Calvin as Theologian Rather than Theoretic: A Response to Naydich

While Calvin was somewhat less severe a theologian
than his reputation suggests, we at Groupthink regret
that he is still not quite as huggable as this Calvin.

Calvin is  one of the greatest Christian teachers thinkers of all times, whether you agree with his teachings or not.I want to thank Naydich for having written a piece that, in "relevant" language, reclaims one of the most influential figures of Christian history; Calvin has too long been demonized by folks in the modern church on the basis of a straw man oversimplification of a small percentage of Calvin's corpus.

I suspect Calvin might even be alright with you telling him that you don't agree with his claims about theology and the Christian life, as long as you were prepared to show him from Scripture where you think he is incorrect. Of course, of his odd bits of writing that seem chauvinistic or anti-Semitic. This, oddly enough, brings me to my first point about what we ought to understand about Calvin and his theology en toto: If "postmodern" thought has taught us anything, it has surely taught us that every text, in fact everything, has a context.

If we were to construct a Hegelian synthesis, Calvin's context forms the thesis and Calvin's work itself, the antithesis. Then, we could find the enduring value of his work in a synthesis taking account of both. Calvin, although his teachings can right be called "timeless" because of this enduring value, was not writing the Institutes for twenty-first century American readers. Calvin did, however, know that the church as it stood in his time in continental Europe was a corrupt and oppressive institution, both ideologically and economically, and that is the context of much of his writing.

Calvin argued that the church of his time was not yet holy because laity was taught to believe that those "in charge" of the church were holy. He spoke of the believer's utter dependence on God in part because people were taught to believe they could depend on divine forgiveness and help mediated through their financial contributions to the church.

Naydich states that "Calvin has his eyes constantly set upon God, the ultimate creator of the universe, and Calvin implicitly compares everything to the standard of God." I would add to this that Calvin has an eye constantly set upon God because he insists on seeing God past the standard of the church authorities of sixteenth century France. 

The reason that Calvin is so adamant about one's personal study of the Scripture is that he knows that in his era that was one of the most freeing acts a person could partake in. True freedom for the captives was available. 

This is my second main point, one to which Naydich rightly alludes: Calvin is one of the archetects of modern "devotional" practice. His Institutes should not be thought of in the same breathe as a sweeping philosophical reflection like Kierkegaard's Works of Love, even if both have the same potential to change a believer's life. The Institutes is meant to be an accessible guide to living a life of devotion to God, more accessible at least than a life of monasticism, which was very much emphasized as a superior mode of holiness in Calvin's day. The only way he saw to teach all Christians to live a holy life was to compose a work of practical theology for all literate people, lay or ordained. 

That legacy of practical theology for all people is one I'm happy to continue by blogging for Groupthink with other members of the Christian family, and I look forward to reading further responses on this topic.

John Calvin: Predestined to be Misunderstood

Calvin. The name alone can draw a powerful emotional response from today's Christians. The Young Reformed movement often found on university campuses ensures that many people know about John Calvin and his classic conflict with James Arminius. Tomes of blog posts have probably been written on the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate, or the question of our “election.” I dare say I may be one of the few contemporary Christians who does not care about this debate at all! What is frustrating is how much it misses the point of what Calvin was trying to accomplish with his famous Institutes. 

The title page of the 1559 edition of the Institutes.
Calvin's classic work began as a slim, practical volume,
but he added to its content as his career continued. 

Calvin had more important things to say than whether or not we are predestined, or whether or not we have free will. He was above all a practical theologian. He was concerned with living a Christian life. If a theological point could not be used practically, he had no use for it. We often lose that when discussing this great thinker. What I want to do right now is bring up some less known aspects of Calvin’s thought expressed in The Institutes of Christian Religion. Hopefully, that will allow us to not throw the baby out with the baptismal font when we engage with today's “Calvinists.”

Man’s Dependence on God

Arguably, most of Calvin’s theology is dependent on humanity's state of utter dependence. His first writings in the Institutes all disparage the human being’s ability to measure up to God. For instance, Calvin writes: 

“[A]s soon as we lift up our thoughts to God and reflect on his nature and how absolutely perfect he is in wisdom righteousness and virtue, we realize that this is the standard to which we must conform.”

Calvin does not, as is often misconstrued, have a negative view of man, but view's man negatively only in comparison with God's absolute goodness. Abstract theological principles can arise from all of his musings about the absolute goodness and power of God. A philosophy class or two can be evidence of that. But Calvin does not concern himself with such matters! Instead, he focuses almost entirely on why such a position of reverence and self disparagement is necessary for building a relationship with God which focuses on submission and filling the lack all people have in themselves. 

From where does Calvin draw some of his most persuasive proofs on our dependence on God? 

Nature. Echoing the words of all Christians concerned with nature from Augustine to Pope Francis, Calvin attests the glory of God in creation. He seems to gasp in horror that, “Creation lights up all these bright lamps to demonstrate the glory of the Creator to us, all in vain.” Calvin’s theology of man’s dependence, and God’s absolute goodness are not abstract theological principles he is working out. His principles are realizations derived from life experience, and describes these beliefs as crucial for Christians who want to walk with God.

Scripture

Calvin had a lot to say about the Bible. He encouraged constant study of it. He himself was consumed by a constant effort to learn more, to distill more knowledge from the text. It was a tradition that was picked up later by Puritan theologians in the United States. 

Why did Calvin put so much focus on the scripture? Again, it was a practical concern. Calvin saw the Bible as a repository for sound teaching. If we could only learn everything about the Bible than we would no longer find ourselves in the throes of inadequate and dangerous theology. Becoming learned in scripture was a hedge around ungodliness, which would threaten our walk with our Creator

In this, Calvin gives the Holy Spirit one of its most important roles. The Holy Spirit guides the reader through scripture. This is where Calvin famously says, 

“Unbelievers think that religion is a matter of opinion and so demand rational proof that Moses and the prophets were inspired , if they are to sufficient grounds for belief. My reply is that the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason.” 

I was always frustrated in college whenever someone who was Reformed would respond to any objection I had with, “Well that’s just a mystery.” Essentially, saying that reason is somehow the enemy. That view it is contrary to everything Calvin stood for. 

After explaining this idea Calvin goes on to dismiss “strange revelations from the Spirit” and praises studiousness of the word. 

Again, Calvin speaks with a practical voice. We might picture him saying something like, “Don’t worry if you don’t have an answer to every objection, keep studying the Word--the Spirit will reveal the answer to you.” Calvin demanded careful study of scripture in order to fully understand God, and this demand was made in order to preserve people’s walks. 

God’s Providence

You may note that I am skipping over Calvin’s discussions of the Trinity by moving on to his teaching on providence. Surely God will reward you for you astuteness. My reason for skipping the Trinity is simply to avoid spending too much time discussing essential orthodox Christianity since Calvin does not tread much new ground in his explanation. Also, providence is more fun. 

As I’ve been alluding to, and hopefully demonstrating, Calvin was concerned with practical theology. We often judge Calvin’s doctrine of providence in the opposite way. Instead, I hope I can contribute to important internet discussions of Calvin by thinking through this doctrine practically. I think a perfect summation of this is the statement by Calvin that, 

“The believer’s comfort in trouble is that everything they endure is ordained and commanded by God and that they are in His hands.”

Previously, Calvin had described God as a creator who is close to his creation, a creator who is actively involved in it. He is not sitting back, resting on his laurels while the world plays itself out. No! According to Calvin God is always close, actively sustaining you and everything else in love. So fret not! Even when God seems far, he is close. 

Now that sounds a lot nicer than when that line is quoted to show how Calvin makes God the author of sin, what Calvin was trying to do was God the author of comfort. There is very little evidence that Calvin was concerned with the meta-ethical implications of his view. Calvin connects this idea to Abraham when he exclaims that “God will provide.” Maybe Calvin’s view of providence is more akin to providing for us rather than presiding over us. 

Moreover, Calvin entitles the very next section “How to use this doctrine for our benefit.” Evidently, that’s what Calvin was thinking when discussing God’s ordering of the world. That God designed everything in order to “develop patience in his people, correct their vices, control their impurity, and stir them from laziness.” 

Sin, the Law, and Salvation

The doctrine of total depravity gets a really bad reputation. Are we really totally depraved. Is it really impossible for me to do something good without God. I think what we need to remember is that the doctrine was a tool for self-denial. Its use was to remind people to be humble. More importantly, Calvin has his eyes constantly set upon God, the ultimate creator of the universe, and Calvin implicitly compares everything to the standard of God. Therefore, in comparison to God, we probably aren’t all that great, Calvin’s views on sin and the fall seek to reinforce that. 

All of these insights temper Calvin’s view of the law. It was never meant to be a final solution, it was always meant to point to something else. The law is a tool of learning, to teach us to be more capable of being with God. In fact, practically speaking, Calvin’s view of the law connects very well to popular contemporary teaching on Paul’s view of the law. In a sense, the law was like training wheels, and it is still valuable like all scripture is: as a hedge against immorality which keeps us from our creator. 

Finally, we come to Christ. Christ, through whom God perfects humanity. Christ is God’s way of redeeming us, so that we may be like God. That insight is crucial, because with Christ it is possible to be like God. Not divine, but holy. Holy enough to be in a relationship with him. Calvin’s theology comes full circle. We are constantly told that we are not quite good enough, that God is so holy, but through Christ we experience communion with God. Through all of the other practical considerations of Calvin we can make ourselves ready for a relationship, and that relationship comes to being in Christ. Surely Calvin is not the pessimist that he is made out to be. Surely he is not the deep, complex, abstract thinker he is made out to be. 

Concluding Thoughts

I hope you saw that I never mentioned predestination. Calvin’s theology does not need it in order to be complete. All of our contemporary considerations of Calvin seem to miss the point of his practical theological musings. When we criticize and elevate this man, it ought to be through the lens he wrote. 

Of course there are numerous practical criticisms of Calvin that I did not even mention, and hopefully those will get brought up in the responses to this piece. What I hoped to accomplish in this piece was to reframe Calvin in a way that makes him a fresh theological voice again, he deserves as much. 

Mondays with Marilynne: One Kind of Vision

Last month in Mondays with Marilynne, we discussed novelist Marilynne Robinson's critical success, her cultural impact, and some of the ways her faith shapes her perspectives on the public life of our nation. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Robinson's political vision is the most important aspect of her work. After all, there are other figures in contemporary Christianity saying, substantively, the same things as Robinson about social and economic issues, but there are few who are able to capture in such moving prose the beauty of a spiritual life.

Robinson's spirituality, like her politics, centers on the theology concept of imago Dei, the image of God. The centrality of this concept is evident from the first pages of her best known work, Gilead, in which the narrator John Ames, an aging Congregational minister, confesses:

“I can’t really tell what’s beautiful anymore. I passed two young fellows on the street the other day. I know who they are, they work at the garage. They’re not churchgoing, either one of them, just decent rascally young fellows who have to be joking all the time, and there they were, propped against the garage wall in the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They’re always so black with grease and so strong with gasoline I don’t know why they don’t catch fire themselves. They were passing remarks back and forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it. I see that in church often enough. So I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you’re done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent. “When they saw me coming, of course the joking stopped, but I could see they were still laughing to themselves, thinking what the old preacher almost heard them say" (5).

Here we see Ames' characteristically Protestant way of being grandiose and understated at once. What Ames hears in the laughter or crying of the people around him is the laughter or crying of God's very Self. Although he'll occasionally launch into reflections on Calvin or Feuerbach, Ames is, on the whole, far more of pastor than a theologian, far more present to the people and things surrounding him than to anything he may have studied in seminary.

Ames, like Robinson herself, is alive to the mystery of divinity in humanity, a mystery which must be carefully taught and zealously guarded lest it go unnoticed: "You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but love and loyalty and mutual incomprehension" (7). For Ames, this knowing in unknowing comes most clearly in the moments a human life begins or ends, moments he has been observing for a lifetime in his vocation as minister. He perceives this existential awareness as a gift of divine grace he received most clearly at the birth of his daughter, who died in infancy decades before the start of the novel:

 "Memory can make a thing seem to have been more than it was. But I know she did look right into my eyes. That is something. And I’m glad I knew it at the time, because now, in my present situation, now that I am about to leave this world, I realize there is nothing more astonishing than a human face … It has something to do with incarnation. You feel your obligation to a child when you have seen it and held it. Any human face is a claim on you, because you can’t help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it. I consider that to be one kind of vision, as mystical as any" (66).

The full beauty of Robinson's spirituality here is that, even if few of us will ever be able to write like Robinson, the experience to which she points is accessible to all of us--to anyone willing to pay attention to his or her neighbors, friends, family, anybody we meet. Here, admittedly, Robinson might owe as much to Whitman as to Whitefield, but the point remains. The simple attentiveness commended in these passages from Gilead gives rise to Christian love, and "Love is holy," Ames points out in perfectly Calvinistic fashion, "because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters." Rather, it is always something else. When we think of someone we love, we may be able to offer a list of characteristics in that person which we admire, but none of them constitute the reason we love the person. If we tried to name that mystery, I suspect the only language we'd have is the sort of religious vocabulary Robinson reclaims from the spewers of cliches: words like grace, love, incarnation--and yes, the image of God.

The Contributors to the Reader

At Groupthink, our goal is to examine current theological questions in a kind and engaging manner, creating an atmosphere where Christians who believe differently may challenge each other to think in new and exciting ways about what it means to know God.

It is very difficult to cultivate a kind and engaging online community, however, when you're not online at all. Between work and family commitments, it seems that nearly all of us at Groupthink underestimated the amount of effort it would take to produce quality blog content on a regular basis.

This coming week, though, we're finally back with a series of reflections on the work of John Calvin, the next installment of Mondays with Marilynne, and a brand new feature essay for the weekend. We're also working to regularize our format and encourage engagement with readers through comments and social media.

You haven't heard the last of the Groupthink team. Our mission of spiritual exploration is only beginning.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

As we prepare for our upcoming essays on John Calvin, we will also join in this prayer traditionally attributed to Calvin. 

"Lord, save us from being self-centred in our prayers and teach us to remember to pray for others. May we be so bound up in love with those for whom we pray that we may feel their needs as acutely as our own and intercede for them with sensitivity, with understanding, and with imagination."

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

In view of our essays this week on silence, contemplation, and maintaining our humanity in an age of distraction, it is fitting to pray this prayer with the great twentieth-century contemplative Thomas Merton. Fr. James Martin calls this "the prayer that anyone can pray."

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.I cannot know for certain where it will end.Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.I will not fear for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

(Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, 132)

A Response from Silence

I believe Joe Miller has done an excellent job showing a disease in American culture. Indeed, there isn’t much for me to add. However, I will quickly extend a related examination of our paradoxical human nature. That is, a look at our original sin and our original blessing. But first, a quick look at the culture.

Consumerism takes many shapes and forms. The need to have individual technology is rooted in the need to always be entertained. The need to be entertained is rooted in a feeling of lack. As so many mystics in many traditions have posited, we try to use things and ideas to fill a God-sized hole, but in the end the only way to fill this hole is with God. We won’t be whole until we fill that hole with God. God doesn’t make us with this need for him because he is a needy child who can’t dream of having people be independent of himself. Rather, all love comes from God and an all loving being who designs creatures for love can’t give them this love apart from himself.

Original sin is our inability to automatically feel, remember, and know this love. The job of religion, and spiritual practices is to help remind people of the presence of God in their lives which is always there! This is our original blessing—God’s desire to live in communion and harmony with his creation—is what Richard Rohr has tried to share.

Rohr has noted that Meister Eckhart (And I would add the Jesuit’s founder St. Ignatius) is the mystic for those who are busy. It is alright to have a busy life with busy technology. The point is that technology should act as a tool for one to help share love to a world which needs to be reminded of its special place in God’s present in-breaking kingdom. 

Western Culture: What We've Lost

"Hi, there! Welcome to America!

Okay, the first thing you're going to need is a smartphone. It's actually rather necessary, most would rather be late to an appointment then leave without it.

Here you can use it to access the Internet. Here is how you can download games for if you're bored. If games aren't your thing, you can also download books. News, blogs, videos, pictures, information - it's all here at the touch of your finger.

What's that you said? Does it have a phone? Yes, but that's only about one-thirtieth of its capacity. I'd learn how to text first, here's how you do that.

Please also consider our television. Most are Internet-based nowadays. Why's that, you ask? Well, because cable is boring and offers little choices, and satellite, while offering more choice, still only lets you watch shows as they come out. If you MUST have satellite, you need to get a box-thing that lets you record. That way you have some limited ability to watch what you want whenever you want as many times as you want! What? Why do we do this? Well, because our schedules are complicated, and you can't expect what you want and what you need to do to align very much. So rather than go without we created workarounds. Talk about ingenious, am I right?

Since we're talking about TV, here's our news. You can watch news channels, read news articles online, or do both. The purpose is to be as educated as possible about what's going on around the world, to try and be more socially aware. I find I agree most with Paul Bresche, a blogger with with this network, and I don't really read much else. But I have some friends who only watch this channel on TV, but that's because they're liberals don'tcha know. Huh? Why is there so much? So much what? News? Well, there's a lot happening! And more importantly, lots of people have a lot of opinions about it all!

Now, as you go about your day, there will be times where you won't be around your TV or your phone might be dead. Not to worry, we've thought of that too! There are magazines for your viewing pleasure when you're stuck in lines, countless radio stations if you have satellite radio, and practically unlimited amounts of music and podcasts for free. Even our gas pumps are starting to have TV's on them! Isn't that great? I'm like, 'why didn't we think of that sooner,' you know?

We pride ourselves on being the most informed, most connected, most aware culture out there. This must be so much better than whatever you're coming from, right? Ugh, I went overseas this one time, and I couldn't believe how boring it was. Sure we did cool stuff and it was pretty and all, but after a while I really missed my American TV and radio. And there was so much less wifi, I thought I would die. Thankfully I had my friends to text, they felt really sorry for me.

Anyway, I'm rambling. All that should get you started, but the best part is that there's so much more! New gizmos are being invented all the time, I'm a member of at least ten social networks, there are always articles with new ideas and ways of doing things, and I've laid out my dream life on Pinterest. Welcome home!"

While a tad over-the-top, does all of that not ring somewhat true? Of course it does. Taking out the sarcasm and satire, I basically only described a few facets of Western culture.

Western culture is wonderful. So much good has been born of it. If you need convincing of that, take a walk through any modern city. The skyscrapers, business models, order, technology - all that and more possesses strong roots in Western culture.

But it's not perfect. Our culture is very sick. Among other diseases, we are strongly afflicted with what Larry Dossey calls "time-sickness," an obsessive belief that "time is getting away, there isn't enough of it, and you must pedal faster and faster to keep up." Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, puts it this way: "We are moving from a world in which the big eat the small to one in which the fast eat the slow."

This mindset, while beneficial in its own way, has deprived us of some very important ideas that are necessary if we are to have a healthy, successful life (depending on your definition of a "healthy, successful life"). We've lost appreciation for things like slowing down, deep relationship, and especially silence.

I trust this isn't the first time you've heard this. I also trust that by now you're starting to consider the reality of it. The cogs are turning, the metaphorical ball that does the rolling is indeed rolling somewhere.

What does this mean for you? I don't know. I'm 21, I just graduated, I'm just as (if not more) saturated in the unhealthy aspects of our culture as you. I'm only in the middle of realizing all this. I'm very thankful for the community that this blog is, and I imagine their responses with be elaborations, taking some of these ideas and implications further. I'm no scientist or academic, I don't have any book or theories. I just am in the middle of all this, and all I can hope is that the questions have been planted, and that you will water them inside yourself. When they bloom, don't just ignore them. When you find yourself asking "Why do I use my phone so much?", take the time to consider it. Don't just shove it down. This is important.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Inspired by Groupthink's recent material on spirituality and mysticism, our prayer for the week comes from philosopher, scientist, and priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (1881-1885).

"Glorious Lord Christ: the divine influence secretly diffused and active in the depths of matter, and the dazzling centre where all the innumerable fibres of the manifold meet; power as implacable as the world and as warm as life; you whose forehead is of the whiteness of snow, whose eyes are of fire, and whose feet are brighter than molten gold; you whose hands imprison the stars; you who are the first and the last, the living and the dead and the risen again; you who gather into your exuberant unity every mode of existence; it is you to whom my being cries out with a desire as vast the universe, 'In truth you are my Lord and my God'."

--(The Oxford Book of Prayer, 6) 

Questioning

I like to think that in the last few years I have learned a lot. I mean, a WHOLE lot. When they say college changes you, they mean it. I think, however, it wasn’t college that changed me, it was the people I surrounded myself with. I think that is always what changes a person. I would perhaps say that we can only be changed by people. We are not shaped by our own selves, we are shaped by others.

The immense amount of growing and learning that I have done has come about just the way my mom told me it would in elementary school, high school, at home… It came about by asking questions. The few years I participated in public school as a child, I was much too timid to ever raise my hand and ask a question about something I didn’t understand. What was the outcome? I didn’t learn. In high school nothing had changed, I was far too uncomfortable to make myself so vulnerable as to do the unspeakable and actually ask a question. What was the outcome? I didn’t learn. Now it didn’t help that I didn’t and still don’t care about my education when it comes to mathematics, U.S. history, grammar, though I did manage to scrape some interest in science out of the recesses of my head.

It was only later in college when I was finally able to put myself out there. I found the one thing I had never had before in an atmosphere of growth. Comfort. Don’t get me wrong, I still never raised my hand in class, I guess I still didn’t care enough. But I was introduced to something that I cared enough about to feel a desire to learn more of: the person of Jesus. I immersed myself in a group of the best friends a person could ask for and they intentionally and unintentionally placed dump-truck loads worth of questions in me.

These questions were scary and uncomfortable, as are most new things to a person like me. But I was influenced to ask them anyway.

The point of this post isn’t to describe the questions themselves, but the very idea of questioning. Especially questioning things, ideas, beliefs, presumptions we have held dear for years. I see the importance of questioning in all areas of life, but primarily I want to focus on questioning when it comes to our faith. Whatever that faith is in, whatever you most closely identify as: be that a Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Jehovah Witness, Agnostic, anything! In my experience, one of the few things I know with absolute certainty is that you will never get anywhere without asking questions. Even if you think you are already where you are supposed to be, you must keep asking, keep exploring. Circumstances change, people change, you change, whether you want to or not, you change. In the midst of constant change, we must be willing to grow with the change that the world forces upon us, as opposed to sitting stagnant and falling out of touch with the changing world.

I can guarantee you that if I compared everything I believed about life, God, the supernatural, people, the afterlife, and myself four years ago to now, one thing would be the same. God exists. That is all that is the same, and even though I’m pretty content with all the beliefs and ideas I have come to terms with up until this moment, I can say with certainty that four years from now, I’ll reject many of the things I now hold dear, embracing others, be they extremely different or only a little. And I’m fine with that. It took a long time to come to this place of comfort, and I’m still getting here, but it is wonderful here. It’s peaceful.

Now this is in fact primarily a theology blog, so it is no secret that what I’m really talking about is God. I cannot stress the importance of questioning God. If anyone has ever told you that to question God and his ways is wrong and that doubt is evil, maybe you should question that. Think of one thing you believe about God and then ask yourself: Is that true? Could it be another way? What if God were like this? How would I feel about that? How would that change the way I live my life? How would that change the way I interact with the people around me? I’m not asking you to reject everything you now believe and embrace something completely foreign to you just for kicks. I’m asking you to analyze yourself. I am asking you to let yourself grow.

Nothing would change without its previous state being challenged. People used to think the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around it. That’s not entirely relevant, but you get my point. If we want to grow as human beings we must be willing to ask questions, and not stop there but ask questions knowing we could be wrong. We must be willing to listen to the questions that others ask. If we want to learn more about God, we must be willing to ask questions of his character, his alleged actions, the stories told of him. In the Old Testament, God’s own people thought that God was interested in conquering the world with violence, and then Jesus came and proclaimed a God of love and nonviolence. He stirred up what people believed with new questions, new ideas.

Questions are of great importance no matter what we are seeking. Next time someone asks you a question that you find offensive and ridiculous, stop and let the question be asked before you reject it or ignore it. Let the question sink in, pull your experiences, your knowledge, your desires into the picture and at least consider the question. Don’t answer right away, mull it over in your head for a while. Let yourself grow as a person in the answering of the question. You will grow not by agreeing or disagreeing with someone, but by considering their position.

Sometimes questions come from outside, sometimes from inside, no matter where they come from, don’t push them away, see them as an opportunity to grow and add something to the unique and different person you are.

Hearing Christ's Voice: A Response to Reed Dressler

In our Wednesday Groupthink essay, my friend Reed Dressler takes on an important contemporary topic, one that is close to my own heart and that is difficult to talk about at our denominational conferences and church coffee hours: hearing the voice of God. Dressler points to the importance of remembering God’s continuing presence in God’s creation, a remembering which breaks down traditional barriers between the sacred and the profane.

I sincerely appreciate Dressler’s writing on the topic, but I am often nervous about discussing contemplative theology. Such discussions can quickly become overly abstract and self-absorbed, focusing (no less than evangelical pop theology) on the individual’s relationship with God to the neglect of a larger narrative of God’s action in history.

The best way, I think, to avoid the problem of atomizing individualism in the spiritual life is to hold the truths Dressler points us to in tandem with a spirituality that centers our union with the crucified and risen Christ within the community of his Body, the Church. Private contemplative practice will lead us astray if we pursue it overzealously and without equal commitment to our “common prayer” and service with others who commit their lives to the Way.

Authentic spirituality, for Christians, should always begin with the One we consider the ultimate expression of God’s being and character, “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).

I don’t say this to denigrate anyone else’s religious traditions or to imply that only Christians can pray or meditate or know God. I do believe, though, that as people of faith, we best honor the traditions of others by living faithfully the best of our own, not by appropriating and generalizing until nothing is left but abstracted “spiritual but not religious” feelings of goodwill. Poet Christian Wiman likes to quote George Lindbeck: “You can no more be religious in general than you can speak language in general.” In Wiman’s own words, “the only way to deepen your knowledge and experience of ultimate divinity is to deepen your knowledge and experience of the all too temporal symbols and language of a particular religion” (My Bright Abyss 141). For Christians, those symbols and that language must center on Jesus Christ.

Many of the early Church Mothers and Fathers spoke at great length about Christ as Logos, the Word by which God made and sustains the world, the divine creative principle of the universe. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins had just this conception of Christ in mind when he formulated his vision of every molecule of creation giving praise to God simply by being what it is truly is:

"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. 

"I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces"

For Hopkins, and for many of us who see the beauty of his vision even if we have trouble with his metaphysics, it is not only the First Person of the Trinity we experience in creation and providence, but Jesus Christ as well.

I used to dismiss this talk of the Logos as so much overbaked Platonism, an aberration of the original concrete and social vision of Jesus.

It is true that, when overemphasized, a theology centered on the Logos can be used as a way of avoiding the most difficult teachings of Jesus found in the gospels.

However, a healthy understanding of the Logos in creation helps us to move beyond abstraction and see Christ’s face in this action, this experience, this experience this person. We need the actions, experiences, and presence of others to understand fully what Christ is doing among us. I think that is what our Orthodox siblings mean they greet each other, not with the familiar “The Lord be with you” “And also with you” found in my church, but with “Christ is in our midst” “He is and shall be.”

Jesus chose a meal with his friends, not solitary meditation,
as the main way we are to remember him.

One great way to begin cultivating a Christ-centered and communal spirituality is by reflecting on the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Baptism, and the remembrance of our baptism, is a way of partaking in Christ's death and resurrection. In baptism, we are initiated into Christ's new creation, the world as God intended us to see it, with Christ the Logos visible, if only faintly, in all things. Whether we were baptized as infants or as adults, it remains true that none of us baptized himself or herself. It's a gift that only comes to us through the actions of other Christians.

Similarly, in the Eucharist, we remember our place as "living members of [God's] Son, our Savior Jesus Christ," in the words of the Book of Common Prayer. Here, St. Augustine says it best:

"If you are the body of Christ and his members, your mystery has been placed on the Lord's table, you receive your mystery. You reply 'Amen' to that which you are, and by replying you consent. For you hear 'The body of Christ,' and you reply 'Amen.' Be a member of the body of Christ so that your 'Amen' may be true. ... Be what you see, and receive what you are" (Sermon 272).

Spirituality is, as evangelicals are fond of saying, about one's "relationship with God," but it is also about our relationship with God. It's about who we are discovering Christ to be and ourselves to be in Christ as we gather in his name.

Christ is in our midst. He is and shall be. Amen.

Hearing God's Voice

God speaks to us far more than we realize.

How can I make this assertion when no matter where we look we don’t ‘see’ or ‘hear’ God anywhere? Clearly I have to answer this question before I can even begin to explain how we can hear God. Philosophy has a name for this problem. It is known as the problem of Divine Hiddenness and it has certainly kept many people awake at night. 

I think God wanted it to be a ‘problem’. He honestly wants it to be hard to see him, at least initially. Philosophy’s answer goes something like this: ‘If humans could see God they would always do the right thing. However, they would do the right thing for the wrong reason which is out of fear of punishment. Therefore, humans under this view must freely choose to do what is right and this requires God not be entirely obvious to our senses.’ 

This is not a bad answer. Indeed it gets very close to the heart of the matter. Yet, there is an even deeper truth. The truth that only the sufferers and mystical seekers dare to know. God is not hidden. Rather he screams his presence in silence, and glows brightly in physical shadows. He resides in the depths of darkness and lives at the heights of light. 

The Psalmist practically laments his inability to escape God’s presence in Psalms 139. This Psalmist (who may have been David) realized something which few have internalized deep down beyond intellectual assent. God really is everywhere, and everything expresses his glory and presence. Humanity’s ‘original sin’ was losing the ability to see and hear him in everything. God speaks through his creation, but many times in ways we either ignore or refuse to accept. The path of prayer could be said to be the path of relearning this truth.
 

Over the centuries, Christians and Jews have found solace
in the story of the prophet Elijah, who met God not in the
wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in a "still, small voice."

This relearning may not always be easy and can even require one to “pick up their cross” and follow Jesus’ example of accepting suffering. So how do we hear God’s voice? Well there are plenty of examples in the Bible that show God loudly announcing his presence. The God of the Old Testament is definitely into flare and pyrotechnics! Bushes that don’t burn, axes that float, cities that are destroyed, loud swirling whirl winds! Yet, in our own lives very few of us can claim to have experienced such magnificent spectacles. Indeed, when we read the Bible, we find ourselves begging God to give something to prove he is out there. And it seems that for the mass majority of us, God is nowhere to be found. 

The New Testament has less of the flare but still holds enough miracles to keep our attention. Jesus is healing people left and right. Why do we see so few of those? The answer is twofold. We are too closed off to see them and we forgot who to imitate. The popular and perceptive New Testament scholar N.T. Wright gives us an answer to the first. He explains in his book Surprised by Scripture that our understanding of miracles has been influenced by a pagan understanding of God created by the philosopher Epicurus. 

Epicurus claimed that no gods exist and that even if there are some they are certainly far removed from human experiences. Wright believes that this corrupted all of modern philosophy. He also asserts that it has confused us on the nature of miracles. Currently many people believe miracles are moments of radical insertions of God’s power. In this view God does not interact with the world until he wants a miracle. Immediately after the miracle, he is gone again. This, Wright believes, misses the Christian understanding of what a miracle is. Miracles are God’s working in the world and helping to shape this world. It is not something which simply happens randomly and then is gone. In a sense God is always working in the world so miracles are occurring all the time! 

This is a truth which many mystics have come to learn. God created this world, and he isn’t going to leave it alone. Richard Rohr, a modern Catholic mystic, sums up this point beautifully when he states that there is no sacred versus profane. Rather, one could say that there is only realization and ignorance. The Christian process of becoming holy, sometimes known as sanctification, isn’t about becoming better at doing the right things. It is about realizing the amazing and wonderful truth that God is always loving and welcoming. Once we start on this path of becoming more and more aware of God’s constant presence in the world and all loving nature, we automatically come to have deeper and deeper trust and faith in his will and find ourselves doing the right thing even in spite of themselves. 

So what does all of this have to do with hearing God? Once you realize these truths, the next step is to stop asking God to speak and start listening. One of the best ways to do this is to go into solitude. Quiet the mind which is constantly forgetting God’s goodness anyway. Enter into a deep peace. 

After this point I can’t say how God will speak to you. The Bible is ripe with different ways God gives his message. But before you can hear God over your own egotistical thoughts follow the Bibles advice in the Psalms. “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) and enter into “the Peace which surpasses all understanding.” (Philippians 4:7). 

In this state of remembrance and peace you will be more likely to actually hear what it is that God has been saying to you. You might hear the advice God has been trying to get through to you all along. Then you too will know.

God speaks to us far more than we ever realize.

On Technology, Culture, and Faith: The Hollywood Fix

We exited the theater, the light painfully pushing past our squinted eyelids while the rush of reentering reality gives us pause.

We reflect on the experience, laughing at its jokes, marveling at its intricacies, taking a poker to its shortcomings so we know we are still the dominant one.

We pull away, awash in conversation; I, however, silent.

My surroundings full of activity and engagement, I feel an inexplicable solitude. I feel lack.

I self-check, examining the paths of thought and tide of emotions I've encountered recently to gather evidence to the way I feel.

Nothing. Logic stat-

I respond to a question. Life around me continues.

Logic states I start at my last exposure and work backwards, searching for a source.

Answer. Question. Conversation around me. Car ride. Leaving theater. Movie.

Movie.

I wish I was that hero, the very likeness of goodness, charging headfirst into the hordes of evil and what is sure to be my doom.

I wish I was that man, the man who ran barefoot through hell and swam through high water for the woman he loves.

I wish I were able to answer the beckoning of distant lands and strange experiences, returning one day a mystery and legend.

I wish it were me in that movie. Experiencing those things.

I briefly examine my life, fitting it into scripts, plot, lighting cues, and camera angles, and I'm struck at its unavoidable boringness.

I still feel lack, the solitude of an empty heart. Ah well, those things only happen in movies.

I merge into the conversation around me like the car we share onto the interstate home. We don't speak of it, but we all feel the same.

The conversation turns to the next promising blockbuster, and our blood pressure spikes like that of an addict when he sees his drug of choice.

Awash in conversation, I forget my lack, though I only manage to cover it's emptiness with rotting boards destined to break again.

We reflect on the experience, laughing at its jokes, marveling at its intricacies, taking a poker to its shortcomings so we know we are still the dominant one.
                                    --------------------

I'm going to be straight with you. Try as I might (and believe me, I did), I cannot write anything to convince you to drop Netflix, sell your TV, or stop watching movies so much. The primary reason being that there's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things, the second reason being I am not that kind of writer. 

I am not able to write about just anything. My passions and experiences are the flesh and bones of my scribbles, opinions may as well be water in my scribbling engine. All that said, I can only tell you of my experiences.

As I'm sure you may have guessed, the whatever-that-is in the italics above is a reflection of myself. I was the guy who left movies wishing he were the protagonist. I found myself daydreaming about the other worlds presented in television shows, envisioning how tales of my adventures would weave into its history.

I actually grew up without a television. We watched DVD's from blockbuster or the library on our computer, but we never had any kind of satellite or cable service. I always found myself being jealous of the kids who did, those able to sit in front of that screen watching the coolest stuff for hours on end.

When I got to college and discovered Neflix, it was like a horse had just stumbled into a sugar factory. I dove, and I dove hard. BBC's Sherlock lasted all of a few days, if that tells you anything. Show after show, movie after movie, I was hooked deep. 

I started wondering if this was healthy, but quickly realized everyone around me had normalized this obsession, calling it "binge-watching" (which is odd since any other action with "binge" before it is considered wildly unhealthy). I justified my actions by claiming that I loved stories. Which, to an extent, is true. But it was also an excuse.

A few months passed before I started feeling strange. Sure, I had gone through a rough breakup, classes were tougher than ever, and I suddenly had to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up (graduation) - but it was more than that. Deep down I was really, really unhappy with my life.

I was doing two things: comparing my life to what I was seeing on the screen and medicating the resulting pain by watching the screen more. I was forfeiting relationships, school work, and social activities because I didn't want to make the hard decision to deal with my pain and choose interaction over isolation. Looking back now, I see that I honestly wasn't watching TV any more than your average family, and that really scares me.

During that time I only saw my life for what it wasn't. It wasn't some grand adventure across new lands. It wasn't some bizarrely intricate dramatic-yet-cheesy plan to get some girl. It wasn't heroic even in the least. Compared to what I was seeing, I was incredibly boring.

It took some time, but this has passed for me (praise Jesus). Why did you read all that? Well, hopefully we can talk about it a little and perhaps you might gain some insight into your practices and lifestyle involving the tele.

Hollywood is a business, guys, and like any business its goal is to make money. You're the user group, you're the one it needs to keep selling product to, and it does that by hooking you so you will keep coming back. 

Hollywood's entire business platform is this simple statement: reality is boring. If that weren't true, any market for video entertainment would collapse instantly. Did you know that even the truest movies are at least 90% embellishment? Think about it - if you were watching those events play out exactly how they probably did, would you have paid money to see it? Of course not, it would mostly be incredibly boring!

We're not being sold movies and TV shows. We're being sold experiences. Or, more accurately, experiences we won't have because we think we can't. Are traveling to Iceland and seeing a few shots of it in a movie even slightly comparable? Then why do we sit around on couches wondering what far-off lands look like when we catch glimpses of them on screens?

Is pursuing and fighting for someones affection the same as watching a mushy-yet-clever movie? Is the satisfaction of getting involved in something bigger than yourself equivalent to seeing someone else do it on TV?

I realize you're reading this and thinking, "That's nice and probably true, but I'm fine. I'm not addicted or anything, watching stuff isn't bad." Like I said earlier, I can't write anything to convince you otherwise. I see movies and TV like I see alcohol - only damaging when you use it to be. What I'm starting to think, though, is that our culture has accepted as normal what is actually damaging.

I see a lot of families spending hours watching television, yet starving for minutes of interaction and daily investment in each other's lives. I see (and have been a part of) couples who slowly start to spend most of their time together watching movies and television rather than experiencing new things, making memories, or even getting to know each other better. I see a deep relationship famine in our culture, and a very cost-effective and doable solution is to drop the TV and movies.

I will leave you with this. Go out and experience stuff. Don't let TV or movies be a drug-like adventure fix for you the way it was for me. Yes, "adventure is out there," but you can't have experiences you don't choose to have. Choose relationships. Choose interaction. Choose the unknown, the unsafe. It doesn't have to be huge. Start with small, unexpected decisions. It'll grow from there.

Can you live without TV or movies? I really think so. Actually, I think you'll experience an unexpected amount of life and fulfillment without them.

"Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they're doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out... There are so many adventures that you miss because you are waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go" - XKCD