Natalie Burris

3 years ago: the Bible story you never heard in Sunday school

From May 2011:

Timothy Beal, in The Rise and Fall of the Bible, points out the story of Phineas, found in Numbers 25.  Israel is suffering from a plague, and Moses' explanation is that God is punishing them for their inter-ethnic marriages. A priest, Phineas, discovers an inter-ethnic couple, and impales both of them on the same spear.  As a result, God then lifts the deadly plague, blesses Phineas, and promises him an everlasting priesthood.  Today, many white supremacist groups rely on this story to bolster their ideas of racial and ethnic purity.

Chapter 7 of Beal's book paints the Bible as a library, a collection, rather than one univocal book.  In fact, the Greek word for Scripture was "ta biblia," which is a plural form of book or scroll.  Due to mistranslation, a word that was supposed to signify a collection of biblical literature now represents a single, unified, authoritative text. 

Beal quotes the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who fleshed out the idea of "impoverishment by univocality."  When we force a text to be univocal, having one voice, then we miss out on its richness.  Beal writes, "To interpret with the goal of 'getting to the point' about what a text really means is an act of impoverishment" (p. 147).  Not allowing the contradictions, tensions, and ambiguities to stand is making the Bible out to be something that it isn't.

Beal highlights the polyvocality of the Bible, to avoid forcing our univocal expectations on it.  He points out many instances of contradictory stories in Scripture - too many to name here.  Many are well aware of the contradictions.  

But Beal makes an excellent point that hit home.  This polyvocality can become difficult for those of us who emphasize the Bible's message of love and nonviolence.  

The Bible has been used to both support and abolish slavery.  It has been quoted to both oppress and liberate women.  It has served as fodder for both warriors and peacemakers.  As a progressive Christian, I get very uncomfortable, especially when I read stories like the one in Numbers 25.  Beal notes:

Countering such atrocious uses of biblical literature is not so simple as calling them misrepresentations of the Bible.  We must face the fact that stories like that of Phineas are there, generating suspicion of ethnic otherness and motivating violence against others in our midst. (p. 156)

Reading the text honestly, Beal remarks, it's difficult to deny that the text is a source of both oppression and liberation from that oppression.  If I'm going to accept the God-is-love message of the Bible, I have to come to terms with all of the Bible, even the parts that I want to push away.  I can't pretend that the verses that seemingly support a white supremacy movement aren't there.  Beal explains:

When we pretend that, deep down, all the voices are really saying the same thing and ought to be able to get along, we forfeit our responsibility as inheritors of this richly, sometimes disturbingly, contradictive literature. 

I am posting my thoughts about this book as I'm reading it, so I don't yet know where Beal will go after this.  It's times like these I wish I weren't a layperson, and that I had a biblical studies and/or theology background.  However, I don't think it should take a seminary degree to work out one's faith in the face of a Bible that can be disturbing to that faith at times.  

I will be sure to share what, if anything, Beal proposes. (Ah, how I so want everything to be all figured out and presented to me in a tidy box.  I'm afraid it won't be the case here...)

6 years ago: Theodicy

From February 2008:

Last week I went with a friend to a twenty-something’s church service. Aside from some fun little tidbits of idolatry (one of those posters of “In God We Trust” superimposed over an American flag), the message that the speaker brought was actually a great call to Christians to address suffering in a compassionate, Christlike way. There was a mention, though, of something that has bothered me ever since. 

The speaker’s response to how an all-powerful, loving God can co-exist with an evil, pain-filled world (theodicy) was that God works under a different framework than we do. He then promptly moved on to continue his talk. I know that theodicy is an extremely difficult issue, so of course I wasn’t expecting him to solve thousands of years of theological brainbuster-ing in a 30-minute talk. I guess what bothers me is many Christians’ lack of willingness to press further toward a different response. I just can’t say, “It’s all a mystery and God has his reasons, his own standard,” and move on. I’m sorry, but that has to be a twisted standard and I’m not sure about following a god like that. Frankly, the problem of suffering is a serious challenge to my faith.

On Tuesday's “Fresh Air” on NPR, Bart Ehrman, chair of the religious studies department at UNC Chapel Hill, addressed theodicy. His religious credentials include degrees from Moody, Wheaton, and Princeton Theological Seminary. He was a member of Youth for Christ and a pastor. The question of suffering, however, eventually led him to become an agnostic. He includes a description of his emigration from Christianity in his new book, God’s Problem:

In an earlier book, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, I have indicated that my strong commitment to the Bible began to wane the more I studied it. I began to realize that rather than being an inerrant revelation from God, inspired in its very words (the view I had at Moody Bible Institute), the Bible was a very human book with all the marks of having come from human hands: discrepancies, contradictions, errors, and different perspectives of different authors living at different times in different countries and writing for different reasons to different audiences with different needs. But the problems of the Bible are not what led me to leave the faith. These problems simply showed me that my evangelical beliefs about the Bible could not hold up, in my opinion, to critical scrutiny. I continued to be a Christian—a completely committed Christian—for many years after I left the evangelical fold.

Eventually, though, I felt compelled to leave Christianity altogether. I did not go easily. On the contrary, I left kicking and screaming, wanting desperately to hold on to the faith I had known since childhood and had come to know intimately from my teenaged years onward. But I came to a point where I could no longer believe. It's a very long story, but the short version is this: I realized that I could no longer reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of life. In particular, I could no longer explain how there can be a good and all-powerful God actively involved with this world, given the state of things. For many people who inhabit this planet, life is a cesspool of misery and suffering. I came to a point where I simply could not believe that there is a good and kindly disposed Ruler who is in charge of it.

Usually “free will” is given as a response to theodicy, but for Ehrman, that is not enough. He wants to know why, every five seconds, a child dies of hunger. Nobody’s choosing to make this child die of starvation. And can natural disasters fall under the category of free will? Ehrman discusses classical explanations for theodicy: suffering is a punishment for our sins, it’s a test of faith, it’s redemptive (something good will come out of it). The interview also includes Ehrman’s explanation of the book of Job as a compilation of two different genres by two authors. 

A few quotes from the interview:

“If there is a God, he certainly is not the God of the Christian tradition who is all-powerful and over this world and intervening in this world periodically to help people. I think that if there is a God, God is so far beyond anything that we can imagine that we literally cannot imagine him.”

His thoughts on hell: “If there is a God in the world […], then surely God is not more cruel than any human being who’s ever lived. And there’s no human being who’s ever lived who’s subjected eternal torment on anyone else.” Ehrman believes hell was a doctrine invented by the early Christians mainly to convert people. 

His interview made me wonder if we have put so many strictures on who God is that we’ve created this problem ourselves. I wonder if our Western epistemological categories have twisted the meaning of all-powerful and all-knowing? Or maybe I need to visit the Sudanese congregation over in Wheaton, or spend more time with other Christians who are still so after much suffering...

Photo copyright 2008 by takomabibelot

Literal six-day creationism is an identity marker

A couple of years ago, I wrote here about how many watertight, insular beliefs in evangelicalism actually serve as identity markers. Last night, Bill Nye and Ken Ham debated about evolutionary theory and creationism, which was a great example of how literal six-day creationism often serves as an identity marker for many white North American evangelicals.

In the context of Michael Pearl, whom I used as an example in my prior blog post, Pearl sets up "biblical chastisement," or physical punishment of children, as an ironclad "biblical" belief:  "The people who condemn biblical chastisement do not believe the Bible." He equates his system of discipline with Scripture, so anyone who disagrees with Pearl's practices disagrees with the Bible. 

Throwing down the gauntlet in this way is hostile to disagreement. Using the "biblical" label, Pearl and his followers equate his teachings to the very Word of God, so it becomes difficult for other professed Bible-believers to oppose him.  

Elevating your belief, whether it be physical discipline of children or literal six-day creationism, with the Word of God is not the only tactic that some Christians use. Another common tactic is the persecution trope. Believing you are a victim of a sinful majority is an excellent way to dismiss opponents.

 

The majority of the scientific community may have convincing evidence against your position, but if you are in the minority and are mocked by the mainstream, then surely this is a sign that your beliefs are being persecuted!

 

Framing the issue in this manner makes disagreement from within nearly dangerous. Equating an interpretation of the Bible with the Bible itself, and automatically portraying divergent beliefs as persecution, have largely formed evangelical identity. Thus, those who don't want to be alienated from a community they love face high stakes if they disagree.  

Diverging from your church's core beliefs is often a scary, emotional experience.  I have genuinely wondered if I'm going to hell, and whether my disagreement simply means I've been duped by the secular, sinful "culture at large." 

 

David Rattigan, who has great resources on leaving fundamentalism and evangelicalism, shared an essay by P. James Bowen on leaving a watertight, insular faith, and I see much of these rhetorical moves at play. Bowen describes his departure as painful and lonely. Although alienated from evangelicalism, he was reluctant to leave:

[The thought of leaving my evangelical home] terrified me. I still wanted to belong. No matter what I thought about charismatics and conservatives now, I still couldn’t bring myself to break away. I had always been one. They were my friends, my family. Where else was there? 

Once Bowen accepted he no longer belonged in evangelicalism, he realized his disagreements were often not theological, but a matter of personal identity. He became ensnared in a "fight between my desire to belong and my inability to belong."

Many white North American evangelicals (often unintentionally) view disagreement with evangelical beliefs as tantamount to heresy, because evangelicalism's identity has been grounded in unwavering "biblical" interpretations of Scripture and portraying dissenters as sneering liberals.  

Although the past decade has shown much promise, there's still little wiggle room for us questioners, even for those like Bowen who have no theological qualms.  I like Rattigan's approach in his FAQ section. He's not abandoning truth claims, but rather acknowledging that many beliefs "are open to being thrashed out, tested, verified, debated and evaluated." When Rattigan makes theological claims, he's honest about their "tentative, provisional and subjective nature." He doesn't insist others accept his interpretation, "or that there will be divine consequences (i.e. punishment)" for those who disagree.

That evangelicalism's anti-evolution stance is actually an identity marker--rather than a high-stakes "must" that can't be separated from the gospel--is a freeing, healthy realization. There are no divine consequences if I don't toe the line. 

So, if you are a young evangelical who listened to the debate last night and want to look in to Nye's claims, I encourage you to do so. If anyone questions your fidelity to Scripture or your faith commitment, I encourage you to consider a belief in a literal six-day creation as an identity marker of your particular faith community, rather than as an ironclad biblical truth from which you cannot waver. Feel free to flesh out, test, verify, debate, and evaluate both Nye and Ham's claims. All truth is God's truth, friend.

"Me too:" an affirmation for Rachel Held Evans

Dear Rachel,

I hadn't gone to church in awhile, much less read my Bible. I was done with gatekeepers decreeing who was in and who was out. But last year, with John Piper's proclamation bidding "Farewell" to Rob Bell, I jumped back into the fray. Perhaps it was Bell's courage to question the evangelical establishment, or his critics' shrill response, but I no longer wanted to give up on my faith. I found an amazing online community of Christian bloggers, who shared my struggle with the contemporary North American evangelical church. I even found a local church and joined the community there. 

One of the most grace-filled, honest, and articulate bloggers I found during this time was...you! You're deftly able to communicate what many of us spiritual refugees and internally displaced persons feel. You've amassed a much-deserved readership because your writing resonates so well with a lot of people's experiences. I often find myself remarking, "Me too!" in response to your posts.

Growing up as a young woman in the Southern Baptist church, I too experienced the Bible being used as a weapon against me and my calling. I too have been accused of being a “bitter, angry woman” intent on destroying the Church with my “radical feminist agenda.” And I know I'm not alone. That's why your writing has been such a valuable ministry to women like me (and men, too) who have been wounded by the church and whose questions have been shot down with appeals to concepts such as "inerrancy" and "complementarianism." I'm sure I'm not the only wanderer who's been encouraged to return, and who joins the chorus of "Me too!"

Like so many evangelical women, I've faced hurtful accusations when I push back against the status quo. Sometimes I don't have the words or the grace-under-pressure to articulate what I believe. And many other people in the church who are not white straight men fight a similar battle. Thankfully, you do have the ability to speak so clearly when others are still tending to their wounds and can only offer a quiet "Me too."

What a great example you've served to those of us who get frustrated, and who often fight the urge to respond with biting sarcasm. You've lived out how a gentle answer turns away wrath, avoiding harsh words that stir up anger. 

At one time or another, I've faced criticism too. Mine is nowhere near as public, but it stings nonetheless. And I've faced the assumption that we women don't know what we're talking about. That's why I want to offer encouragement, and who better to borrow from than St. Paul? 

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.

Fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

Fight the good fight; finish the race; keep the faith.

 

_____________________________

Read more from people sharing how Rachel has influenced their thinking or writing, or link up your own post at love is what you do.

When watertight, insular beliefs are actually identity-markers...

Last week on Anderson Cooper's show, Elizabeth Esther spoke out against Michael Pearl, who advocates hitting children as young as two with plumbing pipe.  Esther grew up in Christian fundamentalism, and previously used Pearl's teachings to raise her children.  After several children died at the hands of Pearl-following parents, Esther now speaks out against these harmful practices. 

A couple who follow Pearl also appeared on the show, and wrote about their appearance on The Christian Post.  The language they used reminded me of the way many fundamentalists and evangelicals ensure a watertight, insular belief system.  The couple quoted Pearl, who remarked:

The people who condemn biblical chastisement do not believe the Bible. They judge others by their own experience.

The couple also stated, "The only real issue is whether or not you agree with the biblical precepts that are given to us in the Book."  Throwing down the gauntlet in this way is hostile to disagreement.  Using the "biblical" label, Pearl and his followers equate his teachings to the very Word of God, so it becomes difficult for other professed Bible-believers to oppose him.  

Elevating your interpretation to Scripture itself is only one rhetorical move employed by fundamentalists and evangelicals.  Another common tactic is the persecution complex, which Christians often use together with "biblical" rhetoric.  Believing you are a victim of a sinful majority is an excellent way to dismiss opponents:

[I]t is incredulous to believe something simply because a majority believes it. [...] Majority does not matter; only the Bible is our foundation and what it has to say.

[...]

Also noteworthy is the fact that the majority of the opposition does not come from those duly learned in Scriptures, but from mostly secular psychologist, child advocates (which are rarely biblical advocates), and liberal Christians who oppose a lot more conservative points of view on Christianity in general – know your source and research its roots!

Is this the “crowd” you truly want to be in line with? If the enemy, the world, and secular humanistic followers are against it – chances are fairly high that it’s the right place to be and the right principle to stand for.

Framing the issue this way makes disagreement dangerous.  Equating an interpretation of the Bible with the Bible itself, and automatically portraying divergent beliefs as attacks from godless liberals, have formed evangelical identity.  Thus, those who don't want to be alienated from a community they love face high stakes if they disagree.  

Diverging from your church's core beliefs is often a scary, emotional experience.  I have genuinely wondered if I'm going to hell, and whether my disagreement simply means I've been duped by the secular, sinful "culture at large." 

David Rattigan, who has great resources on leaving fundamentalism and evangelicalism, shared an essay by P. James Bowen on leaving a watertight, insular faith, and I see much of these rhetorical moves at play.  Bowen describes his departure as painful and lonely.  In Bible college, he discovered Barth, Bultmann and Tillich. Although alienated from evangelicalism, he was reluctant to leave:

The shape of my faith was radically different from what it had been and there was no going back. But at the time I had no idea how much had changed, and the thought of leaving my evangelical home barely occurred to me. When it did, the thought terrified me. I still wanted to belong. No matter what I thought about charismatics and conservatives now, I still couldn’t bring myself to break away. I had always been one. They were my friends, my family. Where else was there? 

Once Bowen accepted he no longer belonged in evangelicalism, he realized his disagreements were often not theological, but 

a matter of personal identity. I had become, body and soul, a quite different type of person than the good people in that community. I still had a Christian faith. But the shape of that faith was, I finally realised, just too different from the shape of that community. I no longer belonged there. It took years to get from the changes that took place at Bible college to the day I finally left evangelicalism behind. It was a fight between my desire to belong and my inability to belong.

Many evangelicals (often unintentionally) view disagreement with evangelical beliefs as tantamount to heresy, because evangelicalism's identity has been grounded in unwavering "biblical" interpretations of Scripture and portraying dissenters as sneering liberals.  

Although the past decade has shown much promise, there's still little wiggle room for us questioners, even for those like Bowen who have no theological qualms.  As a questioner who has joined a local evangelical church again despite evangelicalism's troubling flaws, I hope to push against this insularity and create some wiggle room, because I know I'm not alone.  

How, then, do I handle truth claims?  I like Rattigan's approach in his FAQ section.  He's not abandoning truth claims, but rather acknowledging that many beliefs "are open to being thrashed out, tested, verified, debated and evaluated."

When Rattigan makes theological claims, he's honest about their "tentative, provisional and subjective nature."  He doesn't insist others accept his interpretation, "or that there will be divine consequences (i.e. punishment)" for those who disagree.

That evangelicalism's "big four," anti-abortion, anti-evolution, anti-homosexuality, and anti-environmental views, are actually identity-markers--rather than high-stakes "musts" that can't be separated from the gospel--is a freeing, healthy realization.  There are no divine consequences if I don't toe the line.  And many other beliefs, such as gender roles, pro-Republican views, pro-capitalism/consumerism, and pro-violence (including corporal punishment) are just as prominent as the big four in some circles.  It's just as freeing to realize that not toeing the evangelical line on these issues will not condemn me to hell.

More problems with Biblicism

Chapter 4 of The Bible Made Impossible provides more problems with biblicism, beyond Chapter 3's epistemological and sociological problems. 

Scripture gives direct commands many biblicists ignore, such as "greet one another with a holy kiss," or "wash one another's feet."  While many Christians greet with a kiss due to culture, and some perform feet-washing, biblicists generally do not follow these commands.  

Meanwhile, biblicists feel strongly about pre-marital sex and abortion, yet Scripture lacks direct instructions about these issues.  Biblicists may respond that these explicit commands are culturally rooted, thus not applicable today.  But biblicists do not fairly and consistently appeal to cultural relativism, which undermines biblicism. 

This is why I took issue with complementarians and biblical gender roles.  Smith asserts interpretation ends up an ad hoc process (perhaps much like gender roles):

Various biblical commands are relaxed or tightened without a clear underlying rationale or justification, depending significantly, it seems, on the particular cultural and political interests and discomfort of those doing the relaxing and tightening. In other words, biblicists very often engage in what we might call “uneven and capriciously selective literalism.” Sometimes the Bible says what it says and must be obeyed. Other times the obvious meaning of the passage is relativized by historical and cultural considerations. And it is often not clear for any given interpreter or across different interpreters which is which, when, and why.

Smith then cites to troubling passages, on which hardly anyone attempts to sermonize (Phineas, anyone?).  For example, Paul furthers an ethnic stereotype in Titus 1:12-13: "Cretans are always liars."  It's difficult to find a take-home, prescriptive message from these puzzling passages.  

Another interesting point is that biblicists use circular logic when using Scripture to validate its own authority.  If this isn't problematic, what Scripture says about itself does not validate biblicism.  To make the Bible support biblicism, dubious logic is required, along with an anachronistic view of Scripture.

Smith echoes what Timothy Beal points out in The Rise and Fall of the Bible: the early church had a different understanding of what "the Bible" was.  When referring to "Scripture," they meant what is now the Old Testament.  The New Testament didn't exist yet.  

So, while the New Testament described Scripture as God-breathed, it's quite the leap to assume "the Bible, down to the details of its words, consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written in human language. Those are not necessarily the same thing."  That biblicism cannot be supported by the Bible "suggests sociologically that biblicism is actually not driven by its purported, manifest interest, but by other latent concerns, motives, and interests[.]"

Smith's last point is that biblicism sets up young believers for crises once they realize biblicism is untenable.  When non-biblicists point out problems, young Christians may not know how to respond.  Sociologically, once they're outside of their homogeneous tribe and in college, these young believers may feel they must reject their faith outright.  Biblicism sets up expectations that are impossible to meet.  

Biblicism "not only makes young believers vulnerable to being disabused of their naive acceptance of that theory but it also often has the additional consequence of putting their faith commitments at risk."  It's ironic that a sect of Christianity that purports to take faith and the Bible so seriously sets up its young people for failure when they experience the world for themselves.  

This reminded me of my first year of college, an experience I shared here a few years ago.  At a "secular" university with liberal professors, I joined two campus Christian organizations: 

...both groups tended to have a “those-evil-professors-will-taint-your-mind” mentality toward the university. They were simply diametrically opposed to the university, and the prevailing attitude was that of blanket rejection of anything not explicitly conservative, evangelical Christ­ian. [...] In our Bible studies and Friday lunches, we were taught sys­tem­atic, care­fully laid-out answers to the criticisms that “those professors” were going to level against our faith...

So, I hunkered down in political and theological conservatism in my first year of col­lege, holding tightly to my beliefs. I was certain that I was biblical and right, and my faith grew into a reaction­ary one. ...[T]hings were black or white, good or bad, Christian or non-Christian...

...I immediately labeled as non-Christian anyone who didn’t fit my conception of “Christian” (meaning conservative, evangelical...Republican). Therefore, I blocked off any learning from people I had labeled, building up my defenses so my faith couldn’t be jeopardized. 

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Even in October...

Can I just get really honest with you for a moment?  I don't feel comfortable sharing things like this, because I know there's a deadly famine and millions of women are being sex-trafficked and who am I to complain about anything...

But I'll admit it.  October is a hard month.

This is supposed to be the cozy, pumpkin-patch-and-cider, enjoy-the-pretty-autumn-leaves time of year, right?

Since losing Dad, October is different now.

It's his birthday month.  There's less sunlight -  the days are getting shorter.  The holidays and the cold start creeping in.

Anyway, I look through Dad's blog when the grief hits.  (This time, I am struck by how funny he was. Joking about how fat butts require longer needles, or getting high-speed internet and finally being able to do two things at once online!)

For Dad, his hard month was April.  He even wrote a post about it.  And like usual, his words reach through time and comfort me today:

I know as a Christian I should be writing inspirational messages of how Christ can overcome, and this I do know. But right now I feel like I am in the valley. And I am pretty sure I don't doubt God, maybe I am doubting myself, like the preacher said Sunday. Sometimes we suffer because we are human, it is part of life. Now that I think about it God has always been faithful (even though I may suffer), as well as my community of believers (friends) who has been faithful......... even in April.

 

When God is silent: others...and the ordinary...

I discovered Charissa's blog, Light Bulbs and Baby Steps, a couple of months ago, and have appreciated her honesty.  The questions she asked in her a recent post are exactly what I have felt the past few years:

I struggle greatly with my ability to have faith when it comes to knowing God. The truth is, it has been a long time, maybe years since I have clearly felt or heard the voice of God in an irrefutable way. Radio silence. And yet I cannot seem to abandon Him, or is it He won't abandon me? Either way, I find myself in a holding pattern. A frustratingly long holding pattern. I haven't known how to proceed. How do I keep praying without doing it out of mere obligation and guilt? How do I read the Bible without disintegrating into a quivering heap of questions in the corner of my room?

Frankly, I have a hard time telling the difference between that still small voice and the crazy-person talk in my head.  And I often find myself agreeing with agnostics and atheists when it comes to "proof" issues, especially when I think about other religions.  Everyone thinks they've heard from God, and that their holy book is the truest version of the truth.  Sometimes I get confused in the cacophony of both my own internal voices and the external debates on epistemiology.  So I get frustrated with the holding pattern I'm in when I don't clearly hear God.

But lately I've realized I may have been going about it the wrong way.  I've been waiting to hear from God and have placed certain expectations on what hearing from Her would sound or look like.  Perhaps this is going to sound heretical and humanist, but I "hear" from God quite often via my fellow human beings.

I may not feel God's presence when I sit with by Bible open, looking for answers, but I sure feel His presence when my husband extends me an incredible amount of grace.  I may not literally hear a response from God when I ask Him questions, but if I would just look around, I might get an answer.

I came across this quote from Stanley Hauerwas, which explains more clearly how others help me stay on this crazy God-following path: 

The worship of God does not come naturally to me, as it seems to for some. I live most of my life as if God does not exist. Yet I know I would not have survived without the prayers of friends who have learned to pray the prayers of the church. My life depends on learning to worship God with those who have made it possible for me to go on. Through worship, the world learns the truth that is required for our being truthful about ourselves and one another.

And this, from an amazing, must-read post by Sarcastic Lutheran, points out the ordinariness of the kingdom of God:

the kingdom of heaven is not to be found alone in a monestary, it’s not to be found in the demands and rewards of human religion, it’s found in the ordinary, the daily, the right in front of your face and never realized it.  And when you see it something is made new. Perhaps a part of the world perhaps a part of yourself.  But something is made new when the empty promises of the world according to us gives way to the whimsy, and the true and the eternal in the world according to God.  And it’s always a surprise.  Tilt your head and look sideways at your life and might see it in the small or the unexpected or the impure.

Tilt your head and look sideways and catch a glimpse- for the Prince of Peace has begun his reign. The signs are all around.  They are signs of a battle already won.  Signs of a world loved so deeply by God that God refuses to leave it alone.  So take another look. See if you can spot it.

From "Why me" to "I will follow"

Beal, in The Rise and Fall of the Bible, provides a clear description of the problem of theodicy:

Imagine the problem as a triangle: on one corner you have the belief that God is just; on the next you have the belief that God is all-powerful; on the third, you have the observation that people suffer unjustly.

It's a logical problem.  You can't hold the three corners of the triangle together.  So any solution to the problem of theodicy inevitably lops off one of them. (p. 160)

Some of us cut off the God-is-all-powerful corner, while others cut off the God-is-just corner.  Still others claim that no suffering is unjust.  

Beal notes that the Bible (remember, it's a collection/library) does not resolve theodicy.  Instead, it argues, wrestles, and explores different responses to it.  The texts end up "affirming the question over any and every solution" (p. 160).  Again, the Bible is not univocal, and we cannot reduce it as such.

Psalms 13 and 88, and Pharoah's hardened heart, stand in tension with the idea that God is always just.  This should rightly horrify us, and we feel the need to turn away.  These stories and outpourings to God cause discomfort, and so we seek reassurance.  But Beal points out:

[T]he psalm itself, indeed the Bible itself, doesn't turn away with us.  It stays with the voice of pain.  Even as it lingers in the hollow silence after Jesus' own lonely cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" [...] The library of the Bible has spaces to let suffering speak and be heard. (p. 161)

This way of looking at those troublesome passages of Scripture, and the troublesome suffering we experience today, is intriguing, but it still begs the question.  I still want to know why God would supposedly harden Pharoah's heart and render plagues the way She allegedly did.  The notion that humans are pawns in a cosmic game is disconcerting.

photo © 2010 NOAA Photo Library | more info (via: Wylio)

Aside from my lingering concerns, though, the idea that the Bible doesn't seek to resolve the tension of theodicy is compelling.  Perhaps we shouldn't expect the Christian faith to resolve those tensions either.  In the same way that Beal criticizes the expectation that the Bible is an answer-book, I've realized that I'm expecting the Christian gospel to provide an answer to the theodicy problem.  

In demanding that my faith provide answers it perhaps was not designed to provide, and in turn rejecting this version of the faith, I do it a disservice.  Maybe what is repugnant to me is not the failure of Christianity to solve the theodicy issue once and for all, but at the heart of it, it's a failure of the expectations that I've imposed.

Will Willimon recently remarked on Bart Ehrman and theodicy in The Christian Century.  In the context of the recent tornados that pummeled the South, Willimon acknowledges the limits of explanation, but comments that an Ehrman-like rejection of Christianity is not the only option:

No one around me at those locations of terrible destruction asked, “Why me? Why God?” Most of them were too busy, drenched in sweat, and dust from the rubble to pause to engage in philosophical speculation. Their most persistent question was, “How can we do more to support and work for the victims?”

And that seems very Christian to me. Jesus was not a great philosopher who came with a set of noble precepts and brilliant ideals. Jesus never said, “Think about me.” Rather it was always, “Follow me!”

Jesus was among us as a victim of horrible injustice. He offered us few explications of suffering and injustice; he offered himself as fellow sufferer. As Hebrews says, Jesus not only came to us but suffered with us. He offered us not reasoned explanations but rather empathetic, life-giving presence with us. He gave us not a great way to think about tragedy but a way of acting in and through tragedy.

The mindset of the tornado survivors who turned around the "Why me" question strikes me as very powerful.  In my cerebral, analytical way, I have begged God, Scripture, and my faith community to please give me an answer in the face of global suffering and my very own personal nightmares.  

The very fact that I've had the luxury to stop and think about suffering, analyzing the why's every which way, is telling.  Just like those in the U.S. who have had their houses leveled, I doubt that those without clean water and enough food for their children around the world care which theodicy-triangle corner to lop off at the moment.  

Yes, I still definitely struggle with what Ehrman dubs "God's problem," and at this time I'm close to lopping off the God-is-all-powerful corner.  But Beal and Willimon have reminded me that Jesus calls us to follow him where we are.  Perhaps instead of spilling liters of ink and writing wordy blog posts on theodicy, we should subvert those questions.  We can't be expected to first solve all philosophical problems, or expect the gospel to solve them, before we begin to follow Jesus.

If your heart doesn't yet say hallelujah...

photo © 2007 James Emery | more info (via: Wylio)

Yesterday, as I was sitting with a grieving family, I said something that probably a good Christian shouldn't have said.  One of the family members remarked, "It will be alright, it will be alright."  Today, Resurrection Day, tells us it will be alright -- we all know this.  But I, not meaning to give any sort of advice on grieving at all (because everyone is different), automatically responded that if you ever get to a moment where you don't think it will be alright, let yourself have that thought.  I said that it's good to work through it.  I hope I didn't offend anyone in the room, but after having deep doubt myself, I've become quick to reassure and to make space for those who maybe can't say 100% of the time that "it will be alright."

Maggi Dawn has a great post this morning about just not feeling it on Easter.  She echoes what I pointed out yesterday.  Easter is the day when we are supposed to celebrate that Jesus is risen:

But what do you do if Easter comes and your spirits do not rise? It’s a bad day in the kitchen, in your marriage, with your in-laws or your hormones or your bank balance? What do you do if your job has disintegrated, your hopes are dashed, your dreams didn’t come true – or if, simply for some unaccountable reason, there is no hallelujah in your heart?

There is no need to beat yourself up. Read the story again, and you see that even his first disciples took time to absorb the news. Mary saw it and jumped at it. Peter and John didn’t believe it, half-believed it, went to look and still took a while to take it in. The other disciples took longer – Thomas, according to John, stubbornly refusing to believe what his eyes could not see. And even when the disciples did get the news, they didn’t know quite what to do with it: for a while they still found themselves fishing in Galilee, a little lost in life.

The hallelujah of Easter, the risen spirits, are not always instant. There are weeks and weeks of Easter still to come; the Church calendar celebrates the slow dawning of Easter for fifty days – even longer than the arduous journey of Lent. Today is a promise of things to come, not a climactic moment that you have to catch as it passes. If your heart doesn’t yet say Hallelujah, let your curiosity lead you, let your doubts be voiced and your questions be heard.