A Thinking Reed

Category: Theology & Faith

  • A Marian witness

    As today is the (transferred) Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord, I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts on the talk given by Bishop Steven Charleston on Marian devotion at our parish adult education forum yesterday.

    First of all, Bp. Charleston seemed like a really interesting person. He’s a Choctaw Indian who was born in rural Oklahoma and raised a Southern Baptist. In his teens he joined the Episcopal Church, later becoming a priest and then Bishop of Alaska. He’s been very involved in Native American ministry among other things, and currently serves as dean and president of the Episcopal Divinity School in nearby Cambridge, MA. He came across as a very down-to-earth guy who wore his position lightly, and had a rather quiet but direct demeanor. (He was also yesterday’s guest preacher and preached a very straightforward – and short! – sermon).

    Anyway, I guess I had originally been expecting a kind of theological disquisition on Marian devotion, but Bp. Charleston’s talk was much more along the lines of an evangelical-style testimony or witness! He spoke of his own very vivid experience of the comforting presence and intercession of Mary and how he’s become something of an “evangelist” for devotion to the BVM in the Episcopal Church. I guess that’s what happens when you mix a Southern Baptist upbringing with Anglo-Catholic theology and piety!

    He also spoke movingly of Mary as a kind of salt-of-the-earth working woman, not as the rather frail figure we see in some representations, of seeing her in the faces of Mexican women working in market stalls, or of careworn mothers on the subway. He talked about his efforts to introduce Marian devotion into the very low-church ethos of his Alaskan diocese, and said that, by the time he left several parishes had installed statues of Mary.

    I actually liked this talk better than I probably would’ve if it’d been the kind of theological discussion I was expecting. Like I wrote a while ago, as important as the theology is, there’s something uniquely compelling aobut lived experience (again, assuming that it’s consistent with sound theology). So I found Bp. Charleston’s witness to be very powerful. Proudly brandishing his Rosary, he encouraged us all to mediate on how we might make room for Mary in our own spiritual lives and to share that with others.

    During the brief Q&A period I asked him what he says to people who contend that devotion to Mary risks overshadowing devotion to the Trinity. He said that, first and foremost, Mary only finds her proper place in the story of Christ; she’s not some sort of goddess figure who stands on her own. She prays with us and for us, but this is always oriented toward God. Secondly, he said that God allows us to approach him in a variety of ways, depending on our particular needs at the time. He mentioned asking for St. Francis’s prayers in his work on environmental issues as an example.

    I can see how one might interpret this as setting up “mediators” between us and God in addition to Christ, and it seems clear that, in practice, devotion to the saints has sometimes taken that form. But maybe a better way of thinking about it is that each saint, in his or her uniqueness, shows forth a part or aspect of God in a unique way, like a prisim which refracts white light into a rainbow of colors. Maybe, in asking a particular saint to pray for us, we’re trying to “plug in” to that aspect of God that they refract particuarly clearly.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 2

    It’s interesting that in Book One, chapters VI and VII it’s Boso who gets to critique one of the more widespread theories of the Atonement at the time of Anselm’s writing, the so-called Ransom theory favored by several of the Fathers.

    In a nutshell, the Ransom theory teaches that, by sinning, humankind had put iself under the dominion of the devil and that Satan had acquired lordship over us. However, despite exercises this authority over humankind, Satan overstepped his bounds in killing Christ, because Satan had no rights over Christ since the latter hadn’t sinned. Thus, in illegitimately killing him, Satan forfeits his rights over the rest of us. I think it was Augustine who compared Christ to the bait on a fishhook: Satan snaps up the human being Jesus, but the divinity concealed within proves to be his undoing. A version of this theory seems to be at work in the depiction of Aslan’s death in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In betraying his siblings, Edmund has effectively made his life forfeit to the White Witch. But Aslan, agreeing to be slain in Edmund’s place deceives the Witch, who is unaware of the “deeper magic” and the fact that death will ultimately be unable to hold Aslan.

    What Anselm/Boso takes issue with is the idea that the devil has rights over humankind such that God couldn’t release us from bondage to Satan merely by fiat:

    I do not see the force of that argument, which we are wont to make use of, that God, in order to save men, was bound, as it were, to try a contest with the devil in justice, before he did in strength, so that, when the devil should put to death that being in whom there was nothing worthy of death, and who was God, he should justly lose his power over sinners; and that, if it were not so, God would have used undue force against the devil, since the devil had a rightful ownership of man, for the devil had not seized man with violence, but man had freely surrendered to him. (Book One, Ch VII)

    Anselm/Boso doesn’t deny that Satan has a certain de facto power over humanity. After the fall we are certainly in Satan’s thrall and subject to his torments. What is denied, however, is that Satan has a de jure authority over us. The devil tempted humanity by means of treachery, so he can’t have acquired legitimate authority over us.

    It’s allowed that God may justly permit the devil to be the agent of our punishment, but it doesn’t follow that Satan acts justly. “For man merited punishment, and there was no more suitable way for him to be punished than by that being to whom he had given his consent to sin. But the infliction of punishment was nothing meritorious in the devil; on the other hand, he was even more unrighteous in this, because he was not led to it by a love of justice, but urged on by a malicious impulse.” This is similar to the way in which, in the OT, God permits Israel to undergo certain hardships as a means of chastisement, without the agents of that chastisement (typically other nations) being just in themselves. God can use their malicious intentions as the agents of his justice. But they in no way have the right to do what they’re doing, just as Satan has no rights over us.

    Thus, as a matter of justice, God is in no way obliged to respect Satan’s supposed rights. Therefore the Ransom theory, while getting at part of the truth – that, in Christ, God frees us from the power of the devil – can’t be the whole story.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 1

    As a sort of Lenten-ey thing I’m re-reading St. Anselm‘s Cur Deus Homo, his famous (infamous in some circles) treatise on the reason for the Incarnation and how it effects our salvation. So, I thought I would post a series of notes on things that strike me. This won’t be a systematic exposition, which would be beyond my powers, but more like some ruminations informed by the text.

    The work takes place in the form of a dialogue between Anselm and Boso, his interlocutor who poses objections to the Christian docrtine of Incarnation and Atonement. The idea is to present reasons which, independently of revelation, show our need for atonement and how it can only be effected by God becoming man. The purpose is both to turn away the objections of “infidels” and to reach a greater understanding of Christian truth.

    The first objection mentioned by Boso is that it’s unbecoming for God to become human, and that “we do injustice and dishonor to God when we affirm that he descended into the womb of a virgin, that he was born of woman, that he grew on the nourishment of milk and the food of men; and, passing over many other things which seem incompatible with Deity, that he endured fatigue, hunger, thirst, stripes and crucifixion among thieves.”

    In response, Anselm immediately introduces the concept of “fittingness,” which, along with the related notion of “beauty,” plays an important role in his argument:

    We do no injustice or dishonor to God, but give him thanks with all the heart, praising and proclaiming the ineffable height of his compassion. For the more astonishing a thing it is and beyond expectation, that he has restored us from so great and deserved ills in which we were, to so great and unmerited blessings which we had forfeited; by so much the more has he shown his more exceeding love and tenderness towards us. For did they but carefully consider how fitly in this way human redemption is secured, they would not ridicule our simplicity, but would rather join with us in praising the wise beneficence of God. For, as death came upon the human race by the disobedience of man, it was fitting that by man’s obedience life should be restored. And, as sin, the cause of our condemnation, had its origin from a woman, so ought the author of our righteousness and salvation to be born of a woman. And so also was it proper that the devil, who, being man’s tempter, had conquered him in eating of the tree, should be vanquished by man in the suffering of the tree which man bore. Many other things also, if we carefully examine them, give a certain indescribable beauty to our redemption as thus procured. (Book One, Chapter III, emphasis added)

    Fittingness and beauty seem integral to Anselm’s understanding of how God orders and governs creation, which will become clearer later. For the present I think it’s helpful to note that, contrary to some caricatures of Anselm’s position, God’s love is the motive for the Incarnation. There may be some popular presentations of the Atonement which picture a vindictive God appeased by the killing of his innocent Son, but Anselm is clear that God’s love for us is demonstrated in the act of Atonement, not secured by it.

  • The church that prays together…

    Since last fall I’ve been helping to facilitate a small community group that meets about once a week primarily to study the Bible (we typically read and discuss the Gospel lesson for the upcoming Sunday), pray and socialize. I guess it’s a “small group” in the parlance of evangelicalism.

    Anyway, one of the things I really like about our group is its theological diversity. We have evangelicals, Roman Catholics, lifelong Episcopalians, one guy who’s Armenian Orthodox, and your scribe. We also range from liberal to conservative. The end result is some really lively and interesting conversation.

    Case in point: last night we were reading this Sunday’s lesson, Luke 20:9-19, a.k.a. the Parable of the Tenants. Somewhat naturally, the conversation turned to Atonement theory. Some of the folks from more evangelical backgrounds were suprised to learn that there were ways of understanding how Jesus saves us besides the theory of Penal Substitution. Another guy mentioned that he didn’t really like to think of the Cross in terms of some kind of payment for sin, but preferred to focus on the idea of God coming into our world and suffering alongside us (e.g. Whitehead’s “fellow sufferer who understands.”). Another said that his Episcopalian upbringing had taught him to emphasize the Incarnation more than the Atonement. For my part, I tried to defend a more-or-less Anselmian account.

    Unsurprisingly, we didn’t come to any consensus, just as the universal church hasn’t. But one of the really valuable things I’ve gotten out of this group is the conviction, and experience, that it’s still possible for Christians with serious theological differences (including differences over things like women’s ordination and homosexuality) to read the Bible and pray together (and head off to the pub for a friendly pint afterwards!). In spite of all the nastiness going on at the macro-level, maybe there are seeds of something hopeful there.

    Also, regarding the Atonement, and in the spirit of the Anglican via media, I’ve often been impressed by the way the Eucharistic Prayer A weaves together different understandings of the Atonement:

    Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us for yourself, and, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

    He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. (BCP, p. 362)

    I really like how this includes elements of an “Abelardian” account of Christ coming and sharing our nature to manifest God’s love, but without losing all talk of sacrifice or satisfaction.

    Obviously all our differences aren’t necessarily going to be resolved in some harmonious whole, but I like to think that there’s something to that idea of holding seeming opposites in a fruitful tension.

  • Saintly miscellania

    I don’t think that I linked to LutherPunk’s good discussion of invoking the saints. Here it is.

    Also, coinciding with the Feast of the Assumption Annunciation (duh!), Steven Charleston, former bishop of Alaska and Dean and President of the Episcopal Divinity School, is going to be speaking at our parish’s adult education forum this Sunday on Anglican spirituality and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. I’m planning on attending and may post some more thoughts on the subject next week.

  • Compassionate eating as Christian discipleship

    Here’s a good lecture on our relationship to animals from a Christian perspective by Matthew Halteman, a Calvin College philosopher. He also contributes to a blog on these themes here.

    Prof. Halteman conceptualizes “compassionate eating” as a Christian discipline, which he defines as a repetitive daily practice undertaken to narrow the gap between who we are and who we should be. In terms of diet, compassionate eating is a holistic approach to eating that is sensitive to human, animal, and environmental concerns. Halteman says that there are a continuum of responses to the issue of factory farming, from eating humanely raised meat, to vegetarianism, to veganism, but the baseline is opposition to a system of food production that causes extreme animal suffering, degrades the environment, and fosters inequity and exploitation. While his own preferred position is a vegan one, there’s no reason that anyone can’t take incremental steps toward more compassionate eating without committing to a wholesale vegan lifestyle. (The talk was originally given on Ash Wednesday, and he suggest restricting animal products during Lent as a start.)

    While making more responsible choices doesn’t extricate us from responsibility for all the ills that our system of industrial agriculture contributes to, it can be a “symbolic commitment to seeking authenticity in imitation of Christ as a witness, agent, and evidence of the coming kingdom.” This stance helps us, he thinks, to avoid self-righteousness and a kind of moral utopianism that thinks that we can fix all the ills of a fallen world. That said, he thinks that being more intentional about our food choices can have many practical beneficial effects, like improving our personal health, connecting us with those who produce our food (by, e.g. patronizing farmers’ markets), increasing our sense of compassion for all sentient creatures, etc.

  • I’m just a dupe

    Sam Harris informs us that “there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that Muhammad spoke to the angel Gabriel in a cave.”

    Not only is there no conclusive proof that Jesus rose from the dead, mind you, but no good reason at all to believe it. How does he know this? He doesn’t tell us. He just does, I guess.

    Also, if you’re a conservative, moderate, or liberal Christian you are providing cover for the “millions” of people who are “quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin’s Geneva.”

    This is because “wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism.” Does this mean that Harris is inadvertently sheltering the would-be Stalins and Pol Pots of the world by providing cover for their more fanatical forms of atheism?

    Why is it that people who so loudly trumpet their commitment to reason make such bad arguments? Harris’s strategy seems to be that if you say things in a bullying enough tone people will believe them. The guy gives atheism a bad name.

  • The new evangelical radicalism

    The cover article of the latest In These Times (complete with the inevitable Jesus-as-Che cover image) is about the new “Christian radicalism” being promoted by a variety of younger evangelical leaders and what the secular left might learn from it. The author claims that folks like Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, and Gregory Boyd are part of an emerging (if you’ll forgive the use of the term) paradigm of Christian social witness that is “explicitly nonviolent, anti-imperialist and anticapitalist.”

    Jim Wallis is quoted quite a bit in the article, but there seems to be some tension between the radicalism promoted by Bell, et al. which seems wary of organized politics, and Wallis’ more traditional political approach:

    [A]s of now, the Revolutionaries seem to be embracing person-to-person, “be the alternative” solutions to the exclusion of advocating for social policy that is more in line with their vision of the kingdom. Boyd says, “I never see Jesus trying to resolve any of Caesar’s problems.”

    Wallis believes this reluctance comes from the recent experience of being dragged into the mess of partisan politics on the terms of the Republican party.

    “But the prophets [of the Bible] don’t talk about just being an island of hope — they talk about land, labor, capital, equity, fairness, wages,” says Wallis. “And who are the prophets addressing? Employers, judges, rulers. On behalf of widows, orphans, workers, farmers, ordinary people. The gospel is deeply political. It’s not partisan politics, but a prophetic politics. It is what the prophets and Jesus finally call us to.”

    “Take any big issue we’ve got: Politics is failing to deal with it. They see that,” Wallis continues. “But I’m saying that we need to change politics. Social movements change politics — and the strongest social movements have spiritual foundations.”

  • Dem bones

    This is a bit tardy by blogospheric standards, but friend of this blog and regular commenter Joshie has a helpful analysis of the recent “Jesus tomb” brouhaha (Pt 1, Pt 2).

    Thomas at Without Authority posted a while back on what the implications would be for the Christian faith if something like this turned out to be true.

    My take is that something like this could, at least in principle, make a difference. The Resurrection, though it transcends what is possible according to our understanding of natural and historical processes, nevertheless occurred in human history. There’s debate about how early the empty tomb tradition is, and I’m not prepared to say categorically that the raising of Jesus’ physical remains is strictly necessary for the viability of the Christian faith, but it goes too far to say what one seminary professor said:

    [T]he earliest followers of Jesus believed God had raised Jesus from the dead because they believed in Jesus. That is, they believed God had authorized his words and deeds, and that the change they had embraced in their lives was God’s will. After his death they continued to experience the spirit of Jesus alive in their midst. They experienced him in the hospitality of their meals, in which Jesus had first taught them to welcome the stranger (Luke 24:13-35). They experienced him in the voice of the homeless, the hungry, and the prisoner (Matt 25:31-46). And they experienced his spirit bringing them together to care for and love one another as the body of Christ (1 Cor 12-14). These experiences had nothing to do with Jesus’ body. They were experiences that transcended the mere physicality of human life—we call them spiritual experiences.

    Leaving aside the somewhat gnostic overtones of this passage, it ignores the fact that the Resurrection was an event that transformed the disciples from a dispirited band whose leader had been shamefully executed as a blasphemer and enemy of the state into people who were willing to witness and even die for their faith in their Risen Lord. Saying that the disciples “believed God had raised Jesus from the dead because they believed in Jesus,” at least from the perspective of the New Testament, seems to me to almost get it precisely backwards. It was the Resurrection that provided the dramatic reversal and inagurated the mission of the church.

    Like I said, I think Christianity could survive the discovery of Jesus’ bones because it is possible to make sense of a real Resurrection in a way that doesn’t strictly require the physical raising of Jesus’ body (though this very clearly is not what the church has traditionally taught). Not to mention that it’s hard to imagine a genuine and definitive discovery of Jesus’ remains.

    However, if Christians are going to maintain their faith as an incarnational one, I think they have to allow for the possibility that it could be falsified by history. As one blogger mentioned (I can’t recall where) we can imagine the discovery of say, correspondence between Paul and Peter about the great hoax they perpetrated on gullible Christians, etc. and that this correspondence could be authenticated to a high degree of probability. Not that anything of this sort is likely to actually happen, but it’s conceivable, and if it did happen I think Christians would have to admit that their faith was “in vain.” The Christian faith has always been based on the belief that God did something new in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus: inagurated the new age, dealt decisively with evil, overcame sin and death, however we might phrase it.

    Some (by no means all) liberal Christians, by contrast, have tried to insulate faith from what appeared to be the corrosive effects of modern science and history by reducing religion to ineffable spiritual experiences, “values,” and good works. But this ultimately gives you a god who makes no empirical difference in the way the world goes. It’s all well and good to talk about Jesus’ “spirit” (meaning, basically, their memory of him) inspiring Christians to acts of charity, but if, at the end of the day, Jesus isn’t a living person who reigns at the Father’s right hand, but simply an edifying memory or example, isn’t the whole thing basically a sham?

  • NAE vs. torture

    The National Association of Evangelicals, recently in the news due to a dust-up over their position on global warming, has endorsed a good statement on the use of torture.

    I think it’s salutary that the NAE is defining itself independently of certain old-guard evangelical leaders who identify the Christian agenda with the politically conservative one. Any time Christians become beholden to a single party they’re in danger of losing their capacity for independent criticism of the powers that be. Even though I probably don’t agree with some of their positions, the NAE seems like they’re trying to walk that line.