A Thinking Reed

Category: Theology & Faith

  • Science, faith, and cognitive dissonance

    Slate‘s William Saletan wrote a post about the much-publicized debate between creationist crackpot Ken Ham and Bill “the Science Guy” Nye in which he argued that, while creationism is a “delusion,” it’s largely harmless because people can compartmentalize their wacky theological beliefs and function perfectly well in modern society. They can even work successfully in scientific and technical fields.

    He followed this up with a, to me, more interesting post about Jennifer Wiseman, a scientist working on the Hubble telescope project. Dr. Wiseman is not a young-earth creationist like Ham, but she is a Christian who believes in miracles, like the resurrection of Jesus. When asked how she reconciles science with her belief in divine intervention, Dr. Wiseman responded that miracles are

    outside of the natural working of the forces of nature, and so science is not equipped to address that one way or the other. Science is equipped to address how things normally and naturally work. So as a scientist, I study the universe in the way it normally and naturally works and has worked throughout the whole history of time. I don’t look for anything else, because my scientific tools are not equipped to measure anything else. But does that mean that nothing outside of the normal, natural physical processes that science can address ever happened or ever does happen? Well, science can’t answer that question.

    Saletan calls this “a textbook case of compartmentalized religion” and says that “[y]ou’d have no better luck talking Wiseman out of her belief in the Resurrection than you would talking Ken Ham out of his belief that God breathed life into the first man.”

    But I don’t think this is right. “Compartmentalizing” implies a kind of cognitive dissonance, or even a “double-truth” theory of the kind held by some Medieval philosophers. This was the view that a proposition could be true in philosophy but false in religion; they occupied separate domains and could never conflict. At the time, this was an attempt to reconcile Aristotle’s philosophy (the best natural science of its day) with Christian doctrine, but it was one that the church ultimately rejected.

    Based on her comments, though, I don’t think that’s what Jennifer Wiseman is doing, and I don’t think compartmentalization in Saletan’s sense is necessary for believers. A better way to think about this is that there is an order to the universe that includes but also transcends the order discerned by science. God’s actions, by definition, do not fall under the natural laws that science investigates because God transcends the order that those laws describe. On this view, there’s no intrinsic contradiction in saying that scientific laws describe the “normal” operations of nature but that God may act in ways that exceed them. Common observation tells us that dead people don’t come back to life in the normal run of things; but if “the normal run of things” doesn’t have the last word, so to speak, then such a miracle may be possible. God is the one, after all, who creates and sustains the normal operations of nature, and miracles (if they occur) are expressions of this same Power. There is one reality and one truth, but science only comprehends those aspects of reality which its methods are appropriate to.

    Now, just because something can be believed without contradiction doesn’t mean that it’s true, and I haven’t said anything about whether beliefs in a divine order or miracles are justified. But the point is that it’s possible to integrate a scientific and religious view of the world without the kind of epistemic compartmentalizing that would allow something to be scientifically true but religiously false (or vice versa).

  • Do we need another Jesus movie?

    Probably not, but we’re getting one anyway. Here’s the trailer for Son of God, due out this month:

    Apart from some snazzy modern special effects, this looks depressingly by-the-numbers, right down to the very Caucasian-looking Jesus.

    My favorite film versions of the story of Jesus are still Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 miniseries Jesus of Nazareth and Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ. Neither are without their flaws, but the former, in my opinion, is the best straight-ahead film version, while the latter takes the most interesting risks with the story. Maybe it helps that both are based on solid books–Zeffirelli’s on Anthony Burgess’s novelization of the gospel story (Burgess also helped write the screenplay), and Scorcese’s on, of course, Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel.

    It’s too bad (though maybe not surprising) that the story of Jesus hasn’t inspired filmmakers to do much more than create period costume dramas of varying quality.

  • Best of the week

    I end up sharing a lot of links on Twitter, so I thought it might be worth collecting what I think were the stand-out pieces of the week. (“Stand-out” doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with every word, just that these were the most interesting or thought-provoking items I came across).

    Anyway, here goes:

    –Elizabeth Stoker, “The Christian case for raising the minimum wage”

    –Mary Charlotte Ella, “Gladiators of the gridiron” (the moral case against football)

    –Isaiah Berlin, “Roosevelt through European eyes” (from the Atlantic, July 1955)

    –Eric Reitan, “Civil Marriage vs Civil Union: Why NOT Leave Marriage to Churches?”

    –David A. Graham, “Peter Seeger’s All-American Communism”

    –Michelle Goldberg, “Feminism’s toxic Twitter wars”

    –William Saletan “The Work Ethic” (on the economic philosophy underpinning President Obama’s State of the Union address)

    –Claude S. Fischer, “Libertarianism is very strange”

    And for fun, Miley Cyrus (yes, that Miley Cyrus) doing a surprisingly good cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”:

  • The Rosary as contemplative prayer for everybody

    In his book The Word Is Very Near You: A Guide to Praying with Scripture, Martin L. Smith, a spiritual director and formerly the superior of the (Episcopal) Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Mass., considers various ways of using the Bible in prayer. These include Ignatian-style meditation, where we imaginatively place ourselves in a biblical story, such as one from the gospels; lectio divina, where we mediate on a word or phrase from scripture; and what he calls “gazing,” or simply contemplating and resting in one of the great biblical images.

    Smith says that this third, contemplative type of prayer is more common than people may think:

    Many people are praying contemplatively though they do not know it. For example, in the widespread devotion of the rosary people meditate on a series of key events in the life of Mary and Jesus, allowing their attention to focus on each “mystery” in turn while repeating the Hail Mary, the Gloria and the Lord’s Prayer in a set pattern regulated by the sequence of the beads. The repeated prayers are intended to occupy the mind and keep distractions away so that we can be free to soak ourselves in the grace and meaning with which the great images are saturated. Far from being the technique or a privilege of the spiritually advanced, simple forms of contemplative prayer are the ‘bread and butter’ of the spiritual lives of millions.

    Similarly, Anglican theologian Austin Farrer referred to the rosary as a “heaven-sent aid” for meditation on the great truths of the faith. In his short book Lord I Believe, which is on using the creed in prayer, Farrer writes:

    If I had been asked two dozen years ago for an example of what Christ forbade when he said ’Use not vain repetitions,’ I should very likely have referred to the fingering of beads. But now if I wished to name a special sort of private devotion most likely to be of general profit, prayer on the beads is what I should name. Since my previous opinion was based on ignorance and my present opinion is based on experience, I am not ashamed of changing my mind.

    I am no great pray-er, but speaking personally, the rosary is the most meaningful way I’ve come across to mediate in prayer on the major events in the life of Christ (the “mysteries” as they’re called). Before I began using it, I wondered how one was supposed to recite the prayers while simultaneously meditating on the mysteries. But in my experience at least, the prayers do seem to work as advertised–to provide a kind of background noise that helps one to stay focused on the mysteries. Sometimes there is a sort of oscillation of the attention between the words of the prayers and the images of the mysteries–but I find that they often infuse each other with additional meaning and associations as one proceeds through the decades of the rosary.

    For whatever reason, many Protestant forms of prayer strike me as too wordy and intellectualistic. But I also haven’t had much luck with forms of meditation where you’re supposed to “empty” your mind and wordlessly contemplate the divine. The rosary provides a good balance of structure and freedom, or mind and heart. It’s grounded in the great truths of the faith, and so has a certain “given-ness” and objectivity, but it also allows for one’s personal prayers and affections to range freely. Your mileage may vary, of course, but reading Smith’s book has encouraged me to pick up the beads again after a period of neglect.

  • The biblical case for same-sex relationships isn’t new

    It’s great that some theologically conservative evangelicals are making the “biblical” case against Christianity’s historic anti-gay position. There are certainly many people–and not just in evangelical churches–who feel in good faith that they can’t accept a revision of the traditional view without sacrificing their trust in the Bible or other bedrock convictions.

    But at the same time, most of the arguments mentioned in the article linked above boil down to saying that

    (1) what the biblical authors (especially Paul) condemned is not the same thing we are talking about when we discuss monogamous same-sex relationships and

    (2) the Bible’s “moral logic” or its “underlying values” point toward an affirmation of loving, mutually enriching, stable relationships, whether they be opposite- or same-gender.

    I happen to think this is basically correct, but it’s also what more liberal scholars have been arguing for decades. It’s understandable that evangelicals would want to make the case to their co-religionists in a cultural and theological idiom that they’re more likely to accept, but this isn’t a substantive departure from the “revisionist” case that has been made in mainline Protestant churches. Framing it that way reinforces the view that mainline scholars and leaders don’t take the Bible and Christian theological tradition seriously and have just capitulated to “the culture.” But in fact, the decisions of churches to embrace full equality for gays and lesbians have typically been informed by painstaking biblical scholarship. This scholarship has led to essentially the same conclusions that are now being used by evangelical revisionists. Obviously not everyone has been convinced, but that’s not because the case hasn’t been made until now.

  • B. A. Gerrish’s “Saving and Secular Faith”

    The concept of faith is obviously of great importance in Christianity, but there’s not necessarily agreement on what it means. Faith has been defined as intellectual assent to certain propositions (such as those taught by the church or contained in the Bible). But it has also been interpreted in a more “existential” sense as “trust.”

    In Saving and Secular Faith, his short “invitation” to theology, Reformed theologian Brian Gerrish tries to steer a middle course. He rejects views of faith that define it as simply assent to a set of revealed truths, but he also maintains that faith must have some cognitive content. As a working definition, he ends up adopting John Calvin’s account of “saving” faith as “steadfast knowledge of the fatherly goodwill of God.” He later elaborates on this, saying that it “is both (1) perceiving one’s experience under the image of divine benevolence (fides) and (2) a consequent living of one’s life out of an attitude of confidence or trust (fiducia).” For Christians, this gift of faith is given through Christ–specifically through the impact of the narrative of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection.

    For Gerrish, Christian faith is a particular instance of faith defined in a more generic way: the perception of meaning and purpose in one’s life through commitment to an object of ultimate loyalty in which one finds security (p. 33).  Faith is a “construal” or a “construction” of the meaning of reality: our experience is interpreted through a particular lens. (Calvin compared revelation to a corrective lens that allows us to see reality more truly.) This doesn’t mean that the faith one adopts is arbitrary, but there is an irreducible element of subjectivity. Our construal of reality is one that we typically absorb from our community, such as a religious community.

    Gerrish argues not only that Christian faith shares resemblances with other types of faith (somewhat awkwardly, he refers to these, religious and non-religious alike, as “secular” faith), but that virtually every approach to reality requires what he calls “elemental” faith. At a minimum, he says, nearly everyone, even a hard-bitten scientific naturalist, assumes that the world exists independently of our minds and that it displays a certain order and regularity. Similarly, when push comes to shove, almost all of us recognize a moral order–duties that we have whether we like it or not. There is a sense in which we are–all of us–practically committed to things we can’t prove.

    He goes on to defend creeds and confessions as tools, not for persecuting heretics, but for establishing and maintaining the identity of a community and its construal of reality. But he is equally insistent–in good Protestant fashion–that these must be open to revision. Gerrish also considers, briefly, how religious pluralism and the quest for the historical Jesus affect Christianity’s confession of Jesus as Savior. In short, “saving faith” as Gerrish has defined it does not exclude the possibility that such faith can be mediated through traditions other than Christianity. Nor is it dependent on the results of the latest historical research. What has historically mediated this faith is the “image” of Jesus contained in the New Testament and passed down through the ages by the church, and this is not falsifiable by historical research.

    I have some reservations about Gerrish’s argument. In particular, I think his understanding of faith would have been more persuasive if he’d demonstrated more concretely how it would apply to non-Christian traditions. And I’m less comfortable than he seems to be with historical agnosticism about Jesus. But I still found it a winsome approach to theology and faith standing within the venerable liberal Protestant tradition exemplified by Schleiermacher: that is, one that is open to modern thought and experience but which takes Christian uniqueness and tradition seriously. (This is not terribly surprising, since Gerrish has studied Schleiermacher and wrote a very illuminating study of his theology.)

  • The love from above

    Man can love himself in terms of self-acceptance only if he is certain that he is accepted. Otherwise his self-acceptance is self-complacency and arbitrariness. Only in the light and in the power of the ‘love from above’ can he love himself. This implies the answer to the question of man’s justice towards himself. He can be just towards himself only in so far as ultimate justice is done to him, namely the condemning, forgiving, and giving judgement of ‘justification’. The condemning element in justification makes self-complacency impossible, the forgiving element saves from self-condemnation and despair, the giving element provides for a Spiritual centre which unites the elements of our personal self and makes power over oneself possible.

    –Paul Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice

  • The evangelical liberalism of Georgia Harkness

    A common story about 20th century American theology is that liberalism dominated in the early decades, but gradually vanished in the face of more conservative or orthodox alternatives. Theological modernism and the Social Gospel movement seemed to be the wave of the future, but they were swept away by the winds of Barthian neo-orthodoxy blowing in from Europe and by Reinhold Niebuhr’s devastating criticism of liberalism’s naive moralism and shallow optimism about human sin. As the story goes, liberalism has been in decline ever since, as evidenced by the dwindling numbers of mainline church-goers and the resurgence of a newly confident conservative evangelicalism.

    Of course, as folks like Gary Dorrien have pointed out, this story oversimplifies things quite a bit. Liberalism has never completely died out, and some of the most creative theological minds of the last several decades have been those working in the liberal tradition. Moreover, Dorrien has shown how putative critics of liberalism like Niebuhr and Paul Tillich were actually working within the liberal tradition, even as they criticized the forms it took during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

    A less-known but still important figure who never abandoned the liberal tradition was pioneering Methodist theologian Georgia Harkness (1891-1974). She was the first woman to attain a full professorship at a theological seminary in the U.S. and was a life-long proponent of theological liberalism, albeit a “chastened” liberalism. Harkness began her career as a philosopher, studying at Boston University under the renowned personalist philosopher Edgar S. Brightman, did postdoctorate studies under Alfred North Whitehead, and refined her views through interactions with Niebuhr and Tillich as part of the “Younger Theologians Group” and during a sabbatical at Union Theological Seminary.

    Georgia_E._Harkness
    “I am still a liberal, unrepentant and unashamed.”

    Harkness was also active in reform movements in church and society. She was an unflagging proponent of the Social Gospel and maintained her pacifist convictions even during World War II. She was also heavily involved in the Christian ecumenical movement, attending important conferences in Oxford; Madras, India; and Amsterdam. Notably, at one ecumenical church meeting she debated Karl Barth himself on the subject of women’s equality.

    So what was the nature of Harkness’ theological liberalism? In her introduction to the excellent collection Georgia Harkness: The Remaking of a Liberal Theologian, Rebekah Miles explains Harkness’ theological outlook using an image developed by fellow liberal Henry Van Dusen. Theological liberalism has two “parents”: modernism–the critical, rationalist spirit derived from the Enlightenment–and evangelicalism–with its emphasis on experiential religion and spiritual transformation. Different liberal theologies share a “family resemblance” in that they contain varying mixtures of both tendencies.

    According to Miles, during the critical years from 1929 to 1940, Harkness’s thought shifted from a modernist form of liberalism toward a more evangelical type. An evangelical liberal in this sense accepts the findings of science and critical history; she also sees a continuity, or at least consistency, between God’s general revelation in nature and special revelation in the Bible.  But at the same time, the clearest, most reliable revelation of God’s nature is found in the life, ministry, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, as witnessed to in the New Testament. Evangelical liberalism is open to insights from a variety of sources but is grounded in the living Christ of the gospels.

    Harkness adopted what she called a “synoptic” approach to theological truth, one that, fittingly, echoes the so-called Wesleyan quadrilateral. All sources of knowledge–authority, experience, science, logic, and pragmatism–should inform our thinking about God. She rejected any exclusive reliance on churchly authority, bibilcal proof-texting, spiritual experience, or natual reason as the basis for theological truth. Instead, she argued that all of these sources have value, but only as sifted through what she called “the mind of Christ.” By this she meant both the image and teachings of Jesus as presented the gospels and the “indwelling spiritual Christ.” Harkness refused to separate the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of faith.” With Christ as the lens, these other sources of truth receive their proper focus.

    In her own recounting of how her mind had changed over the years, Harkness emphasized her shift to a more Christ-centered religion, but at the same time reaffirmed her commitment to liberalism:

    Ten years ago I was a liberal in theology. I am still a liberal, unrepentant and unashamed. This does not mean that I have seen nothing in liberalism that needed correction. We were in danger of selling out to science as the only approach to truth, of trusting to hopefully in man’s power to remake his world, of forgetting the profound fact of sin and the redeeming power of divine grace, of finding our chief evidence of God in cosmology, art or human personality, to the clouding of the clearer light of the incarnation. Liberalism needed to see in the Bible something more than a collection of moral adages and a compendium of great literature. It needed to see in Christ something more than a great figure living sacrificially and dying for his convictions. It needed to be recalled to the meaning of the cross and the power of the resurrection.

    These correctives have come to us. I do not think liberalism ever had as many utopian illusions as it is now customary in retrospect to attribute to it, but its self-confidence has been challenged both by events and by theological trends. With many others in America I have profited from the currents coming out of continental Europe and too superficially called Barthian. These have come to me through books, but more though the forceful personalities of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich–men with whom I do not agree very far but by whom I am stirred to rethink my faith. They have come at Oxford and Madras through wrestling with continental theology for the liberalism which I believe to have the truth.

    My liberalism is, I trust, a chastened and deepened liberalism. But I am more convinced than ever I was before that God reveals himself in many ways and that only through the spirit of free inquiry can Christian faith go forward. I believe in the essential greatness of man, in a social gospel which calls us to action as co-workers with God in the redemptive process, in a Kingdom which will come in this world by growth as Christians accept responsibility in the spirit of the cross. My Christian faith has its central focus, not in Paul’s theology or Luther’s or Calvin’s, but in the incarnation of God in the Jesus of the Gospels. (from “A Spiritual Pilgrimage: Ninth Article in the Series ‘How My Mind Has Changed in This Decade,’” Christian Century 56 (Mar. 15, 1939), excerpted in Miles, ed., Georgia Harkness, pp. 19-20.)

    In my view, this combination of openness to critical thought, commitment to social reform, and an emphasis on a personal, life-changing encounter with the risen Christ still has much to contribute the church and the world.

  • Can Methodists consistently oppose homosexuality?

    The Book of Discipline is, in effect, the constitution of the United Methodist Church. It contains the law and doctrine of the church, specifies how it is organized, and enunciates the church’s stance on various social issues, among other things.

    Notoriously, the BoD states that the “practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,” and this is a major obstacle to the church blessing same-sex unions or ordaining non-celibate gay people.

    But Heath Bradley, who is the UMC campus minister at Vanderbilt University, had an interesting post recently asking if the rejection of same-sex relationships is consistent with other statements about marriage made in the BoD. He points out that it rejects several of the major rationales used to deny the legitimacy of same-sex marriage. In particular, the BoD denies “male headship,” or the view that men should have authority over women; complementarity, understood as the view that men and women are, apart from each other, inherently incomplete; and “procreationism,” or the view that marriage is essentially or primarliy for the sake of having children.

    How, then, he asks, can the UMC justify its position against same-sex relationships if it denies these underpinnings of “traditionalist” views on marriage?

    And yet, after all this we still assert in the BOD that gay marriage is “incompatible with Christian teaching” (161 F). In light of this, I think a fair and modest proposal to our sisters and brothers on the traditional side would be to explain to us how we can continue to hold this view while denying the main lines of support that have traditionally gone into this negative judgment. If we reject patriarchy, complimentarity, and procreationism, as we officially do in the BOD, then on what basis do we continue to make this judgment about gay marriage? If the fundamental goods of marriage are ” love, mutual support, personal commitment, and shared fidelity” (161 B),  then why exactly does a marriage have to include a male and female partner? Hasn’t experience clearly taught us that same-sex couples can exemplify all of these virtues?

    Rev. Bradley notes that traditionalists could still appeal to the (apparent) biblical prohibitions of homosexual acts; but he points out that Methodists generally interpret individual biblical passages in the light of larger ethical “frameworks.” So if the UMC denies the frameworks that underpin most defenses of “traditional” marriage, then on what basis does it continue to proscribe same-sex relationships?

  • Favorite books read in 2013

    This is not based on any kind of rigorous methodology;  these are just the books I enjoyed and/or that “stuck with me” the most throughout the year. As should be obvious, these were not necessarily books published in 2013.

    Fiction:

    Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

    I decided to start reading this late last year after seeing the film version starring Keira Knightley. I’m frankly in awe of it, and nothing I can say will do it justice. But the thing that probably struck me the most was Tolstoy’s ability to draw fully realized characters and make the reader truly view the world from their perspective (including, in one case, a dog!). I can see why some people have compared Tolstoy to God: he intimately knows and truly loves each of his characters (sometimes, one senses, in spite of himself). And I haven’t even mentioned the delicately intertwining stories, the astonishingly clear and beautiful scenes Tolstoy draws, the social commentary, and the philosophical and religious musings. Basically, this book deserves every bit of its reputation as one of the greatest novels ever written.

    True Grit, Charles Portis

    I’d seen both movie versions, but had never read the book. Portis’s unforgettable characters, deadpan dialogue, and tightly constructed plot made this a hugely enjoyable read.

    Non-fiction:

    The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics, James Oakes

    Oakes’ recounting of how the radical abolitionist Douglass and the temperamental conservative Lincoln converged around a particular brand of antislavery politics isn’t just a fascinating story about two important figures at a pivotal point in American history (it is that, though!). It also serves as a rebuttal of sorts to radicals of every stripe who think they’re too pure for the grubby business of electoral politics.

    Systematic Theology, vols. 1 and 2, Paul Tillich

    I disagree profoundly with some of Tillich’s basic theological positions, but his thought remains, nearly 20 years after I first read him, a source of stimulation and insight.

    Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America, Garry Wills

    I’m not sure Wills persuaded me of his main thesis, namely, that Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg was, in effect, an ideological re-founding of the Republic. But his erudition is undeniable, and his analysis of the address in light of classical and contemporary examples of funeral oratory is extremely illuminating. He also writes like a dream.

    Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense, Francis Spufford

    Spufford avoids nearly every cliche of contemporary religion writing and provides the freshest take on Christian faith I’ve read in ages. Sharp, funny, and heartfelt without being sappy. As I said in my “non-review,” I think Spufford captures how many of us in the “post-Christian” West experience our faith.

    How Much Is Enough?: Money and the Good Life, Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky

    This father-and-son team (an economist and philosopher, respectively) ask why the richest societies in history have so much inequality and so little genuine leisure. They blame a combination of political and philosophical failures, and argue for recovering a broadly Aristotelian concept of the good life than can help us get off the production-and-consumption treadmill. Their skewering of trendy “happiness” research and its associated policy prescriptions alone is worth the price of admission. Also worth noting is their critique of liberal “neutrality” regarding the good life.

    I’ve got a couple of books going now, and if any finish any before December 31st that blow me away, maybe I’ll update this. Also, looking this over, I realize that I really need to read more books not written by white men.