I've been reading some open theism posts the last week or so (see Greg Boyd's posts here and here and the ongoing discussions at the An Open Orthodoxy blog).

I'd like to use this post to sketch out my views regarding open theology. My view is, I think, I unique view, a relational view of God that seems to stand somewhere between open and process theology.

In general, I really like open theism. Mainly because it preserves a real and robust relational view of God as opposed to the faux-relationalism found in the deterministic vision of Calvinism.

To summarize quickly, open theism is, at root, a belief about the nature of the future. Open theism is not, as open theists repeatedly point out, a belief about God's omniscience. Crudely stated, according to open theism God does not know the future because the future does not yet exist. This does not limit God's omniscience because if the future does not exist then there is nothing for God to know. In short, the future is "yet to be," the future is "open" and unfolding.

The openness of the future in open theism is generally rooted in a libertarian account of human free will. Because humans have free will God does not know what exact future will unfold in the face of human choices. Thus, open theism is described as a relational view of God as God is waiting upon and responsive toward the free choices of individuals. God, being infinitely powerful and resourceful, will bring about God's purposes for the world, but how exactly that future will unfold is to be determined. God is playing, so the metaphor goes, a chess game with humanity. God will win the game, that outcome is "predetermined," but the exact course of the game is an unfolding and relational process given the moves humans will make and how God opts to respond as a consequence.

That's a quick and crude sketch of open theism. And at this point there are a variety of objections to open theism and some standard rebuttals to those objections. But for this post I'd like to point out where I demur from open theism and then describe the view I've constructed to take its place in an attempt to keep a relational view of God firmly in view.

Because, for me at least, that's the great attraction of open theism, its dynamic and relational view of God and humanity. I want to keep that vision. But I don't agree with how open theism gets us there.

Specifically, as stated the mechanism of open theism is libertarian free will. That's the lynch pin. The trouble is that, as a psychologist, I find libertarian visions of free will to be psychologically implausible. I'm just not sure how free will would operate psychologically. Of course, I'm willing to admit that I might be wrong in this instance, and I'm open to being persuaded on this point, but as things stand today I've had to build a different sort of model to create a different sort of open theism, a vision that doesn't rely upon libertarian versions of free will.

So, what is this new view of mine?

The vision I have in mind is one that is rooted in the disjoint between consciousness and science, what has been called "the hard problem of consciousness."

Specifically, science relies upon a third-person, publicly-adjudicated, and objective methodology. Consciousness, however, is a first-person, privately-experienced, and subjective phenomenon. Thus, there is an ontological and epistemological disjoint between the data (subjective experience) and the method (science). Simplistically stated, I can study, in an objective way, the way your brain acts when you smell apple pie. But the subjective experience of the smell of apple pie can never be captured on a brain scan. The phenomenon under investigation cannot be captured by the methods of science.

In short, as many others have argued before me, consciousness cannot be reduced to a scientific account. Let's call this the non-reductionism hypothesis.

We can go further.

It's not just that consciousness can't be reduced to physics. Consciousness has causal potency. We move away from things because they create the conscious experience of pain. We move toward things because they create the conscious experience of pleasure. The conscious experiences of pleasure and pain are causal forces in the world. Let's call this the causation hypothesis.

Now, if you combine the non-reductionism and the causation hypotheses you reach a pretty bold conclusion. Specifically, a reductive scientific account of the cosmos is impossible. Because there will always be aspects of causation in the cosmos--those related to conscious experience--that can never be captured, accounted for, explained, or reduced to physical, material or scientific accounts. To be sure, science has and will continue to explain much within the cosmos. But science will never be able to explain everything. The causes and effects related to consciousness will always remain a non-reductive residual to any scientific account of the world.

This argument is not new to me. If you'd like to read a good account of this position I recommend Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.

Let me continue by articulating two more hypotheses to bring my theory fully into view.

If consciousness cannot be known from the "outside" then it can only be known subjectively, from the "inside." That is, knowledge of consciousness is experiential and participatory. And when you cannot experience things first-hand you have to proceed empathically. As the saying goes, to understand what it feels like to be you I have to walk a mile in your moccasins. Let us call this the experiential epistemology hypothesis, that knowledge of consciousness can only be gained experientially (directly) or empathically (approximately and/or imaginatively).

Combining all three hypotheses--the non-reductionism, causation and experiential epistemology hypotheses--what we have is this. I cannot know or predict what any given human being will do unless I have perfect knowledge of his or her subject experience. And since I can only know any given person's subjective experience approximately--that is to say, empathically or imaginatively--I can only make imperfect predictions about what any given person may or may not do.

The upside here is that the more and more intimate I get with a person--the greater and greater my ability to understand and empathize with him or her--the greater my predictive knowledge.

For example, I've gotten better over twenty-two years of marriage at buying gifts for my wife. I've gotten better at predicting Jana's future--for example, that Jana will love a particular gift--because of my improving empathic capacities--listening to and watching Jana over the years, getting a better and better sense of what it's like to "be Jana." Still, given that I'm a human being I will never know Jana fully and completely. Sometimes I predict wrong and the gift isn't so perfect. So you always have to keep listening and learning.

In short, it's this connection between knowledge and empathy that creates the relational dynamic.

Which brings us to the final of our four hypotheses.

My last hypothesis is this: the experiential epistemology hypothesis applies to God. Specifically, God cannot know what it feels like to be me from "the outside." If this is so, God cannot "compute" or "simulate" the future the way a super-computer might run an infinite number of simulations for a physical system. Because consciousness has causal effects all possible futures of the cosmos cannot be simulated in this way. No brute force calculation, even those of an Infinite Mind, can make perfect predictions of the cosmos. Due to consciousness the cosmos will not unfold like a chess game. Chess pieces don't scream "Ouch!"

Ouch will not compute.

This means that God can only gain predictive knowledge of the future the same way your or I do: with experiential participation and/or empathic imagination. That is to say, God can only know or come to predict the future through relationality.

God's full knowledge of the cosmos, particularly where humans are concerned, must be--necessarily and inherently--relational, experiential, empathic and participatory.

Stepping back, all open/relational views of God have to, in some way, limit God's omniscience. This is why they are so controversial. Openness views, as we noted above, tend to handle this by adopting a theory about the future, that the future doesn't actually exist and, thus, God not knowing a non-existent future puts no limit on God's omniscience. God can't be expected to know stuff that doesn't exist.

By contrast, in the view I'm presenting here I am arguing that God's knowledge is limited by an empathic gap. God's ability to know and predict my future is limited by God's ability (or inability) to know exactly what it feels like to be me, privately, subjectively and experientially.

I am arguing that God is limited in this way. Now, just why God is empathically limited in this way I cannot say. Perhaps, following someone like Moltmann, the empathic gap between God and humanity is due to the self-limiting withdrawal that God had to preform to "make room" for the creation. God's self-limiting in the creative act created a vacuum, a space in which I could exist. Perhaps that vacuum experientially externalized God to some degree, creating an experiential "gap"  between God and humanity.

Of course, that gap can be overcome. And should be. That is the drama of salvation. And it appears that God chooses to overcome this gap in a relational and non-coercive manner. Just like with any intimate human relationship. God has vacated my internal experiential space, and I must invite God back into that space. So that I can both know God and be known by God.

All that is just speculation about how the empathy gap was created. But that an empathy gap existed I believe is the clear testimony of Scripture. Specifically, in Hebrews we read:

Hebrews 4.14-16
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. 

If we read this text in a straightforward way, it seems to argue that the Incarnational participation in the human experience increased the empathic capacities of God. Because of the Incarnation God comes to understand the human experience "from the inside." The Incarnation ushers in a new, more empathic relationship between God and humanity.

Let us, then, call the fourth and final hypothesis the Incarnational hypothesis, the hypothesis that the Incarnation--God's participation in the human experience--increased the empathic capacities of God.

Now it's here where my view dips into process theology a bit. I'm positing that the Incarnation changed God in some way, that God "learned" something in the Incarnation. Specifically, God "learned" about the human experience through participation in the Incarnation. And because of the Incarnation God is better able to empathize with us.

And if I may be still more bold, let me add this last bit of speculation.

I'd argue that, because the Incarnation was, well, incarnated, God's experience of humanity was limited in certain ways. Jesus was, for example, a man. Jesus never gave birth. Jesus never faced Alzheimer's. Jesus was never married. And so on.

Thus, I'd argue that even after the Incarnation God's empathic capacities were limited in certain ways. We might say that the Incarnation created the capacity for a generalized empathy but that, after the Incarnation, there remained the need for particular empathy, the narrowing of the empathy gap between God's Jesus-experience and your particular life experience.

Narrowing that gap, it seems to me, is a story by story, biography by biography process. This is where I think we insert a pneumological account, how the Spirit of God takes up residence within us so that God's Spirit and our own can do the particular individualized work of relational intimacy. Similar to my example above about intimacy with Jana. This will be a love story that plays out between each person and God in unique and individualized ways. The goal of which is the contemplative, experiential, participatory "union" between God and the individual.

Right now God and I see each other but dimly, as in a mirror. One day we will see each other face to face. And in that moment I will both know and be fully known.

The experiential gap will be fully overcome in the process of uniting the human with the divine. I am describing here theosis and perichoresis.

But right now, today, I am well short of those marks. I am not fully known. There are parts of me that remained blocked off from both myself and God, hidden by my sin. I can grieve the Holy Spirit indwelling me.

Thus the ebb and flow of ongoing relationship, surrender and intimacy.

So this, then, is my theory.

As best I can tell, though I have borrowed all the bits and pieces from others, I can't recall coming across this particular viewpoint anywhere else. If you've encountered this theory before please let me know.

In meantime, let me tentatively name this view "Empathic Open Theism," an account that roots the relationally open dynamics of the human/divine relationship in an empathic gap between God and humanity where each partner works to overcome that gap in deepening intimacy until "perfect knowledge" is achieved in the union of theosis and perichoresis.

Recently these search terms brought someone to the blog:

the prayer of jabez made me sad

I thought that was a pretty funny search term.

Did the book The Prayer of Jabez make this person sad? Or was it the actual prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles?

Anyway, that search term linked to this blog because last autumn I wrote a post about the prayer of Jabez as I taught it during my Monday night bible study out at the prison.

If references to the prayer of Jabez make you cringe, I hope you'll find these reflections from the men in prison to be both poignant and profound.

///

In the prison bible study we were working through 1 Chronicles and we came to the prayer of Jabez:

1 Chronicles 4.9-10 (NKJV)
Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.”

And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying,

“Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!”

So God granted him what he requested.

A lot of you, when you hear "the prayer of Jabez," think about the best-selling Christian book The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life by Bruce Wilkinson. The Prayer of Jabez took the evangelical world by storm in 2000 when it was first published. But it also drew a fair amount of criticism.

Specifically, some felt that Wilkinson took the phrase in the prayer "Bless me, and enlarge my territory" in a prosperity gospel direction. You pray the "prayer of Jabez" so that God might bring you success and good things in life--the expansion of your "territory."

But that's not how the men in the prison study heard the prayer of Jabez. They heard something quite different.

The men didn't focus at all on the "expand my territory" line. Rather, they were drawn to the fact that Jabez means pain (or sounds like pain in Hebrew).

A child named pain.

Apparently named so because of the pain he caused his mother in childbirth: "His mother called his name Jabez, saying, 'Because I bore him in pain.'"

Given the life histories of the men in the study, they could identify with a child named pain.

And the child named pain grows up to pray a prayer about pain. A prayer that he might be protected from pain or that he might not be the cause of any more pain.

There appears to be some interpretive ambiguity on this point. Most translations have the prayer being a request for protection from pain and harm:

NRSV:
that you would keep me from hurt and harm

ESV:
that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain

NIV:
keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain 

That seems to be the consensus view, that the one named pain requests to be protected from pain.

But for some reason, the New King James Version goes against the flow and gives a different meaning:

NKJV:
that I may not cause pain

That might be a bad translation, but most of the guys in the study carry the NKJV so that was the line that most of them read in the prayer of Jabez. And that was the line that most affected them. Most profoundly affected them.

A prayer that I might not cause any more pain.

Because these men have caused a lot of pain. A lot of pain. A pain that goes on and on. In the lives of their victims. In the lives of their loved ones and families. In their own lives.

More, it's a daily struggle not to cause more pain. To not add pain upon pain.

Such a great, sad, awful, soul-crushing weight of pain.

These men, their name could be Jabez. Their name is Jabez.

So the prayer of Jabez that night in the prison was not "expand my territory." The prayer of Jabez was something different. Something full of sadness, loss, shame, regret, guilt and sorrow.

I pray, Dear God, that I might not cause any more pain.

This was the prayer of these children of pain.

This was the prayer of Jabez.

Put on compassion,
kindness,
humility,
gentleness,
and patience.
Be tolerant with each other
and, if someone has a complaint against anyone,
forgive each other.
As the Lord forgave you,
so also forgive each other.
And over all these things
put on love

I had a thought the other day about the Akedah, the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22.

Incidentally, I like to go with the Jewish description (the Akedah) of this event--the binding of Isaac--rather than the typical Christian description--the sacrifice of Isaac--because, well, Isaac was bound for a sacrifice but wasn't actually sacrificed.

Many modern and liberal readers of Genesis 22 are rightly horrified that God would demand a father to sacrifice his own son. Even if it's just a test. The request seems cruel and inhumane.

And no doubt it is. But the other day I had this thought about the Akedah. What if the story of the Akedah was an apology for Canaanite neighbors?

We know that Israel's neighbors practiced child sacrifice. A practice that many Israelites were drawn into. For example:

2 Chronicles 28.1-3
Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and also made idols for worshiping the Baals. He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and sacrificed his children in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

Thus the various prohibitions in the OT. For example:

Leviticus 18.21
Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

Now my point here is this. Israel's faith wasn't to include child sacrifice but that was a part of neighboring religions. And I wonder what sort of religious debate this created. Specifically, if you came from a religion that practiced child sacrifice what sort of criticisms would you make about a religion that didn't have child sacrifices? I'm wondering here about Canaanite criticism of YHWH and the followers of YHWH. What form did that criticism take?

Here's my guess. The criticism questioned the religious commitment of the Israelite religion, questioned the depth of the zeal of the Israelite faith. And it's easy to see how such a criticism could be made. The Canaanites did not withhold their child from the gods. The Israelites did. So you tell me, who looks more committed? Who is more "sold out" for their faith?

So what I'm wondering here is if the story of the Akedah is working as an apology in the face of that Canaanite criticism, that the followers of YHWH are less committed to their god because they don't practice child sacrifice. Because that seems to be precisely the point of the Akedah: that YHWH does not demand child sacrifice but that the followers of YHWH are just as committed to their god as are the Canaanites to theirs. The Akedah is a story that says that child sacrifice cannot be used as the ultimate test of religious devotion. And no doubt it was being use as such a test as the Israelites and Canaanites compared religions.

That YHWH doesn't demand child sacrifices is no reflection upon the love, faithfulness, and commitment of the Israelites. Abraham, as the founder of the faith, demonstrated this once at the beginning so no further tests are needed. The point has been made:

The passion and commitment of YHWH's followers in this new non-sacrificial faith is secured in the founding story of the Akedah.

One of the arguments I make in The Slavery of Death is that we become enslaved to the fear of death because we form out identities through the act of possessing. Arthur McGill calls this an "identity of possession."

As should be obvious, an identity based upon possession is vulnerable to anxiety, worry and fear as the possibility and threat of dispossession is ever-present. The potential for loss infuses the psyche. We become enslaved by this fear of loss, slaves to the fear of death.

These fears become particularly acute when we live in what Brene Brown has called a "culture of scarcity" where everyone is "hyperaware of lack," worried about not having or being "enough."

As I argue it in the book, the path toward an emancipation from our slavery to the fear of death is to reconfigure our identities, to "die" to an identity built around possession so that a new identity might be "resurrected" to take its place.

If so, what sort of identity? The answer I give is an identity based not upon possession but upon the experience of gift.

Interestingly, though I didn't include this in The Slavery of Death, I think this analysis is supported by a reading of the book of Ecclesiastes.

A central question in the book of Ecclesiastes is this: What gain is there in life?

The question comes right at the start of the book, in 1.3:

What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?

The word translated as "gain" here is yithron. Yithron only occurs ten times in the OT, all of those occurrences in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Yithron is variously translated as gain, profit or advantage. The basic idea is that of accumulation, excess, and remainder--what is "left over."

According to Ecclesiastes because life is hebel--mist, vapor--efforts to "gain" are futile and vain. This is why most translations translate hebel as "vanity" or "meaninglessness."

In Ecclesiastes we walk through a couple examples of this pursuit of "gain" in Chapter 2, where the Teacher variously chased after "gain" via riches, pleasure, wisdom and work. But in every instance death washes the "gain" away. Riches, pleasure, wisdom and work are all hebel--fleeting as the mist and vapor. The pursuit of "gain" is revealed to be like "chasing after the wind."

But here's the really weird part. In other locations in Ecclesiastes pleasure, riches, wisdom and work are all praised and commended.

So what's the deal with this switcharoo? Are these things good or bad?

To be sure, there are no easy or consistent answers for the complex testimony found Ecclesiastes, but I think one way to make sense of the paradox observed here is rooted in the argument I make in The Slavery of Death.

Specifically, when we pursue things with an eye on possessing them, when our strivings are motivated by yithron, the prospect of death dominates our lives. Anything we think we've "gained" will be washed away. As noted above, an identity of possession is vulnerable to the prospect and inevitability of loss. Thus the angst we see--symptomatic of a slavery to the fear of death--expressed by the Teacher in Ecclesiastes: "All is vanity."

But the problem isn't with riches, pleasure, wisdom or work per se. The problem comes only when we pursue and hold onto these things as possessions, as "gain." Because "gain" is ever-vulnerable to loss.

But if these same things are received as gifts then what was previously found to be "vanity" is now experienced as a "blessing."

Ecclesiastes 5:19
Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil--this is a gift of God.

Pursued as gain life is vanity. But received as gift life is transformed into blessing.

In short, I think a key insight to how the Teacher in Ecclesiastes variously condemns and praises aspects of life--money, pleasure, wisdom, work--hinges upon the contrast between "gain" and "gift" in the face of death.

And this is the same contrast that sits at the heart of my analysis of identity in The Slavery of Death.

What does redemption mean?

That was a question I was dealing with the other night out at the prison bible study.

It's an interesting question as other than a vague sense that redemption is synonymous with "salvation," I don't know if many Christians have a ready definition for "redemption."

What I pointed out in my study was how redemption has strong associations with Christus Victor views of salvation, the notion that "salvation" is fundamentally about deliverance, liberation, freedom and emancipation from dark enslaving forces.

The idea that Christ is a "redeemer" goes back to the Old Testament notion of the goel, what is sometimes translated as "kinsmen-redeemer." The kinsmen-redeemer is related to the Hebrew word ga'al which means to buy back, to regain possession of by payment, or to ransom. The kinsmen-redeemer is the one who buys back and pays the ransom.

The basic function goes back to Leviticus 25. When Israelites fell into debt they sometimes would have to sell their ancestral property. When this happened the kinsmen-redeemer was to buy the land so that the land remained in the family:

Leviticus 25.25
If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relative is to come and redeem what they have sold. 

This role of buying back--redeeming--ancestral land to keep it in the family is nicely illustrated in the book of Ruth where Boaz, as kinsmen-redeemer, seeks to buy the ancestral land of Elimelek, Naomi's deceased husband. 

But sometimes things would get worse and an Israelite would have to sell more than the land, he would have to sell himself as a debt-slave. When that happened the kinsmen-redeemer was to rescue their kinsman from debt-slavery by buying him back:

Leviticus 25.47-49a
If a foreigner residing among you becomes rich and any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to the foreigner or to a member of the foreigner’s clan, they retain the right of redemption after they have sold themselves. One of their relatives may redeem them: An uncle or a cousin or any blood relative in their clan may redeem them. 

Basically, the idea of "redemption" is rooted in the notion of debt-slavery. To be "redeemed" or "ransomed" is to be bought back from slavery, from the ownership of another person. And the one who makes the payment is the goel, the kinsmen-redeemer.

In the book of Isaiah God becomes identified as the goel, as the Redeemer of Israel. For example,

Isaiah 41.14
"Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel; I will help you," declares the LORD, "and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. 

And while the name "redeemer" doesn't occur in the New Testament, in many places Jesus is described as performing the role of the goel. For example,

Mark 10.45
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Ephesians 1.7
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace

1 Peter 1.18
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors...

The words "redemption" and "redeemed" in these texts tend to obscure the OT echoes. That is, I don't think many modern readers know how to translate the word "redeemed." Though you do notice echos of the OT economic, buying-back overtones when we do things like redeeming coupons at the store. Translation-wise, I think the rendering of the NLT does nice job of highlighting the kinsmen-redeemer overtones in some of these NT texts:

Ephesians 1.7
He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.

Ephesians 1.14
The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

The connections here with Christus Victor theology should be obvious. The function of the goel--the "redeemer"--has to do with emancipation and liberation from slavery, the "buying us back" from the ownership of another person.

And as should be clear, there is little in any of the NT texts that suggests that we were once enslaved or in bondage to God. No, our bondage was to dark spiritual forces. Thus Jesus, as kinsmen-redeemer, saves us by securing our liberation from these enslaving forces.

That is the meaning of "redemption."

During my Mother's birthday last year I posted a poem for her. I thought I'd share it again for her today. Happy Mother's Day Mom!

///

I remember when you said
(and you said this over and over)
that no matter what
you would always love me.
No matter what.
Those were your words.
I remember this very clearly,
though I didn't then comprehend
the risk you were taking--
one still outstanding--
in the burden of that unconditionality.
I feel the weight of those words
more fully now.
For those were the words
by which I came to understand
what it means to love.
For I can see now
what I could not have known then
as I follow the thread of memories:
that every love in my life
has been an expression,
a heartbeat,
a child
of yours.

I've done my fair share of blogging about movies and theology. The most popular post I've done in this regard was my post about theodicy and the movie No Country for Old Men. Search terms like these bring people to that post:

anton chigurh problem of evil

I talk about a few different things in that post and even coin a term: theodicy fatigue. Specifically, I suggest that theodicy fatigue is what Sheriff Bell is wrestling with throughout the movie, how Bell struggles to make sense of the evil he's chasing and feels "overmatched" by it, epistemically speaking. Sheriff Bell's expression of this epistemologically-driven theodicy fatigue from his opening soliloquy:

The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it.

I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand.

A couple of weeks ago I invited you to ask me questions about my recent book The Slavery of Death. Thanks so much for your questions and your interest in the book.

Let's start with Trischa's questions as this Q&A was her suggestion. Trischa asks:

1. On one of your recent posts, you mentioned that you always find something after you submit your final manuscript for publishing you wish you could have included. What would you like to have included in Slavery of Death?

2. What are some ways you've found helpful to talk about concepts in the final part of the book (like kenosis, martyrological/eccentric identity) with those who haven't read the book and/or are unfamiliar with this type of Christianity and possibly even opposed to it?...[Are] there are there questions you ask or brief points you've found may help in discussing these things with people who are entrenched in a religious mindset that esteems nationalism, excellence, significance, heroism, moralism, and the like.

Regarding #1 I wish I had read Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly before writing. Last fall our bible class at church did a study using Daring Greatly and I was struck by three things that really complemented some of the things I try to say in The Slavery of Death.

Specifically, in The Slavery of Death I talk a lot about the neurotic manifestations of our fear of death, which tends to manifest in a thirst for self-esteem and significance. These worries are wonderfully described by Brown in Daring Greatly, what she calls "the shame-based fear of being ordinary." I've used that line a lot in talking about The Slavery of Death ever since. I featured Brown in my lectures at Fuller Theological Seminary.

The other aspect of Daring Greatly that is helpful is Brown's discussion of how a feeling of "worthiness" is vital to face down shame as we live into vulnerability ("neediness" and "failure" in my book). In The Slavery of Death I describe how this worthiness--Brown's mantra of "I am enough."--is achieved not through the self but through what I call an "eccentric identity." That is, when your identity is "hidden in Christ" you experience a sense of worthiness, but one that isn't rooted in the ego. What a fragile foundation that would be! And the refrain "I am enough" sort of begs the question: Why, exactly, are you enough?

I expect Brown agrees with me that worthiness is a spiritual issue. She just doesn't make that move explicit in Daring Greatly. Regardless, the connections between worthiness, vulnerability and shame in Daring Greatly are all things I talk about in The Slavery of Death.

Finally, both Brown and I talk a lot about how the antidote to fear is gratitude and that gratitude is inherently a spiritual practice.

Regarding Question #2, that's really hard. On the surface you can experiment with different words and descriptions. Instead of "eccentric identity" I can talk about "gift." Instead of "neurotic manifestations of death anxiety" I can talk about "the shame-based fear of being ordinary." Instead of "doxological gratitude" I can just talk about "gratitude."

So there are ways to make the ideas as ideas more accessible. Communication is easy, but conversion is much harder. Because if the argument in The Slavery of Death is accurate then the reason people are "entrenched in a religious mindset that esteems nationalism, excellence, significance, heroism, moralism, and the like" is that these things are being (unconsciously and neurotically) used at the deepest levels of the psyche to secure self-esteem and/or existential consolation in the face of death. Consequently, people are in a fearful and defensive posture. And in my experience, it's really, really hard to untangle that neurotic knot without getting thrown out of the room. I think all you can do in this instance is hold up a diagnostic mirror so that people can see their reflection and perhaps unwind themselves a bit. The psychological analyses in The Slavery of Death is trying to provide such a mirror.

And at the end of the day, I think non-neurotic and freely loving people are relatively rare. "Narrow is the way that leads to salvation"?

///

Tracy asks:

What does atonement theory look like in light of your books?

In Unclean I talk about Girardian theory and in The Slavery of Death I discuss Christus Victor. But neither book is, strictly speaking, about atonement theory. The material in the books can complement various atonement theologies but the books themselves don't articulate or argue for a particular atonement position. Of course, I have my personal opinions and am very skeptical of and wary about penal substitutionary atonement. But I don't think anyone who believed in penal substitutionary atonement would find my books offensive. They definitely wouldn't think my books painted a comprehensive picture of the atonement and in that they would be correct. The books aren't really about the atonement. I never raise or get into the question about the nature of God's wrath or how that wrath is dealt with via a sacrifice of expiation or propitiation.

Garret asks a related question about the atonement:

...I'm drawn to articulations of atonement that are more concrete like Girard's Scapegoat theory and Moral Exemplar. In these two articulations I can see a connection between what Jesus did and my own (process of) emancipation from sin and death. Where would you place Christus Victor on this spectrum of metaphysical/concrete? Is this a helpful spectrum to begin with? It seems that in your book you talk about Christus Victor as a set of symbols that narrates Christ's freeing us from the power of death. However, I'm having trouble seeing the causal connection between what Jesus did and our own freedom from the fear of death. 

While The Slavery of Death doesn't present an atonement theory, and keeping in mind Tracy's question about what the atonement might look like in the book, I'd say that I create as sort of conflation between Christus Victor and Moral Exemplar theories. Specifically, in the book the powers of sin, death and the devil are described as being psychological rather than metaphysical. Thus, emancipation from these "powers" (Christus Victor) is achieved by adopting the identity of Jesus (Moral Exemplar). This psychological treatment of Christus Victor is different from classical and more ontological and metaphysical theories of Christus Victor.

///

Bruce asks a question about the resurrection of Jesus:

You talk a lot about ecclesial practices and the presence of Christ, but how exactly does the resurrection of Jesus defeat the enslaving power of death? Could your account of freedom from the enslavement of death work with Jesus who simply lived and died as a fulfillment of the law (i.e. Complete love of God and neighbor modelling freedom from the slavery of death)? 

Relatedly John asks:

It seems to me that to be truly set free from the fear of death, I have to live with a degree of confidence that Jesus has in fact defeated death - in some bodily material way. So first question: Do you think this is the case - do we need confidence in bodily resurrection to be set free from our slavery to the fear of death? Second - what would it look like if we were confident in bodily resurrection to hold this view in a non-violent way?

I'm a bit cagey about the resurrection and life after death in The Slavery of Death. For two different reasons.

The first reason was practical. I wanted the book to straddle conservative and liberal audiences. I wanted the book to speak into belief systems that endorse the literal and historical resurrection of Jesus and life after death. But I also wanted the book to speak into belief systems where there was skepticism about those matters.

The second reason has to do with the issue John raises, about how we can believe non-violently.

I think people should read The Authenticity of Faith alongside The Slavery of Death. Specifically, one reason I don't quickly rush to discuss resurrection or life after death is that, per the argument in The Authenticity of Faith, we tend to rush toward these beliefs to assuage death anxiety. But if we do that what we end up with is a fear-based religion. Belief in life after death is a solution to our fear of death but it's generally a neurotic solution, one that leads to violence in various forms.

So how do you believe in God, resurrection and heaven non-neurotically and non-violently? I spelled out what this might look like in this post following up on my lectures at Fuller. The crux of the argument I make in that post is that if heaven and life after death is experienced eccentrically--as a gift I wait on rather than as something I possess, protect and control--then the possibility is created for us to hold onto these beliefs non-neurotically and non-violently.

But at root, The Slavery of Death is less about theology than it is a psychological analysis regarding the relationship between fear and love. So I think no matter where you stand on the metaphysical questions regarding resurrection and heaven the analyses of The Slavery of Death should supplement and complement how you experience and live out your Christian life.

/// 

Joe asks:

Do you think one is either emancipated or not emancipated from the fear of death (an either/or)? Or is the fear of death more like a continuum where we can eventually become less and less fearful but not necessarily escape the fear all together? Do you think certain people are more prone than others to the fear of death based on their personality and psychology? Do you fear death?

I think it's a continuum. More, I think this tension between fear and love exists at every moment of our lives. We never get past this. Fear or love? We face the choice over and over again.

In the book I have an Interlude on timor mortis (the fear of death) in the thought of Augustine. The point of that Interlude is to say that, at root, the fear of death is related to the value and preciousness of life. In that sense, the experience of gift and fear go hand in hand. A lack of fear in the face of death would indicate a loss of reverence or honoring of life. A lack of fear would be pathological.

So the issue isn't the fear itself but the dominion of fear, the power of fear. Fear will always exist, tempting me to put myself selfishly before others. That's natural, it's our animal nature. So the question becomes, how can love "cast out" this fear in living sacrificially for others? How can we live less as fear-driven animals and more as loving human beings?

And yes, I do fear death. But day to day this fear doesn't manifest as a concrete fear of dying (though that fear does grip me at times) than it does in my daily thirst for self-esteem, all the neurotic ways I try to secure significance. That neurosis is the most toxic part of our fear of death. Overcoming that fear in being willing to serve others in ignominious and inconspicuous ways is the day to day battle I face in overcoming my fear of death.

Basically, while I might have some mortal dread of dying by and large that mortal dread doesn't make me an asshole. It might freak me out or panic me or make me depressed, but it doesn't make me an asshole. So in my opinion, facing up to how our self-esteem projects make us sinful and violent is our real struggle with death.

Regarding the fear of death E Wo asks:

How does slavery to the fear of death work with suicide...Was someone who committed suicide "enslaved to the fear of death"? 

Perhaps not in a basic sense but perhaps more neurotically. (I work with the contrast between basic and neurotic anxiety in the book.) I do discuss suicide and the fear of death in the timor mortis Interlude. As I mentioned above, our fear of death is rooted in the preciousness of life. Consequently, if that anxiety is lost, if we become indifferent to both life and death, then the experience of gift has become eclipsed. In that instance life is "loss" and death is "gain." In that experience of life being "loss" or a "fail" is where I'd locate the neurotic enslavement to the fear of death.

///

Judy asks:

I'm just starting the book, having read through the chapter explaining "ancestral sin" in contrast to "original sin." My question right off the bat is: What is your definition/understanding of "sin?" (just the word by itself) Some ideas I've heard over the years include: "Sin" is "separation from God," "rebellion towards God," "destructive behaviour," "anything that displeases God, whether actions or attitudes of the heart."

I'd like to think that my definition of sin is as multifaceted as is the bible's. Sometimes sin is described as moral failure. Sometimes sin is described as a state or condition, like being lost or sick or blind. Sometimes sin is described as a force, power or agent attacking, enslaving and oppressing us.

One point in this regard that I make in the book is that sin, death and the devil tend to be a tangled web of concepts. I call it the unholy Trinity.

In the book I talk about bit about Paul's usage of the word sarx, concretely translated as "flesh." But some translations translate sarx as "sinful nature." As I describe in the book, I think the translation "sinful nature" is missing the point. The problem with sarx isn't that our "nature" is intrinsically sinful or guilty, but that being "flesh"--simply being a biological animal--makes us weak in the face of death and survival pressures.

So while in the book I generally use the word "sin" as being synonymous with moral failure, I see all these things as being bound up together. It's a dysfunctional cycle, a feedback loop. Sin causes death and death causes sin in a cycle of moral dysfunction, a cycle kicked off by the primal act of disobedience in Garden and one that keeps us separated from God.

That brings us to P. Fitch's question:

Is the contrast between Orthodox and western notions of sin perhaps overdrawn here, such that what we’re really doing is groping for a new way to frame the story such that we can come out from under the shadow of tired and old formulations of evangelical piety? 

I am trying to make the contrasts very clear and, perhaps as a consequence, overdrawing them. But in making those contrasts I'm not suggesting one has to choose (though you could if you wanted to) between the Western and Eastern views of sin. The views are not mutually exclusive but overlapping and reinforcing.

So the goal of the book, which emphasizes the moral impact of death upon our lives, isn’t an attempt to replace the Western vision of sin. The goal of the book is to point out how many Western Christians, especially evangelicals, have ignored a wealth of biblical material regarding the relationship between sin and death. The bible presents us with a dense and complex causal matrix in which sin, death, and the devil all mutually interact. Consequently, the evangelical focus on sin tends to oversimplify the dynamics of our moral struggles. So if I'm pushing back on formulations of evangelical piety I'm pushing back on its flat, simplistic and monotonous focus on sin and how salvation is envisioned as a consequence.

And regarding the Eastern view of Ancestral Sin TimmyC asks:

Is there a good resource for more detail on understanding "Ancestral sin" how that doctrine originated and contrasting it to "Original Sin" beyond the level you did in chapter 1?

I don't have any great resources other than the ones I cite. The best treatment being John Romanides' Ancestral Sin. Start there and also read broadly in Orthodox Theology.

///

R Vogel asks:

I just finished the first reading and am about to start my second deep dive - but the question the hovers in my mind is what prevents us from seeing the entire Christian framework, or religion broadly, as just another hero system?

I think this is a constant temptation. I don't think you can ever get comfortable thinking that your faith isn't just another hero system. You have to constantly and vigilantly check on this.

Three checks come to mind.

First, leaning on The Authenticity of Faith, one check is fallibillism, holding your beliefs tentatively and provisionally. Knowing you might be wrong. Thus, dogmatism, certainty and triumphalism are all symptomatic of problems.

Second, is the eccentric experience of God as I described in this post (the same one I noted above). God is not owned by the faith community.

Finally, as I mention in the last chapter of The Slavery of Death, the eclipse of the prophetic imagination. Stated starkly: Do you have imaginative capacity to see God standing with your enemies against you? If so, and caveats about self-deception being duly noted, you can be somewhat reassured that you aren't using God to mark an in-group versus out-group boundary. The key symptom here is when God is being used by an in-group to justify violence against an out-group. Sarah Palin's recent comments about water-boarding being how we "baptize" terrorists come to mind here as an example. Not trying to get into politics in using her as an example, just observing that those comments suggest that God has become identified with the American hero system and that the prophetic imagination in regards to the American hero system has been, in this instance, eclipsed.

///

Chris asks a question about how to integrate the insights of Ernest Becker with those of Rene Girard:

I guess my initial thought here (as I love Girard, so I'm trying to find a way to bridge the gap) is that perhaps mimetic theory is a better way of understanding internal societal conflict (e.g., how we deal with internal conflict based on desire and rivalry) and Becker's insights can better describe external conflict (e.g., how we demonize the 'ideological Other' in order to maintain our cultural hero system so we do not need to face our fear of death).

Does that seem like a legitimate way to understand the complementary nature of the two views? To me, it seems like this would be a way of keeping both anxiety and imitation (as Girard understands it) as foundational ways of understanding human relations - particular when it comes to conflict.

I think there are lots of possible connections between these two thinkers and I think, Chris, this is a good one.

But stepping back, regarding how to integrate Becker and Girard, I think it's important to ask this question: What is more fundamental, anxiety or imitation?

I think this question is important because sometimes I think Girardians can be overconfident about what can be explained by imitation. Girardians have a great hammer--mimetic theory--and when you have a hammer, well, everything starts to look like a nail. Everything has to come back to imitation.

But for my part, as I mention in a footnote in the book, I think anxiety is more fundamental than imitation. Imitation came about in a social species like our own because it aided in Darwinian survival. Anxiety over self-preservation predates imitation and is the motive force behind imitation. We imitate because it's adaptive, which means imitation is driven and fueled by death anxiety, in both its basic and neurotic manifestations. We imitate to survive and to avoid death.

Anxiety is also what shapes and directs our desire. Before we can imitate, before we even have a sense of self, we are biologically needy and vulnerable creatures. When hunger pains hit the newborn infant there are no rivals, no triangulation of desires, no mimesis. Just basic need. Raw biological vulnerability that causes us to cry out in hunger pain. That pain and that need--the way we are born under the shadow of death--is our fundamental predicament, the predicament that, in my estimation, sits at the heart of our "sin problem."

This isn't to dismiss Girard's theory, just to suggest that there is more going on in human psychology and society than mimetic theory. Consequently, I welcome including mimetic theory in a larger psychological and sociological account of human behavior.

///

Let's end with some church-related questions from lukexvx:

For my question I would want to connect that with your concept of "communities of love" that you talk about around pg 110 of your book. If experiencing a state of vulnerability and neediness is the path to love, and this requires a certain social space in which to practice it, how would that space be structured? What ecclesiological model do we use to think about this?...When you talk about Jesus' call to sacrifice in Mark 10 and the early Christian communities' koinonia in Acts 4, I ask, "what would church look like here?" Should we all move into intentional community? Do we just need to add more programs onto our existing church structure?...What examples from non-Protestant traditions (liberation/postcolonial theology, etc.) do you see as providing insight into the way forward? How do you relate to your own church in wanting to challenge it to do more, but at the same time having the patience and grace to see it as a gift?

Boy, that's hard. So many theologians--me included--talk about a church that doesn't really exist. I've even heard some NT scholars argue that this is also the case with Acts 2 and 4, that those descriptions of the early church are polemical and idealized rather than real. If so, I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe the church has never existed. Church being so, so hard.

But there are communities that come to mind. Monastic and intentional communities, both old and new. The Catholic Worker movement. L'Arche.

For myself, I'm a part of an established church with all the baggage of an established, institutionalized church. But institutionalized churches vary along a continuum. So there are choices about where to place membership.

To escape the institutionalization of my church I spend most of my time at our church plant Freedom Fellowship that reaches out to the poor and homeless. There, among the poor and homeless, the "community of neediness" becomes more apparent. Life is more raw there on the margins. The needs more visible and acute. Because of this, love can begin to flow in these locations. Love can become what it should be, an economy of gifts.

So I guess my recommendation is twofold. First, there are communities of neediness out there. They are rare, but they do exist.

Second, but if you find yourself in an established church find the ministries where you can make friendships at the margins, where need is not neurotically hidden but very much on the surface. Where rent and bills need to be paid. Where failures are confessed and shared. Where getting the next meal is a concern. Or the next shower. Live and make friends in those places.

And let me end with this. More and more I'm thinking of the Kingdom of God as an event. The Kingdom of God comes--for a season, for a moment--and then is gone. Church is a place where, hopefully, the conditions for the Kingdom coming are cultivated. But those conditions don't guarantee anything. You just have to wait. And keep at the work. Make yourself available, over and over, individually and corporately.

All that to say, what I describe in the book is real. It does occur. It just doesn't last in any organized or bureaucratic way, as a "church." Consequently, there will be long seasons of church life where nothing seems to be going on.

But here and there--around this table, in this worship service, in this small group--the Kingdom of God comes. Elusively and transiently. But still, it comes.

///

Thank you all so much for your wonderful and challenging questions! And thank you for reading The Slavery of Death.

And if my answers missed the mark or raised additional questions, please feel free to ask some more.

I was standing outside the prison chapel. It was Monday night and I was waiting to start our weekly bible study at the maximum security French Robertson Unit just outside Abilene, TX.

Each week Herb and I, the leaders of the study, wait outside as the men are patted down by the guards. After being searched the men enter the chapel where Herb and I great them with hugs and chit chat. We talk about their week, their work in the garment factory, and the latest news about their families or their legal situation.

I also take the time to work on my very limited Spanish. Hola! ¿Cómo estás? I have an agreement with some of the guys that they teach me a new Spanish word or phrase each week.

Steve, however, loves to talk about books. So having a college professor out at the prison is a real treat. Every week Steve is reading something new and we always take a few minutes to talk about books.

This week Steve surprises me.

"Have you ever heard of Ann Voskamp?" Steve asks.

"Yes," I say, "She's really popular. She's one of my wife's favorite authors."

"Have you read her book One Thousand Gifts?"

"No, but I've heard a lot about it. People say it's awesome. Isn't the book about being thankful for little things? What is the word she uses for this?"

"Eucharisteo." Steve answers. "The book is about living with eucharisteo, thankfulness, even in the midst of difficulty and pain. In the book Ann Voskamp talks about listing one thousand things, little daily blessings, that she is thankful for. It's a great book. I started making my own list. One thousand things that I am thankful for."

Steve and I start talking about what eucharisteo looks like in a maximum security prison. About where an inmate might find "one thousand gifts" in his day to day life. And we talk about how that practice of thankfulness, gratitude and grace has been spiritually transformative for Steve.

And while Steve and I were talking about how Ann Voskamp is changing his life I began to grow uneasy in my heart.

For I had misjudged Ann Voskamp.

Why hadn't I read One Thousand Gifts? Jana loved it and said I would like it. It's been a hugely influential book with many at my church.

But I judged a book by its cover. I had stereotyped the book, concluding that it was primarily for and speaking into the experiences of women.

And yet, here I was standing in a maximum security prison talking to a male inmate about how profoundly he'd been impacted by the writing of Ann Voskamp.

I had jumped to a conclusion. I had misjudged.

A few hours later after the study I arrived back home. Jana greeted me.

"How was the prison?" she asked.

"It was great. Good study. Hey, where is your copy of One Thousand Gifts?"

"Ann Voskamp's book? What do you want it for?"

"I want to read it."

"Oh, it's a great book. You'll love it."

"That's what Steve said."

"Steve at the prison?"

"Yes, Steve at the prison."

"Really?"

"Really. Ann Voskamp is popular out at the prison. And I need to catch up."

I've been following the work of Aric Clark, Doug Hagler and Nick Larson over at Two Friars and a Fool for many years now. Aric, Doug and Nick have a new book out: Never Pray Again. 

I was excited about this book as it is very close to the concerns of this blog, a recovery of practices for progressive Christians. In this case the practices of prayer. For many progressive Christians, given their struggles with doubt and disenchantment, prayer is a difficult practice. Never Pray Again is a fresh reappraisal of various forms of prayer from a progressive perspective, from intercession to thanksgiving to healing to, yes, exorcism.

As regular readers might expect, the chapter on exorcism intrigued me. So as a part of their blog tour for Never Pray Again I invited Aric, Doug and Nick to share a bit about how they approached that chapter and some of the initial skepticism they faced from the publisher and early readers of the book.

///

Never Pray Again is a book that is also a thought-experiment. What if we took various forms of prayer, liturgical and private, and removed the word “prayer”? What if we translated these most passive and verbal spiritual practices into concrete behaviors intended to directly impact our neighbors? For example, what if we confessed directly to the person we sinned against instead of praying our confession to God? Or what if we interceded in the lives of those who need help instead of praying to God for intercession?

We knew the moment we conceived of a book about various types of prayer that one kind we wanted to tackle was prayers of exorcism. Exorcism is definitely a form of prayer that goes back to the very beginning, and we wanted to see what we could make of it. We also knew it would surprise most people. Our publisher really didn’t know what to make of it at first, and most of our early readers were shocked we included it. We were definitely enticed by the challenge of addressing a subject progressives usually either avoid or ignore. We did not want to avoid it because Jesus did a lot of exorcisms.

The problem is that most people’s imagination when it comes to the subject of demonology has been more heavily influenced by Dante and Milton and movies like the Exorcist than by Biblical stories or postmodern ideas of collective spirituality. Furthermore, we live in a disenchanted age. How is the language of the New Testament, especially the Gospels, around demons meaningful for people who live in a universe shaped by Darwin and Hubble and Freud?

By writing this chapter we wanted to contribute toward a movement we see happening among progressive thinkers where demon-possession is no longer discounted as a relic of a superstitious time or dismissed with vague hand-waving around mental illness. Following writers like Wink, Stringfellow, and Beck ;) we see demon-possession referring to the various destructive -isms of our world: nationalism, capitalism, militarism, sexism, racism etc… It is our throwaway culture of addiction and consumption that needs to be exorcised.

We see this exorcism or expelling of destructive influence to be connected to what Jesus means when he talks about what will be thrown into Gehenna. He isn’t referring to some metaphysical post-mortem “hell”. He is referring to the smoldering garbage heap outside Jerusalem. Thus, exorcism isn’t casting supernatural creatures back into a mythological underworld. Exorcism is consigning to the trash-heap things we think of as inevitable, or central to our culture, sometimes even valuable, like patriotism. When we understand this as the nature of demonic power, when we see that power in the system that starves children, rapes men and women, and abandons the old and the weak, it is time for some judgment, time for some discernment, time to tell the truth. There are demons in our lives that need to be cast into the fire.

--Aric Clark, Doug Hagler and Nick Larson write regularly at their popular blog Two Friars and Fool and are the authors of Never Pray Again. You can try to figure out which two are the friars and which is the fool by reading about them here.

In The Slavery of Death I argue that our capacity for love is cultivated by what David Kelsey calls doxological gratitude.

Gratitude, holding life as a gift, is key to the ability to love, the ability to give freely and non-anxiously to others.

So would it not make sense then that a lack of gratitude radically undermines love? That ingratitude is the deadliest sin?

That is the argument recently made by Ann Wroe in her essay "Ingratitude is the Deadliest Sin" in the magazine Intelligent Life. Ann writes:

The incidents seem trifling. After the dinner party, no note is sent. (Well, you were busy, and the dinner wasn’t that elaborate.) The solicitous e-mail gets no reply. (Again, you’re busy, and don’t feel like chatting.) A driver gives way to you at a place where there is no clear priority; you don’t acknowledge him. A fellow pedestrian steps into the road for you, or holds a door; you breeze on by. On holiday, you give your smallest and most worthless coins to the woman who has carefully cleaned your room.…

No blood is spilt in any of these cases. Nothing is stolen. No one’s life is ruined. The prick of pain passes soon enough. Yet a tiny seed of ice has been sown, formed of arrogance on one side and, on the other, a sense of worthlessness. That ice spreads, and creeps into the veins and crevices of life: so that on the next occasion the door is not held, the room is cleaned carelessly, the car does not give way and the e-mail is never sent. As the opportunity for kindness is ignored, so the chance of reciprocal kindness, in the form of thanks, never comes to be. What is never given can never be repaid.

(H/T Andrew Sullivan)

I get a lot of traffic from people looking up

adam wife lilith

adam's first wife

Things like that.

Terms like that help people find a post I wrote over a year ago Adam's First Wife.

That post is mainly a discussion of the two different creation stories found in the book of Genesis (yes, there are two). The post goes on to describe how the Jewish legend of Lilith, Adam's first wife, fits into those two accounts and how Lilith eventually becomes associated with demons that haunt the night. See Isaiah 34.14.

I have a collection of Uglydolls in my office. I love them, love the Uglydolls.

But I get some puzzled questions from time to time when people come into my office. The other day Geo, my Graduate Assistant, asked me point blank, "Why do you collect Uglydolls?"

"Because I'm a Christian," I answered with a smile.

She looked puzzled. So I explained.

"If Jesus had a doll what kind of doll would it be? It'd be an ugly doll, right? Jesus would pick the most unattractive doll and love it."

If you don't know about Uglydolls they are a brand of stuffed "dolls" that sort of look like monsters. They are also made to look a little dirty. You can look at some of the Uglydolls at their website. Some of my favorite Uglydolls are Ice-Bat, Ox, and Chuckanucka.

Pretty awesome, right?

And I'm not kidding about the Christian theology angle. I'm legitimately interested in Uglydolls because of what they represent. Something ugly being embraced with love.

Because really, if we'd admit it, aren't we all Uglydolls?