Undeception

Is Christianity a system of articles of belief, let them be correct as language can give them? Never. So far am I from believing it, that I would rather have a man holding, as numbers of you do, what seem to me the most obnoxious untruths, opinions the most irreverent and gross, if at the same time he lived in the faith of the Son of God, that is, trusted in God as the Son of God trusted in him, than I would have a man with every one of whose formulas of belief I utterly coincided, but who knew nothing of a daily life and walk with God. The one, holding doctrines of devils, is yet a child of God; the other, holding the doctrines of Christ and his Apostles, is of the world, yea, of the devil.

by George MacDonald
from Unspoken Sermons, vol. 2, “The Truth in Jesus”

This is a post in response to a blog that does not allow comments. I’d have preferred to have this discussion over there, but here we are.

Over at The Boar’s Head Tavern, the Fearsome Tycoon attempts to apply an argumentum ad consequentiam in reductio ad absurdum’s clothing to a statement in my last post on homosexuality. I wrote:

A growing number of Christians are finding it harder and harder to believe that God has a fundamental problem with homosexuality, even when they do not accept it as ideal.

He proffers these substitutions to show why I’m wrong:

A growing number of Christians are finding it harder and harder to believe that God has a fundamental problem with cohabiting before marriage, even when they do not accept it as ideal.

A growing number of Christians are finding it harder and harder to believe that God has a fundamental problem with divorcing your spouse to marry your true love, even when they do not accept it as ideal.

A growing number of Christians are finding it harder and harder to believe that God has a fundamental problem with not believing in the Virgin Birth, even when they do not accept it as ideal.

Note the implication that no one may begin to disbelieve anything that he accepts as axiomatic without the whole thing going to hell (literally).

He seems to infer from my statement that I think we should believe whatever it is a growing number of Christians believe. To this I say, You may be in a tavern, but get your face out of the mug, sir! Even a cursory glance through my post shows that I do not argue this or anything like it. He mistakes his own error for my own: unlike he apparently does, I do not assume that acceptance by “the right” people (be they “a growing number of Christians”, an historic council, or whomever) is determinative of the truth itself.

The following statement from his post illustrates what I mean, indicating that he digested very little of the rest of my post:

If the teachings of Christ and the commands of God don’t matter for church fellowship, then nothing does.

It appears he decided not to take me up on my suggestion to step and back and at least pretend that he could be wrong in his interpretations. The entire point of my post was that what precisely constitutes “the teachings of Christ and the commands of God” is not something we can blithely assume to be settled, indisputable, and equivalent to what we already happen to believe. This is not to say that we can’t be confident of our current beliefs but that a truly humble spirit will keep the hair-trigger heresy gun in the holster.

At one point he does indicate that he heard my point about being patient with people who have other interpretations of Scripture; it seems he just decides he’s not too keen on the idea. He sarcastically remarks that those of us who recognize that the Bible isn’t crystal clear on every important point “have decided that God didn’t really teach much we could understand, and so most of what what we believe and practice is just stuff we made up.” The reason he disagrees with this is not stated, but the thing that’s so irksome about this sort of objection is the myopic logic, “God teaches things clearly; therefore, whatever I think is clear is what God teaches.” That logic, and the assumption that “perspicuity” is a right for all believers guaranteed by God, reminds me of a statement I’ve quoted on this blog before. Ironically it comes from the very man the Boar’s Head Tavern claims as its “patron saint”: C. S. Lewis.

To a human mind this working-up (in a sense imperfectly), this sublimation (incomplete) of human material, seems, no doubt, an untidy and leaky vehicle. We might have expected, we may think we should have preferred, an unrefracted light giving us ultimate truth in systematic form–something we could have tabulated and memorised and relied on like the multiplication table. One can respect, and at moments envy, both the Fundamentalists’ view of the Bible and the Roman Catholics view of the Church. But there is one argument which we should beware of using for either position: God must have done what is best, this is best, therefore God has done this. For we are mortals and do not know what is best for us, and it is dangerous to prescribe what God must have done-especially when we cannot, for the life of us, see that He has after all done it.

We may observe that the teaching of Our Lord Himself, in which there is no imperfection, is not given us in that cut-and-dried, fool-proof, systematic fashion we might have expected or desired. He wrote no book. We have only reported sayings, most of them uttered in answer to questions, shaped in some degree by their context. And when we have collected them all we cannot reduce them to a system. He preaches but He does not lecture. He uses paradox, proverb, exaggeration, parable, irony; even (I mean no irreverence) the “wise-crack”. He utters maxims which, like popular proverbs, if rigorously taken, may seem to contradict one another. His teaching therefore cannot be grasped by the intellect alone, cannot be “got up” as if it were a “subject”. If we try to do that with it, we shall find Him the most elusive of teachers. He hardly ever gave a straight answer to a straight question. He will not be, in the way we want, “pinned down”. The attempt is (again, I mean no irreverence) like trying to bottle a sunbeam.

Lack of certainty can be a real pain, but I’d rather put up with less certainty about even things that are absolutely true than blow full-steam ahead into a presumption of the correctness of my tradition’s interpretations without the humility that God expects.

Two misconceptions I’d like to clear up. First, I was not personally arguing that capitalism was equivalent to the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, just as I was not campaigning against women in ministry or charging interest: I was playing devil’s advocate, and I’m sure I didn’t make the best biblical case against capitalism. My point remains: there are those who find ample biblical grounds for condemning capitalism.

Next, it was stated that my argument “basically boils down to, ‘If you’re born that way, we can’t possibly tell you not to have sex.’ ” I never mentioned celibacy or not: saying that someone can be a homosexual and a Christian doesn’t itself argue (and at very least, my post never even insinuated) that “free love” or cohabitation is acceptable. An acknowledgment of the fact that some homosexuals are participants in the Christian faith is no more an “argument” against celibacy than acknowledging the fact that some heterosexuals are participants in the Christian faith.

But because the Fearsome Tycoon does not suffer from uncertainty about his doctrines, he proclaims that he’d have no trouble ruling out fellowship with anyone who disagrees with him on the subject of when the Sabbath should be observed, whether charging interest is an acceptable practice, whether socialism or capitalism is preferable, or whether women can be in ministry. Still, I extend the right hand of Christian fellowship to the Fearsome Tycoon, even though he’s given every indication that he’ll consider reciprocation tantamount to accepting sexual promiscuity, divorce, and a denial of the Virgin Birth.

Sheesh. Maybe there’s a reason he hangs out at a tavern with that particular name.

Our model for intrafaith dialogue?

This week someone reminded me of the Amish school shooting: in 2006, milkman Charles Karl Roberts IV went into an Amish community and shot ten girls, killing five of them, and then turned the gun on himself. Here’s part of the Wikipedia article (as it currently stands) on the aftermath of that horrific event:

On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, “We must not think evil of this man.” Another Amish father noted, “He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he’s standing before a just God.”

Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained: “I don’t think there’s anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.”

A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Amish community members visited and comforted Roberts’ widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts’ sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. The Amish have also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter. About 30 members of the Amish community attended Roberts’ funeral, and Marie Roberts, the widow of the killer, was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of one of the victims.

Marie Roberts sent out an open letter thanking the community for their response, saying, ”Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe.”

This is Christianity. You can take all your supposed hallmarks of Christian orthodoxy – your atonement theories, your hell, your heaven, your Trinity, your bodily resurrection of Jesus – and you may as well hang them in a museum. Not because I think they’re all false (I do not), but because our preoccupation with affirming facts has been distracting us from focusing on being ”Christian” in the most meaningful sense: behaving as people born from above.

Now ask yourself, is the response of this Amish community the stereotypical Christian response? We certainly hold many of those ideals, and hold those who live them up as great examples of Christian virtue. But when the rubber meets the road, or when devotees of a competing religion strike us down, or when we get to see murderers finally “get theirs” — are we characterized by scandalous and reckless compassion?

It’s love like this that really confounds our minds. Most of us should be able to see the futility of harboring hate against anyone but the actual perpetrator; the truly magnanimous may be able to recognize, even through their pain, certain factors in the state of mind of the perpetrator that would grant him some level of absolution, even forgiveness, for his crimes. But to be truly moved by compassion for the perpetrator and his loved ones such that an entire community is able to see past their own pain and immediately mobilize to offer peace and comfort to “outsiders”…that is above and beyond, and bafflingly counter-intuitive. What motivates love like that?

One dear woman I know helped bring home to me the logic of it when she wrote this concerning the hollowness of retributive “justice”:

Would it have helped us at all, when our own son was killed by a careless and drinking driver, to see that young man made to suffer– or to die, to give us “justice” ? And how would it have helped that driver’s grieving mother, who, like our Father, ached and wept at what her child had done?

To be sure, I would ache and weep if my son were killed. I can hardly bear the thought of it. But would I not also ache and weep if my son became psychologically disturbed enough to shoot schoolgirls? Wouldn’t I ache and weep if he became so misguided that he bombed civilian targets to advance a religious or political agenda? And if God is Father, can we not be fairly certain that whatever “justice” was served bin Laden by his being shot through the left eye, God grieved both for bin Laden’s monstrous actions and the violent demise that came to him, even though he was undoubtedly defiant and defensive of his terrible ideals to the end?

Can you imagine if instead of reveling in our desire for vengeance upon those who harm us as though they were animals needing to be put down, we were compelled to weep for the waywardness of those people as we would members of our own family? No, we can’t expect to accomplish their repentance, and we can’t just let them off the hook without consequence. What I’m talking about is an attitude of the heart. Specifically, if we want our hearts to resemble God’s as much as we claim we do, we’ve got a lot of work to do in cultivating a sincere and deep-seated compassion for even our enemies. Sympathy, empathy, and kenosis would then become the hallmarks of our faith, and it would be the kind of faith that would finally begin to earn responses like that of Marie Roberts, in response to the bereaved but compassionate Amish community:

Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.

Vimeo (via Δεσποσύνη)

My paraphrase: “Hey, we’re not the ones calling Rob Bell a heretic: it’s God. Through us, naturally. As Paul said, ‘We do not preach ourselves, but [our own doctrine masquerading as the very truth of God].’ If someone questions our dogmatic understanding of the Bible and resents being called out as a heretic, it is that person who is arrogant, not us.”

Not helpful, Doug.

I will send out no theory of mine to rouse afresh little whirlwinds of dialogistic dust mixed with dirt and straws and holy words, hiding the Master in talk about him. If I have any such, I will not cast it on the road as I walk, but present it on a fair patine to him to whom I may think it well to show it. Only eyes opened by the sun of righteousness, and made single by obedience, can judge even the poor moony pearl of formulated thought. Say if you will that I fear to show my opinion. Is the man a coward who will not fling his child to the wolves? What faith in this kind I have, I will have to myself before God, till I see better reason for uttering it than I do now.

‘Will you then take from me my faith, and help me to no other?’

Your faith! God forbid. Your theory is not your faith, nor anything like it. Your faith is your obedience; your theory I know not what. Yes, I will gladly leave you without any of what you call faith. Trust in God. Obey the word—every word of the Master. That is faith; and so believing, your opinion will grow out of your true life, and be worthy of it. Peter says the Lord gives the spirit to them that obey him: the spirit of the Master, and that alone, can guide you to any theory that it will be of use to you to hold. A theory arrived at any other way is not worth the time spent on it. Jesus is the creating and saving lord of our intellects as well as of our more precious hearts; nothing that he does not think, is worth thinking; no man can think as he thinks, except he be pure like him; no man can be pure like him, except he go with him, and learn from him. To put off obeying him till we find a credible theory concerning him, is to set aside the potion we know it our duty to drink, for the study of the various schools of therapy. You know what Christ requires of you is right—much of it at least you believe to be right, and your duty to do, whether he said it or not: do it. If you do not do what you know of the truth, I do not wonder that you seek it intellectually, for that kind of search may well be, as Milton represents it, a solace even to the fallen angels. But do not call anything that may be so gained, The Truth. How can you, not caring to be true, judge concerning him whose life was to do for very love the things you confess your duty, yet do them not? Obey the truth, I say, and let theory wait. Theory may spring from life, but never life from theory.

George MacDonald

From Unspoken Sermons, vol. 3, “Justice”

Here’s a little thought experiment.

Let’s say you heard tell of a ruler of a foreign country who decreed that all citizens of his country who broke even one of that country’s laws deserved to be, and henceforth would be, locked up and tortured for the rest of their lives.

Additionally, he took the most revered, humble, and law-abiding citizen up on his offer to take all the blame and punishment for all crimes great and small that were perpetrated by a select group of citizens, a group chosen neither by the severity of their crimes nor by any discernible merit on their part (the others were out of luck).

This left pardoned jay-walkers and murderers alike to roam the street and continue doing what they wanted with virtual impunity, although it was hoped that many would turn over a new leaf out of gratitude and the promise of a fatter retirement check. Everyone else would be tortured the moment they committed the most minor infraction, which was hard to avoid given that the laws of the land were intricate and formulated in direct opposition to basic human nature.

What would your response be to such a report?

1. “Injustice! Barbarism!”
2. “The real story here is grace. The demands of the law must be satisfied. Transgressors know what’s coming to them before they commit a criminal act. Justice must be served. The guilty must by no means go unpunished. After all, there’s nothing in Scripture that this violates, and his authority is guaranteed by Romans 13. But what grace the ruler shows by executing vengeance on the innocent, saving (some) from their punishment!”
3. Something else?

Would the report about this ruler’s policies seem more believable or less so if you discovered through close observation that the king otherwise seemed to be a good, tenderhearted man whose ideology and policies were upheld by fair-minded folk to be the very model of fairness? What if, after your own examination, you concluded that his other demonstrations of kindness and even personal affection for his people were unparalleled throughout the world? What if his pardoned citizens upheld his chief virtues to be “justice” and “grace”?

C.S. Lewis once said (on another subject), “…nonsense remains nonsense, even when we say it about God.”

I realize I’m taking on a few different evangelical narratives here, especially penal satisfaction, eternal conscious torment, and election. I also realize that many of my brothers and sisters on an entirely different theological page will answer none of those questions I posed, but will first scramble to make fine distinctions between this hypothetical ruler and God. To them I say: you know very well what I’m getting at, and if you dismiss the legitimacy of my analyzing your doctrine of God’s justice in this way, then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to come right out and honestly answer these questions within this hypothetical  construct. Right? Would such a ruler be a good, just, wise, and merciful ruler?

If you answer, “Your analogy is crude, limited, fanciful, and breaks down at various points,” I will congratulate you. I think this is exactly what happens when we try to weave together the various human approximations of the meaning of the atonement and salvation found in the NT and hold to our construct as the only inviolable doctrine.

Allan R. Bevere’s blog today posted a quote from C.S. Lewis from Miracles on the general topic of the primacy of the apostolic witness. One part of the quote caught my eye.

The Resurrection, and its consequences, were the “gospel” or good news which the Christian brought: what we call the “gospels”, the narratives of Our Lord’s life and death were composed later for the benefit of those who had already accepted the gospel. They were in no sense the basis of Christianity: they were written for those already converted. The miracle of the Resurrection, and the theology of that miracle, comes first: the biography comes later as a comment on it.

via The Quotable C.S. Lewis #31: The Apostolic Witness

Although I would caution against reducing the “good news” to “the Resurrection” as he appears to do (Jesus proclaimed it long before he was even crucified: the “good news” is the coming of the Kingdom of God), I think this is a cracking good observation by Lewis. The historicity of the Gospels is never more important than their subject. No matter how much we know about how well they mirror historical reality, the fact remains that there would be no Gospels at all if there were not a gospel that had already been believed. The New Testament itself should be viewed as secondary to the primary apostolic witnesses and should never be viewed as the unquestionable, authoritative witness itself.

I found this to be a stark reminder of the secondary nature of the written word: the Scriptures should never be elevated to the level of the reality to which they seek to testify. Unfortunately, the bibliolatry of the modern Protestant church does just that.