Faith Matters

What do you think of when you hear the word “faith”? Dictionary.com defines faith as “belief that is not based on proof”. I would suggest that this is the most common understanding of “faith” today. And certainly within Christianity, the concept of faith means believing a set of Christian beliefs to be true (sometimes interpreted as believing questionable things to be true and ignoring scientifically proven evidence in the process). Interestingly, there are other meanings of “faith” throughout the history of Christianity, which I will touch on later, but for now, let’s deal with the most common understanding of the word, as described above.

The belief-focused understanding of the word “faith” is so prevalent and emphasized in Christianity today that its effect has been that “Christian faith has turned into a ‘head matter’. Faith has become primarily a matter of the beliefs in your head – of whether you believe the right set of claims to be true. That Christian faith is about belief is a rather odd notion, when you think about it. It suggests that what God really cares about is the beliefs in our heads – as if believing the right things is what God is most looking for, as if having “correct beliefs” is what will save us. And if you have “incorrect beliefs”, you may be in trouble. It’s remarkable to think that God cares so much about “beliefs”.” (1)

For me:

(1) While faith should not be about believing things that go against our factual knowledge of the way things are, I do firmly believe that faith is a required component of a Christian life.

Why? Because, ultimately, for me, being Christian means affirming the reality of God (see My More Than God). In addition, Christian faith means affirming the centrality of Jesus (as a disclosure of God and what a life full of God looks like – see Jesus…“My God”, Man), and affirming the centrality of the Bible (not as the literal words of God, but as the foundational document for the Christian tradition – see Bible Beliefs).

Can these three things be proven beyond doubt? No. Can they be disproved beyond doubt? No. All three of these things require some degree of belief (or affirmation) in things that cannot be proven scientifically - that is, there is not "certainty" about these things. Ultimately, though, in my opinion, affirming these three things is central to being a Christian (i.e. these are central Christian convictions). And to hold these convictions requires faith.

I noted earlier that the understanding of “faith” as a set of beliefs is a fairly recent development (i.e. within the last few hundred years). Prior to that time, faith was more a matter of the heart than the head. Two developments led to this change in understanding of faith – the Protestant Reformation (with its focus on beliefs) and the Enlightenment (the birth of modern science and the emphasis on verifiable factuality as being the sole basis of truth).

In Marcus Borg’s book The Heart of Christianity (1), he describes four meanings of the word faith from Christian history, three of which are heart-focused and one of which is head-focused (sort of). In highly summarized form, Borg describes the four meanings as follows:

• Faith as Assensus (this Latin word is closest to the English word “assent”) which is faith as belief – giving one’s mental assent to a proposition. However, it should be noted that, prior to the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, faith as assensus was quite different than today. Before mankind developed such substantial knowledge about so many things, it was more or less effortless to believe in things like the Bible, as there was nothing else to consider as possible alternative truth.
• Faith as Fiducia (this Latin word is closest to the English word “trust”) refers to radical trust in God (not trust in a set of statements about God, but trust in God himself). The opposite of fiducia would be anxiety or worry. Faith, when viewed as radical trust, has great transforming power.
• Faith as Fidelitas (this Latin word is closest to the English word “fidelity”) refers to faithfulness to our relationship with God. That is, loyalty, allegiance, the commitment of the self at its deepest level, the commitment of the heart – a radical centering in God. How do you do this? By paying attention to the relationship and by loving what God loves (e.g. compassion and justice).
• Faith as Visio (this Latin word is closest to the English word “vision”) refers to faith as a way of seeing. That is, the way we see “the whole”…the way we see “what is”. We can see “the whole” as hostile and threatening (i.e. death will get us) which results in a defensive response to life. Or we could see “what is” in an indifferent manner (i.e. the universe is indifferent to mankind – this is the most common modern secular viewpoint). This view usually results in a concern primarily for ourselves and those who are most important to us. The third way to see “the whole” is to view it as life-giving and nourishing. “What is” is filled with wonder and beauty, even if sometimes a terrible beauty. This way of seeing the whole leads to radical trust, and generates a willingness to spend and be spent for the sake of a vision that goes beyond ourselves (i.e. the kind of life we see illustrated in Jesus’ life).

Martin Luther is likely as responsible as anyone for “faith” being central to the Christian vocabulary. But what form of “faith” was Luther’s? Not primarily assensus. “After entering a monastery after being struck by lightning, he went through a decade of agonized terror and ascetic self-denial, seeking to be righteous enough for God. During these years, he had assensus aplenty – and it terrified him. Perhaps because he believed “all of it”, he was filled with fear and anxiety. His transformation occurred through an experience of radical grace that transformed how he saw (visio), led him to see that faith was about trusting God (fiducia), and led him to a life of faithfulness (fidelitas) to God. For Luther, saving faith was not assensus. It was about visio, fiducia and fidelitas.” (1)

POSTSCRIPT: NOT MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THIS 3 YEARS LATER. I'D LIKELY PUT LESS EMPHASIS ON THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF "FAITH" BECAUSE IT IS SO FIRMLY ENTRENCHED IN TERMS OF HOW IT IS UNDERSTOOD TODAY. AND FOR ME, I WOULD HAVE LESS EMPHASIS ON THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE...AND MORE JUST ON THE "GOD" PERSPECTIVE.

Notes:

(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

Pay Dirt: Interview with Karen Armstrong

From an interview with Karen Armstrong on CBC's radio show Tapestry on February 19, 2006:

"Lots of the time we are worried about religion. We're thinking about trancendance, going beyond, and what we are trancending to...what is the nature of God, Jesus, and so on. But really it is about what you are transcending from, but what you are going away from which is ego, greed. And once you've lost ego and greed, you should find that you've lost a lot of fear."

"What our world needs now is not more certainty. We've seen too much certainty - political and religious certainty - recently. What we need is compassion to be able to feel with the other."

"I had a very parochial religious upbringing...I was raised Catholic and that was it...I actually didn't even know much about Protestants for heavens sake. And actually this discovery of other religions - Judaism, Islam, Greek and Russian Orthodox and finally Buddhism - showed me what religion could be. It showed me what my own tradition had been trying to do at its best. And then I could reassess my own tradition more kindly and see much more about it than I had been aware of, despite my intensely religious childhood and youth."

Pay Dirt: The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot

In responding to a recent comment on one of my blog entries, I found myself referring to the fact that throughout time (including today), there have been many varied beliefs within Christianity.

Along that line of thinking, I found myself in my local book store tonight flipping through a new book by Bart Ehrman (those who have read my earlier blog entries may recall me referencing one of his previous books, Misquoting Jesus). Ehrman's new book is called The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot. Now I haven't read much on the many other gospels (e.g. Thomas, Peter, Judas) or other gnostic writings that have been found in recent centuries, so I sat down and perused Ehrman's book.

What I found was fascinating. I read a gospel written around the second century which purports to describe Judas Iscariot's experience with Jesus. This is one of the gospels declared heretical by Bishop Irenaeus around A.D. 180 in his treatise Against Heresies. It's quite obvious that this gospel isn't like Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, which Irenaeus declared worthy of Biblical status. This gospel includes a description of creation involving a "god" which is many hierarchies below the "ultimate devine"; this creator "god" was the one who created humanity; and part of Jesus' teaching to Judas was that worship of this creator "god" was pointless and that when some humans die, they will have their spirits released to dwell with the "real" God; so the rationale behind Judas betraying Jesus was to let Jesus' spirit go free to dwell with the "real" God...well, something like that anyway.

Now the point of this entry isn't to talk about the validity of this gospel (since I think it - along with the Bible and other texts - says more about the author writing the text and his perspective or "take" on things than anything else). My point here is just to highlight that (especially) in the early centuries of Christianity, there were many VERY DIFFERENT points of view about Christianity. It just so happens that the Rome-based version of Christianity won out at the end of the day (yes, that's how we get to Roman Catholic Christianity), largely due to the wealth and power-base within Rome, no doubt. And that's why we see a more streamlined view of what Christianity is today (although there are still many differing viewpoints within Christianity today) .

So when people talk about today's Christianity (or their version/denomination within Christianity) as being the single truth, I think this is too simplistic a view. There have been, and continue to be, many different beliefs (within Christianity, and obviously between religions). To state that the one set of beliefs that you happen to have been taught is most certainly the correct one would be a somewhat naive belief in itself, in my opinion. This isn't to say that you can't find some truth in the beliefs you have been taught, but I think our real challenge is moreso to determine how to leverage our beliefs to truly experience "the sacred" and undergo a personal transformation...not to be fundamentalist about the correctness of our beliefs and our certainty of their being the single truth.

In any event, for more on the gospel of Judas, its discovery, pictures, expert views, and more, see this National Geographic website.

The Way

Okay, so I grew up with a "Jesus is the only way" understanding in terms of the path to God. That's it. No compromise, no if's, and's or but's...Jesus is the way. Take it or leave it. Any other way is the wrong way.

Interesting! What were we thinking (or not)??? The whole notion that God has decided to be known through only one religion is somewhat strange in itself, when one thinks about it. But, fortunately, we (in my case, the Christians) were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be taught that one way. What about all the others throughout the world who were brought up Hindu or Buddhist or another major religion? Well, too bad for them, right?

Here's an interesting scenario to think through. If you were brought up Christian, think about your experience of coming to know about Christianity. It was more than likely taught to you as truth and you accepted it as such. And did you believe the other religions were also the truth? If you are like many, probably not. But what if you happened to be born on a different continent and were brought up as a Buddhist? Do you think it would have been taught to you as truth and you would have accepted it? Would you believe that other religions were the truth? Similarly, probably not.

And depending on your religious upbringing, it might get even more complicated (or convoluted). I'll stick with Christianity (since that's my background). If you were born a Protestant Christian, you likely thought that the Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians also had it "wrong" to some degree. Not as bad as those from other religions than Christianity, but somewhat wrong nonetheless. And let's say you were raised Pentecostal (or United or Anglican, etc.), you probabaly thought that those other Protestant denominations had it slightly wrong as well. Again, not as bad as the Roman Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on, but still, they didn't have it all right like your denomination did.

Hmmm...isn't that convenient. You just happened to be raised up and taught the exact right teachings about the one pathway to God. Whew!!! What luck...otherwise, you'd be finished. What's that? Your one slice of the religious pie is just a small proportion of the overall religious landscape? Well, again, all the more lucky for you right?

Okay, you get my point. So what do I believe about pathways to God?

(1) The enduring world religions are mediators of the absolute (the sacred) but, like Christianity, are not absolute in themselves.

(2) Christianity, as one of the world's great religious traditions (and my personal religion), is my pathway to God.

By extension, though, this doesn't make each religion the same. Marcus Borg notes the following similarities in his book The Heart of Christianity (1):

• They all affirm "the more", "the sacred", etc.
• They all affirm a path of transformation of the self.
• They all provide practical means for undertaking "the path" or "the way" of transformation.
• They extol compassion as a primary ethical value of life.
• They contain a collection of beliefs and teachings.

It is often the last point noted above where the religions are most different - in their specific stories and beliefs, largely driven by the cultures and histories that shaped them.

As a Christian, than, how do we deal with the exclusive language often referenced by fellow Christians? The most famous 'exclusive' reference is "I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). A few thoughts on this:

• This verse is found in John - the last gospel to be written. This "I am" language isn't found in the other gospels, and is thought by many to be more of an interpretation of the early Christian community than the words of Jesus.
• What is "the way" being referred to? The way is the path of death and resurrection - dying to an old identity and being born into a new identity...a personal transformation. "The way" is not a set of beliefs about Jesus..."as if one enters into new life by believing certain things to be true or as if only those who know the word "Jesus" can be saved. Thinking that way virtually amounts to salvation by syllables." (1) Rather, for us, as Christians, "the way" is represented in Jesus - Jesus is "the way" for us...even though not the only expression of the way.
• This verse should be seen as being written in the language of devotion. As Christians, Jesus is our "way". As such, written as it is, it represents the language of devotion of the early Christian community. It doesn't have to be interpreted as exclusive language.
• Finally, the historical setting within which this verse was written was "a situation of bitter conflict in which John's community of Christian Jews was experiencing sharp social ostracism from non-Christian Jews. As a result, some of John's community would have been tempted to return to their community of origin. So when John wrote these words, he was thinking not of all the religions of the world, but of the synagogue across the street. He was saying, in effect, 'Stay within the community of Jesus. Don't go back to the way you left behind. Jesus is the way; that way isn't.' " (2)

So in summary, for us, as Christians:

(3) Jesus is "the way". He is the disclosure of what a life full of God looks like. This is who Jesus is for us...and we can say this without saying that God is known only in Jesus.

POSTSCRIPT: ON REFLECTION (3 YEARS LATER), MY VIEWS HAVE CHANGED A LITTLE ON THIS ONE...BUT NOT DRASTICALLY. I WOULD PUT LESS EMPHASIS ON CHRISTIANITY BEING MY PATHWAY TO "GOD"...I AM MORE OPEN TO WHATEVER WISDOM WRITINGS HELP ME EVOLVE IN MY HUMANITY AS OPPOSED TO BEING SO CLOSELY WEDDED TO CHRISTIANITY. ALSO, I WOULD TEMPER MY COMMENTS ON HOW ALL THE MAJOR RELIGIONS PROVIDE A PATH OF TRANSFORMATION, ETC. - I THINK SOME DO, BUT OTHERS HAVE SUCH FUNDAMENTALIST TENDENCIES, THAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY MORE DAMAGING THAN NOT.

Notes:

(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

(2) Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001).

Pay Dirt: Interview with Marcus Borg

I came across a series of clips from an interview with Marcus Borg. Very interesting.

Watch the clips here

Jesus…“My God”, man!

First, let me explain my title. A few years back, a pastor at the church I attended did a series on Jesus. The sermon titles were things like “Jesus, my shepherd”, “Jesus, my healer”, and so on. Our collective favorite title (it still makes me smile now) was “Jesus, my God-man”. It amused us only because a common exclamation we used was “My god, man…” (as in “My god, man, what were you thinking to stick that fork in the electrical outlet?”). So this blog entry is done in fond memory of that pastor…although, he’d likely be rolling in his grave if he read this blog.

Now onto the heart of this blog entry…who is this Jesus we speak about? Was he real and how do we know about him? What was his mission and message, and why was he killed? Was he born of a virgin? Was he raised from the dead? Was (is) he divine - the messiah?

I need to preface this blog entry by giving credit to Marcus Borg (I borrow from his writings a lot in this blog entry). While I have now read a fair collection of writings about Jesus, Borg’s thoughts do sit right with me. I take snippets from others such as John Shelby Spong and N. T. Wright, but their ‘takes’ don't fulfill my thinking as much as Borg’s does. I’ll also say at this point, that I anticipate some will like this blog entry, and some won’t…claiming it is, in places, to wishy washy. My response? So be it. One of the things that is clearer to me today than ever before is that too much certainty can be misleading. So am I certain about what I write here? As certain as I can be…but I recognize and admit that I can’t prove what I write either. Nor, however, can potential critics disprove it. With that out of the way…let’s proceed.

Let’s start with the basics. Was Jesus real? That is, was there ever a historical Jesus? I’m not going to dwell on this question much since even most of the very skeptical Jesus scholars don’t try to argue that Jesus never existed. They may argue about many other things about him, but there is enough evidence (including Biblical writings and other writings about Jesus – such as Josephus) to suggest he did exist that to argue otherwise requires a high degree of skepticism and perhaps a good ‘conspiracy theory’ mind. As with a lot of historical figures, we don’t have the video evidence that we’re used to in today’s age…but we don’t question whether they existed. And I’d add one more thing to think about when discussing this topic…if Jesus didn’t exist, Christianity is a much more incredible phenomenon than ever, isn’t it?

So how do we know about Jesus. Primarily through the gospels in the New Testament. It is important to understand that the gospels were written between 40 and 70 years after Jesus’ death. So some of the material in the gospels goes back to Jesus, and some is as a result of the tradition that developed around Jesus after his death. It is also interesting to note that most biblical scholars believe that none of the gospels were written by any of the 12 disciples of Jesus. With that context, the gospels should be read as the product of a developing tradition. That is, they are a mix of “history remembered and history metaphorized” (1) – so some of the content is history remembered (or material as passed along by eyewitnesses) and some is metaphorical narrative that evolved as the traditions surrounding Jesus evolved in the decades between his death and the writing of the gospels. This is important for many today since much of what they read in the Bible can’t be believed literally. As I noted in an earlier blog though, it is important to remember that a metaphorical narrative doesn’t have to be literally true for it to still speak the truth. On top of that, a metaphorical reading often leads to a richer meaning than a purely literal reading.

In terms of how to think about Jesus, I like Borg’s dual view of the “pre-Easter Jesus and post-Easter Jesus” (1). The pre-Easter Jesus is the historical Jesus…that is, Jesus before his death. The post-Easter Jesus is what Jesus became after his death…that is, “the Jesus of Christian experience and tradition” (1). In terms of the pre-Easter Jesus, Borg describes Jesus in five ways (the following is a paraphrased and shortened extract from Borg’s The Heart of Christianity (1) on this topic):

1. He was a Jewish mystic. Mystics are people who have vivid and typically frequent experiences of God. Found in every culture known to us, they are also central to the Jewish tradition (e.g. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Elisha and the classical prophets, Paul, Peter, etc.). Whatever else needs to be said about Jesus, he was one of these. According to the gospels, he had visions, fasted, spent long hours in prayer, spoke of God in intimate terms, and taught the immediacy of access to God – something mystics know in their own experience. As a Jewish mystic, Jesus lived a life radically centered in God. His life was so fully lived that this is clear.
2. He was a healer. Even nonreligious scholars agree that Jesus performed paranormal healings and what he and his contemporaries experienced as exorcisms. More healing stories are told about Jesus than any other figure in the Jewish tradition. He must have been a remarkable healer. Or at least the experience people had with Jesus caused them to associate that type of power with the one whom they experienced.
3. He was a wisdom teacher. Teachers of wisdom teach a way, a path, of life. The “narrow way” of which Jesus spoke led beyond the “broad way” of convention and tradition. At the heart of the alternative wisdom of Jesus was the path of death and resurrection understood as a metaphor for an internal psychological-spiritual process. The new identity and new way of being was a life radically centered in God, in the Spirit of God Jesus knew in his own experience. He was not constrained by the religious dogma of the day...he was focused on wisdom beyond that...wisdom related to a way to live life fully, love completely and to fully be.
4. He was a social prophet. Social prophets were God-intoxicated voices of religious social protest against the economic and political injustice of the domination systems of their day. Jesus was a prophet of the Kingdom of God – of what life would be like on earth if God were king and the kings and emperors of the world were not. As such, he was a radical critic of the domination system of his time that channeled wealth to the few and poverty to the many.
5. He was a movement initiator. A movement came into existence around him. Remarkably inclusive, it subverted the sharp social boundaries of his day.

But the pre-Easter Jesus was killed…executed actually. Why? Likely because of his social protest and the movement that was building around him. If he was only a mystic, a healer and wisdom teacher, he likely wouldn’t have been targeted. In summary, he was killed “because of his politics and his passion for God’s justice” (1). With that perspective, it doesn’t seem likely that Jesus saw his life purpose as “dying for our sins”. When you think about the concept, it’s a little strange anyway. Why would an almighty God be so limited in his power to forgive that he would have to send his son to die (not to mention that this requires thinking about God as "out there")?

In fact, the whole question of messianic consciousness has always intrigued me about Jesus…even before I embarked on this prospecting journey. I was always intrigued by the fact that in many places within the gospels, Jesus doesn't come out and state that he is the messiah when asked. In fact, if you look at the gospels, the self-claims of messiahship seem to develop throughout the tradition. If you look at Mark (the earliest gospel written…and a gospel which Matthew and Luke would have had as a reference when they wrote their books), when Jesus asks who people say he is, Peter says the messiah, but Jesus tells them not to tell anyone about him. In Matthew, this story “develops” in that Peter says Jesus is the Messiah, Son of the Living God. And Jesus replies that Peter is blessed as Jesus’ Father in heaven has revealed this to him. A similar example can be seen when Jesus walked on water. In Mark, the story ended with the disciples confused, not believing and with hard hearts. In Matthew (remember, he would have had Mark’s gospel and written his afterwards), the story includes Peter coming to walk on the water as well and the story ending with the disciples worshiping Jesus and saying “You really are the Son of God”. Similarly, the gospel sayings that would suggest that Jesus thought of himself as the messiah (for example, the “I am” sayings of John) are seen by many scholars to represent the post-Easter Jesus tradition that built up around him and sought providential purpose in his death (as opposed to sayings that Jesus himself said). And as shocking as this suggestion may be to traditional Christians, when you think about it, does a messianic consciousness really matter? Whether Jesus thought of himself as the messiah or not, he still is the messiah for Christians (more on that later).

While we are on the metaphorical language about Jesus’ messiahship, I find it interesting that of all the metaphors used to describe Jesus (e.g. bread of life, true vine, light of the world, lamb of God, word of God, son of God), we have tended to literalize only one of them – son of God. We don’t have any problem seeing the other metaphors for what they are – that is, we don’t think Jesus is literally a vine, bread, lamb, etc. But we do literalize son of God – maybe because it is an easier metaphor to literalize. It is interesting that in Biblical times, the phrase son of God was used to describe many people/nations – nation of Israel, kings, Jewish mystics, and angels. It was seen to infer someone whose relationship to God was very intimate. So we should be cautious when we throw around the 'son of God' metaphor and just assume that we can literalize it.

Let’s move on to the topic of the virgin birth. I find it interesting how many people are truly tied to this as ‘required truth’. John Shelby Spong has an interesting discussion on this topic in one of his books. He talks about how the thinking of the day would have been that all genes would have come from the male. So the virgin birth was a good explanation of how Jesus was conceived as the son of God. However, when knowledge evolved to show that half the genes of a baby comes from the mother, the church had to revise their thinking on this topic and blend in the idea of an immaculate conception of Mary to preserve the purity of Jesus’ heritage. Based on my current understanding and thinking on this topic, I think the idea of a virgin birth is a metaphorical narrative that evolved as the tradition of Jesus developed following his death. If you look at Paul’s writings and Mark’s gospel (our earliest writings after Jesus’ death), they don’t mention the miraculous birth (a rather stunning thing to leave out don't you think?). As the tradition developed, both Matthew and Luke have added virgin birth stories to the Jesus tradition (note though that there are many differences between their birth stories – genealogy, home, birth visitors, Herod’s plot, use of the Hebrew Bible – which makes one think even more that these stories developed over time).

What about the resurrection stories of Jesus? Well, from what I can tell, something must have happened at Easter that had startling and enormous power. Whatever it was, it “reconstituted a scattered and demoralized band of disciples, it turned a denying Peter into a witnessing and martyred Peter, to turn disciples who fled into heroes willing to die for their Lord, it created a holy day” (3)…in fact, it resulted in the whole Christianity movement. So what exactly happened? Was Jesus physically resuscitated or were the resurrection experiences something other than encounters with a physical Jesus? Well I think there were encounters - yes, experiential realities involving Jesus! Based on the language used in the Bible, it would seem to me that the encounters were not with a physical body…they were more like visions or apparitions. Paul notes that he also saw Jesus…and his language was certainly vision-like. As well, in the resurrection stories, Jesus appears and disappears…not something that a physical body does. So what the encounters seem to have been were experiences of the power of Jesus’ spirit – similar to the experiences they would have had with Jesus when he was alive. But the important point is that it does seem that they did have these experiences – so the post-Easter Jesus is not just a tradition but also an experiential reality. “And Christians throughout the centuries have continued to experience Jesus as a living spiritual reality. Those experiences have taken a variety of forms, but at their heart, I believe they are realizations of what Jesus represented...a vision of God (not literally as a human who was inhabited by the divine; but as a human who so fully lived, loved and was, that this experience we have is as close to our ability to describe a God-experience as humans can manage. As a result of these experiences, the post-Easter Jesus “lives” and “is Lord” – the post-Easter Jesus was experienced as someone who was ‘one with God’. That is who Jesus is for us as Christians. Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus is a revelation of “the way” – that is, an internal transformation which results in growth in love, life and being.

So in conclusion, is Jesus divine? Well, my answer is yes. The pre-Easter Jesus can be seen as an incarnation of God. His spirit seemed to be incredibly open to the presence of God (some refer to Jesus as having an extreme “emptiness of spirit” that allowed for a powerful experience of God’s presence). Those who experienced the pre-Easter Jesus did not experience an ordinary person. Spong alludes to Jesus as being an amazing example of how to live life fully and love completely. And the post-Easter Jesus is experienced as someone who is one with God – that is, Jesus is a view into God. I like the analogy of masks – God can be seen through different masks, one of which is Jesus. For Christians, the decisive mask for us is Jesus. He is our decisive revelation of God. And note that this does not require affirming that Jesus is the only adequate revelation of God. But Jesus shows us, as Christians, what a life full of God is like, and is our ultimate sacrament of God. Through Jesus, we see the heart of God.

So, in summary, here are my fundamental beliefs about Jesus:

(1) There was a real, historical Jesus.

(2) Our primary source about Jesus, the gospels, are the product of a developing tradition and include a mix of history remembered and history metaphorized.

(3) I like the dual view of a pre-Easter Jesus and a post-Easter Jesus. The pre-Easter Jesus is the historical Jesus…that is, Jesus before his death (Jewish mystic, healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet and movement initiator). The post-Easter Jesus is what Jesus became after his death…that is, the Jesus of Christian experience and tradition.

(4) Jesus was killed because of his social protest and the movement that was building around him, not because he was a mystic, healer and wisdom teacher. With that perspective, it doesn’t seem likely that Jesus saw his life purpose as “dying for our sins”.

(5) I do not think Jesus was born of a virgin. I think the idea of a virgin birth is a metaphorical narrative that evolved as the tradition of Jesus developed following his death.

(6) I believe that something must have happened at Easter, and it must have had startling and enormous power since it resulted in the whole Christianity movement. I think there were Easter encounters with Jesus (experiential realities involving Jesus) and Christians throughout the centuries have continued to experience Jesus as a living spiritual reality. As a result of these experiences, the post-Easter Jesus “lives” and “is Lord” (i.e. one with God) for us as Christians. Ultimately, the death and resurrection of Jesus is a revelation of “the way” – that is, an internal transformation which results in growth in love, life and being.

(7) For Christians, the decisive revelation of God is Jesus (note that this does not require affirming that Jesus is the only adequate revelation of God). Jesus shows us, as Christians, what a life full of God is like, and is our ultimate sacrament of God. As such, Jesus is divine.

POSTSCRIPT: OKAY, I MUST ADMIT MY THINKING HAS CHANGED SINCE I WROTE THIS BLOG 3 YEARS AGO. THE WHOLE "HEALER" DIMENSION DOESN'T WORK FOR ME AT THIS POINT...I WOULD ATTRIBUTE THAT TO THE DEVELOPING TRADITION AS OPPOSED TO ANY PRE-EASTER REALITY. AND MY THINKING ABOUT EASTER HAS COMPLETELY CHANGED...I DON'T BELIEVE FOR A SECOND THAT ANYONE HAD ANY REAL PHYSICAL ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS. SOMETHING OCCURRED, BUT I WOULD NOW ATTRIBUTE THE "SOMETHING" TO BE MORE LIKE A NEW THINKING ABOUT JESUS WHICH INSPIRED HIS FOLLOWERS ANEW AND CAUSED THEM TO PUSH THE MOVEMENT FORWARD. THERE IS ALSO A DIMENSION OF POST-EASTER ELABORATION ON THE STORY OF JESUS AND THE EASTER MOMENT WHICH MAKES IT SEEM LIKE A "MOMENT IN TIME" WHEN IN REALITY IT SHOULD LIKELY BE SEEN MORE AS THE EVOLUTION OF THINKING AND HOW THE MOVEMENT EVOLVED OVER TIME.

Notes:

(1) Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).

(2) Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1999).

(3) John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991).

Pay Dirt: Augustine Words of Wisdom

"God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." - Augustine

Pay Dirt: What is Spirituality?

What is Spirituality?

"Spirituality I define as becoming conscious of and intentional about our relationship to God. I say conscious of because I firmly maintain that we are all already in a relationship with God and we have been so since our very beginning, whether we know that or not, believe that or not. Spirituality is about becoming conscious of that relationship. I say intentional because I see spirituality as being about paying attention to that relationship, being intentional about deepening that relationship and letting that relationship grow. Just as human relationships grow and deepen through spending time in them and paying attention to them, so also our relationship with God grows in this same way."

--from the sermon "Jesus and the Christian Life" by Dr. Marcus J. Borg

Pay Dirt: Religious Funnies

This is my inaugural "Pay Dirt" entry. In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the phrase "pay dirt" refers to "a useful or profitable discovery or venture". So I will use these "Pay Dirt" entries to capture interesting nuggets I come across.

Today's "Pay Dirt" entry contains a few religious funnies...

"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."
-Emo Philips, stand-up comedian

"I don’t believe in atheists."
-Neal Boortz

"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself."
-Peter O’Toole

Bart: "What religion are you?"
Homer: "You know, the one with all the well-meaning rules that don't work out in real life, uhh, Christianity."
-The Simpsons, "Homerpalooza"

"The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible."
- George Burns.

"Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they're eating sandwiches."
- Jim Carrey

"I admire the Pope. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can tour without an album."
- Rita Rudner

"Where would man be today if it wasn't for women? In the Garden of Eden eating water melon and taking it easy."
- C Kennedy

My ‘More Than’ God

The next stop on my prospecting journey deals with God. As a child, I had the “old man in the sky” image that many people have when they are asked to describe God. My God was a being “out there” who had created the universe. You would praise and pray to God, hoping your prayer would be heard and responded to. Yes, my God was an interventionalist God - well, when God decided to intervene. And when God “decided not to intervene”, we could rationalize this with a variety of reasons like: God is doing this for our growth, or there is a longer term benefit we don’t understand yet.

Why did I think about God this way? Well, first, that is what was “taught” in church. Secondly, since I saw the Bible as literal truth, the many Bible stories that would lead one to this model of God were clearly implanted in mind. Thirdly, I was pretty fortunate in life and was able to attribute at least some of that to the intervening of God to help out along the way. And finally, I didn’t spend much time thinking about or considering this topic.

As I have thought about God over the last few months, it has been surprising to me how difficult it is to describe God. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, I guess, since scholars throughout time have struggled with this very topic. So this blog entry may not do justice to a description of God, but for now, this is where I am at in describing my fundamental beliefs about God…

(1) God is ‘more than’ language can describe…but within that constraint, I like “isness without limits” as a description of God

• Although this may seem like a bit of a cop out, I thought I should start with this belief. I think God is ‘more than’ humans can conceive of and describe. So human words and language can’t adequately describe God (having said that…I’ll still do what I can in this blog entry).
• Paul Tillich, one of the most important Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, tries to describe “God” and uses phrases such as: “what is”, “ultimate reality”, “the ground of being”, “Being itself”, “isness”. I particularly like “isness”, but I would suggest God is more than just “isness”…I’ll get to that a little later.
• Thomas Keating referred to God as “isness without limits” which I personally like as a description. (1)
• In Exodus 3, the story speaks of a conversation between God and Moses and God describes himself as “I am who I am”...an interesting description for the author to use.

(2) God is ‘more than’ can be proven with evidence…but even without irrefutable evidence, I believe that God is real

• Is God real? That’s the question asked throughout the ages. I can only say that my fundamental belief is that God is real. Having said that, I recognize that there is no single proof or piece of evidence that can be referenced to back up that belief beyond the shadow of a doubt. So for me, it’s just that…my belief.
• So what has led me to that conclusion? Well, I’m sure that my Christian upbringing still has a huge impact on this. That is, I have always believed in a God. And there is no proof that there isn’t a God. And there are enough other factors that make we think that a belief in God is as rational and believable as a belief that there is no God. What factors you might ask? Well, the concept of “God” has been with humanity throughout history and throughout the religions around the world – this makes me think that these experiences point to something being there. Creation itself is so mind-blowing to me that I find it incomprehensible that there is nothing better to explain all of its mysteries and wonders than just matter and space. There seem to be a variety of “ecstatic” (i.e. out of oneself, or outside of one’s ordinary state of consciousness (2)) religious experiences (e.g. visions, shamanic experiences, mystical experiences, near-death experiences, and sometimes just a deep awareness of God’s presence) that seem to point to another layer of reality that leads me to believe there is a God. And it is clear that humanity continues to learn – that is, our scientific worldview is incomplete…we don’t know everything and can’t prove everything that explains all of life’s experience. Even “science” is finding out or understanding more all the time that there seems to point to the fact that there is more than just time and space to existence as we know it. So, in my opinion, we shouldn’t discount the concept of God merely due to a lack of scientific proof…this is too arrogant for my thinking.

(3) God is ‘more than’ just “right here”…God is an encompassing Spirit within which everything is, but God is also more than everything

• There is a concept known as panentheism (Greek words: πάν ( 'pan' ) =all, en=in and Theos=God; "all-in-God") which views God as both immanent and transcendent.
• As opposed to the “old man in the sky” concept of God, panentheism suggests that God is the encompassing Spirit in whom everything is…sort of like Tillich’s “ground of all being” and “isness”. This concept has been seen and talked about regularly in Christian circles (although not often referred to by this name). In Acts, God is referred to as the one in whom “we live, move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Psalms 139 says “Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” So with this thinking, God is right here (not some distant supernatural being who just sits in heaven from afar and looks down on us).
• But unlike pantheism, panentheism does not merely equate God with the universe. Instead it holds that there is more to God than just the universe itself. In Marcus Borg’s “The Heart of Christianity”, he uses the phrase “everything is in God, but God is more than everything” (1) to describe this thinking. More about this in the next belief.

(4) God is ‘more than’ just the source of love, life and being…God is also personal, relational and can be experienced

• John Shelby Spong tries to describe the essence of God in his book “A New Christianity for a New World”. He uses a three-pronged description which I like as a starting point. He says that God is the ultimate source of life; God is the ultimate source of love; and God is Being – the reality underlying everything that is. Spong suggests that we worship God by living fully, by sharing deeply, by loving wastefully, and you must be willing to risk all, abandoning your defenses and your self-imposed or culturally constructed security systems (3)
• And while I like the description as a starting point, there is something in his description that doesn’t resonate fully with me. I believe that God is more than a source or energy or force. I think Spong would agree, but it doesn’t jump off the page to me when I read his work. I think of God as more of a presence than just a source.
• In that light, I see part of God’s essence as being personal and relational in nature, and I believe that we can interact with God. As an aside, I know many people don’t like the personal language we use to describe God. Personally, I think that I’m okay with personal language for God mainly because it is human nature to use this type of language to describe things (see belief #1 above on the inadequacy of language!). I would just caution against literalizing the personal sayings or it tends to distort who God really is.
• As a personal and relational God, it follows that God can be experienced as an experiential reality. That is, God is experienced firsthand rather than a secondhand belief. Some people seem more open than others to experiencing the presence of God. “Some writers on spirituality speak of “emptiness” as a condition of the psyche that makes possible being filled by God. For whatever combination of reasons (genetic inheritance, socialization, spiritual practices, and so on)” some people are so “empty” that they can be more filled with the Spirit. (4) In my future blog entry on “Christian Routines”, I hope to return to this topic.
• Through this experiencing of God, I think we interact with God and God with us. I don’t see God as interventionalist God – otherwise, there are too many unexplainable non-interventions for a God of love, justice and compassion that I believe God to be. Having said that, I don’t deny that there are some paranormal and supernatural happenings which can’t be explained. I don’t know if there is some link between these events and God, but I’m content not to be able to take a position on this one way or another at this point in time.
• And while God may not intervene, he is a presence within our lives, and by interacting with God, we get to “know” God (not know about God, but experience God). On a side note, I recently noted that in John’s gospel, “eternal life” is defined as “to know God”…as opposed to an afterlife/heaven which is the typical interpretation of “eternal life” in John’s gospel (especially in the context of John 3:16).

Thus far in this blog entry, I have focused on God as a being and our relationship with God. Before ending this blog entry, I want to touch on God’s character. I won’t try to dive into these characteristics individually here, but I will address them further in future blog entries:

(5) The essence of God’s character is love, compassion, justice, and peace.

• Through our relational experience with God, the goal is for a transformation at the deepest level of our being so that our lives emulate these characteristics.

Finally, I want to summarize two different models for imaging God which were outlined by Marcus Borg in “The God We Never Knew” (2). I found the models very enlightening in how different people image God, so I thought I would share them here. The two models are the monarchical image of God and the spirit image of God.

• In the monarchical model, God is imaged as king, lawgiver and judge – a distant powerful being. The effect of this image is a “performance model” for Christian life. Sin and guilt are central to this model with a focus on required repentance and salvation from sin. As a result, the Christian life quickly becomes focused on “meeting requirements” or “measuring up” – the self is perpetually “on trial”.
• In the spirit model, God is seen as near (as opposed to a distant king), personal and relational. The effect of this image includes creation looking different (it isn’t what God did to create the universe, but what is continuing to happen in terms of the relation between God and creation), the human condition looks different (humanity’s central problem is not sin but estrangement or blindness to the presence of God), and sin and salvation look different (sin isn’t “breaking rules” but more focused on unfaithfulness – that is, making something other than the Spirit central; and salvation isn’t about the future and after death, but focused on something that happens in the present in our relationship with God as Spirit).

POSTSCRIPT: 3 YEARS LATER A FEW CHANGES...I STILL BELIEVE IN "GOD", BUT NOT AT ALL DUE TO ECSTATIC OR RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES. AND I DON'T SEE GOD AS "RELATIONAL" OR "PERSONAL" LIKE I DID AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS. AND I DON'T THINK WE "EXPERIENCE" GOD AS I WROTE. AND I WOULDN'T DESCRIBE GOD'S CHARACTER IN THE SAME WAY. I NOW SEE "GOD" MORE AS A CONCEPT THAT HUMANS CAN USE TO DESCRIBE HOW OUR LIVES CAN EVOLVE TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST.

(1) Thomas Keating remark referred to Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003).
(2) Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).
(3) John Shelby Spong, A New Christianity for a New World (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001).
(4) Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1999)