In Hunting Magic Eels I describe what I call "the mystical to moral shift" and I describe it as, perhaps, the biggest factor driving Christian disenchantment and drifting away from faith. 

The "the mystical to moral shift" concerns what could be called the moralization of salvation. That is, the goal of salvation is to be a good person--kind, loving, and welcoming. You see this moralization everywhere in Christianity, and for good reason. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and that people would know we are his followers because of our love. Love is a really, really big deal. But when it comes to salvation, love isn't the only deal.

What are some examples of the moralization of salvation? 

One place you see it is in Christological moralization. Jesus lived and died to show us "how to be human." Which is true, but this morally reductive take on Jesus leaves a lot of stuff out (see: the resurrection). You also see this moralization at work in theories of atonement, like the moral influence view. According to the moral influence view of the atonement, Jesus "saves" us by showing us how to love. And again, Jesus most certainly does show us how to love in the cruciform shape of his life and death. But that's not the only way Jesus saves us (see again: the resurrection).

Other places where you see this moralization at work is when the goal of the Christian life is reduced to "being the hands and feet of Jesus" in the world. Again, we are most definitely called to good deeds in and on behalf of the world. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer described it, Jesus is "the man for others." And the church is only the church when it exists "for others." And yet, when the life of the church is reduced in this way, its existence becomes wholly moralized and politicized, as politics increasingly becomes how we express and pursue our moral commitments. 

I'll have more to say about the moralization of the church in the next post, for now I just want to observe how moralization leads to disenchantment. Specifically, if the goal of salvation is to be a good person, along with pursuing a virtuous politics, then it quickly become obvious that God, faith, and church are optional for this endeavor, and therefore readily disposable. You can be a loving person, plant a garden, volunteer in your community, create beautiful things, and march in a protest all without God. You can bake bread, make art, hold space, speak truth to power, do the next right thing, resist fascism, write poetry, take a walk, hold your loved ones close, practice gratitude, be mindful, dance, stand in solidarity with the margins, embrace wonder, and make room at the table for others....all without God. Thus, wherever you see Christianity reduced to such things disenchantment soon follows. Which is precisely what we observe as the outcome of Christian "deconstruction," jettisoning God for some beautiful, creative, liberated, inclusive, and joyful vision of "being human."  

Let's now map all this onto the moral, existential, and ontological layers of this series.

Salvation gets moralized when it becomes severed from the ontological layer. This is why Christians who deconstruct tend to end up liberal post-modern humanists. "Deconstruction" is the name for ejecting the ontological layer, doubting and questioning the Christian claims about the Real. That God exists, for instance, or that Jesus was raised from the dead. That Judgment Day is coming and that heaven is real. All those ontological beliefs are rejected via "deconstruction." What's left over, at least for a season, is the existential, narrative, and symbolic layer. This is what you find in progressive and mainline Christian spaces, the moral vision couched in the Christian story (the middle existential layer) but without the underlying ontological commitments. Simply put, where mainline Christians demythologized the ontological layer ex-evangelical Christians deconstructed that layer. Either way, demythologized or deconstructed, the ontology of Christianity is jettisoned. Salvation becomes a wholly moral and existential affair.   

Now, is this a bad thing?

Well, that'll depend upon your perspective. Personally, I think the moral and political vision of Jesus that you find in progressive Christian spaces is more holistic compared to what you find in evangelical spaces, where "being like Jesus" has been almost completely reduced to being pro-life when it comes to abortion. But again, I lean progressive on these things. That said, I describe myself as a post-progressive Christian because I have serious concerns about the moralization of salvation I've observed in progressive Christian spaces.

What sort of concerns?

One concern is the tendency of progressive Christianity to morph into a spiritual-but-not-religious version of the prosperity gospel. We curate our enchantments--from mindfulness to yoga to manifesting abundance--in order to achieve our best life now. Love means self-care, walking your dog, planting a garden, and voting for Democrats. As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, there is nothing in this self-curated suite of enchantments that can unsettle or challenge you. Simply because, without the ontological layer, a Reality Larger and Other than your own, there is no capacity for prophetic friction, a location of moral disjunction between yourself and the Ontological Good. The sharp pricks of obligating moral duties are replaced with therapeutic self-affirmation.    

But my deeper concern here, as I've argued over the years, is how the Christian vision of salvation is both moral and ontological. As I've pointed out in this series, these two--the moral and the ontological--go hand in hand. Love and resurrection go together. They must if our love is to take on a cruciform, sacrificial shape. 

Let me share four observations to make this point.

First, Jesus does "show us how to love" on the cross. But that love would have ended in failure and futility were it not ontologically vindicated by resurrection. In a similar way, calling people to sacrificial love and lifestyles demands ontological commitments. Simply put, heaven must be real. Otherwise, when push comes to shove, the calculus of self-interest will tempt us away from sacrificial hardship. This is a rudimentary observation about human weakness, and yet it is a point so often forgotten by those who wish to retain Jesus' sacrificial ethic of love while jettisoning the ontological beliefs that vindicate the moral severity of that ethic.

Second, and relatedly, as I've described in this series, our commitments to love and justice demand a metaphysics of hope. If love and justice are not going to be eschatologically vindicated, if history is just a cosmic dumpster fire, every effort at improving the world will prove to be vain and futile. Despair, rage, exhaustion, and temptations toward violence will eat away at us like a cancer. Nihilism cannot sustain a commitment to sacrificial love, not durably or broadly.   

Third, and still relatedly, salvation isn't just about sin, it's also about death. Death, Scripture teaches us, is our last enemy. These are the Christus Victor perspectives on the atonement. In this sense, the moral influence view of the atonement, common among progressive Christians, has the exact same problem as  penal substitutionary atonement common among evangelicals. How so? Both views are moralized visions of the atonement and make no reference to the resurrection. Put simply, neither the moral influence view nor penal substitutionary atonement addresses the problem of death. Both views ignore the ontological layer, how salvation must address human finitude and contingency. 

And, finally, life is more than being a good person. Most of the time, it's just trying to keep your shit together. As I describe in The Shape of Joy, we're unwell. What we need, by way of salvation, is a little help. Real, ontological help. A power other than our own that can restore us to sanity. That's how the recovery community puts it. Here's the deal. The progressives are right, salvation is about justice and love. And the evangelicals are also right, salvation is about grace and forgiveness. But salvation is also about power, a power we can turn to when life gets hard, hopeless, desperate. That is what moralized visions of salvation leave out of the picture--the Holy Spirit. 

All this is why I've started describing myself as a post-progressive Christian. For the most part, I agree with the progressive vision of the moral and political layer. But I have grave concerns about how progressives have jettisoned the ontological layer through demythologization and deconstruction. My vision, as a post-progressive, is restitching the moral and political layer back to the ontological. Among progressives, I am a town-crier proclaiming the onologization of salvation. God exists. Jesus was raised from the dead. Judgment Day is coming. Heaven is real. Prayers are answered. Miracles happen. The Holy Spirit fills and empowers you. The moral arch of the universe bends toward justice. Love lasts forever. Death, our last enemy, has been defeated. We do not grieve as those who have no hope.  

"Why was it, sea, that you fled?"

As mentioned last week, Psalm 114 is one of the Hallel Psalms used during the Passover celebration. The song's connection with the Exodus is clear in verse 1: "When Israel came out of Egypt..." 

The song goes on to describe the crossing of the Red Sea--"The sea looked and fled"--and the crossing of the Jordan--"the Jordan turned back." Having cited these two water crossings, the poem stops to ask rhetorical questions of the sea and Jordan:

Why was it, sea, that you fled?
Jordan, that you turned back?

The mountains and hills also get queried:

Mountains, that you skipped like rams?
Hills, like lambs?

While nature is regularly personified in the Psalms, Psalm 114 is unique in how it poses questions directly to nature. The questioning is likely a taunt. A mocking intent is in the background. The questions demonstrate the Lord's power over these mighty entities--sea, river, hills, and mountains. The Lord causes these powers to flee, turns them back, makes them skip.

But the power here is explicitly connected to God's salvific acts. It's not a shock and awe campaign. The display of God's power, over water and land, is emancipatory, the liberation of slaves and the release of captives. In contrast to the pagan nature and storm gods, Israel's God was involved with history, and intimately so. 

This creates both the comfort and the controversy of the Christian faith, along with the other ethical monotheisms (Judaism and Islam). That God cares about us, is invested in our lives, brings us peace. We feel seen and known. But that attention is felt by many to be oppressive and restricting. One of the attractions of neopaganism and spiritual but not religious seeking is that the divine doesn't bother you. It sits inert in the background, quiet and unobtrusive, waiting for you to engage with it. It makes no demands and never judges. The God of the Israel, by contrast, engages you. 

Phrased differently, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are salvation religions. Life is a moral drama, and God is acting within that drama with emancipatory intent. Given these high stakes, God cares what you do and isn't content to leave you alone.

All this sits behind the mix we find in Psalm 114. God has power over creation, but God's actions have a soteriological agenda. The Lord is bringing his people out of Egypt.

In this post I want to gather up some observations I've made before, but using them to illustrate the moral, existential, and ontological layer framework I've been floating in this series.

The question I want to focus on in this post is this: What are some of the things that happen when the moral layer becomes separated from the layers beneath it? 

There are so many things to say, but let me focus on things I've shared over the years and in some of my books.

Let me start with some things about when the moral layer becomes separated from the existential, narrative, and symbolic layer. The first thing to say, as I have throughout this series, is that man does not live by morals and politics alone. I'll say for the fourth post in a row: Meaning is the bread of life. So, while the Judeo-Christian values of liberal humanism and political progressivism may provide one with a moral compass and political commitments, this is insufficient to fill the existential vacuum of secular modernity. 

Another thing that happens when the moral layer is separated from the narrative and symbolic layer is that the moral vision becomes thin and impoverished. For example, when we disembed social justice from the moral matrix of the Judeo-Christian worldview crucial moral commitments and capacities are left behind. This turns "social justice" into a blunt instrument, and is one of the reasons social justice so often goes awry. Here's how I described this in Hunting Magic Eels:

As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Justice is just one tool in our moral toolbox. A critical, essential tool. But one tool can’t do all the moral work life demands of us. Justice is a hammer, and when you’re looking at a nail— say, oppression—the hammer is the tool to pick up. But the moral drama of our lives isn’t just about oppression. We’re dealing with all sorts of things, from forgiveness to mercy to shame to guilt to joy to truth to peace to reconciliation. And hitting mercy with a hammer just isn’t a good idea. You’ll break it.

Consider an obvious example: how the social justice movement struggles with the issue of forgiveness. With the pervasiveness of what has been called “cancel culture,” can the canceled ever be forgiven? What about problematic allies? What if someone’s moral performance for the cause is less than perfect? The social justice movement struggles here with the issues of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The reason for this is that justice is a hammer, and while a hammer is an excellent tool for nails, it is not so great with other moral tasks. Forgiveness is a different problem than injustice. You need different tools. The moral drama of life isn’t putting up a swing set in the backyard, easily tackled with the single tool enclosed in the box; it’s building an entire house. Moral life is cement work, brick laying, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, roofing, painting, and so on. You need more than a hammer.

So here is one reason we need to keep the moral layer connected to the narrative and symbolic layer. Moral and political life is complicated and nuanced and that requires a fuller, thicker, and and richer narrative and symbolic foundation. Without this foundation, moral life becomes crude, reductive, agonistic, and incoherent.  

Let's now go one layer deeper. What happens when the moral layer looses contact with the ontological layer, the layer of the Real?

I'll point out two things.

First, as I've repeatedly pointed out over the years, the Judeo-Christian moral vision demands a metaphysics of hope. For two reasons. First, without hope the moral drama of our lives, our small efforts to make the world a better place, will succumb to despair, rage, cynicism, hate, burnout, compassion fatigue, and the violence motivated by what John Howard Yoder called "revolutionary impatience." If the moral arch of history doesn't, ontologically, bend toward justice, then it will be impossible to maintain the Judeo-Christian moral vision of love and justice in a committed, persevering, and joy-filled way. And the critical point to underline here is that hope isn't a moral commitment. Nor is it a symbolic one. Hope is an ontological issue. What sustains the Judeo-Christian moral vision of love and justice is its connection to the Real.

Secondly, the actual content of the Judeo-Christian moral vision is subject to drift, corruption, or replacement. There are anti-humanistic ethics afoot in the world. The liberal humanism of the West, grounded in Judeo-Christian narrative and ontology, is faltering. 

Now, it might be countered here that some of this faltering is due to Christians themselves, their instrumental embrace of authoritarianism and fascism to accomplish short-term political and cultural goals. In response, I'd simply point to Tom Holland's argument in Dominion that these liberal and humanistic criticisms of authoritarianism and fascism are, themselves, rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Which means that this conflict will necessarily boil down to ontology. That is, what is the true and real moral vision of Jesus of Nazareth? Phrased differently, the task of resistance, as ontological critique, is prophetic in nature. Who--really, truly--speaks for the Lord? 

Of course, a liberal humanist might want to criticize Christian nationalism from the outside, in purely secular terms. To that person I'd simply say, "Best of luck!" For a few reasons, but an obvious one is that the Christian fascists, as Christians, believe themselves to be standing on the Real. They're wrong, in my estimation, but they are making ontological claims. The secular liberal humanist, by contrast, is a nihilist. That is to say, the secular liberal humanist--as a pluralistic post-modernist--is unable to defend their moral vision is either real or true. Again, the liberal humanist has cut themselves off from the existential and ontological layers. Their moral vision rests on air. And in a debate between a nihilist and a ontologist the ontologist is going to win every time. In short, if you want to criticize the Christian fascist you're going to have to do so on ontological grounds. You must become a prophet. Which means you have to connect your moral vision to the ontological layer.

One of the most influential German theologians in the modern era was Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). And one of Bultmann's most influential ideas was that of demythologization.

Wanting to reconcile the Bible with modern scientific understandings of the world, Bultmann argued that the ancient cosmologies we find on the pages the Bible need to be displaced in order to get to the moral and existential core of the Scripture's message. The "mythos" of the Bible--its ancient metaphysical and cosmological assumptions about the structure of the cosmos--could be safely set aside in our search for Biblical truth. Modern persons do not have to subscribe to the ancient visions of science we find in Scripture. We should, rather, seek existential wisdom and moral guidance. 

Bultmann called this process, removing or reading around the mythos of the Bible to get to its existential and moral content, "demythologization." 

An extreme example of demythologization, one that predated Bultmann, was Thomas Jefferson. Unable to reconcile the miraculous and supernatural aspects of the New Testament with his Enlightenment commitments to reason and science, Jefferson famously cut out, with scissors, all references to the miraculous and supernatural from the gospels. What was left over, called The Jefferson Bible, was the historical account of Jesus' life along with his moral teachings. Jefferson had demythologized the gospels, transforming Jesus into a moral philosopher and exemplar. 

For example, did Jesus physically rise from the dead? Is the tomb empty? Christian orthodoxy confesses that Jesus was, ontologically, resurrected. The resurrection really happened as a historical, factual event within history. Some Christians, however, demythologize the resurrection. Christ's "resurrection" is symbolic, existential, and moral in nature. Christ is "resurrected" in our hearts and in our midst whenever we embody and display his love and the spirit that animated his life.

In light of demythologization, let's see how it relates to the moral, existential, and ontological layers I've been describing. As described in the first post of this series, the effect of a Jeffersonian or Bultmannian demythologization was to sever the connections between the moral, existential (mythological, narrative, symbolic), and ontological layers. To wit:

Moral / Political Layer

[demythologization]

Existential / Symbolic / Mythological / Narrative Layer

[demythologization]

Ontological Layer

The decoupling here goes from the bottom up. With Thomas Jefferson, for example, we see the mythological layer being severed from the ontological layer. Jesus and the Bible remain, as a narrative, along with the upper moral/political layer, the Judeo-Christian ethic. Over time, as the West secularizes, the mythological/narrative layer is deemed superfluous and liberal humanism goes on to jettison explicit mention of Jesus and Christianity. In the words of Robert Jenson, the world "loses it story." Stripped of the myth, what remains is the moral/political vision of Judeo-Christianity. I described all this in Part 1 of this series. 

Let me now return to what Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Pageau have been up to. One way to describe their work is the "remythologization" of the Western moral and political vision, along with all the existential benefits that this remythologization brings. Again, meaning is the bread of life. So, we can describe Peterson's project like this, starting now at the top:

Moral / Political Layer

↓ [remythologization] ↓

Existential / Symbolic / Mythological / Narrative Layer

[demythologization]

Ontological Layer

For example, in his work on Genesis we can see Peterson restitching the moral layer back to the existential layer. This explains a bit of why Peterson's work is so multivalent. Since the moral layer involves politics, Peterson's work can become overtly political and partisan. But Peterson's career began with the existential aspect of remythologization. And this early Jungian work was, in my opinion, Peterson's strongest and best work. It explains why Peterson spoke so powerfully into the lives of lost young men. By reconnecting their lives to myth, the call to "order the chaos" of their lives, Peterson was filling an existential vacuum. Peterson was remythologizing the lives of directionless young men. 

More recently, however, Peterson has turned away from the existential to the political side of his project. I'm not a fan of this political turn. Not because I disagree with him about the Judeo-Christian foundation of the West. See Tom Holland's work on that point. My problem is with Peterson's partisan take on this political diagnosis, how he thinks the Judeo-Christian foundation of the West is solely represented by the Republicans. That's a ludicrous claim. 

Regardless, to return to the point I made in Part 1, there remains the issue of the ontological layer. Beyond the remythologizing of our values and moral vision, reembedding them in the Christian story, there remains the issue of metaphysical truth, the question of the Real. As we've noted, Peterson hesitates at the ontological layer. He will remythologize our moral vision and values, but he won't reontologize the myth. And that's the part I'm interested in. Here's a picture of the work I think needs to be done, still moving from top to bottom:

Moral / Political Layer

↓ [remythologization] ↓

Existential / Symbolic / Mythological / Narrative Layer

↓ [reontologization] ↓

Ontological Layer

That is to say, the moral and political layer is reembedded in the story and the story is reconnected to the Real. 

Of course, a person might say, for the reasons I discussed in the last post, that this final step of reontologization, what we might call the "confessional" or "creedal" step, is problematic. Once things get ontological, it will be asserted, things start to get dogmatic and exclusive. Which is a no-no in a pluralistic, post-modern, liberal, humanistic, inclusive, spiritual-not-religious world. So, let's keep things restricted to the top layers. Keep things at the mythological level, like a Jordan Peterson or a spiritual-but-not religious "spiritual seeker." That, or keep things restricted to the moral and political layer, like a liberal humanist or a social justice warrior. 

In response to that desire, I've already described in the prior two posts how the layers will start to drift when they become decoupled. For example, Peterson and his fans are concerned that the moral vision of the West is becoming decoupled from the Christian myth. And while I think they are wrong in their partisan response to that threat, I think they are right in raising the concern that an anti-human worldview will come to replace the Christian myth. 

In a similar way, I've expressed concerns about how Peterson's vision of the Christian myth is decoupled from Christian metaphysics and ontology. Without that ontological connection, I've argued, Peterson's remythologization of the Bible is vulnerable to its own drift into dark, Nietzschean waters. Paul Kingsnorth has powerfully made this point.

In short, if you want to cast an anchor, that anchor has to reach the bottom. You have to make contact with the Real. Anything less deep and you'll start to drift. Values need to be remythologized. And the myth needs to be reontologized.

But a reader might respond, "Well, that's Jordan Peterson's problem." What about, then, the progressive liberal humanists? The social justice warriors? The spiritual seekers? How are they susceptible to drift? 

I'll turn to that in the next post.

In the last post I used Jordan Peterson to illustrate what can happen when the moral and the existential become decoupled from the ontological. Today, some another examples.

We're all aware of the deconstruction phenomenon and the stories of former believers becoming ex-Christians. Most of these former Christians continue to broadly espouse the moral vision of the Judeo-Christian tradition: love, be kind, stand in solidarity with the weak, seek justice, extend mercy. Beyond that top moral layer, many also continue to own the symbolic and narrative layer, reaching for and using Christian symbols, stories, and practices to fill out their existential worldview. Again, man does not live on morals or politics alone. Meaning is the bread of life. 

And yet, these former believers eschew the ontological layer. They have deconstructed themselves out of Christian metaphysical convictions. They no longer believe in the creeds. Christianity has become wholly symbolic.

This happens for a few different, and often related, reasons.

First, the person might become a reductive materialist. They just don't believe in anything beyond material reality, making the ontological claims of Christianity implausible. We saw a lot of this during the New Atheist moment, but it seems to be less common today. Still, it happens.

Second, as an institutional and organized religion Christianity has become a damaged brand. From the Catholic sexual abuse crisis to evangelical support for Donald Trump, many feel compelled to reject Christianity. 

Third, post-modernism. To confess the ontological claims of Christianity--for example, Jesus of Nazareth was, ontologically, the Incarnate Son of God--is to become dogmatic and exclusive in a pluralistic world. Better to be a "spiritual seeker" and "spiritual but not religious" than to espouse firm metaphysical convictions. Limit the Christian story to just being a story and don't let it make truth claims about the Real. Christianity can provide narrative, symbolic, and aesthetic inspiration, but do not call it "the truth."

Back when "deconstruction" was a hot topic, a lot of us watched this slow decoupling of the moral and the existential layers from the ontological among Christian authors, artists, and podcasters. The process of deconstruction chipped away at the ontological foundation, but the existential and moral layers remained. For a season, this kept the public face of their Christianity afloat. Still deploying the Christian narrative and symbols these authors and artists still presented as "Christian" to the public. But there wasn't any ontological belief underneath. Some of this was legitimate liminality, a way station transitioning from belief to unbelief. But some of it was, and remains, a cynical way to keep the money and attention flowing in. Many authors, artists, and podcasters built their audiences as confessing Christians and Christians were their audience. Consequently, to come out as an atheist or agnostic with a confession that "I don't believe in any of this" would destroy their livelihood. To their credit, some people did publicly push the eject button and went on to do things that had nothing to do with Christianity. Others played coy, and still play coy, about their ontological convictions, embracing "mystery" at the ontological level which allows them to continue making a living off of their Christian audience. 

I don't want any of this to be harsh, though perhaps it is. People who start out or establish themselves in a faith-based arena can face some hard choices should they suffer a loss of faith. And with the moral and existential layers still in place, there are ways to keep going. And here's the thing, those existential and moral layers are legitimate and profound. The ethic of love and the story of Jesus are powerful. You might not think that the Christian story is true, ontologically speaking, but it is beautiful and good. And living a good and beautiful life is no small achievement.

I've been playing around with an idea to describe things I've been observing in Christianity and using it to analyze and locate particular concerns of my own.

Here's the basic idea. Imagine three layers. 

The top layer is the moral, ethical, and political. This layer concerns our moral duties and obligations, what we owe each other and the world. 

Beneath the moral layer is the existential layer. This is the layer of symbols, narrative, art, and myth. This is the layer of meaning-making, the story that embeds us in and orients us within the world. 

Then, beneath the existential, is the ontological and metaphysical layer. This is the layer of the Real, the layer of existence, being, and reality itself.

And so, the three layers:

Moral

↑↓

Existential

↑↓

Ontological

Okay, how am I putting this idea to use?

First, as has been pointed out by historians like Charles Taylor and Tom Holland, the liberal humanism of Western civilization is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. This is why the moral layer is on top. Our moral commitments emerged from the metaphysical convictions and narratives of the Old and New Testaments. The existential and ontological layers are the "soil" from which our morals and values grew.

Trouble is, as Western civilization becomes increasingly post-Christian our moral vision becomes disordered and confused. This is the story told by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue. And it raises the pressing question. Can a moral tradition survive if it becomes cut off from its narrative and metaphysical roots? That is the question Dostoevsky asks in The Brothers Karamazov. Without God isn't everything permitted? People like Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade certainly felt that love and other-concern must be jettisoned as the ruling ethic of the modern world. When the moral layer of Christianity becomes severed from its existential and ontological layers a variety of anti-human worldviews will proliferate.

The loss of the existential and ontological layers has had other effects as well. Specifically, when we lack symbolic and narrative resources we struggle to make sense of our lives. Purpose and meaning-making are compromised. To borrow from the gospels, man does not live on morals (or politics) alone. Meaning is the bread of life. This is the big point Viktor Frankl makes in Man's Search for Meaning. 

In short, Christianity doesn't just provide us with a moral vision, it also gifts us existential resources, symbols and narratives that imbue life with meaning, drama, purpose, and depth. Consequently, beyond our moral fracturing we're also observing existential ailments, from the "crisis of meaning" to our mental health issues to increasing deaths of despair. 

One of the major reasons for the popularly of Jordan Peterson, along with people like Jonathan Pageau, is that Peterson is working the existential layer. Peterson explicitly works with archetypes, symbols, and Biblical narratives, and thereby re-embeds his audiences in a meaning-making framework. Thinkers like Peterson and Pageau are popular because they are filling the existential void. Again, meaning is bread and they are feeding people.

I would argue that the demise of the New Atheists, along with the Peterson and Pageau phenomenon, suggests that it's here, with the existential layer, where post-Christian evangelism will find traction and thrive. Nihilism is unable to satisfy our symbolic, narrative, and existential needs. To say nothing, as noted above, about the inability of nihilism to support the values that undergird liberal humanism. There is a thirst for meaning in post-Christian culture, and people like Peterson and Pageau illustrate how gospel proclamation gets a hearing when it works the existential layer. 

This brings us to the ontological layer, the layer of the real. Staying with the example of Peterson and Pageau, these two are companions on the moral and existential layers but they part company at the ontological layer. Pageau is a confessing Christian. Peterson is not. That is to say, where Pageau believes the "symbolic world" he describes is real and true, as revealed in the life, death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus, Peterson demurs. For Peterson, the stories of the Bible are true in that they have been effective and adaptive in evolutionary history. For Peterson, Biblical "truth" is utilitarian and pragmatic, not ontological or metaphysical. 

This is precisely why I've raised concerns about the viability of Peterson's project. Just like morality cannot hold steady if it jettisons the existential and ontological layers, the existential layer cannot hold steady if it rejects the ontological. For example, the "hero archetype" is just too ambiguous a symbol, too empty a container, to maintain moral coherence. Peterson declares that "the hero" will go off to make a "sacrifice" to bring back "treasure" for "the community." But these are empty symbolic ciphers. What sort of sacrifice? What sort of treasure? And for which community? Jesus gave his life away for his enemies, a sacrifice that was vindicated by his resurrection. No "hero journey" defined by that sort of sacrifice--dying for your enemies--is going to make any adaptive, evolutionary sense. Only commitments at the ontological and metaphysical layer will protect it.

This vulnerability to moral drift is evidenced by Peterson's own rhetoric about post-modern, Woke, social justice warriors. Bracket, for a moment, the question about if these folks are destroying Western civilization. They might be. Regardless, Jesus loves and died for post-modern, Woke, social justice warriors. Jesus sacrificed himself for them. Metaphysically and ontologically, that is what the hero journey truly is. Does Jordan Peterson, then, call upon his followers to die for and sacrifice for post-modern, Woke, social justice warriors? Of course not. Post-modern, Woke, social justice warriors must be defeated rather than loved. And that is why Peterson's "hero archetype" devolves into a grievance-based politics on the political right, a Nietzschean will to power in the "war on Western civilization." The existential layer ("the hero archetype") has lost touch with the ontological layer (the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus). In the exact same way the "hero archetype" of the post-modern, Woke, social justice warriors has also lost touch with the ontological layer (see again: Charles Taylor, Tom Holland, and Alasdair MacIntyre). (One difference between these groups is that the post-moderns have rejected both the existential and the ontological layers, whereas Peterson embraces the existential layer--the Biblical symbols and narratives--but rejects the ontological layer.)

Okay, stepping back, this framework isn't really about Jordan Peterson. I've just used him to illustrate how positing moral, existential, and ontological layers, along with their interrelationships, can facilitate description and analysis. In the posts to come I'll share how this model can illuminate other topics and issues. 

"He raises the poor from the dust"

Psalm 113 is famous for being sung during the Passover Seder as a part of the Egyptian “Hallel” Psalms, Psalms 113-118. These songs are used to offer praise and thanksgiving for the deliverance from Egypt. 

Psalm 113 is also famous for lines that are echoed in two famous songs in the Old and New Testament. The images of Psalm 113 find expression in both Hannah's Song (1 Samuel 2:1–10) and Mary's Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55):

He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the trash heap
in order to seat them with nobles—
with the nobles of his people.
He gives the childless woman a household,
making her the joyful mother of children.

Psalm 113 describes God's concern for the poor and needy ("He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the trash heap"), a reversal of status ("to seat them with nobles"), and barrenness transformed to fruitfulness ("He gives the childless woman a household, making her the joyful mother of children"). 

A few years ago I started to describe myself as a "post-progressive Christian." At the time I got a lot of eye rolls for coining that self-description. I couldn't tell why exactly. Perhaps progressive readers felt criticized. Some people seemed to feel that labels just create more divisiveness. For my part, I just needed a word to locate myself in a very confusing and shifting landscape.

I still feel that way, and I still claim my label of being a "post-progressive Christian." I think progressive Christianity has gone off the rails in many ways. Or reached a dead end. Some of this is mirrored in the left-wing extremism and overreach that caused independent swing voters, many of whom were young and people of color, to drift toward Trump in the last election. As a result, the Democrats are doing a lot of handwringing about how to move forward. Moderate? Double-down? They have yet to find a coherent strategy. Mostly, I think, they are hoping that Donald Trump implodes. Which he might, but you're still not putting forward a positive vision that can recapture the imagination of swing state voters. 

My concerns, however, are less political and more spiritual, the effect of progressivism upon the faith of Christians and the witness of the church. Again, I've written about this at length. My main concern is how, via deconstruction, progressive Christianity dissipates into unbelief or a spiritual but not religious haze.

And yet, I still own the label "progressive." I'm not, like a lot of young Christians today, reacting against progressivism by embracing right-wing expressions of Christianity. I'm post-progressive, not anti-progressive. For example, I'm not "anti-Woke." I think "Woke" remains a good idea in its original conception and vision. Why? Because of Psalm 113. God raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the trash heap. I'm woke because I'm convinced of God's preferential option for the poor. This economic concern for the poor is Biblical, and I'm a Christian who prizes being Biblical. I'm woke because Jesus was woke:

Blessed are you who are poor,
because the kingdom of God is yours.

But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your comfort.

Perhaps I should say I'm post-Woke. As I wrote about in my original series on post-progressive Christianity, one of the ways I think progressives lost the thread is how, in the 1990s, they pivoted away from class issues to an identity-based politics. Politically, I think that was a mistake. I think the pivot away from Bernie Sanders to Hilary Clinton was fateful on this point, the party choosing identity over class, opening the way for Trump to make an appeal to Rust Belt and working class voters. But again, my concerns here are mainly religious. Because of texts like Psalm 113, I'm a liberation theologian. I espouse God's preferential option for the poor. I don't like identity politics, but my sympathies are deeply Marxist. Not as a fan of communist economies, but as a critical prophetic perch. "Marxist" as a relentless focus upon and concern for the material economic conditions of the poor. "Marxist" as a relentless criticism of the class disparities caused by capitalism. "Marxist" because when Babylon falls in Revelation 18 the merchants weep over her:

The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo any longer—cargo of gold, silver, jewels, and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet; all kinds of fragrant wood products; objects of ivory; objects of expensive wood, brass, iron, and marble; cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, and frankincense; wine, olive oil, fine flour, and grain; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and slaves—human lives.

But it's really not "Marxist." Or progressive. It's just deeply and profoundly Christian. Blessed are the poor, Jesus said, and woe upon the rich. For the Lord God raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the trash heap.

During my positive psychology class this last spring semester we spent some time talking about Bruce Rogers-Vaughn's book Caring for Souls in a Neoliberal Age. Specifically, we talked about Rogers-Vaughn's contrast between first-order, second-order, and third-order suffering.

First-order suffering is the suffering of the human condition. Universal and existential suffering. Illness, death, loss, grief, limitation, and finitude. First-order suffering is integral to human existence.

Second-order suffering is suffering caused by other human persons. This is the suffering caused by human evil. Trauma, abuse, harm, oppression, injustice, violence, and social marginalization. 

Most of our pain is due to first-order and second-order suffering. However, the modern world has ushered in new form of suffering, what Rogers-Vaughn calls third-order suffering.

Third-order suffering occurs when we are deprived of the resources necessary to carry and cope with first-order and second-order suffering. Life is painful, but it is doubly painful if we lack what we need to face that pain, if we are abandoned and defenseless in our experience of suffering. Due to first-order and second-order suffering, life sometimes feels like stepping out into a cold, hard rain to face howling winds. Weathering that storm is hard enough with warm clothing and rainwear. Third-order suffering, by contrast, is stepping out into that storm naked and exposed. 

Here is how Rogers-Vaughn describes the origins of third-order suffering in the modern world:

Without strong, vibrant collectives to support them, individuals are more-or-less left to their own devices to deal with distress. We might describe them as in a state of spiritual homelessness. These unfortunate souls are abandoned, left to interpret their sufferings as signs of personal failure...They do not have adequate narrative resources at hand to understand, to "make sense of," their sufferings. They are simply left with market-generated narratives of "personal recovery," which, like insulin for the diabetic, are perpetually fragile in the face of what they are up against. Such narratives are window-dressing, a veneer of order imposed over what once would have been a durable sense of self...Their options are either to look within, blaming their sufferings on themselves, or to stare into the fog...

Rogers-Vaughn mentions here two things that create third-order suffering. 

First, the loss of thick community. In generations past, suffering was carried within rich, tight-knit families and communities. You didn't have to carry your pain all alone. Today the situation is very different. The Surgeon General has declared loneliness and social isolation to be an epidemic. The nuclear family has fractured. In fact, as David Brooks has suggested, the "nuclear family" was, in retrospect, a horrible idea, a "mistake." The fantasy that two married people, alone and isolated in a suburban cul-de-sac, could provide enough social support for each other and their kids was bound to fail. Should the mental health of either Mom or Dad falter, or the marriage itself fall apart, the domestic idyll could quickly descend into a hellscape. Generations of children were raised in these fragile ecosystems and we've paid a heavy price for it. And beyond the family, all around we've seen the evaporation of mediating institutions (e.g., churches, fraternal organizations, unions). In the words of Robert Putnam's book, we are increasingly bowling alone. 

Beyond the social resources that once helped us carry first- and second-order suffering, Rogers-Vaughn also describe our loss of narrative resources, the meaning-making structures that once helped us make sense of suffering and carry our pain with dignity. In the past, these narrative structures were spiritual and religious in nature. But as the West becomes increasingly irreligious and secular, these narratives are evaporating. Consequently, in the face of suffering modern people face an existential void. We stare out into the fog. We lack a story that can carry us through the valley of the shadow of death. As I describe in The Shape of Joy, we see evidence of this narrative, existential collapse in our mental health crisis and in increasing of "deaths of despair" (suicide, drug overdose, liver disease due to chronic alcoholism). 

In short, life has always been hard. The human condition is full of first- and second-order suffering. But we're also now experiencing third-order suffering. The modern world has abandoned us to our pain.

We're standing naked in the storm.

So, what did Julian of Norwich mean when she said "sin is behovely"?

As I noted in the last post, some interpreters translate "behovely" as "necessary." But that is too strong, and tips us toward a deterministic and Calvinistic imagination. As the scholar Denys Turner has argued, Julian's "behovely" sits in-between the medieval notions of necessity and contingency, and is akin to the scholastic understanding of the Latin word conveniens, which means "fitting," "suitable," or "meet."

It might help here to understand what Julian was struggling with prior to Jesus' revelation that "all shall be well." For example, in Chapter 11 Julian declares that God "is in all things." But this quickly raises the obvious question. As Julian asks, "What is sin?" It's the same question that perplexed Augustine in his Confessions. If God is in all things and the cause of all things then how did sin get here? This question is also, for Julian, wrapped up in her extended showings focused upon the blood, pain, and sufferings of Christ. Why did Christ have to suffer all this? Christ's passion is excruciating for Julian to contemplate. And yet, at the very same time, it is through Christ's passion that God's love is made manifest to Julian. And that's the paradox. The sheer magnitude of God's love would not have been made visible without human sin. In the sufferings of Jesus sin brings God love into view, and there we behold the depth of God's love. 

This paradoxical effect of sin is captured by a phrase from an ancient Easter vigil: "O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!" "O happy fault that merited to have such and so great a Redeemer!" Julian's "sin is behovely" fits within the "felix culpa" ("O happy fault!") tradition. That is to say, sin was not necessary or predestined by God. But sin plays its "fitting," "appropriate," "happy," and "behovely" role in bringing the love of God into view and into our lives. Simply put, our sin is the place where we meet God. And for that, we are happy. It's like the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In shame the son returns to the father, and it is in that moment where the son encounters a love he could not have previously imagined. Just like the older brother, in his "sinlessness," cannot imagine it. Of course, the younger son would never say he was "glad" he failed his father. But in another sense, he would readily agree that he was "happy" things turned out exactly as they played out. The story could have unfolded in no more "fitting" way. Felix culpa. O happy fault. The son's sin was behovely.

That is where Turner ends up in his treatment of Julian, that the best way to understand "behovely" is in a narrative context. Sin plays a dramatic part in the story of our lives, a story where God comes to our rescue. As Turner observes, "The position concerning sin seems to be, for Julian, the following: there is what we have to say about it, namely first that it is 'behovely', that it is part of the plot, necessary if the true story of the divine love of creation is to be told..." 

If sin is "behovely" because of how sin "fits" within the narrative of God's love for us, a good translation of Julian might be "sin is a part of the story." Because this is true. We don't know how or why sin got here, but sin is a part of our story. And yet, even with that dark chapter in our lives, all shall be well. That's what Julian beholds. Sin is a part of our story. Sin is behovely. Even so, all shall be well.

O happy fault. 

You can make a good argument that Julian of Norwich is the most misunderstood theologian in the Christian tradition. 

In the hands of some interpreters, Julian is a proto-feminist, anti-traditionalist, anti-Catholic, anti-dogma, liberal humanist. 

To be sure, there is much within Julian's Revelations of the Divine Love to ruffle feathers. For example, in Chapter 59 Julian describes God as our Mother: "As veryly as God is our fader, as verily God is our moder." ("As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother.")

The most famous lines of Julian come from Chapter 27: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." The words are famous for their bright and hopeful optimism against the dark and grim background of medieval theology and the turmoil of Julian's day, from the ravages of Black Death to wars to the fracturing of the Catholic church. Julian looked upon all that darkness and heard the Lord say, "All shall be well."

So, from divine feminine imagery to optimism to stunning images of God's tender and loving care, we can see why Julian has a devoted following. Count me a fan. And yet, as I said, Julian is often misunderstood. 

How so?

Well, a lot of progressives love Julian, for the reasons stated above, but much of her showings concern the crucified body of Jesus and dwell upon his pain, blood, and torment. These showings aren't quite to the level of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, but they aren't far off. Julian's embrace of the blood and tortured body of Jesus doesn't jibe very well with progressive readings of the atonement.

Also, given her "all shall be well" optimism, Julian is often read as a universalist. But this reading of Julian has to reckon with her descriptions of souls in hell. Much like we do with Jesus in the gospels, we tend to pick and choose our way around Julian's showings to create an image of her that matches our own theological preferences. I, myself, have deployed Julian's "all shall be well" to describe an eschatological hope that likely exceeds her own. 

But perhaps the most overlooked, and therefore controversial, passage in Revelations of the Divine Love concerns a single word. There is an oft-deleted sentence that comes right before Julian's "all shall be well." Here's the text from Chapter 27 in Julian's Middle English:

But Jesus, that in this vision enformid me of all that me nedyth, answerid by this word, and seyd: Synne is behovabil, but al shal be wel, and al shal be wel, and al manner of thyng shal be wele. 

Translated into modern English, the full sentence of what Jesus says is:

Sin is behovable, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Due to some differences in the manuscripts, some texts have "sin is behovely" instead of "sin is behovable."

Okay, so what does "behovely" or "behovable" mean? 

The word "behovely" has a range of meanings: Necessary, required, fitting, suitable, appropriate. You can see the controversy. The notion that sin might be "necessary" or even "fitting" is a difficult claim. Some try to get around the shock and translate the line as "sin is inevitable." Perhaps so, but in claiming that "sin is behovely" Julian is suggesting that sin is more than just inevitable. She's suggesting that there something "fitting" and "appropriate" about sin. Even "proper." But what could that possibly mean?  

Given the puzzle here, it's not hard to see why the line "sin is behovely" gets lopped off the "all shall be well" quote. But in removing "sin is behovely" we're, once again, sanding down Julian's theology and reducing her to an inspiring meme. 

And so, what could Julian have meant by "sin is behovely"? 

We'll turn to that in the next post.

In the last post I described the confusions one often finds in views of God that go under the label "relational." 

Relational views of God want to describe God as having "real" feelings and emotions. And by "real" they mean "the way we humans have feelings." Trouble is, human feelings are reactive. And while that reactivity feels dynamic and alive--"I do X and God is happy with me"--it releases God's anger, wrath, and hate into the world--"I do Y and God's wrath burns against me." Oddly, this is the very outcome relational views were designed to avoid. Relational views pull off this trick by implicitly delimiting God's emotions to the positive. Yes, God is emotional, but he doesn't have negative emotions. God loves you, always and eternally. So, you don't have to crouch in fear before an emotionally unpredictable and volatile deity. 

Notice, again, what is happening here. By restricting God's emotions to the loving and good, and removing any sort of unpredictability and volatility from that goodness and love, relational views have made an argument for God's impassivity. God actually doesn't have emotional reactions like humans do, triggered and provoked as we are. Rather, God is constant oceanic love. Still, unperturbed, peaceful, and generous. This is what the Hebrews described as God's hesed, his unchanging kindness and fidelity. My favorite description of God's impassivity comes from Jesus: "God is kind to everyone. He causes the sun to shine on everyone, both good people and bad people. He also causes the rain to fall on everyone, people who obey him and people who do not obey him." Like sunlight and rain, God's love falls impassively upon the good and the evil. God is not provoked or angered by human sin. As Julian of Norwich said when looking into the heart of God, "I saw no wrath there."

In my opinion, all the trouble we have here boils down to branding. The word "impassive" is just awful. It highlights the wrong thing. "Impassive" is addressing concerns that God can be triggered and provoked. These were ancient Neoplatonic concerns, the worry that God might be "affected" by the world. But a non-reactive and unaffected God appears to us cold and remote. Thus the rise of "relational views" of God which try to infuse some responsivity back into that of view God. But all this is missing the critical issue. By focusing upon the changeability and variability of God's emotions we've taken our eyes off of the valance and quality of God's emotions. Simply put, the word "impassive" doesn't capture the truth that God is love, which is the most important thing you need to say about God's "emotions." By turning us away from God's love, the word "impassive" pictures God as emotionally inert and blank, and then suggests this inertness and blankness never changes. Which just isn't an accurate depiction of God at all, and the relational theologies are right to push against it.

To avoid such confusion, whenever in my writing I use the word "impassive" I use it in relation to human sin. For example, I'll write, "God is impassive toward human sin." That is to say, God is not provoked or angered by our sin. God isn't triggered by our moral failures. This use of the word "impassive" allows us to see where classical theism and the relational theologies find common ground. Further, such a use of the word "impassive" avoids describing God as emotional inert, cold, and distant. Rather, God is constant unchanging love no matter what we do. Instead of "I do X and God is happy" or "I do Y and God is wrathful" it is "I do X and God is loving" and "I do Y and God is loving." Or, as Jesus said, "God is kind to everyone."

If I were going to offer my correction to the relational views about God, this is what I'd suggest. God is a relational God because God is Person, not a person, but Person Itself. And we, as little persons, are made in the image and likeness of God. What makes God relational isn't emotionality but this exchange between persons, the I-Thou address between God and myself. God responds to us because God is Person, not because God is emotionally provoked, triggered, or reactive toward our actions. Rather, God is Love, unchanging and eternal. 

That's my take. When you say "God is impassive" you mean "God is love."

"taking great delight in his commands"

We're getting close to the great Torah psalm, Psalm 119. But I'm jumping on this line from Psalm 112 to get a head start.

Who takes delight, let alone great delight, in commands, rules, and laws? Not us!

Back when Saturday morning cartoons was a thing, I always noticed this trope in children's cereal commercials. The scene is in an elementary school, a classroom or cafeteria. The color palette is dark and grey. Some hectoring and domineering teacher is terrorizing the children. And then, Tony the Tiger appears! The colors explode. The kids start going crazy, dancing and breaking all the rules. The grim teacher is ignored or put in their place. 

Basically, we use rebellion and rule-breaking to sell sugar-coated cornflakes to children. And it works because, as Western individualists, we all want to be James Dean. From pre-ripped jeans to "Come and Take It" bumper stickers, we style ourselves as rebels.

Everywhere you look, rule-following is denigrated. Being obedient is a blight. 

Given all this, it's almost impossible for us to imagine the grace of law. In the Hebrew imagination life without God's commands would descend into chaos. There is a strong link between God's ordering commands over the tohu wa-bohu, the formless waste and void, and the moral instructions of the Torah. Without God's law, social and moral life would revert back into the tohu wa-bohu. Consequently, by inserting order into the formless chaos of our lives God's word become salvific. Commands are mercy. Instruction is healing. Law is grace. 

That's a hard message for us to hear, we rebels without a cause.

Does God have emotions?

This question seems to have an obvious answer. Of course God has emotions. Scripture, especially the Old Testament, is full of descriptions of God having emotional reactions toward human persons. God can be happy and pleased with us, and God can become grieved, indignant, and angry.

The question of God having emotions seems pretty straightforward. And yet, it's a lot more complicated than may seem.

This issue came to mind reading John Mark Comer's book God Has a Name. In the book Comer makes an impassioned case for God experiencing emotions. And he does so to support the view that God is a relational God. By "relational" we mean reactive and responsive to us. More strongly stated, God is affected by us. By contrast, if God was unaffected by us, the argument goes, God wouldn't be in a real relationship with us. 

The debate brewing here--Can you see those storm clouds on the horizon?--is between descriptions of God from what is called "classical theism" versus views of God often described as "relational." More than the issue of emotions is debated here. The other big issue concerns if God changes his mind in response to human actions and prayer. God changing his mind is another example of God being affected by us in a responsive, relational way. For example, along with describing God as having emotions, Comer also describes God as changing his mind in response to our prayers. These two topics--God's emotions and God changing his mind--often go together. And again, it's easy to see why. The Bible describes God changing his mind. Often because humans make a request or repent. But for this post, I'm going to keep my focus on God's emotions and leave the issue of God changing his mind to the side.

We can appreciate the psychological appeal and power of Comer's arguments. If God didn't have emotions and if God never changed his mind then God wouldn't appear very responsive or relational. God would appear distant and impassive. And that's exactly the word classical theism uses to describe God's "emotions"--impassive. God is impassive, meaning "not subject to passions." But an impassive God seems cold and emotionally removed, not the relational God John Mark Comer so passionately (no pun intended) describes and defends. 

So, we get the point. If you had to choose between an emotional God and an impassive God most would go with the emotional God. No pastor wants to preach a sermon about God's impassivity. That word "impassive" just doesn't have the warm, fuzzy feelings we'd like to associate with God. "Impassive" makes God seem chilly and remote. And yet, there is a problem. You knew there would be.

Here's the biggest problem, from my perspective. Once you allow God to have emotions we open up the possibility of God having negative emotions, emotions like anger and wrath. And again, there is Biblical support for God having these negative emotions. God can even hate human persons. That's the dark consequence of Comer's move, releasing God's hate into the world. 

This is the irony and inconsistency of "relational" views of God. By ironic I mean that relational views of God are typically motivated by the attempt to remove or delimit God's wrath, anger, and hatred. Most relational views of God preach that God is wholly and consistently loving. And yet, by arguing for God's emotionality they release into the world God's negative emotions, the very emotions they are wanting to deny. That's the irony, how their attempt to deny something about God creates its very possibility. 

The inconsistency of the relational views of God is illustrated by Comer himself. For example, after arguing for God's emotionality Comer goes on to describe how, because God desires a "real relationship" with us, that we should dare to be raw, bold, honest, and angry in our prayer life with God. But for a lot of us, such boldness feels risky. We feel we must pull our punches and to talk to God with respect and reverence. We fear that addressing God in anger and with accusation will elicit his disapproval and indignation. As Comer writes, "There are prayers in the Scriptures--in the books Moses wrote and especially in Psalms--where I cringe, half expecting lightning to strike the person dead. But it doesn't. In fact, God seems to love that kind of raw, uncut prayer, skirting the line between blasphemy and faith. He's not nearly as scared of honesty as we are." Notice the curious move here, how Comer makes blasphemy-adjacent prayer safe by taking God's emotions off the table. God isn't upset or triggered by our honesty or our rage. In fact, as Comer says, God welcomes it! And I totally agree. But notice Comer's inconsistency. He's arguing for a real and honest relationship with God in prayer by premising it upon God's impassability. We can rage in prayer because God is impassive toward our rage. God isn't going to strike us dead with lightning. That is, God's emotions toward us, His eternal Love, is unaffected by our rage. God isn't triggered or shocked. Despite the accusations we throw at God, God's love toward us is unchanging. And it is this unchanging and impassive posture toward our rage that makes honestly expressing our feelings in prayer both welcome and safe. As Comer describes, you don't need to cringe away in fear because God isn't going to strike you dead with lightning. Yell at God all you want, skirt the line between blasphemy and faith, God is not going to be emotionally provoked. God isn't emotional in that way. 

So you see both the irony and the inconsistency. Relational views of God release God's hate into the world, that angry God who strikes people dead with lightening bolts, the very thing relational views seek to avoid. In fact, relational views of God, in proclaiming God's unchanging love toward us, are the most vociferous and dogmatic apostles of God's impassivity. Especially in contrast to the emotional volatility of the God proclaimed by the fire and brimstone preachers. 

And beyond the irony, there is the inconsistency, how relational views encourage us to express honest feelings toward God but preach that what makes those expressions safe is God's impassivity toward our anger, doubt, and accusation. 

There is a better way to talk about God's emotions, which I'll describe in the next post.

In this seminal book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor describes what he calls "the immanent frame." The immanent frame has been much described and commented upon. But to recap, the immanent frame is our modern bias toward describing and inhabiting the world without reference to the transcendent. The immanent frame is a secular, scientistic, technological, reductionistic, and materialist stance toward existence. Some describe the immanent frame as living in a house without windows that open outward to the beyond.

In The Shape of Joy I describe how the research of positive psychology has operated, as an empirical science, within the immanent frame. This has created a bit of a paradox for the discipline. Specifically, as positive psychology has progressed the research has repeatedly shown that a relationship with transcendence is good for your mental and relational health. And yet, living as it is in a house without windows, positive psychology cannot describe or specify the nature or ontological status of transcendence. Positive psychology knows something outside the house is good for you, but the house lacks windows. What lies beyond the immanent frame is a mystery to empirical science. 

One of the places you observe the constricting effects of the immanent frame upon positive psychology concerns what psychologists describe as "cosmic mattering" or "existential significance."  Cosmic mattering refers to the conviction that our lives possess intrinsic value, dignity, and worth. As I describe it in The Shape of Joy, existential significance means you matter no matter what. And, as positive psychology has shown, cosmic mattering is the most significant predictor of meaning in life, which is integral to mental health.

Notice, however, the borders of the immanent frame. Empirical science can observe a correlation between cosmic mattering and mental health. This correlation is observed within the empirical house. And yet, the variable being described--cosmic/existential mattering--exists outside of the house. This transcendent "beyondness" is captured by the words "cosmic" and "existential." Whatever is bestowing psychological resiliency can only be experienced by escaping the immanent frame, stepping beyond the borders of the factual and empirical. And yet, positive psychology cannot take this step given its delimited ontological commitments, as an empirical science, to the immanent frame. This creates an awkward silence at the very heart of positive psychology. Cosmic mattering, we know, is associated with mental health. But is cosmic mattering real? Is it true? Or is it, like Freud argued, a massive delusion? Is our mental health based upon a lie? Positive psychology cannot say. As an empirical science, positive psychology does not traffic in ontological realities that exist beyond the immanent frame. Which means, as I conclude in The Shape of Joy, that psychology can never reveal the ultimate sources of our mental health. 

True, psychology knows that the secret to joy lies outside the house of the immanent frame. But it cannot open the door.