Category Archives: Philosophy of Religion

#24 Everybody goes to heaven, right?

31 Sunday May 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology

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Most Americans agree that yes, everybody goes to heaven after they die.  Not buying it?  The part about most Americans agreeing that everybody goes to heaven? Here’s the empirical evidence.  A few months ago, a study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (mentioned by Charles Blow in a New York Times editorial) showed that 70 percent of Americans believe religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life.

So it’s true, 70% of Americans agree–everybody goes to heaven.  

Still not buying the poll data?  Evangelicals didn’t buy it, because they argued that the respondents had obviously not understood the question.  After all, Jesus clearly states in the gospel of John, “I am the way, the truth and the life:  no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”  In other words, there’s a segregationist sign posted over the only gate into heaven.  It says:  Christians only.  To believe otherwise is a heresy called universalism.

So Pew decided to ask the question again.  The results, released in December 2008, confirmed their initial findings.  Sixty-five percent said that yes, other religions could lead to eternal life.  Just to make sure no one was confused, Pew also asked its respondents to specify which religion(s) could lead to eternal life.  The sixty-five percent yes-sayers threw open heaven’s gate to pretty much every religion.  Fifty percent even said atheists would pass muster, and people with no religious faith, too.  How’s that for generous?  So tear down that sign, Mr. Evangelical.

Okay, so the majority of 21st century Americans agree that almost everyone goes heaven after they die.

But if God doesn’t hold us accountable in the afterlife, is it okay to set aside meaningful discussions about moral requirements in this life?

That’s not a rhetorical question, since polls show that religious Americans, whether affiliated with a specific faith tradition or not, whether liberal or conservative, are shearing moral requirements from their theologies (see Post #23 for more on this topic).

The mystic and universalist, Julian of Norwich, offers an intriguing answer to balancing a belief in an all-loving God with the impulse to make people accountable in the afterlife for the harm they’ve caused in this life.  Julian, a woman who sought God actively, was rewarded in 1373, when she was a little over thirty years old, by several mystical experiences that she called showings. 

Try as she might to find the Church’s ‘fatherly,’ angry, and punishing God, she found only a God who “is the goodness that cannot be angry, for he is nothing but goodness.”  The fact that any of us exists, Julian reasoned, is proof that God isn’t an a punishing God.  Since everyone commits sins of commission or omission, if God could become angry, we’d all be gonners.  According to Julian, human beings, not God, are the ones who judge whether a deed is well done or is evil.  As far as God is concerned, even our “lowest deed is done as well as the best”.  And since God is nothing but goodness, Julian concluded that we’re all heaven-bound. 

How does she balance a loving God with moral requirements?  Julian handles this difficult theological quandary by finding a sneaky way to introduce a system of reward.  Based on her showings, she identifies a sliding scale of heavenly bliss.  The first and lowest degree of bliss in heaven is God’s gratitude for our service, a gratitude that is “so exalted and so glorious that it would seem to fill the soul.”  The second degree of bliss in heaven indulges our pride because God makes a public announcement to all the souls in heaven, praising our good deeds.  The third degree of bliss is a pleasure that remains forever “as new and delightful” as it did when we first felt it.  

To assign the appropriate degree of bliss, God uses a formula mostly based on time and length of service.  The formula favors those who “willingly and freely offered their youth”, as well as those who, even for one day, served “with the wish to serve forever.”

According to Julian then, everybody goes to heaven, everybody gets bliss, but depending on our deeds, we are eligible for one of three degrees of bliss.  Her God is perched on the narrow edge of that judge’s bench in the sky but hasn’t been shoved off altogether.  This all-about-love-God, to whom Julian prayed, sits in minimal judgment of us. 

Like her, many religious Americans are quite sure that any God worthy of the name loves us and is too good to condemn us.  The mercy-justice issue may continue to trouble us in spite of a creative solution like Julian’s.  Is a three-bliss kind of God really the kind of God we want?  

Because if we all end up blissed-out in heaven, is God just? 

If God grants first-degree (or second or third-degree) bliss to the daughter who routinely calms her work-rage by pummeling her frail, elderly father, is that God just?  Is that God fair?  

If God grants bliss to the single mother who turns a blind eye while her boyfriend sexually assaults her ten-year old daughter, is that God just?  Is that God fair?

But why dwell on this issue at all?  Must we insist that God be fair when it comes to putting out the welcome mat at heaven’s door?  No.  We need not insist that God be fair.  

Maybe Julian’s right and we get assigned one of three degrees of bliss.  Right or not, we can agree with her conviction that “the more the loving soul sees…generosity in God, the gladder” we will be to serve God all of our days.  Simply put:  belief in a loving God leads us to be more loving ourselves.  And if belief in a loving God leads us to be more loving ourselves–what’s not to love about that?

References:  Charles Blow, “Heaven for the Godless?” The New York Times online edition, 26 December 2008;  Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love LT, trans. Elizabeth Spearing (London:  Penguin Books, 1998).

#19 Theology is to spirituality what honeycomb is to honey

20 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by in God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Spirituality, Theology

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For some, spirituality trumps theology any old day.  For those who call themselves ‘spiritual’, the word ‘theologian’ brings to mind self-styled intellectuals who have stepped into a self-made ivory tower from which they engage in a fruitless search for knowledge of God.  Too bad these theologians look for God in abstract commentaries written by other bookish-types rather than in the vibrant, pulsing life so obviously going on around them (if only they’d look up from their books!).  The stereotypical theologian has a clear preference for the subtleties of his or her own imagination (theory) rather than for doing useful works among ordinary folk (praxis).  He or she relies on reason and distrusts feelings.  A sad head-shake for these poor theologians is appropriate right now—if you’re ‘spiritual’ that is.

Unlike theology, spirituality (the ‘spirituals’ explain) is interested in love and personal experience.  The reasons of the heart are closer to God, they say, than the reasons of the head.  Spirituality trusts love and distrusts logical arguments.  And anyway, the best ideas are the ones that help people, the more directly the better.

Although the tug-of-war between theology and spirituality may seem like a contemporary phenomenon (the word spirituality is an 18th century invention), the same struggle took place in Western Europe as early as the Middle Ages.  Elected Chancellor of the University of Paris in 1395, Jean Gerson, criticized theologians for lacking in common sense and failing to base their study in love.  That didn’t stop him from also making the case that as long as they didn’t ignore the world, they had valuable contributions to make.  He summed up the situation with this helpful analogy:  Just like viscous honey needs a honeycomb, spirituality needs theology.  Just like honey needs the structure of the honeycomb, spirituality needs to be structured by a thoughtful and organized mind.  On the flip side, theology needs to be filled by spirituality because “the ideas of the mind must also warm the heart and lead to activity in the world.”  Gerson tried to unify spirituality with theology while preserving the integrity of both.

Gerson’s analogy illustrates the fact that spirituality without theology is a puddle of sweet goo; it can’t be handed over (except in extremely messy form) to other people or to the next generation.  Likewise, theology without spirituality is a lovely structure made of bland wax most people don’t want to eat.   

The Renaissance humanist, Pico della Mirandola, agreed, pointing out that although “we can live without language, although not well, but we cannot live at all without the mind. “  For him, the person who is untouched by poems and novels and other people’s stories may not be humane, but the person who is untouched by logical inquiry and understanding is no longer a human being.  Sounds harsh, maybe.  But Mirandola was on to something. 

We can’t be spiritual in a generic way.  Our spirituality is tied to our beliefs about the human being, about ethics, about meaning, about God.  To understand what those beliefs are takes more than a contemplative practice; it requires mindful reflection.  Questions like “does God care about me?,” and “what did God mean by the command to love one’s neighbor?” call out for our attention.  They call out for us to try to answer them, at least provisionally, by studying alone, or in groups, or in conversation with great thinkers through their books.  Theologians ponder the most fundamental of the fundamental questions about the human and the divine.  At times, these questions may appear overly subtle and specific but that’s going to the case any time answers are being pursued in the most serious way.  And besides, to learn to love, we need not give up logic; to lead a life of simplicity and good deeds, we need not trump every question put forth by the intellect . 

Spoken like a true theologian, don’t you think?   

HNFFT:  Must we choose between spirituality and theology?  Or can the two be integrated?  

Reference:  Steven Ozment, “The Spiritual Traditions” in The Age of Reform 1250-1550:  An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe, 73-134 (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1980). 

#18 God and the Devil duke it out in the john

14 Tuesday Apr 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Theological Ethics, Theology

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dreamstime_2557163WC.  Water Closet.  Privy.  Crapper.  Must stripped-down theology sink to the level of the toilet?  But this is precisely where the ‘father’ of Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther (1483-1546), claimed he had been given his most important of realizations. Luther didn’t stop at the marketplace when talking about the presence of God (and the Devil).  If God is present—everywhere—then God must be present in the privy! 

Medievals knew what we, in developed countries, have forgotten thanks to improvements in sanitation.  Because contemporary plumbing has created a near-perfect divide between us and our excrement, if we are to inhabit Luther’s mental space (okay, scatological space), we have to turn to the closest analogy most of us have—the so-called honey-pots at state fairs and fourth of July celebrations.  The state-fair WC isn’t just any old privy, but the most disgusting, degrading, and degraded places that many of us are likely to visit.  The state-fair WC is that space where we have no choice but to come ‘face to face’ (or nose to nose) with s–t, both as biological product and as existential condition.

So what’s with God and the Devil in the WC?  Here’s the scoop, as compactly as possible.  Martin Luther, the prophet of ‘salvation by faith alone’, wanted nothing less than to overturn our genteel, conscience-oriented morality.  Most of us trust our consciences to clue us in on what’s right and what’s wrong.  We rely on our inner voice to tell us what to do.  And then, if sacrifice is required, we struggle to satisfy that voice’s demands.  This describes the conventional morality in Luther’s day—and it remains the conventional morality in ours.

Following that line of thinking, we would conclude that if the God of conventional morality wanted to make us responsible for our wrongdoings in the after-life (a reasonable proposition), such a God would be something of a gentle, accountant type of God.  We would reach the pearly gates of heaven and stand quietly in front of a plain table while God checks a ledger for our name.  Once God finds the entry chronicling our lives, God would carefully weigh what, if any, punishments would be the best match for our bad choices and our lapses (if we’re lucky, God overlooks the majority of these).  Indeed, a liberal Unitarian Christian like William Ellery Channing taught ‘salvation through character,’ and although he believed God was too good to condemn human beings to eternal hell, he still believed that God required wrongdoers to do some kind of penance before they were admitted into God’s presence.  This is an eminently rational belief—God’s punishment will fit the crime, which is why so many people hold onto it.  Tenaciously.

But, for Luther, the issue was not a question of morality versus immorality, but of God versus the Devil.  Luther had concluded (based on his intensive study of Scripture) that God saves us whether we’ve made right choices or not.  All we need to do in order to be saved is have faith that God will save us.  Period.  No requirement for good behavior.  God has promised to save us; we need only believe in this promise and we are saved.  No ifs, ands or buts.  The devil is that voice in our heads (you’re hearing it, right now, aren’t you?) that says—nope.  I don’t believe God would give us such a sweet deal.  Saved no matter what?  Even child molesters who refuse to change?  Come on.  What kind of nonsense is that?  Only someone who is completely irrational could believe such a thing. 

You’ve got the picture though.  For Luther, when we’re sitting on the loo doing our thing, God stands on one side with a promise of salvation (saying all you have to do is believe in my promise), and the Devil stands on the other side (saying, don’t you believe God’s promise, it’s too good to be true).  The Devil is the one who sounds rational—he insists on what we already know–there’s some kind of hitch, some kind of small print God’s not telling us about. 

A contemporary of William Ellery Channing, the Universalist minister, Hosea Ballou, challenged the view of people like us.  In an article, “Salvation Irrespective of Character,” he argued that God was like a Father who loves all of His children whether they are saints or sinners:  “Your child has fallen into the mire, and its body and its garments are defiled.  You cleanse it and array it in clean robes.  The query is, Do you love your child because you have washed it?  Or, did you wash it because you loved it?

Most of us are adept at keeping our minds and hands busy but a visit to the crapper offers a chance to pause.  If, in the toilet, we reflect on our lives for just a few seconds, we come face to face with the degraded choices we’re being asked to make, and with the degrading choices we’ve already made.  And that’s when, if we’re honest, we call into question our ability to choose the right thing and our ability to do it.  We’ll wonder whether our consciences can reliably discern what’s right from wrong.  And we’ll wonder whether we have the self-discipline to do what’s right.  God overlooks all these difficulties, Luther teaches.  Sitting in the privy, this hard truth was revealed to him.  In the privy, he realized that, more often than not, he was powerless.  He also realized that, even here, in this disgusting, unsanitary place, God came to his aid. 

No bull.  For Luther, the crapper is a place of faith.  He insisted that God is there.  The devil too.  And God wins (and we win) if we trust in God’s promise. 

Can you?  And what about that promise?  Do you buy it?

Reference:  Heiko A. Oberman, “The Devil and the Cloaca,” in Luther:  Man between God and the Devil, trans. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1989), 151-7.

#17 Out with the old God, in with the new

06 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by in God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology

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dreamstime_8393599For Jews, Passover is supposed to be historically real.  The Haggadah (the text that sets the order of the Passover meal) commands Jews to consider themselves to have gone forth in exodus from Egypt.  The Haggadah emphasizes this absolute demand lest Jews be tempted to reduce it to the level of a metaphor.  “The authority is clear,” writes the Jewish theologian, Arthur A. Cohen (1928-1986).  Each Jew is to tell him or herself, “I was really, even if not literally, present in Egypt and really, if not literally, present at Sinai.  God contemplated my virtual presence then, thirty-odd centuries ago.”

At the very least, Cohen’s description of Passover signals to non-Jews that even if they celebrate something they call Passover, set a table no Orthodox rabbi could fault, prepare a kosher and hametz-free meal, and say all the right prayers from a Jewish Haggadah, their Passover is NOT a Jewish Passover.  Only Jews can comply with the absolute demand to go forth in exodus from Egypt.  Jews remain the chosen people no less today then when they were the people chosen by the Nazis for termination.  Cohen tells us, “the death camps ended forever one argument of history—whether [the Jews] are the chosen people.”  Chosen for departure from Egypt or chosen for the death chambers, “they are chosen, unmistakably, extremely, utterly.”  Certainly, others are able to contemplate this history. For the Christian and for the non-Jewish secular opponent of racism, the exodus is a paradigm of liberation from slavery, and the death camps are a paradigm of human brutality.  But the simple fact remains that they cannot share these historical events with Jews.

In the post-holocaust era, many ask (and if they don’t, they should!) how God could have witnessed the holocaust and remained silent.  The question persists, and rightfully so:  why was God silent—here, silence means “inaction, passivity.” But silence can also mean, at its worst and most extreme, utter and absolute indifference. What kind of God, worthy of the name, God, remains indifferent?  What kind of God stays silent “when speech would terrify and stay the fall of the uplifted arm?”  As millions of Jews were murdered in Europe, where was the God who had not hesitated to use miracles to liberate them from Egypt?  Where was the “Interruptive miracle, that the sea open and the army of the enemy be consumed?”  Unacceptable, of course, are any claims that the holocaust figured in God’s providential plan. 

For Cohen, the “interruptive model” of God is an ancient model of God.  This ancient model treats God as a “respondent;” God responds to situations of extreme hardship.  Under this model, the greater our need for God, the greater the certainty God will assist us.  Under this model, we assume that “the world is never independent of God.”  While Cohen agrees that the interruptive model of God undermines our freedom to do evil, he worries that it also undermines our freedom to do good.  If we could count on God to intervene, what would prevent us from slipping into moral passivity and quietism?  If we could count on God to intervene, what would prevent us from abandoning the hard work of becoming more moral people?  What would prevent us from shirking the sacrifices we’re called to make to help others have better lives? 

What we need, Cohen concludes, is not the interruptive God who is “the strategist of our particularities or of our historical condition.”  What we need is a new model of God.

Not content just to call for a new model, Cohen proposes one.  For him, God is not the cause of historical events.  God does not alter history.  But neither is God “wholly other and indifferent to the historical.”  Cohen understands “divine life” to be a “filament within the historical”–a filament of something like tungsten (tungsten is the metal used in electric light bulbs; when heated by electricity, the tungsten filament becomes incandescent and causes the bulb to glow).  As a filament, the divine element of the historical is a fragile conductor always intimately linked to the historical—its presence secures the significance of events while remaining separate from them.  Although we know that the filament exists in history and that it’s in continuous community with us, we don’t know its exact location.  Because we don’t know its exact location, we can’t manipulate it for our own purposes.  Ever elusive, God remains God.  This elusiveness preserves the historical as the realm where human beings are free to act.  This elusiveness also means that, at all times, even in extreme situations, it’s up to human beings, not God, to provide the current to heat the tungsten—it is we who either make the filament incandescent or burn it out.

Yes, the Passover Haggadah commands the Jew to consider him or her-self to have gone forth in exodus, liberated by the interruptive God.  But Cohen argues that God is “not ever interruptive even were the sea to part and close or the earth of Auschwitz to open and the murderers to fall in.”  God is not the “strategist” of our particular situations or of the particular age in which we live.  Instead, God (for Cohen) is the mystery of our future possibilities.  If we begin to see God less as the God who interferes whenever interference is welcome (i.e. when it accords with our needs) and more as the immensity whose reality prefigured our existence and whose fullness and unfolding are the hope for the future, then, Cohen promises, “we shall have won a sense of God whom we may love and honor.”  We shall have won a sense of God whom “we no longer fear and from whom we no longer demand.”  We shall have won a sense of God who is, for Cohen, the actual God.

HNFFT:  Is your model of God an interruptive model?  If so, as someone living in the post-holocaust era, how do you make sense of God’s silence?  How does the interruptive model impact your freedom?  Does Cohen’s filament model work better for you?  If yes, why?  If no, why not?

Reference:  Arthur A. Cohen, The Tremendum:  A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (New York:  Crossroad, 1981), 11, 23, 92-7.

#16 Will there be anyone left to speak out?

30 Monday Mar 2009

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According to the New Testament, Jesus entered Jerusalem without any illusion about what lay in store for him:  arrest, torture and crucifixion.  Prophesying and calling for reform have always been dangerous, but undeterred by the risks, Jesus headed to the temple with his controversial teachings.  Was he afraid?  In the gospel of Mark, the oldest of the four gospels, Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane, where he became distressed and agitated.  He pleaded for a reprieve.  “Abba,” he said, “Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me” (NRSV, Mk 14:36).  Although among friends, Jesus was alone.  Several times, he roused his sleeping disciples and begged them to keep him company, but their eyes were heavy and they did not know what to say.

Two-thousand years later, on the day called Easter, Christians sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate the brutal trials of this man who went willingly to his death. 

How do non-Christians make sense of this commemoration? 

Analogies to more contemporary events can help us make sense of the past.  Even if we don’t accept the divinity of Jesus, or that he died for our sins, surely we can sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate and acclaim him just as we can sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate and acclaim others who willingly and willfully put themselves in harm’s way to speak truth to power.  Joan of Arc, Mahatma Ghandi, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., are but a few of the well-known martyrs who, with just as much clarity as Jesus, knew the risks they faced but still kept on keeping on.

More recently, we have the martyrdom of Lasantha Wickramatunga, shot dead by two assassins on January 8, 2009.  The editor of The Leader, Sri Lanka’s leading independent newspaper, Wickramatunga had written an editorial only days earlier predicting his own assassination by the government.  Aware of the danger, he chose to answer the call of his conscience and to voice ideas some found distasteful.  Aware of the danger, he kept on keeping on although he had a wife and three children.  Should we not sing hallelujah and Gloria to commemorate and acclaim such a man’s life and death?  If he was willing to die to improve the life of his fellow Sri Lankans, should we not honor the sacrifice he was willing to make on their behalf—and, by extension, because we are all part of the human family—on our behalf?

Why was Wickramatunga willing to die for our sake?  In his own words:

“People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemöller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemöller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niemöller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind: 

     First they came for the Jews
     and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
     Then they came for the Communists
     and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
     Then they came for the trade unionists
     and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
     Then they came for me
     and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.”

God knows Jesus tried—this one of the messages of Easter.  He sacrificed his life. He spoke out for the poor and the despised and the persecuted.  And they came for him. 

Which leaves us with the most haunting questions of all.  Are our eyes heavy and we do not know what to say?  Or do we speak out?  Do I speak out?  Do you speak out?  Would we speak even if we knew they would come for us?  

Reference:  For a full transcript of Lasantha Wickramatunga’s editorial, see http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=26432.  

#14 Rescued from the iron cage of guilt

15 Sunday Mar 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theological Ethics, Theology

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If you don’t have an ear for the music of Christianity, it may be hard to make sense of why the Lenten days tracking the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ journey from freedom to arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection are so important to Christians.

The answer partly lies in the doctrine that Christ liberates, or saves, human beings from bondage to sin.  

But what’s this about freedom from bondage to sin? 

Here’s an existential way of thinking about sin or wrongdoing.  If we reflect on the past twenty-four hours, a clear-eyed inventory of what we did, said, didn’t do, didn’t say, either leaves us with a comfortable feeling or it leaves us troubled.  Our consciences are a built-in mechanism that detects some (not all) of the gaps between what we consider to be the good and right thing to say and do, and what we actually did say and do.  When the gaps are wide, we feel bad—our conscience bothers us.  We call that feeling guilt. 

To do guilt is part of the human condition.  True, some people proclaim they ‘don’t do guilt’ as if ‘doing’ guilt was a bad thing and nobody should ever ‘do’ it.  But should Chris really not feel guilty about smacking the beJesus out of Rhianna?  Those who claim they ‘don’t do guilt’ probably mean that they ‘don’t do self-loathing.’  Although we may have been taught otherwise, the anguish of a guilty conscience need not result in self-loathing.  In fact, the anguish of a guilty conscience can prompt us to make some positive changes. 

There’s a difference worth noticing between self-acceptance and self-approval.  Guilt helps us keep the difference straight.  We might accept ourselves as we are, but a guilty conscience reminds us we’re a ways off from the acts and intentions that are in keeping with out-and-out self-approval. 

Back to guilt and sin.  Shall we agree that nobody (except a masochist) likes doing guilt?  Guilt feels bad.  Downright awful.   The problem then is what to do with our guilt.  Live with it?  Make amends to the injured party?  Ignore it?  Suppress it and make it ‘disappear’?  Deny it?  Feel sorry for yourself?  Take it out on other people?  Ask the wronged party for forgiveness?  Ask yourself for forgiveness?  Ask God for forgiveness?

We, human beings, always carry hope and despair within us.  On the despair end, most of us have a low tolerance for the despair of the iron cage of guilt.  We are trapped, bound, imprisoned.  We want release from guilt, some way to feel better, some way to heal the hurt and be reconciled with ourselves. 

Many Christians hand their guilt over to God in prayer or in ritual with the hope that God will hand back forgiveness.  Many Christians believe that thanks to Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross, God forgives their wrongdoings.  The way this forgiveness works differs according to the Christian tradition.  Lutherans, for example, place their trust in Christ and, thanks to that trust, believe themselves forgiven by God (they know they’re still messing up as much as any of us, but they’re forgiven).  Roman Catholics confess their wrongdoings to priests who assign them works of contrition and forgive them in Christ’s name.  In all these Christian traditions, the key to forgiveness is Christ.  Thanks to the crucifixion, the doors of the iron cage of guilt spring open and the Christian is restored to wholeness.

Wholeness!  Stepping out of guilt’s iron cage!  Sounds great.  But if, for us, Jesus was not the Christ, then we must find other ways to seek forgiveness for wrongdoings and soothe our guilt.  Going directly to the party we have harmed and asking forgiveness is one way.  But what if they’re no longer alive, or we don’t know where they are?  

Helpful ideas, anyone?

#13 Giving up Me-Centrism for Lent

05 Thursday Mar 2009

Posted by in Ethics, God, Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spiritual Exercises, Theological Ethics, Theology

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dreamstime_14845884Think you’re number one?  Who doesn’t?  Are you a narcissist? Hey, who isn’t? After all, our interior world is most vivid to ourselves.  Who could possibly know and care for our well-being and happiness better than ourselves?  A tidy amount of Me-Centrism is desirable (we Americans prefer to call it self-esteem), but in sloppy-sized doses, it turns into self-absorption.  Result:  lack of interest in, and lack of concern for others.  Not you, you say?  When was the last time you stepped out of the internal monologue a-buzzing in your head or the fatigue from a long day‘s work to look the checkout clerk at Dominick’s in the eye?  You know, like he was a real person worthy of your attention (which, of course, he is)?  And did you say, “Hello, how are you today?”  And were really interested in the answer?  Or did you look away before he finished telling you? 

A little thing, sure, this saying hello, how are you.  But imagine how different our every-day would be if we stepped out of our heads and shook off our tiredness just long enough to treat each other like each one of us mattered.  Imagine the ordinary wonderfulness of a simple “after you” as we stepped onto the bus or walked into the elevator.  Or letting a car (or two) merge ahead of us on a clogged freeway, or smiling at the stranger on the street for no good reason, or paying our frenenmy an unsolicited compliment, or turning off our cell phone to give a friend our full attention.  With all that free-flowing kindness, especially in these hard economic times, who knows what we could achieve?  Our quest for meaning could literally end.  We would all find peace of mind.  Messianism would have come to pass.

The great religious faith traditions ask their followers, at some point during the year, to step-out of their daily routines and orient themselves toward something greater.   To demonstrate that they mean it and are 100% committed to the exercise, these followers are asked to sacrifice something—in other words, to give up something they value, like a cow, or money, or food.  The act of having given up something serves as a prod of sorts, a powerful reminder (lest one slack off) to reflect on one’s relationship with the divine.   This giving-up takes place in community so that one gets swept up in a great shift of life-as-usual.  The new normal is a common life focused on God.   Whether one is taking part in the one-day fast of Yom Kippur or the month-long fast of Ramadan or the surrendering of something of one’s choosing for the forty days of Lent, the giving-up has a definite time-table with well-advertised and ritually-marked start and end dates. 

But what about those who aren’t followers of such traditions but want to engage in a similar kind of spiritual exercise (exercise in the sense of an intentional and disciplined activity)?  Yow!  That’s harder.  After all, you’ll give up something without any kind of communal or ritual help.  That’s like deciding to give up cigarettes without a support group and without nicotine patches.  Still, for those who are up to the challenge, it could be even more rewarding.  

So let’s dare to give up something for Lent.  How about Me-Centrism?  Give up Me-Centrism until April 12 and orient yourself toward God.  The phenomenologist and ethicist, Emmanuel Levinas, taught that we might, in the act of treating others as human beings instead of objects, discover a passageway to the extraordinary, the infinite, the transcendent.  No promises though.  Hopefully, even if you don’t find that passageway, the gift of a simple human interaction is gift enough.  And should the checkout clerk or the passenger on the bus respond to your friendly gaze by looking at you like you’re crazy, or looking past you like you don’t exist—well, you’ll know you did your part.  And no one can ask more than that.

Reference:  Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings, intro. and trans. Annette Aronowicz (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1990).