New Year’s Resolution #1

Over my winter break I am reading Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (1980), and within its sage pages have found my New Year’s Resolution for 2009.

In the book, L’Engle (1918-2007) explores what it is that compels the writer to write—what she calls the “vocation of words”—and the despair that can settle in as well.  Throughout her life L’Engle copied quotations into her journal for midnight inspiration.  

In college she included an excerpt from Tchekov’s letters:

“You must once and for all give up being worried about successes and failures.  Don’t let that concern you.  It’s your duty to go on working steadily day by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes, which are inevitable, and for failures.”

And, years later, an inspiration from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

“You are looking outward, and that above all you should not do now.  Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody.  There is only one single way.  Go into yourself.  Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write.  This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: Must I write?  Delve into yourself for a deep answer.  And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and testimony to it.”

So, in 2009 I am going to Go into myself and Give up being worried about successes and failures.  For—though I make myriad mistakes and meet failure with publishers and critics, though I am not showered with praise, laurels or money—Write I must.

Postscript to Noah’s Rainbow

Postscript to Noah’s Rainbow: the Epistle to Diognetus

In my web travels today, I came upon the Early Christian “Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus,” dated to approximately 130-200 AD. You can read the full letter here. And, nice explanations of it here and here.

The letter’s anonymous author, Mathetes (simply Greek for “disciple”), is rather polemical in his discussion of Jewish tradition, as he attempts to firmly delineate between Christian and non-Christian practice for a second-century audience. Nonetheless the letter is an interesting document concerning the general understanding of a developing human condition in the tradition of Christian Apologetics.

Of particular interest to me—considering my previous couple of posts—the second-century letter espouses the teleologic notion that in the eras preceding the Incarnation humankind was not yet developmentally ready for the Christian doctrine of abiding compassion.

In the section entitled, “Why the Son was Sent so Late,” the letter reads, “As long then as the former time endured, [God] permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be vouchsafed to us; and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able…” [Italics mine.]

In his letter, Mathetes paints a picture of a compassionate, loving deity who—like a dear parent [an Abba]—patiently waits for his children to grow and mature. All the while, providing support and guidance along the way.

Noah’s Rainbow

Noah’s Rainbow: The Development of Human Intellect and Compassion

The first book of the Bible, Genesis, recounts the mythic stories of some of our earliest human ancestors. The name Genesis literally means “birth,” or “origin,” and it poetically charts how human beings developed knowledge, society and morality over time.

For instance, in Genesis 9—after the cataclysmic flood—God made a covenant with Noah. He said to Noah, “I promise that never again will all things be destroyed by a flood…As a sign of this everlasting covenant which I am making with you and with all living beings, I am putting my bow in the clouds. It will be a sign of my covenant with the world. Whenever I cover the sky with clouds and the rainbow appears, I will remember my promise to you and to all the animals…”

It is a wonderful Biblical myth to explain the first appearance of the rainbow. Furthermore, it describes both God’s compassion for all creation, and our human duty to protect it as an echo of God’s charity.

If the physical universe is now known to be constant, we can be pretty sure that rainbows have always existed. At least, as long as mists of water have refracted sunlight. Why, then, were Noah and his family seemingly the first people to see them? Perhaps, I would argue, they were not the first to physically see them, but rather the first to intellectually notice them.

With the Bible’s gradual introduction of themes and wonders to humanity, it seems we are meant to understand that both natural and divine revelation are painstakingly slow, unfurling processes that require the patient attending of many, many generations. Thus, each revelation is predicated upon the burgeoning intellect of our human species: our readiness for grasping the lesson.

When we read the Old and New Testaments as a Biblical teleology of increasing human awareness and reflection, we could be said to be retracing the our ancestors’ pathways to knowledge, sometimes articulated in mythical terms, and much later in more tangible, historical ones.

At the other end of the Bible, in the Gospels, Christ seems to affirm this suspicion. When Christ teaches about divorce law to the recalcitrant Pharisees, he tells them (insultingly) that some of the the laws handed down to Moses (many generations before) were given to the Israelites because they were stubborn, poor students. Christ said, “Moses gave you permission to divorce your wives because you were so hard to teach.” (Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5) Christ offers, instead, a new covenant to them, a new relationship with God that relies more on personal spiritual control instead of imposed outward contraints.

In another episode, again inciting the Jewish establishment with his ideological iconoclasm, Christ broke traditional, sacred laws about keeping Kosher. He made the point that “It is not what goes into a person’s mouth that makes him ritually unclean; rather, what comes out of it makes him unclean.” (Matthew 15:11; Mark 7:15) “Anything that goes into a person’s mouth goes into his stomach and then on out of his body. But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make a person ritually unclean. For from his heart come the evil ideas which lead him to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others. These are the things that make a person unclean.” (Matthew 15:17-20; Mark 7:18-23)

Heavy stuff, and apparently not everyone listening was ready for taking such personal responsibility. Perhaps we’re still not.

A few verses earlier, in order to underpin his argument, Christ recalled the prophecy of Isaiah: “These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach manmade rules as though they were my laws.” (Isaiah 29:13)

According to Jesus, God in the First Century is no longer pleased by simple rule obeyance. The increasing intellect and awareness of people demands increased humility and compassion in their words and deeds in order to be faithful. Indeed, Christ says we will be judged by God—not according to our diligence in abiding rules—but in the way in which we treat others.

As the penultimate creed Christ embraces the Golden Rule, the ethic of reciprocity: “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” Together with the Greatest Commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” it supercedes all others. Jesus said, “The whole Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Mark 12:28-34; Matthew 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-28)

If those who are researching “social evolution” are correct, the Golden Rule has always been with and within us. It just may be that its first philosophical introduction, in the “Axial Age” from 800-200BC (which I’ve discussed in “An Updated Answer for Job”), and its central place in Christ’s ministry, were unveiled at the precise moment when we humans were ready to understand its ultimate truth.

Just as we’ve never lost physical sight of Noah’s rainbow, how (in good faith) can humanity still overlook its covenant of stewardship? Or, disregard the universal Golden Rule? The answer may be that—like seeing and noticing—-understanding and accepting are two different things.

In our time, post the Axial Age, we are now making a conscious decision whether or not to inflict malice upon others or the environment. We must remember this in all areas, regardless of our political, religious or cultural traditions.

The choices are ours. And so are their consequences.

Making a Mountain Out of an Anthill

Making a Mountain Out of an Anthill: The Inner Drive for a Social Contract

I have been reading Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man (NY: Harper and Row, 1975), and gotten as far as his third section, “Thought.” His premise is fascinating, that consciousness underlies all matter. Consciousness is thus omnipresent, and ever-increases with biological complexity. It flows from geosphere to biosphere, then—with the advent of intelligence—the noosphere. On its evolutionary journey it rises from elemental chance to reasoned choice. Père Teilhard attempts to reconcile divinity with evolution, teleologically pointing life towards what he terms the “Omega Point:” a sort of Mobius strip for life whereby all life eventually folds back and returns to its origins in God.

Interestingly, this morning’s NY Times (July 15, 2008) carried a somewhat related story about the Harvard scientist, Edward O. Wilson, who studies ant social behavior and extrapolates lessons for humanity. Wilson is currently writing a treatise on “social evolution,” a controversial argument that connects of social behavior and genetics.

Wilson sees an evolutionary impetus for cooperative, selfless behavior that favors the group over the individual. The Times article states, “In humans, these may include genes that underlie generosity, moral constraints, even religious behavior.” It goes on to say, “Morality and religion, [Wilson] suspects, are traits based on group selection. ‘Groups with men of quality — brave, strong, innovative, smart and altruistic — would tend to prevail, as Darwin said, over those groups that do not have those qualities so well developed,’ Dr. Wilson said.”

Wilson and like-minded colleagues have come under fire from others in the Sciences, such as Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene [Oxford U. Press, 1976] and The God Delusion [Bantam Books, 2006]). Dawkins and his camp narrowly see genetics, the “survival of the fittest” and natural selection in individual terms, as an organism’s single minded (“take no prisoners”) drive to survive and reproduce at all costs. Wilsonians, on the other hand, believe that natural selection works on many levels, including “multi-level or group-level selection”: in essence, an evolutionary process favoring the survival of the group over the needs of an individual.

For many reasons, I am most tempted to agree with Wilson’s view, not Dawkins’, as I’ve made abundantly clear elsewhere in other articles, such as “Turtles All the Way Down” and “Krishna’s Dictum.”

I’m not yet sure how closely Père Teilhard’s thesis overlaps with Wilson’s, but if Wilson can prove an evolutionary theory of morality, his work would certainly seem to harmonize with Teilhard’s belief that something greater than mechanical evolution is “afoot in the world.”

When I complete The Phenomenon of Man, I will surely have further observations to add. Stay tuned.

Abba and Amen

Abba and Amen

I’ve been reading the book Myths of Religion by Andrew M. Greeley this week. It is a compendium of three of his books written in the Seventies, The Jesus Myth, The Sinai Myth and The Mary Myth.

I’m intrigued by Greeley’s definition of myth, one that diverges from Joseph Campbell’s insofar as Greeley sees myth as important in its content, rather than its structure. For Greeley, therefore, myths are not all basically the same regardless of culture, as Campbell contends. For Greeley myth is “not fairy tale or legend, not make-believe or fiction, but rather a story that points beyond itself and gives meaning, purpose and direction to life.”1 Greeley’s project is to investigate the Christian myth.

In The Jesus Myth Greeley (a Catholic priest, sociologist and author) makes perceptive and challenging assertions about the message of Christ, especially in regard to our increasing knowledge of his historical life. Unlike fundamentalists, Greeley is not threatened by Biblical History scholarship, rather he embraces it as a venue for deepening his faith. His steadfast assurance in his own faith cannot be shaken, and therefore he walks in the world without fear.

For Greeley it is not even particularly important to focus on whether or not Christ himself articulated his role as Messiah, but rather that we understand Christ’s original and difficult message—perhaps best summed up with two words: Abba and Amen.

The “Abba and Amen” concept originates in the writing of the German scholar, Joachim Jeremias.2 For Jeremias, Jesus’ difficult message was twofold. First, we are all God’s own beloved children, on intimate enough terms to address him as “daddy” (Abba). And, secondly, as Christ was God’s earthly incarnation, he preached on his own authority, and was thereby able to seal his words with “Amen.” Understand these, and all else will follow.

Greeley convincingly argues that much of Christianity has unfortunately fallen into the same snare that Christ’s culture of first-century Judaism had. Now, as then, believers are far more comfortable with defining and enforcing laws, litigation and rules/ethics for daily living rather than actually hearing Christ’s revolutionary call to hope, faith and love/charity in all thought and action. (In essence, I Corinthians 13:13; “But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”) By demanding that people live these three, Christ ushers in the Kingdom of Heaven: not as a future state of being, but brought to fruition in the here and now.

Greeley believes that while an ethical (perhaps secular) life is laudable, if it denies any future beyond death, it fails to feed the soul’s universal, intrinsic need for hope in permanence. For Greeley the answer is Christianity. Christian faith proves the individual’s assurance of God’s presence in all facets of space and time. Christian hope is faith’s extension; it means that life is meaningful, joyful and ceaseless—an affirmation of divine omnipotence, symbolized by the Resurrection. Christian love is the earthly witness of God’s love; every act of love/charity is a recollection and extension of the “insanely generous” gift of divine love and forgiveness of transgressions.

The greatest of these is love because it is both God’s greatest gift and his greatest challenge to us. Christians are called to live all three every day and in every place, regardless of life’s whims or our neighbors’ reactions. Christians are to joyfully invite each and every one to the liberating celebration of living boundless love, what Christ termed the “Wedding Banquet.”

Hating the sin, but loving the sinner; finding the beam in our own eye; seeing the divine in the here and now; approaching the Kingdom as little children; these are difficult to follow, but in not following them, we fare even worse.
——
1. Greeley, Myths of Religion (NY: Warner Books, 1989), 1.
2. Jeremias, The Lord’s Prayer, trans. John Reumann, Facet Books Biblical Series—8 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964); Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965). Cited in Greeley, 71.

Gabriel’s Revelation

Gabriel’s Revelation

In today’s NY Times there appeared an article on a controversial first-century BC stone tablet with two columns of painted Hebrew text, the so-called “Gabriel’s Revelation” tablet. This “stone Dead Sea Scroll” recounts an apocalyptic vision revealed by the Angel Gabriel, one that involves a suffering messiah who will redeem Israel through bloody sacrifice and be resurrected after three days. The Jewish text relies heavily on the Old Testament prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai. What makes it controversial is that it seems to be an archetype for the Jesus movement.

In part, there is small-scale controversy among archeologists and scholars arising from its various readings, due to some missing text and faded lines. In particular, in the faded line (line 80) addressing the “prince of princes” which appears (to some) to read “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

Undoubtedly, the “Revelation” text helps to situate the New Testament Gospels in a new light. Perhaps, as the scholarly evidence works itself out, the stone will further elucidate the historical context surrounding the life of Jesus and ancient Jewish culture. For instance, some scholars believe that the scroll coincides with the career of a man named “Simon,” killed by a Herodian commander, as mentioned in the first-century writings of the Jewish historian, Josephus.

It remains unlikely, however, contrary to what Israel Knohl (professor of Bible Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem) states—that the common understanding of the mission of Christianity will change. Referring to the tablet as evidence of a purely political view of a Jewish messiah, in the Times article Knohl states, “This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

There are many glaring problems with his opinion. First, it categorically neglects the repeated attestations that Christ and his apostles understood that his death and resurrection were a new covenant to abolish sin, as represented by the Last Supper. (Matthew 26:26-30; Luke 22:14-20; I Corinthians 11:23-25; Acts 2:36-42; Acts 5:31-32) And, that they felt this salvation was open to Jews and Gentiles alike. (John 5:19-29; John 6:25-59; Acts 10:34-43; Acts 13:26-35; Acts 23:1-11; Romans I:16-17; I Corinthians 15:1-11; we might also cite Isaiah 25:6-9).

Second, Knohl intimates that (rather than a trailblazer) Christ was simply following an earlier construct of a resurrected leader, as laid out by this tablet. In fact, Knohl wrote a book back in 2000—which predates knowledge of the slab—that also outlines his predictive vision of a pre-Jesus suffering Messiah, based upon the Dead Sea Scrolls, and early apocalyptic and rabbinic literature. In both, Knohl neglects the originality of the Gospel accounts and the role of prophecy-fulfilled in the New Testament.

For example, though there were many messiah-like figures in Roman-occupied Palestine, most were military or politically-motivated warriors, not peaceful resisters who were given the severest form of capital punishment without committing a crime. And, according to the Evangelists’ testimony, Christ was always very clear that earlier divine revelation and Messianic prophecy were fulfilled in his life and work. Thus, just because someone else predicted a certain chain of events, or articulated this idea of Resurrection after three days, it does not nullify the originality of the life and teachings of Christ.

Perhaps most importantly, none of those patriot figures (before or after Christ) catalyzed an ecumenical religious movement that transformed world history. (How many of them can you name?) In essence, if Christ was “just another zealot” how then could we explain how so many apostles and early Christians were willing to proselytize across the Roman Empire and perish as martyrs if they themselves did not fully believe in the Resurrection message? Why would a third of the world continue to do so, even at such a chronological and cultural remove?

Dr. Knohl and his colleagues are laudable for unveiling new knowledge about ancient Jewish culture in the interest of history. But, like those in the science community who attempt to use science to answer questions of philosophy, or the Jesus Seminar of the 1990s who also worked to pare the historical man away from the myth, Dr. Knohl will find that scientific and historical debate can never fully account for the Christian phenomenon, one based upon passionate individual testimony and unflinching faith.