In Canto I, before the Pilgrim begins to climb Mount Purgatory, he must wash his face and gird himself with a reed. Virgil gives directions to get the Pilgrim prepared for the climb:

Go with this man, see that you gird his waist
with a smooth reed; take care to bathe his face
till every trace of filth has disappeared,

for it would not be fitting that he go
with vision clouded by the mists of Hell,
to face the first of Heaven's ministers.

What does the reed symbolize? Mark Musa says the following:

The reed will now replace the cord that the Pilgrim wore fastened round his waist while going through the Inferno. In order to ascend the Mount of Purgatory, he must be girded with a reed, clearly symbolising humility, the opposite of his former self-confidence.

We talked about the cord of pride in Week 13. That pride is now replaced with humility. And girded with humility the Pilgrim is now ready to climb, now ready to face his sins.

This is, I think, hugely insightful.

Psychologists talk about "stages of change." The first two stages of change are precontemplation and contemplation. In the state of precontemplation you're not even thinking about making a change. That's why it's called precontemplation, change hasn't even crossed your mind, you've never even thought about, considered, or contemplated changing. Denial is a huge part of being in the stage of precontemplation.

So the first part of changing is getting you to move from precontemplation to contemplation, getting you to at least think about changing, admitting that you might have an problem.

As you might imagine, in many ways this first step in changing, moving from precontemplation to contemplation, is the hardest. Denial--I don't need to change! I don't have a problem!--is a tough nut to crack. So what's the key?

I think Dante has the answer here. The issue turns on pride and humility. Some humbling is required for us to face the truth about ourselves, along with being willing to submit to a season of penitence and renunciation. As the recovery community knows, Step 1 is admitting that you have a problem.

And that admission is, more than anything, a profound act of humility. You have to put on the reed before you're willing to face your sin.

Yesterday I described the Ignatian practice of indifference as cultivating a slow soul in a fast world. In contemplative practices we refuse to match the speed of the world working to cultivate a slower pace for our inner lives.

One goal of all this, as I described yesterday, is that when life comes at you fast your inner speed is slow enough to give you time to reflect and discern. Instead of reacting impulsively you can react with wisdom and care.

The other metaphor I've begun using to describe all this for myself is traffic on a highway.

Most of us go through life blowing down the highway in traffic. Everyone is going over the speed limit, the cars are too close together, and we have to make quick, rapid decisions to stay out of accidents. We are, as they say, "in the fast lane." We live fast and make decisions rapidly and impulsively. There's no space or margin for care and thoughtfulness.

I've come to think of indifference as not being in the fast lane but being on the on ramp. On the on ramp I'm going much slower than the traffic on the highway. I'm speeding up, but slowly and deliberately, discerning when and where I'm going to enter the highway. When I'm on the on ramp there's stretch of road between me and the fast moving traffic, giving me the time and space to enter safely and deliberately.

Of course, this metaphor breaks down. Perhaps we shouldn't be on the highway at all. Perhaps we should be driving on slow country roads. I agree. But many of us have to live in the fast world. The boss isn't going to be happy if we amble in at 10:30 to start our 8:00 shift. Nor is the school happy if we consistently drop our kids off thirty minutes late.

So we have to enter the traffic and we have to keep pace, at least some of the time if not most of the time. Indifference, then, is about giving yourself an on ramp, putting a stretch of road between you and the traffic so you can enter and re-enter the pace of the day with deliberateness and care. And not just at the start of the day, all through the day. The on ramp might be a long breath, a short prayer, a quick walk, a moment of silence, a cup of coffee or tea.

In every instance you step out of the traffic of fast lane to put yourself back on the on ramp, getting some empty highway out in front of you and the fast moving world.

A few months ago I wrote about the Ignatian practice of "indifference."

Again, the basic idea of Ignatian indifference is to let go of anything in the world that interferes with our love and service of God and others. You night not like the word "indifference," but indifference isn't about about emotional resignation and detachment. Indifference is about discernment.

As I've noted before, most of us have an instinctive hungry, greedy, acquisitive stance in relation to the world. We're rushed, restless, addicted, distracted, triggered, greedy, competitive, jealous, and on and on. We live automatically and reactively, our hearts pulled this way and that.

Given that situation, indifference involves a pause. Indifference is about cultivating a season and space of discernment between the world and our response to the world.  Indifference isn't about detachment, resignation, or apathy. Ignatian indifference is a season to survey our hearts, creating the time and space to think about how things in the world are drawing us either closer or further away from God.

Now, as I've come to work on developing this capacity of indifference I've come to notice this about my struggles.

Specifically, a lot of my struggles have to do with the pace and timing of my inner life and the world happening around me. The world comes at you fast. And my natural inclination is to react to that rushing, oncoming traffic rapidly and quickly. I meet speed for speed. The world is rushing at me and my inner life speeds up to match it.

The problem is, when my inner life speeds up I lose the capacity for indifference. There is no pause, so space and season of reflective discernment. Instead, I act impulsively, instinctively, and unthoughtfully.

In short, in trying to match the speed of the world my inner life is going too fast. I need to slow down.

All that to say, I've come to think of the practice of indifference as a practice of managing the speed of my inner life in relation to the speed of the world. The world moves fast and the world comes at you fast, and the temptation is to match that speed, to think and react  quickly. Indifference is slowing the speed of your inner life so that when life comes at you you're going slow enough to ponder, pray, reflect, and think things through. Indifference refuses to meet speed for speed, refuses to match the pace of the world.

Indifference is cultivating a slow soul in a fast world.

I've made this point many years ago on this blog, but it has recently come to mind again as I've been reading the book of Ecclesiastes.

As you know, in tone and content Ecclesiastes is very different from the other books of the Old Testament. But I do detect in Ecclesiastes a shared concern and goal. Ecclesiastes just gets there a very different way.

Specifically, I think idolatry is the overarching moral concern of the Old Testament. Idolatry is what the Torah is concerned about, what the historical books are concerned about, and what the prophets are concerned about. Even in the Wisdom literature, Psalms is also concerned about idolatry.

And so is Ecclesiastes, but with a key difference. For most of the Old Testament the issue of idolatry is framed as one of love, loyalty and fidelity. Idolatry is unfaithfulness.

But that's not the approach in Ecclesiastes. In Ecclesiastes idolatry is approached through the predicament of death. In Ecclesiastes, idols are not condemned for being instances of infidelity, they are dismissed as being vain and meaningless in the face of death. Since nothing lasts, chasing these idols is like chasing the wind.

In all this there's a deep sympathy between Ecclesiastes and the rest of the Old Testament. The differences we note in Ecclesiastes has more to do with its radically different approach to throwing cold water on the idols we pursue.

In calling us away from idols, Ecclesiastes uses death rather than the wrath of a jealous God to bring us to our senses.

From Psalm 103:

The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.

This is a famous psalm, and for me the most comforting line is this:

"He remembers that we are dust."

I take great comfort in the fact that God has very low expectations. He remembers we are dust.

We are frail, feeble, weak, lost, anxious, scared, confused, impulsive, uncertain, unsteady, simpleminded, vulnerable, frightened, thoughtless, wavering, unsure, unreliable, insecure, gullible, limited, perplexed, inept, helpless, irrational, defenseless, broken, adrift, wandering, foolish, unthinking, rash, immature, and stubborn. To use just a few words to describe us.

And God remembers all this. And according to Psalm 103 graces flows from that recognition. God will not deal with according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. And why?

Because God knows our frame:

He remembers that we are dust.

Last week, I mentioned that the journey up Mount Purgatory is a journey of spiritual purification. To understand this, let me sketch of the topography of the mountain.

Mount Purgatory is conically shaped. Virgil and the Pilgrim will ascend the mountain by circling upwards through seven terraces. Each terrace corresponds to one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust. On each terrace, Virgil and the Pilgrim will encounter the faithful souls who are being purged of these sins. Once purged of a sin, the soul moves upward, to the terrace above, to be purged of the next sin, ever upward toward the summit. On the summit of Mount Purgatory is the Garden of Eden, the earthly paradise. Above Eden, in the heavens, is Paradise where God dwells.

In short, the upward journey of purification is a journey upward toward God. This, then, is the plot of The Divine Comedy, one person's journey toward God. Having seen the punishments of the damned in hell, the Pilgrim will now make the climb toward God. But it's going to be a hard climb. While the Pilgrim simply witnessed the punishments of the damned, his journey on the slopes of Mount Purgatory will involve confronting and being purged of his sins.

On the shores of the island where Mount Purgatory stands, in Canto I of Purgatory Virgil summarizes the journey he's taking the Pilgrim on, how grace came to the Pilgrim in the nick of time to save him and take him on this journey:

This man has not seen his final hour,
although so close to it his folly brought him
that little time was left to change his ways.

So I was sent to help him, as I said:
there was no other way to save his soul
than by my guiding him along this road.

Already I have shown him all the Damned;
I want to show him now the souls of those
who purge themselves of guilt...

How we came here would take too long to tell;
from Heaven comes the power that has served
to lead him here to see and hear...

...he goes in search of freedom...

When we make the climb toward God, when we face and confront our sins, we go in search of freedom. And the climb is enabled by the prevenient grace of God.

From Heaven comes the power to lead us on the way.

The scholars who describe Paul as an apocalyptic theologian will often set "the apocalypse of Jesus Christ" over against "religion."

Here's the distinction.

Religion sets out a pathway that humans are to walk to approach God. This pathway generally involves moral improvement, participation in rituals and worship, and engaging in ascetical practices. For example, in the Christian religion we strive to be a good person, work for just causes, go to church, pray and fast.

"The apocalypse of Jesus Christ," by contrast, is fundamentally a declaration, the revealing of a new reality, a new order of creation, the turn of the ages. The call isn't for religious observance to "become a good person" but for participation in the new reality God has created.

A simple contrast might be this:

Religion says, "Do this!"

The apocalypse says, "Wake up!"

Another take:

Religion says, "God wants us to go church on Sunday."

The apocalypse says, "I was blind, but now I see."

Over the last few years, having made a close study of Paul, especially Romans 5-8, along with reading more from the church fathers, it's increasingly clear to me how vital a part the Holy Spirit plays in our salvation. I've been writing more about more about this, the role of the Spirit in salvation. Last fall I did a six-part series entitled "The Spirit is Salvation" drawing out this connection.

Summarizing, if you read Romans 5-8 it's clear that we're saved by the Spirit when the Spirit joins with our mortal flesh, thereby overcoming our vulnerability to Sin and Death. This was also the understanding of the church fathers. Our fundamental predicament is mortal corruptibility--death--and the Spirit gives us the supernatural power and (meta)physical constitution to overcome this corruptibility.

To revisit the point I made in Part 1, another reason forensic visions of salvation, such as penal substitutionary atonement, disenchanted our visions of salvation is that they removed the Holy Spirit from the picture. In the forensic visions of salvation all that is required is "forgiveness," and that drama takes places within the heart of God. The Holy Spirit has no part to play. The only thing required is the sacrifice of Jesus which "allows" God to forgive us. In the forensic views of salvation the drama is wholly between the Father and the Son. The Spirit isn't involved.

All that to say, if we want to recover a properly biblical vision of salvation we need to recover the central role the Spirit plays in giving us the supernatural power and constitution to overcome Sin and Death. Biblically, salvation isn't just about forgiveness, it's also about mortal weakness and incapacity. As the church fathers pointed out, God might forgive you, but that doesn't change the vulnerability of your mortal flesh to the forces of Sin and Death! Something has to change your very being if you want to be fully saved and liberated from Sin and Death.

But here's our trouble. Due to pervasive disenchantment in many sectors of Christianity, we lack the ability to embrace this more enchanted vision of salvation. How many Christians believe that the Holy Spirit has made them a new creation, as in literally a new creation? You were once one sort of being, and now you're a different sort of being. An ontological break has occurred. You're not just forgiven, you've been materially changed. How many Christians believe that the Holy Spirit has changed their very being, transforming their mortal flesh into something physically different? (Think: the transfiguration of Jesus.)

Because of pervasive disenchantment, this view of salvation is so foreign and hard for us--that the Spirit transforms and recreates our physical substance--that most Christians haven't even considered it, and likely can't even imagine it. I bet most of you are scratching your heads right now. Is Richard really saying what I think he's saying? And yet, this is the Christian vision of salvation.

You're not just forgiven. You're a new creation.

In the last post I discussed how forensic notions of salvation disenchanted the more enchanted Christus Victor visions of salvation. And yet, even those forensic visions of salvation, like penal substitutionary atonement, can still be too enchanted for many disenchanted Christians.

Penal substitutionary atonement might have pushed the drama of salvation into the heart of God, but what if you struggle to believe in God?

In that instance, salvation has to become a 100% "this-worldly" human affair, a purely political vision of emancipation. Basically, I think doubt and disenchantment about God is one of the reasons liberal, progressive Christians are so attracted to liberation theology. Salvation just is social justice.

To be very, very clear, I think the clear witness of Scripture is that salvation involves and demands social justice. If you are not agitating for social justice you're not involved in God's mission to restore all things.

That said, what happens when salvation reduces to social justice, with no remainder? What happens when salvation just is defeating and eliminating oppression on the earth?

Well, I think we know that answer, don't we? Doesn't a wholly politicized vision of salvation tend toward utopian revolutionism? Taking, controlling and deploying power to eliminate and eradicate evil?

All that to say, if salvation is the Revolution I think we're going to have some problems. To be clear, this isn't a reason to care less about social justice, just the suggestion that salvation might mean more than social justice. I don't want to minimize the footprint of social justice in our visions of salvation. It's just the opposite actually, I'd like to see more emphasis upon it. But along with that increased emphasis I'd also like to see a bigger, more robust vision of salvation to house and guide our social justice efforts.

But my concern is this: That bigger, more expansive view of salvation is likely going to pull in more enchantment. There's more to salvation than putting oppressors in their place. There's standing, for example, alongside all of humanity, as a forgiven sinner at the foot of the cross. And there's something in that experience of grace that breaks and softens your heart. The enchantment of grace humanizes you.

And that enchantment just might be exactly what the Revolution so desperately needs.

In my course Psychology and Christianity at ACU I spend some classes talking about how in the West our religious experience has been moving from enchantment to disenchantment, from a supernatural world to a secular world. Recently, I've questioned the comprehensiveness of that story, wondering if some of our journey has not been from enchantment to disenchantment, although that's a large piece of it, but from one enchantment to another. Specifically, we're shifting from a transcendent enchantment to an immanent enchantment. Either way, our focus is increasingly on this world.

One of the things I talk about with my class is how, even if you remain a Christian in the West, you still feel the pressures of disenchantment. Many of us are Christians, but we're disenchanted Christians. I'd like to share a few posts illustrating what I'm talking about, with a specific focus upon how disenchantment has affected our visions of salvation.

As many readers are likely aware, penal substitutionary atonement is seen by many Christians as increasingly problematic. I'm not going to rehash those concerns right now. The question I want to ask is this: Why did penal substitutionary atonement become the norm in the West?

As we know, penal substitutionary atonement wasn't the primary way the early church viewed the atonement. To be sure, this point has been overplayed. The early church was aware of and embraced the substitutionary and sacrificial themes of Christ's death on the cross. Still, the dominant framework for the atonement for the early church was Christus Victor rather than penal substitutionary atonement. That is, the early church viewed salvation as emancipation from dark, cosmic forces--Sin, Death and the Devil--whereas we tend to view salvation in forensic terms, as mainly about guilt and the forgiveness of sins.

Why did this shift occur?

I would argue the shift was largely due to the forces of disenchantment. Specifically, Christus Victor is a very enchanted view of salvation. The Devil, for example, plays a large role. The harrowing of hell is also a big deal. So as the forces of disenchantment grew in the West, these enchanted aspects of Christus Victor atonement were put under stress.

Forensic views of atonement, however, like penal substitutionary atonement, are much more disenchanted. You don't need the Devil, for example. The only metaphysical paraphernalia you need in these forensic views is human sin, which is really an empirical issue (just look around and see how terrible we are to each other), and something in the heart of God that demands justice/satisfaction. The death of Jesus then flows out of that mix.

All that to say, penal substitutionary atonement became the norm in the West because it presented us with a disenchanted view of salvation. It just became too difficult to believe the more ancient, enchanted views of salvation that once held sway in the church.

But here's the paradox. When penal substitutionary atonement pushed the "problem" of salvation into the heart of God (i.e., a just God demanding satisfaction), it definitely disenchanted salvation by shifting focus away from the Devil and the cosmic power of Sin. But the price of that shift into the the heart of God was to create a view of salvation that many have found increasingly problematic. Penal substitutionary atonement foregrounds the wrath of God and introduces violence into the equation (i.e., God requiring a death to be satisfied).

Consequently, there's been a lot of pushback to penal substitutionary atonement. And there's been increasing interest in more ancient and non-violent atonement theories, like Christus Victor. And yet, as I point out in Reviving Old Scratch, the people most interested in views like Christus Victor, progressive Christians, are the most disenchanted. So here's the tension. Progressive Christians like the non-violent aspects of Christus Victor, but can they embrace this more enchanted view of salvation? Do they, for example, believe in the Devil? Do they believe in a cosmic force called Sin? Do they think all of humanity is bound over to dark cosmic forces, slaves in Satan's kingdom of darkness?

My hunch is that disenchanted Christians are going to balk at all this. We don't like penal substitutionary atonement, but we struggle in our skeptical, doubting, secular age to embrace the more ancient, enchanted views of salvation.

At the end of the Inferno, Virgil and the Pilgrim climb down the legs of Satan (yes, this is as odd as it sounds), through the center of the earth, and then up through a crack to emerge, after a very long climb, on the other side of the world. There they see Mount Purgatory.

I think most people read the Divine Comedy for the Inferno. Perhaps they only read the Inferno. But I read the Diving Comedy for Purgatory.

Why was that? The answer comes in Purgatorio Canto I:

...that second realm
where man's soul goes to purify itself
and become worthy to ascend to Heaven.

While the punishments of hell might titillate the theologically voyeuristic, my interest in reading Dante was to get to the theology he unpacks in Purgatorio. Though less talked about, the very best part of the Divine Comedy is found on the slopes Mount Purgatory. Here we will find a theology of love and spiritual formation--the purification of the soul--that I've found to be profoundly insightful and helpful.

Yesterday I referenced how St. Athanasius describes the human predicament in On Incarnation.

Elsewhere in his writings, Athanasius describes the human predicament as a descent and fall back into non-existence. Without God, the created order is unstable and prone to fall back into nothingness. After the Fall, this was what was happening to humanity and the cosmos. We were, in the words of Athanasius, relapsing back into non-being and non-existence. We were dissolving and fading away.

Seeing creation falling into nothingness, God acts through the Incarnation, reuniting Word and Creation, to restabilize the cosmos to keep it from fading away. Athanasius:

For the nature of created things, having come into being from nothing, is unstable, and is weak and mortal when considered by itself...So seeing that all created nature according to its own definition is in a state of flux and dissolution, therefore to prevent this happening and the universe dissolving back into nothing, after making everything by his own eternal Word and bringing creation into existence, [God] did not abandon it to be carried away and suffer through its own nature, lest it run the risk of returning to nothing...lest it suffer what would happen...a relapse into non-existence, if it were not protected by the Word.

In my post yesterday regarding Paul's observations concerning Law and Sin a critical piece was missing: the flesh.

Specifically, according to Paul Sin seizes opportunity through the Law because of the weakness of the flesh. As Paul writes in Romans 8.6-7:

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.

In Chapter 7 Paul gives a vivid description about how the flesh is unable, under the power of Sin, to obey God's Law:

Romans 7.14-15, 18
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 

Notice the key theme: Incapacity.  The flesh does not submit to God's law; indeed it cannot. I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

The deep issue for Paul is human incapacity and weakness, our congenital inability to carry out God's good, righteous and holy commands.

To be clear, Paul isn't preaching "total depravity." In the picture Paul is painting we both know and desire to do the right things. Deep down, we are good people. The problem is that we're too weak to be the good people we desire to be. The issue isn't wickedness, but weakness.

Overcoming this incapacity, then, is the main point of salvation. And according to Paul, our fleshly incapacity is overcome by the power of the Spirit: "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." (Romans 8.13)

What's interesting here is how this reading of Paul isn't new or modern. This is the primary way the church fathers understood salvation. Specifically, salvation is less about the forgiveness of sin than the Spirit healing human weakness.

For example, Athanasius describes in On the Incarnation how Adam's sin returned humanity to a mortal, animal existence. In the Garden, when we had communion with God, we had been protected from death and corruption: "Because of the Word present in them, even natural corruption did not come near them." But after the Fall, we fell into a weakened mortal state: "When this happened, human beings died and corruption thenceforth prevailed against them." Under the sway of death, sin began to dominate human existence the whole affair tipping toward madness, violence, and darkness. The Image of God began slipping away from us: "For these reasons, then, with death holding greater sway and corruption remaining fast against human beings, the race of humans was perishing, and the human being, made rational and in the image, was disappearing, and the work made by God was being obliterated."

The human being was disappearing. That was the problem. The Image of God in us was being slowly obliterated.  

So as we see in Athanasius, the issue isn't really about our need for God to forgive our sins. The problem was that, separated from God's life, the entire human project was falling into darkness and chaos. The human being was disappearing, leaving only beasts upon the earth. Sure, God needs to forgive us. But God needs to do something more drastic and dramatic to keep the cosmos from tipping over into death and dissolution, to save and secure the Image of God that was fading from the world.

And God does this more dramatic and drastic thing by reuniting God's divine nature with human flesh through the Incarnation. In the Incarnation God permanently marks human flesh with His Image. More, through the resurrection of Incarnated flesh, humans were given power over death and corruption.

The key idea here for Athanasius, and for Paul in Romans, is that salvation is fundamentally about power, a power human flesh lacks when separated from God's divine life. And for Paul, it's the gift of the Spirit that gives us this power. The Spirit is our tether, our umbilical cord, to God's life.

So for Paul, the gospel message isn't primarily about "the forgiveness of sins." The Good News is fundamentally about reunion and participation in the Divine Life, the power of the Spirit to overcome our weakness and incapacity in the face of Sin and Death:

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Pauline scholars tend to agree that Paul's attitude concerning the Mosaic Law undergoes a modulation and development from Galatians to Romans.

Galatians appears to be Paul's "hot take" on the Law. Galatians is an extraordinarily emotional letter, a bit unhinged at times. The crisis was that some teachers had come to Paul's churches in Galatia and had begun preaching a gospel that demanded that Paul's Gentile converts be circumcised and begin observing the Torah (at least parts of it). For Paul, this was a repudiation of the work of the Messiah, whose work is embraced though faith.

In making this contrast between his gospel and the "false gospel" that had shown up in his churches, Paul says some very extreme things about the Law. Mincing no words, Paul describes the Law as an enslaving power, and places it alongside other demonic powers that hold humanity captive. For example,

Galatians 3.23, 4.8-9
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 

That's a pretty extreme view. So much so, Paul seems to have reconsidered his "hot take" by the time we get to Romans. Maybe Paul's view regarding the Law didn't change, but his treatment in Romans is much more nuanced.

Specifically, in Romans Paul is keen to observe that the law is holy, righteous and good: "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." (Romans 7.12)

So the problem with the Law in Romans isn't with the Law exactly, but with how the power of Sin seizes an opportunity through the Law: "For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me." (Romans 7.11)

In short, in Galatians the Law seems to be the enslaving power. But by the time we get to Romans, however, Paul seems to have reconsidered that opinion, or at least clarified his position. The problem isn't with the Law but with how Sin seizes an opportunity through the Law.

More simply, in Galatians the problem is the Law. In Romans the problem is the power of Sin.

Why worry about the loaves and fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.

--"Logos" by Mary Oliver, from Devotions

Jean Vanier died this week, on Tuesday May 7, at the age of 90.

My goodness, how Jean Vanier has had an impact upon so many of us. So many things could be said, but let me say at least this: If there was one voice in Christianity that pointed us toward how to be a Christian in this modern age it was Jean Vanier. Jean Vanier was, I think, the St. Francis of our time.

As Virgil and the Pilgrim look upon the three-faced Lucifer frozen in the pit of hell, they observe a ghastly sight. In each of Satan's three mouths he eternally chews three sinners. Judas, Brutus, and Cassius.

All three embody the greatest of all sins in the world of Dante: betrayal.

Judas betrayed Jesus. And Brutus and Cassius betrayed Julius Caesar.

And, of course, Satan himself betrayed God.

This vision in the Inferno of Satan gnawing on Judas, Brutus, and Cassius is famous. But it's worth pausing to ponder why Dante makes betrayal the very worst of sins.

Why is betrayal the very worst sin? It's a question worth meditating on, even if you disagree with Dante's choice for what should be punished in the lowest pit of hell.

Ponder this: What would be the opposite of betrayal? The opposite would be loyalty, trust, and faithfulness. In biblical language, the opposite of betrayal is covenantal fidelity.

And breaking covenant fidelity, toward God or neighbor, does seem to be the gravest sin in the Bible. Breaking covenantal fidelity is a failure of love, toward God and others. Consequently, betrayal is the ultimate example of a failure to love.

Again, we might disagree with Dante on this. But I think Dante has a good point. We might be harmed by others, but I think what most of us would consider to be the very worst thing that could ever happen to us would be to have someone we loved stab us in the back. Being hurt by a stranger is bad, but being betrayed by someone we loved and trusted is worse. Betrayal cuts deep, breaking something deep, deep within us. We can bounce back from being hurt by a stranger, but being betrayed by a loved one can ruin us emotionally in ways that never heal. By wounding love, betrayal kills the very thing that makes us human.

In all this, I think we start to get a glimpse of why betrayal is the very worst sin in the Inferno. And yet, I wonder if we moderns are losing our ability to see this truth.

Specifically, it seems that everywhere we turn we are losing our vision of love as covenantal fidelity. More and more it seems, we think of love in terms of the marketplace, love as a return on investment. Do we think of marriages as covenants anymore? Family ties? Friendships? Civic life? Churches? Our relationship with God?

Sadly, I don't think that we do. 

And maybe that's the greatest betrayal of all.

I want to gather up the points I've been making over the last three posts.

First, a point I've been making over the last few years, we need to attend to the experiential, mystical aspects of faith in our disenchanted age.

Second, while I think that is true, I think the story needs to be modified a bit. Yes, I think many Christians are struggling with disenchantment. But that's not all that is going on. What we may be seeing is a shift in enchantments, trading one sort of enchantment for a different one.

Third, if that's true, what sort of shift is going on? Following Steven Smith, we're witnessing a shift from a Christian to a pagan enchantment, where the sacred is no longer found outside of creation but within creation. Enchantment is shifting from the transcendent to the immanent.

And that brings me to something I've been thinking about regarding faith and mysticism.

Perhaps we're more enchanted than I've been giving us credit for over the last few years. I've been going on and on about the need for a direct, experiential encounter with the sacred. And I've been assuming these experiences are growing rarer and rarer in our secular, disenchanted age. But maybe that's not the case. Maybe we remain very much enchanted, and mystical experiences very common.

If so, then the issue shifts. Any Christian call for the mystical has to be less a general call for mysticism than attending to the particular sort of mysticism we are talking about. Specifically, is this mystical encounter transcendent or immanent? Mystical experiences need to be discerned.

The big point in all this is that in my ruminations about mysticism I'm starting to think less of mysticism than mysticisms, and which sort of encounters with God are vital to a vibrant walk with God.

Over the years I've been writing more and more about the role of mysticism in shoring up faith. As I've argued it, unless faith has an experiential aspect--a personal subjective encounter with God--Christianity succumbs to intellection (Christianity is what you think or believe), moralism (Christianity is being a good person), or politicization (Christianity is about political activism).

That said, I've grown a bit worried about this call for mysticism. And it's taken me some time to discern the exact nature of this worry.

Let's start with William James' definition of mysticism: Mysticism is a direct, personal encounter with the divine.

To be sure, theologians quibble with James' definition. They don't like how James focuses on the personal, individual encounter with God. James' mysticism, the theologians point out, lacks a communal dimension.

Fair enough. But a quick tour through the Bible and Christian history reveals that William James is on solid ground. Moses and the burning bush? Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus? Peter's vision of unclean animals on the roof? Jesus hearing the voice of God at his baptism? Isaiah's vision of God in the temple? The entire book of Revelation? The stigmata of St. Francis? The visions of Julian of Norwich? And on and on. Each and every one of these is a personal, private encounter with God.

All that to say, William James is right and the theologians are wrong.

So my worry about mysticism isn't that it's subjective, personal or private. My worry, as I've come to understand it, has to do with where the sacred is being located in the mystical experience.

In light of our discussion in Part 2, regarding the contrast between a transcendent versus an immanent sacred, this is was what I was getting at a few months ago in a post describing an "apocalyptic mysticism." For example, lot of us encounter God in nature. But this is ticklish business. When is a mystical experience on a mountain or a beach an encounter with the Creator versus the creation? Borrowing from Steven Smith in Part 2, when is a mystical experience in nature evidence of pagan versus Christian mysticism?

This is why I grabbed the word "apocalyptic" in describing the mystical experiences I'm pondering. A motif of apocalyptic theology, following Louis Martyn, is that God invades the created order from the outside. Thus, a transcendent, apocalyptic mystical experience is God invading our world, God breaking in from the outside. True, this experience is mediated through creation, but the source of the encounter originates from outside our world.

Now, one might wonder why I'm fussing about a contrast between pagan versus Christian mysticism, between immanent versus transcendent (apocalyptic) mysticism. The issue goes to idolatry and the discernment of spirits. I've been arguing that mysticism is vital for a vibrant faith walk. But mystical experiences need to be assessed and discerned.       

Specifically, I think one of the temptations with mysticism is how it can devolve into sentimentality. In addition, nature mysticism can have an elitist, classist aspect. As I've joked on this blog before, when friends tell me they feel closest to God in beautiful places, on beaches or in mountains, my standard response is, "That's not God you are feeling. It's called vacation."

That might be harsh, but it gets at my worry. It's worrisome if God only shows up during your week in Hawaii.

I'm looking for an mystical encounter with God that invades and interrupts in the ugly, boring, unremarkable places and spaces of your life. And that's why I find the mystical experiences in the Bile so illustrative. God doesn't come to the saints in the Bible as they are wiggling their toes in the sand sipping Coronas.

God breaks in and disrupts, and the encounter startles and even terrifies. This isn't a warm, fuzzy feeling on a beach. It's an encounter with the Living God. 

In Part 1 I pointed out that in the modern West we haven't become disenchanted as much as we have shifted our enchantments away from Christianity toward other spiritualities.

If so, what is this other spirituality?

In his book Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac Steven Smith argues that, since the rise of Christianity down to this very day, Christianity and paganism have been in conflict in presenting us with rival spiritualities.

This might seem to be a strange claim, given how Christianity conquered paganism. Worldwide, there are billions of Christians and not many people believe in the old Roman gods. But Smith argues that focusing on beliefs in the pagan gods misses the heart of pagan spirituality, what made it so attractive, then and now. And if we focus on pagan spirituality, rather than beliefs in pagan gods, then we come to see that Christianity never really defeated paganism. Paganism has persisted and existed alongside Christianity this entire time. And, in fact, after existing for 2,000 years in the shadows, paganism is now ascendant once again.

So, what does Smith mean by "pagan spirituality" as a contrast and rival to "Christianity spirituality"? According to Smith, the vital difference between paganism and Christianity is the location of the scared. Smith writes:

[P]agan religion differs from Judaism and Christianity in its placement of the sacred. Pagan religion locates the sacred within this world. In that way, paganism can consecrate the world from within: it is religiosity relative to an immanent sacred. Judaism and Christianity, by contrast, reflect a transcendent religiosity; they place the sacred, ultimately, outside the world--"beyond space and time." 

Again, Smith points out that immanent spiritualities--locating the sacred within the world--have always been around, and even have mixed in various ways with the transcendent spirituality of Christianity. For Christians, God is both immanent and transcendent, so the two can mix together. That said, as a Christian spirituality shifts towards an immanent sacred it becomes an increasingly "paganized" version of Christianity. And there are lots of historical and modern examples of these "pagan Christianities."

Smith goes on to observe that, after 2,000 years of cultural dominance in the West, the transcendent spirituality of Christianity is now losing ground to the immanent spirituality of paganism. Increasingly, people aren't looking toward a transcendent sacred that stands over, interrupts and judges human affairs. Rather, we seek and sacralize goods we find within creation. Things are good--food, sex, values, human being--in themselves. Creation, the parts we enjoy at least, is intrinsically good, independent of any other transcendent good that confers goodness.

I think we see multiple examples of this at work in the modern West, and within many sectors of Christianity.

All that to say, I think Smith's argument is helpful in describing how, exactly, our enchantment has shifted. Over the last 500 years, we haven't gone from enchantment to disenchantment. Rather, we've been shifting from a Christian to a pagan enchantment, moving from a transcendent enchantment to immanent enchantments.

Following Charles Taylor, in Reviving Old Scratch I tell the story of Western civilization over the last 500 years as a journey from enchantment to disenchantment.

Whimsically, in the book I call this ScoobyDooification, using the trajectory of a classic Scooby Doo episode to illustrate the movement from a world filled with magic, ghosts, and spirits to a world of science, technology and rationalism. At the start of a Scooby Doo episode the world of agents consists of people and spooks. But at the end of the episode there are only people. No gods, spirits, or ghosts.

So our secular age is disenchanted.

Or is it?

Over the last couple of years scholars have been pushing back upon the disenchantment story. Perhaps we aren't as disenchanted as we think we are.

Here's how Stephen Asma describes modern supernatural beliefs in his book Why We Need Religion? After discussing how his sophisticated college students scoff at the scientific illiteracy of things like Ken Ham's Creation Museum Asma observes:

My own students in Chicago chuckle with ironic dismissal about the Creation Museum. But now it gets interesting. My students believe in ghosts.

It's not just a few students, or an odd cohort, that believe in ghosts. It's a vast majority. Over the last decade I have informally polled my students and discovered that around 80 percent of them believe in ghosts...

If you are surprised to find such a high number of ghost believers, you might also be alarmed to discover that almost half of my students also believe in astrology...

Much has been made recently of the nonreligious nature of the Millennials, given that they self-identify as "unaffiliated" when polls ask them about religion. They are indeed disaffected about organized institutional religion, but we would be mistaken if we read this as an Enlightenment style triumph of scientific literacy. They are devoted to mysticism, supernaturalism, [and] pseudoscience...and the same [students] who think the idea of heaven and hell is ridiculous, see karma and reincarnation as manifestly obvious.

I think this is very true. Sure, you might run into a hard core atheist from time to time, but by and large your average Dick and Jane is very much a supernaturalist.

In short, we're not as disenchanted as we think. Our enchantments have just shifted.

Rachel Held Evans passed away early this morning.

Rachel was a friend, though like many today I'm grieving the fact that we didn't get to spend more time together. But mostly I am devastated for Dan and their children, along with the Held and Evans families.

It seems like only yesterday that I opened an email in 2010 from Rachel, telling me she followed and loved the blog and asking if I'd like to receive a copy of her first book Evolving in Monkey Town. That started our friendship over emails and through social media. We met for the first time at ACU where we discussed our lives as bloggers in an Honors College forum. Later, Jana and I visited Rachel and Dan in Dayton, TN, an experience I wrote about in a post "Visiting and Evolving in Monkey Town."

Rachel was brilliant, talented, kind, warm and so, so courageous. I cherish the books she was able to share with us, but I'm grieving the books we have lost. But mostly, I'm grieving the loss of her. And I know for many of you Rachel's blog, Twitter feed, and books have been so influential in your faith journey. Today we lost a friend and the church an incandescent, prophetic voice. As Rachel wrote in Searching for Sunday:

The purpose of the church, and of the sacraments, is to give the world a glimpse of the kingdom, to point in its direction. When we put a kingdom-spin on ordinary things--water, wine, leadership, marriage, friendship, feasting, sickness, forgiveness--we see that they can be holy, they can point us to something greater than ourselves, a fantastic mystery that brings meaning to everything. We make something sacramental when we make it like the kingdom. Marriage is sacramental when it is characterized by mutual love and submission. A meal is sacramental when the rich and poor, powerful and marginalized, sinners and saints share equal status around the table. A local church is sacramental when it is a place where the last are first and the first are last and those who hunger and thirst are fed. And the church universal is sacramental when it knows no geographic boundaries, no political parties, no single language or culture, and when it advances not through power and might, but through acts of love, joy, and peace and missions of mercy, kindness, and humility.

Rachel's life was a sacrament of the kingdom, everything she did pointed in that direction. Rachel pointed us toward marriages characterized by mutual love and submission, and toward a church characterized by acts of love, joy, and peace and missions of mercy, kindness, and humility.

Rest now, sweet sister. Until we meet again in the sunlight of that bright and coming Day.

In Canto 34, Virgil and the Pilgrim cross the icy surface of hell to finally come to face Lucifer.

Not face to face, exactly. Lucifer is huge, and is frozen in the icy lake from the chest down. Lucifer has three faces and three sets of bat-like wings, each set flapping and causing chilly winds to blow through hell and freeze the surrounding ice. And from his six eyes, Satan weeps.

More on Satan next week. For today, just a short reflection on the frozen, weeping Satan.

Basically, Dante's Satan is very different Milton's Satan, at least as Satan appears early on in Paradise Lost. Given his heroic demeanor, some readers of Paradise Lost have thought that Satan is the protagonist of the story. Many have been stirred by the defiance of Milton's Satan who declares: "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."

Dante, by contrast, presents nothing heroic about Satan. Satan is not reigning in Hell. Satan is, rather, frozen, devoid of personality, and eternally weeping. In the Divine Comedy Satan is a vision of a living death.  

The point is this:

Hell isn't a heroic rebellion against an unjust tyranny.

Hell is, rather, rebellion against the Love that sustains, warms, and gives life to the world.

I'm often asked about how a person can move from a season of deconstruction regarding the faith--a season of doubt, questioning, and searching--into a season of reconstruction, a season of renewed conviction, faith, and spiritual vitality.

Yesterday I wrote about how the theologian Stanley Hauerwas helped me pull out of a season of deconstruction. I observed that Hauerwas is unapologetically and aggressively Christian. I found that confidence and combativeness helpful during my season of wavering and doubt.

To be clear, combativeness isn't a good in itself. There are lots of combative Christians in the culture wars who I strongly disagree with. You can be combative about the wrong things.

But Hauerwas is someone who I think is combative about the right things, and is confident that Jesus and the church are the salvation of the world.

Anyway, when people are going through a season of deconstruction they often drift toward Christian voices that help them doubt better. From personal experience, let me just say that's a bad idea. If all you ever read are voices saying "Keep doubting! Keep doubting!" well, guess what, you'll keep doubting. And eventually those doubts are going to drown you.

So my advice, if you're wanting to move out of a season of deconstruction, is to start reading confident and unapologetic Christian voices. Hauerwas is a good choice. I also read Bonhoeffer, Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Day, William Stringfellow, Fleming Rutledge, Oscar Romero, Jean Vanier, Augustine, Eugene Peterson. The list goes on and on.

And perhaps best of all, read the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Spend some time with Jesus.

All that to say, stop reading authors who reinforce your doubts and read someone who puts some steel back in your spine.

Stanley Hauerwas came along in my life at the perfect time. I was in the middle of a season of doubt and deconstruction. I was reading all sorts of progressive Christian authors sending me the same message, "Keep doubting! Doubt is good! Certainty is bad!"

I get that message, have preached it myself, and see its wisdom. That said, that string eventually plays itself out. Doubt, if you're not careful, eventually becomes disbelief.

So what I was needing at that time of my life, though I didn't know it, was a voice that was brazenly, aggressively, combatively, unapologetically Christian. And if you know anything about Stanley Hauerwas you know he is brazenly, aggressively, combatively, unapologetically Christian. And I found this, and still find it, so very life giving and refreshing.

As Stanley Hauerwas has said, "Jesus is Lord, and everything else is bullshit."

Amen.

To be sure, Stanley Hauerwas has had a huge influence upon my thinking, especially about nationalism, pacifism, and the vital role of the church in forming virtue. And yet, I think the biggest influence Hauerwas has had upon me has more to do with theological attitude and confidence.

Simply put, Hauerwas makes a Christian brave.