Eyre Lines

I have this massive book by N.T. Wright, but have not yet read it. However, for some friends who have been waiting for me to do so and let them have my thoughts, Larry Hurtado (whose opinion I tend to agree with) has written a review, which is probably going to be enough for some, and sufficient to be going on with until I actually do read it (it’s second in my theology reading pile at the moment).
In the “one instinctively knows when a thing is right” mode, Hurtado says that Wright does not credit the concept of deity plus principal agent tradition as having influenced Paul, and if Wright indeed does not credit this, I think it is a mistake. There are a plethora of “principal agents” in Jewish writing current at the time (mostly intertestamental, but some canonical) including wisdom, memra, logos and Enoch/Metratron, and the “two thrones in heaven” section of Daniel 7:9-14. It is much more easily understood for Jesus to be understood as principal agent and then elevated just slightly higher than the Jewish concept admits than to assume that this was an entirely fresh leap of understanding.

Possibly against this is the idea that Paul gained his major strains of thinking directly from his peak spiritual experience. I am now confident that Paul was a Christ-mystic, in that some of his peak spiritual experience shared many features of some of my own, save that where I ascribed mine tentatively to and experience of God (working on the basis that writers who described the most similarity to my own experience ascribed theirs to God), Paul ascribed his to an experience of Jesus. There could have been an information content.

That said, I am also confident that not only our descriptions of our experiences but also to an extent the experiences themselves are moulded by the language and concept structures which we have internalised at the time when the experiences happened (I draw this from experience with eyewitnesses, noting their subconscious insistence on making a coherent story out of their actual observations, frequently contrary to what was actually probably observed). Paul is very likely to have had an internalised concept of the principal agent of God, and from his own and Luke’s descriptions would seem to have been obsessed with the legacy of Jesus, and his experience may have been moulded, and his language of description would certainly be moulded, by that concept. I, of course, due to my reaction against early attempts to teach me Christianity in the most trivial form, did not have such concepts internalised. I have since had peak experiences involving Jesus, but only after significant work assimilating a concept of him and on creating a Jesus-focus within meditation; their character has been somewhat different from that of the God-mysticism experiences.

There has been an information content to some of my own experiences as well. That said, I do not trust that information content to have been entirely independent of my previous concept-structures.

On the whole, therefore, my working hypothesis is that Paul was influenced in his talking about Christ by (inter alia) the principal divine agent tradition.

On Wednesday evening last week, part of a very stimulating and wide ranging discussion was about Radical Orthodoxy and Post-liberalism. A little while ago I listened to Homebrewed Christianity’s TNT podcast centering on Radical Orthodoxy and Post-liberalism. Well, actually, I listened to it several times, as I liked and hated the ideas presented in more or less equal amount, and it prompted me to a fair amount of thinking.

I’ll deal with some more points in a future post, but for the time being want to concentrate on one: there is in Postliberalism a suggestion that unless you live within the system (and accept it’s language and concept structures as developed over two millennia) you are not able to have certain classes of religious experience.

That is the feature which we fixed on as the problem “du jour”. At first sight, we did not think that the varieties of religions experience (and yes, we had read William James) were or could be exclusive to any particular religious tradition. Certainly, having myself started from the point of view of looking for a language of expression for my own mystical experience wherever I could find it, I had found viable languages in Islam (Sufism), Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and a variety of other traditions, and at one point in my life could have comfortably explained myself in at least five different traditions. I have tended to look at this from an evolutionary point of view: unless a religion allows expression of the full range of religious experience to which mankind is prone, it is highly unlikely to become a major world religion. It will be out-competed by some other religion which does offer this. Certainly I have found that Christianity in its most general expression is not lacking in any area, though I grant that it is difficult to find pure shamanistic expressions.

Since the discussion, however, I have continued thinking. First, my thoughts went to an account of the conversion experience of another of the Alpha helpers, who was persuaded to try to analyse it without using Christian-speak; it was very similar indeed to my own. However, the fact that at the time of the experience this individual already believed in the basics of evangelical Christianity meant that all the expression of that experience was immediately processed in Christian categories and with some associated Christian symbolism.

This would not be at all surprising; studies of eyewitness testimony have widely revealed that probably before someone’s conscious mind becomes aware of some experience, the brain is trying to fit it to previous experience or thought patterns, and therefore eyewitnesses remember things which they did not actually witness, because that completes the “sense of the story” they are telling themselves as it happens.

It seemed to me, doing a mental comparison, that the fact that his experience fitted in to an expected pattern meant that he had considerable difficulty (to say the least) in expressing it in language shorn of specific religious terminology. He did not, for instance, experience this as panentheistic, whereas I did (at least I did after I had discovered the term “panentheism” some while later); I could not however find any substantive difference in the base experience to justify this. In this sense, therefore, I was possibly able to have a different experience from his due to lacking the language of expression, and it may be that in one sense it was wider.

On the other hand, I have reason to believe also that the bare bones of my own experience were identical to those of people who express themselves as “Christ mystics”, such as Saints John, Paul and Teresa de Avila and Thomas Traherne. Their expression of what they have experienced casts Christ in the same relationship to them as my consciousness of my own experience casts God in relationship to me. I am not able to have quite the same experience as them in relation to Christ (and I suspect this is also true of my experience in relation to that of the Alpha colleague I mentioned). It was, in fact, some considerable time before I was able to make that connection. Before that, I tended to dismiss the writings of such Christ-mystics as being fundamentally different from my own and therefore irrelevant to my experience. I now think this flows purely from the difference in our concept-structures at the time of the experience. Incidentally, other Christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart, the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas and of certain passages in the synoptics, Dionysus “the Areopagite” and the authors of the Theologia Germanica and the Cloud of Unknowing seem to have been what I now label “God-mystics” more like myself. How it is that they have escaped Christ-mysticism is something which interests me, but to which I have no answer.

I also think it probable that a part of the reason why access to mystical experience became easier for me over the five or six years following my original experience was not merely the fact that I was practising every method I could find which was said to facilitate such experience, but also because I was reading writers who gave me language of description, and therefore my brain became more capable of accommodating the experience.

There is also, of course, the fact that some elements of praxis are entirely individual to a particular religion. Communion in Christianity, tefilin in Judaism and ritual washing in Islam, for instance, have no exact comparisons; these are experiences which you are unlikely to get close to in any other religion.

As a result, I think there is actually something to be said for the idea that unless you operate within the concept-structures of a religious system, you may not be able to have certain kinds of experience – or at the very least, not be able to have them so clearly or easily.

…….

We also mentioned and tended to agree with the story of the blind men and the elephant, comparing their experiences. One (who had the ear) said it was like a cloth, another (who had the tusk) said it was like a spear. The one who had a leg said it was like a tree, the holder of the tail thought it was a rope, and another, holding the trunk, thought it was a snake. On this analogy, each religion might have an unique insight, but all of them would be partial. Another analogy from comparative religion is “many roads up the same mountain”.

Brian McLaren criticises this view in “Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-faith World”. He suggests that the evidence shows that they may well be paths up completely different mountains (let’s face it, nirvana is a very different concept from salvation, not quite the same as alignment with the Tao, but again both are very different from a personal relationship with a personal God). Granted, the mountains may be parts of the same mountain range, but still not the same. The idea is also criticised by Bo Sanders on the Homebrewed Christianity blog, also quoting the idea that comparative religion is trying for a kind of uber-religion, and taking an unwarrantedly superior tone to all individual religions.

I’m not sure I agree with McLaren on this; my comments above do indicate that there are very definite flavours, very definite details which are not the same, but as my own experience was able to be satisfactorily described in all of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism (non-exclusively) I am not so certain that the mountains are in fact different. What I am confident of is that you can’t follow several religions at the same time, just as you can’t talk absolutely simultaneously in several languages. OK, in either case you can chop and change between one and another, but most people can’t do that easily, and I think the effort is rather more between religions, particularly those which have different philosophical systems to underpin them. Also, in the case of either, praxis improves your experience, as I have indicated above. But you need to practice one at a time in order to be good at it, at least you do unless you’re a natural linguist in the case of languages. I do hold out the possibility that there may exist extremely gifted syncretists in religion – after all, Christianity as we know it is syncretic between Judaism and the Hellenic tradition at the least (and I think I can identify a few other influences there) – but there, it took, I think, St. John, St. Paul and a few others to produce a reasonable result. Even then, I think the cracks are there to be seen, and certainly most Protestant traditions don’t think the system was perfected until the fifteenth century or later.

Incidentally, don’t try to tell me that more modern movements are “going back to basics”. They aren’t, they’re indelibly printed with additional centuries of development in the history of thought, and what has been thought and has percolated into the general memory there can never be unthought. They are at best neo-orthodox, with a stress on the “neo-“, and usually an entirely new departure.

However, it may be that McLaren is right. After all, the dominant aim of Christianity, at least traditionally, is salvation, while the dominant aim of Buddhism and Hinduism is nirvana. I find it difficult to argue that those are actually the same mountain peak, even if the objectives of the relevant mystical traditions might be identical, subject to translation.

In my next post I’ll think a bit more about these two positions in theology.

In 1534, Henry VIII of England famously separated the English church from Rome.  As I learned this originally, there were two main reasons: firstly, he wanted an annulment of his marriage (in order to remarry and hopefully have a suitable heir) in circumstances where the Pope wouldn’t allow him one, and secondly he saw the money and land the church held and thought it would be better in his hands than those of the church. Neither of these is, in and of itself, a particularly laudable objective, though the dissolution of the monasteries was significantly more justifiable than might meet the eye, as very many of them suffered from the same kind of faults as Martin Luther had earlier complained of in the Catholic church in Germany. There was, however, another important reason, which was that England was becoming increasingly oriented towards the ideas of the Reformation. Without that, Henry would doubtless not have felt able to take this step, nor would he have been likely to succeed.

The result was, of course, the Anglican Church. Britain has since that time had an “established church”, a national church, but one which as a result of missionary and colonial activities is now a lot more than just a national church, although in England it is still exactly that, and Elizabeth II is its titular head.

That said, it is necessary for some of my readers to underline the fact that this was not a takeover of the nation by a religion (i.e. a theocracy), it was a takeover of the national religion by the government. It’s not quite an unique occurrence – Hitler, for instance, effectively took over the German churches as a national protestant church (which they already de facto were), although in fairness Hitler didn’t declare himself the head of his new national church, so Henry is as far as I’m aware unique in that respect, at least in the last thousand years or so.

The Nazi takeover resulted in a fair amount of opposition – the Confessing Church, of which Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a prominent member, is an example. The same was not immediately the case in England, for a number of reasons. Firstly, England was fairly insular with respect to continental Europe by this time, and the Pope’s refusal was (in part rightly) seen as being for reasons of international politics – he wanted to keep the Holy Roman Emperor happy. Secondly, reformation ideas were growing in strength in England, largely at this point within the church, and separation from Rome was not seen as all that bad an idea. Thirdly, Henry very sensibly kept the outward appearance of things virtually exactly the same, so the impact on “the man in the pew” was minimal.

I should here stress that in effect every nation in Europe at the time had a national church. In France and the south of Europe this was the Catholic Church, in northern Europe it was one of the Protestant churches (largely Lutheran, some Calvinist) which were by and large specifically national churches. There was no thought in Henry’s mind of detaching the state from religion, in this case specifically Christian religion. There was, however, plenty of thought of detaching himself from the awkward position of having a national church of whom the head was a foreigner, and a foreigner with a state of his own (the Papal States in Italy) and with interests which were distinctly different from those of England. In theory, therefore, the Pope could command the Catholic faithful not to obey the government of England (i.e. at the time largely Henry, as parliament did not then as yet have much effective power) and be obeyed. In fact, the Pope did just that, and was by and large not obeyed.

The situation changed under Henry’s successors. Henry was succeded by his son Edward, who was significantly influenced by advisors who were impressed by Luther and Calvin, and there started to be major changes which “the man in the pew” could see. Duffy’s “The Stripping of the Altars” is a magnificent, if somewhat lengthy and slightly Catholic-biased account of this process. Now there started to be serious unrest, with significant support from Catholic interests outside England, of course at the instigation of the Pope. There started to be significant persecution of those who opposed these changes.

Edward was succeded by Mary, who was Catholic, and sought to return the English Church to obedience to Rome. Now there was unrest in the opposite direction, and significantly more persecution. Mary married Philip of Spain, the premier Catholic monarch, and there was substantial resulting interference in England by foreign Catholic interests. Her sister Elizabeth I succeeded her, and reversed the process. One result was an attempted invasion by Spain at the instigation of the Pope (the Spanish Armada), foiled in part by English seapower and in part by the weather.

The common factor between all these monarchs was, of course, that supporters of whichever was for the time being not the national religion were seen not just as followers of a different faith, but insurrectionists and traitors in the pay of a foreign power (the foreign power in the case of Mary being the German protestant princes). Under Elizabeth, the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1558, imposing significant penalties for non-attendance at Church of England services; the general direction taken by Elizabeth was to have the Church of England steer a middle path between the Catholics and the more liturgically minded Anglicans and the Lutheran, Calvinist and Anabaptist influenced individuals and groups who wanted to have a far more puritan aspect (as had to some extent been seeming the likely movement under Edward). This was felt oppressive by the puritans, some of whom left for the liberal state of the Netherlands. Of course, as history shows, Holland was far too permissive for their taste, resulting in the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers and the foundation of the Plymouth colony.

It is, of course, ironic when set against the common myth of foundation of the USA that they were fleeing not repression in England, but a liberal state in the Netherlands, and that they did it with the aid of a land grant from England (which stipulated that they do not make their dissenting type of religion that of the colony, which they of course proceeded to do). In addition, although they were not exactly “persona grata” religiously (full toleration of nonconformists would only happen in 1828), the extent of actual persecution was minimal by the time they crossed the Atlantic, although the penalties for non-attendance at church were not formally relaxed until 1662.

James I (formerly James VI of Scotland) followed without too much disturbance, but he was succeeded by his son Charles I, who was a distinct Catholic sympathiser if not actually Catholic (he had married a Catholic). That is not the only reason why the English Civil War broke out, but it is a more serious contributing factor than is commonly accepted, as most histories concentrate on Charles’ fights with parliament and the issue of who was paramount, king or parliament. Among the factors leading to Charles’ attitude was the concept of “divine right of kings”, which had grown up in the Catholic monarchies, which were very autocratic compared with the parliamentary monarchy even pre-Civil War. A Catholic monarch, it seemed, was absolute.

The result was the Interregnum, which lasted for 11 years from 1649, mostly in the form of the Commonwealth (not to be confused with the current British Commonwealth of Nations). During this period, religious radicals had significant sway, the Church was forced into an even more radical mould than during the reign of Edward, and among other things public music and dancing was forbidden and the theatres closed for a time, following the puritan ethos. On the whole, England wasn’t much in favour of this, and on the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the church was reestablished as well, in pretty much its former configuration.

Over subsequent years, the Church of England became increasingly a broad tent, much as Elizabeth had envisaged, under the requirement to be a church for the nation, the nation being disparate. Nonconformists became progressively less disadvantaged until they were largely the equals of Anglicans; it took rather longer for the animus against Catholics to subside (after all, the Armada had attempted invasion, and a Catholic plot had attempted to blow up parliament and the king). As late as 1780, there were riots in London at the concept of relieving some of the constraints on Catholics, and even in 1829 (the Catholic Emancipation Act) not every restriction vanished – it would take until the closing years of the century for that to be the case. Even then, for me, growing up in a Nonconformist household, there was some suspicion of Catholics even in the 1950s and 60s.

Let me underline a few salient points from this piece of religious history of England. First, whatever else the monarchs (or parliament) did, there had to be a state religion, and that had to be some species of Christianity. This was the case everywhere in Europe, and had been from about the sixth century (earlier in the areas which formed part of the Roman Empire). It was the case even in the religiously very liberal Holland of the 16th century onward. This was a relic from the days of Constantine, who adopted Christianity as the religion of Empire. England was perhaps unusual in that it had a monarch at the head of its church, who would hire and fire bishops (thus avoiding the more or less perennial conflicts between rulers and their national churches which bedeviled a large amount of Europe through the first 1500 years or so after Christianity took root). However, from a dispassionate point of view, this was fairly close to what Constantine had effected. The former non-violent and radical church of the oppressed and marginalised became the church of empire and domination, developed a theory of “just war” and had its symbol, the cross, carried in front of armies from Constantine onwards. Some of those armies had the specific purpose of attacking other religions or other branches of Christianity – this happened in England during the Civil War and on a few occasions after that, but the nadir was no doubt the Crusades, with special mention for the Fourth Crusade (which ended up sacking Constantinople, the centre of the Orthodox Church) and the Albigensian Crusade, which more or less wiped out the Cathars, considered an heretical sect, and with them the tolerant and vibrant culture of Southern France (Languedoc). However, all of the crusades had the overt intention of killing Muslims, and if a few Jews were killed as well on the way (as they usually were), that was by no means contrary to the objectives.

Secondly, as soon as you have a state church, other religions or sects become a threat not just to the religion but also to the state, as thousands of Catholics and Protestants in an England which swung between the two over 100 years or so could testify (or in Northern Europe more generally during the wars of religion). They become not just heretics of unbelievers, they become traitors.

The chief sufferers from this in Europe throughout the fifth to the twentieth century were however the Jews. Although this culminated in the Shoah (or Holocaust) in Nazi controlled Europe between 1939 and 1945, persecution of the Jews was endemic throughout Europe during the whole period. Judaism was, of course, a religion without a home after the Romans sacked the Temple in 70 CE (and particularly so after they banned Jews from Judaea after the Second Jewish rising of 135 CE), but it had been under foreign domination for most of its history even in Palestine, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek or Roman. Indeed, during the “Babylonian captivity” it subsisted principally in the large proportion of inhabitants of Judah forcibly transported to Babylonia.

Now, I must stress that in my analysis following, I do not in the slightest condone the treatment of the Jews by any of these imperial powers, especially by Christianity. While the Shoah was carried out by a government which was not particularly Christian (arguably it was anti-religious and merely used religion as a tool towards a purely political end), it was the culmination of sixteen centuries of persecution of Jews by Christians within nations which had some form of Christianity as their national religion. Without that history of persecution, it would probably not have occurred. In addition, the vast majority of those actually carrying out the orders were at least nominally Christians.

That said, the way in which Judaism survived as a religion (and the Jews as a people) was to preserve and accentuate their difference from the nations into which they were scattered (or earlier in which they were imprisoned, or which had included them in their empires). It has been a remarkable achievement, against forces of assimilation (sometimes forced assimilation) and coercion, frequently involving massacres, of which the Shoah was merely the largest and near to the last.

This strategy, however, brought on itself the inevitability of Jews being easily distinguishable as “different” from the people around them, and those who are different have long been targets for others. As we have seen above, being of a different religion where there is a national religion brings with it the additional charge of treason, and so it was in the growing nationalism of Europe over that period. That said, it was a charge leveled also by the Romans.

Early Christianity was similarly persecuted by the Romans on exactly the same basis, that they were traitors; they did not admit Caesar as being Lord (as they confessed “Jesus is Lord”). They trod there the same path as had the Jews under the Seleucid Greeks and under the Romans, and initially the Romans found difficulty telling the difference. However, as we know, Christianity flourished and spread despite the persecution and eventually became the religion of Empire – at which point it promptly became the persecutor.

It is deeply unfortunate that Christianity had in its scriptures from the beginning relics of the initial struggles between Christianity as a sect of Judaism and the remainder of Judaism, resulting in, for instance, the “blood libel” in Matthew and the persistent use of “judaeoi” in the Fourth Gospel. It is also unfortunate that it has in the scriptures adopted from Judaism, notably Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and Chronicles, the history of the relation of the Israelites (and Judaeans) with people of other religions. Seeing themselves as inheritors of the tradition of Israel, very many of the Christian persecutors have laid into those they regard as heretical, or Jews, or members of other religions with a cry of “smite the Amalekites”.  Sadly, Israel carries within its scripture a history of persecution when Judaism (or at least its forerunner) was a national religion of an independent state.

Now, of course, Israel is once again a nation state with Judaism as its religion, and sadly exhibits much of the same attitude as did their predecessors and their Christian successors; the Palestinians, whether Muslim or Christian, will bear witness to that. But then, Islam, after some promising beginnings giving a somewhat protected status to its predecessor “religions of the book”, now appears to take the same line everywhere where it is the state religion; in relation to its own successors (the Sufis and the Baha’i religion) it has always been the persecutor. Further afield, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism are by no mean innocent either.

My conclusion is that history has proved that national religions are so prone to oppression and atrocity, not to mention the other sins of being in a position of power, that it would be best if none were ever in that position. Although it does seem to me that the Church of England may have reached a position of toleration (after persecuting Catholics and Dissenters for many years) where it is no longer a real threat to dissenting voices, possibly in part due to its control by political forces through Parliament, even there I have misgivings. Should Charles ever actually become King, I note with favour that he intends to style himself “Defender of Faiths” rather than the traditional “Defender of the Faith” (a title given to Henry VIII by the Pope before their disagreement).

What of the history of Judaism, of Huguenots in France, Hussites in Germany, Catholics in England, all vigorously persecuted in part for being potential traitors, among other things? I have to say that I consider them entirely justified in their refusal to conform, but that in a very small measure their persecutors were correct. They had a loyalty greater than loyalty to the state in which they lived could ever be, and that is dangerous to any nation state.

For me, God is king, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland must take second place.

But I refuse to kill or oppress in the name of either of them, because Jesus is Lord.

A while ago, there was a bit of an upset in the blogosphere when Tony Jones criticised Marcus Borg for an answer he was pressed to give on whether he accepted a physical resurrection; Marcus answered that he did not – and blogs all over the place erupted for and against the concept. Now, I’ve written before on the question of a physical resurrection, in particular in a series “And God saw that it was good” of which the first is here.

I’ve just revisited one of the responses, out of Homebrewed Christianity, with Tripp Fuller in conversation with Jonnie Russell (scroll down to “Marcus Borg, Tony Jones and the Resurrection, and in the podcast itself you can skip the first 20 minutes) talking about the pros and cons of believing in a physical (rather than a spiritual or metaphorical) resurrection. I have a lot of time for Tripp Fuller – he knows a lot of stuff. A LOT of stuff (and I say this having been introduced around my church on occasion as someone who “knows a lot of stuff” – I know very little compared with Tripp, and am not nearly so adept at juggling competing theologies and philosophies – particularly philosophies).  Incidentally, there are a load of really interesting podcasts available in their Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown and other series, and most of them can be downloaded free.

Now, I very much liked what Tripp had to say about what is essentially an operational view of the Jones versus the Borg view, commenting that absent the theoretical distinction, both of them would affirm that resurrection was fundamental to Christianity and a real and present force. I would affirm that myself. In addition, having accepted that, Jones and Borg would both engage in very much the same actions in the world, as I would myself. Operational definitions in psychology reduce situations to things which can be measured, or in other words what behaviours result from thought processes (rather than what is said about them). The operational definitions of these two viewpoints are therefore pretty much identical. And as Tripp remarked (paraphrasing), every Christian believes in the resurrection, they just believe in differing ways.

They do throw up some differences, however. First is outlined by Jonnie, and it is that there is a need among evangelicals to assert that in Jesus God was doing something new and unique, or in other words that the incarnation was the “fulcrum of history”.

Now, I’m not sure that I think this myself. On the plus side, we can now look back at history and observe that the Jesus event sparked a really major change in world history; history would have been radically different had Christianity not flowed from that event (and it’s worth pointing out that Islam flows in part from the existence of Christianity – the second largest world religion may not have existed or may have been radically different). We can look at the past lives of some billions of Christians which have been changed as a result (and the lives of perhaps similar numbers of non-Christians which have also been changed, not necessarily in a positive way – though those of some Christians have also been negatively impacted). But there are implications which I don’t necessarily go along with.

The main one is that this was an unique intervention by God, a deliberate act of God to change human history in its tracks. As might be gathered from my “no tricks” post which I link to above, I’m sceptical that the God of my understanding would intervene in quite this way, even if no individual miracles were involved. I know that God can and does intervene in individual human lives on occasion (he intervened in mine – there is no way I can see a causal link between anything about me or my environment prior to my first ecstatic experience and that experience absent something entirely non-physical) but this posits an intervention which God knew would have major repercussions, and which (inter alia) will have limited the free will of billions of people since the event.

But I’m even more sceptical that this intervention was unique to Jesus, or even the first time such an intervention had occurred, much less the first and only time. I can. for instance, trace the same kind of mystical consciousness as I see in Jesus in Buddhism, four or more centuries earlier, and in Vedantic Hinduism, probably at least six centuries earlier. I grant that Christianity is unique in its scope and development (although Islam had a more rapid early spread), but in the case of Christianity I can identify at least two and probably four other significant mystics during the first century (Paul and the author or inspiration for the Fourth Gospel definitely, Thomas and tentatively the author of “Matthew”) and one of these was also a seriously charismatic church planter.

That being said, those who follow my blog will know that I see God’s creation of the world (and universe) being the original act of kenosis and incarnation, pouring himself out into creation and thus abrogating the power to control it. In terms of humanity, that becomes particularly strong once humanity gains self-awareness, as I talked about in “The Fall and Rise of Original Sin” and follow up posts. However, it represents an initial act of self-limitation. Seeing things this way results from the fact that the only God-concept which at the moment really makes sense to me given my mystical bent is a panentheistic one, in which God is radically immanent in all things.

I would then argue that even in giving individual existence to (say) the original atoms formed shortly after the “Big Bang”, God limited his power over them; they became independent even if they were incapable of being aware of this, and in effect possess a form of free will, even if it is not “will” at all.

It is therefore unique that in Christ we see in sharp individual focus such an act of kenosis and incarnation, and one which subjects God to the vagaries of human existence. It is a microcosmic expression of the original and far greater subjection of God to creation. I think, though I cannot prove, that Jesus was uniquely aware of his status as part of God’s incarnation. We then see him as resurrected, as of course he has to be (God, with whom Jesus has identity, being incapable of being truly and absolutely dead short of the end of the universe, and probably all universes). In this sense, therefore, he was unique.

It’s also true to say that many people seem to rely on the promise of their own physical resurrection. Personally I don’t see this; I don’t see the eternal preservation of a physical body as necessary, as feasible or even as desirable. I can appreciate that some may feel differently – after all, a significant proportion of Second Temple Judaism did not consider that soul and body were separable; to have one you had to have the other. In addition, if (as may well be the case) consciousness is an emergent property of life, which is an emergent property of matter, those first century Jews may well have had the right idea. They are welcome to think that way, but I cannot, and would prefer not to feel excluded because of that inability. I have, after all, a rather light grasp on the self. The mystical consciousness assures me that I am part of a larger whole which is as immortal as immortal can get, and I think Paul refers to this when he talks of “not I, but Christ in me” living. If I am in Christ and Christ is in me, the “I” of me is not me but Christ, and Christ lives, then I live. I need nothing more than that.

Sadly, after the good things Tripp says earlier in the podcast, he then starts explaining (at about 40 min) why he is no longer a “Borgian”, i.e. follows Marcus Borg’s understanding of the resurrection. The argument runs (paraphrasing) “Jesus is the example of a perfect human life to follow; however Jesus was a poor homeless Jew who got axed by the Romans and didn’t really resurrect – is that what you put forward as ‘perfect’? Is that what we should aspire to?”.

As Jonnie comments “That will preach”. Unfortunately.

Now, in fact, Tripp then comes back from there to the “operational definition” kind of approach, and observes that although the difference in view is what actually drives Marcus’ or Tony’s theology, the practical effects are the same. I have confidence in Tripp – although the guy can preach, and he can preach viewpoints he doesn’t agree with completely with huge persuasiveness (perhaps there’s a great trial lawyer in there who’s missed a vocation, may the Lord be praised), he generally comes back to something with which I am comfortable.

But really, I think we probably should be preaching that you should follow Jesus irrespective of the fact that it may lead to poverty, homelessness and even death. As Paul remarked, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. In fact, during the period of Christianity’s greatest expansion (to the early fourth century) following him frequently did lead to poverty, homelessness and death, as Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire. Quite rightly persecuted, as well, from the point of view of the Empire, as “Jesus is Lord” excluded “Caesar is Lord”, and they were attempting to live the Kingdom of God within the Empire of Caesar. I would argue that they were doing that quite successfully. Quite rightly, too, as in fact after some 300 years, Christianity took over the Empire, and empires resist being taken over. (I grant that in some important ways, the Empire then took over Christianity, but that’s for another post!).

I’m not convinced that in today’s world, “take up your cross and follow me” preaches. I’m even less certain it preaches without the fallback of “and then you’ll be physically resurrected later on”.

But perhaps it should.

On Sunday, I congratulated the preacher after the service, and he commented that he enjoyed my facial expressions during his sermons. He singled out two items, firstly any time he mentions Lewis’ trilemma, secondly any time he mentions “the word of God”. Apparently I’m unable to prevent myself wincing. OK, frankly, I don’t try to prevent myself wincing at any mention of Lewis or any occasion when “the word of God” is accompanies by waving a bible in the air, and it was the second of those which had attracted his attention.

In the interests of full disclosure, previous winces during the same sermon included when a graphic appeared behind him in which the word “ressurection” appeared. Yes, that is how it was spelled – and despite the fact that it was correctly spelled “resurrection” further down the same graphic, but sadly in a less prominent position and typography. Clearly, blessed are they who do not proofread as part of their occupation! There were also a few winces associated with the four repetitions of the words “and finally” spread over some ten minutes.

However, my biggest wince was definitely the transition to waving the Bible and proclaiming it as “the word of God”, exacerbated by the fact that this had no sensible connection with the rest of the sermon and therefore engaging my inner editor.

There is a collossal baggage associated with the proclamation that the waved tome is the word of God (and I should probably capitalise “word” in order to show the stress). Mostly, it involves inerrantism (there can be no error of any kind in “the word of God”, quite clearly) and literalism (the term is far too solemn no admit of there being fictional stories, poetics, exaggerations and metaphor in there), but also the concept that you can proof-text, lifting any text out of context and having it function independently of the rest. After all, if the text is perfect, it must be perfect in every particular, no?

Well, no.I reject all of those pieces of baggage.

The text isn’t perfect, for a start. There are a host of textual variations, and while most of them are fairly subtle, some of them make a considerable difference when the words are taken in small doses as being propositional theology. We read in translation, unless we have the facility to read Koine Greek and Hebrew, and translation can make a huge difference. Textual analysis has revealed that most of the contents have been revised, extended, chopped about and thus moved in unknowable directions from whatever the original texts said – and we have no original manuscripts of any biblical text. We read those texts which a combination of popularity within the early Christian community and authoritative decisions by major church figures, often based on spurious claims as to the origin of the texts, has left us – and this has varied between different Christian communities and still does – the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, for instance, has quite a few more books in the New Testament than do we in the Protestant descendants of the Western Church, and the Catholics have the apocrypha, including ten additional books and additions to two others. Which of these is “the word of God”, we may reasonably ask?

No church currently includes the Gospel of Thomas within its scripture, nor the Didache, though both of these are accepted by a massive swathe of biblical scholars as among the earliest texts we have (the Ethiopian Church does have the Didascalia, which incorporates a substantial amount of the Didache, much amended, however). 1 Clement, similarly early, is now only accepted by the Coptic and Ethiopic churches, despite having clearly been canonical in many other places as late as the fifth century. There are many other works which might potentially have been included, but are not, and some of them we now know only by mention in other writers, as no copy of the full texts is now known to exist (though Biblical scholars continue to live in hope!).

In addition, if I stoop to proof-texting for a moment, John 1 does contain a definition of “the Word” (of God): “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” and “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”. Jesus was and is “the Word of God”, and forgive me for this, but Jesus is not a collection of old books. Jesus is not something you can wave in the air during a sermon.

What at least the gospels in the New Testament are is a written understanding of what Jesus said and did during and shortly after his lifetime; most of the remainder of the New Testament as we know it records the understandings of various followers of Jesus (mostly Paul or attributed to Paul) written sometime after his death. The generality of biblical scholarship does not think that any of these books were written by someone who witnessed the events of Jesus’ life (the attributions to Matthew, Mark and John are traditional, but the probable dating of them and their contents do not admit of them having been written by direct followers, and Luke is admittedly a secondary source; Paul’s authority rests on post-crucifixion ecstatic experience). What they are is therefore in part tradition, in part early rationalising of the impact of Jesus.

That leads me on to the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” of scripture, tradition, reason and experience. A very interesting article by John Cobb discusses this in the context of process theology, and I agree his tentative privileging of experience. Let’s face it, tradition is experience, it’s the accumulated experience of other people, and as such extremely valuable to guide us and let us see where we may be mistaken or on which we can build the better to understand our experience (and, if current psychological thinking is correct, which I strongly believe it is, the better to be able to have experience). As I think I’ve shown, scripture is also tradition, albeit very early tradition (plus some reason), and is thus also experience.

I need here to counteract any impression that in stating the limits of scripture, I am seeking to negate its importance. It is the nearest we can come to the actual teaching of Jesus and our earliest tradition of experience of the risen Christ; the Hebrew scriptures form the basis for the New Testament writings and give a large amount of the context for those (as, incidentally, do at least ten of those books which are not now part of our canon, what we call “scripture”). It is therefore extremely important and very authoritative, just not of ultimate importance or authority (although the social gospel of Jesus comes very close to that status in my thinking).

To quote Cobb:- “The second pole is the Bible. The Christian tradition as a whole judges itself in light of the normative account of its origins. Although it prizes the Hebrew scriptures along with the New Testament, it reads the Bible as a whole in light of Jesus’ message,actions, death, and resurrection and of the early church’s interpretation of this. That there are four different accounts of Jesus blocks the attempt to absolutize any single picture of him. The fact that the epistles interpret the Jesus event diversely inhibits any claim to finality of doctrine about him. Thus there is no fixed reference for the tradition. From the beginning it was multifold and developed through interaction among various communities that sought to live from this event. To be a Christian, therefore, is to live in a fluid context, seeking to be faithful to God as one has come to know the God of Israel in the Christi event, informed by the many achievements of the tradition, but critical of every attempt to treat any of these as fixed or final”

This very much illustrates the resulting attitude. There are no simple pat answers. There is a tradition, but that tradition continues to develop, expand and accommodate new developments in thought and fresh experience; it is not a fixed and inviolate answer to everything, but it is part of the route towards better answers. This is entirely in keeping with my view of science; science does not give us truth, it gives us new approximations to truth which are a little closer to accurately and fully describing what is happening and what is out there. I do not expect theology and bible study to be able to do more than can science – indeed, in a sense, it is itself a scientific process, using much the same rational principles to move forward. Granted, it is perhaps short on the experimental, but I would not expect it to be short on the experiential.

In fact, without the experiential, there is no point in any of this endeavour. I would not be thinking about these subjects and writing about them now had I not had personal experience, personal convicting experience. For me, therefore, experience comes first. I then apply reason, and then call in aid scripture and tradition in order better to understand and explain the experience, and in order better to have future experience. My four legged stool, my quadrilateral, is therefore experience, reason, scripture and tradition.

(The title can be translated “Not only but also”, but refers mostly to doctrines such as “sola scriptura” “sola gratia” and “sola fide”)

I’ve been reading Dale Allison’s “Constructing Jesus” and am struck by the force of his arguments in favour of Jesus as apocalyptic prophet.

Note that I say “struck by the force of his argument” and not “convinced that his argument is entirely correct”, because I see him as over-extending in an attempt to press home this main point. I suppose I have some past expertise in this business of “making an argument” from some 25 years as a lawyer; if this has taught me nothing else, it is that we shouldn’t ever just listen to one counsel arguing for a position, we should also listen to at least one opposing position and then weigh the arguments against each other.

My forte in court was to take the opposition’s case and show how it was almost entirely correct, and yet you should take a view which favoured my client. This was far more effective, I found, than setting up an entirely opposite account of facts and inviting a choice between the two. With the way in which the legal system actually operates, this was far too much like tossing a coin; my way allowed you to accept most of what the opposition said but just to interpret it a little differently, rather than forcing black and white decisions.

This is a technique I think I should commend to Dr. Allison. He starts really well, setting up the idea that you cannot say, for instance, that because Jesus plainly made statements typical of a social reformer, he could not therefore have been an apocalyptic prophet; because he talked a lot about living well in the present reality he could not therefore have expected divine intervention to instantiate the Kingdom of God in apocalyptic fashion. This is clearly right, and has founded criticisms I’ve made in the past of a set of commentators who have seen in Jesus, for instance, a social revolutionary (John Dominic Crossan) or a “spirit person”, in other words a mystic (Marcus Borg) to the exclusion or near exclusion of any other identity. There is a strong suspicion that they see in Jesus what they feel they are in themselves, and in the case of Dr. Borg, he is self-admittedly someone who has had his faith shaped by mystical experience.

Unfortunately, Allison then goes further and moves repeatedly towards the suggestion that “apocalyptic prophet” is the basic identity (adding into it self-designations which go beyond just “apocalyptic prophet”) and that really neither the social revolutionary nor the mystic are really the case; inasmuch as they are there, they are less important than “apocalyptic prophet”, and if anything flow from that base designation.

I think this is a mistake. I think that it is a mistake primarily because I do exactly what I criticise above, and read Jesus as primarily a “spirit person”. This is because I am a “spirit person” myself, and cannot see how, if one has had overwhelming mystical experience, that cannot be basic to whatever you then are. I can do thought experiments and consider the position were I basically an apocalyptic prophet or were I a social revolutionary, and none of the others flow naturally from that self-understanding. However, in the case of a “spirit person”, social revolutionary does flow naturally from the experience, and at least occasional prophetic vision flows as well, at least if the mystical experience is developed and felt reasonably consistently.

In terms of “social revolutionary”, I cannot see how this would not flow automatically from the dissolution of the felt boundary between the self and others. I can see how the depth of compassion engendered could be internalised and not acted upon (as it seems to me is often the case in Buddhism, and is a major reason why I have not pursued Buddhism more than I did in my dim and distant 20s), but I cannot see how the impulse not only to assist others as best you can but also to try to promote the dissolution or reform of systems which operate against the mass of people, particularly the poor, disadvantaged and marginalised would not be there.

Prophecy is perhaps a more difficult area. One thing granted by the constant practice of the mystical consciousness is, in my experience, an improved ability to discern trends and causes (sometimes without realising the fullness of the structure, intuitively). I do not on the whole see prophecy as “foretelling the future”, in the way in which it tends to be portrayed by, for instance, the evangelists looking for predictions of Christ, but in the more modern sense of speaking to the situation as it is and exposing it and its likely outcomes. The Hebrew scriptures have many examples of prophetic words which do not in fact come to pass when people change their ways, none more clear, I think, than the story of Jonah. Jonah is sent to predict destruction to Nineveh, and eventually does – but Nineveh changes its ways and escapes calamity (the book has also several other lessons which may need to be taken to heart by prospective prophets among others).

I’ve felt this in operation; I’ve only actually ever expressed any such prediction in small local matters, as I don’t think a wider scale prophecy would be likely to be heard in this day and age without a full scientific and rationalist work-up, and to date have never felt any compulsion to try to buck this trend. Jesus, however, lived in a different age, one in which prophets might perhaps be heard.

Now, one of the reasons I think liberal scholars are somewhat reluctant to label Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet is that at the least since Schweitzer (building on Reimarus) proposed this label to the exclusion of others, the end of the investigation says that he was a failed apocalyptic prophet, as the predicted apocalypse did not happen – and they take too high a view of Jesus to want that to be the conclusion.

However, thinking about that, and about a recent article I read about predictions made by Science Fiction writers whose predictions had to some extent materialised (the link to which I’ve sadly lost) and about Karl Marx and some of his followers (notably Slavoj Zizek) predicting trends in society, I’m struck by a number of factors.

Firstly, none of these presumably mundane and non-divinely inspired prophets has ever managed to be anything like accurate about timing. Mostly, they predict things far too soon. I sympathise – as a newly coined BSc in Physics some 40 years ago I was predicting commercial fusion within ten years. I gather it’s still being predicted within ten years. As an example, Marx predicted that industrialised society would not tend to level out income and capital, but would intensify the gap between richest and poorest. Pace those who still think that “trickle down” economics actually works, I think we are now seeing exactly that. Marx thought it would take place at least 60 years ago; 20 years ago I would not have agreed that it was actually the case, but we’ve now had more opportunity to study less regulated capitalist systems, and I’d now agree with him – and I think we are likely to see some of his other predictions within at the least my childrens’ lifetimes.

Secondly, they are far more accurate about trends than about specifics.Marx thought that first England and then Russia would be the cradle of his predictions bearing fruit; at the moment it seems most likely to be the USA, but I could put in a long shot of China considering the speed at which China is currently moving. (No, I wouldn’t ask the almighty for a predictive word on the topic; that’s all my own fault!).

I should point out that I don’t think God is omniscient in the conventional understanding of knowing everything which will happen, though I accept that God may be omniscient in knowing all the possibilities of any situation on which God focuses and their probabilities. I therefore don’t think that predicting the future accurately is possible even for God. However, God may (possibly through very bright or very inspired people) be able to predict events a lot better than the average man in the street could; at the least, one might expect God to know all of the factors which were at work, which we rarely can.

Within these parameters, what Jesus is said to have predicted begins to take a more sensible shape, particularly if one bears in mind that in part (and in the mid-term) he expected Judaism generally to adopt his path – and Judaism didn’t do that. I also bear in mind that just as a localised flood appeared a worldwide catastrophe to a small tribe in Mesapotamia, so the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the remaining Palestinian Jews qualifies as an apocalyptic disaster. 70CE (the first Jewish revolt) was the end of the world as Second Temple Judaism knew it, and if that wasn’t enough, 135 CE (the second) pretty much completed the job. By the end of 135, there was no Temple, there were no Jews still resident in Judaea and they were banned from returning. The heart had been ripped out of Judaism and the people scattered (again), and the religion could no longer function as it had been doing.

Now, I haven’t yet done the heavy lifting of going through Jesus’ reported statements which could be thought of as apocalyptic one by one and applying these ways of thinking (as Dale Allison has been doing with a more conventional outlook on apocalyptic prediction), but using Allison’s concept of a certain “fuzziness” in social memory as well, I feel reasonably confident that Jesus could reasonably have predicted utter disaster for Judaism and been right; they were “living in the end times”. I also have in mind that if the whole of Judaism had turned to following the non-violence of Jesus over the course of the 20-30 years after his death, there would have been no revolts and very probably no destruction of the Temple or scattering of the Jews. I’m seeing there a salvation which didn’t come to pass because the message wasn’t taken up, just as Jonah saw an apocalypse which didn’t happen because the message was heeded. It was, of course, a collective salvation rather than an individual one, the salvation of a nation, but I think the Hebrew Scriptures tend more to the collective than the individual salvation in any event.

I rather think that much the same result could be obtained by reassessing Paul’s statements, and possibly even those in Revelation.

In fact, though, I think that many of the sayings used to demonstrate that Jesus expected an imminent apocalyptic advent of the Kingdom of God can be better interpreted, via thinking of him as a mystic, as indicating that he viewed the Kingdom as being a present and growing reality, accessible already by some and in the future by many more. Yes, I agree with Allison that saying he was not an apocalyptic prophet is foolish, but I still consider that “mystic” grounds more of his basic nature. And, let’s face it, if we take him as being a person in whom God indwelt constantly in some way, whether the only example of God incarnate or as something slightly less unique than that, that is inevitably going to be the most dominant feature of his thinking, and the mystic (who feels oneness with God) is going to be the type of ordinary human being most similar.

As this has largely been a review of Allison’s book, I should conclude by saying that it’s wonderfully well researched and argued, and in the later chapters I think he makes an excellent case (in passing, as this isn’t his main thrust) for establishing Paul as a source for much of the bones of the passion narrative alongside the gospels; I was also intrigued by his bringing into play of the Didache as an additional early source, as well as Thomas.

For my Alpha group, here’s a debate between Zeba Crook (a non-Christian New Testament scholar) and Richard Carrier (possibly the only reasonably weighty scholar who argues complete mythicism). For our purposes, as none of us think the mythicist position is correct, the relevant portion is from about 11 minutes to about 31 minutes, which is Zeba Crook talking (No, it isn’t necessary to watch the whole hour and three quarters).

Zeba give a good overview of the position that the early Christians progressively mythicised an historical figure with a few excellent examples.

There’s a very good post at Kelsos (otherwise adversus apologetica) which I’ve just read.

The writer is not a fan of apologetics (and neither am I), but in this case interestingly accepts that miracles can and do happen, analyses the crucifixion and resurrection account with that assumption, and still comes to the conclusion that it can’t have happened as described. Miracles, of course, are unlikely in the extreme; we do not have any really reliably documented miracle to persuade us otherwise, pace the Catholic saint-making apparatus, nor indeed any conclusive evidence of any supernatural occurrence. I include here the medical “miracles” which are so popular in apologetic anecdote; none of them really bears scrutiny in a field in which spontaneous cures for many ailments do actually happen without any suggestion of supernatural intervention.

A major feature of the article is that the account in Matt. 27:51-54 (link NIV from Bible Gateway) would have attracted comment from Roman sources which we actually still have (unkind people have referred to this as “Matthew’s zombie apocalypse”, which is funny enough for me to repeat despite the possible offence).

Another mainstay of the argument is that there is actually far better and more believable evidence for witchcraft in Salem in the late 17th century. There, there is a plethora of sworn statements in court as to the activities of the alleged witches, and no evidence against other than the presupposition that supernatural events do not happen. Very few people these days would, however, accept that the “Salem witches” were actually that, and possessed of supernatural powers, including (I think) the vast majority of Christians.

I hadn’t considered Salem in that way before, and it makes sense as a far more recent (and far better documented) example. My own major stumbling block has always been the miracle claims of other religions. I do try very hard not to allow my presumption against supernatural causes to drift to a dogmatic “there are no miracles and never have been” stance. However, using very much the technique of Matthew Fergusson in that blog, if I suspend disbelief in miracle claims in the New Testament I also have to suspend disbelief in miracle claims in, for instance, the Iliad and Oddysey, in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, even in the Epic of Gilgamesh. I have to consider that it’s likely that Nero was raised from the dead, and probably Elvis as well. I also need to take account of miraculous births of, say, Alexander the Great and many other legendary and even historical figures.

So, with a small but niggling regret, I have to interpret the Bible as if all or almost all of the accounts of miracles and supernatural events are literary decoration rather than hard fact. This doesn’t usually give me a problem, except when talking with fellow Christians who take a different view – and mostly, the fact or non-fact of miracles in the Bible isn’t actually significant to the metaphor or allegory in the passage, and I can move past historicity and concentrate on what the story really tells us, which is in the metaphor, the allegory, the parable.

But there are two problems. Firstly, I quite commonly find myself talking with people who report healing “miracles”. I think of these very much as does Aric Clark in a “Two Friars and a Fool” post. I don’t think they’re actually miracles. But I don’t really want to come out and say that; I’m happy for them that healing has occurred, and I don’t want to shake trust in God. Granted, I think trust in God should be leavened with a reading of Job and Ecclesiastes; while God can be trusted, he can’t necessarily be trusted to do what you want or expect, or what is most comfortable or comforting for you.

The other aspect is in considering the impact of Christ in the world. I find it extremely difficult to think of his birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection (the last of which I interpret largely non-supernaturally) as being a case of God doing something which changes the world radically (for instance, making it possible, perhaps for the first time, for all people to be resurrected after death). I have no problem in thinking of it as changing the thinking of mankind radically, which I think it provably has and continues to do.

But there are those who say that if Christ didn’t actually die in order that I might be saved from something (whereas had he not existed, I wouldn’t have had this possibility), then he died for nothing. Now I don’t remotely believe that to be the case, but it seems that for them, they can see no possible reasoning beyond the PSA which they have been indoctrinated in. If they were to accept any merit at all in my thinking, it seems, they would lose all faith.

I don’t want that to happen. I want them to continue to follow Jesus as their lord, to love God and to love their fellow men as themselves. And if the only way in which they can continue to do that is to believe in miracles and PSA (repugnant as I find PSA), I will walk gently away. I may even apologise – not for saying what I think is true, but for saying it to them at what was the wrong time.

If, for some reason, they find they are having difficulty with the concepts in the future, I can offer other ways of thinking. But I don’t want to offer solutions where there’s no perception of a problem. That, it seems to me, is too much like trying to evangelise by first convincing someone – who was previously comfortable in their alternative belief (whatever it was) or lack of one – that they’re a vicious sinner destined for Hell.

Where I do think miracles occur (although it’s maybe a stretch to call them miracles) is within human consciousnesses. I see many cases of cures of addiction and lives transformed in and (less frequently) outside twelve step. And twelve step requires a “God of your understanding” in order to work. It doesn’t matter (experience has proven) what that understanding actually is. Sometimes it’s a conventional protestant PSA one (which is particularly attractive to addicts, who need no convincing that they’re hopeless sinners), often it involves believing in miracles.

So, my more conventional friends, you don’t have to think the way I do about Christianity in order to be my brothers and sisters in faith. But if you’re having problems with conventional readings (or are merely interested in how someone else thinks), I’m here. And may your God go with you, as Dave Allen used to say.

The church I attend most regularly at the moment is quite keen on personal testimonies. I rather like that.

However, quite a few of these relate to giving while trusting in God to provide for our needs, i.e. giving when we don’t actually have enough to safeguard our own future. Again, in principle I have no problem with that, aside the fact that I see a significant chance of throwing people onto charity where they might not have needed that, and I tend to see charity as better directed to those who have no hope of providing for themselves from their own means than those who have themselves given wastefully, given the state of the world as it actually is.

The issue I do have, however, is that consistently these stories end with the giver receiving out of the blue sufficient for their needs. Again, I am delighted that they have been provided for. I might like to hear more testimony from people who haven’t “got it together”, as in twelve step, which I think is a template which people should want to qualify for. Granted there are now twelve step programs catering for so many things that it takes a really well-adjusted person to avoid qualifying for at least one of them! I might like to see something like twelve-step openness tried in a church setting, however.

However, there is another problem, in that the impression is given (and sometimes underlined by preaching what seems to me close to a “prosperity gospel” that those who give profligately will inevitably receive sufficient for their needs. If you give a lot, the message is, you can be confident that you will be provided for. There is some scriptural support for this concept, too.

Much as I might wish this to be the case in reality, it isn’t in line with my experience, either following my own actions or those of others. Nor, to my mind, should it be a hard and fast rule; that message removes the possibility of truly sacrificial giving, as giving is then done in the expectation of return. At that point it becomes not a gift but a transaction.

It is argued, of course, that faith demands that we should trust the divine promise that we will be taken care of and should not think to store up things in anticipation of times of dearth. Matt. 6:25-34 is one example, though there are others. Faith also, arguably, demands that we should do as Jesus advises the rich young man in (inter alia) Matt. 19:16-22, and sell all that we have and give it to the poor, but I do see very few people actually doing this within Christianity. I certainly haven’t done it myself, and part of my thinking chalks this up as one of the ways in which I am a bad Christian, or not-quite-yet a Christian. Granted, six years ago I was worth a negative amount, but I hadn’t got there by giving things away except in a very inventive interpretation.

Another part of my thinking reports that the evidence of history is that the very early Church actually did practice these principles, and this very probably resulted in the need for Paul to go round taking a subscription for the support of the Jerusalem Church. A reasonable guess from general economic principles suggests that they were doing this, taking their possessions, selling them and giving away the proceeds (or, to some extent, holding them in common), and that they had run out of people prepared to do this in support of their community and had fallen on hard times. A few people or a small community can get away with this in a world which doesn’t operate that way, a large group can’t.

I see this principle operating as well in one conception of the crucifixion, that which is principally drawn from the Fourth Gospel. In the synoptics, Jesus is seen as agonising over his future in the Garden of Gethsemane (“let this cup pass from me”) and as experiencing complete abandonment on the cross (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”). In the Fourth Gospel, however, it is all seen as being part of the divine plan, and Jesus is completely aware of this and approaches his impending death with complete equanimity. Then, of course, on the third day he rises and a little later ascends in glory. What we have is a very temporary death, not a full blown extinction of the self.

To my mind, the Fourth Gospel somewhat torpedoes the concept that the cross can function as a valid sacrifice to the extent which is clearly desired by many atonement theories. In the synoptics, at least Jesus is seen as agonised by the prospect, and although there are hints that a resurrection is anticipated, this agony indicates to me that Jesus sees this as a hope rather than as a certainty. This is removed in the Fourth Gospel; there, Jesus knows throughout that his death will be very temporary and suffers no agonies of mind or spirit (as opposed to agonies of body).

I would contrast the situation in W.B. Yeats’ verse drama “The Countess Cathleen”, in which the Countess sells her soul to the Devil in order to save her tenants from starvation and to redeem their souls from him, having previously been sold by them. As this act is altruistic, the Countess is redeemed anyhow on her death. While the actual result there is also that she is not lost, she thinks she will be. Not so Jesus for the authors of the Fourth Gospel; he has no doubt of his resurrection and ascent. Of course, Yeats is there referencing a ransom theory of atonement in which Jesus ransoms humanity from the Devil, but cannot be held by him (this was one of the two early theories of atonement). I liken this to God buying humanity back with a dud cheque (three days to clear…) but will probably get flak for this. It is, incidentally, partly because it looks like God using a dud cheque that I don’t resonate with that theory.

This, however, doesn’t seem to me to work as well for the satisfaction theory (God is owed a debt in consequence of humanity’s sin, only a sacrifice of the magnitude of Jesus’ death will suffice, God accepts that as payment) because it’s not a lasting death. Granted, it can be argued that the death of God the Son, even if temporary, is of incalculable value, but that still doesn’t seem to me adequate. It works even less well for the penal substitution theory (God exacts the death penalty for sin on one life of incalculable value instead of myriad low value lives) if it’s temporary, but I suppose could be regarded as a real death and then a restoration.

I still think that a real sacrifice needs to entail a real loss, not just a temporary one.

So I return to sacrificial giving. Of course, I don’t in theory consider this a bad thing (“in theory” because I’m not very good at actually doing it), and there are two preeminent reasons for this. Firstly, it clears the decks for single minded trust in God and love of humanity, removing the obstructions of clinging to existing possessions and trying to get more. It represents, perhaps, a self-chosen equivalent of the twelve step “rock bottom”, from which there is no way but up and no valid action but trust in others. My own “rock bottom” involved loss of rather more than just economic self-sufficiency, but giving away all you have is likely to make those around you doubt your sanity and will probably damage your social standing as well, so there are other “benefits”.

The other is that it affirms that the Kingdom of God is already here. I may be somewhat unusual among liberal theologians in that I take Jesus’ pronouncement that the Kingdom was already present among his followers (Luke 17:21 is one of several relevant texts) as being accurate. I don’t think he was talking about some apocalypse to come, I think he was talking of an apocalypse within some of those who followed him, a personal transformation, a metanoia. I see the analogies of the Kingdom with the mustard seed (Matt. 13:31) and with leaven (Matt. 13:33) as indicating that this new way of living, which involved love of neighbour as yourself, and sometimes to the exclusion of yourself in sacrificial giving, even to following his path to the cross, had already started inasmuch as it was practiced (I also see the Kingdom statements as indicating another new form of consciousness, that of the mystical entering into the Kingdom; the two seem to me to go hand in hand).

Of course, as I indicated earlier in this post, significant numbers of the early church seem to have practiced this and to have ended up in a parlous economic position, needing to be “bailed out” by Paul’s collections. I don’t know whether, had the movement continued to grow apace and fill the earth with this practice, whether that could have been sustained economically; it hasn’t been tried in any sizeable society, and in smaller ones has consistently got into difficulty. In practice, I’ve regarded this as “counsel of excellence” and tried to balance it with the need to stay able to meet my obligations to my family and to society (and in the past my employees), and worked on the basis that I would keep only enough for myself and the rest could be given away; that has chiefly been my time as I was in a position to use my time to work for justice and equity for individuals and for the community.

And I still wonder whether my not taking the extra step was due to pragmatism or to fear.

I’ve had some push back to my last post, “The fall and rise of Original Sin”, and want to engage with that. My friend is offended because he sees me as saying that God is a liar. I’m sad that what I’ve written has had that effect – unlike Peter Rollins (who I’ve read a bit of over the last 24 hours and to whom I’ll be coming back) I don’t aim to offend (and certainly not to the extent, as he has said, of offending myself as well!).

Giving offence is, then, not what I intended to do. At the most, I might be saying that on one interpretation of Genesis 2&3, the author of Genesis (I do not, of course, consider that biblical authors are transmitting God’s dictation in what they write!) is saying that God is a liar, on the basis that he states in Gen. 2:17 that God says  “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die”, but that the actual punishment (if indeed it should be regarded as punishment) is expulsion from the Garden, a life of toil rather than of plenty and painful childbirth for Eve and her descendants. Indeed, if we take the genealogies in Genesis 4&5 on face value, Adam survives for a lifespan of 930 years, which does not look like instant death (and as I indicated, the Hebrew of Gen. 2:17 has a connotation of an immediate consequence and is sometimes translated as “in that day you will die”).

It is not uncommonly argued that death was in fact a part of the punishment, in which case interpreters are forced to argue that “in that day” refers not to a day but to something like an age; this is also one way of interpreting the seven days of creation earlier in Genesis to avoid an insistence on a literal seven day creation, so tends to be an easy step to take at that point. However, as I also remarked, the fact that in Gen. 3:22 ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.’ means that it is really not legitimate to claim that actually Adam and Eve were immortal from the start, and only became mortal as a result of God’s punishment.

Another argument I hear about this is that this is analogous to God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac which is subsequently overturned; God is being merciful. This is, I think, a better argument than “well, God lied”, but still means that the serpent was being truthful in predicting that death would not actually be the consequence. There is, however, no wording indicating a change of mind, so this seems a stretch.

I did, of course, give another potential interpretation as an aside – that God was not so much lying as indulging in parental hyperbole (exaggeration). In fact, I think that within the logic of the story, this is probably what the author had in mind; I doubt he intended to portray God as mendacious, but suspect he thought that parental hyperbole was not “lying” but merely use of colourful language.

This seems to me to illustrate a profound difference between the way I approach biblical texts and the way my friend does; I try to read the texts as naturally as possible, and if they seem to be portraying something I take exception to, I note that but do not expend much effort on trying to explain it away. This is, of course, very different from approaching them with a developed conception of theology which then does not permit the author to have been saying something which may, on first reading, seem bizarre, or offensive, or contrary to the character of God as I understand that to be.

Interestingly, one strand of Jewish thought (though a minority opinion) holds that when God pronounces the whole of creation, after the creation of man on the sixth day to be “very good” (after merely pronouncing the results of the first to fifth days as “good”), given that man is seen to be sinful, this must mean that “very good” in fact means pretty much the exact opposite. This is, to my mind, an example of the imposition of a developed conception on the text, here holding that because creation including humanity is obviously not “very good” and yet God is apparently saying that it is, he must mean something other than the natural meaning of the words. Judaism does not see the Fall in the same way as Christianity, nor does it have a concept of original sin, as otherwise the Fall can be taken as terminating the state of “very good”, perhaps.

Where I do import ideas from scriptures which are outside a passage (or at least the individual book involved or the set of books written by the same author), it is generally limited to ideas which appear in previous scripture. Thus, when interpreting New Testament writers, I assume that they are working on the basis of the developed theology of Judaism as it was at the time. With Genesis 1-3, however, there is no prior Jewish scripture, so I do not find myself able to assume that the ideas of any form of Judaism are imported, and certainly not the idea that God is incapable of saying something which is not seen to be exactly as things turn out to be. I do, of course, take into account Mesapotamian creation myths in assessing Genesis 1-2, and note the similarities and differences, though these do not really impact on this discussion.

So, what I do not feel able to do is to decide that God cannot be seen to say anything which is other than exactly factually correct and thus decide that in fact, somehow, death “in that day” was one of the results of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and “in that day” needs to be reinterpreted accordingly; I just follow the evidence of the text.

Of course, it may be that the text says something offensive, something contrary to my view of who (or what) God is. Many parts of the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles fall into that category, and I cite as an example 1 Sam. 15:2-3 .

The link is to a discussion, which includes the following comment:- “Why would God have the Israelites exterminate an entire group of people, women and children included?
This is honestly a very difficult issue. We do not fully understand why God would command such a thing, but at the same time we trust God that He is just – and recognize that we are incapable of fully understanding a sovereign, infinite, and eternal God. As we look at difficult issues such as this one, we have to remember that God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.” This is an example of retrojecting our assumptions about God into a text, or in this case a set of texts. The base assumption is that the God who commands mercy not sacrifice and that we should love our neighbour as ourself in later scripture cannot be seen to be ordering genocide.

Of course, this assumes a few things itself. It assumes, for instance, that the authors of these books have correctly understood an inspiration, that they have not embroidered that inspiration with their own preconceptions, that that inspiration is from God, and that the character of God is unchanging.