A Thinking Reed

Category: Theology & Faith

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 6 (the brief version)

    I just lost a long post on the next couple of chapters of Cur Deus Homo, so this is the abridged version…

    The concept of God’s honor is central to Anselm’s scheme, but it has also been severely criticized and (I would argue) often misunderstood. Anselm himself may be partly responsible for some of the confusion in that he seems to say both that sin robs God of his honor and that God’s honor can’t in any way be diminished.

    In Book One, Chapter XV he addresses this directly:

    Nothing can be added to or taken from the honor of God. For this honor which belongs to him is in no way subject to injury or change. But as the individual creature preserves, naturally or by reason, the condition belonging, and, as it were, allotted to him, he is said to obey and honor God; and to this, rational nature, which possesses intelligence, is especially bound. And when the being chooses what he ought, he honors God; not by bestowing anything upon him, but because he brings himself freely under God’s will and disposal, and maintains his own condition in the universe, and the beauty of the universe itself, as far as in him lies. But when he does not choose what he ought, he dishonors God, as far as the being himself is concerned, because he does not submit himself freely to God’s disposal. And he disturbs the order and beauty of the universe, as relates to himself, although he cannot injure nor tarnish the power and majesty of God. … And so, though man or evil angel refuse to submit to the Divine will and appointment, yet he cannot escape it; for if he wishes to fly from a will that commands, he falls into the power of a will that punishes. And if you ask whither he goes, it is only under the permission of that will; and even this wayward choice or action of his becomes subservient, under infinite wisdom, to the order and beauty of the universe before spoken of. For when it is understood that God brings good out of many forms of evil, then the satisfaction for sin freely given, or if this be not given, the exaction of punishment, hold their own place and orderly beauty in the same universe. For if Divine wisdom were not to insist upon things, when wickedness tries to disturb the right appointment, there would be, in the very universe which God ought to control, an unseemliness springing from the violation of the beauty of arrangement, and God would appear to be deficient in his management. And these two things are not only unfitting, but consequently impossible; so that satisfaction or punishment must needs follow every sin.

    God’s honor is intergrally related to his creation and ordering of the universe. Considered in himself, God can’t be harmed or benefited by anything we do. This is the much-disputed doctrine of divine impassibility. Nothing can add to or take away from God’s perfection and blessedness.

    But – sin can and does deface creation. Sin is ugly in that it disrupts the order and beauty of the universe. The beauty of creation consists of each being fulfilling its purpose and contributing to the harmony of the whole. To reject that purpose is to disrupt that harmony. We might also say that sin is a lie – it speaks untruth about creation. If I sin against a fellow creature I am saying something untrue about its worth.

    So, if God were to let sin go unpunished or without satisfaction being made, he would be letting his intentions for creation be frustrated. He would be letting sin have the last word. But God can’t do this because of his goodness. Like what a feudal lord is supposed to do, God upholds the order and beauty of his realm. If he were to let his intentions for creation be frustrated by sin he would be less than fully good or less than fully powerful. To counteract sin God must do something so beautiful that it blots out the ugliness of sin. He must speak the truth about sin and about creation that contradicts the lie.

    Anselm points out that one way or another God’s will prevails. Either creatures render their due obedience to God, or make satisfaction for their sin, or are punished for their sin. But under no circumstances does sin get the last word. However, given that there is sin, Anselm thinks that there are good reasons for God to prefer satisfaction to punishment. This sets Anselm’s account of atonement apart from later views which understand Jesus as having taken our punishment on himself. In fact, he’ll go on to argue that God must make satisfaction rather than extract punishment if his purposes for creation are to be fulfilled, which, I think, has interesting implications.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 5

    In Book One, chapter XII the question is posed “whether it were proper for God to put away sins by compassion alone, without any payment of the honor taken from him.” On the face of it, this seems quite a reasonable question. After all, the Heavenly Father portrayed in, say, the teachings and parables of Jesus seems willing to forgive sins without any satisfaction being made for them. Think of the Parable of the Prodigal Son: the father not only forgives his son’s disloyalty and squandering of his inheritance, he runs out to greet him after spying him from afar, not even making penitence and contrition a condition of forgiveness. If this is, as most Christians believe, intended to be a picture of the way God deals with us, doesn’t it fly in the face of Jesus’ teaching to say that God demands satisfaction for sin before we can be forgiven? Moreover, Jesus himself freely forgives people’s sins throughout his ministry without suggesting that it’s conditional upon his sacrificial life and death, much less that they must believe that those events have saving significance in order for their sins to be forgiven. Is the idea of a God who demands satisfaction as a condition for grace not a distortion of the God revealed by Jesus?

    Anselm says that to “remit sin in this manner is nothing else than not to punish; and since it is not right to cancel sin without compensation or punishment; if it be not punished, then is it passed by undischarged” and it “is not fitting for God to pass over anything in his kingdom undischarged,” therefore it is “not proper for God thus to pass over sin unpunished.”

    What does he mean by saying that it’s not fitting for anything in God’s kingdom to be undischarged? Here we’re starting to get into the notion of God’s honor a little more deeply. Following this argument, Anselm goes on to say that “if sin be passed by unpunished, viz., that with God there will be no difference between the guilty and the not guilty; and this is unbecoming to God” and “Injustice, therefore, if it is cancelled by compassion alone, is more free than justice, which seems very inconsistent. And to these is also added a further incongruity, viz., that it makes injustice like God. For as God is subject to no law, so neither is injustice.”

    I think that Anselm is pointing to two important ideas that will help us make better sense of his argument (I hope!). The first is a proper understanding of freedom and goodness as they pertain to God, the second is the order and beauty of creation. I’ll discuss the first here and the second in the next post.

    Boso asks why God isn’t free simply to put away the apparent demands of justice that would require that sin be punished. After all,

    God is so free as to be subject to no law, and to the judgment of no one, and is so merciful as that nothing more merciful can be conceived; and nothing is right or fit save as he wills; it seems a strange thing for us to say that be is wholly unwilling or unable to put away an injury done to himself, when we are wont to apply to him for indulgence with regard to those offences which we commit against others.

    Anselm replies:

    What you say of God’s liberty and choice and compassion is true; but we ought so to interpret these things as that they may not seem to interfere with His dignity. For there is no liberty except as regards what is best or fitting; nor should that be called mercy which does anything improper for the Divine character. Moreover, when it is said that what God wishes is just, and that what He does not wish is unjust, we must not understand that if God wished anything improper it would be just, simply because he wished it. For if God wishes to lie, we must not conclude that it is right to lie, but rather that he is not God. For no will can ever wish to lie, unless truth in it is impaired, nay, unless the will itself be impaired by forsaking truth. When, then, it is said: “If God wishes to lie,” the meaning is simply this: “If the nature of God is such as that he wishes to lie;” and, therefore, it does not follow that falsehood is right, except it be understood in the same manner as when we speak of two impossible things: “If this be true, then that follows; because neither this nor that is true;” as if a man should say: “Supposing water to be dry, and fire to be moist;” for neither is the case. Therefore, with regard to these things, to speak the whole truth: If God desires a thing, it is right that he should desire that which involves no unfitness. For if God chooses that it should rain, it is right that it should rain; and if he desires that any man should die, then is it right that he should die. Wherefore, if it be not fitting for God to do anything unjustly, or out of course, it does not belong to his liberty or compassion or will to let the sinner go unpunished who makes no return to God of what the sinner has defrauded him.

    Anselm is taking one side of the debate going back at least to Plato’s Euthyphro, namely, whether God (or the gods) will things because they’re good, or are they good because God wills them? In the terminology of a later debate this is the question of voluntarism vs. non-voluntarism. Anselm is clearly a non-voluntarist: God is not free to will what is evil or unjust. Not because God is constrained by something “external” to himself, but becuase the divine nature is such that it is identical with goodness, and that nature, being necessary, can’t be otherwise than it is. This is the classic Christian solution to Plato’s dilemma. So, for God to ignore the dictates of justice would be contrary to the divine nature itself and therefore not just wrong but impossible in the strongest sense.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 4

    In chapter XI Anselm turns to the question of sin, since one needs to get clear on that before determining what it means to make satisfaction for sin.

    Simply put, sin is to fail to render to God what is due him. But what is it that we owe? “Every wish of a rational creature should be subject to the will of God.” Therefore, when a rational creatrue fails to subject herself to the will of God she is guilty of sin:

    This is the debt which man and angel owe to God, and no one who pays this debt commits sin; but every one who does not pay it sins. This is justice, or uprightness of will, which makes a being just or upright in heart, that is, in will; and this is the sole and complete debt of honor which we owe to God, and which God requires of us. For it is such a will only, when it can be exercised, that does works pleasing to God; and when this will cannot be exercised, it is pleasing of itself alone, since without it no work is acceptable. (Book One, Chapter XI)

    It’s not clear from this chapter alone how Anselm understands the relationship between obeying the will of God and human happiness. Is it rational to obey the will of God simply because it’s God’s will, or is God’s will for us integrally connected to our own happiness and flourishing? Anselm says elsewhere that God creates rational beings so that they can attain to eternal happiness and blessedness, so it seems likely that he will say that God’s will for us is geared toward our attainment of that goal. In other words, in failing to subject ourselves to God’s will, we aren’t simply dishonoring God, but we’re frustrating our own created purpose. I think this is important to keep in mind in order to better understand Anselm’s view on God’s honor and satisfaction which have been subject to much criticism.

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 3

    One of the most vexing questions about the death of Christ theologically speaking is whether and in what sense we can say it was willed by God the Father. Was it specifically the death of Jesus that was required to reconcile God and sinners? Looming here is the modern critique of traditional Atonement theory as exhibiting “cosmic child abuse” and encouraging an abusive mentality in Christians.

    Contrary to some accounts of his views, though, Anselm specifically denies that God willed the death of Jesus in any direct sense. Boso asks:

    [H]ow will it ever be made out a just or reasonable thing that God should treat or suffer to be treated in such a manner, that man whom the Father called his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased, and whom the Son made himself? For what justice is there in his suffering death for the sinner, who was the most just of all men? What man, if he condemned the innocent to free the guilty, would not himself be judged worthy of condemnation? And so the matter seems to return to the same incongruity which is mentioned above. For if he could not save sinners in any other way than by condemning the just, where is his omnipotence? If, however, he could, but did not wish to, how shall we sustain his wisdom and justice? (Book One, Ch. VIII)

    First of all, Anselm denies that the Son went to his death against his will, since “the Father did not compel him to suffer death, or even allow him to be slain, against his will, but of his own accord he endured death for the salvation of men.” But Boso replies that the Son nevertheless fulfilled his Father’s will in going to his death, so mustn’t we say that the Father willed the death of the Son?

    Anselm goes on to distinguish the Son’s obedience from the consequences of that obedience. His mission, as it were, was “that, in word and in life, he invariably maintained truth and justice,” viz. what every human being owes to God. And it was on account of this that he was put to death. God doesn’t directly will the death of the Son; he wills that the Son should come into the world and lead a perfect human life. But, of course, God knew that this would lead to his death. His death, as it were, was a foreseeable but inintended outcome of his life of perfect obedience.

    God did not, therefore, compel Christ to die; but he suffered death of his own will, not yielding up his life as an act of obedience, but on account of his obedience in maintaining holiness; for he held out so firmly in this obedience that he met death on account of it. It may, indeed be said, that the Father commanded him to die, when he enjoined that upon him on account of which he met death. It was in this sense, then, that “as the Father gave him the commandment, so he did, and the cup which He gave to him, he drank; and he was made obedient to the Father, even unto death;” and thus “he learned obedience from the things which he suffered,” that is, how far obedience should be maintained. (Book One, Ch. IX)

    The gift that the Son gives isn’t his death per se, but his life of perfect obedience, the life that no other human being can offer. Still, it can be said that God wills the death of the Son in an indirect sense, as a necessary outcome of his mission:

    So the Father desired the death of the Son, because he was not willing that the world should be saved in any other way, except by man’s doing so great a thing as that which I have mentioned. And this, since none other could accomplish it, availed as much with the Son, who so earnestly desired the salvation of man, as if the Father had commanded him to die; and, therefore, “as the Father gave him commandment, so he did, and the cup which the Father gave to him he drank, being obedient even unto death.” (Book One, Ch. IX)

    Of course, even if we concede that the death of the Son wasn’t directly willed by God in the sense that he was appeased by it or required it, it still seems unjust to send an innocent man (much less the Son of God!) to his ceratin death if the same good could be obtained in any other way. This seems to be why Anselm needs a strong sense of the necessity of the Incarnation; if there was any other way for God to save us, then the price of the death of the Son, whether directly intended or not, would seem too high.

  • 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.