noah gently welcomed them aboard
and sealed the door against the growing dark.
At last, on bended knee, nose to the ground,
he gathered up the ants, lest they be drowned.



v. A Mighty Cry

The sun turned black, and lightning streaked the sky,
somewhere behind the clouds a strange light bloomed
and faded, and at last the thunder boomed,
bringing the first drops. Then a mighty cry
arose from those who’d chosen to defy
the warning signs, and callously resumed
their sinful ways. “Even now you are not doomed,”
despairing, Noah cried, “repent or die!”
On board the Ark, through unbelieving eyes
the animals beheld the death of man.
Sworn adversaries since the world began
wept freely as they said their last goodbyes.
Even man’s ancient enemy the snake
shed bitter tears that day for mankind’s sake.

Divine Impassibility? A Jewish Perspective


No, not impossibility. For the non-theology-geeks among you, impassibility is the doctrine that God does not suffer or have emotions in the human sense. This assertion is disputed among Christians, and seems to appeal more to Calvinists and others who are anxious to preserve God’s absolute sovereignty. (If that sounds absurdly presumptuous, well, I phrased it that way for a reason.) I lean toward believing that it’s an unbiblical notion that crept in from Hellenistic culture, which understood perfection as changelessness. By contrast, the Bible tells us that God is faithful and eternal, but this need not mean that God is unaffected by events. Rather, it means that God’s loving nature and His promises are completely reliable. 

Writing in this week’s Jewish World Review, Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo connects the de-personalization of God to a loss of moral significance for human emotions and actions:


…[T]he term G-d…often stands for completely opposing entities used by religious and quasi-religious ideologies. All of them agree that “G-d” affirms some Absolute Reality as the Ultimate. But, they fundamentally disagree as to what that reality is all about. For Benedictus Spinoza, the Dutch philosopher and Jewish apostate, and other pantheistic thinkers, He is really an “It,” a primal, impersonal force, identical with all nature — some ineffable, immutable, impassive, Divine substance that pervades the universe or is the universe. G-d is only immanent; He is permanently pervading the universe but not transcendent, a Divine spirit which has little practical meaning in man’s day-to-day life.

This is not so for Judaism and other monotheistic religions. For the Jewish tradition, G-d is not an idea or just a blind force but the Ribono shel Olam, the Master of the Universe, Who, besides being immanent is also transcendent, surpassing the universe which is His creation. He has the disturbing habit of being everywhere and anywhere, and He is known to interfere with anything and everything. He is a living G-d who is a dynamic power in the life and history of man, moving things around when He sees fit and smiling or getting annoyed with His creatures when they have blundered yet again. But, most importantly, while He does not fit into any category, He has, for the lack of a better word, “personality” and His own consciousness. His essence cannot be expressed, but He can definitely be addressed.

This radical difference in the conception of G-d makes for an equally profound divergence in attitudes about all life and the universe. While in pantheistic and other non-monotheistic philosophies, He has no moral input, nothing could be further from the Jewish concept of G-d. For in Judaism, He is the source “par excellence” of all moral criteria. According to pantheism and the like, the world is eternal, without a beginning. As such, it does not have a purpose since purpose is the conscious motivation of a creator to bring something into existence. It therefore follows that in the pantheistic view man cannot have any purpose either. He, like the universe, just “is” and, so, moral behavior may have some utilitarian purpose but no ultimate one. For pantheism it is not the goal of man to be moral but just a means to his survival. Would moral behavior no longer be needed as a means for man to survive, it could be dispensed with.

On a deeper level, the pantheistic world view sees the universe as an illusion — an unreal, shifting flux of sensory deception. As such, it needs to be escaped. Made from a purely Divine substance, it could not accommodate any physical reality and, therefore, could not have any real meaning. Neither could man. Once his physical existence is branded as an illusion, he can no longer exist as a man of flesh and blood. Nor are his deeds of any real value. Since it is the body, which gives man the opportunity to act, and man’s body is seen as part of the deception, it must follow that all man’s behavior belongs to the world of illusion as well. It is this view that Judaism protests. G-d is a conscious Being who created the world with a purpose. And this world is real and by no means a mirage. Man’s deeds are of great value, far from an illusion; they are the very goal of creation. Judaism objects to the pantheistic view of man since it depersonalizes him, which must finally lead to his demoralization. If man is part of an illusion, so are his feelings. So why be concerned with a fellow man’s emotional and physical welfare?

Paradoxically, this pantheism infiltrated western culture via the back door. When we are told by certain modern philosophers that man is only physical and his body a scientific mechanism in which emotions are just a chemical inconvenience, we are confronted with a kind of pantheism turned on its head. While pantheism denies the physical side of existence, this so-called scientific approach rejects the spiritual dimension of man. In both cases, emotions are seen as part of an illusion, and, therefore, they are to be ignored.

Judaism, on the other hand, declares that it is emotions that make man into man and that they are of crucial importance and real. In fact, emotions are central to man’s existence, since they are the foundation of moral behavior. While pantheism teaches that moral criteria belong to the veil of illusion, Judaism declares them to be crucial. It is for that reason that Judaism views G-d as an emotional Being. By giving G-d, metaphorically speaking, emotions, these emotions are raised to a supreme state. If G-d has emotions such as love, mercy, jealousy and anger, then they must be real and serious and not to be ignored when found in man. While some philosophers considered such anthropomorphism as scandalous, the Jewish tradition took the risk of granting G-d emotions so as to uphold morality on its highest level and guarantee it would not be tampered with. For the sake of man even G-d is prepared to compromise His wholly Otherness, albeit not to the point that He would be projected as a human being.

Read the whole article here. (JWR is reader-supported, so if you like it, consider making a donation.)

Rabbi Cardozo is describing an Incarnational worldview, one that Christians take a step further by claiming that God was in fact “projected as a human being” in Jesus. I’m always wary of philosophical moves that widen the gulf between God and humanity, in a way that obscures our ultimate reconciliation rather than merely whetting the appetite for it. Note that God’s sovereignty is not threatened because it was still His initiative to “compromise His wholly Otherness”. The one who “taking the very nature of a servant…humbled himself and became obedient to death” (Phil 2:7-8) does not need us to wipe away His humanity in order to restore His dignity.

Suffering for the Wrong Reasons


The Christian life is not an easy one…but then, what life is?

“Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not its goal,” wrote Longfellow in “A Psalm of Life”. Prophets and preachers can be stung to harshness at the thought of people wasting that one precious life on trivia, when they could be growing in the knowledge and love of God. But I also see a lot of Grape-Nuts religion; woe to you who prefer Frosted Flakes to a bowl of unsweetened gravel, because you are still selfish enough to want God to make you happy. 

That is not the God I am encountering in the Gospels and the Psalms. God is always making promises to people, very concrete ones involving food, shelter, the birth of children, and livestock, as well as the ones we can reframe as acceptably “spiritual”, like justice and salvation. “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

The issue of homosexuality puts this kind of “No pain, no gain” religiosity on display.  Requiring gays to be celibate — the last-ditch response now that the existence of an unchosen, unchangeable gay orientation can no longer be denied — imposes a suffering far greater than lack of sex. It is about depriving a whole class of people, through no fault of their own, of even the hope of a loving family life. Not even single straight Christians, who are remaining chaste until marriage, face this certainty of a lonely future.

The typical response by celibacy advocates is to sidestep all appeals to compassion by saying that every Christian is called to suffer and sacrifice. This is my cross, this is yours, end of discussion. Chris at Betwixt and Between deconstructs this position admirably in his August 6 post; boldface emphasis mine (scroll down; the permalink feature is not working for me right now):


At heart, Christianity is NOT a sado-masochistic religion. It’s not about suffering for suffering sake. Or even “giving up” something. It’s about “responding unto”. It’s about response to the God who is love.

But some straight Christians and gay celibates can sure turn Christianity into that when discussing what is good for gay Christians in general. It often happens through an argument from the extreme case (celibacy) to every particular case….

All too often I run into posts across the internet about gay people and our needing to “give up something”, take up our cross, meaning that we’re automatically called to celibacy in toto. That a little more suffering is a good thing in and of itself even when nothing shows for it. But Christianity is not about suffering for suffering sake, or that a little more suffering will get you closer to God, after all, at heart, our faith makes clear that suffering can destroy and we can do nothing of ourselves to get us closer to God, rather God draweth nigh to us amidst the sundry realities of life, especially in our suffering….

Good and WISE spiritual discernment and direction knows that we have to be careful in determining another’s call or what from they are called to abstain, and even more careful in making carte blanche generalizations for an entire class of persons in this regard, and particularly so, it seems that while it is suspect to draw conclusions from gay individuals who claim celibacy is NOT their call and partner, it seems many heterosexuals are quick to glom on to those gay individuals who claim it is the call of every gay person simply because it’s working for those gay persons….

It’s my opinion that such efforts to make such determinations are ego-driven rather than driven by a concern to love the other as ourselves or to bring them the Good News of Christ Jesus and let the response be truly a working out of God in the gay person’s life. And this egoism can be hidden under all sorts of pious declarations and considerations.

In the case of gay people, I think the want to tell all gay people their calling is celibacy by virtue of being gay, is at heart, so that these people don’t have to deal with the uncomfortable reality of another orientation existing and making space for that orientation as ordinary even if abnormal statistically with appropriate means for the vast ordinary majority in that class to live as such with the possibility of growing in love and virtues. It’s about ego. Even when they see virtues arising from the vast majority of gays who will simply cut down the middle–just like them, in partnership. Give it up! Because the law says… It’s stifling to behold.

It’s like the bottom-line basis by which we discern is taken out from underneath us–fruits of the Spirit (virtues), and stamped on, simply because we’re told, the extreme (celibacy) would show that we truly loved God and would do us better because God requires more of us. And if we have to suffer a bit more. Oh, well! Quit that intimacy with your partner, and then we know you love God. But what if the relationship shatters and virtue slides away? I’ve seen this happen in ex-gay situations when one of the partners gets “saved”. No answer. Or some damn platitude, “Well God has a better plan…” Or another smarm about suffering. But that’s the whole point. Such argument from the extreme to the most of us who are ordinary and not gifted in celibacy can destroy. It’s bad spiritual direction and poor pastoral understanding.

Instead, what is good for us is ascertained by the extreme (celibacy)—well the Desert Elders did some claim for example so why can’t you gays, rather than recognizing most will likely find themselves, just like straights, needing a middle path….A path, partnership, that even many of those, who advocate that we are automatically called to the extreme, recognize leads to virtues. Many who say we should nonetheless take on an extra helping of suffering simply to suffer or to appease God because God calls us to give up the good (for what purpose in toto isn’t clear besides maintaining the rules) nonetheless admit that such partnerships show virtues. Perhaps that which is pleasing to God isn’t simply to increase suffering, but doing that which in a particular life leads to holiness?

…The danger in all of this is that gays will come to understand that the God of Jesus is a body-soul divider, opposes the Spirit to the flesh, a Manichaean God so often the image I get from straight people who make such suggestions but wouldn’t deign to turn that same suggestion on themselves (nor do they offer an equivalent to they’re generalized, “well heterosexuals suffer too” response when queried) or from the gay people who it seems have a vocation to celibacy so they universalize their vocation to all gay people (or the worst, apparently straight people called to celibacy who then have lots of suggestions for the gays while making snide comments about our parnterships)—not some tricky slide, well I give up x, y, z, so you need to give up partnership, but a humanizing, we’re more similar than different in this so most likely and reasonably speaking not all of you would be asked to give up partnership. It’s an argument from the extremes, that ironically, is at odds with monasticism in its healthiest forms and its focus on practice–that most practice will be in the middle not on the edges. To suggest that all gay people should be just like the Desert Elders or monastics is an extreme arguing into practice for the general population–of gays in this instance.

Instead, a blanket policy makes life easier—for the straights and the gay celibates who advocate this. And connecting that policy to the cross gets such people off the hook of examining what looks an awful lot like sado-masochism. Asking of an entire class of people what they wouldn’t ask for themselves, and being unable to think in terms of the particular in ways that would be unthinkable for straight people. The rules say, and so it goes… You will need to suffer a little more because…God needs appeasing. While we have tangible and good things in our lives, we’ll tell you about all of the non-existant ones you’ll inherit in the next. But instead in following Jesus, what we’re giving up is the story these people have told us about ourselves, and that puts us in some difficult jams. We get plenty of crosses coming our way by doing so everyday. The suggestion that we don’t already face crosses simply by living life is a form of blindness to what gay people face just for existing and living in ordinary ways.

I could understand this argument from the extreme if always and everywhere gay partnership failed to blossom in virtues or positively led to vice. But even many of these folks admit it doesn’t. Virtues arise. Which tends to tell us that the desire itself is not the problem, but rather what we choose to do with it, just like heterosexuality. And that those of either orientation given the GIFT of celibacy are not “giving up” but “responding unto” in the will God has for them rather than tending to put God and humans at odds, in competition.

In his 1974 tome On Being a Christian, renegade Catholic theologian Hans Kung helpfully distinguished between seeking suffering for its own sake (a misunderstanding of the cross) and bringing forth spiritual fruit from the suffering that inevitably comes our way:


Following the cross does not mean copying the suffering of Jesus, it is not the reconstruction of his cross. That would be presumption. But it certainly means enduring the suffering which befalls me in my inexchangeable situation — in conformity with the suffering of Christ. Anyone who wants to go with Jesus must deny himself and take on himself, not the cross of Jesus nor just any kind of cross, but his cross, his own cross; then he must follow Jesus. Seeking extraordinary suffering in monastic asceticism or in romantic heroism is not particularly Christian.

…It is likewise not a true following of the cross to adopt the Stoic ideal of apathy toward suffering, enduring our own suffering as unemotionally as possible and allowing the suffering of others to pass by while we remain aloof and refuse to be mentally involved. Jesus did not suppress his pain either at his own or at others’ suffering. He attacked these things as signs of the powers of evil, of sickness and death, in the still unredeemed world. The message of Jesus culminates in love of neighbor, unforgettably instilled in the parable of the good Samaritan and in the critical standard of the Last Judgment: involvement with the hungry, thirsty, naked, strangers, sick and imprisoned. (pp.576-77)

In my opinion, what makes universal gay celibacy a false cross is that the sacrifice benefits no one. Unlike chastity before marriage, it is not preparation for a relationship of mutual self-giving and fidelity. Unlike priestly or monastic celibacy, it is borne in solitude and shame, not in an honored role that provides alternative channels for that person’s loving generosity to express itself. It’s throwing away a resource rather than using it where it is most needed. It’s the cross for the sake of the cross, without salvation or resurrection. Jesus called people to sacrifice not so they could prove something to God with their unhappiness, but so that others could be happy as well. Sacrifices with no justification beyond formal obedience to reasonless commands should be looked upon with suspicion. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

A Saint of Emotional Intelligence


Today is the feast day of John-Baptist Vianney, about whom James Kiefer at The Daily Office writes:


Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (better known as the Cure’ d’Ars, or curate of Ars — now Villars-les-Dombes) was the son of a peasant farmer, born in France in 1786, three years before the beginning of the French Revolution. He wished to become a priest, but his studies were hindered, first by the poverty of his family, next by the anti-religious policies of the Revolutionary government, and finally by the wars of Napoleon. He was not a particularly bright student, and struggled hopelessly with Latin. He was 29 when he was finally ordained, his superiors having decided that his zeal and devotion compensated for his “academic underqualification.”

He was sent as curate to the small and obscure village of Ars-en-Dombes (now called Villars-les-Dombes (46:00 N 4:50 E),about 30 kilometers northeast of Lyon (formerly Lyons, 45:46 N 4:50 E), where he proved an unexpectedly brilliant preacher. He campaigned vigorously against drinking, dancing, and immodest dress, but became chiefly known for his skill in individual counselling. He was blessed with extraordinary psychological insight, and knew when to tell someone, “You are worrying too much about your sins and failing to trust in the mercy of God,” and when to say, “You are not worrying enough about your sins and are treating the mercy of God as a moral blank check.” He would often tell people, “Your spiritual problems do not lie in the matters you have mentioned, but in another area entirely.”

Many people came away convinced that he must be a mind-reader. As his fame spread, people came for hundreds of miles to hear him preach (close to 100,000 in the last year of his life) and to receive his private counsel (he ended up spending eighteen hours a day hearing confessions). The work was exhausting, and three times he undertook to resign and retire to a monastery, but each time he felt bound to return to deal with the needs of his congregation. He died “in harness” at the age of 73, 4 August 1859.

I’m tempted to wonder whether Father Vianney’s lack of aptitude for academic theology blessed him with extraordinary fluidity in tailoring his message to the individual’s spiritual imbalances. The Bible contains apparent contradictions or inconsistencies of emphasis (e.g. Paul’s “by grace alone” versus James’ “faith without works is dead”) that cannot be crammed into a perfectly neat theological system, but that widen the Scriptures’ applicability to every type of audience.

Similarly, in the gospels, Jesus himself is perpetually surprising, at one point proclaiming even stricter moral laws than the Pharisees, at another point forgiving and touching the outcast sinners. So is this religion about moral perfection or moral anarchy? When we abstract out the dynamic initiative of God and His personal relationship with each of us, we have no way to balance these competing principles, and we develop a heartless or mindless theology that overcompensates in a particular direction.

My friend the writer Elise Chase expressed this insight well in an as-yet-unpublished essay about John 14:6 and the possibility of salvation for non-Christians (boldface emphasis mine):


Jesus tells us that belief is crucial [to salvation], but it is often unclear from his words which is more important–theological understanding, or inarticulate trust. What is clear is that his call to commitment is so radical, even outlandish, that it runs counter to our deepest autonomous instincts, and nothing short of God’s own intervention in our hearts can make such commitment possible. This alone should make us hesitate to spell out too precisely just what we must do from our human end to be “saved”. Yet if we throw up our hands and say we have no role in the matter, there are all those other passages in scripture that seem to suggest our human failure to recognize who Jesus is, and to follow him, has enough impact on the heart of God that he suffers genuine pain.

There is so much paradox, even ambiguity, when we set text against text! If each word in scripture is the way God intends it to be, then I can’t help thinking this paradox is there for a reason. Perhaps God doesn’t want us to be too rigid in our understanding of exactly how the salvation provided by Jesus “works”, in an operational sense; maybe the Bible’s very mystery has a pastoral function. We have enough passages promising God will be faithful to his “chosen” ones that, as believers, we are given assurance about our eternal security in him. When it comes to where others may stand with him, though, tension between the themes of God’s sovereignty, on the one hand, and his desire that everyone might come to salvation, on the other, cautions us not to set categorical boundaries around God’s grace….

In the end, I can’t help believing, agape love, which is always rooted in Jesus, inevitably trumps doctrine. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:15). Yes, doctrine is necessary as a pastoral tool: to ground us in clear thinking, to anchor us in commitment to Jesus as Savior and Lord, to give us assurance that he has already accomplished everything necessary for our salvation, and it is not up to us. But when obsession with doctrine snarls and entangles us, making us regress spiritually and inhibiting us from loving God and those around us, surely it is better to loosen our grip, at least for the moment, on the propositional tenets that are doing this damage.

God’s Honor and the Atonement


From the April 2007 archives at The Thinking Reed comes this insightful post on how we misread the Atonement as a legal formality demanded by a proud, wrathful God. Actually, one could interpret it as God subverting the human zero-sum model of authority that must be shored up by another’s punishment, by collapsing all distinctions among the offender, the judge and the victim into the Person of Christ. Lee writes:


Anselm’s account of the atonement is rooted from first to last in his understanding of the divine nature, and he reworks the notions of honor and satisfaction accordingly. [John] McIntyre argues that a, if not the, key to understanding [Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo] is the concept of God’s aseity. This is theological jargon referring to the idea that God exists in and through himself, utterly independent of anything else. There is nothing “external” to God which constrains him to act in certain ways.

Thus, there isn’t an order of justice that has to be satisfied by God before he can be merciful to us, as though God were caught in some web of rules. And God’s “honor” for Anselm doesn’t refer to his wounded pride. God’s justice and purpose in creating the world are entirely internal to his nature, and his justice isn’t separate from his love. I think Anselm would agree with N.T. Wright’s point that “wrath,” understood as God’s hatred of sin, is inseparable from his love. How can God not hate that which destroys and corrupts his good creation?

That’s why, for Anselm, the atonement is entirely a provision of God’s love, and not something “imposed” on God from without. Such an idea is absurd in the strongest possible sense. In the Incarnation of the Son God provides for the satisfaction of justice by restoring the harmony and beauty of his creation which has been defaced by sin. But this is rooted in God’s love – love for his creation and inexorable desire that it be brought to fulfillment. Where Anselm differs from Wright and other proponents of a “penal” substitution is that Anselm sees satisfaction as the alternative to punishment. Christ isn’t punished in our place; the self-offering of the God-man provides for a gift so beautiful and good that it effaces or “outweighs” the disorder created by sin. Therefore anyone who “pleads the sacrifice of Christ” is brought into reconciliation with God.

Indeed, the concepts of honor and satisfaction are stretched beyond anything that would really make sense in a human social or legal relationship. God’s honor can’t be damaged, as Anselm points out, because God is unlimited bliss. The best we can say is that his “honor” refers to his unchangeable will to bring creation to its intended consummation. And “satisfaction” is no longer a kind of tit-for-tat proportionate recompense for discrete offenses. The gift of the God-man posesses infinite worth, completely outstripping the evil of human sin. Interesting, McIntyre argues that Anselm in fact subverts the medieval penitential system which prescribed specific penances for particular sins and lays the groundwork for justification by faith: the sacrifice of Christ truly is a once and for all response to human sin.

Browse more of Lee’s blog for posts on such diverse topics as coffee, the liturgy, heavy metal music, Christian peace bloggers, and our old friend N.T. Wright.

Proud Anglicans of the Week

Here’s a roundup of some great Anglican “via media” blogs I’ve discovered this month. All of these folks are thoughtful Christians determined to hold together the compassionate, progressive, dynamic spirit of the church’s liberals and the respect for tradition, truth and theological sophistication of the conservatives. They give me hope that the current fundamentalist-secularist impasse won’t last forever.

Christopher at Betwixt and Between offers a spirited and GLBT-friendly exposition of the Incarnation in his wonderfully titled post A Shitting God. (Hint: If this offends you, you’re exactly the person who needs to read it.)


We don’t want our God to come to us as flesh and blood, bone and sinew. But he did, not deeming equality with God something to be grasped at as did our first parents, but rather relishing simply to be an earthen one–“a shitting god” as one rabbi put it, became truly one of us in all of our comical glory, with our orifices and pleasurable bits, going out of himself to be with us as one of us. To become human is learning to be comfortable in our own skin, the very place God chooses to work, rather than think to escape into the ethosphere and shed off this mutable, vulnerable, carcass, as if we could so easily divide our body and soul leaping from distinction to separation.

The danger to Christianity isn’t homosexuality. The danger lies in certain tendencies in “orthodox” defenses against homosexuality that end with corruptions of our core doctrines or dogma as the case may be. In the end, we near a docetic Christ or a hieros gamos deity, and no more so than the god presented to gay people by the defenders. The fire for another is not our great error, nor harnessing and bridling that fire that love might deepen and move outward; our error is to stamp out that fire and somehow think we can find it all in ourselves without another or others. To do so is to negate the hook in us, as Gregory of Nyssa put it, which is God’s very gift to us for connectivity and intimacy, that lets us be pulled outward toward others, toward God. Another might enter us, and we would rather be self-contained–this is the deepest reality to which an imposition of celibacy for gay people leads. A Manichaean outlook cannot help but attain. That so many would reject such a god is to their credit. God would ravish us, and we would rather bliss out in perfect composure. Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, once quipped that “Christianity is the most materialistic of religions.” But only when we take the Incarnation seriously enough that our God took a shit, could see the potential for love in a hard on.

Now that I’ve got your attention…Huw at +Z’ev: Lectionary Midrash posts about how gay people of faith often find themselves doubly shunned by conservative churches and by other gays who are bitter about religious homophobia. This post both comforted me and challenged my impulse to retreat into an enclave of like-minded people (most of whom are my imaginary friends) instead of withstanding the shame of being the token holy-roller in the Episcopal parish and the token P-Flag Girl in the evangelical one. If God is for us, who can be against us? But Lord, it’s so much work…poor little me…waah…

MadPriest at Of Course, I Could Be Wrong is an unrepentantly snarky extreme liberal, but his visual gags are to die for. I especially liked this one. Hat tip to MadPriest also for the link to this video from Episcopalooza.

Finally, Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton at the group blog The Episcopal Majority takes a swat at the misuse of 1 Corinthians 8:9 (“take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak”) to silence gays in the church.

Anglican Absolutism


Chris at The Eternal Pursuit notes with sadness that the conservative breakaway parishes and clergy within the U.S. Episcopal Church, who seek to put themselves under the authority of foreign bishops who oppose homosexuality, are asking for more than freedom to follow their own conscience. It’s an all-or-nothing strategy that would delegitimize the existing Episcopal Church in America, thus undermining two mainstays of our 400-year-old Communion: the authority of bishops and the ideal of fellowship among Christians with different views. Chris writes:


There are certainly real issues that lead people of faith to disagree. Some of these issues, particularly those around human sexuality, are especially difficult. Some find the scriptures to be very clear on these issues. Some argue that the overarching message of the Bible seems in conflict with a few particular passages. On all fronts, some argue that the Bible alone is the sole authority, and others seek a mediated dialogue with the scriptures. Some seek a definitive type of authority in the governance of the Church, and some are tolerant of more ambiguity.

These are all developing edges for the Episcopal Church, and we are not alone, as Christians, in this. The point is that the Minns and Akinola crowd are not seeking resolution or reconciliation. They are seeking to leave with as much of the property of ECUSA as they can take with them, and replace the existing church.

The word reform implies, rightly, that the Church could always be more faithful. The Church could always live closer to the foot of the cross of Christ. At various points in history, the Church has erred grievously, and most certainly will again. The Church has endured, because people of faith have worked to reform her. We can’t just dispose of an historic expression of the faith, because we disagree.

When conservatives call this a battle over the authority of Scripture, I have to wonder whether they’re applying a legalistic definition of authority, one in which the entire book stands or falls by your attitude toward a single verse. This is how St. Paul described the futility of obedience to the Law without Christ: fail in one particular, and you’re guilty of them all.

We saw this in previous generations with six-day creationism, another modernist blunder that whose lasting legacy was to perpetuate a stereotype of Christians as rigid, ignorant yahoos. The issue for which so many preachers were willing to raise their blood pressure was totally unimportant, in itself, to most people’s lives. Who cares how long it took to create the universe? It’s not a pizza delivery; you don’t get a discount if it’s not ready in half an hour. No, it’s the principle of the thing, they say.

Similarly, homosexuality presents an abstract principle that the majority can safely denounce or defend without any personal cost to themselves. But when we do this, we send the message that Christianity is about purity, crystalline doctrinal perfection, a completely transparent and authoritative system that is somehow also so fragile that a single pebble can shatter our glass house. The corollary, as the Pharisees would have understood, is that we can’t worship with people whose hands aren’t as clean as ours.

If Christianity is anything distinctive at all, it is the complete opposite of that attitude. “Garlic and sapphires in the mud,” as T.S. Eliot wrote. We should be very, very careful before disfellowshipping someone because they disagree with us on matters not necessary to salvation.