Running from the Void

A few Sundays back we had a guest speaker at our church named Pete Rollins. I enjoyed listening to him, though I cannot say I was truly amazed at anything he said. He did manage to name-drop several authors during his talk which allowed me to conjecture that he might have known what he was talking about. And, his talk did initiate a small debate about the nature of our desire for God. The gist was essentially that we have to seek God purely for himself, and that whatever ulterior motives we amend to this reason will ultimately keep us from God.

This maxim was offered in the context of a conversation on nihilism. Mr. Rollins point was that if we seek God as an escape from nihilism, we are really seeking to alleviate our fear and as such will miss God. He will not take it upon himself as a great honor to help ground our otherwise godless lives by infusing them with meaning. If we are seeking God to escape meaninglessness, our main focus is on meaning and not God.

This could apply to any number of things we expect God to do for us. God is not in the services industry though we often would like to assume he is. This lead to Rollins' idea that we should include nihilism as a part Lent. He said it partially joking, but myself and several others took it as the best idea he offered all night.

Later one friend objected that no one ever actually achieves such pure intentions in seeking God. We all have a muddled variety of intentions, and the idea that we can distill out the one's which are simply for God's own sake is too idealistic. Personally, I think it all comes back to the question of what kind of God do we believe in? I agree that perhaps a majority of people believe in God because he fulfills their needs in one way or another. Yet this is precisely what many philosophers have, for centuries now, critiqued as a human projection. If the God we profess conveniently happens to tie it all together for us and fill in all or our gaps of understanding, then is it not just as likely that we have invented him for this purpose as the idea that we were created with these needs already in place?

I think meaning is ultimately a function of the human psyche. We use meaning to give our lives a narrative and help us assign value to our experiences. I'm not convinced that meaning as such is a metaphysical reality somehow attached to our here and now. In short, I agree that God is often vital for us to find meaning in our lives, but I'm fairly confident that we create this meaning based on our experience of God; not the other way around. In other words, God does not have a single narrative which assigns us meaning when we gain a fleeting glimpse of it. Rather, we create meaning, and God is the great Other which mysteriously guides us as we fluidly determine our own narrative.

This is why the idea of acknowledging nihilism in church does not bother me. The experience of emptiness and nothingness ultimately reflects back on the human psyche, but not particularly on God. The experience of nullity is a valid experience that I do not believe can be escaped or avoided, but only transcended. Perhaps not for all of us, as my friend pointed out in his objections. There are plenty of people getting by just fine not worrying about such things. Yet, for myself and many others, running from nihilism only seems to testify to the fact that it is true.

I have found that if we are relying on God to be the source of meaning, we are expecting him to exist for the purpose of assuaging our fears and helping us find contentment. Certainly God can be a part of these human drives, but we should not expect him to fulfill them 'from the outside'. If we await some exterior gift of meaning we will ultimately be either disappointed or deluded as many a cult leader has been. Meaning is our responsibility, and as such, based on the frailty of human nature, the experience of nihilism is valid and common. Yet, hopefully it is something that we, as members of communities who persevere, can find grace to go through and surpass.

If meaning is actually a function of the human mind, then it would seem that all narratives are somehow cheapened, and that the values which structure our societies are potentially compromised. As one friend of mine commented, "Nihilism for Lent? It just wouldn't matter if we did or if we didn't." Yet, I find that just as many people who have never had a nihilistic thought in their lives and are fully convinced their own narrative is absolute still live in ways that make a mockery of their purported 'meaning'. There is certainly a level at which theists can live out a praxis of nihilism regardless of what they proclaim they believe. Just the same I think that many people who have declared the universe to be void of meaning are still drawn toward a sort of ethical action which "adds meaning to their lives". It's as though acting out meaningfully in some valid sense creates that which they thought was lost or nonexistent.

In any case, I don't think we can simply avoid the issue. Nihilism is one of several dead elephants polluting the air of our sanctuaries and worship services, and less and less people will find Christianity worthwhile until we do something about the stench. The logical first step would simply be to acknowledge it. The second might be to face our fear of it soberly and not expect God to immediately step in and palliate our discomfort.

Sex and Abortions

A little over a week ago my friend sent me this article about evangelical sexuality. It is actually a very balanced analysis, and I don't know if I can recommend it highly enough. Read it. There are no excuses not to.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_talbot?currentPage=all

(cut and paste since hyperlinks on this site suck)

I certainly have nothing as profound to say as this article, but I figured I might as well offer my opinions, whatever they may be worth.

Up until a few years ago I could have been a poster-child for the abstinence movement. In high school, shortly after converting, I was given a promise-key, which represented "the key to my heart." My youth minister suggested we keep it on our keyring to remind us to remain pure until marriage. I kept it on their all the way through college, always thinking I would be rewarded by God for my intense striving for sexual purity. I don't intend to reveal any more of my story, only I wanted to express up front that I am intimately acquainted with all the evangelical arguments for abstinence. Even more so, I was fully successful most of my life at staying faithful to such "noble" commitments.

Yet now, years later, I think all the rhetoric that goes into evangelical notions of sexuality is farcical. Allow me to state how my opinions over the last few years have changed:

1. Sex is biological. I say this in opposition to the metaphysical tones that Christianity so often imposes on it. I say this as one who formerly believed that any sexual act outside of marriage had the potential to leave dark marks (sin) on one's soul. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sex is programmed into our DNA . . . literally. It is something that we are biologically determined to seek. As such I cannot see how it is an evil force that is warring against our souls, as is pathetically purported by all-too-many ministers.

2. Sex is political. I'm pretty convinced that the excessive public concern for issues like abortion and gay marriage center around political privilege and social control. Each are threats to the values of the patriarchal household, and as such are politically provocative. This is the source of all the intense debate, not any of the supposedly "spiritual" reasons. As for abstinence, I think that focusing the attention of so many on the metaphysical dangers of sex is merely a way of maintaining the social order. Sexuality, being biological, is something that the majority of people must deal with every day. If people are consumed with anxieties over their sexuality (be it healthy or otherwise) then they generally have little time to cause any problems elsewhere. In other words, by declaring sex to be "every man's battle" all people turn inward and become blind to the more important issues continually crossing what used to be their field of vision. It's a splendid way to make people ignorant and socially impotent.

3. Celibacy: it's not healthy. Whether priests or twenty-something singles groupers, the ideal of celibacy is rarely met. Certainly there are a few like Paul who are "called" to it, but they would represent a minuscule minority. As the article above mentions for teenagers, I would assume that 'success' rates for adult celibacy are dismal. Again, humans are sexual by design, and the idea that they should strive for asexuality until desperation or luck lands them in a state/church sanctioned union, is downright stupid.

I am not calling for libertinism. I think all the apprehensiveness over sex is rooted in precarious and difficult social concerns; the most obvious being child-rearing. I am also fully aware of the deep effects which sex can have on the human psyche and social interaction. That being said, I think that the solutions offered by evangelicalism are hypocritical, impractical, and at their core, fundamentally flawed.


As a related topic, let me further address the issue of abortion. I am unashamedly Pro-Choice for reasons stated above, and probably many others. Another friend of mine, who is Pro-Life, wrote a wonderfully informative blog about abortion.

http://suburbanjesus.blogspot.com/2008/10/abortion.html

Read that one too. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. I have no problem with the idea that life begins at conception. My problem is the preposterous inconsistency with which Pro-Life people apply such arguments. I rarely hear stories of fertility clinics being bombed even though the number of embryos which they discard is certainly high. Rick Warren somehow doesn't refer to this as a "holocaust", though if life begins at the union of sperm and egg, it certainly qualifies.

2. Pro-Life should be anti-war, but that is rarely the case. It should also imply anti-death penalty, anti-gun rights, pro-health care (of the free variety), and anti-poverty stances. Again, generally not the case.

3. Pro-Life should imply some sort of quality of life standard, but generally Pro-Life advocates are apathetic in this regard. They are pro-life, whether it's a good life or not.

4. I personally do not think the issue should be "When does life begin?", but instead "When does personhood begin?" My personal stance is that when a fetus develops neurologically enough to be distinctly human that abortion should be strongly discouraged. I am certainly against 'late decision' abortions. Yet, even in these situations, I believe that continued gestation cannot be absolutely mandated.

Part of the polemic of Pro-Life people is the mythical liberals who love abortions. As someone who personally knows several women who have had abortions, allow me to state for the record: NO ONE WANTS AN ABORTION! The legend of the abortion-hungry, liberal sex-addict represents the cavernous depth of conservative stupidity. No one wants an abortion. They are painful on a physical, emotional, social, and spiritual scale. They are sad. Horribly, horribly sad. Yet, not quite as sad as the thought of raising an unintended child in poverty which was created by the same conservatives who demanded that the child they now care nothing about be born.

I am firmly convinced that a Pro-life stance should unquestionably include:
1. A preference for adoption which is practiced rather than preached.
2. A concession to pay higher taxes in order to ensure the wellfare of the unintended child that must be born.
3. A deep concern to clean up the foster-care system (again, practiced)
4. A lifestyle that actively seeks to aid single-mothers, especially financially and socially.

Those who do not display such practices are casting severe doubts on the validity of their Pro-Life views. And, insofar as they seek to challenge the Pro-Choice movement, they are acting hypocritically and unethically towards women who are choosing because they see no other choice. If there is another choice, we should ask what is blocking their view of it?

Thoughts on Karen Armstrong's History of God

I just finished reading Armstrong's book this last week. I read it because I felt I should. It is a book that is fairly well known, and was a New York Times bestseller for a while. I've had several friends inform me I should read it. So, I picked it up a few months ago thinking it would be a bit of light side-reading. This was not particularly the case. A good way to describe this book is difficult yet accessible. It is certainly no easy read. Armstrong has an impressive vocabulary, and certainly is not shy about displaying her scholarship. Yet, this is not an impossible book, and given that it's mostly history it does a good job of not being too boring.


For any interested in hearing her speak for herself, a good talk can be found here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_for_compassion.html

This book began by going over the history of the time surrounding the birth of Judaism. Armstrong does gloss over many contours of this history, but I don't get the impression she does so in ignorance. The point of the book is to display the evolution of the concept of God among the three prophetic faiths. She is attempting to show that each of the three faiths have had an amazingly varied conception of God that can be traced throughout history. To achieve this feat, Armstrong has no option but to be reductive, and still it is a far cry from being simplistic of any of these faiths.













One point that she hammers out through the entire book is the subjectivity of God.
"Indeed, the statement 'I believe in God' has no objective meaning, as such, but like any other statement only means something in context when proclaimed by a particular community."

She points out that many of the most profound religious thinkers of the last two millennia have all known that their experiences of God were totally subjective. All their descriptions were not of objective realities but only similes and metaphors for what would always defy language. I find it difficult to state just how relieving I find such an attitude.

Another claim which I found equally refreshing was the idea of the nothingness of God. Thousands of years ago theologians came to the realization that all that can be said of God is what he is not. All positive statements, due to their being anchored in common mundane reality, equate God with something that he is far beyond. We say God is personal, yet he is certainly much more than anything we would identify as "a person". Therefore he is not personal, since he is far beyond the scope of that word. All the things that we would say God is, he really is not. So, in a profound since God is Nothing, or No-Thing. He cannot be encompassed by out thoughts, our language, our beliefs, doctrines.

As an intellectual, I found this unbelievably relieving. While to some I could see how such thoughts could lead to the demise of faith, for me it came as a resuscitating breath. I had heard such thoughts before, but Armstrong did a fantastic job of putting them into context, which seemed to make them much more accessible.

Perhaps my favorite insight in this book is the false dichotomy of intellectuals vs. mystics. Armstrong does a brilliant job of displaying that the most famous mystics were those who began as intellectuals, and that most intellectuals have some substantial mysticism to their thought. As such, they do not represent opposite poles, but flip sides of the same coin. Mysticism frequently is the end result of intelligence which has become aware of its own limits. This is not remotely close to a rejection of the value of knowledge, but rather an estimation of it which delivers one to a healthy realization of finitude. Nor is this necessarily a mysticism which involves feeling wrapped in the tender arms of the Lord, though it certainly could be. Mystics encompass an infinite range of experiences from smiling into the face of God to the lonely terror of the Great Silence where we once thought their was a personal diety. Neither is illegitimate.

This all validated much of the shock of Emptyness that I have felt for some time in regard to religion. It affirmed that none of us really know what we're talking about, yet that does not mean we have no reason to talk. Contrary to what Wittgenstein preposed, silence is not the only valid response, though it may well be a road that should be travelled more. In fact, Armstrong's work brought me to the realization that I was becoming just as intolerant of "believers" as fundamentalists were of "unbelief". As such I'm only serving to perpetuate the violence. The ever-important point is that understanding is the root of compassion, and I am certainly guilty of forsaking the attempt to understand those whom I oppose.