Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

The Implications of Addiction Recovery for Universal Salvation - Thad Cox

When you work closely with those struggling with addiction, universalism increasingly becomes a foregone conclusion.

 

The "repent or perish" motif is cast in a new light. With addicts, the very capacity to repent, to choose, has been infected and impeded. They often aren't in control of their behavior to any meaningful extent. Often, their perceptions and capacity to prioritize their own needs have been wholly compromised. A drug has become more important to them than food or friends and family.

 

It's not that an addict comes to some rational conclusion about the matter and freely decides to forsake all things for the sake of a high. Rationality itself has, for them, been chemically and neurologically subverted. They literally "know not what they do" anymore. What addict could not relate to St. Paul's account of his struggles with sin in Romans 7?

 

"I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ...I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me."

 

Spend enough time around addicts and you begin to see yourself and all fallen humanity in them. We have all been blinded by some kind of addiction; all of us have been intoxicated by some falsity we take to be our highest good, our ultimate concern. Every sin we commit is a kind of relapse.

 

We often "know better," just as the Roman soldiers and the Sanhedrin "knew" perfectly well what they were doing. But in that moment, they were blinded in their knowing. The higher orders of perception and judgment were incapacitated. In that higher and more fundamental sense, "they knew not." Their addictions had them in bondage to baser instincts.

 

So it is with every sinner and addict alike. Both are, without a doubt, in grave need of repentance. Both are in the process of perishing. But the One who came to seek and save those lost in the bondages, delusions, and addictions of sin, has demonstrated His unconditional love for, commitment to, and solidarity with them.

 

The Great Physician will not be satisfied until all are healed. His light will continue to shine into the darkness of our death, dysfunction, and alienation until all can finally see. The One who calls all to repentance will, by His grace, restore to all the capacity to repent. While we are often too eager to write off "hopeless cases," God never does. Not in this age, nor in the age to come.

Psalm 2 - A Cruciform Prayer as the Nations Rage - Ted Hill

 

A prayerful reflection after reading Athanasius' letter to Marcellinus on reading the Psalms, particularly this quote: "... the reader takes all its (the Psalter) words upon his lips as though they were his own..."

 

First, Psalm 2:

 

Why do the nations conspire
    and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
    and the rulers take counsel together,
    against the Lord and his anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
    and cast their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
    the Lord has them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath
    and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree of the Lord:
He said to me, “You are my son;
    today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage
    and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
    and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
    be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear;
with trembling kiss his feet,
or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way,
    for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Happy are all who take refuge in him.

 

As I begin praying through the Psalms, I come to Psalm 2. In my prayer journal, I write:

 

"OOF, Jesus ... Psalm 2 has much need of parsing/deconstructing ... I ask You for a natural voice to pray this that honors You and experiences the revelation You desire me to know!  I am starting to see how You halt me to point me to You - to Your Cross, where derision, fury, laughter, wrath, terror, anger, dashing, breaking are all taken up into You on the Cross - NOT as punishment but as knowingly & willingly able to end the power all of that wields in the world!  I take refuge in You, NOT from Your wrath, but from the power to use wrath and all its 'offspring' ..."

 

Chris Green's "BEING TRANSFIGURED: Lenten Homilies" narrated by Boyd Barrett

ORDER THE AUDIOBOOK HERE

"Rime of the Ancyent Marinere" (Part 1-5) - Ron Dart

David Bentley Hart via Kenneth Tanner

Courage shielded her brother until the rescuers arrived.

This is from David Hart’s moving argument for the gospel’s God, The Doors of the Sea (2005). Read it when you are ready for something beautiful to take hold of your heart forever.

“In the New York Times this morning...there appeared a report from Sri Lanka recounting, in part, the story of a large man of enormous physical strength who was unable to prevent four of his five children from perishing in the tsunami, and who—as he recited the names of his lost children to the reporter, in descending order of age, ending with the name of his four-year-old son—was utterly overwhelmed by his own weeping. Only a moral cretin at that moment would have attempted to soothe his anguish by assuring him that his children had died as a result of God’s eternal, inscrutable, and righteous counsels, and that in fact, their deaths had mysteriously served God’s purposes in history, and that all of this was completely necessary for God to accomplish his ultimate design in having created the world. Most of us would have the good sense to be ashamed to speak such words; we would recognize that they would offer no...credible comfort...

“And this should tell us something. For if we would think it shamefully foolish and cruel to say such things in the moment when another’s sorrow is most real and irresistibly painful, then we ought never to say them; because what would still our tongues would be the knowledge (which we would possess at the time, though we might forget it later) that such sentiments would amount not only to an indiscretion or words spoken out of season, but to a vile stupidity and a lie told principally for our own comfort, by which we would try to excuse ourselves for believing in an omnipotent and benevolent God. In the process, moreover, we would be attempting to deny that man a knowledge central to the gospel: the knowledge of the evil of death, its intrinsic falsity, its unjust dominion over the world, its ultimate nullity; the knowledge that God is not pleased or nourished by our deaths, that he is not the secret architect of evil, that he is the conqueror of hell, that he has condemned all these things by the power of the cross; the knowledge that God is life and light and infinite love...

“[W]e Christian are not obliged (and perhaps are not even allowed) to look upon the devastation of that day—to look upon the entire littoral rim of the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal and upper Indian Ocean strewn with tens of thousands of corpses, a third of them children—and to attempt to console ourselves or others with vacuous cant about the ultimate meaning or purpose residing in all that misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation. Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin, the emptiness and waste of death, the forces—whether calculating malevolence or imbecile chance—that shatter living souls; and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. ...

“...the world remains divided between two kingdoms, where light and darkness, life and death grow up together and await the harvest. In such a world, our portion is charity, and our sustenance is faith, and so it will be until the end of days. As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy... . [W]e are able to rejoice that...God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes—and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, ‘Behold, I make all things new.'"

Mark Braverman with Bradley Jersak

Mark Braverman is a Jewish author, activist, and organizer for Palestinean rights in Israel. He is the executive director of Kairos USA.

In this interview with Bradley Jersak, he discusses his journey as a young Zionist, through deconstruction, and through his engagement with Palestinean Christians in the West Bank, forward to becoming the Jew he always wanted to be. He describes his "Damascus Road" experience in the context of the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau.

His ministry is as a Jew, speaking to Christians: "I know what it is to be a follower of Jesus. You know what to do when you see the naked man, beaten and laying in the ditch. You know what you need to do when you see injustice and inequality and suffering. Step up, whether it's in your backyard or in another continent... Stand up for the oppressed... And I pray for the day when you don't need a Jew's permission to be a follower of Jesus."

In this interview, he shares his story, addresses political and theological questions, including three questions:

• Is challenging human rights abuses in Israel antisemitic?
• Are the New Testament Gospels antisemitic?
• Is Christian Zionism antisemitic? 

Recommended links from Mark:

https://kairossouthernafrica.wordpres...

https://www.kairospalestine.ps/sites/...

https://kairosusa.org/wp-content/uplo...

https://www.palestineportal.org/

http://markbraverman.org/

Bradley Jersak's "Out of the Embers" - Review by Ron Dart

Bradley Jersak, Out of the Embers: Faith After The Great Deconstruction (Whitaker House, 2022)                       

Out of the Embers, like the perennial wise and far-seeing Phoenix, knows the meaning of going to places of death and disappointment, suffering and sadness, and yet, from such places, the resurrection and tears of the Phoenix, brings healing to all whose tears touch the skin of their souls. In short, from the embers and ashes of the great deconstruction, a wise, mature and resurrected life is born and offers tears and discerning insights to others.

Out of the Embers is divided into 3 sections, each section an invitation to journey into the next, deconstruction birthing reconstruction and renovation in the larger culture wars: Part I: Memoirs: Trauma, Purgation, and Liberation, Part II: Memos: Seven Sleepers of Deconstruction and Part III: Provocations: Out of the Embers –Faith after Freefall. 

Part I, as the title suggests, has a personal and confessional bent to it, Brad relating and telling his journey, his journey having much overlap with many who were birthed in varied forms of a conservative evangelical ethos but finding such a family soul suffocating and tomb-like. Needless to say, Brad’s journey does mirror and reflect the initial faith journey of many but such a beginning does need to be grown beyond if minimal depth and thoughtfulness are to be part of the next steps of the pilgrimage through time—in short, such beginnings do need to be critically deconstructed. But, who might be heard, trusted, and consulted in such a needful deconstruction?

Part II, in a creative and engaged manner, draws from an ancient myth of the seven sleepers, such sleepers awakening to bring light and life to dark and troubling times. Brad has called forth seven significant philosophers of the past to aid in the deconstruction process: Moses (and his apophatic line and linage as a means of deconstructing ways of thinking and being that are too certain types of interpretive idolatry), Plato, Voltaire, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Weil-Camus. There are two sections dedicated to Nietzsche and three sections heeding the challenging insights of Dostoevsky. Each of these thinkers-activists are rigorous and no-nonsense master of deconstruction: they have little time or patience for religious silliness or thinness. I was fortunate, when doing my Ph.D., to do translations of Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra and trekked many of the trails Nietzsche did from his home in Sils Maria in the Engadine Valley in Switzerland (there is a scholars in residence program at Nietzsche’s home in Sils). I have also, at the University I have taught for almost 35 years, hosted day-long symposiums on Russian writers, including Dostoevsky—Brad has chosen wisely and well from his seven sleepers. Part II is the longest section of the book and is worthy of many a meditative read—deconstruction and reconstruction ever the challenging and lived tension.

Part III reflects on various and needful approaches of provocation, the emergence, phoenix-like, out of the embers, faith after a painful and for many years erratic and confusing freefalls. Each of the sections in provocations is worth lingering at as pointers to the deeper, fuller and resurrected journey---such is “revenants”. The future way forward is more than hinted at in this final section of Out of the Embers—do read and inwardly digest.

Each of us, probably, has 5-10 books on our shelf as keepers if told we could only take so many to a deserted Island. The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse is in my top 5. The Glass Bead Game is about a community of intellectuals (Castalians) who live in the midst of cultural chaos and fragmentation, shallow journalism, war, multiple amusements and diversions and such Castalians attempt to raise the level of cultural and civilizational thought to a higher and fuller level. The low culture, pop culture, deconstructionist and mediocre culture of the time had led to nihilism, cynicism and tribalism. The battle of ideas and identity waged vigorously at many levels. The head of the order, Magister Ludi, understood the need for grappling with ideas at the highest level, but he realized that those who separated the struggle for the best that had been thought and said from engagement with the public and political realm were themselves in an enclosed matrix of sorts. I have taught in the area of political philosophy most of my teaching vocation and I have often been somewhat concerned about how the glass bead game of ideas, theology, exegesis, liturgy etc is often disengaged from political thought, substantive political theology, political parties, political activism and policy. When this occurs, a subtler form of gnosticism emerges, ideas versus history, theology-philosophy versus politics etc. In short, in this superb book by Brad, I would have liked to see some serious thinking on how “faith after the great deconstruction” faces into the head winds of political philosophy, political theology, political parties, activism and party policies—cynicism and skepticism in these areas is short-sighted and counterproductive. Some of the seven sleepers Brad draws from certainly did rigorous political probes—more attention to these probes might have enriched the book yet further.

In sum, Out of the Embers is a beauty and bounty of tome—more pondering on how the glass bead game of ideas connects with the challenges of public and political life would yet have made for a fuller way of embodying a form of political faith after the serious limitations of the great deconstruction.

Amor Vincit Omnia

Ron Dart          

Bill Morgan's "Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: and the Protection of All Beings - Review by Ron Dart

Bill Morgan, Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: and the Protection of All Beings (Beatdom Books, 2022)

As to the U.S. Beats I am more in sympathy with them
but in most cases I do not respond to them fully.

Thomas Merton letter to Stefan Baciu (1965): p.77

I have sitting before me a splendid hard copy edition of Bill Morgan’s The Typewriter is Holy: The Complete Uncensored History of the Beat Generation (2010). I have read the evocative beauty a few times and there can be no doubt Morgan has covered, in readable detail, the varied lives of the Beats in an honest and transparent way. Most of the significant Beats such as Kerouac, Cassady, Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs, Snyder and Ferlinghetti are covered in a candid way (their opponents are also noted). There can be no doubt Morgan is one of the finest chroniclers of the Beats (as a complex tribe) and individual Beat activists and poets in a thoughtful way and manner. There is, though, more digging that needs to be done on the Beats and the Roman Catholic Beat tradition—such is the initial approach in Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: And the Protection of All Beings.

I have, in a suggestive way, attempted to reflect on the Beat-Roman Catholic Beats in two books: Thomas Merton and Beats of the North Cascades (2005 & 2008) and Thomas Merton and the Counter Culture: A Golden String (2016). I have also touched on the Beats in the North Cascades (a mountainous area where I live) in “The Beat Generation in the Mountains” Appalachia (Winter/Spring 2012).  But it is Morgan’s fine primer on Merton and Ferlinghetti that needs to be heeded and read attentively.

The subtitle of the missive sums up the main focus of the book. Merton was emerging as a political writer in the late 1950s-early 1960s (most unusual for a Roman Catholic monk mostly known for his writings on the contemplative life). Ferlinghetti was committed to calling forth poets to think and write in a more political (albeit anarchist) manner. The idea was to birth, in 1961, a magazine, The Journal For The Protection Of All Beings. Ferlinghetti sent out many an invitation for contributors but few were those willing to submit an article, poem or other means of facing the dire political issues of the time. Merton and Ferlinghetti both shared a Roman Catholic background, both had political leanings, both were poets and both shared a French European cultural ethos. Morgan covers these similarities in a nuanced way. Merton had written Original Child Bomb: Points For Meditation To Be Scratched On The Walls Of A Cave (a chilling 41-point description of the research, planning and final dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).  Ferlinghetti thought this anti-poem of sorts would fit perfectly into the Journal. The concern was would the Roman Catholic censors allow such a poem to be published by a monk? A significant part of this timely missive by Morgan covers the correspondence in the late Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter of 1961 regarding Merton’s contribution to the Journal. There was, though, another poem-anti-poem by Merton that held Ferlinghetti: Chant to Be Used in Processions Around A Site With Furnaces (the theme, of course, the docile attitude of those who mindlessly obeyed orders, Arendt calling this the “banality of evil”—Merton I might add had a significant respect for Arendt). Morgan included both of these creative anti-poems in the book and the confusion about their publishing.

Needless to say, there was more than Ferlinghetti and City Lights interested in Merton’s poems: James Laughlin-New Directions (Merton had published some of his earliest poems with New Directions in the 1940s), Robert Lax- Pax and Dorothy Day-The Catholic Worker were all vying to publish Merton’s prophetic and compact political commentary-Morgan does a superb job of highlighting this reality. The flurry of letters between Merton and Ferlinghetti is well-tracked and traced by Morgan revealing much about both men and the state of publishing at the time.

The inclusion in the book of Ferlinghetti’s “Picturesque Haiti” reflects the obvious gap between the Haiti of the tourist industry and the actual and lived reality of many Haitians in which poverty is their painful lives lived, image and reality not to be confused. Merton approved the lengthy reflection. Merton did face the ire of his censors, but true to form, Ferlinghetti and Laughlin were sensitive to the problem and Laughlin went the extra mile to publish Merton’s yet more political writings, the “Cold War Letters”. Merton’s long letter to Ferlinghetti (December 12, 1961) tells the complex tale (and much else) in substantive depth—this is a letter worth mulling over many times—so much said about many pertinent and timely issues, including Merton’s high praise for the comments by Nez Perce on Chief Joseph’s surrender position, “I will fight no more forever”. Merton did wax hot and cold about some of the contributions to the Journal, though.              

Morgan touched on the use Lenny Bruce made of “Chant”, the language of Chant, of course, a perversion of its deeper religious meaning, Merton in the anti-poem making it abundantly clear, that a form of crude statism had become the new religion, a religion Ginsberg aptly portrayed in Howl. The more intense correspondence period between Merton and Ferlinghetti came to an end by late 1961 but this did not mean an end of their friendship (nor Merton’s interaction with the Beats).

The publication of Merton’s Monks Pond in 1968 included contributions by Snyder and Kerouac (Ferlinghetti welcomed to offer a submission) and it was in 1968 Merton reconnected with Ferlinghetti again. Merton was in search of a hermitage far from Gethsemani, his new Abbot approved of such a search so Merton took to Redwoods, New Mexico and Alaska on such a pilgrimage. Merton and Ferlinghetti met for the 1^st time in May 1968 and Ferlinghetti offered Merton a room for the night above City Lights. A correspondence emerged again between Merton and Ferlinghetti after their meeting in San Francisco (May 29 1968 and June 5, 1968), Morgan, rightly so, threading together these shorter letters.

There was an ongoing interest at the time in Evans-Wentz’s Tibetan Book of the Dead and when Merton travelled to Asia, he met the young Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama (who were at odds with one another)—Merton enthused about both, Rinpoche became a guru of sorts to the Beats, Naropa Institute his educational centre (much controversy in the early years) whereas the Dalai Lama was far from such tensions and clashes. But, to return to Ferlinghetti and Merton.

Morgan brings this timely and well-wrought book to an end by highlighting, in a poem, “A Buddha in the Woodpile” his lament about the tragedy in Waco Texas with the Branch Davidians and pondering if the presence of Merton (or other contemplatives) would have prevented such carnage. And, in 2001, Ferlinghetti in a poem, “Mouth” wonders whether he will yet “join the Trappists”.

Morgan began the book by recounting visits with Ferlinghetti, when both were much younger, and Ferlinghetti’s fond remembrance of Merton and as Ferlinghetti near the end of his all too human journey his support of Morgan’s book on Merton and Ferlinghetti—fine bookends, indeed.

I cannot finish this review without noting both the fine cover and the many black and white photographs in the book, many taken by Merton.

The photographs that introduce us to the book are ones of a young Ferlinghetti with “Prayer Room” in a half shadow behind him and Merton in his Cistercian robe with forest and trees in the background. There are other photos of James Laughlin, cover to Original Child Bomb, typed and written letters, cover to Journal for the Protection of All Beings and photo of Rinpoche and Merton-Dalai Lama.

It is an obvious good to see Bill Morgan extending his work on the Beats in the direction of the Roman Catholic Beats, Merton being but one of them, Kerouac and Ferlinghetti obvious affinities although Ferlinghetti more solid and grounded than Kerouac, Kerouac’s slow descent sad and tragic. Hopefully, in time, much more work will be done on the Christian and Roman Catholic Beats (and those with Beat affinities) and the internal points of concord and discord, Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker, Dan/Phil Berrigan, William Everson-Mary Fabilli, Denise Levertov, Mary Norbert Korte and Jim Forest but doorways into such an expansive and catholic vision.

Thomas Merton & Lawrence Ferlinghetti: and the Protection ff All Beings is worthy of many a curious and ample read and Morgan should be generously rewarded for his fine sleuth work.

Ron Dart           

Stray thoughts on Christian Nationalism - C.E.W. Green

CEW Green

1. Whatever else “Christian nationalism” is in theory, in practice, it turns out to be a way of talking about Jesus so that no one, including him, can keep us from doing the evils we think we need to do to save our way of life. So far as I can see, that means, by definition, that such a thing can’t be meaningfully Christian.

 

2. I agree, almost, with Daniélou: “Christians ought to be trying to change the shape and pattern of society so as to make possible a Christian life for the whole of mankind.” (I say I almost agree because a lot is riding on what is meant by “a Christian life for the whole of mankind.”) But we can do right by our neighbors only by doing what Jesus, the living, risen Lord, tells us to do. And he is always saying the same thing. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good…” “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” “Blessed are those who are persecuted…”

 

3. If you think about it, Christian nationalism, like Christendom proper, just cannot end well. At some point, the damage done to people in Jesus’ name fills up its allotted measure and suddenly we’re living in a world where there are more people with complaints against the church, laments God has promised to hear, than there are people who have reasons to give thanks to God because of us. And that, as they say, is that.

 

4. Christendoms or Christian —isms of whatever type are bargains made with the Devil. First, we use our powers to turn stones to bread to feed the masses. Then, for a moment, we rule over the kingdoms of the well-fed. But in the end, driven mad by the Devil, driven to test our limits, to prove our superiority, we throw ourselves down from the heights and are broken at the feet of the poor.

5. The Scriptures—the Gospels, in particular—tell us what we need to know about this. But reading Dostoyevsky and some history wouldn’t hurt. See also: the testimony of the martyrs.

 

6. Speaking of the Devil—as opposed as I am to nationalism, and especially any so-called Christian versions thereof, that’s not the greatest danger we’re facing right now.

 

7. What is the greatest danger? We cannot know what battles are truly worth fighting until we know how to fight as we should; and that requires a return to what in fact matters most for us as followers of Christ— something that can only be learned at the feet of the poor. Let the reader understand.

The Mystic & the Lawyer - the Nature of Redemption - Lazar Puhalo

The Orthodox concept of redemption may be briefly epitomized as follows: the meaning of "atonement" is really "to remove (or overcome) the cause of separation." In other words, man is alienated from God by sin (by his constant "missing of the mark"), and so he is in bondage to death.

Since man sins continually due to the power of death (which is held by Satan), sin alienates man from God, and death perpetuates the separation (and vice versa). By death, we fall short (again, by "missing the mark"—sin) of our original destiny, which is to live through unity with the Creator. We are ransomed by Christ from the power of death so that we can become partakers of the divine essence and share in immortality, which belongs to God alone. Being ransomed from the power and fear of death, we are thus redeemed from bondage to the Evil One, a bondage that has been affected and strengthened by our own sinful passions. Christ did not die to save us from God, as the neo-pagan doctrine of “substitutionary sacrifice atonement” teaches.

The following summary of the Orthodox teaching about redemption is drawn from various works by Fr John Romanides:

Christ saves men who have fallen through their own fault into the power of the devil by breaking that power. He became Man for this purpose; He lived and died and rose again so that He might break the chains by which men were bound. It is not His death alone but the entire Incarnation, of which His death was a necessary part, that freed men from their captivity to Satan.

By becoming Man, living a sinless life, and rising from the dead (which He could not have done unless He had first died), He introduced a new power into human nature. This power is bestowed on all men who are willing to receive it, through the Holy Spirit. Those who receive it are united with Christ in His Mystical Body, the Church; the corrupted human nature (the bad habits and evil desires, which St Paul calls "the old man": Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) is driven out by degrees until at last it is expelled altogether, and the redeemed person becomes entirely obedient to the will of God, as our Lord Himself was when on earth. The prisoner is set free from the inside; both his mind and body are changed; he comes to know what freedom is, to desire it, and, by the Holy Spirit working within him, to break his chains, turn the key and leave the dungeon.

Thus he is freed from the power of sin. God forgives him as an act of pure love, but the condition of his forgiveness is that he must sin no more. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8-9). but if we wilfully continue to be sinners, Christ's death for us will have been in vain. We are made capable of ceasing to be sinners by the power of Christ's Resurrection, which has given us the power to struggle against sinfulness toward moral perfection.

The advantage of this Orthodox teaching is that it is firmly based on the New Testament. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor. 5:19); the act of reconciliation is effected by God in the Person of His Son, for it is man that needs to be reconciled to God, not God that needs to be reconciled to man.

Throughout the New Testament, we find the proclamation that Christ has broken the power of the devil, to which mankind was subject (see Lk. 10:17-18); 11:22; 1 Cor. 15:25; Gal.1:4; Col. 2:15; 2 Tm.1:10; Hb.2:14; Jn.10:11; 12:31; 16:11; 1Jn.3:8; and frequently in Revelation).

Moreover, this teaching of the atonement requires no "legal fiction" and attributes no immoral or unrighteous action to God. Man is not made suddenly good or treated as good when he is not good; he is forgiven not because he deserves to be forgiven but because God loves him, and he is made fit for union with God by God's own power, his own will cooperating. He is saved from the power of sin by the risen life of Christ within him, and from the guilt of sin by God's forgiveness, of which his own repentance is a condition.

Thus, salvation consists in the union of the faithful with the life of God in the Body of Christ (the Holy Church), where the Evil One is being progressively and really destroyed in the life of co-suffering love. This union is effected by Baptism (the Grace of regeneration) and fulfilled in the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ and in the mutual, cooperative struggle of Orthodox Christians against the power and influence of the Evil- One. This is precisely why the last words of the "Lord's Prayer" are, "deliver us from the Evil-One," and not "deliver us from evil."

 

 

The World's True Story Told Well - Kenneth Tanner

Icon: Copyright Oleksandr Antoniuk - UPB to KT

When we tell the story of the world well, it is converting, not condemning. The world’s true story gives life.

And we cannot tell the world’s story well—we cannot tell our story well—if we do not tell God’s story well.

After all, God’s story is our story, and our story is God’s story—in Jesus Christ, in whom all things—humanity among them—are brought to perfection.

So it is vital to tell the story of the human God as well as we can because it is the story of Jesus that makes sense of God, humanity, and existence.

The person of Jesus is the great lantern that lights our path on the way to dying as he dies so that we might be human as God is human, to live as he lives, from age to age.

When the story of Jesus is told poorly or badly—on occasion, diabolically—we call that heresy.

Heresy harms humans because it distorts our portrait of God’s character and darkens our understanding of ourselves as humans because we are all made in the image of God.

The first thing to say about heresy is that it is an expensive word. It should almost never be used.

We know this because no one has an infinite grip on the mysteries of God and the world. The best Christian teachers confess they only get glimpses of the glory of God.

We also know this because history shows that the word has been employed egregiously. One of the first Christians, arguably the best reader of our Scriptures, and one of our wisest pastors, was condemned by the church as a heretic: Origen of Alexandria.

There is such a thing as heresy. It is a choice to ignore the story that the Creeds tell, the consensus story that emerges from storytelling and sacraments down the centuries, and across languages and cultures, the story of our best hymns and icons, a story that has always had good teachers and wonderful actors, a story that is still told and enacted well today.

The best way to avoid heresy is to immerse oneself in the great conversation about Jesus that has gone on in the church since Pentecost and in Israel since Abraham and Moses, to enter the spaces of prayer and adoration of Jesus across the body of Christ that the Spirit is bringing into all truth.

Be cautious and sparing with the word heresy, even as our Lord pardons our misunderstandings and failures. Christ is all and in all, and he will perfect everything that concerns us and the world. His life and death, resurrection, and ascension bring the world’s story to a very good end.

Icon: Oleksandr Antoniuk

Deconstructing Deconstruction – Felicia Murrell (w/ Bradley Jersak)

Deconstructing Deconstruction – Felicia Murrell (w/Brad Jersak)

Editor’s Note: The following interview is a partial transcript of one for four forthcoming podcast interviews on “deconstruction” at Stephen Backhouse’s Tent Theology Podcast. Bradley Jersak will be serving as co-host in interviews with Brian Zahnd, David Hayward, Felicia Murrell, and Judith Moses (recorded in that order).  

 

Bradley

Definition: First, the word “deconstruction,” popularly used today, has become a catchphrase for a range of experiences from voluntary to involuntary, from liberating to traumatic, from personal to social, that involve a dismantling or restructuring of one’s belief systems (religious or ideological). Understood this way, one may experience a process of disorientation and reorientation that holds its own perils and possibilities.

In your world and your story, what other words or metaphors might best describe this phenomenon? What might that look like in the communities you work with? Examples of both the pitfalls and breakthroughs are most welcome. 

 

Felicia

My work is largely one-on-one spiritual companioning and it’s the work of accompanying, of listening, of sharing and bearing witness, being human in the presence of one another with all of our eff ups and complexities and beauties and joys.

In carrot on a stick religion that uses your imperfections to keep you chasing healing, chasing wholeness, chasing blessings, too often we hand our power over to something outside ourselves. We are always looking for external validation, external permission. Led by the opinions of others — what others think, what others say is true and right…how others say we should live, dress, talk…who we should love or sleep with…what we should read, what movie we can watch…what we are to believe— it feels natural to “let someone else control us,” to unconsciously hand over the reins and allow someone else guide us externally. Honestly, it’s not something we often question because most of our lives, whether our parents, our religious leaders, our coaches, or our bosses, someone outside of ourselves has told us what to do and how to be. So, it feels natural …until it doesn’t. Sometimes this rupture, this process of deconstructing, happens naturally and sometimes unnaturally, sometimes by way of invitation, sometimes by way of force.

But I’m struck by the portion of Psalm 32:8, “…I’ll guide you with my eye.” And for me, it seems like an invitation to be led from the inside out instead of the outside in. So the process of deconstruction becomes something like allowing the pillars of certainty and arrogance to collapse so we can join Love in a dance of unknowing that requires humility and trust. This in itself is its own homecoming, moving from an external guide to internal guide, the eye of Love.

Ron Dart - Myth and Meaning and the Inklings

Ron Dart - Scrutinizing Scruton: Canadian High Toryism & Scrutonia

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"Out of the Embers: Faith after the Great Deconstruction" - Ron Dart interview with Bradley Jersak

Grounding: My Operational Realities - Ken Hood

 

Ken Hood

OPERATIONAL REALITIES

 

We all live by, and within, our own realities. Most of the time, we all share these realities. We all act as if the chair we sit in is real, and will hold us. We believe, and in this case, it’s “true” based on empirical and replicable evidence. It works.

 

But what about Philip K. Dick, one of the most famous science fiction writers in history. He was also a philosopher, who posited that we may all be living in someone else’s dream. The “matrix” before The Matrix. He wasn’t convinced at all that the chair was “real.” Neither is the schizophrenic when off their meds. And let’s add, neither were some notable philosophers through the ages too.

 

So even something so “true” as the chair is not true to everyone.

 

Now let’s take it one more step. Why do you or I get up in the morning to live yet another day?

 

There are truly countless answers to this question. Many are based on well-thought-out “realities.” But others are hardly thought through. Some deep. Some shallow. Some complex. Some very simple. Some only unconscious.

 

But our individual realities, beliefs, and values, whether consciously thought of or not… they guide us (I would suggest they may drive us) to get up, live our lives, go to bed, get up, and do it all again. We breathe, we eat and drink, and we carry on in our realities. Until some of us don’t. Because, for whatever reason, their reality no longer worked to keep them alive.

 

Many brilliant people, many creative geniuses, many “successful” people… they choose not to carry on any longer. People who had value to us and many others… their “reality” no longer worked for them. They ended their lives because their reality did not work for them anymore. Robin Williams is the most painful example of that to me. You likely have a name in your mind right now too.

"I can only get to Alyosha via Ivan": Confessions of a Grumpy Universalist - Adrian Lovegrove w/ Bradley Jersak

The following was a conversation via email between Adrian Lovegrove and Bradley Jersak over the final weeks of 2022. 

 

ADRIAN LOVEGROVE

I began formal theological study back in 2011. I could no longer buy the evangelical package deal, but I hoped there might be a theology for a good God somewhere. I guess I've now reached the place of "grumpy universalism."

By "grumpy," I mean in the sense of Ivan's argument in the Brothers Karamazov about the acquisition of truth not being worth the cost of the little child's suffering. Or, put another way, David Bentley Hart's argument concerning the moral implications of creatio ex nihilo, pretty much leaves God with the obligation to bring all he has freely created to its telos, if we're going to call him "good." Consequently, I'm currently finding it hard to feel grateful to God for sending Jesus to rescue everything because it currently seems to me it is entirely God's responsibility to fix the problem he – as the first cause – literally created. 

I appreciate I'm talking as a blinkered and broken creature "looking through a glass darkly" at the inscrutable purposes of the Ground of all existence. I imagine if I were a proper Christian, I could do the "how long, O Lord," and "come quickly, Lord" without losing my temper. But right now, God just pisses me off, and -- though it is a denial of metaphysics since there can be nowhere where God isn't -- I'd really rather not be around him. I have sympathies with the one-talent guy. I guess I have a trust issue.

It's not that I don't like Jesus. It's not that I don't think (from all the ideas I have been exposed to) he has the best things to say about the most important stuff. It's not that I don't think his incarnation was infinitely costly. It's just that it currently seems to me that the things Jesus ultimately rescued us from – satan, sin and death – are all things of his own making.

Have you found ways of getting past this sort of thing to being a decent human being again?

Peace

Ade

 

BRADLEY JERSAK

Hi Ade, 

What a good and important question. 

Let me boil it down to your two punchline points...

1. It currently seems to me that the things Jesus ultimately rescued us from—satan, sin, and death—are all things of his own making.

 

2. Have you found ways of getting past this sort of thing to be a decent human being again?

On the first question, I see your point. And this is where Simone Weil saved my faith through her honesty and her cosmology. 

First, she says that we are faced with two contraries... the Goodness of God and the affliction of humanity.

The two are a real contradiction. There's an infinite distance between the two. We'll come back to that. 

In terms of cosmology, she does something similar. She speaks about (1) gravity and (2) grace or (1) the necessary and (2) the good.

And she regards these pairs as ways that God governs the cosmos. She says that ultimately, gravity and grace are both aspects of the GOOD, but humanity cannot conceive of their union. It's not possible from a human perspective. The GOOD transcends knowing. All we have is our experience, and in our experience, they appear as virtual opposites. To define them...

1. Gravity / the Necessary: refers to the necessary and unbendable pre-conditions for Life and Love, which are why and how God creates the cosmos. Life and Love are the point, the arche (foundations), and the telos (endgame) of the cosmos. God is the first and final cause of life and love. But for life and love to be possible, he must make space (kenosis) for their secondary causes, without which, they cannot be. The necessary pre-condition for life is natural law. And the necessary pre-condition for love is human agency. Without natural law and human agency, there is no possible outcome where life and love come to be that reflects God's life and love.

From these preconditions, all beauty emerges. Beauty as such is manifest in natural law and human agency to such a divine degree that we are tempted to worship them. They are, after all, appearances or images of the God in whom they have being. 

But there is a shadow side. For God to be Love, rather than coercive force, he cannot and does not violate natural law or human agency. If God did so, God would not be Love. And if God does so, God is lousy at it. The arbitrary violation of natural law or human agency would be a Deux Machina that would make all of creation an illusion and all God's creatures puppets. 

The shadow side of natural law is tragedy. The tectonic plates that keep us from sinking into magma rub together and create earthquakes and tsunamis that wipe out cities. The gravity that prevents us from flying to our deaths in space also pulls us to our death when we step off a cliff. This is necessary. But it is not beautiful. It is tragic. 

The shadow side of human agency is evil. The same freedom through which I can willingly turn toward love can be misused to turn willfully from love and toward indifference or hatred or violence. And we exercise this misuse of our passions all the time. That God makes space for this is necessary. In love, he consents to our freedom, and with our freedom, we defy him and wreak havoc. 

This is necessary, but as Weil says, there is an infinite distance between the necessary and the good in our real experience.   

And if we were to stop there, we would just be Deists and to be greatly pitied. Such a God offers consent without participation, and that is not love. So she continues:

2. Grace / the Good: refers to God's willing participation in our world through the mutual consent (surrender, participation) of willing human partners. I explain all of this in more detail in A More Christlike God, but basically, God does not wind up the clock and leave us to our tragedies and evils. He enters the scene in the Incarnation and undergoes them to the nth degree (at the Cross), through which, enters the shadowy abyss, not as an intervention that violates the secondary causes, but as the divine Lover who participates in their healing at every level.

And there on the Cross, he spans the infinitive distance as our affliction and his goodness intersect in his own wounds. Is God the cause of tragedy and evil? Yes and No. He is not the direct cause of any tragedy or evil (that derives from the shadows of secondary causes), BUT because he is ultimately responsible for secondary causes, his only just response is full participation and unfailing mercy, revealed on the Cross. Further, it means that WE are completely responsible to participate in the restoration of all things through our willing surrender to that same cruciform life, as feeble and foolish as it seemed to Paul's opponents in 1 Cor. 1.     

Ivan Karamazov gives what I think is the very best case against Christian faith. 

But for Dostoevsky himself, co-suffering love is the only adequate and completely sufficient response.

I suppose Weil's theology is a metaphysical expression of Alyosha's kiss, for which Ivan could offer no real refutation.  

This leads us to your final question:

Have you found ways of getting past this sort of thing to be a decent human being again?

Only by willing surrender to the cruciform way one day at a time, which for me has required a program of recovery outlined in the 12 steps. Which is to say, on some days. Which is to say, I have a lot of grumpy days but fewer days where I try to overcome through self-will, which is how I (we all) got into this mess in the first place. And I'm still pretty damn grumpy.

All of the above is an explanation of an experience.

I have not found the explanation satisfying, but I did find the experience transformative. 

Thanks for reaching out. 

 

ADRIAN LOVEGROVE

Hi Brad,

Thanks so much for having the grace, and for taking the time, to lay this out so clearly, fully, and candidly in response to my last rant-o-gram. In the wilderness wandering of de/reconstruction, it's always reassuring to encounter folks who have already been there, and who know what it is to score highly on the grump-o-meter.

It seems to me that Ivan and Alyosha represent the only two sane responses to the insuperable contradiction (from a creaturely perspective) of a good God and the suffering of his creation and its creatures. I can take Ivan's place of accusation – which was rather the tenor of my last email to you – or I can take Alyosha's place of faith.

I hesitate to use the word "faith" because I think what we are talking about here is deeper than anything I have heard presented in my Christian experience. I've never read Simone Weil, but here is how I think I now understand faith from your description of her helpful thinking. It is no blind thing. It stares down the barrel of the gun of the suffering of creation without denial or dissociation. It makes no trite claims about God "being in control," or "moving in mysterious ways," or "working all things for good." Instead, it anchors itself in the character of the God-with-us revealed to us in the Christ-event, and on that basis is willing to give that God the benefit of the doubt on the inscrutable question of whether it would have been better not to have created given the risks involved.

Of course, such faith also goes further: choosing to adopt the ways and means of love shown and taught by Christ as the only meaningful approach to existence, within one's small sphere of influence, for whatever short time one has. And in that mustard-seed-sowing, yeast-kneading way, it finds its rest – "the easy yoke." But I'm not sure this "going further" to the place of Alyosha is possible without having settled "the character of God" question. And I'm not sure it's possible to settle this question without going via the place of Ivan, because until we have been there we have not really seen what is at stake.

Two things strike me.

First, having been to Ivan's place, it is very hard not to be a universalist. If this journey doesn't ultimately end well, for everything that the Creator has freely brought into existence, then I can currently see no moral justification for it having been embarked upon in the first place. That is essentially Dr. Hart's argument from creatio ex nihilo again. Perhaps I am still bargaining with God here, rather than simply surrendering to his infinitely better judgment. But I would prefer to love a demonstrably good God than grudgingly comply with an apparently amoral one.

Second, in terms of "demonstrably good," I used to think "the cross as a demonstration of God's character" was one of the weaker Protestant theories of atonement. As it happens, I'm not especially enamoured of such theories now, given the grander vision of salvation that folks like you and Dr. Hart have exposed me to. But for what it's worth, I'm currently feeling like it is the most important "theory" of all. When one bottoms out to where Ivan is, the only hope one has is in the character of God in spite of everything. I'm not privy to the pros and cons of to-create-or-not-to-create. I'm no longer academically interested in what was administratively or legally accomplished on Good Friday. What my heart needs to know is that God is good and that I can trust him. Now. In my actual life.

Wishing you and yours a peaceful and grump-free Christmas,

Ade

 

BRADLEY JERSAK

Thanks Adrian,

I feel like you've made some important points here that I will reflect on. 

First, YES, you are hearing me right re: Weil. Please read Weil, Awaiting God, chapter 2: "The Love of God and Affliction."

Second, she is my best example of your assertion that we only get to Alyosha via Ivan (a brilliant statement) and that this is precisely what she has done. Your restatement of how she does that is beautiful and it works. In a way, she represents the hypostatic union of Ivan and Alyosha (though I guess Dostoevsky already did). 

Third, exactly this: "I would prefer to love a demonstrably good God than grudgingly comply with an apparently amoral one."

And therefore, "having been to Ivan's place, it is very hard not to be a universalist." 

If God is good and good means anything at all other than evil, it simply can't be otherwise. And it isn't. And Jesus said so. "If I am lifted up, I WILL draw all people to myself." How? Via the Cross. 

And finally, "What my heart needs to know is that God is good and that I can trust him. Now. In my actual life."

YES. He cannot just be 'caring,' but somehow must be a real 'caregiver' in real life.

In light of the real affliction that we witness and experience, arriving there is inexplicable... yet somehow, I did. And that involved seeing the mystery of the union of my affliction to his. Not an explanation or theodicy. A Mystery. But real. 

Speaking of grumpy, I remember at one of my low points, mainly not functioning, binge-watching "House" with Hugh Laurie... my word of the year, stolen from him, was "Idiot!" 

My son called 2008 "the year Dad became harsh." I had to make my way via Ivan to Weil, as my path followed from defiance through decreation to acceptance and surrender. 

Blessed by your name,

Bradley Jersak

 

ADRIAN LOVEGROVE

Hi Brad,

You credit me with too much brilliance since, while I did originally write something like "I can only get to Alyosha via Ivan," I didn’t end up writing it quite so succinctly to you. Instead, I thought I had better explain what I meant by that. What I came up with was more long-winded, but that is the kernel of thought that you still picked up on, thankfully. It represents a take on the insight of Weil’s which is currently giving me hope in what I have euphemistically called my "grumpiness."

She has effectively stood, like me, in the place of Ivan and admitted that all he says is true. Yet she has also seen it is not the whole truth. Human suffering is real, and must be reckoned with, if any theological discourse is to have any credibility. But, to use your phrase, "self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love" is also real, and also has to be reckoned with, as God's response in and through Christ, and in and through those trying to follow him. It can probably never provide the explanation my head needs, but it can provide the experience my heart needs, as you have found.

At least from a creaturely perspective, Ivan's place is legitimate. But so is Alyosha's place. And that was the hope that arose in me as I read your summary of Weil. I don't have to deny what Ivan sees in order to affirm what Alyosha sees. I don't have to disconnect myself from what is presently intolerable to also attach myself to what is ultimately restorative. And it is in that tension that, for me, the OT "how long, O Lord," and the NT "Our Lord, come," now makes better sense. They can only be prayed from the place of Alyosha, not from the place of Ivan (but only after having been there). And therein is my hope.

Peace

Ade

 

Christmas Begins in the Quiet - C.E.W. Green

Ecce Homo by CEW Green

Christmas Begins in the Quiet
Lk. 2:1-14

*

Thursday, Christmas Eve eve, as Julie and the kids and I drove down to my parents’ house, I found myself thinking about the Holy Family. (I have been doing a lot of that over the last few months and weeks.) Sometime that morning, a question flashed in my mind, and that night, after everyone had gone to bed, I wrote a little note to St Joseph, a funny-odd cry for help, which ended with a not-at-all-small request:

When you labored your way back to your clan, Mary,
your Mary, was already thick with child. But today, alone
in my father’s house, I feel not her burden but yours.
St Luke, nothing if not sure of his work, says that all
the world had moved to be taxed, everybody
by Caesar’s rule returning to their ancestral home—
a plan so patently insane only a man confused with a god
could’ve ever become pig-headed enough to conceive it.
But as you neared the city’s limits
(it was, I know, no little town for you),
I doubt you gave that madness any thought.
What weight, then, pressed you down? 
Nothing is as taxing as family. Still,
anxiety can’t be what silenced you.

There’s more to the prayer, but I want to stay for a moment with that last line and its question. In St. Luke’s Gospel, Joseph does not speak. The same is true in St Matthew’s. Joseph never says a mumblin’ word. Why? What silenced him? And what does the Spirit mean for his silence to mean for us?

*  *

We acknowledge Joseph as a saint, but I’m not sure we fully appreciate what truly sets him apart. Listen to how he’s praised in the tradition (the Litany of St Joseph):   

Saint Joseph,
Renowned offspring of David,
Light of Patriarchs,
Spouse of the Mother of God,
Chaste guardian of the Virgin,
Foster-father of the Son of God,
Diligent protector of Christ,
Head of the Holy Family,
Joseph most just,
Joseph most chaste,
Joseph most prudent,
Joseph most strong,
Joseph most obedient,
Joseph most faithful,
Mirror of patience,
Lover of poverty,
Model of artisans,
Glory of home life,
Guardian of virgins,
Pillar of families,
Solace of the wretched,
Hope of the sick,
Patron of the dying,
Terror of demons,
Protector of Holy Church, pray for us

Of all the figures in the opening chapters of Luke’s Gospel—Zechariah, Elizabeth, John, Gabriel, Mary, Simeon, Anna—Joseph is far-and-away the least defined. He does not appear even once in Mark, and in John is mentioned just twice, only in passing—and mistakenly identified as Jesus’ father! In the Scriptures, Joseph is not so much a flat character as an empty silhouette, constantly overshadowed by other players in the drama. Why, then, do we praise him as “Light of the Fathers”? How can he be “Patron of the dying” when his death isn’t even mentioned in the Scriptures? He lived without speaking and died without being spoken of. How in God’s name did he come to be celebrated as “Solace of the wretched” and “Terror of demons”?

*  *  *

Roughly 700 years ago, somewhere in southwest Germany, a wildly popular and controversial Dominican preacher, Meister Eckhart, began his Christmas sermon with these words: 

Here in time we make holiday because the eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity is now born in time, in human nature. St Augustine says this birth is always happening. But if it does not happen in me, what does it profit me? What matters is that it shall happen in me.

Eckhart makes no mention of Joseph, but that’s no surprise. Unlike his wife and her son, Joseph rarely appears in Christmas sermons. But Joseph is never absent, even when he’s not seen. And his silence is never simply a void. His presence makes it possible for others to be present, to be presented. His silence makes it possible for others to speak and to be heard.

Think seriously for a moment about this marvel. If Joseph had not done what he did, and left undone what he left undone, there would have been no Christmas. Without Joseph’s obedience, Mary would not have been where she needed to be when she needed to be there—and you and I would not be here, now. Without Joseph’s dreams, Jesus would not have lived to live his life. Without Joseph’s (very pregnant) silence, Mary could not have borne the Word, and Jesus would never have spoken—God’s silence would be nothing to us.

That first Christmas, Mary was wholly consumed in awe, rapt in the contemplation of her newborn baby and the eternal Father whose praise he perfected. Joseph was left to do the “dirty work.” He had to “Martha” so she could “Mary.” As Leiva-Merikakis, says, Joseph danced around Mary as David had danced around the Ark. He was perfectly at ease in his role as a minor, backgrounding figure, happy to be a supporting character—because he knew it really is more blessed to give than to receive. No room was found for them in the inn. But none was needed, because Joseph, like his God, was roomy. That is why he shines with such a pure light, a barely visible star still guiding us.

We’re all meant to be Josephs—the terror of demons and the solace of the wretched. And there is not one but many Marys around us, all already great with child. Our job is simply to be their unassuming shelter, their quiet, stable support, to give so they can give—to the world’s delight.

Christmas always begins in the quiet.

C.S. Lewis, Atonement & Universal Salvation - Bradley Jersak

UNIVERSAL SALVATION

While I am convinced of the NT promise of ultimate redemption, I continue to be reluctant to identify myself personally with the label 'universalism.' That is mainly because its opponents typically assume they know what that word means, and have falsely accused me of not believing in the gravity of sin, the necessity of the Incarnation is necessary, the centrality of the Cross, the importance of a faith response, or in the dire warnings of a forthcoming judgment. I have found it difficult to convince them that I believe these are all crucial to the apostolic gospel, despite affirming each of these essentials in my published books and blogs over the past twenty years. At some point, the slander should be regarded as willful, and I do believe infernalists should join me in taking 1 Corinthians 6:10 to heart.   

But one reason that Evangelical and Orthodox universalists of good faith continue to be maligned is that so many pop-universalists have lived down to the caricatures of which we're accused and have readily dispensed with the gospel altogether. So for me, "universalism" is too big an umbrella term. At the very least, in needs the parameters of a limiting adjective, such as "Patristic Universalism." As for me, I opt to drop the -ism altogether and prefer to cite the many biblical texts that announce a gospel of "ultimate redemption" or "apokatastasis" (the restoration of all things) by "the Saviour of the world." 

I'm inclined to say, "I am not a universalist (by your definition), but I do believe in ultimate redemption." Then inquirers who hear that as a contradiction at least have to ask me what I mean. Some (okay, many) who ask come from traditions of zealous biblicism (as I have), so I am pleased to cite Scripture upon Scripture (in context), beginning with Jesus Christ's promise, "If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself" and remind them that God's plan has been revealed in Ephesians 1 (the summing up of all things in Jesus Christ) and 1 Corinthians 15 (that God will be all in all). I can go on for dozens of verses on that, but then I also like to add, "I am a conservative on these things, opting to conserve the Tradition as we see it in Macrina the Younger, Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac of Nineveh, and especially the hymnology of the Great Tradition..." Then I show them many many samples of weekly songs from the Octoechos. At that point, I may say, "You may still believe in the hell of eternal conscious torment, but I believe ... [and I cite the Symbol of Faith, aka Nicene Creed], which means we may disagree, but any charge of heresy is above our paygrade. 

A HEALING TORMENT

"So you don't believe in hell?" Sigh. Of course I do. See, for example, my book Her Gates Will Never Be Shut or my many blogs affirming divine judgment and the importance of talking about hell (better). It's just that when the Bible speaks about hell, there's a powerful case to be made from the Bible itself that it's not describing infernalism (eternal conscious torment)... including the 'gotcha' verses in Jesus' parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25.

One friend (who I'll take the heat for), talks about "Gehenna" (the word often translated as "hell" in the NT) this way:  

"If Gehenna is the torment of the conscience, then it should be a healing torment that works for redemption, 'the restoration of all things,' as the apostle Peter says, the end to the alienation between the human nature and the Divine nature." 

LEWIS ON ATONEMENT & HELL

At the roots of the controversy are two very different understandings of God's nature. In the Orthodox tradition of which I am a part, we see nothing in the nature of God that demands retribution through violence. This has implications for our understanding of both the atonement and the Day of Judgement.

"But," I am asked, "if God doesn't satisfy his wrath through the death of his Son, then why did Jesus die?" It's a fair question until it extends to another common accusation: "Then you believe Jesus didn't need to die and that the Cross is dispensable." An odd leap, and hurtful, considering the centrality of the Cross in books such as Stricken by God?, A More Christlike God, and From the Cave to the Cross. 

Now CS Lewis is an interesting case, both on the atonement and on the topic of hell (both following the man he called his 'master,' George MacDonald).

Re: the atonement, Lewis retrieves the theology of the early church (especially Athanasius), and he refutes standard penal substitution theory (especially as wrath-appeasement), which he explicitly rejects in both Mere Christianity and in his letters to Bede Griffiths. And he sets up the Patristic alternative in his Chronicles of Narnia. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you get the combination of biblical themes--the ransom paid for freedom AND the plunder of the strongman's house, both reflecting the Hebrew Exodus narrative. Readers might enjoy this 1-page article I wrote about that: 

https://www.clarion-journal.com/clarion_journal_of_spirit/2016/03/god-is-not-the-witch-cs-lewis-on-the-atonement-brad-jersak.html   

On the topic of hell, The Great Divorce was amazing. My favourite Lewis book. He leaves the door open (as does Revelation 21-22) to human agency and the perpetual possibility of a response, without dogmatizing the redemption of all (even if Paul does so in Eph. 1, Phil. 2, Rom. 5, Rom. 11, 1 Cor. 15, etc.).

But beyond that fictional classic, it's worth pondering and responding to Lewis' claim that "The doors of hell are locked from the inside" (from The Problem of Pain). 

First, he is obviously refuting literalist readings of texts where Christ or his angels are represented as actively casting the damned into the lake of fire or outer darkness. Those texts are obviously in our Scriptures, sometimes coming from Jesus. But I don't believe Lewis is ignoring them to get God off the hook. More likely, he is clarifying that such language is limited to the symbolism of visions, parables, and metaphors that, in the end, Lewis affirms human agency and describes self-inflicted consequences.

BUT...  I like to go a step further, and leave you imagining Lewis in conversation with Christ, like so:

Lewis: "The doors of hell are locked from the inside." 

Jesus' answer #1 at the Cross - "Doors?" as he tears the veil of the Holy of Holies, which has represented paradise locked to us.

Jesus' answer #2 on Holy Saturday - "Doors?" as he shatters the gates and stands on them, pulling us up by the wrists (as in the resurrection icon). 

Jesus' answer #3 on Easter Sunday - "Doors?" as he passes through them as if they are mist, as he did in the upper room.

 

 

Christmas Is What God Does - Fr. Kenneth Tanner

Icon by by Ivanka Demchuk UBP

The story of the world—the story we just heard read in the church as our gospel for Christmas, the world’s true story from which all true stories are told—happened in a world exactly like our world.

It was as is ours a world of emperors and governors, of trade routes and ships, of armies and (less deadly) missiles, of wheat, wine, and oil, of palaces and hovels, of well-appointed houses and simple shacks, of swords and spears, of pubs and caves and lean-tos, of banquets and famines, of night, stars, cold, and sheep...same world.

A person that humans allowed to be important, Augustus, with a big made-up title—“Caesar” (if that sounds ancient, try ones we make up like czar, prime minister, führer, or president [persons who are here today and gone tomorrow, whose power is illusory—it’s not ultimately real and it doesn’t last])—wanted a head count of his conquered masses. And everyone had to go out of their way to appease the bully.

The government order causes hardship for a lot of people. The most trouble (as in our present pandemic moment) is visited on the poor who are made to travel long distances on meager resources to the place of their birth for the census because that’s what Caesar’s order dictates.

The world’s truest story is the story of one such family, a pregnant mother, and her rough-handed carpenter fiancé, who could find no room, out in all of that cold and all of that dark, for the God she bore and the God he protected.

They had both in their own ways made room for God. Mary had said yes to the divine invitation to bear God in her womb. Joseph had heeded the Angel and shielded Mary, his betrothed, had loved her as he had been loved.

They had made room for God but the world had no room for them or for God—you see, it’s the same world as our world—even though she was pregnant and in labor. But such is God’s way in this world, homeless and with no place to lay his head.

The first Christians tell us that the couple found space with the animals in a cave among shit and straw. And then she gave birth like all mothers do: it was painful, and there was blood and sweat and serum, and cords to cut, and a cry from the human God split their ears and their silent night.