Just the Other Day

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

June 27, 2022

The Supreme Court is Not the Last Word

The Supreme Court has released its Decision on expanding legal gun carrying and its Decision on reversing Roe Vs. Wade and a women’s right to choice. I am appalled at both Court Decisions. Last week I took a dive into the waters of describing the difference between Theologians of the Cross and Theologians of Glory. As a Theologian of the Cross I live in this expansive and grace-filled place where I do not attach these Decisions to God’s will but rather simply see them for what they are: Decisions by very human beings trying to make their way through challenges. True enough, I see “how they made their way” as the legalizing of the inhumanity of humanity against humanity. Others, of course, see these current Decisions as the protections of humanity. 

If the Decisions had gone the other way, the way of those of us who see the Decisions as inhumane, those Decisions would also not be God’s will. It is the attachment of very human decisions to the coattails of God where decisions that could be bad enough on the face of it become so much worse and so deadly. If I think the power of God is behind what is taking place rather than the driver being my best efforts at justice (again, on either side of the issue) then not only am I inclined to beat down and subdue the opposition, destroy them, for the sake of Divine Right, for the sake of Ultimacy, but I am also inclined to be beaten down and subdued, destroyed, myself when things fall apart and justice, however it is defined, loses the day.

But wait, then is there not anything that we can point to that is the will of God? It can be only this: that we, humanity, would stay in our lane. We are mortal, not immortal. We are flesh and blood, not shining light. 

It’s not that we can’t look at the story of Jesus and accurately describe his life’s focus and mission. He lived for the liberation of the least, the last, the lost, the little and the dead. If we are inspired by this and work to emulate this in our own lives then good, and the world is a better place because of it. But did he win? Did his mission of a better place and life for the marginalized get accomplished? No, he was killed, and savagely so. Then what in the world is going on here in this biblical narrative of Jesus where the way of peace that is accomplished by distributive justice through non-violence gets destroyed (by the way of peace that is accomplished by retributive justice through violence)? Could it be that there is something more promising, more gospel (good news), more liberating than even the vision of distributive justice that we embrace as the way of God? Could it be the fact that Jesus was killed (and he disappeared, not to be seen again, after his brief engagement with his followers in those heady resurrection days) is the defeat of our grandiosity, the destruction of our insatiable demand to step out of our lane and drive in God’s lane?

Just what is “the gospel” of the New Testament of the Bible anyway? To get at the answer you have to start with the actual account of Jesus life and death and resurrection. That sounds logical enough. And when you spend time there, which I am thinking most people today in America who call themselves Christian do not, you will see that the love your enemies thing, the serving others thing, the disparaging of righteous religious judgment thing, the forgiveness thing, the acceptance of the outcast thing, and the care for the poor thing are not a side-bar of Jesus’ agenda. They are the main event.  

But the clincher is that you have to end there too. You have to begin with the actual account of Jesus and you have to end with the actual account of Jesus.  You cannot make the account more than it is. So this: Jesus lost and he has left the building. 

Wait just a minute. 

Oh my, that means my dreams of grandeur for you and me and for our world are gone too. 

Do we see? This is exactly what a Theologian of the Cross does. She says “what a thing is” (Luther, Heidelberg Disputation Thesis 20).

I am driven to fight non-violently to Overturn the Overturn (to at least get back to where we were before Roe V. Wade was thrown out) and to make gun violence a thing of the past.  I believe this is humane and destroys inhumanity. But I do not see this as the will of God. What God wills is that I would shut up about God, quit usurping God’s position, and focus all of my attention and energy to taking care of the Garden (see the bible book of Genesis). Taking care of life as we see it right before us, not some ultimate destiny to which we aspire.  

Post-script

To my dear readers who actually are gracious enough to read this far today and too take the time to read my other postings, a note: I am going to be losing myself in some weeks of summer now and will not be back at Greengracepostings until the end of July, or so. May you all know joy and may our world know peace! Talk to you soon. 

                                                                    Porch Time

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

June 23, 2022

Please Don’t Ask Me to Tell You How I See God Today

Because of my mistake in my blog writing this week (posted 6/21 I saw a serious error that I fixed after it was up for a while!) about what a theologian of glory and a theologian of the cross do I was driven back to spend time with my old friend and teacher, On Being a Theologian of the Cross (Gerhard Forde, 1997). In particular I needed to dive again into that volume’s “Part III: The Great Divide – The Way of the Cross vs. The Way of Glory.” 

Theologians of the Cross (TOTC) have given up the pursuit of seeing God as Virtue (and all the other divine attributes) and then, therefore, are done seeing things in life not as they actually are (e.g. a tree is a tree is how it is) but for what they say or reveal about God (e.g. a tree is a gift of God is your vision and aspiration). TOTC don’t see through the trauma and pain of Jesus on the cross and see instead the blessing and love of God. This seeing through and naming something else is the self-defense mechanism of the Theologians of Glory (TOG). The TOG find the incrimination of being the murderer of an innocent and just man so appalling that they must make it out to be a good and redemptive event. TOTC are crushed and destroyed by the weight of that incrimination and there is no escape, only death. TOTC are killed by the cross of Jesus. TOTC see the crucifixion for what it is and as it is. TOTC do not construct a theology to fend off the suffering and death of Jesus (or the suffering and death of all humankind – do we not see here what a Doctrine of the Incarnation really identifies?!) but rather see it for what it is, the inhumanity of humanity. Period. Not the love of God, but the inhumanity of humanity. 

We see, don’t we? There is an offense (to us, we take offense) that is worse or greater than the offense of this murder and being caught with the murder weapon in your hand. It is the offense that our actions and beliefs have no impact on our meaning and destiny, have no agency for completeness, personal or otherwise. It is, to put it bluntly and succinctly, the offense of God. God offends us. 

We don’t see or know God, and therefore, have no control over God. When we think we see or know God we become the one who gains control. We are the Subject again, not the Object.  This leads me to think of how we mostly do our theologizing today – we look for ways we can name God by what we see rather than seeing things for what they are. A sunrise is a sign of God, not a sunrise. A visit from a friend is a sign from God, not a visit from a friend. Then, conversely, a disease contracted is a sign of God (God is either absent or malevolent) and not a disease contracted. A pandemic is a sign of God (again, absent or malevolent) and not a pandemic. 

If we can identify God, name God, point out how and where God operates, we are back in the driver’s seat. 

But TOTC recognize what this enterprise is all about – a fending off of the offense of God. 

This is what Martin Luther meant by saying we only know God (see God) through/by suffering and death: not our physical or emotional hurt that we then see through transparently to see God but rather the impossibility of doing anything about our destiny (“suffering” as in the “suffer the little children to come to me,”of Mt. 19:14,  suffering as allowing God to be God). Not our physical or emotional demise that we then see through to see God but rather the death of self, the no import or agency of self. We suffer the fact, we die to any meaning within, our physical or emotional suffering and death. 

Our physical and emotional suffering and death are what they are, they are not a portal through which we see God or find God. Likewise, our physical and emotional joy and happiness are what they are, they are not portals through which we see God. It is the TOTC that are able to speak in this way about our life and death. 

The TOG are desperate to attach meaning to what is seen and experienced so as to protect themselves against the onslaught of God. 

It is popular today in the Church to be about the business of identifying or naming how we see God at work. Pastors and Preachers like to stir up the minds and hearts of people to be in conversation with God by asking them to name how they “see God today.” These clergy are well meaning. They are trying to lift the spirits of their congregants by having them think of happy things. To be sure, our spirits need lifting these days and thinking about happy things can go a long way in doing just that. But such an enterprise is not only bad thinking about God, but more importantly, it is fraught with the danger of hurting and damaging more than it helps. This all happens, this bad theology that ends up doing serious damage to people’s hearts and minds, because of the problem of God – God is just too wild, working out of bounds, doing everything and anything outside of the rules of reward and punishment. This is not only God doing bad things (what about that child dying young?) but also letting bad people off the hook (what about that mercy thing?). God is just too God, and not enough Us! This is what Luther meant when he said “the gouty foot laughs at your doctoring” to Erasmus in his Bondage of the Will treatise. One just cannot “doctor over” the problem of God. Only God can deal with God. And so, the story of Jesus, the event of Jesus, is just this exact thing. God taking care of the problem of God, on our behalf.  TOTC know this, are about this. This cross is not theology about God. The cross is our theology (“Crux sola nostra theologia” – Luther).

So, how can such “where do we see God today?” questions hurt? It takes people out on the thin ice (thin because the truth and actuality of the child dying young melts the ice) where they will fall through and drown. It leads people to speculate about God rather than to sit still and hear the only thing that heals and saves: the first-person declaration/statement that they are safe and sound, loved. That they are loved not because they are lovely or things are lovely, but lovely because they, and all things, are loved. 

I remember one particular day way back in graduate school, seminary, my good friend and Professor of Systematic Theology Professor Walt Bouman preaching in our daily Chapel Service. He said one thing that stuck with me readily and to this day: The Reformation was, for Martin Luther, in the mix of it all and the catalyst of it all, a pastoral passion and concern. Luther was focused on the fact that people were getting beat down and marginalized and destroyed not only by abusive church practices (like extorting money from the pocketbooks of regular folks in order to pay for forgiveness from God) but also by a theology that placed these folks in a place where they never were quite sure, and always anxious about, their standing with God. Luther was tired of the Church hurting people and he used his extraordinary intellectual capabilities in bible scholarship, languages and writing and speaking, that discovered again the explosion of grace that is Jesus Christ, to bear down on this behemoth (Church, which, remember then in the 16th century, was equal to and really one in the same as State) to run it into the ground so that the people might be freed (he didn’t always get it right….think of the Peasant’s War of 1525 and his vitriol against the Jewish people, especially later in his life). 

All of this is to say why it is so important to get the theology right. People get hurt, creation gets destroyed, when we don’t.

                                              New Running Shoes. Keep Moving. 

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

June 17, 2022

Please Don’t Tell Me Suffering is Good.

Please Don’t Tell Me I Should Love the Cross.

Please Don’t Tell Me I Should Love Jesus.

How Martin Luther’s “Unpreached God and Preached God “ Works

“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Exodus 33). 

This is two-sided. 

One the one hand it kills you because it takes us out of the game of salvation, takes away our agency. It is our death.

On the other hand it resurrects us because the mercy/compassion is spoken to us, the elected ones are us. The agency is God’s and it is directed and delivered to us. It is our life.

This is what is meant by Luther’s coming to see the distinction between God unpreached and God preached. 

If the word of mercy is not directly spoken to us, proclamation, this mercy remains a concept, an idea, a theory, and a speculation that calls out our spiritual calisthenics to figure out, to see, or to silence it’s accusation. In other words, it’s unpreached, not directly spoken and only accuses no matter how hard we try to have it not accuse, not matter how hard we try to make the bad good, not matter how hard we try to love the suffering that is happening, no matter how hard we try to love the cross of Jesus that we are told represents the love of God. 

But if and when the mercy is spoken directly to us, all speculation ends. The killing of the law ends because the law ends. There is election, a choosing, not on the basis or within the system of law, but outside the law, outlaw, and rather on the basis of gospel, on the basis of a promise alone. Fortunately, amazingly, as when the beloved one receives the words “I love you” from the loved one (and/or the beloved receives the word “I choose to marry you” from the loved), the promise is actually given! The question is, of course, will we take it and run with it or will be refuse it and run away from it. 

Steven Paulson writes about Exodus 33 (in Luther’s Outlaw God, Vol. 2): “Moses’ glory is not seeing the glory of God’s eternal law behind its accusation, but is receiving Christ’s promise, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,’ that kills the killing law. The glory of God is the sermon preached by Christ to his chosen sinners, like Moses in the cleft of the rock. Moses is to us always the revealer of sin, and Christ is the forgiver of sin. With this distinction, Luther was free of mysticism, and free from attempting to love the cross.”

Why Preachers

The reason preachers are necessary is not because all people are not elected, chosen, given mercy/compassion, by God, but because they will not know it, their speculation will not end, until it is directly given and spoken to them.

We are so attached to the law, living within the system of reward and punishment, that allows our personal agency and ability to thrive, that the gift offends us. The mercy that silences our speculation and wonderings, kills our ability to figure out why and how suffering is not a bad thing but is rather a good thing, our reasoning that gets us to the point of seeing suffering as good, as redemptive, as positive is not just off-putting, it is offensive and we will not have it. 

Most Christians today are not Christians at all but rather Pagans using Jesus as the culturally accepted way to fend off the accusatory law. Jesus is their law giver and law receiver. But I don’t say this in some high-minded manner, as if I am not a Pagan myself. I am, to the core. Which is why I need a Preacher to kill me and then raise me from that dead with Jesus who uses me instead of vice-versa. Christians who are Pagans and Non-Christians who are Pagans are cut from the same cloth, they do and live the very same thing: try every which way to supersede their own humanity and mortality. 

The Offense of the Cross

Jesus as offensive. "Off fend."

Persons as fend-offish. "Fend off."

Virtual Christians use Jesus to fend off their own demise and love the cross because it allows them to live on. Actual Christians see and know the offense of Jesus, the offense of the cross and hate the cross because it kills them.

Persons of the Cross and Persons of Glory (Martin Luther: Theologians of the Cross and Theologians of Glory)

The moment you try to tell me the bad is not bad, but is actually good, is the moment you have stepped away from proclamation into speculation. You are asking me to see through things instead of at things. 

Luther in the Heidelberg Disputation (1518): a person of glory calls the bad good; a person (theologian) of glory calls the good bad (he called them “theologians” not because the persons he was referring to were professional academics in the science of theology but because every person does theology, every person “studies” God, every person does what one needs to do to examine, if not also fend off, the divine. Every person is a theologian).  Understood here is that what Luther calls “bad” are the ways we protect ourselves from our own mortality. A person of glory calls these ways good.  Understood here is that what Luther calls “good” is how we accept the total suffering and death of self. A person of glory calls these ways bad. Luther writes smartly: “a theologian of the cross says what a thing is.” Our casual talk today exclaims, “what it is!...what it is!,” which is short for “it is what it is!” which is meant to describe a difficult situation that cannot be changed and therefore must be accepted. “Deal with it!”  “What it is” is not only accurate when it comes to describing so many circumstances but also when it comes to describing God.  

         With A Few of My Friends at the March For Our Lives Rally and March in Orlando 

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

June 10, 2022

God and Our Violence

“The dream that in heaven people who hear the law bless them instead of a preacher curse them was itself the origin of enthusiasm’s original sin” (Luther’s Outlaw God: Vol. 2: Hidden in the Cross,  Steven Paulson, 2019)

Original Sin is not disobeying the law but rather is using the law, by our action, to be blessed by it, by the Law, by God (God is the Law). 

If we can rather than that application of the law, our use of the law to fulfill our dream of beatitude, do this: know, see, realize that the law never blesses, it only curses, then we have come to the tipping point, the fulcrum of faith. Only Promise provides relief from the imposition of the demand(s) of God, whether real or imagined it matters not, upon us. The violation of our personal autonomy and agency sends us reeling and railing and turning to rebellion against the God who hems us in by deciding, without regard for merit or demerit, who is in and who is out (the “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” of Exodus 33:19). There is no using of the law for any purpose in building or maintaining a relationship with God. 

I want to draw a connection between this view of Original Sin and Crossan’s look at Exodus 4 where sin is the turn to and the use of violence (How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation, John Dominic Crossan, 2015). Could it be this: that we normally view the turn to violence as one of two options for us. The other option is non-violence. But what if that is a false narrative or false choice? What if we have no choice in the matter – we cannot not, we will not not, turn to violence. It’s what we do. It’s innate. It’s what we do: we rise up and kill because somebody is standing in the way of our autonomous station, place, being. Thus the Adam and Eve account is not a story of a magical land that we can return to once we only get to obeying again like we once did (even if today the obedience is in the form of a belief statement or Creed). It is rather an accounting, a description, of what only is and perpetually is and always has been a rebellion against God’s sovereign and immutable will. There is no Garden where the uprising doesn’t occur. There is only the Garden where the uprising happens. Thus, too, our violence in our homes, schools, and streets should not surprise us as if it’s an anomaly, a strike against a better human nature.

The move to non-violence is not an option for us to choose. We simply will not do that because it means the death of our agency. This non-violence must be imposed, put upon us, and we must be schooled in how to live it out. This is holy spirit work, the work of God, upon us. The Sacrament of Baptism is thus an entry into God’s transforming work on us that imposes non-violence upon us. 

The relationship of this imposition of non-violence that kills violence, the gift of the Holy Spirit, can then be seen in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus arrived non-violently to eliminate the violence of the world. Instead, of course, the violence killed him. The violence will out. It will always out, and is only defeated when it has no place left to go, no one left to kill. And so Jesus defeats violence by letting it have its way with him. This is not some salvation formula. This is simply the way of God. 

Will we follow this way? No, we will not. But God takes us there, puts us there (Colossians 1:13). God will out. And nothing will hinder God. This is the good news that mere mortals discover in Jesus Christ. 

                                         A Recent Walk Beside the South Shore of Lake Apopka

Field Notes From a Religion-Less Christian

May 29, 2022

Bible Abusers Ruin it for Everyone. We Need to Stop that Nonsense.

The reason we are afraid of the Bible is that we have been taught it has some uniform and singular truth, not to say ideology, that must, when we read it, be first deciphered and then second, must be appropriated. The first is hard work, the second is oppressive and imprisoning. 

Who wants that?

But if, rather we see it and read it at face value, a cacophony of sixty-six writings, each describing and illuminating and displaying and exploring what it is like being human on a planet spinning through cosmic space, the totally terrifying and endearing all going on at the same time, we might be inclined to read the so-called Good Book as actually a good book (thank you to Frederick Buechner for that wonderful turn on words in a sermon so titled and in which he says “The Bible is a compilation of stories of what happened to these human beings in such a world, and the stories are not only as different from one another as the people they are about but are told in almost as many different ways” (Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, 2006).

The Ethiopian Eunuch asks Philip how he can understand the book of Isaiah if nobody instructs or helps him (Acts 8). Not a bad approach – engaging somebody with some prior knowledge. But be careful. Be careful that they don’t tell you what it means. Better that they would help you see and hear what it explores. 

Don’t be afraid of the Bible. Let it loose on you. Stick with it. Be in conversation with others. See what happens. 

All that said, in a key way, Martin Luther, Bible scholar extraordinaire, would not agree to this way of approaching the Scriptures.  While he was keen on not seeing the writings as some untouchable holy grail, there was, in his opinion, a holiness therein that must not be messed with – he called it the Gospel and he contrasted it to the Law. It is the task and challenge of discerning and hearing Gospel when you read Scripture for which one needs a Guide, an Interpreter, a Meaning Discerner. Actually, more accurately, one needs a Declaration Discerner, not a Meaning Discerner.  You have to hear what the Bible is stating and declaring – this being that your life and all creation is unconditional love, that mercy is not leniency within the Law, but rather the alpha as well as the omega of all things, all existence (that mercy is the actual abolition of the law). 

Because this is not easy for us to hear, we need both Interpreters and Declarers. In describing the relationship of Declaration and Meaning of the Scriptures, maybe this will help:  get someone to declare to you what the Promise is that is stated or emerges from the writings (Promise vs. Demand, Gospel vs. Law) and then you go on to figure out what it means to you. In other words, get the Promise clear, and thus liberated, get on with what you are going to do with it. You may in fact hear the Promise on your own. But still, and this is another important dimension of the whole thing about receiving and getting the Promise, get somebody to tell you the Promise because on your own you will second-guess it and think there is more to it than that, more stuff that you are responsible for with which you are to cooperate in some way with God (By the way, this is what a sermon from a Pastor is supposed to do). 

So, again, get the Promise clear and then get on with your life, daily. 

Don’t be afraid. Forge in and Forge on.