Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

WHY I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST (but sound like one) Reflections on David Bentley Hart’s "That All Shall Be Saved" (PART 2) - Brad Jersak

"For we labor and struggle to this end because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith."  –1 Timothy 4:10

Another Boring Rebuttal from Hopeful Inclusivism

And now I'll risk my humble retort as a “hopeful inclusivist”—a la Hans Urs von Balthasar, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and most probably, Maximos the Confessor. Since publishing Her Gates Will Never Be Shut (Wipf & Stock, 2009), I have, until now, preferred the moniker and theology of “hopeful inclusivism” over universalism for very specific reasons. Hart has some stern and stinging words for this approach. I wish the sting had come through a sound castigation of our position rather than via hints of misrepresentation. I’ll do my best to explain this claim, knowing I’m addressing an intellectual superior who already admits boredom with the topic.  

Hopeful inclusivism, as described by von Balthasar and Ware, proposes that we cannot presume to say that all will be saved, nor may we presume that even one soul will be lost. The issue is not the universal scope of Christ's redemptive work. Instead, their quarrel is with how the –ism itself generates presumption, in both pop universalists and their infernalist opponents. Rather than certitude in any dogma, however biblical or rational, our faith and hope lean wholly on the Person of Jesus Christ. Hart may not perceive this distinction because he is not inclined to presumption, but it's a temptation that ensnares many a common universalist. That's the concern and has been ever since Origen noticed it among immature disciples.

Further, hopeful inclusivism insists on the principle of human freedom, whereby salvation ultimately includes our participation through a willing human response to Jesus Christ. Some adherents to HI note that we may believe by faith the many Scriptures that foresee a universal willing response while also rejecting the Calvinist-style determinism where the elect must irresistibly bow. We’re concerned to affirm ultimate redemption without nullifying the authentic human freedom(which is why we venerate Maximos).  

I’m not sure that Hart would disagree with these points in the end. The nub of his impatience with Balthasar et al. revolves around the word 'hope,' just as my quarrel with universalism is notHart’s arguments, but with what the term 'universalism' has come to mean.     

Hope versus Wishful Thinking

In That All Will Be Saved, David Bentley Hart expresses impatience with those who speak in terms of 'hope,' naming Hans Urs von Balthasar and certainly knowing Metropolitan Ware also "dares to hope that all be saved.”

At the risk of joining the Calvinists in Hart’s shredder, I will admit I was frustrated by how he projected hedge-betting and wishful thinking onto the word 'hope.’ How had he missed the rich, sturdy and objective sense of the term used both in the Scriptures and by the hopeful inclusivists? Here is the one area where I thought Hart was unfair, only because I know it’s unlikely that he was careless. To reduce 'hope' to 'wishful' or even 'doubtful' in the Bible or in von Balthasar is straw-manning that deserves pushback.

Hopeful inclusivists do not regard ultimate redemption as something we hope for wistfully. Not at all. On this point, DBH could have successfully steel-manned us and still made his point. But he didn’t—and this made me second guess whether he had been similarly slapdash with the Calvinist infernalists. I double-checked and no, I don’t think he was. Glad to know.  

But back to hope. Would Hart dismiss the author of Titus as a hesitant vacillator when he says we are “awaiting the blissful hope, and the appearing of the glory, of the great God and of our savior, the Anointed One Jesus…”?Of course not, since the hope and glory we await is none other than the sure appearance of our God and of his Christ. There is no double-mindedness or wavering—there’s no sense that the parousia is contingent or could swing either way. There is no free-will opt-out in that hope. Jesus is coming for sure. That is our hope, our faith, our conviction and sure foundation.

It's not about 'hoping for' with crossed fingers. It's 'hoping in' confidently in a Person. To quote the old hymn, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.”

Hans Urs von Balthasar and Kallistos Ware, like Isaac the Syrian and Maximos the Confessor before them, all argue that our salvation includes a necessary, authentic and willing human response. We’ll go there momentarily, but first, written into von Balthasar’s hope are two clearly expressed riders:

1. Balthasar urges us not to presume all will be saved. “Presume.” Words matter. My friend Robin Parry identifies as an “evangelical universalist.” He believes with complete confidence that all shall be saved. But neither is there any hint of presumption in his argument. Even universalism of the boldest flavor ought not presume that all will be saved, for the sin of presumption lies not in the surety of one’s hope for ultimate redemption but in taking so great a salvation for granted—i.e. the arrogant and groundless certitude of those many universalists who skirt the essentials of the gospel, central to which is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ is not presumption, just as hope in Christ is not vacillation.
2. Balthasar holds to the principle of human willingness but also cites approvingly the straightforward claim that having seen the beatific vision, it is infinitely unlikely that any would turn from it. Words matter. Hart doesn’t take the plain meaning of these words seriously, or else he believes that von Balthasar didn’t. I do. He means, to my mind, just what he says: infinitely unlikely. Some fifth-grade math should do the trick here. It is not 1% likely that some will be lost. It is not 1 x 10^-n likely that even one should be lost. It is infinitely unlikely that any should be lost at all. Such is the hope of one who’s hope IS our Lord Jesus Christ and not in the rationalistic certitude of a doctrine.

To sum up the surety of our blessed Hope, and what hopeful inclusivists mean by the term, Richard John Neuhaus explains,

 “I believe, I have a confident faith, that I will be saved because of the mercy of God in Christ. It is sometimes said that Protestants, who subscribed to “justification by faith,” know they will be saved, while Catholics only hope they will be saved. That is a distinction without a difference. Faith is hope anticipated, and hope is faith disclosed toward the future.”

DBH may imagine anemic definitions of hope, but he should dignify hopeful Inclusivists with the right to define their own labels according to Scripture and the tradition.

Or maybe he’s right. Has modern 'hope' strayed so far from its objective biblical foundations that it too is no longer useful? Is hope so weakened by time and use that it has truly become synonymous with 'doubt' as Hart seems to assume? I no longer have doubts about ultimate redemption, but if referring to our blessed hope is reduced to 'vacillation' or 'doubt,' why would DBH choose that word when translating 1 Tim. 4:10, or why can’t von Balthasar likewise be trusted to mean what the Bible meant. That verse stands as both my affirmation and critique of Hart. Again,

“For we labor and struggle to this end, because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith” (1 Timothy 4:10).

Free(d) Will

When it comes to the 'free will' defense for eternal conscious torment or any voluntary opt-out that trumps ultimate redemption, I would concur with Hart's critiques virtually down the line. In a nutshell, [I think] he believes (as do I) that a willing human response to Christ is intrinsic to salvation, but who can say that in this life, the human will is ever truly 'free’?

Of course, Calvinist universalists equivocate on the first point, denying human freedom altogether. They believe that Christ has unilaterally chosen all to salvation (unconditional election of all people) and that all will respond to Christ because of God’s irresistible grace. For the Reformers in Augustine’s monergist lineage, the human will is virtually irrelevant (nuances aside): we move from bondage of the will to the flesh to bondage of the will to God by divine fiat. We are saved by sovereign grace alone—not by any human work. Even your faith was pure gift. It’s not about choosing our “Yes” to Christ. Christ chose me; I did not choose him. Calvinist salvation is entirely unilateral, not reciprocal.

Maximos saw it differently. In my reductionist interpretation of his work, humankind was created with a will designed to naturally and freely desire the good at all times. But the natural will became dysfunctional in and since the fall. Now we waver, second guess and inevitably turn from the good. Maximos described this dysfunctional inclination as the gnomic will… it’s not absolutely bound (as with certain Reformers) such that it could never turn to the good. But on any given day, we might find ourselves pursuing Christ, then suddenly deceived or seduced by the world, the flesh or the enemy into the nearest ditch.

Maximos went on to famously argue that Christ assumed the human will to heal the human will through his willing surrender to the Father’s will, especially in the Gethsemane. As through a human will humankind fell, so through Christ’s human will, humankind will be saved. How? Christ heals and restores the natural will and finally frees it, even if at the final judgment, for it would be unjust for Christ to condemn and exclude anyone for rejecting him with a dysfunctional will. That would be like condemning a blind man for being unable to see. But when every eye shall see him, freed from the deceptions of this present evil age (most notably our egoism) and apart from the blindness of the fallen will, we will activate our redeemed will and freely desire God’s will. We will love God because he first loved us.

Perhaps I am mistaken and Hart can show us this is not what Maximos meant. But it is what I mean after reading him. I hope (maybe in Hart’s wishful thinking way) that this is also what Hart meant in his book. The freed will shall not remain fallen, nor will it opt out of the Good when we behold the Son with unveiled, healed spiritual eyes. My point is that this IS the hopeful inclusivist position and for all the reasons both Hart and Maximos recount. That is, I’m saying Hart has co-opted Maximos for his universalism when von Balthasar may be his rightful heir apparent.  

Said another way, Maximos prescribes the position adopted by H.I. (when articulated rightly by its own adherents within the parameters carefully laid out by Maximos). If Hart agrees with Maximos as I suppose, he has a high view of the freed and healed natural will and its role in our salvation … but in his rhetoric, he may sound to some like he undermines 'free will.' That's mainly because he first needs to thoroughly take down the problematic free-will opt-out defense of the infernalists. I understand this. I just wish he hadn’t misrepresented hopeful universalism, as it is sometimes called. The pseudo-enemy he describes and rejects (as I would) could instead be dubbed gnomic universalism. Have at it. But I don’t think it fair to relegate von Balthasar or Ware to that camp. Or if their caution is so problematic, it should be for Origen as well, as we’ll see.     

CLICK HERE to read part I:  "In Praise of Hart"

CLICK HERE to read part III:  "The Amorphous Imprecision of 'Universalism'"

CLICK HERE to download the full review of David Bentley Hart’s That All Will Be Saved - Jersak

WHY I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST (but sound like one) Reflections on David Bentley Hart’s "That All Shall Be Saved" (PART 1) - Brad Jersak

"For we labor and struggle to this end because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith."  –1 Timothy 4:10

In Praise of Hart

At long last. I'm grateful that Dr. Hart pushed through his recent health challenges to finish both his translation of the New Testament and his new release, That All Shall Be Saved. His recovery is vital to the Body of Christ as we will have great need of him for some time.

Among the guilty pleasures of reading his instant classic, That All Shall Be Saved, are Hart’s combination of high-minded formal logic, precise (and sometimes obscure) word selection and his occasionally snarky tone. I know the objections: “He should use more accessible language so I don’t have to use up the precious thirty seconds it takes to learn a new word.” And, “Christians shouldn’t be as rude as their Calvinist critics, because it’s not very Christlike to be grumpy toward idiocy.” Apparently, suffering fools gladly is a mark of spiritual maturity. I get it. We like to pretend we’re nice. But consider…   

First, I believe in striking a balance between clarity for the reader and a teacher’s responsibility to nurture the saints to full maturity. Hart is regularly chided for leaving even thoughtful readers in the dust of academic jargon and philosophic mazes. But perhaps he’s only guilty of oversteering against a far greater problem: Christian teachers who cripple their students by infantilizing them, creating suggestible acolytes distracted by every trendy quasi-theological squirrel. In an era where the dominant Christian diet is not even milk, much less meat, and the new wine is reduced to grape Kool-Aid, I’ll happily excuse Hart if he doesn’t provide us with toilet-time reading. Really, do we want to learn something or simply nod [off]?

And yes, fans of both N.T. Wright and DBH were amused (if not slightly embarrassed) witnesses of their prickly exchange regarding their respective Bible translations. Best marketing scheme ever!

Still, without excusing uncharitable debate, I sheepishly confess to enjoying Hart’s tart prose and spicy counterpoints to his Calvinist opponents. For so long, I’ve tried (against my nature) to take the high road of the soft answer that turns away wrath … but after nearly two decades of relentless trolling by neo-Reformed dilettantes, it feels nice when a bigger, smarter brother appears on the schoolyard and treats the meanies to a sound pummeling. I said it feels nice. I didn't say nice is a fruit of the Spirit, hence the 'guilt' in my 'guilty pleasure.’

Initially, I was worried that Hart’s unwillingness to [Robin] parry opponents’ jabs with winsome cheer might cause him to dismiss Calvinist claims without directly dismantling them—waving them off as too inane to bother with. Happily, in That All Would Be Saved, my worries proved to be unfounded. Hart shreds them head-on in one shriveling sortie after the other, laying bare why he found their case for infernalism so ludicrous to begin with.

The Hart of the Matter

At the heart of Hart’s argument is the nature of God. George MacDonald once said, “Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God. They can make little progress in the knowledge of God while holding evil things true of him.” Hart argues this truth convincingly. Two significant points are etched in my mind as abiding takeaways:

1. That if God is willing and able to bring all things to a good end, then he will, and not to do so would demonstrate that he is either woefully incompetent or pure evil.
2. That the notion of eternal conscious torment is infinitely disproportionate to any lifetime of crimes one could achieve (even for Hitler), such that a God who inflicts fiery torment forever could not in any true sense be said to be called good or just.

A key element to Hart’s case is that the words we use to describe the ineffable, though miserably inadequate, must mean something and should not be rendered incoherent. He refutes the idea that God could consign anyone to everlasting, boiling bitumen and still be called loveor good. He points out the absurdity of claiming divine love IS what compels God to stoke the flames forever, or that he’s bound to do so to dignify the 'free will' of someone who allegedly 'chooses’ everlasting damnation. As if they would so choose once Christ is revealed before unveiled eyes. As if the event of death leaves God bankrupt of redemptive options. Biblically, logically and rhetorically, Hart exposes such doctrinal acrobatics as blasphemous.   

This, of course, does not scratch the surface of Hart’s fine book and exquisite arguments, but I’m committed to internalizing his mind on the subject because I believe “the faith once delivered” now depends on retracing our steps to those patristic fathers and mothers whose vision of God was devoid of retribution and who believed Christ was both able and committed to the “restoration of all things” (apokatastaseôs pantôn – Acts 3:21). As Hart says, the alternatives deserve the atheism they generate.

In reading That All Shall Be Saved, it feels to me we've heard the last word—Hart marks out a corner the church must make (or else). His central themes and beautiful vision forge a path beyond the medieval-modernist hybrid of Dante literalized, where Christianity will otherwise come to its terminus. And rightly so. 

CLICK HERE to read part II:  "Another Boring Rebuttal from Hopeful Inclusivism"

CLICK HERE to download the full review of David Bentley Hart’s That All Will Be Saved - Jersak

A Different Kind of Feast - Homily by Fr. Sean Davidson

A Different Kind of Feast

Sept. 1, 2019 | St. Mark’s

Gospel – Luke 14:1, 7-14

Let’s set the scene. We’re at a dinner party hosted by a prominent religious leader in the community. Friends and family and other influential people are in attendance. So is Jesus.

As everyone gathers around the table, Jesus watches his fellow guests and notes how they are vying for the places of honor. He shares a few thoughts.

Look with me at verse 8:

“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests.”

Imagine the other guests in this moment. What’s the look on their faces?

This is really awkward, isn’t it? Who talks like this at dinner parties? For real. And how do you respond?

Obviously, Jesus is meaning to play the teacher, and he’s doing that with a purpose. But what is he saying? What’s his point? Is this some new social etiquette for wedding banquets? Or maybe practical instruction on the finer points of honor and shame?

It could be that in a way. But I think there’s more going on.

Hermann Hesse, "Siddhartha" – review by Ron Dart

When New Directions decided to publish the first English translation of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in 1951, it could never have foreseen the enormous impact it would have on American culture.

—Paul Morris (p. xiii)

Hinduism has been much misunderstood in the West since it has been introduced in one or another of its exaggerated forms. One image of it is that of the starving sannyasin who by dint of extravagant austerities claims to have realized himself as the soul of the All…The other is that of a religion of unbridled sexuality which the publication of the Kamasutrasas a paperback has done nothing to dispel.

—R.C. Zaehner, Concordant Discord (p. 163)

American witnessed a Hesse phenomenon that was for a European writer.—Paul Morris (p. xv).          

There has been and continues to be in our post-Christendom and post-Secular and Scientific Western culture and ethos a perennial spiritual longing and thirst that only deeper waters can quench. The West has a significant contemplative tradition as does the East. Kipling wrongfully suggested that “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet”. There have been many creative writers and thinkers in the last few centuries that, in our increasing global village, have sought to discern, how East and West might meaningfully meet—Hermann Hesse is certainly such a guide and mentor, one who in his layered and longer life, sought to bring together the wisdom and contemplative traditions of the West and East: Siddhartha was one of Hesse’s fuller forays into such thoughtful probes.

The sheer carnage and tragedy of WW I, for the more sensitive and thoughtful, raised questions about human suffering on our all too human journey. What does to mean to be human and live an authentic life? What are decisions worth the making, how can we be deflected from making such decisions and is there more to being human than the fleeting ego, throes of matter and projected public personas? It was these sorts of questions that greeted Hesse and begged a response. Hesse’s seeming turn to Buddhism as an initial attempt to face such questions after WW I was not, it should be noted, a scholarly and academic approach to examining the origins and sources of the emergence of Buddhism—Hesse’s interest was much more existential and personal. Hence, the Siddhartha of this short novella of sorts is not the Siddhartha turned Gotama Buddha (the enlightened one) of 1^stgeneration Buddhism—it is much more the story of every person who longs to live a more meaningful life (and the hard decisions that point in such a direction).

Guest Post: A Rainbow Seen through Celtic Eyes - Fr. David Jones

How is possible that a Republican political activist (at the national, state and county levels), an advisor to a very conservative former U.S. Senator and Republican candidate for President who nearly won his party’s nomination to be President, and a conservative Catholic become an ally to the LGBT community?  This is my story of how through a series of human encounters and events over a decade changed my worldview and allowed me to see all peoples with new eyes, through a prism seeing multi-colors.

I am a career U.S. Army soldier and senior field grade officer.  It was through a series of professional events that my personal perspective on LGBT peoples began to change as the Department of Defense (DoD) policy regarding LGBT peoples changed.  The first event involved a 3-star general investigation of a young sergeant who had “came out of the closest” during the transition period before the new policy was implemented.  We were still under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy where if one kept their sexual activity private, no one asked or cared.  If it was publicly discussed though, then any known LGBT soldier was immediately discharged out of the service.  I was assigned as the senior field grade investigating officer for this high-level case at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

A military police sergeant, a decorated combat veteran of Iraq, had publicly disclosed his sexual orientation before his pending honorable discharge out of service. He had honorably served his nation and nearly fulfilled his full military contract.  He was getting out to go to graduate school.  Unfortunately, it was discovered that he was “gay” by his chain of command, forcing the gears of the military bureaucracy to turn on.  I recommended no punishment be issued against this sergeant.  He had never once been in trouble for anything during his two full tours of service. He was a highly decorated non-commissioned officer, and overall, just a good guy.  It just didn’t make any professional or personal sense to me to punish this good solider for being who he truly was.

Q&R WITH BRAD JERSAK: “UNDER GRACE, ARE WE STILL ‘SINNERS’? IS CONFESSING SIN A DENIAL OF GRACE?”

QUESTION

Under grace, are we still ‘sinners’? Is confessing sin a denial of grace? What about saying “the Lord’s Prayer,” which asks God to forgive our sins? Some grace teachers regard the Lord’s Prayer as Old Covenant since Jesus taught it before the Cross and at the Cross, all sins were already forgiven. What’s your take on this?

RESPONSES

These questions are loaded with a backstory, for sure. I can hear the wounds of shame in how the words “sin” and “sinner” were used as bludgeons on sensitive hearts. And believe me, I can relate. As long as these are still associated with the old pangs of religious shaming, it will be hard to use them at all. What the New Testament describes is not what they came to mean for so many of us. But let’s try to work it out together.

The Foundations of Grace

Before anything else, let’s get the foundations of grace and our theology of the Cross firmly beneath our feet:

1. The Incarnation of Christ established God’s union with humanity at the conception of Jesus Christ, from the moment the divine Word assumed human flesh. This means the redemption project began, not at the Cross, but in the womb of the Virgin.
2. The Ministry of Christ proclaimed that the New Covenant Jubilee had already arrived, not at the Cross, but from the moment the Lord announced that the kingdom of God had come in him and from the beginning, he said, “TODAY this is fulfilled in your midst.”
3. The Cross of Christ (which includes his death AND resurrection) was the apex of his Incarnation and Ministry,when his Incarnation and Ministry are made absolute and universal by “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” and the power of death is defeated.
4. “It is finished” means “it is accomplished.” Was there more to do? Of course! Christ still had to plunder hades, rise from the dead, ascend to the right hand of the Father, pour out his Spirit and continue rescuing lost sheep. “If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself” is the ongoing ministry that flows from the Cross.

Our New Identity in Christ / the Truth of our Being

With due credit to C. Baxter Kruger, the “truth of our being” (our ‘ontology,’ a fancy word for ‘being’) is “in Christ.” By faith, I identify myself as a beloved child of our Abba. That was established, not at my conversion, but already on the Cross, when I was yet “powerless,” still a “sinner” and his “enemy” (Romans 5:6, 8, 10). Already at the Cross, Paul says Christ died for us, forgave us and reconciled us to God (Romans 5:9-11). Forgiven, justified and reconciled-a child of God-that is the truth of my being, my new identity.

That said, the indwelling grace of Father, Son and Spirit in us is at work in me, transforming me so that the truth of my being becomes “the way of my being” (my real-life existence). The truth of my being in Christ (my identity) will impact the way of my being (my life) by the Grace of God. Our role is not through self-will and religious performance but by surrender to God’s Grace (2 Cor. 3:18).

Our New Life in Christ / the Way of our Being

God’s transforming Grace (the Holy Spirit) empowers our “new life in Christ.” They aren’t to be divorced. In an email exchange with Wm. Paul Young, we co-wrote the following:

• Our true identity in Christ emerges from within our real humanity, rooted in encounter, union and community. At its heart, the truth it knows, experiences and lives is that you are not alone. 
• There is another version of “our identity in Christ” that is a disembodied, dissociated, abstracted ideal, usually imagined in a separated “heavenly realm” (a kingdom elsewhere, not truly ‘in you’ and therefore, not truly ‘in Christ’). This idealized identity is a two-dimensional avatar that the self-deceived self assumes, and ultimately another delusion as disconnected from reality as Adam in his turning.

What we’re getting at is that identity (the truth of our being) doesn’t ignore or negate reality (the way of our being). It transforms it. And that includes the real struggles of our lives. And that struggle, we sometimes call “sin.”

Lamentations and (Anti)Theodicy - Mark P. Stone

“Theodicy: Ça se déconstruit”

Those words were too much,

too little was said, understood, imagined.

Win your peace, vindicate your god,

it is pyrrhic, brittle.

I thumb the pages of that same old text,

and hope—quelled to bare velleity, dim

and frail—whimpers o’er another

field of fallen sparrows.

God the All-Powerful, All-Passive,

rendered now a vacant notion

shorn of love, full of strength:

God omni(im)potent!

There are many other such cairns;

these ersatz gods will have their reckoning.

By a curious twist of history, one of the fragments of Lamentations found among the Dead Sea Scrolls switches the order of a few lines. The poems ofʾeikhah (the official title comes from the first Hebrew word, evoking something like a desperate sigh) are arranged acrostically, so this particular difference simply means changing the sequence of two letters in the alphabet. Scholars quibble about why this happened, but basically, it means that Lamentations 1:15-18 as it appears in our modern bibles also existed as Lamentations 1:15, then followed by verses 17, 16, and 18. Not unlike most of the Scrolls, this scrap is badly damaged and riddled with lacunae, but the last line is particularly interesting:

            My children are desolate [because] the enemy prevailed;

            the L[ord] is righteous, [because]...

            (4QLam, col. III: frg. 3, line 10 = Lam 1:16c, 18aα)

The line is meant to end, “The Lord is righteous, because I have rebelled against his word.” But what if we were to be openly tendentious in our reading? We might capitalize on this coincidence of history and decay: In the midst of slaughtered children, dare we whisper of a righteous deity? The very ink itself has been effaced, unwritten: “The L[ord] is righteous, [because]…” Because…why? The Scroll can only partially name this God and offers no reason, no justification, as though to do so has become an unspeakable act. Perhaps Irving Greenberg was right to exclaim, “No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children.”^[1]

            And yet…

Download Lamentations and Antitheodicy

[1]Irving Greenberg, “Cloud of Smoke, Pillar of Fire,” in Eva Fleischner, ed., Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? Reflections on the Holocaust (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, and Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, 1977), p. 23.

Authentic Christianity versus Ascendant American Christendom - Kenneth Tanner

What we see Christians doing and saying in the name of Jesus Christ in this country is alarming, frustrating, disturbing and—yes—angering.

I tend to the wounded daily. I see the tears in their eyes and hear the hurt in their hearts. I witness the harm and it crushes me. I’m not exaggerating.

Come talk to me and see the tears in my eyes and hear the hurt in my heart.

I believe that Jesus weeps over the minds and hearts of way too many who say they follow him, as he wept over Jerusalem.

There is an authentic Christianity but I believe we must leave Christendom in its ascendant American form in order to remain Christian.

There is an authentic church but I believe we must leave Christendom in its popular American structure in order to find the church.

There is an authentic God but I believe we must leave the God of Christendom in his dominant American mask in order to follow Jesus Christ.

There’s been so much abuse in the name of Jesus Christ and so many abusers of the name of Jesus Christ.

Week in and week out I sit across from the pain and destruction the abusers have left in their wake.

I get why so many have left the church and left the faith and—God help me—it makes me angry sometimes because what the wounded are leaving is not the credal faith of the church.

No, sir. They are leaving a faith and a God not worthy of belief. I don’t believe in the God or the faith they are leaving behind either.

I weep because the ones who are harmed by Christendom are not leaving the authentic Son of God who makes the world in love, and loves the world that he makes, who becomes what he makes in love in order to lay down his life for the creation he loves so that ALL might live.

This story is what Christians trust, not another story but this story.

But it’s time to pump the brakes, friends.

And here is what wisdom says: authentic Christianity is the defeat of rage, the conquering of frustration, the end of fear, the beginning of understanding, a kingdom of peace, the capacity to love.

What I am describing is sanctification.

We become saints—whatever we look like it on the outside and whatever our reputation—because we are fools for Jesus Christ.

As with anything else in life that’s worth anything this transformation is a process—a healing, not a curing. The wounds we endure remain but are transfigured.

All of these feelings—anger, bitterness, confusion, disgust, however valid—must give way in the end to authentic love.

One of the hardest things to get about authentic Christianity is its love for victimizers (not what they do but the people themselves) as much as victims.

Our God dies for the victims and the victimizers so that we might all die with him and live.

The wrath of God is revealed against all that is not love and will burn away all that is not love in us but the wrath of God does not seek the eradication of those who bear his image, not even those who abuse his name.

God in human flesh teaches us to pray, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

And we are not human until we are human as God is human in Jesus Christ on the Cross at the moment these words are uttered.

This never means we excuse or cooperate with or tolerate evil—the authentic God has no partnership with darkness—but it does mean we are invited to let the Spirit temper our rage and replace our frustration with peace and teach us what it means to learn to love all persons.

And to love them for the sake of love alone for love alone is credible. Love alone is worthy of trust. Love is credal.

This is our God. This is Christianity. This is the church.

Come to God and have life.

Come to the faith and understand the story of the world as the story of the God who serves the creation God loves.

Come to the church and become human as God is human in the flesh of a criminal hanging on a tree for the love of all persons and for the cosmos all of his creatures inhabit.

Join the church and become human as God is human.

Guest Post: A Muslim Reflection on the Beatitudes by Safi Kaskas

Editor’s Note: In the spirit of respectful interfaith dialogue, www.Clarion-Journal.com welcomes Safi Kaskas, a noted Islamic scholar, peacemaker and translator of the Qur’an. He originally posted a series of reflections on the Beatitudes of Jesus at https://www.facebook.com/safikaskas2, where he promotes peaceful dialogue between Muslims and those of other faiths. We’ve gathered those posts into the following 8-day devotional with his kind permission.

 

A Muslim Reflection on the Beatitudes
by Safi Kaskas   

Day 1

Do you know what the Beatitudes are? They are the opening lines of the Sermon on the Mount, spoken by Jesus as a guide to his followers and disciples.

If we Muslims want to live next to our Christian neighbors, we need to know what their Book teaches them. I will mention one of the Beatitudes every day and we will discuss it if you show interest.

Let's start:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). 

What exactly does it mean to be poor in spirit? 

Some propose that Jesus is speaking of financial poverty. While it is true that Jesus elsewhere warned against seeking riches (Matthew 6:24), that does not seem to be Jesus’ point in Matthew 5:3. Jesus is speaking of being “poor in spirit”; i.e., being “spiritually poor.” 

To be poor in spirit is to recognize that without spiritual humility, without truly asking God's help, we have nothing and we are spiritually worthless.

The first step on the path toward God according to Jesus is to admit that we are spiritually nothing and God is everything.

 

Origen, Literalism & the Modern Marcionite Irony - Fr. Kenneth Tanner

As a pastor who deals (almost daily) with the devastation wrought in souls by bad readings of Scripture, I wish every contemporary Christian on the planet could read this passage. It’s the beginning of a section called “How the Divine Scripture is to be read and understood” from Origen’s ”On First Principles.”

Origen first cites certain Old Testament prophesies that the Jews of his time and the first centuries read *literally* and so reject(ed) Jesus as the Messiah *because* Jesus did not do any of the particular things cited, nor did any of these particular things happen when Jesus came in the flesh.

(Please remember that Origen is not anti-Semitic. He’s arguing about the way we read the Scriptures within what he considers his family, his extended tribe.)

What Origen does next struck me like lightning. He cites additional passages from the Old Testament that he says “the heretics” use to reject the Creator.

What blew my mind?

These passages the heretics (in this case, the Marcionites) cite to reject the Creator are the very ones most often cited by contemporary neo-Calvinist teachers and their epigones to *prove* their version of God, passages Origen says both they and Marcionites should not read *literally* and thus “suppose such things about him [the Creator] that would not be supposed of the most savage and unjust human being.”

Dart and Packer's "Christianity and Pluralism" - Review by Brad Jersak

Review of Ron S. Dart and J.I. Packer, Christianity and Pluralism (Lexham Press, 2019), 70 pages. 

Christianity and Pluralism is a fresh and poignant new edition of a booklet first composed just over two decades ago, titled In a Pluralist World (Regent, 2008). The collection of essays was originally written in response to Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham's controversial pluralist manifesto, Mansions of the Spirit. Ron Dart and J.I. Packer, also both Anglicans (though of very different streams), each offer their respective and respectful critical analyses of Mansions as an entry point into the broader discussion of the various shades of Enlightenment pluralism. 

This little booklet is just 70 pages long but astoundingly efficient and clear in its nuanced explication of the issues at hand. As such, it would provide an excellent primer for students and teachers who want to understand pluralism's various shades, strengths and pitfalls without the sort of reductionism that often plagues the topic.

After the prefaces (Dart, 2019 and Rev. Dr. Archie Pell, 2008), the book unfolds in three acts and an appendix.

Chapter 1 features Ron Dart's critique of Mansions, which he regards as both a "subtle syncretism" of the hidden agreement within mystical traditions across religions and "ideological liberalism" that in fact subverts Christian (and other religion's) truth claims.

Dart's review focused on laying out the content of Bishop Michael's book and offering ten points of rebuttal. He initially welcomes the book as a timely challenge, calling Christians to think carefully about what we believe and why. But ultimately, Dart's response boils down to three major deficiencies in Ingham's work: "it lacks a rigorous mystical theology, a radical politics and a high Christology-ecclesiology." Dart hints at a better and alternative framework for interfaith dialogue, which comes later in the book.

"Evangelicals, Donald Trump & American Political Culture" - Podcast: Molly Worthan with David Goa

Podcast - Molly Worthan

In Conversation with David Goa

 CLICK HERE TO HERE THE PODCAST 

I welcome you to our conversation on President Trump, the evangelicals and what is unfolding in American political culture.

In this podcast I have the pleasure of talking with Professor Molly Worthan. She teaches history at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focusing on the intellectual and religious history of North America. She is also the Director of the Honors Program, an opinion writer for the New York Times, Slate and other publication. Her superb book, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism explores the intellectual history of American evangelicals and the culture wars since 1945. 

A decade and a half ago I received an enquiry for an undergraduate student at Yale University. She was learning Russia and wanted to come to northern Alberta to spend the summer doing field research work in the Old Believer community near Athabasca. I first met this community in the 1970s shortly after they arrived. A bit later I spent sometime with my colleague the anthropologist David Scheffle who also did field research and published a book on the Old Believers. This community had its origins in Siberia to which their ancestors had been exiled following the reforms introduced to the Russian Orthodox Church by Patriarch Nikon in 1666. Some made their way into a remote region of China, live a reclusive life, and occasionally hunted Siberian tigers for European zoos. In order to avoid the reach of the communist government of China in the 1960s they moved again and eventually settled in Canada. It was not the sort of community I would readily suggest a young woman (or man for that matter) endeavour to engage. 

I called the phone number on the correspondence and met Molly Worthen. She spoke easily about herself and her interests, mentioned growing up in Chicago, the city that entered my blood when I studied there in the 1960s. It was clear to me that she had the intellectual curiosity and formation, a spirit of hospitality and simple good judgment and determination suitable to her proposed work. Over the summer we got to know each other and her work in the Old Believer community flourished. That summer played a little role in Molly focusing her work on North American religious and intellectual history, particularly the ideas and culture of conservative Christianity. She is a professor of History at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Director of the Honors Program, an opinion writer for the New York Times, Slate and other publication. Her superb book, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism explores the intellectual history of American evangelicals and the culture wars since 1945.

I welcome you to our conversation on President Trump, the evangelicals and what is unfolding in America political culture. I welcome your thoughts on our conversation and may be reached at davidgoa@telusplanet.net.

Religious Addiction - Vladika Lazar Puhalo

One thing that is not appreciated enough is the difference between faith and an addiction to religion. Religious addiction follows the same vector lines as any other addiction. Religious addiction is certainly not the same thing as normal faith. It is learned behaviour for the most part, and often culturally imposed, or at the least has a cultural formation. However, as with all addictions, there is a certain predisposition toward addiction itself often accompanied by, or even a manifestation of OCD.

Religious addiction is generally characterized by rigidity and a need for absolutes, for black and white solutions or attitudes toward any given problem and toward morality in general. The need for absolutes impels addicts to seek to impose their own “orthodoxies” on others, even if it means by force and threats, using the law and contravening documents such as the Constitution of the United States or the Canadian Charter. Religious addicts are somewhat like florid schizophrenics. They sound very high and mighty and even convincing with what passes for a spiritual presence and position, but is, in fact, a manifestation of rigidity and a real lack of spiritual content –  a spiritual content which has been replaced by a juridical mindset. In place of spirituality, they have only some concept of law or their version of law. They tend also to see our relationship with God strictly as one of imposed legal norms rather than any kind of spiritual transformation. Religious addiction should be treated like all addictions. There needs to be a sort of 12-step program to liberate people from religious addictions.

However, since their addictions are religious, they will inevitably think they are being guided by God or a god – by whatever name they know Him. There is scant difference between Christian fundamentalists – including those in the Orthodox Christian Church – and fundamentalist Muslims or Hindus. Their addictions can be dangerous for the rest of society, and particularly so since they deprive them of any serious access to realities. In general, they have a utopian nostalgia for a time and world that never actually existed except in nationalist mythologies and fantasies. We must bear in mind that religiosity is completely inimical to democracy, and it will always try to undermine basic principles of democracy and tend toward some degree of theocracy and autocracy.

Ron Dart with Brad Jersak - Secularism, Gnosticism, Bede Griffiths and Interfaith Dialogue

Ron discusses 3 shades of secularism, political Gnosticism (a la Eric Voegelin's 4 examples), the clash between certain forms of pluralism and secularism in the public square, and the example of Bede Griffiths in interfaith dialogue that honours Christian distinctives while respecting the religious other.

This is a follow-up to Ron's lecture on "Some Dilemmas of Contemplative Interfaith Dialogue." Viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2pSJwxJ2WA

Spiritual Vocation of the Family - David Goa

Reflections on the Spiritual Vocation of the Family

With my voice unto the Lord have I cried,

with my voice unto the Lord have I made supplication.

I will pour out before Him my supplication,

mine affliction before Him will I declare.

When my spirit was fainting within me,

then Thou knewest my paths.

In this way wherein I have walked they hid for me a snare.

I looked upon my right hand, and beheld,

and there was none that did know me.

Flight hath failed me,

and there is none that watcheth out for my soul.

I have cried unto Thee, O Lord;

I said: Thou art my hope, my portion art Thou

in the land of the living.

Attend unto my supplication,

for I am brought very low.

Deliver me from them that persecute me

for they are stronger than I.

Bring my soul out of prison that I may confess Thy Name.

Psalm 141, from the Vesper Liturgy

            The Psalmist David expresses the cry of the human heart. It is a cry in young and old alike, born of longing to be known in the depth of one’s being and recognizing that “there is none that did know me…none that watcheth out for my soul.” Gregory the Great (born in Rome c. 540), said that a friend is the guardian of one’s soul, custos animi.[1] Custos animi suggests that there are three elements that characterize spiritual friendship: responsibility for another person’s well-being and ultimate salvation, a knowledge of his or her inner life and, a spiritual dimension. Spiritual friendship undergirds my reflection and I will return to it in the latter portion of the discussion endeavouring to draw out its implications for the spiritual vocation of the family.

            But first, I would like to begin this reflection on the spiritual vocation of the family at the heart of my personal formation, my mother and father, and in the life and sense of the world they sought to build together. It was in no sense an ideal. Yet I begin here because their stance towards me and my sisters, their nurture and initiation of us into the world, have come into relief and I see much more sharply how they have informed my thinking of family, the human spirit and our relationship with the stranger in our midst. They are my existential point of departure and, by implication, what I bring to this conversation.

CLICK HERE to download Full Text of "Reflections on the Spiritual Vocation of the Family"

[1]Brian Patrick McGuire, Friendship and Community, The Monastic Experience, 350-1250 (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications Inc., 1988): xv. McGuire discusses Gregory the Great’s consideration of this theme and the seminal contribution to it by the Eastern Church Fathers in the first chapter of this book.

“How do you read?” - Kenneth Tanner

“How do you read?”

I marvel at the question Jesus asks the lawyer in Luke 10 and have for about 5-6 years.

It still touches something at my core, that God in human flesh invites this man (and us) into a communal reading of Scripture with him.

The lawyer starts by “testing” Jesus, seeking to justify himself, and Jesus asks:

“How do YOU read?”

It’s an invitation to read the Scriptures with God.

And later a final question for the lawyer after Jesus’ world-interpreting story: “Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (It’s a conversation!)

When Deacon Andrew, standing in the center of the congregation this morning, read the lawyer’s response—“The one who showed mercy on him”—I wept.

The expert learns a different reading of the Law and speaks now as the Word speaks.

Having been invited into the conversation, he is transformed.

Perhaps I have changed, or perhaps I was always this way (emotional) and did not know myself that well, or I suppressed or hid it better, but I weep a lot more in worship these days, especially when the Gospel is read.

What’s hiding in your garden? Eden Jersak

Photo by Eden Jersak

^{MARK 4:26-28}

‘This is what God’s kingdom is like,’ said Jesus. ‘Once upon a time a man sowed seed on the ground. Every night he went to bed; every day he got up; and the seed sprouted and grew without him knowing how it did it. The ground produces crops by itself: first the stalk, then the ear, then the complete corn in the ear. But when the crop is ready, in goes the sickle at once, because harvest has arrived.’

What’s hiding in your garden?

What’s hiding in your garden? I didn’t plant this vine. I have never watered it. I haven’t even ever given it any notice. And yet here it is!

There are things in our life that we really have to work hard at, and it takes time, effort, probably counseling, and oh so much heart space. But there are other “things” that grow in our heart that just seem to spring up organically, with little or no effort. Why is that? Maybe because if everything cost us we’d be tapped out and would just despair of all the work. OR maybe because we need to remember and understand that it’s not ALL up to us. Some of our maturity and growth just comes with time. And some of it comes as gifts from others who cheer us on or deposit good seeds into our lives.

I encourage you to look around your heart’s garden today, take note of things that have been growing with little effort from you, and take it all in. Enjoy the fact that there’s something within that has risen without your efforts.

 

Some Dilemmas of Contemplative Interfaith Dialogue - Ron Dart (video)

Ron Dart (UFV) discusses various nuances of exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism, and syncretism. For more details, see his new release of "Christianity and Pluralism," originally co-written with J.I. Packer in response to Bishop Michael Ingham's work, "Mansions of the Spirit."

See the book description below this video. 

Christianity and Pluralism is a collection of concise yet thoughtful essays by J. I. Packer and Ron Dart, interacting with and responding to the four traditional models used to answer the existence of multiple faiths (exclusive, inclusive, pluralist, and syncretist), but focusing particularly that form of syncretism which claims that all faiths find commonality through their mystical traditions.

Written in response to key events in the history of the Anglican church, Packer and Dart's analysis gives us a perennially relevant model for how the church ought to respond to our own pluralistic culture with integrity and kindness - and how to uphold the distinctiveness of the gospel. Christians directly or indirectly engaging our pluralist world will find their ideas enriched by this short yet powerful book.

Endorsement

"This unapologetic yet irenic defense of creedal Christianity deserves a wide readership and is a reminder of our continued indebtedness to faithful leaders such as Dart and Packer."

- Hans Boersma, Nashotah House, WI

About the Authors

Ron Dart (PhD, McMaster University) is associate professor of political science at the University of Fraser Valley (Abbotsford, BC). He is author of numerous books, including The Marks of the Church and Renewal and The North American High Tory Tradition.

J. I. Packer (PhD, Oxford University) is Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College (Vancouver, BC). He is author of many books, including Knowing God, Affirming the Apostles' Creed, and Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility.

The Meaningless Death of a Child: the Moral Challenge to Divine Control - Kenneth Tanner

God is not in control of everything that happens.

Many persons will be murdered this evening, some of them for faith, and many will tonight die excruciating deaths from cancer and avoidable disasters, many of them children.

God does not will these things to happen, does not require any of this evil as part of some grand design to accomplish his good purposes, is not in a partnership with death, and much of history is because of the absence of God meaningless.

As David Bentley Hart says, it’s a very good thing that the death of a child is ultimately meaningless; that what God does with the death of a child, like all the children who died in the chemical showers of the Nazis, is to raise them from death in the world that does not end, wiping every tear from their face, and freeing their hearts from the terrors we imposed. What God does is resurrect. But I digress.

If the God revealed to us as Love, this Love revealed to the world at Golgotha, directly ruled over all things none of these horrors would ever occur.

There are many wills in the cosmos that oppose the will of Love and the Christian must make many prudential discernments (almost every day) and take actions (almost every day) to oppose with love what opposes Love, in ourselves, in other moral agents, and in nature.

The Christian is not given permission in this world to simply “pray and leave it to God,” though on one important hand that is indeed—in the end—all that we can do.

Contemplation of the person of Jesus Christ leads the Christian to proactive engagement with the powers of this world with weapons not known to this world, chiefly humility. Silence and listening and honest responses to what is heard from God in silence leads us to action.

As Martin Luther King Jr said: “The belief that God will do everything for man is as untenable as the belief that man can do everything for himself. It, too, is based on a lack of faith. We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not faith but superstition.”

I would add that the more “privilege” we accumulate the further removed we *can* become from the urgency to engage fallen powers. The temptation is greater to say, in a form of disengagement disallowed to the Christian,” God has this.”

Serendipity - Sarah Van Diest

When the unexpected becomes the serendipitous we rejoice. We are glad and our hearts are grateful. When our spirits are fragile, the smallest of blessings can overrun us with their beauty and our sense of sentimentality boldly presents itself. Tears of gratitude are evidence of its effect on us. 

And we are undone.

This is the beautiful thing that happens when Life touches us. The cords of death are discarded and forgotten in the midst of this passionate display of vibrancy and vitality. Life in the face of death is equal to light in the darkness, hope in utter despair.

Three years ago I clipped a blue hydrangea from my friend’s giant plant to take home and enjoy whilst it bloomed. It rooted while in the vase, so I planted it in soil, and now I have my own hydrangea plant with its own blooms. This was unexpected, and serendipitously so.

The roots grew from a stem that looked fully dead. The flower itself had dried and all its leaves had fallen off. The roots, though, proved that life still remained. Hope was built in.

There are times in our lives when all we see looks dead. There doesn’t appear to our hearts or our eyes to be any life at all. Hope feels lost, and without hope, we feel lost. Utterly so.

The one thing my time in darkness has proven to me is that hope is never fully absent. Life is never obliterated or extinguished. Even in the face of death itself, there is still hope and there is still life.

Our Jesus made this to be true. Our Father made this to be true. The end of this life is but an end, not the end. Serendipitously following the darkness of Jesus’ death was his beautiful resurrection. All hope was not lost, though every moment prior to his return to life felt wholly void of hope.

Today we live in a time not all that dissimilar to the three days before Jesus rose. We know our Savior will return, but when? We believe hope is not lost, but it can be so very hard to see. We pray for strength to believe in that distant hope, and to walk this present darkness in faith. We long for his return. We wait, sometimes patiently, sometimes restlessly, to see his face.

I do believe we have hope built in, just like the hydrangea, but it gets buried as life is drained from us in our daily struggles and seasons of loss. We need the Spirit’s gentle whispers to remind us of the hope that lives within us.

I hear these words echo in my soul just now as I write, “But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint” Is. 40:31.

And these words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in Me as well. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” John 14:1-2.

Our hope is not in what we see or even in what our hearts can perceive, but in the character of our Creator. Rest in the knowledge of his plan for you and his devotion to you. If hope has eluded you, and if life has felt more like death, I pray that today you will be serendipitously blessed and your hope will be restored, at least for a day. And then tomorrow, may the sun or the wind or the flowers in your view, remind you of the hope that lives in the midst of death.

May each day and each face you see remind you of his love for you. May hope grow in the fecund soil of your heart. May your life become the serendipitous blessing of hope we all long for!