microcosm and mediator

“I have learned that the commandments Jesus lays out (loving God and others) are not commandments that can be carried out like school rules with angst and grudge and apart from joy, but require being so enveloped in the love and mercy shown to us by God that we suddenly begin experiencing the reality of such a ludicrous truth. By tapping into His full love, I think He teaches us along the way.”

Sin is so often focused on our sexuality. Or our failure to pray enough. Or when we angrily react to someone when we’re in a bad mood. These are all important and I do not want to belittle the enormity of the sin indulged in in all these listed. But they are merely symptoms of the sin of humanity. A failure of relationships.

Here’s what I mean; if we indulge in a sexual fantasy, what are we doing to that person we are fantasizing about? We view them as objects, objects for ourselves and our own pleasure rather than their God-given value as persons created as the very representation of God on earth. It a is a failure to understand that this person is a person with feelings, with desires, hopes, dreams, a soul; that I am to called to engage in a relationship with them, get to know know them and appreciate them and give God glory for their very existence. It’s very different than the few brief seconds of a sexual climax. A shallow indulgence, and a flood of brain chemicals; or a long, fufilling relationship? Which is better?

Or what about a failure to pray enough? Again it is essentially a failure of relationships, to fulfill our calling as relational creatures. God is in and of himself relational. This is the central mystery of the Christian faith, that God is simultaneously One and Three. A theological word for this mystery is Perechoresis; the mutual inter-penetration and indwelling of each member of the Trinity, God is perfect relationship (see my post on Thomas Merton about this idea). So when we fail to pray, we do not make God angry, per-se, I think the idea of sin as making God angry is an inaquate understanding of sin and God. I think sin more than anythig hurts our ability to live whole, healed and fulfilled human life. When we fail to pray, we fail to draw on God’s life giving Energies. We fail to draw on God’s power, strength and healing power. Praying is like a feast on God. When we pray we truly enter into God’s life, we connect into the dynamic, vibrant, ecstasy of the Trinity. It’s like eating a super-concentrated energy bar. Jesus was not lying when he told us that humans do not “live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from God” (Matt 4:4; Deut 8:2-3). Humans can draw on God in prayer and receive his words as nourishment, just like we eat food. Another image of this is seen when Christ is with the woman at the well. He tells us that he can give us “living water” (John 4). Entering and engaging in prayer is a way we can draw on the thirst quenching water Jesus mentions here. Again, the failure to pray is not THE sin, but rather a symptom of our failure at relationships.

Anger is one of the most common things we participate in as humans. I think everyone reading this right now can think of a moment this past week they were angry at someone they love (or even someone they don’t know; road rage anyone?). What is anger? It is our wounded ego. It is a pride issue. And when we engage in it, when we try to really let people know HOW angry we are at them we are being totally arrogant. Blinded by our pride we seek to make them pay. We want them to know that they hurt us (typically anger is reaction to some type of “wrong” committed against us), in order for us to hurt them in return. Again this is essentially a relational issue. The community of love is called to forgiveness, patience, and sacrifice. Why are so many relationships broken though? Lack of forgiveness, lack of patience to deal with that person’s flaws, lack of sacrifice, lack of humility, self-centeredness, anger, and finally a deep and abiding bitterness. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced, I’ve done it. Anger eventually leads to bitterness and willing to not forgive and and unwillingness to start again. Christ tells us that anger is murder (Matt 5:21-26). Again, as is so prevalent in Christianity we fail ALL THE TIME to take Jesus seriously. How many times have I justified my anger, or manipulate Christ’s words to justify my actions against someone? Being continually angry and bitter towards someone is murder, especially when our goal is to make that person suffer, to let them know that what they did was wrong, that they hurt us, that they somehow deserve our anger. It shrivels up the person on which the anger is being taken out on’s soul. Broken communion between persons is devastating. How many times have I reacted in anger or been frustrated with someone, and hurt them because of it? (God forgive me!) Even when the other person has done something that “justifies” our anger, anger is wrong. There is no getting around Christ’s words, or Paul’s letters about Christian love. We must always seek to rebuild bridges, to love that person despite the fact they hurt us. This does not mean to stay in an unhealthy enviroment. If someone is being abused emotionally, physically and sexually, they better get out of that enviroment. This verse has also been manipulated by oppressors to control marginalized groups (women, blacks, homosexuals). But when we dwell on our anger, feed on it, that’s when we set ourselves up for failure. But more often than not, a lot of our anger is not justifiable. Among our friends, family, and significant others, we must always seeks to overcome the obstacles, we must forgive and re-enter into communion with them, the longer we wait, the more time we give for bitterness to take hold and destroy any chance of reconciliation.

So it is our failure to live up to our capacity as relational beings that makes sin. The story of Eden is all about relationships; our realtionship to God, to other humans, to animals, to the earth, to the very fabric of the universe. Being created in the image and likeness of God is trying to have relationships like God has in himself. That we are to be so in tune with the other person, that we really try to LOVE them, to understand that they are beautiful beings, endowed with God’s life-giving breath, anger will no longer be an option. If two humans (or a whole community of humans) really try to view each other that way and pray (and daily enter into the life of God) God will transform our hearts. Our prayer should be that of the psalmist “Give me an undivided heart!” (Ps 86:11). A heart that is fully in touch with God’s movements in the world. Because more than anything else, it relationships that lead to genuine human life. Not this macho-man American myth of the independent cowboy, the solo pioneer, but the person who is open to love everyone and everything, even if in the end it means all those they have ever loved leave them alone, abadoned, and dying on a brutal Roman cross.

This collection of Professor Malina’s various essays on the social world in which Christianity came into being is superb. One reviewer’s comment that the collection seemed uneven is warranted, but it should not bring the rating down to only three stars. I believe this is easily five-star book, but a few weaker essays bring it down to four. Malina’s meticulous work on investigating the social world of first century is highly illuminating. N.T. Wright and John P. Meier both rightly criticize excessive use of sociological models, but as can be seen in this collection of essays, they have in an important value in scholarly study of the New Testament and related literature. It is also important to know, especially for those reading the various presentations of the Historical Jesus, Crossan, Meier, and Wright all use Malina’s essays in their works.

Here are the various essays , in order, and my capsule review of them:

Part I: The Question of Reading

1 Reading Theory Perspectives:
A great introduction to this collection. It starts out with a little analogy of two American’s in Israel coming to a sign in Hebrew. And then another block quote in Greek. To the average person, these letters have no value, they are just squiggles on paper. But to the ancient person who knew Greek and/or Hebrew they had immense value, just as the words in English I am typing right now. Malina goes on to show (much like Crossan in Part I of the “The Historical Jesus”) is that the world of the Gospels (and Epistles) is vastly different than our own. Not only were they written in an ancient language, the various authors and redactors lived in a totally different social context.

Part II: The Question of First-Century Mediterranean Persons

2 First-Century Mediterranean Persons: A Preliminary View
This essay tries to reconstruct how the average Mediterranean person viewed the world. It also attempts to show how families were viewed, economics, etc. This strikes me as similar to what Crossan does in “The Historical Jesus”. Rather than reconstruct the First-Century world solely from contemporary Jewish writings (for the study of the NT) it is more focused on the general Mediterranean world. While I find this important, the portrait presented is too broad. I think John Meier makes this case forcefully in Volume III of the “A Marginal Jew” series. Nevertheless, I think this essay, read in concert with other studies (such as Wright, Borg, Crossan, Meier, Vermes, etc) is important.

3 The Mediterranean Self: A Social-Psychological Model
This is probably the most speculative of the essays. Meier in Volume II of his work, cautions against excessive use of modern sociological and psychological models on reconstructing the world of Jesus and the Gospels, and I think Malina places a little too much trust in them this time around. I still found it fascinating and when I approach the text of the New Testament I will never read it the same.

4 Mary and Jesus: Mediterranean Mother and Son
Probably one of the most interesting essays in the collection. Takes a look at family life as it could have been in the Mary/Joseph family. Speculative, yes, convincing, slightly. A great critique on patriarchal enshrinement of Mary and the cult assigned to her by the celibate male authorities. That is the one thing most important in this essay, it shatters the layers of legend, myth and theology that have grown up around Mary since her humble beginnings as a poor Nazarene mother (see Jaroslav Pelikan’s “Mary through the Centuries” for a careful review of how Mary has been interpreted in Western Culture). I think he should have incorporated more of her Jewish context, rather than focusing primarily on her Mediterranean context, as Crossan himself points out on page 16 of “The Historical Jesus” Nazareth was a “very Jewish” town. And Crossan, like Malina, discounts the Jewish context too much for the sake of the broader Mediterranean context, but even he realizes that the town where Jesus grew up was a very observant town. This is Paula Fredriksen’s critique in her book “Jesus of Nazareth” as well as N.T. Wright and John Meier’s critique of Hellenizing too much Jesus and his early followers.

Part III: The Question of Significant Roles in the First-Century Mediterranean

5 Was Jesus a Charismatic Leader?
How was Jesus honored during his lifetime? Using Max Weber’s definition of “charisma” and “charismatic” Malina then goes on to see how Jesus perceived in his social context as a religious figure. Although Vermes is not cited, he is, as far as I know (besides Marcus Borg’s adaptation of Vermes’ thesis) to associated Jesus with charismatic leadership. Is this a subtle critique of Vermes’ argument presented in his classic “Jesus the Jew”? I can’t say for sure.

6 Patron and Client the Analogy Behind Synoptic Theology
Taking the same approach Crossan does in his books about Jesus and Mediterranean society. He puts the theology of Jesus in this “economic” context of the relationships between patron and client as understood by First-Century Mediterranean. I think Wright’s discussion of Jesus’ theology (and that of the Christian community) in “Jesus and the Victory of God” is much more cogent and convincing. And interesting essay, but again one of the weaker ones.

Part IV: The Question of Time as First-Century Mediterranean Value

7 Christ and Time: Swiss or Mediterranean?
Meier in Volume II of “A Marginal Jew” highly commends this essay, but thinks Malina takes his point too far. I think he is right. The overly-apocalyptic thesis propagated by Adolf Von Harnack, Albert Schweitzer, and currently Bart Ehrman is thoroughly debunked and put in its proper context (that of 19th century Northern Europe) but this does not mean it needs to be dismissed outright (as Malina, Borg, Crossan and the Jesus Seminar in general does). A more nuanced view as developed by E.P. Sanders in “Judaism: Practice and Belief” and “Jesus and Judaism” and John Meier in the Marginal Jew series is by far the most convincing. I also find N.T. Wright’s reconstruction of Second-Temple Judaism in his “New Testament and the People of God” the best treatment available. An important essay and one of the best in this volume.

Part V: The Question of the Received View

8 The Received View and What it Cannot Do

I think I can safely say that this is one of the essays the previous reviewer was referring to as being “out of place”. This essay is not really about the New Testament, but rather about social science and its applications. Definitely geared towards those with an interest in cultural anthropology and sociology and not necessarily NT scholars or lay-theologians. I did not find it particularly interesting, but that is not to say that those with an interest in the subject matter will find it valuable in this collection

My final word:
This book should be on any person interested in the cultural milieu of the New Testament.

What does it mean when we eat?

Does it have any spiritual significance?

Eating is central to human existence. It is something we all do, everyday. It sustains us, it keeps us moving, it brings us together. Some of the best conversations I have had, with Lauren or my friends, have been over a meal. There is something about food that connects us. I think there is a connection because it is something we all must do. It is something we all share in common, no matter how different the society or culture we come from. 

Cultural anthropologists tell us that in all cultures, food plays an important role. In the early evolution of religion, pre-historical cults seemed to venerate animals and nature precisely because they gave them food. One could say that it is food that sparked the evolution of a religious consciousness in hominid brains.  This should show us how important food is to our identity as a species.

And those of us drawing on the wells of the Judeo-Christian tradition know very well that it was food that cost us our place in paradise, in that timeless myth found in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Eastern Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann tells us humans were created hungry, that food is central to our identity as being created in God’s image and likeness, that food is the very principle of life. Food is something we are supposed to consume, but with proper thanksgiving to God. The thing that Adam and Eve did was to break the fast God had given them; which was to not eat of a particular tree. God had given them every other tree, fruit, or vegetable in the Garden, except that particular one. Some Christian exegetes (the Church Fathers) have said that it was not a permanent fast, but they had to grow in knowledge and relationship (to God and one another) before they could fully partake in the creation.

This is significant. The Genesis story does not disparage food. Neither does fasting try to rid us of our “embodiedness”. It shows us that food is so special, holy and sacred, that before we can truly enjoy it we must understand how important it is to God.  Paul tells us to learn how to “glorify God in our bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:20). When we do this we learn that our physical desires are not just needs to be met, but opportunities to encounter God’s goodness, serving God’s love here and now.

In fact, up until the Reformation in the West, food was central to Christian worship. The Eucharist is still the focus in Anglican, (some) Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Now obviously Christians (even those with communion as central to worship, such as the Catholics and Orthodox) have not always understood the significance of this. There were periods in Christian history where neglect of bodily desires was hailed as virtuous living (I have heard pious tales of certain monks who only ate once a week at the Eucharist, which is not only scary, but sinful and unhealthy).  I think this is where Christianity can most benefit from its earthy, revelatory Jewish roots than from its metaphysically inclined Hellenistic ones.  In Judaism, food is still essential to its theology. If one has ever taken the time to read the Torah (the first five books of the OT) they can see how closely food consumption was regulated by God. It was something God took seriously and ethical eating was very important.  And in the tradition of the Christian church we will still eat after we die, after the Resurrection of the Dead; we will still be bodies, like Jesus still ate after his resurrection.

But why is food central to Christian worship, and what happens when it is neglected as central to our understanding of God’s relationship to the world? Well it is central because as biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan points out, the egalitarian meal, was a motif of Jesus’ entire ministry. The open table was central to Jesus’ understanding of his mission from God.  And also Jesus himself, on the night of his crucifixion, instituted a special meal, that became fundamental to the rag-tag group of followers that followed him after his resurrection.  Along with baptism, the Eucharist (or the breaking of bread, as the New Testament refers to it) was essential to the identity of this group Jewish messianists. Now, in the early church, the Eucharist was not just a little wafer (or piece of bread if you’re Orthodox) and a little bit of wine. It was an entire meal. The earliest catacomb icons show us this, as well as Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. This is where I am critical of churches where they may have communion every week, but fail to continue and extend the Eucharistic banquet with a lunch for the fellowship of the baptized and confirmed and the unbaptized. Hospitality is THE Christian virtue. Sharing of food is central to our theology. And if we are going to close off the Eucharist from certain people, we should most definitely have a meal prepared for them after the service. It only makes sense.  And when we neglect communion food is no longer sacred and the communal identity of a particular church become splintered (which is why Protestantism continually splinters). And eventually in the greater culture food become a commodity, not a gift, a tool, not a blessing (look at American capitalism’s non-Eucharistic Christian roots).

 In the Orthodox tradition the food that becomes endowed with the very presence of Christ is given for the “life of the world”. What we do when we partake of communion, is to partake, in faith, that one day every person, every being, every thing, will be partaking of God. It is an eschatological act. It is not for the death of the world, or the punishment of the world, or the exclusion of the world, but for the LIFE of the world.  The whole rhythm of Christian existence should be maintained by the dance of thanksgiving and eating, fasting and prayer, sharing and celebration.

 Every meal we eat should be eaten and relished with joy and thanksgiving; it should have a “Eucharistic identity”.   But of course, this is not true for our society today. No, we no longer take time to prepare food. We don’t have to grow, maintain and harvest food. We have lost our connection to the earth and her life giving power. This is why it is so hard to be thankful for food, because it really doesn’t cost us anything, we can just drive through Taco Bell and get a cheesy-beefy melt for 89 cents.  And we eat alone, which is unnatural from an evolutionary viewpoint and a theological one. Food is best enjoyed among companions and friends. Michael Polanyi (author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”; which EVERYONE should read) said that we don’t really eat anymore. We consume. Food is just something we do mechanically. Every time I eat alone in a Wendy’s dining room, or at my house, I feel extremely lonely (it could be for other reasons though right now!) and broken, like I’m missing something significant. And it’s because I am. Like the Eucharist, food is given in order to make us whole. That is why we should eat healthy and eat with people. Food is essentially relational. We are connected to those who grew it, who prepared it and those we share it with. John Zizioulas (another Orthodox theologian, but EVERYONE should read his book “Being as Communion”, a study of Ontology from a Cappadocian Trinitarian perspective) says that the “Eucharist constitutes the Church” and I would add to that saying that, being Eucharistic constitutes true and fulfilled existence.

 So food is important. And this is why we should pray before, during and after every meal. Our prayer doesn’t necessarily have to be formal. We can eat prayerfully without saying one word. Just to enjoy the food, know where it came from, and enjoy the company of your friends is enough. It’s what Jesus’ did. And his is why we should avoid, at all costs, eating alone. Food is best enjoyed accompanied with prayer, good (wholesome) food (and yes pizza counts in my book) and if you can, some beer or wine (because it was given to “gladden the heart of man” Psalm 104:15).

Christ and the Animals

As many of you all know, my faith background is fundamentalist Pentecostal. I do not mean to disparage my background by any means, I fully appreciate the passion it has instilled in me and, in fact, the same faith I lost, still carries on many friends and family in their personal lives. But, as I have changed spiritually and left my former religious context, many of my views on the nature of God and creation have changed as well. I eventually wandered into an Eastern Orthodox church and after being enraptured by the liturgy, have yet to leave it, despite the many doubts I have about people in the Church’s rigidity, ideas of ecclesiology and elitism (that’ll be another essay, but John Zizioulas has really healed my view of the Episcopacy). But one thing the Church has given me is a better understanding of salvation and the atonement. I have learned a more holistic approach to the healing and restoration of creation (and not merely humanity) in God’s Kingdom.

In my background, and especially in my cultural milieu of the Southern Bible Belt, salvation is extremely individualistic. I could go into the myriad reasons why this is so (such as the lack of the Eucharist as essential to worship) but for this essay, I will not go into that, although occasionally I am sure I am bound to touch the issue. Soteriology in the tradition I grew up in was profoundly anthropocentric. Jesus Christ was not the incarnate Logos whose humiliation in taking on human form started the entire healing and sanctification of all material reality, but rather he was “my own personal Jesus” as the Depeche Mode song goes. And drawing from the feudalistic theory of Atonement developed by Anselm, God had to murder his own son (in the most bloody style of execution possible) in order to quell his rage at humanity’s sin (and because of an Augustinian view of Original Sin, it is sin we can’t really help, because we are born sinners).

So this perfect storm of individualistic faith and a blood-bath style of Atonement, would naturally lead to a violent faith. A faith that advocates war (or at least advocates a party that advocates war; there is a picture of George Bush in the foyer of my former church) and all types of American Fundamentalist xenophobia. But not only that, people that advocate a respect of nature, a respect of animals, a love of peace over war, are scoffed at and mocked. Never mind whether you adhere to the 2000 year theology of Christianity or not, Jesus of Nazareth himself advocated a morality entirely contrary to what most people believe. In fact, something I have observed after recently discussing these things with a pastor of a Fundamentalist church (and a member of my family), Jesus isn’t really taken too seriously. People I know, especially people my age, have invented a Jesus from sentimental cheesy love songs (that pass as worship songs) and a few snipets of sermons. But if one were to closely read the Gospels (as Dallas Willard recommends in his The Divine Conspiracy) they would be startled. If one were to take seriously Jesus and what he accomplished in his brief ministry with all the symbols he used as a Jewish prophet in a first-century Palestinian setting, they would see a Jesus that would make any one uncomfortable. In fact he would probably be tried for treason by the government and be excommunicated by most Churches.

Jesus advocated an ethic that does not really make too much sense, turning the other cheek, meekness, humility, patience, et cetera. And of course if you add on to his own life teachings the doctrine(s) of the Church that meditated on the significance of his life, death, resurrection and teachings, you get an even more counter-cultural ethic.

The nascent church after Jesus abhorred all forms of violence, including violence we would say today justified by self-defense. This church believed that Jesus in his life radically altered the fabric of the cosmos. A church that had teachers such as Irenaeus, who lived in the second century, who said Jesus redeemed every aspect of life. The very fact God had dwelt among humans as one of us, was enough for salvation. This thought taken further eventually led to the theology of Icons. That because God dwelt in matter, all matter has been sanctified, and therefore infused with the life of God himself. My favorite Feast is the Baptism of Our Lord (Epiphany). After the Liturgy the Church goes out to the nearest body of water and the priest blesses it saying “Great are you, O Lord, and wonderful are your works and our words are insufficient to praise you wonders. Therefore you, O loving King, come to us also now through the descent of the Holy Spirit and sanctify this water. And that to all who are sprinkled with it, drink of it, or wash with it may it bring sanctification, healing, cleansing and blessing.” What is so powerful and significant about this action is that water is part of a cycle. This water has been blessed, and now it will be consumed by other creatures, it will be taken up into clouds and spread over the world, it will be absorbed by plants who give us air, it will eventually trickle down into the wells and will find its way to our very lips, sanctifying and healing everything in its path. It’s not merely the water or the prayer the priest has said over it, but because God himself was baptized in water, it has been redeemed. The prayer and this Feast reminds us of a truth that has already occurred. For instance, the very air between you and I when we worship or pray together is sanctified because God is among us!

This should totally alter how we view the world. And should change the way we relate to creatures. If God has emptied out himself by becoming human, full of all our weaknesses, should we likewise humble ourselves in relation to other creatures? Theologian Andrew Linzey thinks so. God’s example in Christ leaves us no excuse to harm other creatures, let alone other humans. This is one of the most radical and counter-cultural things I have ever heard. But it doesn’t surprise me when I think about it. Growing up I often thought about animals and what happens when they die, if anything. I was often told not to worry about it, or that animals don’t have souls, or that Jesus came only for humans. But now when I study how earth shattering the Incarnation was for early Christians, or meditate on the implications of that doctrine I see how all of that is silly. God did not come to earth merely to save people and take them to heaven, but rather to start a movement, a divine conspiracy to alter the balance of the universe. He instituted a community, gathered around a common meal that would show what the God of Israel wills for the broken and hurting universe. This community was meant to embody the Kingdom of God, which was to invade and pervade the very lives of those who were baptized into it.

Following the writings of the Hebrew prophets the early Christians claimed to be living in the messianic age, or the Jubilee of Israel. Money was no longer a problem for the community, attachments to the vulgar attractions of their surrounding culture no longer had a grasp on them, and violence had no place among them. But also in those prophetic writings were verses of peace between humans and animals and we all know that the Church has a horrible record on dealing with non-human creatures (we have a horrible record on dealing with humans too!)

But this strain of the messianic age has never died. Various saints through the ages such as Isaac of Syria, Francis of Assisi, and Seraphim of Sarvov to mention a few have advocated the peace between humans and other creatures. Even in the life of the Church, veganism is advocated as the norm of our existence (in Lent, Christmas Fast, and various other fasts throughout the year). In the Garden of Eden the primeval human and his wife had a vegetarian diet. So obviously it is something that is part of the Church’s healing mission in the world.

Christians, more than anyone should advocate animal rights. Not because animals and humans are equal, or because of some humanist utilitarian argument, but because of the Incarnation, because of the Prophets, because God is Trinity, which means that God is all consuming movement, relationship and Love. Christians should recognize that animals, as fellow sentient beings, have intrinsic value as being individual creatures made by God. And as animals in the Image of God, we have a duty to fulfill that image, by being animal’s servants.

Christ did not just come to just save humans, but rather came to emancipate his entire universe from the chains of decay and death. Christians are to incarnate that mission. By displaying God’s love for animals, we are actualizing God’s own mission in our lives. The world and secularists (who may also be animal rights activists) will see something different in our lives. We aren’t doing it because of any selfish or philosophical reasons, but out of love. C.S. Lewis, who was a vehement critic of vivisection, said that when we begin to lose respect of animals it is only the beginning of our disrespect and disregard for human life. The great author Fydor Dostoevsky said something that everyone should ponder, especially when we see fellow Christians advocating violence against fellow human and fellow animal: “Love man even in his sin, for that bears the semblance of divine love and his the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. And if you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly more and more every day. And you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding universal love.”

May I, in all my inadequacies, learn your love, God. Forgive me for despising your gift. Heal me from my sins.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I got over thirty comments on my Facebook blog. This proved to be a relatively controversial review. Also, I wrote immediately after viewing the film and was somewhat emotional, so I apologize in advance for the slightly fiery rhetoric—

Well, last night I saw Ben Stein’s new documentary “Expelled”.

I am disgusted and appalled at those in the Intelligent Design movement. I virtually almost vomited during the film. I am not being melodramatic or unreasonable, I am being serious. Any person, with a measure of intelligence, will feel the same way after viewing the film. I don’t know where to start, but I guess the most reasonable place is the premise of the documentary.

The film is about a collection of various scientists from different universities in the US who have been fired or denied tenure allegedly for promoting Intelligent Design (hence forth, ID). The movie “investigates” the reasons behind these firings. The movie claims that there is an international conspiracy to hush-up “free thinking” in the university system, and that human rights are being violated. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for the Soviet footage and Nazi footage continually running through the film, one would think they were joking. But they aren’t, and this is horrifying for all who love science.

Near the middle of the film, we shift from the misrepresentations from many prominent evolutionists, to a whole 30 minute section on the Holocaust. If any one has studied the Holocaust, they know that the “science” of Eugenics played an enormous role in Nazi propaganda and justification of the systematic destruction of the Jews. Eugenics was a twisted version of social Darwinism as formulated by Herbert Spencer. This movie, with an appalling lack of conscience, connects Evolutionary Biology (as taught in our schools and universities) with the Holocaust. Virtually blaming the Holocaust in Darwin. This is completely ludicrous. Obviously anti-Semitism has been part of Western Culture since the early Middle Ages. Anti-Judaism has been a part of Western Culture since before the rise of Christianity. It seems as though Christian conservative Evangelicals are so guilt-ridden with Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, they want to blame science for it. Obviously the nature of the Holocaust is much more complicated than this film makes it out to be. But the misuse of Holocaust footage is disgusting. Moreover, my friend, who is Jewish, and also a grad student in Biology, was extremely upset at Ben Stein’s (who’s Jewish!) politicizing and abuse of the victims of the Holocaust.

Not only was this simply horrendous, they also misrepresented prominent Christian theologians who are FAR FAR FAR from being promoters of ID. John Polkinghorne and Alister McGrath’s interviews are manipulated and edited to make them seem to be saying something they are not. I have read both of their many many books, and no where do they EVER promote ID or anything resembling the anti-science propaganda shoved down our throats. This is saddening as a Christian intellectual, because it will detract from the respect, dignity, and reputations of these honorable men.

This is not to mention the blatant political agenda of the film. Various images of Nixon and Regan are shown throughout the film. Making the “battle” for “free thinking” seem like the Cold War. Various scenes of the Berlin Wall being torn down are related to the “intolerance” displayed by the “establishment”.

And what is most awful about this film is that it gives materialistic evolutionists more ammunition against respectable, responsible and intellectual Christians. It reduces this enormously complicated debate to only two options ID or atheistic evolution. This is horrible and increases the perception of a “war” between Religion and Science. This myth has been thoroughly dismissed by historians and it is so sad that it is not only propagated by prominent popular science writers (like Dawkins recent “God Delusion”) but also by people in the ID camp.

As a matter of fact the producer of this film has admitted it had an agenda and wasn’t an unbiased report. He simply finds Christian belief incompatible with evolution. So this film, rather than clarifying the issue, has made it worse. Christians now look even more ridiculous than ever, and atheists can continue to say that evolution makes God obsolete. Well, for us who affirm science, and embrace our faith with the utmost seriousness, life just got a little more complicated.

I cannot express through a blog the frustration I feel. I am angered and hurt. I am sad at the state of this discussion. I am upset over the misrepresentations of McGrath and Polkinghorne. I am horrified at the politicization of the Holocaust. This movie is awful.

Finally, if you are interested in studying this debate further, I suggest the following books:

“Finding Darwin’s God”, by Kenneth Miller (a prominent biologist at Brown Universty and Roman Catholic who was conspicuously missing in the film). This book debunks any type of ID argument and young-earth Creationism. This book is HIGHLY recommended and should be read by everyone!

“Belief in God in an Age of Science” by John Polkinghorne. This fanatstic book examines religion and science by a famous physicist and theologian. Although misrepresented in the film, he fully embraces evolution. Also check out “The Faith of a Physicist” and “Science and the Trinity”.

“The Creationist” by Ronald Numbers. Published by Harvard University Press, this examines the historical roots of contemporary Creationism and ID in the late 19th century by such fundamentalist sects like the Millerites and Seventh-Day Adventists.

“Dawkins God” by Alister McGrath. This great book discusses Richard Dawkins’s critiques of religion. Not only does McGrath show Dawkin’s critiques inadequate, but also those of the ID camp.

And for the various books debunking the “religion vs science” debate see the following:

The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages:Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts by Edward Grant

Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction by Gary B. Ferngren

The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion by Alister E. McGrath

And for understanding evolution and the fossil record see (besides Miller’s excellent book on explaining science, which I recommend FIRST):

Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters by Donald R. Prothero

Please, for the love of humanity, read at least a few of the books above, to understand the relationship between science and religion. It is important for us to fight the charlatans who misrepresent our faith.

Let us live in this love and this happiness, you and I and all of us, in the love of Christ and in contemplation, for this is where we find ourselves and one another as we truly are. It is only in this love that we at last become real. For it is here that we most truly share the life of One God in Three Persons.

God in His Trinity of subsistent relations infinitely transcends every shadow of selfishness. For the One God does not subsist apart and alone in His Nature. He subsists as Father and as Son and as Holy Spirit. These Three Persons are one, but apart from them God does not also subsist as One. He is not Three Persons, plus one nature therefore four! He is Three Persons but One God. He is at once infinite solitude (one nature) and perfect society (three persons). One infinite Love in three subsistent relations.

The One God Who exists only in Three Persons is a circle of relations in which His infinite reality, Love, is ever identical and ever renewed, always perfect and always total, always beginning and never ending, absolute, everlasting and full.

In the Father the infinite Love of God is always beginning and in the Son it is always full and in the Holy Spirit it is perefect and it is renewed and never ceases to rest in its everlasting source. But if you follow Love forward and backward from Person to Person, you can never track it to a stop, you can never corner it and hold it down and fix it to one of the Persons as if He could appropriate to Himself te fruit of the love of the others. For the One Love of the Three Persons is an infinetly rich giving of Itself which never ends and is never taken, but is always perfectly given, only received in order to be perfectly shared.

It is because the Love of God does not terminate in one self-sufficent self that is capable of halting and absorbing it, that the Life and Happiness of God are absolutely infinite and perfect and inexhaustible. Therefore in God there can be no selfishness, because the Three Selves of God are Three subsistent relations of selflessness, overflowing and superabounding in joy in the Gift of their One Life.

The interior life of God is perfect contemplation. Our joy and our life are destined to be nothing but a participation in the Life that is theirs. In Them we will one day live entirely in God and in one another as the Persons of god live in One another.

As Christ says ‘I in them and Father, You in me, that they may be made perfect in One…and the glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be One as we are One’ and ‘In this shall everyone know you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.’

-Thomas Merton New Seeds of Contemplation

Who are you? Where are you going in life? Do you have a choice in these matters?

Our ideas of personal identity, of an individual purpose in life, all stem from an ancient nomadic tribe that wandered in the desert of the Middle East over three millennia ago. They adapted the various myths and stories from the cultures surrounding them and wove them into a vibrant, contradictory, confusing and beautiful narrative about their people and their interactions with a unique conception of god.

Out of this evolving and diverse religious soil was born a man. This man was obscure and marginal in his own time, he was not even mentioned by any of the major historical documents we have from that era, and the documents we do possess are not biographies but theological meditations on this man’s significance in their god’s plan, and scholars often doubt their historical accuracy. But this man, Jesus of Nazareth, has irrevocably cast his shadow on Western culture. But what is not so important is what this man accomplished in his own life time; he died abandoned by his followers, crucified as insurrectionist by the tyrannical Roman authorities, and some scholars believe his body was cast into a mass grave. What is significant about this man is what came after his seemingly hopeless demise, his followers continued this man’s message claiming he had “raised from the dead”, and carried it outside the dusty streets of Palestine to the entire Roman world. These stubborn Jewish monotheists had to try and comprehend their experience of this risen “lord”, whom they called “Christos” in Greek. They prayed to him and had primitive doxologies to the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” but what did this mean in reference to the Jewish Shema, the confession that god is one found in the Hebrew Torah? This meditation developed into a radically new conception of god as a tri-unity, or the Trinity.

I will be examining the traditional conception of the Christian god, and exploring the implications it has for human relationships. I will not be examining whether it is a cogent idea of the deity, or whether it is rational, or even whether monotheistic belief is warranted. Although those are all interesting and important topics, what I would like to focus on is the theological and mythological structure of Christianity and its ideas on god, and not to engage in any polemical discourse. This will be especially interested to those who study the philosophy of religion, comparative religion, and those who just want to learn about one of Western society’s foundational ideas. But it will also help those who do believe in this god, to understand the historical context in which it developed and the implications it may have in their personal religious life.

The Trinity is probably one of the most misunderstood doctrines in Christian theology. It is often dismissed by non-Christians as being incoherent and nonsensical, and by Christians as being too difficult to grasp and they are intimated by its mysteriousness, and rather than seeing Jesus as the incarnate Logos, or the Cosmic Christ they settle for sentimental conceptions of him as their “homeboy” or their heavenly buddy. But a proper understanding of Trinity should be revolutionary. If, according to Judeo-Christian anthropology, man is created in the image of God, than the radical personal nature of the Trinitarian god should have drastic implications.

The idea of the Trinity grew out of the four-century struggle to conceptualize the uniqueness of Jesus. Who was he? What was his relationship to God, whom he addressed as Abba, or Father? What about the Holy Spirit, the comforter that Jesus’ followers claimed to be filled with, who made their agape, or love, feasts full of Jesus’ very presence? It was out of this struggle against Hellenistic influence which tried to transform this Jewish sect into a new elitist secret society, and against the struggle to demote Jesus to status as mere teacher of good works, that the idea of the Trinity was hammered out.

In first century Judaism there was not much concern on the “inner life” of god. Often the ancient rabbis referred to the Wisdom of god, the Torah of god, the Ruah or Spirit of god as if they were “persons” of god, or different manifestations of the One god of Israel. It was not until after the rise of Christianity and its idea of a Tri-personal god that the Jewish rabbis consolidated the diverse ideas of god into the strict monotheistic theology of modern Judaism. Christian theologians were moving in the Jewish molds of their early ancestors when developing the idea of the Trinity and were not engaged in an esoteric exercise of Greek philosophy, ruining the “simple” message of Jesus. They were trying to radically affirm the humanness of Jesus, but also his role as the vindicated Christ to whom they prayed. This was done in the communal context of the early Christian society. This was done with the idea that god, in his very essence is Love, and that he does not merely love, but truly is Love. And that Jesus was that perfect image of god on earth, and who was god. The later theologians would speak of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three Persons, in one Essence. They were radically one, but also three distinct persons. There is one god because there is one Father, from whom the Son is begotten from eternity and the Spirit eternally proceeds.

But what does this mean? Well, god in Christian theology is a personal god because he is first of all a diverse being. The life of the Trinity was described by early theologians as an eternal joyous dance, full of Love and Joy that continues for eternity, and ever emptying out of love for each other. Because love is not egotistical if God is Trinity, the life and happiness of god are absolutely infinite, perfect and inexhaustible. The three selves of God are three subsistent relations of selflessness, overflowing and super abounding joy in the gift of their One Life. And according to Christian anthropology we are to be conformed into the image of God.

This does not mean becoming a bland collection of identical robots but a genuine collection of diverse individuals united in selfless love, as god. Athanasius, a theologian living in the fourth century summarized it by saying “God became human so that humans could become divine.”

The implications of this insight are profound. If we are truly to become “divine” this means a complete abandonment of our own self-interests in order to fully serve those around us. This means that we are to fully see the interconnectedness of life, in the ants on the grass, the caterpillars on the leaves, the ducks on the lake, the cardinal on the branch, the butterflies in the air, the trees of the forests, the neighbor next to us, the person on the street. We are to see god in them all and serve them as an offering of worship to the “everywhere-present god of the dance”.

God, in Jesus emptied himself from his glory in order to fully enter into the life of his creation. He cast aside his deity, his holiness, and died because he did not measure up to the human standard of holiness, in order to show us how to really live. The life he showed us is one in perpetual communion with others, especially those marginalized by society. Some of the greatest people of the 20th century lived this Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and all those who fought against the exploitation of other humans and the rape of the environment in the name of progress.

And this I believe is the relevance of Trinitarian theology to our personal relationships. Whether one believes it or not, it should inspire us to be better people. I think anyone would admit that living for selfless love is more ethical than a selfish ambition that uses others as means to their own end. Just as we would read a book by the Dali Lama for inspiration, the Qur’an for guidance, or the teachings of the Tao for wisdom, we also should look to our own religious heritage for inspiration.

Works Consulted:

Cahill, Thomas. The Gifts of the Jews. New York City: Anchor Books, 1998.

Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. Peabody: Prince P, 1994.

Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus: the Roots of the Problem and the Person, Vol. 1. New York: DoubleDay, 1994.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. Jesus Through the Centuries. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999.

Sanders, E.P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress P, 1985.

Schmemann, Alexander. For the Life of the World. Crestwood: St Vladimirs Seminary P, 1973.

Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Way. Crestwood: St Vladimirs Seminary P, 1979.

Wright, N.T. Who Was Jesus? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

Zizioulas, John. Being as Communion. Crestwood: St Vladimirs Seminary P, 1997.

“The scale of theological thinking, in both space and time, still remains domesticated and anthropocentric. When theologians speak of the “world”, they usually do not mean the universe but our local planet. When they talk of history, it is mostly the few thousand years of human cultural development that they have in mind. When they talk of the future, it seems to stretch only a few centuries onward. This means that some questions referring to cosmic beginnings and endings require further discussion.

Concern with beginnings scarcely needs to focus yet again on the tired issue of big bang cosmology. Popular science writers, who like to garnish their wares with references to God, still seem to find it difficult to grasp that the doctrine of creation is concerned with why the world exists, and continues to exist, rather than how it all began. Yet the rest of us know that theology is concerned with these ontological questions and that it gains little from science’s fascinating, but largely theologically irrelevant, talk of temporal origins. Much more important is that event which surely the most significant in cosmic history to date–the dawn of consciousness. From the theological point of view this raises the acute question of how we are to understand the Christian doctrine of the Fall.

In sense of contemporary experience it seems to straightforward. One recalls Reinhold Niebuhr’s remark that original sin is the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine! You only have to look around–or within–to see the slantedness of human nature, which frustrates human hopes and perverts human desires. Yet we can no more believe that this is the entail of a single disastrous ancestral act than we can believe that there was neither death nor thistles in the world before our forebears took that fateful step. It has long been understood that the powerful tale of Genesis 3 is to be understood mythically rather than literally. In part it portrays life as we now experience it, but that recognition does not remove the question of how these things came to be in God’s supposedly good creation.

Clearly consciousness is possessed by some of the higher animals but it seems likely that the further power of self-consciousness, with its concomitant ability to form expectations and plans for the future, only dawned with the evolution of hominid lines leading eventually to Homo sapiens. As that self-awareness developed, I suppose that a corresponding spiritual awareness of the presence of God also became apart of the experience of these living beings. One can conceive of a struggle in the hominid psyche between the pole of the divine, resolved by a turning from God and a concentration on the creature as all-sufficient, a succumbing to the temptation whispered in Eve’s ear by the serpent in that powerful ancient story, to assert human autonomy over creaturely dependence, to believe “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). In Luther’s phrase, humanity became incurvatus in se. At what stage in hominid development, an over what period of time, this inversion upon the self took place, I do not know. That it has taken place seems confirmed by the contemporary human condition. It is in these terms that one can try to construct a contemporary doctrine of the Fall.

There was death in the world long before there were our human precursors. After all, it was the extermination of the dinosaurs that gave us mammals our evolutionary chance. But the Fall, as I have described it, turned death into mortality. Self-consciousness made us aware of our transience–we could foresee our deaths–and alienation from the God who is the eternal ground of hope, turned that recognition into sadness and bitterness. In a similar way, the problems of living, symbolized by thorns and thistles, became causes of frustration and the expense of spirit” (Belief in God in an Age of Science 87-89)

I think John Polkinghorne, a respected and well known Theoretical Physicist, trained under the amazing Paul Dirac (pretty much the founder of contempoary physics) has come to an Eastern understanding of the cosmos and the Fall. Science and Theology find their greatest comonality in Eastern cosmology and soteriology.

In Eastern Orthodoxy the Garden and the Fall is not some “perfect” place where Adam and Eve were fully realized in their perfection, and that we “fell” from this status and now we are forever damned by the transmission of “Original Sin” by our progenitors. This is a Western Idea of the Fall. In the light of physics, the universe seems to have an inclination towards openness and creaturely self-making, and this seems to square much better with Eastern cosmology than with the West.

As Vladimir Lossky states in “Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church” we see in “the initial state of the created cosmos an unstable perfection in which the fullness of union is not yet achieved and in which created beings still have to grown in love in order to accomplish the thought-will of God” (97). And these thought-wills “determine the different modes that creatures participate in the creative energies” (95).

So, instead of the myth in Genesis being understood as something that once was, it was something that could have been. Rather than being partners with God, partaking in His nature, growing in perfection, we instead chose ourselves to be self-sufficient. Christ restored that broken bond out of love, not as a satisfaction of God’s wrath. He “became human so that humans may become divine” as St Athanasius said.

In Eastern thought the universe is more dynamic and relational in character, not the static universe of Augustine. As creatures revealed to be created in the Image and Likeness of God, we have the supreme role in the cosmic drama as microcosm and mediator bringing together the physical and spiritual universe, in which we truly become “gods” as God himself became man, that the material world becomes full of God’s divine Energies through our responsibility as “cosmic priests”. This is most clearly seen in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The bread and wine are symbols of the true reality. God is there! Christ is on the altar, ready for our consumption. We all partake of the One Body becoming one with God and with each other. The Eucharist cannot occur with out the presence of a community. It is done “for the life of the world” as the Liturgy says, not merely for the clergy or the Christian community. It is in Communion, this Eschatological moment that not only recalls the past but done in antcipation of the final moment when all is in God and God is in all. God fully infuses himself in us during communion, when we are among our brothers and sisters in Christ. As my friend Jeremy has stated on his blog: “The condemned temporal, the dust, has been graced with its original purpose, that of restored relation, if all of life is found, again, as being in relation to God (as reclaimed by the incarnate Christ, ontologically/essentially) then life may be received as grace, as sacrament, and Christ may be known as the substance of sustenance for humanity.”

Until that final eschatological moment (billions of years in the future) when the Universe either ends in a Big Crunch of drifts slowly aprart, when God will resurrect this creation, and imbue it with his Energies as Christ was illumined on Mount Tabor, we see a glimpse of it in the Eucharist. Indeed, as Pope Bendict has said “Every Eucharist is a Parousia!”