Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

SHOULD GOD BE GRACE - poem by Jessica Williams

SHOULD GOD BE GRACE

 

Should God be Grace

I know Her ways

The purest Light

Beyond the haze

That’s shining through

To show the way

When all else lies in darkness.

 

Should God be Grace

She’s held my hand

When I’ve forgotten

Who I am

She’s lifted me

To help me stand

From beds of my own making.

 

Should God be Grace

She falls like drops

Of truth

On all my tired thoughts

That keep me in my

“I am nots”

And speaks a different story.

 

Should God be Grace

She is the floor

That comes to hold

My feet secure

When every other

Place before

Gave way and left me falling.

 

Should God be Grace

She changes shape

To fill the gaps that

Life has made

She knows the place

Of every pain

And fits within the spaces.

 

Should God be Grace

She is the wind

That moves me to

Begin again

Regardless of the

Place I’m in

Her offering is Mercy.

 

Should God be Grace

I’ve felt Her move

In ways that I

Could never prove

But what I know

I cannot lose

And so I let Her hold me.  

"Queering Allyship" - Beth Carlson-Malena

Editor's note: Beth Carlson-Malena has kindly contributed the full transcript of her introductory talk at a Generous Space Allyship event in Vancouver. While introducing Sarah Bessey, Beth delivered this profound and clear talk we've titled "Queering Allyship."

I’m here to kick us off tonight with some opening thoughts on allies and allyship from the perspective of a queer person, that is, yours truly, and also share thoughts from other LGBTQ+ folks in our Generous Space community.

My hope in the next 15 minutes is to “queer” the idea of allyship.

In other words, I want to shake it up and turn it inside-out, to break it out of its box. (in case you’ve never heard “queer” used as a verb before!)

The word “queer” is queerer than you knew – it’s multifaceted and sometimes slippery, even when used as a noun.

You have to handle it with care – it has its baggage and it has its beauty, and can elicit polar opposite responses within the LGBTQ+ community, let alone outside it. ... much like the word “ally.”

Ally is just as slippery and tricky, and I think that’s especially true in Christian LGBTQ+ contexts...

CLICK HERE to download Beth Carlson-Malena's full transcript
on "QUEERING ALLYSHIP" from the Generous Space "Allyship event"

Beth Carlson-Malena (she/her/hers)
Director of Community, Generous Space Ministries

www.generousspace.ca

Beth Carlson-Malena grew up in Saskatoon and moved to Vancouver to study at Regent College almost thirteen years ago. There, she met and fell in love with her housemate, Danice, sending them both on a journey of trying to reconcile their sexuality and their faith. Meanwhile, Beth co-pastored a Baptist church plant and worked at Jacob's Well, an incarnational Downtown Eastside community, and Danice was a Baptist youth pastor. Their marriage four years ago meant they could no longer pastor among the Baptists. Beth now works with Generous Space Ministries, offering pastoral care and connection to LGBTQ Christians across Canada, and two years ago launched a new church start-up called "Open Way" in East Van, co-pastoring with her friend Mark."

The Coming King - Sarah Van Diest

The death of Jesus on the cross is utterly confounding; affronting our sensibilities of justice. How can this bloody mess of a man be our conquering king? How can this victimized, brutalized plebeian be our savior? But he is. Wholly and completely. And the universe bows to him.

This was not what was expected. 400 years of the silence of God was endured for greater things than this! Surely the journey of the Children of God would climax with triumph at last and with victory over their oppressors. Where is their conquering king? Where is their righteous reckoning?

And what of us today? We wait and long for things to be made right. This isn’t how it is supposed to be. Death and sorrow, hate and betrayal are defining characteristics of our day and age. Where is our righteous reckoning?

Just like the Jews of the Old Testament, we look toward the return of the King with hopes that the Lion of Judah will stride in with his judgments and pronounce to all those deserving of wrath their sentence. The putting of all things to rights is what we are eager to see. But why do we think our story will be different from the Jews’ story? Why do we think the second coming of Jesus will be a fiery, wrath-filled, venge-fest where old scores are finally settled once and for all? Isn’t that the same hope the Jews had? Weren’t they disappointed?

Stars Like Us - Jessica Cotten

Stars Like Us

By Jessica Cotten

 

I saw a falling star tonight

It was beautiful

We admire the beautiful things, you know.

 

But did you forget?

This star

Falling

Lighting the sky

Was also burning,

Dying.

 

We crave beauty

We crave glory

We crave the gasps we make

When stars fall from the sky

We rarely realize

The cost

The pain

The fire

The death.

 

We want our path.

             Our path wants mystery.

                                    Mystery wants faith.

    

                                                                        Faith without fire

                                                                        Is no faith at all.

Knulp and Wandering: The Plight of the Bohemian Way - by Ron Dart

Knulp and Wandering: The Plight of the Bohemian Way                                   

Hesse had established himself, as a compelling and attractive writer, before WWI. The publication of such Hesse classics and primers as Peter Camenzind, Under the Wheel, Gertrude, From India, The Prodigy andRosshalde placed Hesse at the forefront of a thoughtful and emerging German and European romantic tradition and ethos. But, dark clouds were emerging at a variety of levels in Hesse’s life: tensions at home with wife and family and WWI were demanding their exacting due. Hesse saw all too keenly, given his sensitive temperament, the imposing challenges before him. It is understandable, from a certain perspective, why the need for a certain escape from such growing responsibilities can and might occur. When life becomes too overwhelming, there is a tendency to go to places in which the sky is clear blue, there are no dark clouds and much is calm and peaceful--such is, in some ways, the naively sweet yet worth the reads of Knulp and Wandering.

Ralph Freedman suggests that Hesse in Knulp “developed the figure of the perennial wanderer--literally the sensitive hobo-who could stand out as the vagabond par excellence (p. 140). Knulp does, in many ways, anticipate some of the American Beat writers that emerged after WWII, Kerouac’s On the Road, for example,a decades later version although perhaps not as tender and elusive as Knulp. There is a definite sense in which Hesse in Knulp is pondering both the appeal yet end destination of those who are ever on the road, uprooted, unrooted and committed to nothing other than the next step of being on the trail of life. The 3-part life story and biography of sorts of Knulp tracks and traces his life from that of a seemingly gifted person, his departure from what he might have been if he had continued his schooling, painful and disappointing life experiences, his longing for a home and settling but never making the decision to do so. Knulpwas published in 1915 and is divided into three sections or tales: 1) Early Spring, 2) My Recollections of Knulp and 3) The End. Needless to say, the young Knulp of the early spring phase has a winsome, winning and delightful charm to him. He has turned aside from the expected demands in his life and has chosen to live as he wishes and wants—there is a spring-like budding and blossoming in this tale but also consequences of making such decisions and living them. The young Knulp certain appeals to the childlike within and what Blake might call the “songs of innocent”. The next section of the short story walks the interested reader into, increasingly so, the “songs of experience”, life demanding its inevitable due and exacting wage. “My Recollections of Knulp” walk the reader to Knulp in midlife stride, Knulp now living into the troubling reality of his earlier decisions made. The midlife phase tends to be more layered and complex, the fresh and bountiful scenery, fruit and air of “Early Spring” now fading in Knulp’s summer and emerging autumn years. “The End” brings Knulp’s final years to a conclusion, alone and deserted, assistance from an old doctor friend initially received, Knulp takes to the road again and dies penniless, snow frozen and starving, the temptation of the early spring season, once absolutized and made a vocation, ending in a tragic and painful way. Who has not seen Knulp’s in their lives? Hesse certainly understood the temptation and Hesse poignantly described, in Knulp, the end of such decisions and journey of those who make a vocation of ever wandering and a commitment to nothing but wandering.

There is a sense in which Wandering is a companion missive to Knulp although the end is not so sad and sobering. Wandering, unlike Knulp, is a series of short reflections and sketches of a wanderer of sorts who makes a walking pilgrimage from Switzerland, over an alpine pass, and into Italy, WWI now over. Each short reflection and poem ponders significant life issues and does so in a tender and probing way and manner. The short book begins with the wanderer leaving what he has known and been and heading alone southward to the lure of Italy (a common European and German literary destination). The wanderer is ever the outsider, watching, observing yet ever moving on. The final chapter, “Evenings”, like Knulp, portrays the wanderer, like a spectator in a play, watching the drama of life but refusing to be committed to acting on the stage. The wanderer, therefore, is torn between longing for some sort of meaningful life and a commitment to place and people and yet refusing to make the decision that will ground him. The wanderer, ever the reflective and uncommitted skeptic, impotent and ever in the maze of his insights yet paralyzed by them. Wandering was published in 1920, Hesse feeling the brunt of many a German nationalist having turned on him, the literary elite suspicious of him, his marriage ailing, his children with friends and relatives, his life, in many ways, in a turbulent and painful place. The wanderer, like Knulp, remains the lone romantic individual, unheard and misunderstood by the bourgeois, philistine and thoughtless classes of the time. The question for Hesse of which Knulp and Wanderer were provisional answers was this: how is the sensitive artist and political oppositional thinker to respond to opposition, indifference and those close to the bone relationships unraveling? Is the answer merely to isolate oneself and leave society and family behind, be committed to observing the unpredictable and much ado about nothing in much of life? Idealism once betrayed can and often does lead to cynicism or a form of realism in which life is hard and painful, hence only by being alone and isolated can one not be hurt and betrayed again. And yet such a stance of indifference and skepticism creates its own difficult dilemmas.

Those who retreat into their private worlds of inner reflection and, at times, meaningful insights, but disconnect themselves from other people and community, predictably so, often become depressed and disoriented, solipsism and nihilism their tempting companions on the journey. Hesse has certainly probed such a path hiked in these two small books (worth many a read), but his deeper and more mature thinking and writing go further and are more nuanced than Knulp and Wandering. It is to these more thoughtful novels we now turn as Hesse ever grows in his nuanced probes in the journey of life.  

It is probably of some significance to note that twenty-two of Hesse’s fairy stories written 1904-1918 was published, edited by Jack Zipes, as The Complete Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse (1995). The shorter and earlier version was published in 1919 in German as Strange News from Another Star (translated into English in 1972). Many of these, broadly speaking, fairy tales, highlight the trying and difficult nature of growing into wisdom, depth and maturity. It is in this sense that the fairy tales are a companion and corrective to what might seem a rather thin and subtly indulgent life journey as embodied in Knulp and Wandering, the life of the detached wanderer and bohemian. A thorough immersion in the fairy tales will reveal a meditative breadth and depth in Hesse’s life and writings not necessarily discovered in Knulp-Wanderingand, such fairy tales both antedated Knulp-Wandering and many were written about the same time.                          

Reflections on Chris Hedges' "Saying Goodbye to Sam" - Wayne Northey

Cf. Chris Hedges, "Saying Goodbye to Sam" [Samuel Hynes] at Truthdig.com

Wayne Northey: Chris Hedges is amongst my favourite writers on these themes. My main disappointment has always been his denial of the historical Resurrection of Jesus. The evidence does not compel such a conclusion^[1].  I believe his general tone of hopelessness in much of his otherwise brilliant writing has a joyous counterpoint he is missing out on! I explore this with reference to close relatives who are as hopelessly lost–in this case in extreme anger against Christianity and the Church. On their logic, just as soon dismiss the entire human race! (Something I reference in the preface to my “Rwanda Dispatches“.) I consciously choose hope and joy:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:1 – 11)

Indeed, this hope has not disappointed, rather has underwritten buoyant joy and an overall sense of well-being–for untold and told multiplied millions–including me!

CLICK HERE to continue reading

Christianity and the Subversion of Just About Everything! Wayne Northey

Tintoretto: Christ disputing in the Temple

Wayne Northey: This essay was initially written in the 1980’s while I was preparing a sermon on Romans 13. My “aha” moment is that described in the excerpt below. I’ve never seen this elsewhere in biblical scholarship. Someday a New Testament scholar may tell me it really is not good exegesis. But until then… Though the late Mennonite NT scholar Dr. David Schroeder, who later wrote a Foreword when I published it locally, was kind enough perhaps to mention nothing about it…

Were I rewriting the paper today, there would be significant inclusion of theological understandings of Empire, and God’s call to his people throughout Judeo-Christian Tradition to come out of it and all its ways, in radical embrace of Another Way: a robust expulsion of just about everything – Empire! In fact, Empire and Empire ways, above all in manifestation of ruthless domination over others and rapacious abuse of the Good Creation, are posited against a virulent biblical Counter-Narrative, however weakly and at times profoundly ignored in the history of the Tradition. On the contrary, the lived Tradition has time and again tragically embraced and blessed Empire in all its horror, greed, domination and devastation.

The ultimate Counter-Point to Empire is of course the Peaceable Kingdom. In anticipation of it we cry out: Maranatha! (Come, O Lord) – an early Christian rebellious cry in blatant defiance of Empire. It acknowledges there is only One rightful Lord of all Creation, the risen Jesus, over against every Caesar littering the entire human story.

To make the point crystal clear: Donald Trump is the latest and most powerful iteration of such vicious hubris.

The paper has been revised a few times, but the gist is pertinent today. As my Home page indicates, the website is dedicated to the Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire.

Here are a few guides to theological understandings of Empire:

“Come Out My People!”: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond
Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now
Empire Baptized: How the Church Embraced What Jesus Rejected (Second-Fifth Centuries)
Jesus and the Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder
Religion and Empire: People, Power, and the Life of the Spirit
In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance
Paul and the Roman Imperial Order
Christ & Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times
Christ and the Emperor: The Gospel Evidence
God, Neighbor, Empire: The Excess of Divine Fidelity and the Command of Common Good
Faith in the Face of Empire
Empire and the Christian Tradition: New Readings of Classical Theologians
Paul and Empire (website on The Paul Page)

Here is an excerpt from the paper you may click on below.:

There is a kind of code expression used by Paul on several occasions when dealing with the socially and politically entrenched evil structures of control. To accomplish the task of overcoming evil with good, Paul held that, through resurrection empowerment, it was possible to love the enemy until the death of the tyranny is realized ^[2]! Such love is profoundly the biblical way of subversion. Paul’s code expression is found in Romans 13:14: “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.” I take these words to mean that it is possible to be so immersed in the words and ways of Jesus in his response to the enemy, that we will respond to all our enemies in similar fashion.

I wish to examine more fully Paul’s teachings in Romans 13:14, appearing in the context of relation to the state. In this text, as well as in some others, is an expression that rises from the Greek word enduo, meaning “to put on”, “to clothe”. But first a quick aside…

When I searched for further instances of enduo in the New Testament, I found the Greek expression was always used with reference to power relationships: to the state; to one’s parents; to masters; to the “pagans”/Greeks; to domination between the sexes. What I found as said I have never seen picked up by another commentator. It is the burden of this paper.

Please click on: Christianity and Subversion

Is Paul the Father OF Misogyny and Antisemitism? Wayne Northey

This post first appeared HERE

Wayne Northey: This paper highlighted below answers in the negative the question posed in the title. It was written by Pamela Eisenbaum, Pauline scholar, practising Jew, feminist, and professor at a Christian seminary. She subsequently wrote Paul was not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle.

I delivered a sermon inspired by her, entitled “Paul the Radical” I began and ended the sermon thus:

Introduction A good friend and former elder in a conservative evangelical church recently recounted some of his spiritual journey. When he turned to the Apostle Paul, he said: “Paul, damn him!…”, and continued. In broad strokes, the Apostle Paul has been widely held to have been a profoundly social conservative, a misogynist, and an anti-Semite–or to have, with the Gospel of John, laid the groundwork for a pernicious anti-Semitism that has plagued Western history with the Holocaust its capstone.

While this is a common enough complaint about the Apostle, it is by no means the final word. If you were to visit “The Paul Page” on the Internet, you would find hundreds of essays and bibliographies listed, “dedicated”, the site is subtitled, to “the new perspective on Paul”. In broad strokes, “the new perspective” is an expression coined by New Testament scholar James D. G. Dunn that has launched for three decades a new look at Paul with reference to his own Jewishness, and that of his fellow Jews, and more recently, with reference to Paul’s citizenship in the Roman Empire, backdrop to Christian missionary expansion in Paul’s lifetime.

Historian C. J. Cadoux, in an Epilogue to his huge study of the first three centuries of the Christian church (The Early Church and the World (1925 & 1955) ), says of the early church era:

… we certainly have a moral reformative movement on a scale and with a potency unparallelled at any other epoch before or since… the achievements of the early Church can defy comparison with those of any other moral or religious movement known to history (p. 611).

This movement had its primary champion in the Apostle Paul. Paul can be read – selectively – as anti-Jewish, as can the evangelists, certainly in particular in John’s Gospel. Paul can be read – selectively – as misogynist, as can Jesus. Paul can be read–selectively — as otherworldly and a-political, and therefore socially conservative, as can Jesus.

United Church minister Greta Vosper does read Jesus and Paul in the above way, as does atheism popularizer Richard Dawkins, and as do many others.

All I am suggesting this morning is another way to read Paul–and Jesus!–that is not anti-Jewish, anti-woman, and anti-progressive (to use an undefined, anachronistic term). It is a way in fact that points in the direction of the conclusions of C.J. Cadoux. I want to draw on several sources who read Paul positively in the context of various power arrangements in Paul’s time, and who read Paul as deconstructionist and vision builder in the context of Roman Empire.

Conclusion

If one wants to read the Apostle Paul negatively, accusing him of misogyny, anti-Semitism, and reprehensible social conservatism, one may. The burden of this brief presentation is that one need not. On the contrary, one may read Paul as a passionate radical committed to an egalitarian anti-imperial vision of humanity as one family in Christ. Paul’s towering radicalism was not only imbued with love (I Cor. 13), it was enormously revolutionary in impact in the context of Roman Empire.

“It is an irony of history”, claims Religious Studies professor James Williams, “that the very source that first disclosed the viewpoint and plight of the victim is pilloried in the name of various forms of [biblical] criticism… However, it is in the Western world that the affirmation of „otherness,” especially as known through the victim, has emerged. And its roots sink deeply into the Bible as transmitted in the Jewish and Christian traditions… the standpoint of the victim is [the West’s] unique and chief biblical inheritance. It can be appropriated creatively and ethically only if the inner dynamic of the biblical texts and traditions is understood and appreciated. The Bible is the first and main source for women’s rights, racial justice, and any kind of moral transformation. The Bible is also the only creative basis for interrogating the tradition and the biblical texts (“King as Servant, Sacrifice as Service: Gospel Transformations”, in Willard M. Swartley, ed., Violence Renounced: René Girard, Biblical Studies, and Peacemaking, Telford: Pandora Press U.S. , pp. 195 & 196).”

Many in similar vein suggest that Paul’s radicalism was unequalled in scope and achievement.

***

Like Western Christianity in general, Paul has since the Enlightenment been enormously scapegoated in the academy and beyond. Even a cursory read of Larry Siedentop’s book, Inventing the Individual, especially his chapter on Paul (scanned and underlined here), renders this obnoxious Paul-bashing habit rather inoperative: unless one is willing to put in a gargantuan amount of scholarship to demonstrate otherwise. If so, one will have to take on for starters two towering Pauline scholars:  James D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright. Hint: you will not digest their material in a couple of one-evening sittings . . . And that is only for starters.

I suggest a tad vigorously that the onus is on the reader to prove the longstanding Enlightenment scapegoating number done on Paul is legitimate. If you succeed, please write me about it . . . I argue to the contrary in a related context, in “Christianity and the Subversion of Just About Everything“, reflecting on (mainly) Paul’s use of the Greek term enduo.

The above all apart from this: Paul was bar none one of the most courageous persons one can meet historically by any scale of measurement. And yet his life demonstrated repeated transcending of horrific “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” most of us would be hopelessly buried under . . .

Oh: And he is my lifelong hero! So please for my sake tread carefully.^[1]

An excerpt from Pamela Eisenbaum’s paper:

I have a passionate interest in the apostle Paul. Many people think this passion is unusual because I am a Jew not a Christian. What’s more, I like to think of myself as a feminist. What’s a nice Jewish feminist doing studying the apostle Paul? After all, from a Jewish perspective, Paul is a heretic who had a demented view of Judaism. From a feminist perspective, Paul is an ally of Christian conservatives who wish to keep women in a subordinate position to men.

Nevertheless, my interest derives naturally from my professional commitments. I am a Jewish New Testament scholar who teaches in a Christian seminary,^[2]. and, after some years of studying and teaching Paul, I have come to the conclusion that Paul was a committed, well-intentioned Jew, even if the subsequent uses of his teachings were abominable where Jews and women are concerned…

Please click on: Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism?

Recommended Readings on Faith Renovation - Kenneth Tanner

Folks undergoing what my friend Brad Jersak calls “faith renovation” often ask me to suggest books as companions on their journey.

What follows are thirty-five small(ish) books to heal hurting hearts and bewildered minds by introducing and inviting them to the older, deeper, authentic way of majority Christianity down the centuries.

These books point us to the beauty and wisdom of the Great Tradition, discussing distortions of Christian teaching only where necessary.

With exceptions they are under $15 and many of them are under 200 pages. The average reader will find no particular challenge in comprehending them.

With one exception the books are by living authors who have other published or pending books that one can turn to, and all but about a handful were published in the past five years.

The list is eclectic, because seeing all there is to see of Jesus Christ requires us to encounter his followers in as generous a company of orthodox Christians as possible.

These books will reorient readers to the classic Christian consensus on creation care, the cross, solidarity with the poor and the broken, death and evil as negations of the good with no origin in God, what the end of the world means, hospitality, the Scriptures, the creeds, enemy love, the created goodness of humanity and the material world, the sacraments and practices of the church, contemplation, the ancient church’s multi-faceted understanding of salvation, and the much-neglected doctrine of the incarnate God who truly sets our faith apart from every philosophy and religion that projects a god that looks and sounds like the worst imaginations of the fallen human heart.

A person who makes it through even some of these will understand that Jesus Christ is the most vital human and the most humble God and that he alone is truly the savior of the cosmos.

Note: A few of these books address the contemporary Christian trying to navigate our inherited authentic faith in the complex reality of the churches and our culture here in the United States. My apologies if you are an international reader.

It would be good to make a similar list of primary sources from the Tradition and another from literary fiction, for Christian faith engages our imagination in the concrete world God has made, and some (not all!) fathers and mothers among the first Christians should be read as often as and alongside contemporary authors, but those lists are for another day.

**********

A list of contemporary non-fiction books for folks undergoing faith renovation:

Becoming Human: Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word and Images by John Behr

Jesus of Nazareth (three volumes) by Benedict XVI

Our Only World: Ten Essays by Wendell Berry

Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays by Wendell Berry

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Taylor Brown

Surprised by Jesus Again: Reading the Bible in Communion with the Saints by Jason Byassee

Love Anyway: An Invitation Beyond a World That’s Scary as Hell by Jeremy Courtney

Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans

Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe by Stephen Freeman

Surprised by God: How and Why What We Think About the Divine Matters by Chris E.W. Green

Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practice in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren

The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? by David Bentley Hart

The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying to Our Father by Wesley Hill

A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel by Brad Jersak

A More Christlike Way: A More Beautiful Faith by Brad Jersak

Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation by Martin Laird

How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help Is on the Way and Love Is Already Here by Jonathan Martin

A Spiritual Evolution: Rediscovering the Greatest Story Ever Told: John MacMurray

Prayer: Forty Days of Practice by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson

The Apostle’s Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism by Ben Myers

The Eternal Current: How a Practice-Based Faith Can Save Us from Drowning by Aaron Niequist

In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World by Pádraig Ó Tuama

For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting? by Alexander Schmemann

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith

Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer by Rowan Williams

Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief by Rowan Williams

Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to the Life of Spiritual Discipline by Lauren F. Winner

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright

Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News by Brian Zahnd

Water to Wine: Some of My Story by Brian Zahnd

Ronald Wright: Can We Still Dodge the Progress Trap? -- Comments by Wayne Northey

Author of 2004’s ‘A Short History of Progress’ issues a progress report.

Ronald Wright 20 Sep 2019 | TheTyee.ca

Ronald Wright’s 10 books include Time Among the Maya, Stolen Continents, and the award-winning dystopia A Scientific Romance. His Massey Lectures inspired Martin Scorsese’s 2011 documentary Surviving Progress. See also “‘Which Will Win, Wisdom or Greed?’“. For the author, “progress trap” means trapped by “civilization’s” very success.

Wayne Northey: An incredibly credible and sobering voice!

The author delivered the CBC Massey Lectures in 2004, and they were published and eventually translated into almost 20 languages. An anniversary edition this year bears the original title: A Short History of Progress. Of it we read:

Each time history repeats itself, so it’s said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water — the very elements of life. The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: Where will this growth lead? Can it be consolidated or sustained? And what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?

In his #1 national bestseller A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment’s inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.

Wayne Northey: In the fifteenth anniversary’s Introduction–the only part of the text changed–he concludes:

Often when I read the news these days, I feel I’ve awakened in a dystopia I foretold, not yet in the jungled ruins of London but well on the way there. Perhaps our odds have fallen to one in three. So yes, I am less hopeful than I was in 2004. But I still have hope. Giving up in despair is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if the chance of success is only one in ten, it is still worth fighting for. And if we fail to act, nature will do so with the rough justice she serves on those who are too many and who take too much.

Wayne Northey: And while eco-anxiety is now a spreading psychological phenomenon, the vast majority of humanity in our wealthiest countries live in simple denial. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu in No Future Without Forgivenesscommented about the brutal suppression of blacks and dissidents during the apartheid years:

The former apartheid cabinet member Leon Wessels was closer to the mark when he said that they had not wanted to know, for there were those who tried to alert them (p. 269).

Wayne Northey: When I lived for two years in West Berlin in the early 1970s, in the impertinence of youth I asked a few older persons in church, “Haben Sie nicht gewußt?” — Didn’t you know — about the Nazi Holocaust? Their eyes invariably betrayed their “Nein“. No one lived in Germany during those years who did not know!

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

Sacred House cleaning and fear monsters - poem by Debbie Hughes

Sacred House cleaning and fear monsters 

 

My heart is the place my love and fears compete for residency.

However, I am the landlord and I get to decide who lives here.

 

When Jesus took up residency he didn’t forcefully move in.

There were no bolt cutters or sledgehammers involved.

He was invited and welcomed.

 

As much as I delighted in our new friendship there were areas I did not allow Him access.

I told Him this was all the space I was willing to give.

 

He did not FORCE me to open those locked and forgotten spaces.

Slowly - over time and with trust,

I gave Him the key and was willing to explore those 

     Dark 

            Secret 

                   Scary 

                       rooms with him.

 

As He opened the door I was surprised I wasn’t afraid.

This place didn’t seem as scary now.

 

Together we pulled cobwebs off the walls and opened locked closets. 

We examined trinkets, old photos,

broken pottery and hope chests filled with baby clothes.

The things memories, hopeful dreams and broken promises are made of.

 

When we cleaned the mirrors I saw 

MY reflection for the first time -

the way HE SEES ME. 

 

There in the locked away room is where I discovered MY image and MY worth.

It wasn’t in my accomplishments that hung so shiny in the front room where all could see.

 

It was in the broken- hurting places that we cleaned together.

That scary, dark room turned into a 

          sacred - holy space. 

 

There was sadness and healing,

      but there was so much 

                 JOY! 

Together, with my Lord cleaning house.

 

As we cleaned he showed me where the          intruders lived and together we

      banished the fear monsters.

They were never invited, but took up secret residency when I wasn’t looking.

 

They came in on wounds and hid 

deep in dark corners. 

Feeding on unhealed pain of judgment and     rejection.

They whispered through the walls.

 

They were determined to keep me from living a wholehearted life.

 

The room was now cleaned and swept.

Windows were thrown open and 

        fresh,

             crisp 

                  air-filled the place.

 

He showed me how the fear monsters snuck in 

             and I will be on guard.

I know I don’t have to do this alone and He          stands guard with me.

Q&R: If we hope in Christ for ultimate redemption, why evangelism? Brad Jersak

QUESTION:

I found (and appreciated) your recent review of David Bentley Hart's That All Shall Be Saved in Clarion Journal. I have been thinking a lot about these various views, and have been wondering about something: evangelism (or, at least, kingdom declaration) seems to have been endemic in early Christianity, the Apostle Paul being perhaps the most outstanding example. I understand the ECT/Conditionalist reasons for evangelism, but I was wondering, what are the reasons for Evangelism proponents of Ultimate Redemption and/or Hart's Christian Universalism? hat are the reasons for Evangelism proponents of Ultimate Redemption and/or Hart's Christian Universalism? This question greatly intrigues me. If you have already written something on this, or can point me to a good resource, I would greatly appreciate it.

RESPONSE:

I've written an afterword on this question in Her Gates Will Never Be Shut and it's also a major theme in my new book, IN: Incarnation and Inclusion, Abba and Lamb. 

 

The two easiest answers about why evangelism for UR believers are the same reasons that I think compelled Paul. Namely,

 

1. Because Christ is the most wonderful person in the universe and knowing him IS eternal life. Not just when you die, but in the abundance of this life, the fullness of our inheritance in the gospel and in the depth of the relationship Christ opens to God as Abba. While Paul calls Christ the Savior of all, knowing Christ brings that truth into our experience in the here and now. Sharing the good news means announcing how, in Christ, we can experience deeper intimacy with God, the assurance that our sins are forgiven, the freedom of being washed of shame, fearlessness before death, etc. Why wouldn't we tell people this good news?! Yes, Christ is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

 

2. Because so many people are experiencing the human condition as alienating, as perishing, as hellish already. I meet so many people who struggle to find meaning, peace and belonging--tormented souls who end up medicating their weary, broken hearts with false comforts and toxic distractions. In other words, it's clear to me that regardless of how wonderfully Christ will restore all things in the end, people desperately need him today! Life is hard and people feel "harassed and helpless, like sheep without a Shepherd." Why wouldn't we tell broken people the good news?! 

 

Besides these two key reasons to share the good news, I also come at it from another angle. IF God shall indeed redeem all of humanity, our Scriptures and our experience tell us he does so by means. IF all shall be saved, how so?

• By sending his Son to reveal God's self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love.
• Through Christ's decisive victory of Satan, sin and death in his Passion and Resurrection.
• Via the witness of those who faithfully announce the good news (there's your evangelism).
• In answer to our prayers that all people, everywhere, would be saved (1 Tim. 2:1-4).
• By the grace of the Holy Spirit.
• Through a faith response to Jesus Christ.
• And as a result of the refiner's fire judgment (Mal. 3 / Mark 9 / 1 Cor. 3).  

As best I can tell, these are among the means (primary and secondary causes) by which anyone will ultimately be saved. 

 

I suspect that many Christians see no reason for evangelism beyond hell avoidance for one of three reasons:

• We've been soured to the Great Commission because modern evangelism had become so ugly. Instead of shining brightly with truly good news, our focus had shifted to rationalistic apologetics (arguing) or worse, to threatening ultimatums. I.e. We distorted the means. No thanks.  
• We've become awake to God's all-inclusive love but lost the uniqueness of the Incarnation as the Way our access to God as Abba comes about. I.e. We forgot the means to the end. 
• When we've not actually met Jesus in a way that makes Christ real to us. We can't proclaim what we haven't experienced. Have traded in the transforming power of an authentic inner relationship with the living God for the fruits of suburban capitalism? Are we out of touch with humanity's existential crisis and adopted Christianity as an -ism not much worth trumpeting? These are real questions for self-examination. In short, how do we deal with the reality of Christendom where so many Christians have signed off on a prayer or creed and not yet met Christ? 

P.S. It is striking to me that when the evangelists of the book of Acts preach the gospel (MANY times to Jews and Gentiles, including to the Jewish Sanhedrin and Greek philosophers) they never once address hell as a motivation in their evangelism. Not even once! It's all about what Christ has done for us and the hope he gives us now--following him today is the good news that changes everything. That's a gospel I can (and do) preach.

WHY I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST (but sound like one) Reflections on David Bentley Hart’s "That All Shall Be Saved" (PART 4) - 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

Inclusion: Athanasius, Wesley & the Queer Community

Hence, I have proposed we opt instead for the language of “inclusion” that describes the Pauline, Johannine and Athanasian theology of the Incarnation. The term has an abiding and specific heritage in its theological focus on the inclusion of all humanity in the Incarnation of Christ—the hypostatic union of natures, divine and human (collectively) in the God-man. And through Christ’s Incarnation, our inclusion en Christo extends into participation in the perichoretic life of the Trinity. I see this inclusion explicitly in teachers like St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitier and St. Gregory the Theologian. More recently, it has emerged in the West in the works of J.B. Torrance, T.F. Torrance and C. Baxter Kruger. Likewise, this inclusion is undoubtedly inherent in the Orthodoxy of D.B. Hart. 

Incarnational inclusion says all have been included in the Incarnation, and all have been forgiven and reconciled (Rom. 5, Col. 1) by the Cross of Christ. Salvation is thus already established in the Incarnation, experienced now by faith in Christ and will become ultimate in our resurrection. For Inclusivists, the future tense in “all shall be saved” means “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come.”      

Then again, inclusion, too, has a variety of common referents. For example, 'hopeful inclusion’ has also been used to describe John Wesley’s understanding of a wider hope for salvation among righteous pagans outside explicit Christian conversion and confession.

In Acts, for example, Cornelius the righteous God-fearer is declared 'acceptable' and even 'already clean' prior to his conversion. God has already heard his prayers and approved of his alms-giving. Before his new birth in the breaking waters of baptism, Cornelius had been in the womb of Christ, conceived with Christ in the Virgin. Cornelius' name was inscribed in the wounds of Christ's Passion. His inclusion preceded his repentance, because long before he united himself to Christ, Christ had already united himself to Cornelius. Hearing the gospel, according to Wesley, was not, however, unnecessary. It was the culmination of his inclusion—it brought this righteous God-fearer into the deeper experience of his full inheritance in Christ.  

More recently, inclusion has become a rallying term for progressive Christian sexuality that seeks to make space for the queer community to participate fully within the Christian church. This latter use of inclusion has gained such ascendancy in everyday parlance that to avoid confusion, I wonder if I need to let go of the term for the same reason I don’t use universalism. Namely, when I’m speaking as an incarnational inclusivist, most people don’t know what I mean, and when they use it, they don’t mean what I mean. I’m personally comfortable with the linguistic crossover across these various uses of inclusion because I see how they are related. But I am in such a minority when speaking of incarnational inclusion that I can be misunderstood … and I’d rather be understood than cling to the label. Thus, my pet moniker needs to be judged by the same measure with which I’m judging Hart’s. Fair enough.     

Summary of the Hopeful Inclusivist Defense

1. The hopeful inclusivist does not overtly declare a presumptive universalism(and neither does Hart). Like Origen (but not Hart or Paul) they typically exercise a cautious universalism because of immature adherents and sloppy opponents.
2. Hopeful inclusivists who follow Maximos believe in ultimate redemption through humanity’s forthcoming freed-will“Yes,” effected by the transfiguring power of the beatific vision.
3. Like Hart, Talbott and Parry (but unlike most pop-universalists), hopeful inclusivists believe in ultimate redemption by a particular means: namely, through Christ, his Incarnation, death and resurrection; through preaching the gospel to all and praying for all; and (like Gregory and Maximos) through restorative judgment and a free and willing response of love and faith in Christ.
4. The hope of the hopeful inclusivist is not a wavering doubt nor is it certitude in a doctrine (however biblically or philosophically sound). It has a sure and constant faith, hope and conviction: Christ himself.

In the end, Hart rejects hopeful inclusivism through a superb articulation of the HI position!—just as we might expect Maximos to rebut modern universalism using Hart’s very best arguments!

A Unilateral Compromise

Despite the word count I gave to critiquing this one point of That All Will Be Saved, to say that I love the book is not an indulgent overstatement. I believe it stands as the most important book on the topic, and I see it as virtually irrefutable. I have waited prayerfully and lustily for its arrival. And my high hopes were dramatically exceeded. May it still be in print 100 years from its timely release!  

From my years as a fan and follower of Hart, I don’t expect him to consider compromising his use of the term 'universalism’ or his critique of hopeful inclusivism. But I believe he has inspired me to a unilateral compromise of sorts.

I know and accept what Hart and others in his stream mean by universalism. I remain convinced that because most universalists have abandoned Hart’s own precision and faith, the term universalism will not help me articulate what he means by it. To distinguish him from the pluralists and allow for his preference of that term, I propose we consistently call Hart a “patristic universalist,” gathering within that phrase the full range of views across the fathers (from cautious to hopeful to dogmatic) from Clement and Origen to Gregory and Maximos. That label might help us draw boundaries with those who would misrepresent Hart.

For my part, I can see how the hopeful inclusivist label has begun to serve me poorly on three fronts. 1. At best, it has been a way of denying I’m a pop-universalist to the haters, and that didn’t work anyway. 2. The inclusivist term as I have used it is now relatively archaic vis-à-vis its current usage among progressives for the inclusion of LGBTQ folks in church and society. 3. If a genius such as DBH can so completely misunderstand 'hope' in Balthasar or Ware, the word must be a more significant stumbling stone than I realized. For these reasons, I’m inclined to appropriate a bolder phrase that I think encompasses all the patristic, cautious and hopeful universalists: namely, ultimate redemption.

UR—ultimate redemption—seems to capture both Hart’s intent and my own. UR holds to a confident faith that all will be saved, but only through Christ, by his Paschal victory and through restorative judgment and our willing faith/love response to the Christ.

And while apokatastasis has suffered historical misuse, slander and a distorted version was anathematized (maybe, sort of), perhaps ultimate redemption is a good, specific English translation for Peter’s intent when he proclaims “the restoration of all things” in Christ. That is, UR retains and affirms the biblical term apokatastasis and St. Gregory of Nyssa’s rehabilitated orthodox use of it. It also draws a red line with pluralist universalists, declaring that we do need redemption and we do have a Redeemer.

Trying on my compromise, “I am not a universalist, but I would defend the Orthodoxy of DBH’s patristic universalism, because I believe he has made a biblical, theological and philosophical case for ultimate redemption that defies refutation.”

So finally, for the hundredth time, NO, I am not a universalist. Period. But in my affirmation of the New Testament gospel of ultimate redemption, yes, I can sound like one. To me, they aren't the same thing.

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

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 3) - 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

The Amorphous Imprecision of “Universalism”

As Hart himself argues, words mean something. And their meaning derives, not primarily from prescriptive dictionary etymology, but at least includes descriptions of a word’s evolving dominant usage. And when a word suffers accretions and contortions through misuse or new use, they may even become so sullied as to warrant disuse.

I prefer not to identify with the label' universalism,’ not because I object to Hart’s thesis as such—I don’t—but because that term has suffered decomposition beyond his best use of it. Today, the majority who identify as universalists do not merely believe “that all shall be saved.” Pop universalism—now the default account of the doctrine (as used by proponents and detractors)—denies that we even need salvation or a savior to begin with. The infernalist critics then weaponize this assumption as slander against its best and most responsible theologians so that universalism comes to mean:

1. Jesus doesn't matter,
2. the Cross doesn't matter,
3. sin doesn't matter,
4. there is no final judgment,
5. faith in Christ doesn't matter.

In other words, the Incarnation of the Christ has become dispensable in pop universalism. That is notHart’s position. Or Robin Parry’s. Or Thomas Talbott’s. Or Fr. John Behr’s. Or Gregory of Nyssa’s. Or Isaac the Syrian’s. Or Maximos the Confessor’s. Or that of Sergei Bulgakov or St. Silouan the Athonite. All of these surely affirm ultimate redemption without ever compromising the gospel of Jesus Christ.    

I, too, believe that ultimately, every eye will see Christ, every knee will bow to Christ, every tongue will confess Christ. It’s there in our Bibles. I believe that Christ will restore all things and reconcile all things, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. The apostles say so. I believe God so loved the world that he sent his Son to save the world and draw all men to himself. I’ve read those red-lettered words. I believe Paul’s claim that Christ will bring every enemy under his feet, including death, and hand the kingdom over to his Father so that God will finally be all and in all. I believe that as in Adam all died, so in Christ, all will be made alive (Rom. 5, 1 Cor. 15). I am convinced that whatever destruction Adam wrought in us all, “how much more” the redemption of Christ has and will overcome death for us all. I believe this. The infernalists cannot affirm these Scriptural truths without endless caveats and contortions that nullify them.  

I also believe these biblical promises will only occur:

1. because of Christ,
2. through the Cross,
3. where sin and death are defeated,
4. that all will pass through a restorative judgment into life, so that
5. all who see him will willingly respond in faith to the all-merciful One.

In other words, in these five points, I’ve rejected what the word universalism has come to mean for most universalists and for most of its opponents. And so have Hart, Parry, Talbott and so on.

Does citing this catena of Scriptures make me sound like a universalist? I resist the charge because so many universalists are now just pluralists (any path gets you there, without faith in or need of the Lamb of God, crucified and risen). Thus, I am nota universalist in today’s common use of the term. I consistently say so when I write or teach, despite the slander. I prefer phrases such as 'hopeful inclusivism' or 'ultimate redemption' – as in ALL are included in Christ's saving work and will ultimately be saved as they place their hope in him. H.I. believers embrace the possibility (or more boldly, the reality) of post-mortem repentance because death has been defeated and Christ now holds the keys of death and hades.

Hart’s Patristic Universalism

The universalism Hart advocates is a specific subset that some call patristic universalism. Unlike pop universalism, Hart retains all the key vital features found in two of my favorite saints, St. Gregory of Nyssa (which is also to say, St. Macrina the Younger) and George MacDonald. Hart might describe these elements differently, but in general, they expand on the tenet proffered earlier:

• Jesus Christ alone is the author and finisher of our salvation.
• The Incarnation of Christ, climaxing in his Passion (death, descensus and resurrection) is the fundamental means by which God saves us and restores all things.
• Sin and death matter greatly, but Christ has already and will ultimately overcome sin (by his freely given forgiveness) and death (by raising up humanity in his resurrection).
• There will be a final judgment, and although it's nature, duration and details are held in mystery, the agenda and outcome are revealed as entirely restorative and redemptive.
• That all sentient beings will ultimately willingly embrace this salvation through the restoration of their natural wills, established in Gethsemane and effected by the beatific vision, when every eye sees him, every knee willingly bows and every tongue joyfully confesses the Lordship of Christ.

DBH’s patristic adaptation of the universalist label may work with his fans, but I suspect he’ll confound and confuse both disciples and detractors who assume universalists abandon any the above essentials because that’s exactly what most do. This isn’t Hart’s fault. The problem is with the term and with sloppy readers (if they even bother with reading). If we’re to call Hart a universalist on his own terms, then I recommend always including the patristic modifier and insisting others do so also. So, disagree with him if you like, but as a patristic universalist, Hart cannot rightly be accused of heresy. Indeed, far less so than his critics.   

Origen’s Cautious Universalism

Hart rightly looks to Origen as a patron saint for patristic universalism and is among Origen’s best apologists, along with John Milbank and Fr. John Behr, whose newly released edition of First Principles is no doubt history's most significant rehabilitation of Origen's memory since Gregory the Theologian and Basil the Great compiled his Philokalia. And I’ve never seen a better or more concise defense of Origen’s apokatastasis than Hart’s First Things tribute to “Saint Origen.” That two-page gem stands as definitive and irrefutable. 

With that background, I note how Origen is frequently derided anachronistically for his eschatological optimism when in fact, he showed humility and expressed caution beyond what you see later in either Nyssa or Hart. It’s not that Origen wavers in his faith that all will be saved. Rather, Origen faces the same dilemma we’ve run into again today:

What do we say to the immature? On the one hand, if we threaten them with hellfire, why would they embrace Christ, except out of fear? The typical hellfire rhetoric may have worked for St. John Chrysostom or Jonathan Edwards, but it is no longer effective anyway. It creates atheists.

But on the other hand, if we tell the masses all shall be saved, won’t the immature reply, “Then what’s the point? Why bother with Jesus?” And they ask it rhetorically, without hearing our response. We already see both sides of this problem on a massive scale. It’s a theological pickle—a  pastoral double-bind for preachers.

Among the fathers, including Origen and maybe Maximos, the revelation of apokatastasis is worthy of an 'honorable silence,' divvied out with caution lest the immature misappropriate it as license, whether for hedonism or as a path away from the gospel altogether.

“These are matters hard and difficult to understand,” he writes. “...We need to speak about them with [p.199] great fear and caution, discussing and investigating rather than laying down fixed and certain conclusions” (On First Principles 1.6.1).

So, I see in some of the fathers an undercurrent of a cautious apokatastasis(cf. Ware’s “Dare We Hope for the Salvation of All”), sometimes announcing universal victory even while retaining the rhetoric of hellfire. For example, contrast St. John Chrysostom’s boldly universalist Paschal Homily with his frequent threats of hellfire. Why? Some of our most revered fathers preached hell to manage the spiritually immature with dire warnings of sin’s consequences. But why feed the immaturity of fear with more fear? We must ask ourselves how well has that worked for us. In our current climate, that tactic failed on a colossal scale, to the point where converting away from Christianity sounds like better news than the gospel! 

Paul, whom Hart regards as an obvious universalist, was faced with a similar dilemma in Rome (see Rom. 6:1). His all-inclusive grace teaching sounds like dangerous stuff. Opponents caricatured it as a green light for sin. Their objections included such nonsense as, “Then why not persist in sin so that grace may abound”? But Paul didn’t share Origen’s caution. He doubled down on grace rather than retreating. He modeled preaching universal grace as truth, even if many would malign it as heresy or misappropriate it for licentiousness. Where Origen proceeds with caution, St. Paul does not. St. Gregory of Nyssa does not. Nor does Hart, obviously. And he’s in good company with the apostle to the Gentiles and the 'flower of Orthodoxy.’

Still, we note the dilemma because Origen’s caution was not empty cowardice. A Christless libertine universalism has indeed once again gone viral that warrants correction.

All that to say, I still think 'universalism’ is such a problem-laden, amorphous term that it fails to be as precise as Hart is or needs it to be. It’s a dull breadknife in the hands of a master surgeon. Calling it 'patristic' at least fends off some of the libel.  

 

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

CLICK HERE to read part IV:  "Inclusion or Ultimate Redemption"

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 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.”