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#38 Multifaith squabble–over love!

31 Saturday Oct 2009

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

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Multifaith dialogue, Papal encyclical, Pope Benedict XVI, Thomas Aquinas, Thomism

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If you imagine that multifaith dialogue is easy, this post will change your mind. Continue reading but be warned that you’ll be asked to tease out the intricacies of an argument between the University of Chicago historian, David Nirenberg, a champion of secularism, and His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, the champion par excellence of Roman Catholicism.

Ideally, when we enter into a dialogue about religious beliefs, we do so with a genuine desire for authentic conversation.  We attempt to understand, as much as possible, our interlocutor’s point of view especially when we find his or her point of view offensive.  But, in the present case, even a brilliant scholar like Nirenberg, who’s written insightful books about the three Abrahamic religions, loses his patience and calls on His Holiness to stop speaking like a Roman Catholic.

Nirenberg aired his differences with the Pope in a September 23, 2009, article in The New Republic, “Love and Capitalism,” in which he reviewed Benedict’s book-length encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate:  On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth.”

The problem, for Nirenberg, is not the Pope’s claim to the Truth:  “Popes,” Nirenberg writes, “have the right, indeed the obligation, to teach believers the truth as they are given to perceive it, no matter how controversial.”

No, Nirenberg’s disagreement with the Pope centers around the meaning of the term “caritas,” a word that can be loosely translated into English as “charity” or “love.”

For Roman Catholics, however, caritas doesn’t mean plain old love or sympathy or concern or even charity in the way that most of us might use such words over a glass of beer. Caritas, as used by Roman Catholic theologians, including Benedict, is a technical term with a history that dates back to the 3rd Century Church Father, St. Augustine.

Nirenberg gets the Augustine connection (he quotes Augustine several times), but he doesn’t seem to recognize that Augustine’s usage of caritas has been superseded.  In the 13th Century, the theologian and so-called Angelic Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, redefined caritas.  And Aquinas, it turns out, is the key to an accurate understanding of Benedict’s “Caritas in Veritate.”  Why?  Because since the late 19th century (thanks to Pope Leo XIII), Aquinas’s thought has dominated Roman Catholic theology, including its usage of the technical theological term, caritas.

For Aquinas, caritas is a special virtue—a theological virtue, because human beings are incapable of caritas on their own.  The virtue of caritas requires God’s gracious gift.  It is the most important of the three theological virtues (the other two are hope and faith).  Aquinas taught, and the Pope agrees, that only members of the Roman Catholic Church who participate in its sacramental life may receive God’s gift of the theological virtues, including caritas.

The bottom line, then: if you’re not a Roman Catholic, God will pass you over when it comes to granting caritas.  And without God-granted caritas, you may act in what appears to be a virtuous, loving way, but your actions can never be perfectly virtuous since you, a mere human being, are the source of the virtuous acts.

In his encyclical, Benedict claims that only Roman Catholicism offers the possibility of the kind of universal fraternity necessary for authentic community. But he’s following Aquinas here; only Roman Catholicism offers a path to God-given love (caritas), and God-given love (caritas) is required for universal fraternity.  Only with God-given love are we able to love God first (as the first proper object of our love), and then, and only then, out of love for God, are we able to love God’s creatures—i.e. other human beings.

A bit more familiarity with Aquinas’ thought (called Thomism, another technical term!) is necessary to understand the Pope’s encyclical.  Aquinas (unlike Augustine) has a high anthropology.  According to him, there are some capacities all persons enjoy, whether they are Roman Catholic or not.  For example, he maintained that every person is born with the ability to reason.  Thanks to our natural reason, we can come together and solve problems.

With this brief primer on Thomism, we could have anticipated what Benedict did, in fact, say in his encyclical:  “Reason, by itself, is capable of grasping the equality between men and of giving stability to their civic coexistence, but it cannot establish fraternity.  This originates in a transcendent vocation from God the Father, who loved us first, teaching us through the Son what fraternal charity is.”

Like every good book reviewer, Nirenberg is tasked with picking a fight over some point and so he chooses this one:  “The problem is that Benedict is claiming to offer general answers to global questions that affect people of every faith (and sometimes of no faith), while at the same time insisting that the only possible answer to those questions is Catholicism.  Such a suggestion might be a plausible prescription for global peace and development in a Catholic world, but the world is not Catholic.”

But Benedict offers general answers to global questions that affect people of every faith (including some of no faith) because he believes (following Aquinas) that every human being has reason.  And because we’re blessed with reason, Benedict can issue a global call for us to work together to address global problems.  However (still following Aquinas), fraternal charity, which grows out of caritas or God-given love, is only available to Roman Catholics.  If the rest of the world wants to co-exist in fraternal charity, it must convert and join the Roman Catholic Church.

For Benedict to discuss the global crisis in purely secular terms would be to act without love (in the ordinary sense of that word).  Would it be loving of Benedict to choose silence over sharing with the non-Catholic part of the world the fact (as he perceives it) that there is only one path to fraternal charity?

Nirenberg, however, wants Benedict to set his Roman Catholicism aside and offer global answers “taught in a way that seeks to transcend the boundaries of the traditions that produced them.”  What if Benedict made an analogous demand of Nirenberg?  He’d insist Nirenberg leave his secular commitments aside and offer teachings “taught in a way that seeks” to reflect the Roman Catholic tradition!

Which man has the more loving approach?

At the very least, Benedict engages in authentic multi-faith dialogue.  He doesn’t pretend to set aside his convictions—as if he could!—rather, he shows the full set of cards he’s holding in one hand and extends the other hand in greeting.  We may, like Nirenberg, not like the cards he’s holding, but we can appreciate the fact that he’s showing us what he’s got.

One of the goals of an authentic conversation about religion is to try to understand our conversation partner’s point of view.  For this we must set aside our own religious commitments and adopt a willingness to interpret (i.e. make familiar the unfamiliar) what he or she shares with us.  Nirenberg was tasked with interpreting the Pope’s latest encyclical.  Unfortunately, conversing with an author via his or her book does not offer the possibility of a back-and-forth dialogue.  If he and the Pope had had the opportunity to get together at the local bar and talk over a glass of beer, Nirenberg could simply have asked, “Exactly what do you mean, Your Holiness, by caritas?”  The two could have had a brief discussion about their differing definitions of love.  Then they could have moved on to discuss something more important—the Pope’s central concern of his encyclical—how to solve our global problems.

References:  David Nirenberg, “Love and Capitalism,” The New Republic 240, no. 4868 (23 September 2009): 39-42; Waldo Beach and H. R. Niebuhr, eds, Christian Ethics:  Sources of the Living Tradition, 2nd ed. (New York:  The Ronald Press Company, 1973).

#37 This little light of mine

20 Tuesday Oct 2009

Posted by TheNakedTheologian in Religion, Spirituality

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Beacon Hill, human spirit, Sermon on the Mount, slavery, spirituals

5th August 1858: Beacon Hill, Boston, the site of the oldest surviving Black Church and a centre of the abolitionist movement. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

5th August 1858: Beacon Hill, Boston, the site of the oldest surviving Black Church and a centre of the abolitionist movement. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

Did some African American slaves prefer suicide, even if they were afraid of dying?  How many chose to end their lives?  How many regretted not having the means to do so? Suicide requires courage, but requires less courage than submitting to torture. Death is not always the worst outcome, what’s worst is suffering that goes on and on, horror without pause. Whereas hope is a leap of faith, courage is an act of will. It is willful courage that is required to face torments one cannot change or escape.

Yet, in spite of the brutality and dehumanization of slavery, African Americans developed a strong tradition of song, often inspired by their religion.

There is no greater testament to the tenacity of the human spirit than the songs of slaves.  We, regardless of our heritage, have much to learn from the ways they dug deep within to discover, beyond their physical and mental suffering, embers of joy and loving-kindness, embers they, with willful courage, turned into light.

Matthew 5:15-16  (Part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount):

15  No one lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
16  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that you may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

This Little Light of Mine (African American spiritual, circa 1750-1875):

This little light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Ev’ry-where I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Ev’ry-where I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Ev’ry-where I go,
I’m gonna let it shine.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Building up a world,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Building up a world,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Building up a world,
I’m gonna let it shine.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

References:  “This Little Light of Mine,” Hymn #118 in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston:  Beacon Press, 1993); Between the Lines:  Sources for Singing the Living Tradition, edited by Jacqui James, 2nd ed. (Boston:  Skinner House Books, 1995).

#36 The luminous gospel of transcendental universalism

11 Sunday Oct 2009

Posted by TheNakedTheologian in God, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Theology

≈ 1 Comment

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Emersonian transcendentalism, Forrest Church, universalism

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The Reverend Forrest Church died of esophageal cancer last week at the much-too-young age of 61.

His life story continues to speak to us.

Church began his ministerial career preaching the gospel of rational belief—the kind of gospel that limits itself to teachings the human mind can comprehend and experience can confirm.  He surveyed the theological field for its various doctrines and claims about God and laid them on a dissecting table so he could cut them open and discover how they worked.  Did they meet the constraints of rationality?  If no, he’d toss them in the waste bin. If yes, he’d add them to his keeper pile.  This approach challenged him intellectually but left him spiritually dry.

He studied God, but God was absent to him.

He turned to alcohol and used it as a buffer against his emptiness.  The drinking worked—for many years, anyway.  He managed to drink and juggle his hefty duties as senior minister of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Manhattan.  He even managed to write several books.

In the late 1980’s, he realized that he needed God’s help to find peace.  Not at home in himself, he began to look for a home in the universe while still sharing the common Unitarian aversion to God-language.  He’d kept his altar crowded with “icons to knowledge” but now he cleared a space for mystery.  While most of his beliefs had not changed, he declared that religion was a human response to the inevitability of death.  This inevitability gave meaning to human love because the more love we found and gave, the more we risked losing.

Eventually, he embraced God-language and used it more readily than his co-religionists liked.  But how could he keep the saving news to himself?   He’d found God and God filled the God-shaped hole he’d harbored and denied for much too long.  God, he proclaimed, was “that which is greater than all and yet present in each.”

He loved God, and God was present to him.

The Universalist strand of his faith tradition, with its promise of shared salvation, held particular appeal for Church, especially when integrated with Emersonian transcendentalism.  Christian became an important part of his religious identity and he adopted the label of Christian Universalist.  As such, he made room in his theology for many religious approaches.  The cathedral of the world became his credo—while there was a single Reality or Truth (God), this reality shone through the many windows of the world’s cathedral.  The windows’ patterns refracted the light into multiple patterns suggesting different meanings.  One Light, many patterns.  One Truth, many meanings.

Church often said that God was “the most famous liberal of all time.”  Every word that describes God is a synonym for liberal, he explained:  “God is munificent and openhanded.  The creation is ample and plenteous.  As healer and comforter, God is charitable and benevolent.  As our redeemer, God is generous and forgiving…God has a bleeding that simply never stops.”

May God, as healer and comforter, heal and comfort his family.

References:  Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology:  Crisis, Irony, & Postmodernity 1950-2005 (Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Pres, 2006), 455-459; Forrest Church, The CATHEDRAL of the WORLD:  A Universalist Theology (Boston:  Beacon Press, 2009).

#29 Wisdom, Prophecy and God

15 Wednesday Jul 2009

Posted by TheNakedTheologian in God, Prayer, Religion, Theology

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forgiveness, Midrash, redemption

iStock_000005417329XSmallA Situation:

The man gazed guiltily at his old friend across his congealing plate of huevos rancheros.  He’d flown into Albuquerque the day before, two months after he’d watched his wife lose her battle with breast cancer.  Now, as he ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant, he agonized over the affair he’d had during his previous visit to Albuquerque a year earlier.  His wife had already been diagnosed.  He’d been scared and lonely.  He’d wanted to forget his troubles, if only for an hour or two.  “I should’ve stopped myself,” he sighed now with remorse.  Both men felt uneasy.  What the speaker wanted, more than anything else, was to make amends.  He wanted forgiveness, too.  But now that his wife had died, who could forgive him?  Most importantly, he wanted to be made whole once more; in other words, he wanted redemption.  But to whom could he make amends?  And who could forgive him? Where was redemption to be found?

A Midrash:  

Wisdom was asked:  what is the punishment of a sinner?  and answered:  sinners will be prosecuted by [their own] vice.

Prophecy was asked:  what is the punishment for the sinner?  and answered “the soul that sins, it shall die” [Ezek. 14:4].

God was asked:  what is the punishment of the sinner?  and answered:  let him do repentance [teshuva] and be expiated. 

Reference:  Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 69.

#28 And the newest convert from atheism is…

08 Wednesday Jul 2009

Posted by TheNakedTheologian in Philosophy of Religion, Religion

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

atheism, conversion, skepticism, truth

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Atheists, you’re about to get a lot more attention.  In Turkey, a new game-show will soon pit clergy from various faith traditions against each other by letting them have a go at trying to coax “sworn” atheists into their respective folds. 

The show, called “Penitents Compete,” will give an imam, a Buddhist monk, a rabbi, and a priest a chance to hone their persuasive powers on ten atheists.  The pay-off for the contestants?  Besides “serenity” and the ultimate prize of all—belief in God, the converted atheists will also be rewarded with the immediate and material pleasure of an all-expenses paid trip (ummm, pilgrimage) to the holiest site of their new religion—Mecca for Muslims, Jerusalem for Christians and Jews, and Tibet for Buddhists.  To prevent deceitful believers from posing as atheists just to win a vacation, eight theologians will question prospective contestants to make sure their views are in line with orthodox atheism.  To make doubly sure, contestants who, thanks to the show, decide to embrace one of the represented religions will be monitored to make sure their conversions are genuine.

The pay-off for the religious leaders?  A chance to argue the superiority of their faith traditions in front of a large TV audience.  And who knows, maybe some of the atheists sitting at home, rooting for their fellow non-believers, will end up converting too.  The show aims not just to rescue a few atheists from the ranks of the penitents (assuming that “Competing Penitents” refers to the contestants and not to the religious leaders who, in their own way, are themselves competing).  The show is also intended to give Turkish viewers, the majority of whom are Sunni Muslims, a chance to learn more about other religions.

Some early-complainers are worried that the show will trivialize faith and God, but if it gives viewers a delightful way to learn about other faith traditions, why not?  Most intriguing, though, are two facets that may not have occurred to the producers.  Viewers will be exposed to charismatic spokespeople who might very well make their respective faith-traditions seem equally plausible and equally appealing.  Could this give rise to a certain, well, skepticism, among heretofore comfortably-believing believers?  If several of the faith traditions seem equally plausible and appealing, the people sitting at home, watching, may end up wondering where truth is to be found.  Where they had had no doubts, they could find themselves asking about the kind of justification given for each of the religion’s beliefs.  How does one test the truth (or lack thereof) of a particular belief?  Can truth be found in more than one religion?  In all?  In none.  Where?  How can a person tell?

Of interest too is how the show will explore methods of evangelizing.  Is it really possible to persuade someone to change his or her mind about his or her religious views through the use of rational arguments?  The common opinion among scholars is that such arguments usually fail to persuade.  The producers are cleared-eyed on this point; they anticipate that, at most, one atheist out of ten will convert during any given show.

The imams on “Penitents Compete” will clearly have a competitive edge over the other religious leaders.  The atheists chosen to compete will be Turks who have rejected their birthright religion and bucked the mainstream (99.8% of Turks are Muslim).  Will they have done so in the privacy of their own thoughts?  If they have, then, to participate in the show, they’ll have to come out of the closet and identify themselves as infidels to a TV audience that will include friends, family and neighbors.  In the end, peer pressure and family disapproval may operate as the biggest motivators to convert from atheism—back to Islam.  So, all ye fancy hotels in Mecca, get a few rooms ready for some new Turkish believers!

HNFFT:  If you have converted to a different faith tradition, why did you do so?  Did rational arguments work with you?  What is your test for truth?

Reference:  Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1979); http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/5729452/Turkish-gameshow-attempts-to-convert-atheists.html

#26 No theology, no science–no joke!

18 Thursday Jun 2009

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

≈ 2 Comments

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infinity, Karsten Harries, modernity, Nicholas of Cusa, perspective, science

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Science and theology are perceived, by some, as sitting on opposite banks of an abyss.  They assume that the twain never can (or should) meet.  But the separation between science and theology is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the West.  Until the Renaissance, science was barely more than a descriptive discipline, while theology, considered the queen of the sciences, was a richly speculative and complex field of endeavor.  

Fortunately, theology (yes—theology!) came to the rescue of science by providing it with a new understanding of reality.  Theology (yes—theology!) provided science with the intellectual and conceptual tools it needed to get out of a deep rut and push forward with several important discoveries.  These discoveries, in turn, allowed the development of technologies that now seem as essential to us as air or water.  What–life without a computer?  Without Wi-Fi?  A cell phone?  Pleeease! 

This shift in human beings’ way of looking at reality occurred long enough ago that we’ve mostly forgotten that we haven’t always grasped reality the way we do today. Here’s a key illustration:  there was a time when it was “common knowledge” that the earth moved around the sun.  Peoples in the ancient world conceived of reality such that, for them, astral bodies such as the sun and moon rotated in orderly and eternally-static circles around the earth.  Based on simple observation this view of reality made sense.  The things they could see appeared to revolve around them while the ground on which they stood seemed solid and stationary.   Today, of course, we know that while we tend to perceive motion relative to where we ourselves stand, we may, from the perspective of someone else, be moving.

So how did our mindset change?  A 15th theologian by the name of Nicholas de Cusa (1401 – 1464) reached several novel conclusions about perspective.  Some scholars still refuse to count his contributions as scientific because, technically-speaking, he was a theologian.  But others, like philosophy professor, Karsten Harries, the author of Infinity and Perspective, credit him with destroying the belief in the geocentric theory of the cosmos inherited by pre-Renaissance science from the ancient world.

Thanks to Cusa, Harries argues in his book, Copernicus was able to break out of this mindset, a mindset that had persisted millenia.  

So what was Cusa’s insight, exactly?  It underwhelms us moderns but, in the 15th century, his insight was revolutionary.  Cusa had been sent by the Pope to negotiate a reconciliation between the Greek Church and the Roman Church.  On the return sea-voyage, his ship was heading home from Greece when he realized that if he couldn’t see the shore, he wouldn’t have any idea the ship was moving; instead, he would perceive the ship as sitting still in the water.  He also realized that if he were not a passenger but, rather, someone standing on the shoreline watching the ship, he would, from his vantage point on land, perceive the ship as moving.  Two perspectives (the one on the ship, the other on land) led to two experiences of movement. 

In his theological work, On Learned Ignorance, Cusa wrote that the centers “by which we orient ourselves are fictions, created by us” to reflect the standpoint of the observer.  Multiple centers of perspective, he realized, were not only possible but equally valid.  Applying this insight to the universe, he argued that a person standing on Mars or on the moon was just as likely as an earthling to consider his or her piece of rock to be the center of the cosmos.  Cusa concluded that the universe “will have its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere, so to speak; for God, who is everywhere and nowhere, is its circumference and center.”

By undermining the idea of a single-center based perspective, Cusa called into question any cosmology based on just one center.  His clarity about the possibility of multiple centers and perspectives took him even further than Copernicus and Kepler would go a century later with their heliocentric cosmology.  His influence was so sweeping and long-lasting that Kepler and Descartes acknowledged him as a precursor.  

The Cusa-Copernicus-Kepler scenario offers more than just intellectual interest.  If Harries is spot-on about Cusa’s contribution to science (historians of science, do you care to weigh in?), then there’s an important lesson to take away from this fascinating chapter in science-theology relations.  The lesson is that if scientists like Copernicus and Kepler had refused to take seriously the theological writings of a pious genius like Cusa, then we might all have had to wait a lot longer for modern science.   

Theologians and scientists live in the same world and, as fellow human beings, they’re charmed by mystery and seized by wonder.  They ask many of the same questions about the world.  They simply turn to different resources in their attempts to answer those questions, resources which need not be labeled incompatible.  But as long as scientists and theologians sit on opposite banks of an abyss (created ex nihilo), no conversation will take place.  Let’s start building a bridge, shall we?

References:  Karsten Harries, Infinity and Perspective (Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press, 2001); Nicolas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings, trans. H. Lawrence Bond, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1997).

#25 Spiritual (But Not Religious)

08 Monday Jun 2009

Posted by TheNakedTheologian in God, Religion, Religious Philosophy, Spirituality, Theology

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

psychology of religion

dreamstime_9033984Have you ever noticed how some opinions say more about the opiniators themselves than the thing they’re opiniating about?  God would be one such example.  The opinions people have about God often say more about who they are than they do about who God is.  But, uncharacteristically, God is not the topic of this post. 

“Spiritual but not religious” is the topic at hand.  And according to the work of Heinz Streib, a psychologist of religion at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, the ever-more popular phrase, “spiritual but not religious,” mostly reflects ambivalence about organized religion.  

Surprising?  Maybe not.  If you’ve paid attention, folks out there who label themselves “spiritual but not religious” usually add a wave of the hand and a shake of the head to indicate their disapproval of religion in-general and their level-headed decision to embrace ‘spirituality’ instead.

While spiritual and religious are different words, the difference may end there.  At least, that’s what was revealed by a recent study conducted by another psychologist of religion, Peter Hill (as reported by Streib).  Participants in the study identified themselves as either religious or as spiritual but both groups ended up with equivalent scores on a test for ‘religiosity.’  In essence, then, the test-subjects who considered themselves ‘spiritual but not religious’ actually qualified as ‘religious.’  Yikes.  Probably not something the ‘spiritual’ types wanted to hear.

But spirituality and religiosity both refer to the feelings, thoughts, and experiences that arise during one’s search for the sacred.  In fact, Streib ended up wondering whether it makes any sense for scholars of religion to spend time studying spirituality in addition to religion.  Better, he concluded, to stick with the single category of ‘religious.’

Too bad, really, that members of organized religions, including non-doctrinal ones like Unitarian Universalism, call themselves ‘spiritual not religious.’  They’re members of organized religions after all; but, instead of claiming, with pride, their chosen faith, they use a label that underscores their ambivalence toward any religion, including their own.  

Sure, they may have trouble putting down the burden (bad memories, anger at clergy, rejected teachings) of their previous religion(s).  But, who knows, reclaiming the word ‘religious’ might just indicate a healthy level of healing.  It would announce that they’ve moved on.  As for those who have always been unchurched, the willingness to call themselves ‘religious,’ in this most pluralistic of times, would announce a desirable respect for religion (with a capital R).

So, “spiritual but not religious” people of the world, here’s a challenge.  Try calling yourselves ‘religious’ for a couple of weeks.  No handwaving or headshaking please.  See how it feels.  You might just discover the label fits after all.

#24 Everybody goes to heaven, right?

31 Sunday May 2009

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

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

degrees of bliss, Julian of Norwich, universalism

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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).

#23 Generalized religiousness and the American dream

22 Friday May 2009

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

generalized religiousness, sexy messiah

dreamstimefree_2776077In a recent New York Times editorial, Ross Douthat, describes religious trends in 21st century America as neither shifting towards the extreme of unbelief or the extreme of fundamentalism.  Instead, religious trends are shifting toward a “generalized ‘religiousness’ detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.”  While growing numbers of Americans are abandoning organized religion (Douthat bases this claim on recent polling data), we are, by and large, not opting for atheism. 

Stay-at-home religionists are actively seeking and building eclectic and high-personalized theologies “with traditional religion’s dogmas and moral requirements shorn away.” 

Pause here, please.  Douthat himself pauses on the part about “moral requirements shorn away.”  It should give us pause too. 

Yes, build-your-own-theology-types are shearing moral requirements from their generalized religiousness.  But they are not alone.  Americans affiliated with specific faith traditions, whether liberal or conservative, seem to be following the same trend.  Douthat complains that religious people of all stripes are showing a distinct preference for a God “who’s too busy validating their particular version of the American Dream to raise a peep about, say, how much money they’re making or how many times they’ve been married.” 

Hmmm.  Not sure what Douthat means here because large incomes and numerous divorces aren’t necessarily moral no-nos. Most likely he’s wagging his finger at Americans whose God doesn’t raise a peep at HOW they make their money or HOW they spend it (see Post #22 “How good are we without God?”).  He’s probably wagging his finger at Americans whose God doesn’t raise a peep even when children are involved in a divorce.

Christians, Douthat says (and here, his meaning is quite clear), are drawn to “a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah—sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshipping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.” 

Hyperbolic language and claims aside, does Douthat have a point? 

Okay, so polls show that generalized-religiousness Americans are shearing moral requirements from religious ones.  But why are we doing so?

One answer:  we’re done with religions or Gods that ask us to reflect on the harm we may have caused.  These religions or Gods have too often made us feel like we’re bad people and we deserve to go to hell.

Another answer:  many of us are quasi-universalists–any God worthy of that name loves us and is simply too good to condemn us.  We’ve removed God from the judge’s bench in the sky.  The all-about-love God, the one to whom we’re willing to pray, no longer sits in judgment of us.  God loves us, unconditionally.  

And since God loves us, unconditionally, God loves us regardless of how much money we earn (or how we made it and what we do with it) or how many times we’ve been married (even if our kids end up with exponentially-more-difficult lives).

So, is the unconditional-love God really the kind of God we want?  Even a liberal Jewish theologian like Martin Buber, who made a principled decision not to attend worship services, imagined that the soul, after death, would be reunited with God (or not) based on the quality of our deeds.  The Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant, no lover of worship services, imagined the afterlife as an opportunity to encounter more situations requiring moral choices; in this way we would get all the time we needed to hone our willingness to do the right thing for the right reasons. 

What would Buber or Kant think of a “thoroughly modern” God who is “too busy validating” our particular version of the American dream to care about our moral decisions?

And you, what do you think?  Are you troubled by the current trend to triage moral requirements from religiousness (whether yours is a generalized religiousness or a specific-faith-tradition religiousness)?

Next week’s post will take up this issue again and explore the creative approach of the mystical theologian, Julian of Norwich.

References:   Ross Douthat, “Dan Brown’s America” in The New York Times online edition,18 May 2009.

#22 How good are we without God?

12 Tuesday May 2009

Posted by TheNakedTheologian in Ethics, God, Religion, Theological Ethics

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

charitable contributions, conservatives, liberals, tithing

handful moneyHow good are we without God? Apparently not as good.  

Several studies have shown that American liberals—namely, those most likely to have little or no God, are least likely to give to charity. Hurts, doesn’t it?  Where’s the proof, you say?

Robert Brooks, who recently wrote a book, Who Really Cares, about charitable donors discovered the following (as reported by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof):

“When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”

Although liberals advocate on behalf of those who are hungry and homeless, Brooks’ data shows that conservative households give 30% more to charity.  A Google poll puts these numbers even higher—at nearly 50% more.  Conservatives even beat out liberals when it comes to nonfinancial contributions.  People in the conservative states in the center of the country are more likely to volunteer and to give blood. 

But what about the relationship between having a God and being generous?

Based on a Google poll (again, as reported by columnist Kristof), religion is the essential reason conservatives give more.  And although secular liberals tend to keep their wallets closed, it turns out that religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives.

According to Google’s figures, if donations to religious organizations are excluded, the total amount liberals give to charity is slightly higher than that given by conservatives. But according to Mr. Brooks, if the contributed amount is tied to percentage of income, then conservatives are more generous than liberals—even to secular causes.  Ouch.

All of the world’s religions promote charitable giving.  Christians, for example, speak of giving in terms of a tithe required by God.  2 Corinthians 9:7 applauds giving cheerfully, Acts 11:29 advocates feeding the hungry, and James 1:27 exhorts the faithful to help widows and orphans.  Although the New Testament doesn’t discuss tithing per se, congregations generally set at tithing at 10 percent of gross income.  Some congregations don’t ask that the entire tithe be given to support them, but they do ask that moneys given to other charities bring their members’ total contribution to (at least) 10%.  And really–10% of one’s income to feed the hungry, help the destitute, and care for the orphan–is that so much to ask?

Can we agree on the following:

       IF         ‘being good’ = charitable giving

       THEN    ‘being 100% good’ = giving 10% of all gross income from all sources 

Unfortunately a couple of famous liberals—religious liberals at that, illustrate only too well the accuracy of Brooks and Google’s dismal findings.

How about our Vice-President, Mr. Biden (a Roman Catholic), for starters.  The New York Times reported that, according to his 2008 income-tax return, Joe Biden earned $269,000 and claimed—are you ready for this–$1,900 in charitable deductions.  That comes to 0.71% of gross income!  Let’s be charitable ourselves and round that figure to 1%.  Maybe Mr. Biden thought no one would care although he surely knew people would notice, since he’s a public figure and all.  But even more shocking is the fact that he showed no contrition for the sad example he set for his fellow citizens.  His lame response to the numbers cited?  Merely that his total donations were not reflected on his income tax.  He had, he argued, given donations to his church (failing to mention that these are tax-deductible) and donated some of his time!  Hmmmm.  Whatever.  Using the IF-THEN equation above, 1% charitable giving makes Biden 10% good.  A recommendation?  He needs to boost God by 90%.

The President, Mr. Obama (a Congregationalist), fared better in 2008, but even he fell short of the 10% mark.  He donated about 6.5% of his gross income making him 65% good.  A recommendation? He needs to boost God by 35%.

Now, if you turn the microscope to look at your own 2008 income-tax return, will you discover a log in your own eye?  You get a pass if you’ve lost your job or earn less than middle middle-class wages.  The rest of you, please adjust your charitable deduction for donations of time and blood.  Do you need to boost God?  By how much?

Reference:  Nicholas Kristoff, “Bleeding Heart Tightwads,” the electronic version of The New York Times, 21 December 2008;  John McKinnon, “First Couple Reports Income of $2.7 Million,” The Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2009, p. A3.

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