In Unclean I paint a picture of radical hospitality, a vision based on Jesus's own ministry of table fellowship with "tax collectors and sinners." And as I've made that argument people often point to passages in the bible that seem to push against that vision. One such passage comes from Matthew 18:

Matthew 18.15-17
[Jesus said:] “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector."

This is one of those passages that has been used to support practices of exclusion and excommunication within the church. Specifically, if a fellow brother or sister is in sin and fails to repent at the encouragement of the church we are to "treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector." That is, we are to shun them.

But I wonder if that interpretation makes any sense. This passage in Matthew is found between two parables of forgiveness, the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matthew 18.10-14) and the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18.21-35).

In the Parable of the Lost Sheep we see the good shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to find the one lost sheep. And after finding that sheep a party is thrown.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant begins with Peter's question: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?" Jesus responds: "Seven times seventy times" and goes on to tell the parable which concludes with these words: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

In light of these parables which bookend Jesus's discussion of "church discipline" how are we to understand Jesus's call to treat the unrepentant as "pagans and tax collectors"? On the surface it seems that the message of Matthew 18.15-17 contradicts the parables surrounding it.

The key, I think, to resolving the tension is found in observing how Jesus interacted with "tax collectors and sinners." That is, it makes no sense to read Jesus as telling his followers to treat tax collectors and sinners like the Pharisees were treating tax collectors and sinners. Recall the contrast observed earlier in Matthew 9:

Matthew 9.10-13a
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

These concluding words--"For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners"--is an almost perfect anticipation of the Parable of the Lost Sheep: "And if the shepherd finds the lost sheep, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off."

How might this understanding--we treat tax collectors as Jesus treated tax collectors--change how people have read Matthew  18.15-17? Well, it changes it completely. No longer is this text read as a mandate for exclusion, as a warrant for kicking people out. Rather what we find is a mandate for inclusion, a warrant for sending and seeking and embracing. True, if a brother or sister is engaged in sin our relationship within the church is altered. You've become "a lost sheep" and a "tax collector."

But if I am following Jesus that doesn't mean I'm excluding you. It actually means I'm pursuing you and spending more time with you than ever before.

I'm leaving the ninety-nine sheep back at the church and hanging out with you in the wilderness.

The passing of Walter Wink has caused me to pick up and re-read the third book in his Powers Trilogy, Engaging the Powers. In reading his analysis of Revelation 12-13 I was struck by his potent description of exorcism.

For background recall that in Revelation 12-13 we have a vision of two Beasts where the second Beast "deceives the inhabitants of the world" causing them to worship and give allegiance to the first Beast (and the Dragon sits behind them both). In this passage Wink is speaking to how the Powers use deception to gain compliance and allegiance. Exorcism, as Wink describes it, is casting out--naming and externalizing--these demonic illusions. In this view, all social resistance begins with exorcism.

Of first significant is the fact that the insights of these chapters are given as revelations. John sees what for others is invisible (13:1,2,11); what has previously been unseen "appears" to him (12:1,3). Discernment does not entail esoteric knowledge, but rather the gift of seeing reality as it really is. Nothing is more rare, or more revolutionary, than an accurate description of reality. The struggle for a precise "naming" of the Powers that assail us is itself an essential part of social struggle.

The seer does not, however, simply read off the spirituality of the empire or an institution from its observed behavior. The situation is more complex. The demonic spirit of the outer structure has already been internalized by the seer, along with everyone else. That is how the empire wins compliance. The seer's gift is not to be immune to invasion by the empire's spirituality, but to be able to discern that internalized spirituality, name it, and externalize it. This drives the demonic out of concealment. What is hidden is now revealed. The seer is enabled to hear her own voice chanting the slogans of the Powers, is shown that they are a lie, and is empowered to expel them. The seer locates the source of the chanting outside, and is set free from them.

It was my great honor and pleasure to sit down with Raborn Johnson for the Beyond the Box podcast about my recent series The Slavery of Death.

This will be a three part series. The first part--The Sting of Death is Sin--is now up at the Beyond the Box website. Much of the discussion, if you'd like to participate, will be at the Beyond the Box site on Facebook.

I'll keep you posted when parts two and three come online.

Enjoy!

Given our recent conversations about the moral vision of Jesus--how Jesus envisioned uprightness before God--I spent some of my bible study time on Saturday making a study guide for the Sermon on the Mount. I wanted to make a condensed but comprehensive moral inventory of the Sermon.

So here it is, my Study Guide for the Sermon on the Mount:

Do not be egoistical or self-absorbed.
Weep over the pain of this world.
Be gentle, tender and kind.
Wake up wanting to be a better person.
Show mercy to others.
Be sincere, genuine and real.
Work for the cause of peace.
People should notice that you are different, in a good way.
Let go of your anger toward others.
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything.
Reconciliation is more important than going to church.
Try to resolve conflicts face to face.
Do not sexually objectify others.
Honor, and do not easily break, your marital vows.
Live with integrity and be true to your word.
Practice non-violence.
Give and serve generously.
Love your enemies and pray for them.
In practicing your faith you should look religionless to the world.
Keep your prayers short.
Forgive.
Do not be materialistic.
Let go of worry.
Stop judging others and take a hard, honest look at yourself.
Guard your heart around the callous, hostile and brutal.
Ask, seek and knock trusting in God to care for you.
Don't follow the spirituality of the crowd. The way of the Kingdom will never be a fad.
Orthopraxy is the test of orthodoxy.
Obedience is where it all starts.
This isn't an academic exercise. This shall be your Rule of Life.

This was a fun and interesting thing to do. Sort of like making your own personal version of The Message. I'd encourage you to try it. If you post your study guide publicly please link to it in the comments so we can see, compare, learn, and be edified. I think someone with more poetry than I or with deeper biblical and theological insights could produce something really powerful and beautiful. It'd also be really cool to see someone turn the Sermon into a poem.

I also think this would be an interesting activity for a bible class or study group to do with people going around and sharing their summarizations aloud (e.g., what does it mean to be "pure in heart"?) 

For those wanting to correlate my Study Guide with the textbook, here's the key:

Do not be egoistical or self-absorbed. (5.3)
Weep over the pain in this world.(5.4)
Be gentle, tender and kind. (5.5)
Wake up wanting to be a better person. (5.6)
Show mercy to others. (5.7)
Be sincere, genuine and real. (5.8)
Work for the cause of peace. (5.9)
People should notice that you are different, in a good way. (5.13-16)
Let go of your anger toward others. (5.21-22)
If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. (5.21-22)
Reconciliation is more important than going to church. (5.23-24)
Try to resolve conflicts face to face. (5.25-26)
Do not sexually objectify others. (5.27-30)
Honor, and do not easily break, your marital vows. (5.31-32)
Live with integrity and be true to your word. (5.33-37)
Practice non-violence. (5.38-39)
Give and serve generously. (5.40-42)
Love your enemies and pray for them. (5.43-48)
In practicing your faith you should look religionless to the world. (6.1-7,16-18)
Keep your prayers short. (6.7-8)
Forgive. (6.14-15)
Do not be materialistic. (6.19-24)
Let go of worry. (6.25-34)
Stop judging others and take a hard, honest look at yourself. (7.1-5)
Guard your heart around the callous, hostile and brutal. (7.6)
Ask, seek and knock trusting in God to care for you. (7.7-12)
Don't follow the spirituality of the crowd. The way of the Kingdom will never be a fad. (7.13-14)
Orthdopraxy is the test of orthodoxy. (7.15-20)
Obedience is where it all starts. (7.21-23)
This isn't an academic exercise. This shall be your Rule of Life. (7.24-27)

The Spirit poured out
on Jesus at the Jordan
is poured out
upon those
baptized in his name.

The Spirit that animated
the life of Jesus
now animates
the life
of his sisters and brothers.

The Spirit that raised
Jesus from the dead
still raises
dry bones
from Sheol.

The Spirit, the breath
in the lungs of Jesus
remains the breath
of the Body
of Christ.

In yesterday's post--"Go And Sin No More."--I was discussing the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery. Specifically, I was discussing how this story is frequently used by people wanting to push back on radical calls to hospitality. The fact that Jesus sent the woman off with the words "Go and sin no more" suggests to some that Jesus's welcome of "tax collectors and sinners" was not as radical and scandalous as might seem.

So in my post I opportunistically used the fact that John 8.1-11 isn't found in the earliest manuscripts we have of John. Most modern translations of the bible (even "conservative" translations like the ESV) have a footnote to this effect. In light of that, I suggested, for the sake of argument, that we imagine that this passage isn't in the bible, or, at the very least, imagine that this passage is a bit less authoritative. In light of that imagining--and that's all I'm asking for, a theological Gedankenexperiment--I went on to ask, where else in the gospels could you go to get Jesus saying something similar to the "Go and sin no more" of John 8.11?

Alastair Roberts suggested John 5.14. The full story:

John 5.1-15 (ESV)
After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 

Jesus tells the man to "sin no more" (ESV; "stop sinning" in the NIV). Is this an equivalent passage if we lost John 8.11? Could John 5.14 lift the same theological weight as John 8.11?

My take, and this is just my take, is yes and no.

But before we get to that we have to deal with the difficulty of the text. And, truth be told, this difficulty might rule out John 5.14 as a backup for John 8.11. Specifically, on one reading of the text it seems that Jesus is telling the man that his sin caused his lameness. If that is what Jesus is suggesting we have a really difficult passage on our hands. So difficult that we'd want to take some care in deploying it. Part of the appeal of John 8.11 is that it occurs in such a great story. Perhaps the most well-known story in all of the gospels. In addition Jesus's admonition "Go and sin no more" seems non-controversial: Don't continue to commit adultery. Who could disagree with that?

But if John 8.1-11 didn't exist (in our thought experiment) I can't see people using John 5.14 with a similar zest and frequency. I find in hard to imagine that people would use John 5.14 as they currently use John 8.11: "Hey, calm down that radical hospitality, that radical welcome of sinners. Didn't Jesus tell the lame man to 'sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.'?"

I really don't see that happening.

That said, I don't think Jesus is saying that the man's lameness was punishment for his sin. I think Jesus is simply telling the man that he's got a fresh start and that there are some strings attached. The healing, the in-breaking of the Kingdom, is not a blank check. I think Jesus is saying, "Yes, you've been healed. Physically you've been released from the bondage of Satan. But what about spiritually? Going forward if you neglect your soul there will be something worse waiting for you." I don't think Jesus is talking about the past, about a 38-year old sin. I think he's talking about accountability in the future going forward.

So I don't think we need to read Jesus's words as saying that physical disability can be a punishment for sin. But if we don't read the story that way we have, instead, a reading that reads pretty much the way John 8.11 reads: a strong admonition going forward to "sin no more."

So in that sense, I agree with Alastair that John 5.14 sends the same message as John 8.11. "Sin no more."

But here is where I think the two texts are a bit different.

What makes the argument from John 8.11 so potent is the sexual frame. The sin is clearly stated. Adultery. So when Jesus says to the woman "Go and sin no more" we know exactly what he's referring to: adultery.

Recall again when the John 8.11 card gets played. It gets played when the radical hospitality has gotten too radical, when it's gotten "soft on sin." And the sins here tend to be the typical puritanical vices with sexual sins often at the head of the list. Given this, John 8.11 has some punch. Jesus isn't soft on those sexual sins. And we shouldn't be either.

The trouble is, Jesus did seem very welcoming of these sexual sinners. That's what got him in hot water with the Pharisees, why the radical hospitality of his table fellowship was so scandalous and, well, "soft on sin."

Truth be told, I do think there is a dialectic at work here. Jesus's "neither do I condemn you" playing off "go and sin no more." The trouble I have isn't with the dialectic. Let me be clear about that. My trouble is that the "go and sin no more" isn't used dialectically but as a means to undermine the "neither do I condemn you," a means to reduce the scandal of Jesus's eating with tax collectors and sinners. That's what I'm objecting to, the use of John 8.11 to reduce the scandal of Jesus's radical hospitality--then and now.

And here's where I think John 5.14 differs from John 8.11 in this regard. In John 5.14 we don't know what the sin was that the man had committed. In fact, if we read Jesus as I've suggested Jesus isn't really talking about a sin in the past (like the woman in John 8). Jesus is looking forward. The healed man has a clean slate. But there are strings attached. Sin no more, Jesus says. And we might ask, what sins is the man to avoid?

Ah, that's the rub.

In John 8.11 we know exactly what sin Jesus is telling the woman to avoid. Stop sleeping around, he's saying. But what is Jesus asking of the man in John 5.14? The admonition is more vague and open-ended. No particular sin is implicated. So we are left to fill in that void. We ask, what sorts of things did Jesus condemn? How did Jesus define sin? What sorts of things got Jesus really hot under the collar? Sexual sins? The puritanical sorts of sins? Or other sorts of things?

These sorts of questions bring me back to the point of the original post. Outside of John 8.11 where do we see Jesus saying "Go and sin no more"? John 5.14 is one such place. But John 5.14 has two problems. First, it's such a difficult text it raises more questions than it answers. But, secondly, even if those problems can be surmounted (and I showed above how I deal with them) the text is open-ended and asks us to fill in the blank: When Jesus says "sin no more" in John 5.14 what sorts of things does Jesus condemn in the gospels?

For Jesus sin is _______.

How that blank is filled in is what I'm most interested in.

Whenever you discuss Jesus's radical welcome and embrace of "tax collectors and sinners" someone will eventually try to throw some cold water by bringing up John 8.1-11.

This is the famous story of the woman caught in the act of adultery. After challenging the men accusing the woman--"Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”--causing them to drop their stones and walk off, Jesus turns to the woman:

“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you...” 

So far, so good. Jesus doesn't condemn the women like the men have. But that's not Jesus's final word. His parting word is this:

"Go and sin no more."

The way John 8.1-11 rhetorically functions in many conversations is as evidence that Jesus had moral standards. Jesus's embrace wasn't unconditional, it had strings attached. That is, Jesus's welcoming of tax collectors and sinners wasn't as radical as we might think. We must recall, the argument goes, that Jesus told the woman "Go and sin no more." And so, the argument continues, the church should follow Jesus's lead. We should embrace the sinners of the world but we need to tell them to "Go and sin no more."

The trouble with this, from a practical standpoint, is that way too often this is the first, last and only word the church offers the world. Instead of "Neither do I condemn you" it's always "Go and sin no more."

But I'd like to make a different point today. And it's this:

John 8.1-11 isn't even in the Bible.

Or at least not in the earliest manuscripts we have of John.  Check any modern translation.

Now, to be clear, I don't really want to push this too far. I don't really have a problem accepting John 8.1-11 as canonical. I mainly bring this up so we can ponder something.

Let's say John 8.1-11 really isn't a part of the Bible as certain evidence might suggest. Let's say that Jesus never said "Go and sin no more." Imagine those words aren't in the Bible. Then ask yourself this: is there anywhere else in the gospels where Jesus says anything similar?

And if not, what might that mean for our understanding of Jesus's radical embrace of tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners?

Food for thought.

In a few weeks--June 5-7--I'll be in Baltimore speaking at the Theology & Peace conference (details here). The Theology & Peace conference is inspired by the work of René Girard and seeks to "gather theologians, pastors, activists, and others interested in applying the insights of mimetic theory for the formation of an authentic and effective theology of peace." If you are going to the conference I hope to see you there.

If not, I might catch you in Chicago this fall for the annual SBL/AAR conference. Unclean will be a part of the book session hosted by the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, another group interested in the applications of Girard's work. I've never been to SBL/AAR. As a psychologist it's not my professional conference. Maybe I'll see some of you there. Look for me, I'll be the psychologist.

At both conferences I'll be talking about the work in Unclean (primarily Chapter 6 "Monsters and Scapegoats") that tries to make connections between purity psychology and the practices of scapegoating.

The connection seems clear as the scapegoating ritual in Leviticus is a purification ritual rooted in the notion of expulsion--expelling the scapegoat, along with the sins laid upon it, into the wilderness.

Leviticus 16.6-10, 20-22a
“Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat...

“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place...

As I argue in Unclean, the connection between purity and expulsion is rooted in the dynamics of disgust psychology, how we push away or vomit out contaminating and foul substances. At root, there seems to be a deep psychological connection between purity psychology and scapegoating.

But the argument I make in Unclean goes further. 

René Girard argues that prior to the gospels religious myth--the sacred--obscured the scapegoating mechanism. Rather than seeing victims being murdered we see sacralized violence, violence backed by the decree, plan, and will of the gods. According to Girard, the gospels desacralize violence, exposing scapegoating for what it is: murder. The gospels accomplish this feat by reading the scapegoating story from the inside out, from the perspective of the victim. As we follow Jesus through the Passion narrative the story is keen to declare him as innocent. So why is he killed? The story reveals that Jesus is killed because there are a variety of constituencies vying for power. Jesus is killed so that these powerful constituencies can maintain the status quo or gain leverage against each other (particularly as they try to exploit and use public opinion against each other).

So telling the story from the victim's perspective desacralizes violence, it exposes the powerplays and violence at work when we scapegoat. And because of this we know scapegoating to be a bad thing. Girard would argue that the gospels played a key role in this moralizing of scapegoating.

And yet we continue to engage in scapegoating. We know scapegoating to be a bad thing but we haven't stopped.

Why?

This is an interesting question because the pagan myths that sacralized violence before the gospels are no longer with us. The gospels, it seems, did a bang up job in exposing the violence of sacrifice, animal and human. And yet while the obscuring myths have been eradicated we know that scapegoating continues to happen. But why does this happen if the mechanism has been exposed, laid bare and is now open to view? Why, if we know scapegoating to be wrong and evil, do we still do it? If the gospels made scapegoating more transparent why are we still blind to it?

Something, it seems, is still obscuring the mechanism. And if it's no longer pagan myth then what is it?

I think you could make a pretty strong case that we've just replaced the old myths with other myths. What sort of myths? My hunch is that the myths of old weren't really about pagan gods. My hunch is that those myths were really about Empire--the principalities and powers. And those myths are still very much with us. Myths of God and Country continue to sacralize violence.

But the case I make in Unclean has less to do with mythology than with psychology. Recall the intimate psychological association between purity and scapegoating. My argument in Unclean is that scapegoating continues to plague us, even in this disenchanted age, because a suite of psychological processes mask the scapegoating mechanism. Rather than myth certain psychological mechanisms hide the violence from our eyes. The reason we scapegoat is because we don't see our violence as an example of scapegoating. If we saw this we'd stop.

So what's the problem? Well, as I argue in Unclean the problem is that we don't see scapegoats.

We see monsters.

Some days--and these are very, very few--I wish I could Tweet.

If I could Tweet I'd Tweet Rachel Held Evan's post today--"All right, then, I'll go to hell."

My hunch is that a lot of you follow both our blogs and you've already read Rachel's post, but if you haven't it's an awesome piece. The center of the post are Huck's moral reflections about Jim, but this part of Rachel's post...

I often think about Huck’s resolution when I am told by religious leaders that “the Bible is clear” on this or that, and that I’ve got to stop listening to those gut feelings that tell me maybe we’ve gotten a few things wrong, that maybe there’s more to the story than we’re ready to see.

“Your feelings don’t matter,” they say.

“Your feelings cannot be trusted,” they say.

“Once you start listening to your feelings, over and beyond the plain meaning of Scripture, it’s a slippery slope to hell,” they say.

 ...reminded me of my post last week about Orthodox Alexithymia.

Here's praying that we all follow Huck and think up something worse to do.

In discussing the doctrine of universal reconciliation in Christ one of the objections you often hear is that this doctrine rejects the cross of Jesus, rejects the atoning work of Jesus's death. This is a huge misunderstanding.

The issue, in my opinion, boils down to this: Is forgiveness actual or potential?

Ponder the relationship between God and those who, at this moment, stand in a place of rebellion toward God. Are these people, in light of Jesus's death for them, already forgiven? Or is God currently withholding forgiveness, waiting for the person to respond and repent? In the former forgiveness is actual--the death of Jesus created a new state of affairs, a new reality, a reality where the wall of enmity between God and humanity has been eradicated. In the latter view forgiveness is potential--you're not yet forgiven. The death of Christ, in this view, merely opens up the possibility for forgiveness. But as things stand right now you are not forgiven.

This contrast--Is forgiveness actual or potential?--goes to the heart of the debates of what is called the "New Perspective" on Paul. Some of this debate swirls around how we render Paul's use of the phrase Pistis Christou.

What we all agree on is that pistis means "faith" in Greek and that christou means "Christ." So far so good. But in the Greek there is some genitive ambiguity concerning how the two nouns--faith and Christ--are to relate to each other. Martin Luther, and those who followed him, translated Pistis Christou as "faith in Christ." But a growing number of scholars (e.g., Richard Hays, N.T. Wright) have argued that the proper translation of Pistis Christou should be "faith of Christ."

Theologically, the translational differences go to the issue of the actual versus potential nature of forgiveness. In Martin Luther's rendering--faith in Jesus--forgiveness is potential. Forgiveness is contingent upon the act of faith. You need to believe and then, once you've done that, you are forgiven. By contrast, the New Perspective rendering--faith of Jesus--focuses upon the faithfulness of Jesus in creating a new reality. Because of the work of Christ on the cross the wall of hostility and accusation between God and humanity was finally and decisively broken down. Forgiveness becomes our new reality. A new world has been created. Everyone has already been forgiven in Christ. The call is to recognize this reality and live into it. To trust (have "faith in") what the faithfulness of Jesus has accomplished for us "while we were yet sinners."

All this to say that the doctrine of universal reconciliation is richly informed by the New Perspective in seeing forgiveness as a currently existing reality.

Because of the atoning death of Jesus on the cross forgiveness is actual. Because of the cross a new reality has been created between God and humanity. Faith is recognizing that reality and rejoicing in it.

I just started reading Jerry Walls's new book Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation. (H/T to Scot McKnight for his posts on the book which is where I came across it.)

My interest in purgatory comes from the fact that my vision of universal reconciliation--that God will one day be "all in all"--has a family resemblance to the doctrine of purgatory.

The key location of overlap has to do with holiness in heaven. Specifically, sin is more than skin deep. Trouble is, the main problem Protestants tend to worry about when it comes to sin isn't the sin. It's God's anger over sin. Because of this Protestants aren't really all that interested in escaping sin. They are mainly preoccupied with escaping hell. Thus, for many Protestants the answer to our "sin problem" isn't holiness but forgiveness.

Put more crudely, Protestants are more interested in being saved than in being good.

The results of this emphasis, if you look around, are pretty obvious.

The trouble with this view is that sin goes deep. Sin is describing ways we have become morally damaged and disordered. As Walls writes, "The more we sin, the more complicated and extensive the damage we do to ourselves, and correspondingly, the more is required for repair and rehabilitation." Getting this all fixed--repair and rehabilitation--is going to take some time. And more to the point, few of us complete the journey of sanctification (and quite a few Christians don't seem to be making any progress at all) before we die.

So while we might be forgiven at the moment of our death we remain very much steeped in sin. If so, how does that sin play out in heaven? Are we even allowed into heaven if we are not perfectly holy? Walls cites this passage from the book of Hebrews:

Hebrews 12.14
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. 

That's the issue, isn't it? If we aren't holy at the time of our death how are we to "see the Lord"?

Walls says there are four different ways we might answer these sorts of questions:

Faced with what seems to be this obvious empirical reality [that we all die still infected by sin], the question remains about the fate of such persons. There are four broad possibilities. First, we might say that they go to heaven with their sins, imperfections, and the like intact, so heaven is not in fact essentially sinless. Second, we might think they will simply be lost and never make it to heaven if they die without becoming completely holy. Third, we might say that at the moment of death, God makes people holy by an instantaneous and unilateral act, however imperfect, sinful, and immature in character they may be. Fourth, we may say that the sanctification process continues after death with our willing cooperation until the process is complete, and we are actually made holy through and through.

Walls quickly notes that few Christians believe in options one and two. The debate focuses on options three and four. Does God, on Judgment Day, wave a magic wand making us instantaneously holy? Or is there a process and season of purgation? A time of healing, reconciliation, confession, peace-making, education, repentance, forgiveness, repair, rehabilitation and even punishment?

I find the former possibly implausible for a host of theological and psychological reasons. Consequently, I opt for the developmental view.

Thomas Merton listening to the rain (from Raids on the Unspeakable):

I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain...The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.

The image that grabs me is the picture of grace in the rain. "[A]ll that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside..."

I'd like to learn to talk like the rain.

As many of you know, Walter Wink passed away on May 10th.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I've put Wink's seminal work regarding the principalities and powers to good use. I've been deeply blessed, intellectually and spiritually by his work. Thank you Walter.

Another important contribution of Wink is his work in naming and analyzing the Myth of Redemptive Violence--the myth that violence can save us, the myth that sits behind our national mythologies. An essay by Wink regarding the Myth of Redemptive Violence can be read here. 

For those wanting more about Wink's life and work I commend this remembrance and reflection of Bill Wylie-Kellermann over at Sojourners.

Ephesians 6.10-12
Finally, my brothers and sisters, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

If you were waiting for it, my second book The Authenticity of Faith is now available on the Kindle. You can also purchase the ebook from ACU Press on iTunes.

For those thinking about buying the book a selection from the concluding chapter:

...

Freud’s criticism [of religious belief] seems reasonable. Freud, despite his militant atheism, is not just “criticizing” religion. He is describing a real phenomenon, one backed by laboratory research and easily recognized by both believers and non-believers. And while these psychologically-based criticisms of faith do not have any logical purchase upon the ultimate claim regarding God’s existence, they do alter the debate and place believers on the defensive. For if Freud is correct, if believers are using their faith as a means for existential consolation, why should we trust their appeals to “reason” and “evidence” when it is clear that they cannot be objective and fair conversation partners? In the end, the atheist will argue that you cannot dispassionately discuss hard questions when your conversation partner is afraid. As Freud noted, “The believer will not let his belief be torn from him, either by arguments or by prohibitions. And even if this did succeed with some it would be cruelty” (p. 62).

So we are left, then, in the wake of [Freud's argument in] The Future of an Illusion (along with other works of “suspicion”) with the analysis of Abraham Joshua Heschel (1955) from the quote that started this book:

It has long been known that need and desire play a part in the shaping of beliefs. But is it true, as modern psychology often claims, that our religious beliefs are nothing but attempts to satisfy subconscious wishes? That the conception of God is merely a projection of self-seeking emotions, an objectification of subjective needs, the self in disguise? Indeed, the tendency to question the genuineness of man’s concerns about God is a challenge no less serious than the tendency to question the existence of God. We are in greater need of a proof for the authenticity of faith than of a proof for the existence of God. (p. 35-36)

This is the terrain for a new sort of apologetics. No longer are we seeking a proof for the existence of God. We are, rather, now sifting through psychological “need and desire” to determine how they “play a part in the shaping of beliefs.” For in light of the work of the masters of suspicion there is now a “tendency to question the genuineness of man’s concerns about God.” Thus we face a “greater need of a proof for the authenticity of faith than a proof for the existence of God.”

But is such a proof even possible? And what might it mean to say that faith is “authentic” and “genuine”?

Many think that in Jesus's first sermon he compares his life and ministry to the year of Jubilee.

Luke 4.16-19
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Again, some think that the reference here in Isaiah to the "acceptable year of the Lord"--where the oppressed are set free and freedom is proclaimed to the prisoners--is an allusion to the year of Jubilee described in Leviticus 25.

The Jubilee was to be the Sabbath year of Sabbath years. Every seven days the Israelites were to celebrate a Sabbath day of rest. And every seven years they were to observe a Sabbath year of rest. And after seven Sabbath years--7 x 7--there was to be a super-duper Sabbath year, the year of Jubilee.

During the year of Jubilee the following was to happen:

Leviticus 24.39-41
If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves. They are to be treated as hired workers or temporary residents among you; they are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their ancestors.

During the years in between each Jubilee various people, for whatever reason, would fall into debt and, as a consequence, they and their family would be sold into debt bondage. During the year of Jubilee these debt slaves--often entire families--were to be set free. More, the family land was to be given back to them. All was to be forgiven and fortunes restored.

In light of this, Jesus's allusion to the Jubilee in Luke 4 hints at the forgiveness that will be found in his life, death and resurrection. In the person of Jesus we experience the Jubilee of God. We are let out of the debtor's prison and our fortunes are restored.

And it might be even bigger than that.

Some at the time of Jesus were suggesting that there might be something on the horizon even bigger than the Jubilee. That God might be working up to Mega-Jubilee, a Jubilee of Jubilees. If the Jubilee was to be celebrated after 7 x 7 the Jubilee of Jubilees would go further, coming after 70 x 7 years.

Seventy times seven.

That sound familiar?

In the bible we first encounter this number--seventy times seven--in Daniel 9. In this text Daniel is in prayer about a prophecy made by Jeremiah that the Babylonian exile would last for seventy years:

Jeremiah 25.11-12
This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate forever."

In Daniel 9 Daniel is in prayer wondering when the seventy years will be over. In answer to this prayer the angel Gabriel appears and tells Daniel that the exile will not be over in seventy years but in seventy times seven years:

Daniel 9.1-3, 20-24
In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes...

While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill — while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision:

“Seventy ‘sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

In one sense this is disappointing news. The end of the exile isn't going to be in 70 years. It's going to be in 70 x 7 (= 490) years.

But on the other hand the promise here is crackling with portent and theological significance. The end of the Great Exile is going to be the Jubilee to end all Jubilees.

So the Jews were expecting something really, really big. And a great deal of effort was expended in Jesus's day in trying to figure out just when the 490 years would be over. The main disagreements had to do with the starting point, when the 490-year clock started ticking.

But such calculations might have been a bit too literal. Seventy times seven may have been more theological than chronological. Seventy times seven may have been a way of saying that the end of exile would involve something apocalyptic in nature and scope. A Jubilee beyond imagining, the final and ultimate fulfillment of God's promises. The ending not just of exile but the inauguration of the New Heaven and New Earth.

With that background in place let's turn back to gospels. Does the seventy times seven prophecy in Daniel connect with Jesus in any way?

There are three connections.

First, the angel Gabriel appears only three times in the bible. The first appearance we've already noted. Gabriel is the one who tells Daniel about the seventy times seven years. The very next time we encounter Gabriel is in the gospel of Luke announcing the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. Gabriel's reappearance in the biblical story brings to mind our first encounter with the messenger in Daniel 9. Perhaps, with the birth of Jesus, the exile is over? Does the reappearance of Gabriel signal that the Jubilee of Jubilees is upon us?

Second, some scholars argue that Matthew's genealogy in Matthew 1 is another attempt to connect Jesus with the sevens in Daniel. From Abraham to David to Exile to Jesus Matthew describes three sets of fourteen generations, six sets of sevens. Jesus comes at the end of this line, capping it off as the seventh seven, an allusion to the Jubilee.

But the most explicit connection in the gospels with the prophecy of seventy times seven comes from the gospel of Matthew:

Matthew 18:21-23
Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."

Peter's eyes must have gotten very, very big.

Because, as we've seen, this isn't just any random number. The number is large, yes, but it's much more than that. It's a number associated with the end of exile, the number of God's apocalyptic intervention. It's the number of the Jubilee of Jubilees.

You can make a pretty strong case that the central core of Jesus's ministry, the orbit of his life, was forgiveness. The examples here go on and on. "Love your enemies." "Turn the other cheek." "Neither do I condemn you." "Your sins are forgiven." "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." "Forgive and you will be forgiven." "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." "My son who was lost has been found." "The Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth." "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

All this makes sense if Jesus is, in his very person, the Jubilee. Forgiveness--releasing those in debt--is what the Jubilee was all about. To experience the Jubilee is to have your debts forgiven. And that's what Jesus did wherever he went. He brought the Jubilee. Jesus was the Jubilee.

And not just any Jubilee--it was and is the last, greatest and final Jubilee. The seventy times seven Jubilee.

And what is extraordinary about all this is that Jesus invites Peter--and you and I--to become the Jubilee as well.

It makes perfect sense that the seventy times seven number shows up in the middle of a question about forgiveness. If Peter is asking a forgiveness question he's asking a Jubilee question. How many times do I have to forgive my brother? Peter is thinking small, on the scale of the Sabbath week. Jesus goes further. Past the Sabbath year. Past even the Jubilee itself. Jesus goes big. He invokes the Jubilee of Jubilees.

And as should be obvious, by invoking seventy times seven Jesus isn't simply giving Peter a big number. Jesus isn't setting the bar higher, raising standards. Rather, Jesus is inviting Peter to become a different sort of person, to adopt a new sort identity. Simply, Jesus is asking Peter to become the Jubilee. Just as Jesus was the Jubilee. And if you are the Jubilee--if forgiveness is what defines you--then how could you ask the question "How many times do I have to forgive"?

If you embody the Jubilee--if the Jubilee is who you are--then the answer is obvious. You always forgive. You are the Jubilee.

That's what I think Jesus is saying to Peter when Peter asks about the limits of forgiveness. Jesus is inviting Peter, and all of us, to forgive as we have been forgiven. To become people of mercy and grace. To proclaim, in our own lives, the year of the Lord's favor so that we might become the Jubilee.

David Hume once famously argued that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." What is interesting about that claim is that, particularly in the area of virtue and morality, modern psychological science has proven Hume to be right. And I wonder, what are the implications for theology?

To be sure, Hume stated his case too strongly. Reason isn't necessarily the slave of the passions. And we don't think it ought to be all of the time. But modern research has shown that cognition and emotion are interwoven systems, with emotion often taking the lead in helping us think correctly and virtuously.

This is a bit different from how the Greeks viewed the situation. For the Greeks emotion was error-prone and wild. Consequently, the wise person would use reason to subdue, tame, and guide the emotions. Thus the vision of the detached, cool, and cerebral philosopher.

We now know that the Greeks got this wrong. When emotion is decoupled from reason we have something that looks like sociopathy. At the very least reason needs emotion to do its work properly. I'm thinking here of work done with persons with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. People with damage to this area of the brain have trouble connecting emotion to how they make decisions or plans. Because of this these individuals can make long pro versus con lists but never reach a final decision. Cognitively these individuals have the ability to plan, and in great detail. But without emotion the cognitive system doesn't care about one outcome over others. And this caring, this emotional attachment, seems to be what breaks the rational stalemate and terminates the chain of calculation. In this reason is functioning as the servant, if not the slave, of the passions. It's as if Reason is saying to the Emotions, "Hey, I'll do all the calculation and accounting, but at the end of the day you're going to have to tell me what we really care about."

It is as Hume once provocatively argued. He said, "'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger." There is nothing unreasonable or illogical in preferring scratching your finger over preventing the destruction of the whole world. Yes, such a choice is monstrous and evil, but it's not illogical. The monstrosity goes to the issue of caring and emotion. What is broken in preferring scratching your finger over preventing the destruction of the world isn't reason, but emotion.

What does this have to do with theology?

Simply this. When theology and doctrine become separated from emotion we end up with something dysfunctional and even monstrous. A theology or doctrinal system that has become decoupled from emotion is going to look emotionally stunted and even inhuman.

What I'm describing here might be captured by the tag "orthodox alexithymia." By "orthodox" I mean the intellectual pursuit of right belief. And by "alexithymia" I mean someone who is, theologically speaking, emotionally and socially deaf and dumb. Even theologically sociopathic.

(Alexithymia--etymologically "without words for emotions"--is a symptom characteristic of individuals who have difficulty understanding their own and others' emotions. You can think of alexithymia as being the opposite of what is called emotional intelligence.)

Orthodox alexithymia is produced when the intellectual facets of Christian theology, in the pursuit of correct and right belief, become decoupled from emotion, empathy, and fellow-feeling. Orthodox alexithymics are like patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex brain damage. Their reasoning may be sophisticated and internally consistent but it is disconnected from human emotion. And without Christ-shaped caring to guide the chain of calculation we wind up with the theological equivalent of preferring to scratch a doctrinal finger over preventing destruction of the whole world. Logically and doctrinally such preferences can be justified. They are not "contrary to reason." But they are inhuman and monstrous. Emotion, not reason, is what has gone missing.

(In my opinion, hard-core, double-predestination Calvinism looks just like this. An icy, monstrous and alexithymic theology.)

In their defense, the orthodox alexithymics will emphasize the view of the Greeks: reason must tame the passions. We cannot discern the will of God if we allow our feelings to get in the way. Emotions are temptations. Therefore we must make our feelings submit to reason. Reason leads you toward God. Emotion leads you away from God. So put your feelings to the side. If a chain of theological reasoning starts to horrify you then you must repress those feelings. Stuff that horror, swallow it.

But in light of what we now know about the relationship between cognition and emotion this Greek-inspired defense is sounding more and more hollow. And dangerous. A theology that is repressing the emotions, we suspect, just like in other spheres of life, is more rather than less likely to lead us astray.

Theology, as an activity of reason, might not want to be a slave of the passions, but it might want to partner with emotion much more closely.

Last week Larry James from City Square in Dallas, TX preached at our church to encourage us in our new vision to eliminate homelessness in our city of Abilene.

Larry's sermon focused on Isaiah 58, Yahweh's description of what true fasting should look like. The opening verses set the scene:

Isaiah 58.1-3a
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’

The people "seem eager for God," eager to "know [God's] ways" and be a "nation that does what is right."

However, when the people fast and humble themselves God doesn't seem to notice or care. Why? Why does God seem indifferent to their fasting and religious piety?

Isaiah 58.3b-5
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

God is unresponsive because the worship of the people has become disconnected with the affairs of the economy: "[O]n the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers." More, the worship of the people has become disconnected with the practices of peace-making and reconciliation: "Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists." God's call is clear. Worship isn't to be an isolated and insular practice. Worship isn't just about bowing your head during Sunday morning worship services or singing praise songs. Worship--true fasting--must be connected to economic justice and the practices of peace. Here is what true fasting--true worship--should look like:

Isaiah 58.6-7
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
 and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 

True worship: loose the chains of injustice, set the oppressed free, break every yoke, share food with the hungry, provide the poor wanderer with shelter, clothe the naked, and do not turn away from your own flesh and blood.

And if we do this, Larry pointed out, God makes an absolutely astonishing promise:

Isaiah 58.8-9
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

Here am I.

You know where that phrase comes from, right? It comes from the beginning of the book where Isaiah has a theophany and receives his commission from God:

Isaiah 6.1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 

“Holy, holy , holy is the Lord Almighty;
 the whole earth is full of his glory.”

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. ”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Here am I.

It's a crazy reversal. In Chapter 6 Isaiah makes himself radically available to God. "Here am I," he says to God. But in Chapter 58 this flips. There it is God becoming radically available to us. "Here am I," God says.

And when does this happen? It happens when God's people engage in true worship, when our fasting becomes connected with loosing the chains of injustice, sharing food with the hungry, providing shelter for the homeless and clothing the naked.

When we do these things God says to us,

"Here am I."

St. Augustine once compared the cross of Jesus to a mousetrap--crux muscipula diaboli.

"The cross is the devil's mousetrap."

This idea strikes modern Christians as alien and strange. Largely because we have lost the Christus Victor frame of the early church. For those new to this blog or these ideas, Christus Victor was the dominate view of the atonement for the first thousand years of the church. It is the view that the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus was involved in liberating us from our captivity to sin, death, and the Devil.

Then as now, Christians tend to push past general formulations such as this--Christ rescues us from the Devil--to ask question about mechanisms. We move from "What happened?" to "How did it happen?" For example, modern Christians subscribing to penal substitutionary atonement often ask about the mechanisms at work in the theory: Why does God demand our death and how exactly does Jesus's death satisfy God's wrath and justice? In a similar way, the early Christians wondered about the mechanisms of Christus Victor: How exactly did Jesus liberate us from the power of the Devil?

These sorts of question lead us out onto thin ice. When we turn to stories about mechanisms--hypothetical scenarios about how it all works--we start to get specific about things that the bible only hints at. No doubt, for example, the bible suggests that there was a substitutionary facet to the death of Jesus. Something bad happened to him that should have or could have happened to us. But how, exactly, that substitution "worked" in saving us is hard to say as the bible doesn't get into specific mechanisms. In fact, most biblical scholars would say that substitution isn't really a mechanism, it's a metaphor. That what we have in the bible are a lot of metaphors without a lot of unpacking of those metaphors. Not being content with that what a lot Christians have done throughout the ages is to lock onto one particular metaphor and then unpack the hell out of it. Specifying in great and specific detail how this one particular metaphor might literally and mechanistically "work." These attempts are sort of like reading a great poem and then insisting in your English term paper that this is what the poem literally means. That's fine if you are a 5th grader, but we expect more from adult readers of poetry. And Scripture.

Still, we thirst for mechanisms. We like to get specific. We crave cause and effect stories. And so, in unpacking the Christus Victor metaphors of ransom and liberation in the bible, Augustine posited a mechanism. How did the cross save us from the Devil? The cross, he suggested, is like a mousetrap.

How so?

The idea goes like this as unpacked by various church fathers. From the beginning of Jesus's ministry Satan tries to thwart Jesus. But failing to get Jesus to fall into sin Satan ultimately decides to kill Jesus, to just get rid of the guy. (Recall that Satan enters Judas's heart suggesting that the death of Jesus is Satan's idea and plan.) Satan, we know, eventually succeeds and Jesus is killed. Thus, Satan, who possesses the keys to Death and Hades, now "owns" Jesus and has him locked up in Hades.

Satan has taken the cheese.

Because what Satan doesn't know is that Jesus isn't just another human being. Jesus is God Incarnate. In this Jesus is sort of like a Trojan Horse. So when Satan takes Jesus to Hades--Surprise!--he finds that the enemy has entered the gates. There in hell Jesus takes the keys of Death and Hades from Satan, binds him, and then releases the captives. In Christian theology this is called the Harrowing of Hell.

The mousetrap snaps.

Modern Christians tend to find this whole scenario pretty weird and implausible. I agree. But I just love this story. I find it way more interesting and theologically rich than penal substitutionary atonement.

Here are two reasons why I like the mousetrap story.

First, I think it is a recurring theme in the New Testament, and in the gospels in particular, that the Kingdom of God is hidden. And why is it hidden? Because it is small, weak, and powerless. The Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst. But the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed--too small for us to see or notice. Like the homeless Lazarus at the rich man's gate. Or the child standing off to the side while the adults are talking. Or the slave who is washing your feet. The Kingdom of God is in all these places. But we can't see it.

Thus it is not surprising that those without the eyes to see it will miss the Kingdom and will fail to appreciate its logic and power. In the words of St. Paul, the cross will always be foolishness to the world. Satan cannot see the power of God in the cross. And most of us can't either.

Second, the mousetrap story suggests that evil, in its exercise of power, will overreach. God, by contrast, by allowing evil to overreach, saves us non-violently, with powerlessness. God is passive, allowing Satan to kill, allowing Satan to use power and violence to accomplish the purposes of evil. On the surface, God becomes the mouse, the dead thing caught in the trap, the one hanging on the cross. God absorbs violence and overcomes it with love. What looks like a dead mouse to the eyes of the world--Jesus hanging on the cross--is actually the power and Kingdom of God. In the biblical imagination, Jesus is enthroned on the cross.

The dead mouse is actually the mousetrap.

Sometimes I wonder if this is why God doesn't use power in this world. If this is why God doesn't come down and start knocking heads together. I wonder what that sort of God would look like. Like Satan?

But maybe God is powerfully at work in the world, but in the hidden, powerless way Jesus described in his Kingdom parables. Maybe, as St. Paul said, God is using the powerless and weak things of the world to shame and defeat the powerful.

Maybe there are mousetraps all around us.

As a host of a blog sometimes it's hard to know when to respond to comments. There is a great deal of discernment that takes place. Questions I ask myself:

Am I being defensive and trying to protect my vanity?

Does this seem like it would be a productive, mutually edifying and clarifying exchange or an exercise if futility?

Regarding the former question, no one likes to be attacked or called names. There's not much of that on my blog (thank heavens), but it pops up from time to time. Mainly I'm tempted to answer snark with snark. Regardless, these responses are being driven by my own ego. And that's not good for the soul. To help with this I'll often not look at the comments for most of the day. And sometimes I pray first to get my head and heart straight.

Regarding the latter question, I think I'm a pretty good judge of who seems open to conversation and who does not. But I'm sure I make mistakes in this regard.

In light of these ruminations I was recently struck by this advice from Proverbs and how it might apply to blog conversations:

Proverbs 26.4-5
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.

Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.

The advice here is a bit paradoxical. First, don't answer a fool according to his folly. If you do you'll be the fool. This is good advice for not responding to certain comments. The key here, I think, is "according to his folly." What does that mean? I think it means accepting the terms of the fool, be those terms intellectual or social. The social part is easy. Try not to take the bait, be that bait snark, condensation, faux disappointment, hating, or name-calling.

(Faux disappointment is the worst for me. It's so passive aggressive. "This post sadness and disappointments me..." Whatever. Children starved to death today. Who cares if some stranger's blog post saddened or disappointed you?)

Intellectually I think this means spotting where undergirding assumptions differ, particularly if those assumptions are folly. Basically, if we don't agree on assumptions (and this can be spotted pretty easily in comments) then there is no way to answer your questions. It's worldviews colliding. It's sort of like trying to answer the question "When did you stop beating your wife?" To answer is to accept the folly of the framing.

So there are times to "not answer a fool." But the proverb goes on to say that there are times when we should answer the fool. Why? So that the fool won't be "wise in his own eyes." It might be helpful and therapeutic for the fool to know he or she is being a fool. Or at least not as smart as he thinks he is. A little self-awareness can go a long way.

And, finally, I must flip this around on myself. You, dear Reader, have to decide if you want to comment on any given blog post. Shall you refrain, refusing to answer this fool according to his folly? Or shall you comment to answer my folly so that I will not be wise in my own eyes?

Welcome, fools, one and all.

If you are a regular reader you know I'm a huge fan of the American psychologist and philosopher William James. In fact, James's most famous work--The Varieties of Religious Experience--plays a key role in my most recent book The Authenticity of Faith.

The part of The Varieties that captivated me so many years ago is James's descriptions of what he calls "the two families of God"--two distinct religious experiences James called the "healthy-minded" and "sick soul" experiences.

James begins his analysis in The Varieties with the healthy-minded experience. According to James the healthy-minded believer is positive and optimistic, willfully even intentionally so. The healthy-minded believer actively ignores or represses experiences that are morbid, dark or disturbing. As James describes it: “[W]e give the name of healthy-mindedness to the tendency which looks on all things and sees that they are good.”

James goes on to distinguish between two different origins of healthy-mindedness. The first is a dispositional, trait-like healthy-mindedness, an optimism and positive affectivity that is rooted in a person’s innate psychological wiring--the sort of congenial good-cheer many people seem to have. By contrast, there is also a more decisional sort of healthy-mindedness, an active choice to see the world as good where, according to James, a person “deliberately excludes evil from [the] field of vision.” This isn't as easy as it sounds. As James notes, an extreme healthy-minded stance may be “a difficult feat to perform for one who is intellectually sincere with himself and honest about facts."

Why, then, do people indulge in this experience? According to James, people might opt for healthy-mindedness because it is an "instinctive weapon for self-protection against disturbance.” James summarizes how this works:

[Healthy-minded] religion directs [the believer] to settle his scores with the more evil aspects of the universe by systematically declining to lay them to heart or make much of them, by ignoring them in his reflective calculations, or even, on occasion, by denying outright that they exist. 

According to James this tendency toward “deliberately minimizing evil” can become almost delusional where “in some individuals optimism can become quasi-pathological." James suggests that healthy-mindedness can appear to be “a kind of congenital anesthesia.”

In contrast to the experience of healthy-mindedness James goes on in The Varieties to describe the second of the "two families of God"--the experience of the sick soul.

If the healthy-minded experience is typified by a “blindness” that seeks to minimize evil, the sick soul is a religious type involved in “maximizing evil.” According to James, the sick soul is driven “by the persuasion that the evil aspects of our life are of its very essence, and that the world’s meaning most comes home to us when we lay them most to heart.” Sick souls are those “who cannot so swiftly throw off the burden of the consciousness of evil.” Consequently, sick souls are “fated to suffer from [evil’s] presence.”

Of great interest to me in The Authenticity of Faith James describes the sick soul as being very preoccupied with death awareness. According to James the sick soul lives with a regular awareness of death, that at the “back of everything is the great spectre of universal death, the all encompassing blackness.” In light of this death awareness the sick soul knows that “all natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction” because “the breath of the sepulcher surrounds it.”

For James, this death awareness seems to be a key difference between the healthy-minded and the sick soul:

Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet.

The sick soul does not seem to be engaged in a denial of death, to use Ernest Becker's phrase. And because of this, despite the apparent "sickness" of the sick soul, James suggests that the experience of the sick soul provides a “profounder view" of life. More, the sick soul confers a degree of resiliency in the face of tragedy, setback and pain. Critical to the argument I make in The Authenticity of Faith James's summary assessment comparing the two types:

The method of averting one’s attention from evil, and living simply in the light of good is splendid as long as it will work…But it breaks down impotently as soon as melancholy comes; and even though one be quite free from melancholy one’s self, there is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and they may after all be the best key to life’s significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.

Last week I finished reading the excellent new biography of St. Francis of Assisi by Augustine Thompson. Ever since college, when I first came across The Little Flowers, I've been fascinated by St. Francis. Thompson's biography is noteworthy in being the best attempt we currently have of a critical picture of the "historical Francis." Most of us know the Francis of legend and hagiography.

Lovers of St. Francis revere one of his last writings, the Canticle of Brother Sun. Simply as literature, The Canticle of Brother Sun is the first great poem of the Italian vernacular. Spiritually speaking, the Canticle displays one of the traits so loved about Francis--his experience of God and brotherhood through the created order.

Most High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor and all blessing.

To you alone, Most High, do they belong
And no human is worthy to mention your name.

Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day and through whom you give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor,
and bears a likeness of you, Most High One.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear, and precious and wonderful.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather,
through whom you give sustenance to all your creatures.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Water,
who is very useful, and humble, and precious, and chaste.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night.
And he is beautiful, and playful, and robust and strong.

Praised be you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth,
who sustains and governs us,
and who produces fruit with colored flowers and herbs.

Praise and bless my Lord and give him thanks
and serve him with great humility.

In reading Thompson's biography I learned the following. Francis wrote the Canticle in the final years of his life when his health was declining rapidly. Among the symptoms Francis was struggling with was light sensitivity--sunlight, firelight and full moonlight caused him pain. More, Francis wrote the Canticle during the wintertime. The cold wind was also plaguing the ailing Francis who was living in a drafty cell.

And yet, despite these afflictions, praise pours forth for Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Fire, and Brother Wind. I've tended to imagine Francis walking serenely among the wildflowers as I've read the words of the Canticle. And in my own life the words come to me as I feel embraced by my Sister, Mother Earth.

But knowing the physical situation Francis was in when he wrote the Canticle takes the romantic, hippie tinge off the song and makes me appreciate the depth of Francis's praise even more.

Everyone, I suspect, has their favorite parables of Jesus. I tend to favor the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the Parable of the Sheep and Goats. I'm probably not alone in this.

Another favorite parable of mine is the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. The version from the Gospel of Matthew:

Matthew 13.24-30
Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.

The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’

‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.

‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’”

To be sure, later in the chapter Jesus goes on to discuss the eschatological judgment at the end of the parable. And as I've repeatedly said, I have no problem with God's judgment. It is critical that such judgment exists to have any coherent notion of God's love and justice.

But as with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and Jesus's teaching as a whole, I don't think the parable here is about Judgment Day. What Jesus is doing is using judgment--the pathos of God--to illuminate this day, right here and right now. The focus in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats isn't about the ultimate fate of the goats. It is, rather, about what God wants the Kingdom to look like today, in my life and yours. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is about calling us to the works of mercy.

So what is the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds calling us to? What is the parable trying to say about our behavior today?

I think the answer is found in the question of the workers: "Should we pull out the weeds?"

Should we pull out the weeds?

This question goes to the heart of one of the greatest temptations amongst religious people wanting to serve God: the impulse to sort the good people from the bad people, the saints from the sinners, the church from the world, the saved from the damned.

Churches are full to the brim of this sort of thing. Righteous crusades to weed out the sinners.

But what does the farmer say? The farmer says, Don't get into the weeding business. If you do you'll pull up the good with the bad. Weeds are no good, but weeding? Weeding is worse. So just let the good and the bad live alongside each other. Trust that God will sort it all out in the end. Sorting saints from sinners isn't your job. So let it be.

Wouldn't it be amazing if Christians and churches heeded the farmer's advice?

And let's be clear. The farmer has lost his mind. What farmer doesn't weed? What the workers are suggesting is the right thing to do. From a farming perspective the farmer is an idiot.

Against all logic the farmer says, Leave it alone. Let the weeds and the wheat grow together. On this farm we aren't going to weed.

But isn't this a recipe for disaster? Doesn't God need our help in sorting out the good guys from the bad guys? Doesn't God need Spiritual Minutemen to monitor the borders of the Kingdom?

Apparently not. Our job, it seems, is simply to live alongside each other, wheat and the weeds.

And truth be told, I think a part of the logic here is that we're horrible, often tragically so, in making these distinctions. Who are the real good guys? Who are the real bad guys? Are churches getting this distinction right?

My take: I think the churches get this wrong more often than they get this right. Churches, way more than they'd care to admit, get into the weeding business only to discover that they can't tell the wheat from the weeds.

More, I'd go on to make this provocative claim: To get into the weeding business is what marks you as a weed. Weeding is what makes you one of the bad guys. Exhibit A: The religious authorities of Jesus's day and their exclusion of "tax collectors and sinners." 

Robert Capon in his book Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus has an interesting observation about this parable. Specifically, he notes that the root of the Greek word--aphete--translated as "let" in the command of the farmer ("let both grow together") has two related meanings in the bible. One meaning is the meaning found in the translation above (NLT), the notion of "to permit" or "to allow." But the more common meaning of aphete in the bible is "to suffer" and "to forgive." This is the word Jesus utters from the cross: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

This really amps the meaning of the parable. Rather than weeding the farmer is asking the workers to forgive the weeds, to suffer their existence.

We might say the parable is presenting us with two visions of Kingdom life.

On the one side are the weeding Christians, those wanting to identify, sort out and burn the weeds.

And on the other side are those Christians who live alongside the weeds manifesting forgiveness and patience.

And we do know this: the weeding Christians will have all the best arguments on their side. Weeding, we know, is good farming practice. It's the sensible and right thing to do.

But the logic of forgiving the weeds and allowing them to grow alongside? That's no logic at all.

It's only the foolishness of the cross.