This is a quick non-spoilerous response to something that irks me: the persistent "organized Christianity is really misguided, so we just have to peel off the untruths of church history to get to God" tap-dance.
Try as he might, Mack could not escape the desperate possibility that the note just might be from God after all, even if the thought of God passing notes did not fit well with his theological training. In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God's voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners' access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. (65-66)Young gives an overstated and simplistic answer to the organized-religious-tradition-versus-personal-encounter-with-God question. It bothers me for a number of reasons:
None of his old seminary training was helping in the least. (91)
- The "ancients" didn't have a direct pipeline to God any more than we do. God saw fit to meet humanity in community. In the Hebrew Bible God speaks to Israel through the law and the prophets, and to the rest of the nations through Israel. God cares about how sin structures society - how nobody cares for the orphans and the widows. And God singles out people primarily to call out the society on its sin - not just to deal with personal demons. It's no different with Jesus: he storms the Temple; he rebukes the practices of a "wicked generation"; he talks about the coming kingdom of heaven. And this calling is life-shattering: Isaiah w/ coals in his mouth, Ezekiel lying on his side, Hosea's children with their shameful names; Christ on the Cross; Paul in prison w/ a thorn in his side.
- Reading theology / biblical scholars and doing the seminary thing and steeping ourselves in the tradition of the church can probably take the blinders off of us and help us understand God better than we otherwise would have. Without the challenging perspectives of Christians from the past (who don't share our modern preoccupations) as well as Christians from other corners of the church (who have slightly different ideas about things), I'm liable to spin dangerously on the merry-go-round of my own mind. Young's presentation of Mack's seminary-learning as insipid sounds too eerily like a fellow-grad-student's knee-jerk response to the adoration of icons after returning from a long research trip to Moscow: "There's just so much in Eastern Orthodoxy that's keeping people from really knowing God."
- It's dangerous to set a non-mediated (tradition-less, church-less) individual encounter with God as the norm of vital faith. (So far, it seems like we're supposed to see Mack as normal. His pain, even though horrible, is the kind of pain anyone could suffer - part of the reason it's so traumatic for the parents here to read it. It's not prophet-pain: we're meant to identify with it in a way that we would never identify with Ezekial's or Hosea's pain. So the story normalizes unmediated faith.) Besides overlooking bullet-point one (God talks to people as a group), it sets most people up for a horrible crisis of faith. What happens when God feels absent? When prayer feels dry and lonely?
15 comments:
"it sets most people up for a horrible crisis of faith. What happens when God feels absent? When prayer feels dry and lonely?"
Part of my tension throughout. The encounter with God becomes more of a fictionalized account of a good home-cooked meal.
I agree with your points mostly, but not absolutely. I recognize the wounderful purpose and need for the church, even for theology and tradition, however without a personal encounter, it's all dead. As a former Catholic myself, I have a REAL hard time when evangelicals bash the more traditional faiths and decalre them dead, but it doesn't change the fact that most of my family thinks the mere fact that they go to church makes them heaven-bound (don't tell my Baptisty friends I said that...)
All the love for churchy things aside, it doesn't change the fact that others have a problem with the organized religion thing for good reason.
Mack's (and possibly Young's) position on the church is a common one and one I hear from several of my friends. Which has lead me to realize that I have to be the representation of the body for them and hope and pray that they can heal enough to re-enter community.
This book chronicals Mack's healing, his discovery of unity and community in God's character and his need for it in his own life(starting with getting honest and reconnecting with his wife)
It's a two-edged sword: Christ died for the church, the Church is his beloved, his bride therefore we must be as madly in love with it as he is....but....
To put the traditions and practice and even theology of the church above our love and relationship of Christ is fatal.
Ashley B.
Ashley, I basically agree w/ what you say - the same thinking kept me from becoming Catholic (long story).
I guess I'd just slant it differently.
"To put the traditions and practice and even theology of the church above our love and relationship of Christ is fatal."
The way I see it, these things are so connected (i.e. I encounter Christ personally in the breaking of the bread at church, in reading and discussing Augustine or Richard B. Hays w/ a group of friends) that to speak of my individual encounter apart from these communal encounters doesn't make sense to me. Sure, I encounter God alone in prayer, and ultimately as an individual in all these organized contexts, but I feel like these other things nourish my prayer. They help me encounter God without making Him in my own image; they help me realize that knowing God is a continual process.
I agree w/ Young that the church has problems. Thank God there are other people with different perspectives to come up with imaginative solutions. I think bc I became a Christian in my early twenties (I'm now 27), and because the church has only ever been a blessing to me, I'm pretty impatient with skeptics of organized religion.
I guess I'm also sensitive to Young's version of knowing God w/o the seminary dross because I'm watching two of my best friends, both grad students, who both grew up evangelicals w/ the understanding that a personal relationship with God meant that they would feel God's presence, struggle with the cross of feeling God's absence. Only they don't see it as a cross. They see it as God not existing.
"The way I see it, these things are so connected (i.e. I encounter Christ personally in the breaking of the bread at church, in reading and discussing Augustine or Richard B. Hays w/ a group of friends) that to speak of my individual encounter apart from these communal encounters doesn't make sense to me..."
Not to continually validate each and every one of your quotes, but holy crap that is good.
Some on this forum have broken bread and shared wine (or beer, perhaps) within the last few months. Some of us have done so over fourth of July fireworks (don't deny it Ash). In those encounters with fellow believers, whether discussing personal failings, reservations, or successes, I feel most especially close to God. It is church.
But only so long as our conversation breaks beyond the limits of "jiminy christmas, the Barrington subdivision must have spent over 10 grand on fireworks, did you see that one that exploded into a bright red lexus..."
I don't think I realized how much I've been missing out on while my brain has been living off of Barney and Backyardigans for the past 5 years. I am fascinated by how this blog keeps me spinning between "things that make you go, 'hmmm'" and laughing out loud. I'm lovin' it and my brain is feeling spoiled! Keep it coming! I'll have to think more deeply about some of these things later...after I get the carrot out of my youngest son's nose! --Ashley Shaver
I apologize for the use of the "," where I should have used the ";". My editor didn't catch it.
olivia - i am of the ilk that believes organized religion is just about as far from the gospel of Christ as one person can get. Holy Spirit united relationships are one thing. breaking-the-bread-of-life-sharing community is one thing. both are good, holy things. but this part and parcelled half-truth giving as it best befits our institutional goals and budgetary means "as a body" is something that men invented in order to feel that they had some control over a control-less movement of God.
i like ashley brock's comment, and i agree with most of your response to her. particularly, i agree with your ideas that we meet God equally in private as in community. but i remain skeptical of the organized religion. reeks of power, money hungry, control freaks to me. but that's just my experience.
sheesh, i am finding all kinds of permission to be overly honest here.
olivia - my goodness. you've had the hamster wheel in my head spinning for days on end. i keep thinking about your ideas here. it would be great if we could chat this stuff up over tea and my wife's totally amazing zucchini bread - but, alas, we are here.
a few ideas:
- The "ancients" didn't have a direct pipeline to God any more than we do.
actually, Christ gave us that direct pipeline to God through the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of Christ in us. as in Christ is our priest and mediator - no one else. like you said, the old testament folks met God through the law and the prophets. very few actually spoke to or with God directly. but all that changed with Jesus. now, because of Christ in us, we are the fulfillment of the law and we are the prophets. because of Christ in us, we are the very few who actually speak to and with God freely. this is a good thing. Christ in us is surely our hope of intimate glory with the Old Testament Yahweh.
- And God singles out people primarily to call out the society on its sin - not just to deal with personal demons. It's no different with Jesus:
again, the nationalistic, people group dealings of sin and affliction were done away with with Jesus on the cross. we have that symbol in the two thieves each receiving due for individual sins. not only that, we see Christ going away from the crowd to have intimate encounters with individuals, ie. zaccheus, the samaritan woman at the well, nicodemus, lazarus. looking at the story of the hemmoraging woman, we see Jesus' compassion for a single woman exceeding that of the multitudes. this is good news for you and me. this means that i do not answer for the sins of america or even my local church body. it also means that i get to inimately meet and feast with God the Father. this is the good news of the Kingdom of God - that it has already come, and that it is come through Christ in us. the Kingdom of God is already alive and well inside of you. you are the fullfillment of the law and the prophets and you embody the Kingdom of God - you alone because of Christ. that's the best news all day!
- he talks about the coming kingdom of heaven. And this calling is life-shattering: Isaiah w/ coals in his mouth, Ezekiel lying on his side, Hosea's children with their shameful names; Christ on the Cross; Paul in prison w/ a thorn in his side.
again, the Kingdom of Heaven is come, and it is come in the form of Christ in you. also, while the coming of the Kingdom of God shatters us and breaks our bones, it also heals us and mends us back together better than before. the Kingdom of God looks like blind eyes receiving sight, hemmoraged bleeding stopped, a samaritan woman made whole, leprosy healed, demons cast out, more wine poured out a wedding feasts, our sins forgiven, our provisions met in abundance, our hearts comforted, these conversations between total strangers in a book club proclaiming a mutual hope to see the Kingdom of God manifested in the earth. these are good things. holy things. things that should make us dance in the aisle.
- Without the challenging perspectives of Christians from the past ... as well as Christians from other corners of the church ..., I'm liable to spin dangerously on the merry-go-round of my own mind.
you are so right: we need to wisdom of the generations past. proverbs is chock full of that calling. we do need the shoulders of giants to lift us above the philosophy and prophets of the modern age. however, their instruction is not your glory - Christ in you is your hope of glory. God's divine power has given you everything you need for life and godliness through your knowledge of Christ. it is through Christ alone, not the wisdom of the ages, that you have been given the great and precious promises that will help you participate in the divine nature and escape the gnostism of intellectual religion. this is exciting. this means that you - because you have diligently sought wisdom, but exponetially moreso because you hope in Christ - have a voice and power that can lead others to the manifestion of Christ in them, full of healings, deliverances, resurrections, signs and wonders, and even wisdom.
- Besides overlooking bullet-point one (God talks to people as a group), it sets most people up for a horrible crisis of faith.
bless you, friend, for the crisis of God's omnipotent voice blasting out all the windows of your cathedral. and bless me with the same. Christ has come to clear the air, to open our eyes and ears to the presence of our Father's heart and compassion that turns Him from the pressing crowd to intimately address us as daughter and son when we simply whisper His name. bless you in the revelation of that. and bless the Christ that is in you, your hope of glory.
ps. on your recommendation, i began reading SILENCE this morning. will post a review when i finish it. thanks for mentioning it.
Well.
I just had Church over that.
Olivia, I wish we could all meet up and surround your struggling friends.
Kev,
Would now be a good time to discuss the Christian "jingoistic... poo-heads" I referenced on Rusty's Friday post at www.commonguild.blogspot.com?
seth - you said "poo." huh-huh. a-huh-huh. that was cool.
Hamster, I guess I think we have to acknowledge that our connection w/ God is not perfectly realized or consummated in the present. I believe that Christ dwells in my heart through the Holy Spirit, but I do not believe that I have pipeline access to all of God's thoughts or directions for humanity. I think we need to face the reality that we live in the "not yet" - we are "already" in Christ, and Christ "already" dwells in us, but we are "not yet" fully present w/ God. "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. For now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known."
I think that the nationalistic / people-group way of dealing with people changed w/ Jesus, but it didn't go away completely. See Romans - we all supposedly sinned "in Adam." What's up with that? I am not condemned as an individual, but as part of humanity. And Paul rebukes communities and their practices as a group more than he singles people out. I'm not saying we should ignore personal sin - I'm just saying that the main story is about groups, not individuals. That in a real sense the very idea that I *am* an individual, and can relate to God individually (as opposed to as one facet of the community that formed me and that I in turn help shape) might be a modern fiction and not something that the early Christians thought.
Also, Hamster: do you still participate in a church, even though you're skeptical of organized churchy religion? If so, why?
Oh, I also meant to say: I think we understand the term "kingdom of God" differently. I think it's a reality that God set in motion through Christ, and that God's continuing to make happen through people's work in the world, and that it is not yet fully realized. The kingdom of God is shalom, things being "the way they are supposed to be" in God's design, "the new heavens and the new earth." It's another one of those "already, but not quite yet" things. So I don't embody it fully, but through God's grace and because of the work of Christ on the Cross, I can be a part of it.
(I got this from N.T. Wright.)
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