In the last few posts we've been talking a great deal about how our pursuit of self-esteem, identity, significance and meaning are often driven by neurotic existential anxiety, a denial of death to use the words of Ernest Becker. In biblical language we engage in idolatry, serving the principalities and powers in the hope that we might bask in their reflected glory, purpose, and seeming immortality. If we serve the principalities and powers people speak well of us, our life is said to matter, we've "made a difference."

But as William Stringfellow has pointed out, service to the powers is service to death. At root, the spirituality of the powers is the spirituality of survival. Although the rhetoric of the powers is intoxicating, their mission statements tending toward messiahism, at the end of the day the "bottom line" (however that is measured) is the ruling ethic. For example, at my Christian university when ideals clash with hard economics the refrain is heard, "Well, we are a business."

Not to suggest that the powers are simply workplaces, industry, and businesses. I keep coming back to Stringfellow's examples that the powers are "legion":

According to the Bible, the principalities are legion in species, number, variety and name. They are designated by such multifarious titles as powers, virtues, thrones, authorities, dominions, demons, princes, strongholds, lords, angels, gods, elements, spirits…

Terms that characterize are frequently used biblically in naming the principalities: “tempter,” “mocker,” “foul spirit,” “destroyer,” “adversary,” “the enemy.” And the privity of the principalities to the power of death incarnate is shown in mention of their agency to Beelzebub or Satan or the Devil or the Antichrist…

And if some of these seem quaint, transposed into contemporary language they lose quaintness and the principalities become recognizable and all too familiar: they include all institutions, all ideologies, all images, all movements, all causes, all corporations, all bureaucracies, all traditions, all methods and routines, all conglomerates, all races, all nations, all idols. Thus, the Pentagon or the Ford Motor Company or Harvard University or the Hudson Institute or Consolidated Edison or the Diners Club or the Olympics or the Methodist Church or the Teamsters Union are principalities. So are capitalism, Maoism, humanism, Mormonism, astrology, the Puritan work ethic, science and scientism, white supremacy, patriotism, plus many, many more—sports, sex, any profession or discipline, technology, money, the family—beyond any prospect of full enumeration. The principalities and powers are legion.

Following Walter Wink we've described service to the powers in this series as "demonic possession." When involved in idolatry the spirituality of the power becomes internalized. We become possessed, possessed by the "angel" of the power which is the angel of death. These death-serving angels could be named "demons," satanic forces that that have taken up residence inside of us. Stringfellow describes the process:

People are veritably besieged, on all sides, at every moment simultaneously by these claims and strivings of the various powers each seeking to dominate, usurp, or take a person’s time, attention, abilities, effort; each grasping at life itself; each demanding idolatrous service and loyalty…

Exorcism, then, is a matter of expelling this spirituality from our lives. In the last post I described this as a renunciation of idolatry, rejecting the false gods of self-esteem and meaning within the culture. We "die" and become indifferent to the ways the various powers in the culture attempt to "dominate, usurp, or take our time, attention, abilities, effort." Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego we refuse to kneel to Nebuchadnezzar's idol. In the language of Revelation we "come out" from Babylon. In the language of Paul we no longer see the world "from a human point of view." In the language of Jesus we lose our life so that we might find it, storing up treasures in heaven and not on earth.

And in the language of Ecclesiastes we declare the idolatrous pursuit of self-esteem and significance to be "meaningless" and "vanity."

In light of this I'd like to suggest that Ecclesiastes is a great treatise on exorcism. Perhaps the most powerful exorcist text in the bible.

Many think Ecclesiastes is depressing. Only if you're demon possessed! For the great task of Ecclesiastes is to expose the dynamic at work behind service to the powers, the pursuit of meaning and self-esteem through the cultural hero system. Who is Oz, the force behind the curtain pulling the levers of achievement, reputation, significance, and self-esteem? What Ecclesiastes shows us, in pulling back the curtain, is exactly what Ernest Becker has shown us: death is the force in the background driving the show.

Because of this Ecclesiastes talks a lot about death. And for a culture dominated by a denial of death that topic can seem morbid and depressing. But think about how death is being used in Ecclesiastes. Death is being deployed to show the futility of the self-esteem project, that idolatry is, at root, a service to the angel of death. Ecclesiastes isn't about existentialism and angst. Ecclesiastes is interested in smashing idols. Ecclesiastes is interested in exorcism, purging our soul of death-oriented spiritual strivings. Ecclesiastes is trying to get us to stand with St. Paul and declare that the self-esteem project is one big pile of "rubbish":

I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens...

I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly...

I undertook great projects...

I amassed silver and gold for myself...

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired...

The verdict? Meaninglessness. Death overtakes it all.

And so, to echo the Revelation of St. John: "Come out, come out. Come out my people."

Come out into what? What does it look like when I renounce the principalities and powers and the self-esteem I try to borrow from them? The answers from Ecclesiastes:

A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God.

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Do not be overrighteous,
neither be overwise—
why destroy yourself?
Do not be overwicked,
and do not be a fool—
why die before your time?
It is good to grasp the one
and not let go of the other.
Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might...

The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouts of a ruler of fools.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive account of the positive message of Ecclesiastes. Nor am I saying the message is 100% consistent. But I believe the cumulative message is clear:

Give up the striving after self-esteem and significance. How? Do good work. Enjoy the work for itself. Don't turn work into a self-esteem project. Don't serve that power. Put aside the anxiety of chasing self-esteem and significance and learn to enjoy the day. Notice the simple gifts of food and drink. Be present with your loved ones. Cherish and cultivate friendships. Don't turn religion into a self-esteem project. Don't be too righteous. Yet don't be foolish either. Seek wisdom over violence and war. Avoid the propaganda of nations and fools. Spend the day doing good.

This, in the estimation of Ecclesiastes, is what it looks like, in the words of James Alison, to "live as if death were not." This is what it looks like, in the words of William Stringfellow, "to live humanely in the Fall." This is what it looks like, in the words of Arthur McGill, to receive your identity as "gift" rather than as a possession you must protect and defend against others. This is what it looks like, in the words of Ernest Becker, to trade neurotic strivings for a "relaxedness" in the face of death.

In short, this is the vision of the person who as stepped away from idolatry, who has been exorcised of the spirituality of the principalities and powers. Non-anxious. Peaceful, internally and externally. Relaxed in the face of death. Not lured into crazy self-esteem projects. And thus non-rivalrous and non-violent. Joyful for the day and simple graces. Doing good work. Not too righteous, holding religion at a distance. But not undisciplined and foolish. A good friend. A good family member. Spending the day doing good.

Basically, following the example of the Great Exorcist himself:

Acts 10.38
Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

You are not big enough to accuse the whole age effectively, but let us say you are in dissent. You are in no position to issue commands, but you can speak words of hope. Shall this be the substance of your message? Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God. You agree? Good. Then go with my blessing. But I warn you, do not expect to make many friends...

--Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable

It was getting late
with the warm fuzz
of the wine
well worked into our minds
when the first sign
of the Kingdom of Heaven
occurred
in a back room
with only the paid help
as witnesses
and the quality
of the gift
passing unnoticed
because of our
intoxication.

I've been thinking some more about my exchange with Peter Rollins regarding his book Insurrection and what I've been doing in The Slavery of Death series, ways our projects are similar and how they are different. (BTW, I hate the word "project." I really don't have "projects." All I have are "things I'm currently thinking about." But no projects.) However, before I get into these additional thoughts about Insurrection a couple of programming notes.

Programming Notes:
First, I don't intend for this post to be a critique or criticism of Insurrection in any way. My thoughts are simply rolling forward and this is the place where I collect my thoughts. So all I'm doing is simply sharing my thoughts. I'm not trying to debate or rebut Insurrection. I'm just clarifying, in my own mind, locations of contrast. I'm feeling around the edges. Intellectually, this is something I need to do. So if you don't want to witness this please stop reading!

Second, don't tweet any of this at Peter. I'm not trying to engage Peter in any sort of discussion or debate. He's a busy guy and I can spill thousands of words a day on this topic. (Regular readers know this.) Of course, if Peter wants to weigh in that would be great, but I don't want him to think he needs to respond or keep responding in any way. It's as simple as this: Peter make me think so here I am thinking. The more words I write about Insurrection the greater the complement to Peter and the more books he might sell. Win/win.

Finally, I'm going to call Peter by his first name. We've never met but I hate the academic distance created by the use of the last name. I'd much rather write "Peter" than "Rollins." I hope the use of Peter's first name signals that we're all friends here.

Recap and Review:
Okay, let's review and get everyone up to speed. I first used Insurrection in this post from The Slavery of Death series. In that post I noted connections between what I'd been arguing in the series (based largely upon the work of Ernest Becker) and Peter's argument that love can only emerge after the death of the deus ex machina.

I followed that post up with a critique of Insurrection. In that critique I said that one of the problems I saw in Insurrection was that it did not specify the necessary connection between the death of the deus ex machina and the life of love. Peter responded that the connection will become more clear in his forthcoming book. One area we cleared up in the comments of his post was that Peter had initially read me as saying that I didn't think the death of the deus ex machina was necessary. I noted that I did think such a "death of god" was necessary and that my "critique" had to do with a lack of specificity as to why it was necessary. That is, I wanted Insurrection to be less descriptive and more explanatory.

That's a subtle distinction but I think it's a big deal and it highlights some of the distinctions between what Peter is doing and what I'm doing. In light of that, I'd like to use the rest of this post to make those distinctions more clear. For myself at least.

Fitting Insurrection into The Slavery of Death series:
One way to make these distinctions is to show how I would incorporate Insurrection and the death of the deus ex machina into the Slavery of Death series. You can follow along in the figure above (click on it to open it in a new, larger window if you can't see the small font). For those who have been following the series our walk through the figure above will be a nice visual summary. For those new to The Slavery to Death series you can think of it as a psychological meditation on Hebrews 2.14-15, 1 John 3.8, and 1 John 3.14.

Hebrews 2.14-15
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

1 John 3.8b
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

1 John 3.14
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

In the figure above we start in Panel 1 with the reality of death. As you'll note, this reality sits behind all the other panels in the figure, Panels #1-#6. This represents the fact that death is the "last enemy" of Christ, the power behind the principalities and powers. Or, in the words of William Stringfellow, death is the Idol behind all idols.

For humans death creates a burden of existential anxiety. This is Panel 2.

Following Ernest Becker in his book The Denial of Death, humans create a cultural worldview that provides a route to significance and meaning in the face this anxiety. This is Panel 3. This worldview provides us with seemingly transcendent and durable "goods" to which we can attach our life stories. We serve these "greater" and "higher" goods and this service gives us a sense of meaning, security, self-esteem, and immortality. Becker calls this cultural heroics, finding self-esteem by participating within and supporting the cultural worldview.

Now, the key thing to note here is how death is still in the background in Panel 3. The entire pursuit of meaning and self-esteem is being driven by an underlying denial of death which is largely unconscious and, thus, neurotic in nature.

Obviously, religious belief is often a large part of any cultural worldview. The cultural god--Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, etc.--tends to support and affirm the values of the culture imbuing the cultural values with eternity. But in truth the cultural worldview is really driving the show. "God" is just the metaphysical rubber stamp. At root, our "way of life" is the real god. Power in its various manifestations is our true god, our true religion. This is why political discourse is so heated. There's a reason why many people think President Obama is the literal Anti-Christ. Politics--the grasping at power--is our religion.

So God is a part of all this, a part of the cultural worldview developed to handle our anxiety in the face of death. This is seen in Panel 4 where I've added the deus ex machina to the cultural worldview.

Now, one of the consequences of using the cultural worldview as a means to repress death anxiety is that the worldview must be believed absolutely for it to perform this function. This is key. If you have doubts that your value system is true then that value system isn't going to infuse your life projects with a feeling of transcendence, ultimacy and eternity. And it's this aspect of the worldview--that it has to be believed absolutely to "work" as a defense mechanism--that leads to the great tragedy of human existence: rivalry and violence. Our pursuit of meaning, identity, and self-esteem within a cultural worldview brings us, inexorably and tragically, into conflict with Others. Within the worldview we find ourselves embroiled in rivalries, pushing to secure the cultural goods that give us self-esteem in comparison with others. When we encounter outgroup members we engage in worldview defense, denigrating and acting aggressively toward Others. This dynamic is found in Panel 5 where two ideological Others encounter each other.

If we translate all this into biblical language we have something like Panel 6. The biblical writers didn't use language like cultural worldview, neuroses, deus ex machina, self-esteem, existential, meaning, or worldview defense. The biblical authors speak of death, sin, the works of the devil, idolatry, and the principalities and powers. Mapping our modern descriptions onto the biblical descriptions we can say that the principalities and powers stand for the cultural worldview and idolatry as the way we serve these powers to gain a sense of self-esteem and meaning. This idolatry produces "the works of the devil"--selfishness, rivalry, violence.

Having incorporated the deus ex machina into the scheme we are working with in The Slavery of Death series we can now turn to points of contrast between this model and what we find in Insurrection.

1. Connecting the Deus ex Machina with Sin
Recall that my critique of Insurrection was that it didn't describe why there was a necessary link between the deus ex machina and failures of love. The model above provides the link I was looking for. Insofar as the deus ex machina participates in the cultural worldview it functions as a defense mechanism to handle/repress existential anxiety in the face of death/finitude. Consequently, the deus ex machina supports cultural heroics that bring us into rivalry with ingroup members and promotes violence toward outgroup members (via worldview defense). Thus, we must "die" to the deus ex machina if we are going to be open and loving toward others, ingroup and outgroup. Here we see the necessary connection between the "death of god" and a life of love.

I can't find an equivalent connection in Insurrection. In Insurrection Peter asks us to squarely face the anxiety involved in the death of the deus ex machina as this will enable us to love our neighbor. But why? That's the question at the root of my critique. Why does facing anxiety make us more loving?

Peter is right in noting that the deus ex machina is intimately involved in providing us with existential comfort. On this we agree. But what I don't find in Insurrection is a connection between this need for existential comfort and sin. And without that connection the association with love isn't at all clear. This is why I've said Insurrection needs a more robust theology of sin and the satanic.

In the model above, thanks to Ernest Becker, we've observed the missing link: Existential comfort can only be produced by the worldview (of which the deus ex machina is a small part) when it is believed absolutely. And it's this fear-driven dogmatism that produces the sin. This is the connection, the connection made by Ernest Becker, that completes the picture of Insurrection.

2. A Focus on the Principalities and Powers Rather than the Death of God
Another point of contrast between the model above and Insurrection is how we understand the crucifixion event. For Peter the crucifixion is primarily about the death of god as captured in Christ's cry from the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" For me the crucifixion is "taking up the cross," renouncing the principalities and powers (think John Howard Yoder and Rene Girard here).

To be sure, there is some overlap. The deus ex machina is an idol. In this the deus ex machina is just another, albeit religious, manifestation of the principalities and powers. The same religious power that was attacked by both the prophets and Jesus. Following their example we should resist the principalities and powers whenever they manifest in religious garb, calling out the satanic aspects of much that is now ascendant in Christianity.

But this is much bigger than religion. For two reasons. First, atheists are just as enslaved to the fear of death as Christians are beholden to the deus ex machina. Atheists as much as Christians are striving after cultural heroics, a source of self-esteem and meaning. Consequently, atheists are caught in the same demonic trap. How, then, to explain their conversion? As a "death of god"? As the death of a deus of machina they don't even believe in? To be sure it could be described that way if we use "god" as shorthand for "worldview," even an atheistic worldview. But that's unnecessarily confusing. No doubt "god" is a good beginning place for Christians, the people most likely to read Insurrection. But if we want a more comprehensive treatment we should start with a model that transcends religion in describing the idolatrous captivity of the entire world, theist, atheist, and a/theist alike. This is why I think focusing on "worldview," "culture," and the principalities and powers is better than focusing upon something religiously narrow like the deus ex machina.

A second reason for not focusing too tightly on the deus ex machina has to do with religious populations themselves. Specifically, while the vast majority of Christians likely do believe in a deus ex machina (beliefs sociologists have characterized as moralistic therapeutic deism), at the end of the day these beliefs are pretty irrelevant. Most Christians are pursuing self-esteem and meaning in exactly the same way as everyone else within the culture. Which is to say, so what if Christians think there is a God out there taking care of them now and after death? What really matters, spiritually speaking, is how American Christians just look like Americans in how they live. As I noted above in my discussion of politics and power, culture trumps religion. We must not think that the tail is wagging the dog. Christians care more about power, their bank account, and their weight than they do about a halo and a harp in heaven, as consoling as those beliefs might be. Yes, thinking that God will help you find good parking spaces is comforting, existentially speaking. But the real idolatry is found elsewhere.

In sum, there are two reasons why I think a focus on a "death of god" is too narrow. First, it excludes atheists from the conversation about idolatry. Second, it fails to target the root source of idolatry among Christians themselves. On its own belief in the deus ex machina, while infantile, is innocuous. The real poison comes when "God" is used to support "a way of life" that creates selfishness, rivalry and violence. This focus on worldviews and worldview defense allows us to cast a broader net and to place our finger more directly on the pulse of the demonic.

One response that I think Peter could offer at this point is that he's not trying to present a robust and comprehensive theology of idolatry in Insurrection. Rather, he's just speaking to a specific form of religious idolatry. If that's the case I have no problems and simply offer up the model above as a more comprehensive analysis that can capture the idolatry described in Insurrection and anywhere else we might find it, religious or otherwise.

3. How about Dorothy Day and Saint Francis?
In my critique of Insurrection I brought up the example of Dorothy Day. Here was someone radically committed to a life of love who attended Mass everyday, said the Rosary, and engaged in all sorts of religious rituals to sustain her life of service. I had asked, how does someone like Dorothy Day fit into the scheme described in Insurrection? No doubt Day struggled with doubts, but she didn't go to Mass or pray the Rosary to deconstruct her faith over and over again as Peter recommends in Insurrection. In fact, Day did the exact opposite. As did Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In light of that, could we not pursue faith like Day and Bonhoeffer? Would Peter point to Bonhoeffer and Day as exemplary Christians worthy of emulation? My hunch is that he would. If so, the paths toward love might be more diverse than Insurrection suggests.

Why might that be? As I noted above, Insurrection is more descriptive than explanatory. And as a description it's extraordinarily powerful and deep. The path Peter describes in Insurrection is one that many of us have taken. We grew up with an immature and infantile view of God. A Sunday School version of God. And when this God collapsed it was extraordinarily painful. Our ground of being had given way. More, we've never really been able to put the pieces back together again. Consequently, the only way we've been able to use the word "God" is to connect it to love. "God is love," we say. This is the path traced in Insurrection.

As a description this fits many of us. But it's not a comprehensive explanation. Thus, when Insurrection fits we feel it is right. And it is right for many of us. But is it right for everyone? It's sort of like Hume's dictum: You can't get an ought from an is. Just because Insurrection describes the way it is for many of us can we conclude that it ought to be this way for everyone?

What are we to do with the stories of saints who have walked a different sort of path toward love? How do their stories fit in the scheme? I've already talked about Dorothy Day so let me float another example, St. Francis.

Most of you know the story of St. Francis. He was a rich, spoiled kid. As he began to follow God's calling he began to have conflict with his rich and powerful father. One day the conflict came to a head when Francis sold some of his father's stuff to assist a priest in the rebuilding of a church he and Francis were undertaking. Francis's father drug him before the secular and religious authorities of the town hoping they could help straighten Francis out. At the high point of the trial Francis stripped naked and gave his clothing back to his father, publicly renouncing anything his father had given him. Even the clothes on his back. Then Francis walked out of town. Naked. And singing.

How does the joy of St. Francis, along with the religiosity of Dorothy Day, fit into Insurrection? Again, Peter says that the crucifixion event is one of "utter desolation." But why can't it be a matter of utter joy?

This is another place where I think the focus on the principalities and powers pays some dividends. True, when an infantile belief in God crashes and burns it can be painful. Giving up a false notion of God can bring us to the bottom, to utter desolation. But true conversion, as I see it, isn't about the "death of god" per se. It's about renouncing "the world." This is why St. Paul felt so liberated and joyous when he counted all his accomplishments, most of them religious accomplishments, as "rubbish" (or, more strongly translated, "crap" or "shit"). This is why Francis was singing even though he was naked. It's not so much that God died for Francis as much as it was Francis who died to the cultural hero system, to the principalities and powers. Francis was free. Liberated. To his father and to the world Francis was "dead." Crucified. Francis had lost his life in order to find it.

Again, this is not to contradict what I said earlier. If we hold to a view of God that is idolatrous then that view of God has to die if we are to love others. But the deeper trick is in renouncing the way the death-denying culture insists that I construct my identity and self-esteem. God might be deeply involved in all this or not. Both Day and St. Francis were irreligious before they found God. There wasn't much of a Sunday School God to "die" when they experienced their conversion, no deep religious aspect of their identity. Again, this is why the death of God is not necessarily connected to a life of love. God or not, the key is to get at the root dynamic, how the cultural worldview and the self-esteem and identity it supports is driven by a slavery to the fear of death.

Peter's response here and to contrast #2 above, I would guess, would be similar to the one he gave in his response to my critique. Specifically, Peter says "I am not so interested in what you or I believe as in what role that belief is playing in our lives." What sort of role might that be? Peter elaborates: "many people think that I am arguing about the type of belief we hold when I am actually concerned with exploring the power that various beliefs hold for us. A fetish object is an object that we know is not magic but treat as if it is. An object that protects us from encountering our own impotence in a direct way even though we may acknowledge it intellectually." Obviously, Christians aren't the only people with "fetish objects." This frame (fetish objects over "death of god") would allow Peter to create a more comprehensive definition of idolatry and address some of my concerns in contrast #2 above. But it would, however, mean that Insurrection is simply retracing the steps of Ernest Becker in The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil with one of the most important pieces missing (i.e., worldview defense). See my point #1 above.

Back to Day and St. Francis, in light of all this my guess would be that Peter would argue that Day and St. Francis gave up a "fetish object" in their conversions. But if that fetish object wasn't God, and it doesn't seem that it was, what was it? And why characterize it as a "death of god"? And why insist that the response to the loss be one of "utter desolation"?

For my part I'd argue, for both Day and St. Francis, that the fetish object wasn't God but the cultural self-esteem project, a project they joyfully jettisoned, along with St. Paul, counting it all as "loss" and "rubbish."

Summary and Conclusion
Obviously, there are lot of areas of overlap between Insurrection and what I've done in this Slavery of Death series, a series linking Christus Victor theology (along with other theologians like William Stringfellow) with the work of existential psychologists like Ernest Becker. But I do think there are some differences. Feel free to disagree, but I think I'm working with a broader, more explanatory framework. More explanatory in that the causal links between existential consolation and sin are specified in a way that I can't find in Insurrection. Broader in that by focusing on worldviews, self-esteem, and cultural heroics we can describe enslavement to the principalities and powers for both the religious and irreligious. God doesn't always die. But in every case we die to the cultural hero system, to the idols of selfishness, rivalry and violence. And by focusing on a renunciation of the principalities and powers as the key to conversion (rather than upon a "death of god" which is merely a subspecies of this renunciation), we can embrace the spiritual journeys of saints like Dorothy Day and St. Francis.

For some of us experience utter desolation in moving toward a life of love, engaging in a/theistic worship to deconstruct our faith (see Insurrection).

Some of us, by contrast, attend Mass every day and pray the Rosary.

And some of us hit the road naked and singing.

I've recently been reading through the Rule of St. Benedict in anticipation of a series I might do. And when you read the Rule it's not uncommon to begin thinking about adding some monastic structure to your life, mainly about being more intentional in prayer and the reading of the Psalms.

So the other day I was kicking that around. Where in my day could I carve out 30 minutes for prayer? In the morning? Midday? At night? How about all three, praying at Lauds, Sext and Vespers?

And as I pondered this spiritual pursuit a thought drifted through my mind, "Why don't you just do the dishes for Jana everyday? Isn't that a better use of 30 minutes?"

I think this thought came to me for two reasons. The first, obviously, has to do with my own writings where I've argued that we use spirituality to replace being a better person. In this case I was indulging in a private spiritual fancy rather than helping out more around the house.

The second reason has to do with the Rule itself. Prayer isn't the only thing the Rule discusses. A large part of the Rule is in describing the various ways the monks are to take care of the monastery. And kitchen cleanup is a part of that.

All this to say, I eventually dropped my pursuit of a structured prayer time. I'm now using that time to do the dishes. Not that I've given up on prayer, it just remains an irregular practice. For God has called me, through the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, to do the dishes rather than to prayer.

This is, I believe, one of the few times where Jana has agreed with how I've discerned the spirits...

Recently, as a part of my The Slavery of Death series I wrote a critique of Peter Rollins's book Insurrection. Yesterday, Peter posted a response (I think because many of you tweeted at him) over at his blog. Head on over and check it out and share your impressions there or here (or both places).

The gist of my original post was that I couldn't find in Insurrection the necessary connection between the "death of god" (crucifixion, Part 1 of Insurrection) and the practices of love (resurrection, Part 2 of Insurrection). More specifically, why does the Deus ex Machina interfere with love? Why do we have to get rid of the Deus ex Machina for love to flow forth?

As I wrote in my original post, the only connection I could discern in Insurrection was that the Deus ex Machina promoted an otherworldly spirituality. Love is projected onto a god "out there" rather than being directed at flesh and blood people. This is the root of my critique in the Bait and Switch post.

So I agree that this is a problem. Otherworldliness is rampant in contemporary Christianity. As Stanley Hauerwas has noted, American spirituality is "too spiritual."

This is correct as far as it goes. I just don't think it goes deep enough. In my opinion, the deep problem with the Deus ex Machina isn't otherworldliness or existential infantalism (believing that God is the Benevolent Father in the Sky who will take care of us), though these are problems. My take is that I think these are surface level symptoms of the deeper disease, the runny nose rather than the virus itself. The real problem, in my opinion, are the biblical problems, the Christus Victor problems:

Sin. Death. The Devil. The Principalities and Powers.

As I read it, these are problems that don't show up a lot in Insurrection. What I think is lacking in Insurrection (surprise, surprise) is the very thing we are working through in the Slavery of Death series (and which I touch on a bit in The Authenticity of Faith): a robust theology of sin and the satanic, the roots of selfishness, rivalry, and violence.

1 John 3.8
The reason the Son of Man appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

In summary, I don't think Rollins and I disagree at all on the surface level, that the "death" of the Deus ex Machina is necessary for love to be truly embraced. The difference, if there is one, and there might not be one, has to do with 1) how we specify the underlying machinery (the psychological dynamics at work), and 2) where the root problem is to be found. For Rollins the problem seems to be existential infantalism (the need for the Big Other). For me, that's a symptom a deeper problem: our slavery to the fear of death which produces the works of the devil in our lives. The Deus ex Machina in this case is less a cause than a symptom, a mask that is deployed (mostly unconsciously) to obscure the deeper dynamic.

What I can't tell is if these distinctions in our projects make much of a difference. There's considerable overlap. But I do think starting with the slavery to the fear of death as prior to the Deus ex Machina is a beginning place that has greater explanatory power and can incorporate more biblical, theological and psychological material.

Thoughts?

Over the weekend Jana and I got to catch the Gungor concert in Dallas. It was a belated Valentine's Day date.

It was a great concert. If you can, try to catch them on their tour which is just starting out.

Funny story about the concert. Although Jana and I weren't the oldest people at the concert we were in the top 2%. There were not a lot of 40-somethings.

Not that I'm particularly self-conscious about my age. It mainly had to do with walking into the venue and finding no chairs. No chairs! I'm sure this is typical at a lot of club venues, but it took us by surprise.

And here's the deal. I hate standing up. Hate. It. I try to sit down whenever I can. Jana isn't as philosophically opposed to standing as I am, but she doesn't like standing for long periods because it bothers her back. She's got a sensible physical reason for not liking to stand. My issues are more existential. Why stand when you can sit?

So the prospect of standing for four to five hours really knocked us for a loop. Jana is thinking about her back. I'm thinking about theodicy.

However, we spotted a long bench running alongside one wall. So we made for that and got a seat. But the trouble with this situation was that everyone would be standing in front of us and the stage was elevated. So seated here we wouldn't be able to see the band.

So we scan the room for other options. Jana spots a smaller stage to the left of the main stage. It was mostly full of tables, speakers and equipment. But there was a stack of chairs over there and some room in front of the equipment. What if we put those chairs out on the stage? Because this side stage was elevated and offered a great view of the main stage.

But would we be allowed to sit there? Would the staff chase us off the stage?

Not wanting to give up our seats along the wall, as crappy as they were, I crossed the room to set up some chairs on the sidestage creating Base Camp Bravo while Jana remained behind at Base Camp Alpha to hold our spots on the bench. As we were planning all this out the only other 40-something couple in the place overheard our plans and wanted to know if they could participate. Apparently, once you hit 40 you REALLY want to sit down. So, forming an alliance, me and the other guy head over and set out four chairs on the second stage. We sit down and wait to see if we'll get shooed away.

We wait until the concert is about to start and no one chases us off. More, about 20 other people follow our lead finding places to sit amongst the equipment on the second stage. Pulling the trigger I send word to Base Camp Alpha to pack up and come on over. The ladies fight through the crowd and make it to Base Camp Bravo on the second stage.

It all worked out. The old people had great seats. Jana's back was saved and I averted an existential crisis.

Beyond the awesomeness of Gungor the great discovery of the night was the opening band, The Brilliance. I strongly encourage you to check them out at their website and on iTunes. On their self-titled album The Brilliance stand out tracks include Breathe, Open Up, Mercy, Wounded Healer, and Christ Be With Me. On their Lent album standout tracks include Dust We Are And Shall Return, Now And At the Hour of Our Death, and Does Your Heart Break? From their Advent Vol. 1 album standout tracks include Light, Open Up (a different arrangement from The Brilliance album), and May You Find a Light.

The song Mercy from The Brilliance album may be the most beautiful, haunting, and theologically profound lament I have ever heard. And as a Winter Christian that's saying a lot. If you get the album or just the song, set some time aside to be alone with the best sound system you have. Get quiet and listen to Mercy.

Lyrics for Mercy from The Brilliance

When I think of God's great love
I think of Noah's time.
When love was not enough
and man was forced to die.
This God He sent the flood
to kill the race despised.
The children swept away.
I hear a mother's cry.

Mercy, Lord have mercy.
Mercy on me.
Every soul is searching for you.
Won't you save us?
Grant us peace.

O distant God above,
why do you make us blind?
With eyes that cannot see
we seek but do not find.
And if you are so near
why are you standing by
when peace has been long lost?
Please hear your children cry.

Mercy, Lord have mercy.
Mercy on me.
Every soul is searching for you.
Won't you save us?
Grant us peace.

Kyrie, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison...

I'm a Netflix subscriber so from time to time I'll surf through their selection of streaming videos to see if I can find anything good (I usually can't). Once in a while I'll look through the Anime movies as I've enjoyed a few sci-fi Anime movies in the past.

It's hard to tell if a movie is any good so I spend time reading the Netflix member reviews. And as I surfed the Anime movies I kept seeing sentences like this in the reviews:

Great movie if you can live with all the fan service.

Lots of fan service if you're into that.

Awesome! Tons of fan service!!!!!

Reading reviews like this I wondered to myself, "What in the world is fan service?"

Fan service, I discovered, are things added to Anime movies to titillate viewers, generally male viewers. Fan service is "giving the fans what they want." For the most part this means drawing female Anime characters with large breasts and short skirts. It also includes nudity and graphic violence.

What is key here is that none of this has any relevance to the plot. It's just "eye candy" to push the visual buttons of the viewer. It's "servicing the fan," not advancing the story. Here's the current top Urban Dictionary definition of fan service:

In general, fan service refers to scenes designed to excite or titillate the viewer...Basically, if it has little plot-redeeming value, but makes the viewer sit up and take notice, it's probably fan service in one form or another.

Having found all this out I can now navigate Netflix in a more informed manner, generally staying clear of movies with reviews mentioning a lot of fan service.

But fan service as a concept has stuck in my mind.

And the other day I began to wonder about fan service at church.

To be clear, I'm not talking about nudity and short skirts at church. I'm talking about the root idea of fan service: adding something that "pleases" (servicing the fans, giving the people what they want) that has nothing to do with advancing the plot.

Let me give a simple example. In the adult bible class I help teach on Sunday mornings at church we have coffee and donuts. That's fan service. People like having coffee and donuts in class so we provide them. But coffee and donuts don't have anything to do with the mission of the church. Coffee and donuts don't help advance the story/plot of the Kingdom of God.

Now there is nothing wrong with coffee and donuts. I sure like having them both in class. I'm just illustrating how the concept of fan service might be applied to church. Such an application opens up a lot of interesting questions. Specifically, how much of church life is devoted to fan service? How much of the physical environment, the worship, the programs/classes, etc. can be considered fan service? That is, how much of what is going on at a given church is devoted to "giving the people what they want" rather than advancing the story of the Kingdom?

Because it seems to me that a lot of churches are so beholden to American consumerism that they are almost wholly given over to fan service, if only to attract the "spiritual shopper."

Everything is created to give the people what they want. Church as fan service.

As we near the end of this series it's time to clean up some lingering questions.

As you know, this entire series has been a prolonged meditation upon Hebrew 2.14-15:

Hebrews 2.14-15
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

By this point in the series we've unpacked how our lives can become "enslaved to the fear of death" and how that slavery makes us participate in "the works of the devil." We have also briefly sketched how Christ sets us free from this dynamic (Christus Victor), something I'll try to describe in a bit more detail in a final summary post. In the last post I described the beginning of this process as adopting a martyrological identity--learning to die so that we might live, losing our life so that we might find it.

In light of the word "martyr" it's time to clarify some things regarding our fear of death and address a couple of the questions you've been asking me from the very beginning of this series. Specifically, is the fear of death to be totally conquered? Are Christians to be fearless in the face of death? And if so, what prevents us from throwing our lives away?

I'd like to approach these questions by talking about the development of timor mortis in the thought of Augustine.

First, a hat tip to Charlie Collier over at Wipf & Stock. As Unclean was wrapping up Charlie and I exchanged some emails about future books I might do. I mentioned I had been thinking about a book fusing the work of Ernest Becker with theologians like William Stringfellow. In light of that, Charlie mentioned I look into Augustine's treatment of timor mortis.

Timor mortis is Latin for the "fear of death" (timor being the root of words like timorous and mortis the root for words like mortality).

Timor mortis has an interesting history in the thought of Augustine and tracing the development of his thought on this subject helps us address some of the lingering questions in this series. Like we have been doing, Augustine was trying to address these sorts of questions in relation to timor mortis: Does the faithful Christian fear death? Is the fear of death a sign of spiritual cowardice and a lack of faith?

Early in this writing Augustine seems to suggest that Christians should not fear death. To fear death would be a sign that the Christian did not trust in God and the resurrection. Here Augustine seems to have been greatly influenced by the heroic feats of both pagan and Christian martyrs, individuals who showed no fear in facing death. For Augustine this appears to have been the ideal the Christian should aspire to. More, Augustine was also influenced by the Stoics who argued that the truly wise and virtuous would be calm and fearless in the face of death. Exemplars here are Socrates and Seneca.

This heroic ideal, one based upon the examples of the Christian martyrs, seems an almost impossible standard. Normal people fear death. Does this mean that we lack faith?

Over time Augustine began to change his stance on this issue. It seems that Augustine's early treatments of timor mortis were overly influenced by his desire to place the courage of Christian martyrs in the same heroic pantheon with the pagan philosophers, warriors, and martyrs. Augustine wanted the Christian heroes to be as courageous as the pagan heroes. In this, Augustine was writing more apologetically than pastorally. Later, as his interests in timor mortis became more pastoral Augustine began to back away from the heroic ideal of the Christian martyr scorning death.

According to scholars this change in Augustine's views regarding timor mortis started during the Pelagian controversies. Why that controversy sparked this change need not concern us. But the result was that Augustine began to take a more realistic stance about the experience of timor mortis in the Christian experience. Crucially, Augustine no longer considered timor mortis to be a spiritual or moral failure. Augustine comes to argue that the fear of death is a natural and regular feature of being human. Consequently, the goal of the Christian life is not in the eradication of timor mortis but in how we wrestle with it day after day. The virtue here is less about scorning death than about daily fortitude and perseverance. Here is Carole Straw summarizing this development in Augustine:

Before Augustine, conquest of the fear of death was held to test the faith of Christians in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection; it proved confidence in the reward awaiting a life of virtue. Fear of death revealed doubt, guilt, and a misguided attachment to the body. Augustine began his career within this tradition, but the controversies he faced led him to change his views...Augustine will come to reject the triumphalism of earlier tradition. He will accept fear of death as a part of the human condition. Fear of death is a natural response that does not indicate want of faith; rather, it affirms the value of bodily existence realized finally in the resurrection. Prudence also dictates that one fear death to check sinfulness.

Various arguments seem to have moved Augustine in this direction. First, Augustine came to realize that a complete absence of timor mortis would cause Christians to become indifferent to things like suicide. More, an absence of timor mortis would cause Christians to use suicide as a sign of faith. That is, if timor mortis is a lack of faith in the resurrection wouldn't suicide become the ultimate expression of faith? Augustine senses this line of argument and he works in The City of God to push back. He mentions the student of Plato who, upon reading about the immortality of the soul, got up and jumped off a building to his death. Isn't that faith? And is that the sort of faith and fearlessness we should see in the Christian? Augustine realizes that a line of reasoning, similar to the one followed by the student of Plato, could be worked out from within the Christian tradition. Specifically, why struggle with the Christian life when we could simply commit suicide after being baptized? Wouldn't that be the easiest and safest way to guarantee our salvation? Augustine floating that argument:

[W]hy do we spend time on those exhortations to the newly baptized. We do our best to kindle their resolve to preserve their virginal purity, or to remain continent in widowhood, or to remain faithful to their marriage vows. But there is available an excellent short cut which avoids any danger of sinning; if we can persuade them to rush to a self-inflicted death immediately upon receiving remission of sins, we shall send them to the Lord in the purest and soundest condition!

To this Augustine responds that "if anyone thinks that we should go in for persuasion on these lines, I should not call him silly, but quite crazy." He concludes that "suicide is monstrous."

But why? For Augustine faith isn't really faith until it has wrestled with the fear of death across the lifespan. That is, a lack of concern about death isn't a sign of faith. Rather, faith is manifested in the daily wrestling with death. This is what perfects faith over time in the saints. Augustine writes, "[T]he faithful overcoming the fear of death is a part of the struggle of faith itself." More, the fear of death is simply an acknowledgement of the gift and goodness of life itself. To be indifferent to your life is to spurn the gift of God. Timor mortis, wanting to preserve your own life, is, at root, an act of gratitude.

What this means, then, is that timor mortis is a fact of life and a regular feature of the Christian experience. The fear of death is always with us, moment by moment and day by day. A lack of timor mortis would signal an indifference that could be, by turns, pathological, triumphalistic, or a spurning of the gift of life. Thus, a victory over the fear of death is not experienced as fearlessness, the complete absence of timor morits. Rather, the victory over the fear of death is witnessed in daily perseverance.

The key, in light of Hebrews 2, has less to do with the fear of death than with a slavery to the fear of death. The fear cannot be healthily avoided. But overcoming a slavery to the fear can be, must be, pursued day in and day out.

As Augustine says, our faith doesn't mean "that death had turned into a good thing." No, he contends, "the death of the body...is not good for anyone." So the goal of the Christian life is not to seek out death or to treat life cheaply. Death is evil. Consequently, we are to struggle against death, resisting death in all its manifestations. This struggle, according to Augustine, "increases the merit of patience if it is endured with devout faith."

For Augustine timor mortis no longer signals the failure of faith but rather works to produce "the glory of those who are reborn."

For those of you interested in the conversation regarding universal reconciliation, particularly from an evangelical perspective, I want to make you aware of the Evangelical Universalist Forum featuring Gregory MacDonald (Robin Parry) and Thomas Talbott. Parry and Talbott are two of the leading thinkers regarding universal reconciliation having written two of the "must read" books on this subject--Parry's The Evangelical Universalist and Talbott's The Inescapable Love of God.

I was honored when the good folks at the EU Forum asked me to join the forum as one of their Featured Guests alongside Parry, Talbott and others.

I'm just getting started at the EU Forum with a few threads up about neuroscience, the prophetic imagination, and how proponents of universal reconciliation read the bible. There's also a place where people can ask me questions.

If you're interested in the conversation concerning universal reconciliation the EU Forum would be a good place to hang out.

First, a confession.

I'm not the best at responding to blog comments. For that I apologize. I'm not horrible, but I'm not as good at responding as I'd like to be.

There are two reasons about why this is the case.

The first has to do with the speed at which my blog moves and the kind of posts I write. Given that I try to post every weekday, the minute one post goes up I'm already hard at work on the next post. Consequently, any given day my attention is mainly on writing the next day's post. In my mind I'm always one day ahead of the blog. Yes, I do read all the comments. But more often than not when I have a moment I'm writing the next post rather than weighing in on the post live on the blog.

Happily, there is a strong contingent of regular readers here who ably add to and expand upon anything I write. More, when people ask questions ya'll jump in with answers. Everyday I'm grateful for how you collaborate and participate in the comments.

So that's the main reason I'm not as active in the comments as I'd like. The second reason has to do with the subject of this post. And it has to do with dumbfounding.

If you've read Unclean or The Authenticity of Faith you know I've been thinking a lot about how dumbfounding affects groups. For example, in a recent post I used dumbfounding to analyze why groups, like churches, get into fights about appropriate dress.

To review, dumbfounding (discovered by psychologist Jonathan Haidt) occurs when people make normative judgments based upon their feelings and then struggle to produce reasons for those judgments.

Dumbfounding takes its cue from the thought of David Hume who famously argued that "reason is the slave of the passions." The argument here is that emotions are primary. We feel before we think. Thinking, in this instance, is more about post hoc justification than a process of discernment.

This very different from how we think things should work. We tend to think our feelings follow our reasons. We like to think, when faced with a judgment we have to make, that we reason things out and then respond, emotionally and behaviorally. Deliberation and reasons come first followed by feelings and actions. We discern something to be bad and, in light of that discernment, feel moral outrage well up within us.

But it doesn't really work that way. According to Hume it's the other way around. Feelings come first. We feel the moral outrage and, in light of those feelings, go in search of reasons as to why. Thinking, in this instance, isn't producing our outrage but is being used to explain the existence of our feelings, to ourselves and our neighbors.

Here's the practical import of all this: Reasons aren't persuasive. Reasons are self-justifications.

And this explains why I struggle with certain comments on the blog (and on other blogs). Particularly comments disagreeing with me.

To be clear, I'm not saying that when people disagree with me they don't have good reasons or solid arguments. It's just that I don't find those arguments persuasive. Largely, and this is key, for a host of emotional reasons. Consequently, until I feel differently about things, until my affections change, exchanging self-justifications in the comments section of a blog isn't going to move the conversation forward. It's a dumbfounding situation.

We've all experienced this or seen it happen in blog conversations. Like many of you I've engaged in a lot of blog debates over the years and I've never seen two people who have disagreed sharply on an issue reach an agreement by the end of the exchange. And more often than not, rather than bringing people closer together these conversations tend to deteriorate. And why is that? It's because we are dumbfounded. Things get emotional because beneath all the verbal give and take there is a set strong feelings sitting close to the surface that regularly spills over.

So at the end of the day if you and I disagree strongly I'm not sure we have a whole lot to say to each other. I'm not trying to be dismissive in saying that. I'm making an empirical prediction.

Consider an example. Let's talk about our current President. Is he doing a good job? Imagine two people with strong feelings on the subject, someone who thinks he's doing a horrible job and someone who thinks he is doing a great job (or the best job anyone could do). Do we really think these two individuals can objectively exchange reasons and data that could convince the other?

No way.

And if that's the case, why bother arguing about it on a blog?

That said, I do think there are people on the fence. People with no firm opinions. Seekers. People who at a particular time in life, due to their life experiences, feel their affections changing. I'll respond to the questions of seekers. And you can sense this openness pretty quickly in a comment/er. By contrast, I will tend to leave outright disagreement alone.

Beyond the dumbfounding research, my choice here is informed by the work of William James, particularly his essay "The Will to Believe."

In the essay James talks about hypotheses (positions and arguments we might offer to each other in these blog debates) being, using a electrical metaphor, either live or dead options for us. James describing this:

Let us give the name of hypothesis to anything that may be proposed to our belief; and just as the electricians speak of live and dead wires, let us speak of any hypothesis as either live or dead. A live hypothesis is one which appeals as a real possibility to him to whom it is proposed. If I ask you to believe in the Mahdi, the notion makes no electric connection with your nature--it refuses to scintillate with any credibility at all. As an hypothesis it is completely dead. To an Arab, however (even if he be not one of the Mahdi's followers), the hypothesis is among the mind's possibilities: it is alive. This show the deadness and liveness in an hypothesis are not intrinsic properties, but relations to the individual thinker.

Our emotions are hugely implicated in how ideas become alive or dead to us. And you can sense in an argument the degree to which the other person is "live" to the position or argument you are offering. By contrast, when you sense the person is "dead" to the idea I'd say it's time to move on.

And to be confessional, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I'll readily admit to being "dead" to a host of ideas. For example, I'm pretty "dead" to Calvinism. Nothing in it attracts me, emotionally or intellectually. Calvinism does not "scintillate with any credibility" in my heart or mind. So yes, I admit, I'm pretty hard to talk to or convince on that score.

But this isn't to say that I don't want dissent registered on the blog. Dissent reminds everyone that there are many sides to an issue. And that's important to prevent the creation of echo chambers.

And to be sure Hume wasn't 100% correct. Many of us make decisions based upon rational deliberation. More, these reasons are often used to battle our emotional and knee-jerk reactions. Ideas previously dead to us can come to life.

But then again, I still think this has more to do with emotional maturity than with anything else. Wisdom is learning to hold your feelings in abeyance to give yourself time to think, listen and learn. You can't think well if you can't control your emotions. Emotional self-control is a prerequisite to critical thinking.

At the end of the day, this is what I think about strong blog disagreements. I think we aren't really disagreeing. We just feel differently about things. About God. About government. About moral issues and hot-button topics (and emotions are why they are called hot). About all sorts of stuff.

You feel one way and I feel another way. And that about sums it up.

I'm going to try and see if I might write a few poems about the life of Jesus. These attempts will show up under the heading "The Jesus Poems." So, to start, a poem entitled "Incarnation":

In the beginning
was a bastard.
Or so rumored.
Voices carried
on a Nazarene breeze,
from shadowy doorways,
down dusty streets.
The gift
of a small town.
And an ancestry
of prostitutes
and murderers.
All this--
the emptying
the pouring out
the lowering
the descent--
kenosis and condescension.
The Incarnation.
The Word made flesh
in that boy walking by
under whispers.

Yesterday I was asked to participate in a Chapel Conversation on campus. This particular Chapel Conversation is called "Jesus is Crackers" and it takes on controversial topics. The speaker is to address a hot-button topic by presenting both sides of the issue.

There are two microphones, one on each side of the stage. You are to start on one side of the stage and argue one side of the case. You then walk to the other microphone and disagree with yourself. And then the chapel ends on that open-ended note.

My assigned topic was same sex marriage. Specifically, can same sex marriages be considered holy and sanctified? Phrased another way, are same sex marriages reflections of the image of God?

This was my argument for the position that, no, same sex marriages are not reflective of the image of God:

Same sex marriages are not in the image of God because when God created humanity in God's image Genesis 1.27 says "male and female he created them." Thus, the model for marriage is Adam and Eve. The basis of marriage is biological complementarity. This understanding is supported in Romans 1 where Paul describes same sex relations as "unnatural." In light of this, the command God gives to marriage, as a reflection of God's image, is reproduction ("be fruitful and multiply"). Obviously, same sex marriages are not based on biological complementarity and cannot procreate. Thus, same sex marriages cannot reflect the image of God. The theology informing this understanding is creation theology.

This was my argument for the position that, yes, same sex marriages are reflective of the image of God:

Same sex marriages are in the image of God because the model for marriage is Yahweh and Israel rather than Adam and Eve. Thus, the basis of marriage is grace and election, God choosing Israel from among the nations. The primacy of election/grace over biology is supported in Romans 11 where God is found "unnaturally" grafting the Gentiles into the covenant with Israel. In light of this, the command God gives to marriage to reflect God's image is covenant faithfulness. Obviously, same sex marriages display the grace of election and can model covenant faithfulness. Thus, same sex marriages can reflect the image of God. The theology informing this understanding is salvation history.

If you read a lot of Christian blogs you'll have seen some conversation in response to Timothy Dalrymple's post about how bloggers increase pageviews. In light of that conversation let me share my secrets about how to achieve blogging success:

1. Blog from a really cool platform like blogspot.com. Avoid owning a domain name like experimentaltheology.com. Working from blogspot.com signals that you aren't a serious, big time blogger. That you blog with the same platform as grandmothers and high school kids with something important to say.

2. Refuse to join Twitter or Facebook. Completely handicap your ability to tweet your blog posts, post them on Facebook or interact with other bloggers. Make it really, really hard for people to find you and follow you. Make it seem like you don't exist. Play coy. The more obstacles to reaching a new readership the better.

3. Write really, really long and jargon filled posts. More, string these posts together in a ongoing series so that new readers will 1) have to read for twenty hours to catch up or 2) have no freaking idea what you're talking about. People want to surf blog posts quickly. So thwart them. Make them sit down for 30 minutes to read. Force them to consult a dictionary. People enjoy that experience. Tempt all readers--nay, damn well dare them--to write tl;dr in the comments.

4. Share your poetry with them.

Over the last few posts we've reached the following conclusions.

Our slavery to the fear of death is largely implicated in the ways we construct our identity, the ways we pursue meaning and self-esteem. We do this by neurotically borrowing an identity from what the bible calls "the principalities and powers," our cultural worldviews, ideologies, and institutions. In biblical language we engage in idolatry, serving cultural images that are, at root, projections of our fears.

The principalities and powers, along with the self-images they create via idolatry, are aligned with sin and the satanic in that the idols have to be believed absolutely (i.e., appear to us as God or as godlike) if they are to function as anxiety buffers. This causes us to engage in worldview defense, denigrating and demonizing outgroup members who call our worldview into question.

What we see in all this is how we create a fear-based identity which makes us inherently defensive and prone to rivalry and violence. Driven by existential anxiety, identity and self-esteem are "enslaved to the fear of death" and, thus, produce sin and "the works of the devil." Here we have a psychological description that converges upon the biblical witness: "the sting of death is sin." More, we also now understand, at a deep psychological level, why "perfect love" must "cast out fear." The fear of death causes us to create an identity that makes us vulnerable to sin and the satanic. The biblical term for this vulnerability, a weakness rooted in mortality fears, is sarx, variously translated as "flesh" or "the sinful nature." Consequently, to step out of sin, death, and the satanic, to move toward love, we need to escape the "slavery of the fear of death" in how we form our self-concepts.

So how does the bible describe this process of salvation and liberation from sin, death, and the devil?

Perhaps paradoxically, though this series makes this obvious, both Jesus and Paul describe salvation as a sort of death. To be saved is to die and be raised again. Here is Jesus on this point:

Mark 8.34-36
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

According to Jesus we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and lose our life. We must die. Literally? Possibly, but in this text Jesus contrasts "the cross" with "gaining the whole world." And given our psychological analyses we get a sense of what Jesus is talking about. We can construct an identity in one of two ways. On the one hand, we can try to "gain the world." That is, we can pursue self-esteem via idolatry, by serving the principalities and powers. By contrast, we can take up the cross and die to this pursuit. In the language of Paul from the last post we can treat "gaining the whole world" as "rubbish."

Given Jesus's language--taking up our cross--we might say that Jesus is calling us to adopt a martyrological identity. An identity based upon dying to the world. In the language of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

Craig Hovey, in his book To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today's Church, describes the martyrological identity this way:

Askesis (from which asceticism is derived) is a term that names the training or discipline of self-denial...In the same way, martyrdom names not an ethic but an effect or outcome of the askesis of one's whole life, one's needs, and the way of life that would meet them...The way of of Jesus requires the unseating of those modes of behavior, ways of life, desires, and thoughts that are conditioned on scales of self-preservation, self-protection, and security for one's life...The virtues necessary to be a martyr are no different from the virtues necessary to be a faithful Christian. This means that martyrdom is not a special calling for a select few but the commitment of every Christian and the responsibility of every church.

A martyrological identity means "the unseating of those modes of behavior, ways of life, desires, and thoughts that are conditioned on the scales of self-preservation, self-protection, and security for one's life." We've discussed in this series a great deal what happens when our identities are based upon "self-preservation, self-protection, and security for one's life." Recall the words of Orthodox theologian John Romanides from earlier in this series:

Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man's fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him...Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man's weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent.

But as we've seen, this goes deeper than mere self-preservation. Few of us are scrapping for bits of food. As described in the last few posts, we noted how the quest for self-preservation takes a neurotic turn, how we build our self-esteem to convince ourselves that our lives are meaningful and durable in the face of death. It is true that our need for self-preservation can cause us to become violent in desperate survival situations. But our neurotic quest of self-preservation can also motivate violence and rivalry. And it's my argument in this series that the "slavery to the fear of death" is manifested here at this neurotic level.

The point is, a martyrological identity isn't about physical courage in the face of death. Rather, a martyrological identity involves existential courage in the resistance of idolatry, dying to efforts to win self-esteem by "gaining the world."

But note that there is a relationship between the martyr's existential and physical courage. The latter produces the former. The reason Jesus could go to the cross non-violently was because he wasn't existentially anxious. Had he been Jesus would have resisted death and become violent. It's Jesus's existential courage, his relaxedness in the face of Pilate, that allowed him to remain non-violent, allowed him to love.

When we turn from Jesus to Paul we find a similar analysis. The clearest treatment of this subject in Paul comes from Romans 6:

Romans 6.1-16
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Paul's argument parallels Jesus's call to discipleship. Christians, because they have been baptized, are dead to sin as Christ is dead to sin. We have been "buried with Christ" and "baptized into his death." This means that our "old self was crucified with Christ." And this crucifixion sets us "free from sin."

What might this mean? It's clear in this passage that Paul is talking about an ongoing process and struggle. Paul is asking his readers to live up and into to their baptism. In light of their imitation of Jesus's death Paul asks his readers to "count themselves dead to sin." How exactly? Paul is clear on this point: "Do no offer any part of yourself to wickedness." By refusing wickedness we act before God as those "who have been brought from death to life." Paul concludes by bringing in another metaphor: slavery. To be dead to sin is to refuse to be a slave to sin. Paul asks the question of his readers: Are you going to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness? This echos Jesus's call: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." We have some choices to make.

I like Craig Hovey's take on this. He notes in To Share in the Body that Christian baptism is "a kind of drowning" that connects us with the death of Jesus.: "The surging waters of the baptismal do not only cleanse, they kill; they do not only wash the body, the destroy it."

But what, exactly, is destroyed and killed? Hovey goes on to describe it as a change of allegiances:

In baptism, a human individual is transferred from the world to the church. The world registers a loss in loyalty; the church registers an advance in loyalty...Because of this shift, baptism marks a definite realignment of power...If the church grows through the initiation of one member at a time, it seemingly shrinks through an equivalent but opposite process. The world attempts to regain its lost members, to secure its former loyalties, and to establish its earlier power. In this way, baptism is an overtly political act. Like the burning of draft cards, baptism declares a switched identity, a refusal to be one thing and a determination to be something else...Transferring citizenship from one kingdom to another is the action performed in baptism, but it also signals entrance into a temptation to trade new citizenship back for the old, to render back to the worldly powers the souls of God's people, the church.

All this fits with the analyses of the last few posts. In baptism we declare ourselves as "dead to the world," counting it all "rubbish" and "loss." We begin the daily struggle to kill off our previous loyalties, the ways we idolatrously pursued self-esteem and meaning. We die to the sinful identity, the "old self" that was enslaved to sin because of the way sarx is pushed and pulled by mortality fears (overtly and neurotically). We do this by no longer pursuing an identity based on ersatz meaning that papers over our neurotic anxieties in the face of death.

That is what the cross represents. We are dead to the world. The allures of the world, which use fear-through-self-esteem to tempt us, hold no attraction for us. That, at least, is the goal. Practically, it means daily taking up your cross as a follower of Jesus and counting the world as loss.

On the other side of this death is the experience of resurrection. As Jesus says, if we lose our life we'll find it. As Paul says, we are alive to God in Christ Jesus. Resurrection, in this instance, is about being set free from the slavery to the fear of death and the life that becomes available to us as a consequence. This is the emancipation and liberation of Christus Victor. As I've argued it, an emancipation that is largely psychological in nature and function. Resurrection is experienced in an identity no longer affected by death. Here is how William Stringfellow describes it:

Resurrection...refers to the transcendence of the power of death and the fear or thrall of the power of death, here and now, in this life, in this world. Resurrection, thus, has to do with life and, indeed, the fulfillment of life before death.

...

[Christ's] power over death is effective not just at the terminal point of a person's life but throughout one's life, during this life in this world, right now. This power is effective in the times and places in the daily lives of human beings when they are so gravely and relentlessly assailed by the claims of principalities for an idolatry that, in spite of all disguises, really surrenders to death as the reigning presence in the life of the world. His resurrection means the possibility of living in this life, in the very midst of death's works, safe and free from death.

And finally, we come to see in all this why love is the sign of the resurrected life. Fear, we've come to see, is the enemy of love. Fear causes us to construct an idolatrous identity that makes us rivalrous toward ingroup members and violent toward outgroup member. Thus, for love to emerge we have to be set free from the fear of death. So it stands to reason that "perfect love casts out fear." Finally it all becomes very clear, the relationship between resurrection and love.

No one said it better than John:

1 John 3.14
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

There is little light
in the world.
Too many black corners
of meanness,
cruelty.
And cold loneliness.
So we linger
and warm ourselves
when we find the soft flicker
of kindness
and love--
fragile, precious, tenuous
wisps of flame in the wind.
Rejoice in these.
And bless.
There is only more darkness
in the extinguishment.

Matthew 27.45-46
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,lema sabachthani?”

Psalm 22.1,6
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?

But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

After my statistics class yesterday one of my students came up to me and wanted to talk about worms.

The worm in question is the worm mentioned in Psalm 22.6: "But I am a worm and not a man."

As we know, Psalm 22 was the psalm Jesus cries out from the cross, "Eli, Eli,lema sabachthani?" ("My God, my God why have you forsaken me?").

Is there a connection between the worm in verse six and Jesus's cry from the cross?

Apparently, the Hebrew word for worm in Psalm 22.6 is towla' which has two meanings, "worm" and "scarlet/crimson."

The connection between the worm and the color red has to do with the fact that this particular worm was the "scarlet worm" (Kermes ilicis or Coccus ilicis). The Kermes worm is where we get the word crimson because this was the worm that was used to create red dye around the ancient Mediterranean. The worm isn't really a worm but a scale insect that attaches itself to trees, generally oaks, to feed off the sap (see picture above). Jesus would have seen the Kermes worm on Palestine Oaks (Quercus calliprino).

While affixed to the tree the female worm would give birth to a brood and then die. Toward the end of this cycle the mother's body would bloat and fill with a red fluid that would stain the tree. The ancients would collect these dead bodies and the eggs to make a crimson dye.

So the worm in Psalm 22.6 is an insect that leaves a crimson stain on a tree.

What is interesting here, theologically, is how the image of the worm, and Jesus's invocation of it, may have less to do with the status of the worm on some hierarchy of beings, with worms being base and lowly, than with the color of blood. And even if this isn't the proper reading it sure is an interesting one.

The worm invokes the red-stained tree of the Crucified One.