"Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks."

We reach what is, perhaps, the most notorious line in the Psalms, perhaps in all of Scripture. We've arrived at Psalm 137, the (in)famous imprecatory psalm. 

We've encountered imprecatory psalms before in this series. And what I said before still stands. The context of Psalm 137 is victimization. The poet has witnessed and experienced murder, torture, sexual assault, and enslavement. And then, on top of all that, the taunting:

By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There we hung up our lyres
on the poplar trees,
for our captors there asked us for songs,
and our tormentors, for rejoicing:
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

"Sing us a song of Zion!" You can imagine the smug and jeering faces of the abusers asking the singer to sing a song about home. In my imagination it's like a scene out of Schindler's List. In response, the poet pens a vicious line: "Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks." 

This is not moral guidance. It is the tormented and tortured cry of a victim. And as dark as it is, it is also one of the most human moments in all of Scripture. 

Listen, I get why critics of Scripture grab ahold of this line in Psalm 137 to undermine the Bible's moral authority. But failing to attend to this moment of human anguish is also a monumental failure of human empathy. 

There is moral guidance in the Bible. And for Christians we believe that vision comes precisely and definitively into focus in the life and teachings of Jesus. And what makes Jesus' moral witness so challenging and revolutionary is that it takes place in a world where the cry of Psalm 137, that desire for revenge and retaliation, is alive and real. 

But we don't need to jump ahead to Jesus. The Old Testament itself raises these moral concerns. 

This May my newest book is coming out. The Book of Love: A Better Way to Read the Bible is available for pre-order now. I'll have more to share about the book as we get closer to its publication date, but the goal of the book is to show how to read the entire Bible cover to cover--Genesis to Revelation--as a book of love. Obviously, one of the challenges you face in that task are some of the darker moment in Scripture, from the cherem passages in Joshua to the imprecations of the Psalms. As I discuss in The Book of Love, we tend to approach these texts, like I did above, by quickly jumping to Jesus. Which is totally appropriate. But one problem with this move is that it tends to pit the Old Testament against the New Testament. A lot of Christians, progressive Christians especially, are Marcionites. Progressive Christians, given how they tend to handle "problematic" Old Testament texts like Psalm 137, implicitly frame Judaism as morally backward. A whiff of antisemitism hovers around how many progressive Christians treat the Hebrew Scriptures.

But this is unnecessary. As I point out in The Book of Love, the Old Testament, on its own terms, calls texts like Psalm 137 into question. 

Over the last few posts we've been discussing concerns about how calls for intentionality might contribute to the fragilization of faith in the modern age. But in this post I want to make a pivot and argue that while we may worry about a faith rooted in choice and decision, intentionality sits at the heart of the Christian moral life.

The point is simply made. Whenever the New Testament issues a command (“be holy,” “love one another,” “rejoice always,” etc.), it volitional engagement, a deliberate, purposive stance of the self. Obedience to imperatives requires conscious agency. We must notice, evaluate, and intend. The New Testament describes discipleship as a continual reorientation of desire and attention. “Set your mind,” “Present your bodies,” and “Fix your eyes.” These are acts of intention. 

To be sure, practices create habits which create virtues. And virtues, as they they become dispositions, involve diminishing conscious effort. I've described virtue as holy automaticity. 

That said, there is a obvious synergy between intentional obedience and virtuous spontaneity. Intentionality directs the will and virtue stabilizes the will. Virtue doesn't happen by accident.

Also, there is synergy between divine action and human volition. Acts of intention are a participation in the divine life. The call is for responsive cooperation with the Spirit. The will must attend, consent, and yield while the Spirit empowers, renews, and directs. 

And if all this seems a bit deep and abstract, the call for intentionality is crystal clear on the pages of Scripture:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Colossians 3:2)

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” (Colossians 3:12)

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you…be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.” (Ephesians 4:31–32)

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise.” (Ephesians 5:15)

“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:14)

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up.” (Ephesians 4:29)

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18)

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” (Colossians 3:16)

“Be sober-minded; be watchful.” (1 Peter 5:8)

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:8)

In this post I want to pick up where I left off in the last post. 

To recap, one of the ways many low-church non-denominational Christians attempt to escape DIY Protestantism is to convert to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. The fissuring provisionality of Protestantism, rooted as it is in how the individual reads Scripture, is exchanged for a venerable and stable tradition. 

What do I mean by DIY Protestantism? Think of a typical Sunday morning at a low-church Protestant congregation. While there might be a general and traditional flow to the service, much of what you experience and hear changes week to week. For example, at my church we celebrate the Lord's Supper every week. And being low-church Protestants there isn't a set liturgy for the Table. Nor do we have any sacramental theology to consecrate the experience. Rather, a member of the church is invited to share some thoughts about the Lord's Supper. And these thoughts can be all over the place, week to week. Innovations can be introduced that are, frankly, bizarre.  

Another example is how my church celebrates Lent. Again, as low-church Protestants we've never historically celebrated Lent. But wanting to enrich our spiritual formation culture we've begun to observe the season. And yet, our celebration of Lent is very DIY. Every year the materials shared with the church are different, often having very little to do with Lent as a penitential season. For some odd reason, my church thinks Ash Wednesday is about "contemplating your mortality." We're all existentialists! Plus, since Lent is so foreign to our tradition it's not imposed on anyone as a hard expectation. You're invited to participate in Lent. And you're free to select your own personal Lenten practices. All that to say, when it comes to Lent at my church some people observe it and some people don't and among those who observe Lent everyone is doing their own thing. Choose-your-own adventure Lent.

Those are a few examples from my church. Stepping back, there's also the entrepreneurial and performative aspect of many non-denominational churches. Each church has its own brand and vibe aimed at attracting religious consumers who shop the church marketplace. The game of church growth is getting customers to buy your product.     

Lastly, what do low-church Protestants believe? Well, they believe all sorts of different things, on just about every conceivable subject, from the atonement to Armageddon. Consequently, in choosing a church you're also choosing what you want to believe. And even then it's pretty low risk because if you change your mind you can simply find another church. And if you can't find a church that fits you, you can start your own. 

Now, compare all that to Orthodoxy and Catholicism. To be sure, churches and parishes have local character. But the liturgy and the beliefs are old and not open to debate. Nothing is provisional or up for grabs. Plus, while members do opt out of expected obligations this is understood to be problematic, a form of disobedience. You can get disciplined and excommunicated.  

As mentioned in the last post, many low-church Protestants are converting to Orthodoxy and Catholicism because they find rest in the consistent stability of these traditions. Nothing has to be invented. Choices don't have to be made. There is a givenness that doesn't await a decision. And for many who have anxiously wandered the hermeneutical maze of low-church Protestantism, where doctrines multiply like rabbits, there is a sense of relief in arriving at a place where beliefs aren't up for debate and will never change. Truth is no longer anything you can decide for yourself. The ruminating mind can stop its obsessive quest and finally come to rest. 

Returning to the topic of this series, we can appreciate how the perennial call for “intentionality” is differently affected within Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Take, again, the example of Lent. In low-church Protestant spaces, Lent is framed as a practice of intentionality. During Lent we become more deliberate about our faith, and this intentionality is said to improve our spiritual lives. The vibe is one of spiritual self-improvement. In Catholic and Orthodox churches, by contrast, Lent is not something you invent but something you inherit. It is given, not chosen. The season arrives every year with its prescribed fasts and liturgies already in place. You simply step into it. There is a contrast here between choice, decision, intentionality, and invention versus obedience, givenness, participation, and inheritance. The former is ongoing and effortful and the latter, in its already-decidedness, is rest.

We can see the appeal here. Instead of faith always being "up to me," something I'm always creating and inventing for myself, traditions like Orthodoxy and Catholicism allow us to escape this exhausting, never-ending work. Instead of being "intentional," like deciding what I'm going to do for Lent, I just do the thing set before me.

And yet, there are three locations where I don't think intentionality can be wholly escaped, even within the Orthodox and Catholic traditions.

First, as I pointed out in the last post, we're embracing these traditions from within the secular, liberal order. We're not living in Latin Christendom or the Byzantine East. Orthodoxy and Catholicism are not taken-for-granted cultural givens. One has to choose to become Orthodox and Catholic. You must intentionally swim the Tiber or turn toward the East. Faith in the modern world still pivots upon the choice of the individual. True, once chosen Orthodoxy and Catholicism are settled traditions that don't require constant reinvention. But the traditions themselves must be embraced through an intentional act, a choice. And it's a choice that never goes away and that has to made over and over again. In the taken-for-granted past deconversion wasn't a live option. Today, it's a constant temptation. 

Second, while traditional practices don't have to be invented over and over again, rites and rituals can become empty and rote. This is a horrible example to use, but it makes the point clear. Consider the Catholic sexual abuse crisis. The Catholic liturgy is beautiful, a sacramental wonder. But the venerable givenness of the liturgy doesn't guarantee moral formation and sanctification. Not even of the priest. The heart of the person must be engaged. Intentionality cannot be avoided. We must bring ourselves--intentionally--to the sacrament for transformation to occur. There is a synergy between the divine and human wills that demands an intentional response from our side.

Lastly, submission is still a choice. In Orthodoxy and Catholicism the individual conscience must submit to the magisterial tradition and ecclesiastical authority. Individual autonomy is traded in for corporate obedience. Personal choice gives way to collective submission. But obedience is an intentional act, a choice that has to be made over and over again. Consider how conservative American Catholics responded to the pontificate of Francis. Many of them faced a crisis of conscience, causing some to revolt and rebel. Where was that longed for rest in the givenness of tradition in all that foment, drama, weeping and wailing? Catholics and the Orthodox do experience crises of conscience. 

To conclude, I get why some low-church Protestants find peace when they convert to Orthodoxy and Catholicism. They really have escaped the liturgical and doctrinal churn of low-church Protestantism. They really have left a sector of Christianity that is performative, entrepreneurial, and consumeristic for something venerable and stable. But converting to Orthodoxy and Catholicism isn't an escape from intentionality. The cultural givenness of Latin Christendom and the Byzantine East is gone. Converting to Orthodoxy or Catholicism cannot restore these traditions to a cultural taken-for-grantedness. Consequently, converting to Orthodoxy or Catholicism is a choice, and will always remain a choice each day of your life. In the modern world, deconversion is always a live option. And when the church goes sideways, you have to choose to either submit or rebel. Crises of conscience cannot be avoided. And finally, when another Lent rolls around or the Eucharist becomes rote and perfunctory, you have to step into that season and sacrament with renewed intentionality. True, you don't have to make anything up. But you do have to show up. Not just physically, but mentally. And that showing up doesn't happen accidentally. It's a mental act. You have to be intentional. 

Given the modern loss of a taken-for-granted Christian culture, what have been some Christian responses? Where do we see people trying to recover a thick culture?

First, there are the political movements.

There are some, like the Catholic integralists, who want to restore the culture of Latin Christendom. This vision is stronger and more systematic than the evangelical pursuit of “Christian nationalism.” For Catholic integralists, secular political authority must be subordinated to ecclesiastical authority. The ideal is hierarchical, a recovery of the medieval order in which the pope exercised spiritual supremacy over kings and princes, including the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Christian nationalism is a similar but distinct project. Its goal is to make Christianity more publicly visible and to pass laws shaped by Christian moral commitments. The vision is cultural rather than ecclesiastical, to build a nation where it is easier to raise children as Christians and where public institutions affirm Christian values. The state is seen as a partner in sustaining a broadly Christian moral order, not as subordinate to the Church.

Next, there are family, church, and communal approaches. These approaches assume the secular and liberal political order as a given. The goal is not to overturn it but to carve out spaces within it where a thick moral and religious culture can be practiced and sustained. Examples include the homeschooling movement, intentional Benedict Option–style communities, and churches seeking to cultivate deeper forms of spiritual and moral formation.

Finally, we're seeing low church evangelicals "converting" to Orthodoxy or Catholicism. The Protestant privileging of the individual conscience as the ultimate authority is reversed by returning to a magisterial tradition. Instead of the free-wheeling and entrepreneurial experience of DIY non-denominationalism, there is submission to an old, venerable, and authoritative ecclesiology. There is no call for intentionality here. The tradition meets you as an unchanging and objective reality. You don't have to create, decide, or make anything up. You simple receive and submit to an inviolate truth. 

However, each of these moves has its problems. 

With the political efforts, Catholic integralism is largely an exercise in nostalgia. Medieval Christendom isn’t making a comeback any time soon. The challenge for Christian nationalism is different: there is no cultural “steady state” in a liberal democracy, given the volatility and sharp swings of electoral politics. As a result, Christian nationalism is always tempted toward authoritarianism as the only way to secure a “Christian culture” against the shifting tides of majority rule. 

Regarding family, church, and communal approaches, life in these spaces isn’t wholly insulated from the surrounding culture, and the degree of separation varies. Churches attempting to provide a richer cultural and spiritual life often struggle to get people to fully participate. Members opt in and opt out, creating much the same DIY, “choose your own adventure” experience of church. 

Homeschooling faces similar challenges, particularly from social media and cultural exposure. Once children turn eighteen, they plunge into the wider world. A truly thick moral culture should carry a person from cradle to grave, yet homeschool parents can only hope they’ve “done enough” before their children leave home. 

In addition, the more insular and restrictive the homeschool or communal culture, the sharper the contrast with broader cultural libertinism. Children inevitably observe the freedoms their peers enjoy, and resentment or rebellion can follow. In short, these “carve-out” communities face an uphill battle. This is a battle deemed worth fighting, of course, but one where success is far from guaranteed. 

Finally, regarding the drift of low-church evangelicals to Orthodoxy and Catholicism, I'd like to turn to that issue in the next post.

I want to continue to reflect a bit more upon how modernity fragilized faith by shifting us from a cultural taken-for-grantedness to a marketplace of metaphysical choices. 

As I've described, many lament this loss, and that sadness can tip toward nostalgia. We long for the homogeneous consensus that had once characterized Latin Christendom. Having lost this consensus we're condemned to a decisional, effortful, and deliberative choosing of faith, over and over again. Faith as intentionality. 

The desolations here are many. As I said, the very act of choosing faith over and over again is effortful, wearying, and exhausting. Do I still believe this? Do I still identify as a Christian? Should I leave my church? Do I want to get out of bed on Sunday morning? Decision fatigue sets in. 

Next, given all the choices in the religious marketplace, we face chronic decision regret. Did we pick the right brand of Christianity? We look over denominational fences and think the grass is always greener. We also observe people wandering from tradition to tradition looking for a place to land. 

Also, by privileging individual choice we create the conditions of fissuring and fracturing. The moment Martin Luther privileged the individual conscience over tradition--"To go against conscience is neither right nor safe"--a Pandora's Box was opened. Now left up to the individual, faith has became a DIY project. 

Scholars also describe a fourth problem. Beyond the issue of belief there is also the question of forming virtue. Forming virtue requires a thick culture. As scholars such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas have argued, virtue emerges from a habitus, a communal ethos of social practices, religious tradition, normative expectations, patterns of living, and shared cultural worldview. Virtue is different from the content of an ethics class, like what to do with the Trolley Problem. Virtue concerns habits and dispositions. And you need a culture to form that character. 

In short, when the habitus of Latin Christendom evaporated we lost our ability to cultivate virtue. We're no longer embedded in a thick and rich moral culture that shapes and forms us. This, I think, is one of the reasons our politics has become so moralized. Politics has replaced virtue. I'm a good person not because of my character but because of how I vote. Politics is faux-virtue and ersatz character.

Summarizing, here's how our loss of a taken-for-granted tradition affects the experience of modern faith:

Decision fatigue: It is effortful to keep choosing faith.

Decision regret: We worry over having chosen the "right" denominational brand of Christianity.

DIY Christianity: We privilege individual autonomy over submission to tradition and church authority.

Loss of virtue: We lack thick moral cultures that can form virtue.

Summarizing, calls for intentionality are occurring within this cultural context and these accompanying desolations. In fact, as I've suggested, the call for intentionality might not be a cure for the disease but  symptomatic of the disease itself. By privileging individual choice and decision-making "being intentional" may be reinforcing the very things making us so sick. 

And if that's so, what might the alternative be? And is an alternative even possible?

"his steadfast love endures forever"

Psalm 136 is noteworthy for its call and response format. First, there is an expression of thanksgiving, for who God is ("for he is good"), creation ("who spread out the earth on the waters"), acts of deliverance ("who divided the Red Sea in two"), and provision ("who gives food to all flesh"). This is then followed by the repeated refrain, "His steadfast love endures forever."

As I expect you know, the Hebrew word here is "hesed," and it has a wide semantic range. There is a covenantal aspect:  Steadfast love,  covenant faithfulness,  covenant loyalty,  faithful love, and unfailing love. There is also an affective, benevolent dimension: Lovingkindness, mercy, compassion, and goodness.

Last month, when I reflected upon Psalm 131, I described how we are selves only in relation. Here's what I wrote, with some edits:

The self is inherently relational. There is no isolated ego or self. We exist only in relation. Thus, I can only come to know, define, and explore myself through relation. Self-help, self-exploration, and self-actualization are, at root, delusional, resting upon a false ontology and anthropology. Consequently, it stands to reason that when the self cuts itself off from relation, and tries to explore, define, and know itself in isolation, it will become disordered and hallucinatory.

As Martin Buber put it, our relation to reality is not I-It, but I-Thou. Object-relations theory, however, would reverse this. Self-definition requires a prior relation. A child comes to know herself in relation to the mother. The relation is Thou-I, where a parental Thou precedes my I. Relation is prior to the self.  

As I describe in The Shape of Joy, this is why the science of positive psychology has shown that transcendence is good for us. Our flourishing flows out of a trusting relation with reality. Our I comes into being and flourishes in relation to a prior, parental Thou.

I'd never described all this so clearly before, and since formulating it last month I've returned to this insight over and over again. I exist only in relation, and I can only come to know and become myself in relation to a prior, parental Thou. 

We see this relation liturgically enacted in the back and forth of Psalm 136. As you read the song, the self keeps being thrown back into relation, over and over and over. I exist and have my being because of a prior parental love, kindness, and fidelity. And my flourishing depends upon a constant sounding of this relation as the only secure, steady ground in my life. The reference point I require for self-location and self-navigation. Lose track of this relation, fail to sound it, and the self become fragmented, disoriented, agitated, confused, distorted, and phantasmal. 

Concerning my own recommendations regarding intentionality, the most pushback I have received is about the role of intentionality in recovering enchantment, the subject of Hunting Magic Eels. 

The question flows from what we discussed in the last post. Can enchantment be a choice? Can an encounter with God be an act of will? Can you make yourself believe something if you don't really believe it?

Simply put, can you, via intentionality, re-enchant yourself? And if you can, isn't this "re-enchantment" fundamentally different from the taken-for-granted enchantment experienced by our forebears 500 years ago? Isn't enchantment-by-choice different from an enchantment of naivety?

On this point, Paul Ricoeur famously described what he called the "second naivety" of religious belief. The first naivety is the stage of pre-critical belief. In this first naivety belief is simple, straightforward, literalistic, and given. Faith was trusting, accepting, and childlike. But as we grow up we move into a stage of critical reflection and questioning. We kick the tires of timeless verities. We question settled truths. We interrogate the tradition. We dissect the dogmas. In modern parlance, we engage in what is called "deconstruction." 

But after this critical stage, continues Ricoeur, some of us return to faith. We call this "reconstruction." The pieces are put back together again. Ricoeur describes this return as a "second naivety." This second naivety is a post-critical stage. Faith is re-embraced, but it has also been changed and transformed by the season of questioning. As the title of a Brian McLaren book puts it, the second naivety is "faith after doubt." 

To return to our question, is the experience of enchantment different during the first versus second naivety? Is the experience of enchantment different in the pre-critical versus post-critical stages? It would seem so. Once God has been questioned and doubted, once the childlike faith has been lost, faith seems to be permanently destabilized. Questions nag and doubts linger. The second naivety feels more provisional than the first.

I agree with this. And following from the last post, I think modernity permanently changed the conditions of faith. I also don't think the clock can be rolled back. Consequently, faith in a secular age is always going to feel more tentative, provisional, and contested when compared to prior eras where faith was a cultural given. This loss of our culture's "first naivety" can be lamented and viewed as tragic. And people will nostalgically long for the lost culture of Christendom, with its taken-for-granted givenness and homogeneity. But I don't think we can put that genie back in the bottle. 

While we can lament the impacts of modernity upon the conditions of belief, the call I make in Hunting Magic Eels isn't a call to "choose enchantment." The intentionality I describe isn't pretending or metaphysical cosplay. The intentionality I call for isn't like Dorothy visiting Oz where, in the book version, she has to wear green-tinted glasses locked onto her face to guarantee she will see the city as green. To make this point in the book, I rework a quote from the novelist Iris Murdock:

Whenever we experience religious doubts or have crises of faith, “pure will” can usually achieve little. It is small use telling oneself “Stop having doubts! Believe! Have faith!” What is needed is a reorientation which will provide an energy of a different kind, from a different source. Notice the metaphors of orientation and of looking. Faith is not a jump of the will, it is the acquiring of new objects of attention and thus of new energies as a result of refocusing.

Re-enchantment isn't a "jump of the will." Experiencing God isn't a choice. Mystical encounter isn't a decision. We cannot pretend something is there when it isn't. The goal of "acquiring new objects of attention" through intentional practices isn't to trick yourself. It is, rather, to make oneself available to new experiences. Let me share again the famous quote by Karl Rahner:

The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’—someone who has ‘experienced something’—or will cease to be anything at all.

Underline the words "experienced something." We're not re-enchanted via choice, decision, willpower, or intentionality. We are re-enchanted because we have encountered--really and truly--a reality other than our own. What re-enchants us isn't intentionality but ontology. The role of intentionality in my call for enchantment is to make us increasingly open, available, and receptive to these ontological encounters. Again, what re-enchants isn't choice but experience.

Re-enchantment isn't tricking yourself to believe in something you doubt. You'd feel the falsity of that in your mind, that you are only pretending. Re-enchantment is, rather, being intentional in making yourself open and available to sacred encounters. And it's those sacred encounters, those ontological interruptions, that pull us deeper into mystery and adventure of faith.

In the last post I described how I've made calls for intentionality. From enchantment to hospitality to our mental health, I've argued that our default and unreflective postures toward the world have negative impacts. Our "autopilot" response toward life facilitates disenchantment, poorer mental health, and failures of hospitality. 

And yet, intentionality isn't without it critics. Especially when it comes to faith. To illustrate some of this criticism of intentionality, I want to borrow the analysis from Peter Berger and Anton Zinderveld in their 2009 book In Praise of Doubt. 

In their book, Berger and Zinderveld take aim at what has been called "secularization theory." The basic claim of secularization theory is that as modernity advances people give up religious belief and become "secular." A classic account of secularization theory was Freud's The Future of an Illusion. Freud argued that as humanity "grows up" and "develops" we would give up our primitive mythological beliefs. In our lifetimes, secularization theory was the sermon preached by the New Atheists during their high water mark in the mid-2000s. 

But as many social scientists have pointed out, empirically speaking, secularization theory has been falsified. Modernity hasn't run faith out of the building. Faith remains very much with us. 

What has happened in modernity, argue Berger and Zinderveld, is not secularization but plurality. What we see around us isn't a binary choice between faith and unfaith. Rather, it's choices between faiths, unbelief among them, along with the bespoke, DIY, mixing and matching we find among the spiritual but not religious. What characterizes modernity is the radical range of choices now in front of us. Faith hasn't been eliminated from modern life. Rather, faith has become radically open. The options available to us are dizzying. We live in the wake of what Charles Taylor calls "the Nova Effect," an explosive expansion of choices, worldviews, and lifestyles.

Berger and Zinderveld explain how this happened in the following way. According to secularization theory the shift that was predicted to occur was this:

faith to unfaith

But what really has happened in modernity was this:

the-world-taken-for-granted to choice

To understand this shift we need to grasp some sociological terminology. Sociologists distinguish between the background and the foreground of human culture and cognition. The aspects of life that are assumed, instinctive, unconscious, and taken for granted function in the background of life. Rarely do I reflect upon or evaluate these background structures of my life. In contrast to this background, the foreground of life is the location of choice, reflection, and decision making.

Consider the following example given by Berger and Zinderveld to illustrate the point. When I wake up in the morning I have to decide what I want to wear. These considerations are in the foreground of my life. I reflect and make choices about what clothes to put on. However, I never really question the assumption that I will be wearing something. Leaving the house with clothes on is assumed. It functions in the background.

The point here is that a great deal of life is regulated to the background where my worldview hums away, largely unnoticed. And this makes good adaptive sense. As Berger and Zinderveld note, if 100% of life was up for grabs, in the foreground, we would be cognitively and socially crippled. Everything would be a matter of conscious reflection and deliberate choice. Consequently, some things just have to be assumed. 

With these understandings in place we can describe how modernity has affected us. Modernity has increased the foreground relative to the background. That is, things that used to be assumed and taken for granted have now moved into the foreground and have become objects of choice and reflection. Think about the choices you face that your forebears 500 years ago didn't even consider:

What should I do with my life?

What career should I pursue—and should I change it later?

Where should I live? In what kind of community?

Should I marry? When? Should I stay married?

How many children—if any—should I have?

What kind of education do I want for myself or my family?

What political views should I hold?

What moral values should guide my life?

What do I believe about God, the soul, and the afterlife?

Should I be Christian, another religion, or “spiritual but not religious”?

If Christian, should I be Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox—or none of these?

What church—or kind of church—should I belong to?

What does it mean to live a good life?

In the not so distant past many if not all of the answers to these questions were taken for granted, they were in the background. Culture carried your worldview and determined your beliefs and actions. People 500 years ago didn't worry about what their college major should be or if they should change careers. People 500 years ago didn't worry about if or when they would marry. Nor could they use birth control to determine how many kids they would have. And, importantly for our purposes, people 500 years ago didn't think about what religion they would adopt. All this was taken for granted.

In short, modernity didn't undermine the contents of religious belief. What modernity changed was the location of belief in the mind. Specifically, faith moved from the background to the foreground. From taken-for-granted to an object of choice. Here's a visual of the change, the left side portraying the location of faith in the mind 500 years ago versus the right side portraying the location of faith in the mind today: 

Given that faith is now a choice we observe faith increasingly becoming an individual lifestyle decision, a form of personal expression. This creates the explosion of the Nova Effect, the ramifying diversity of faith in the modern world where everyone follows their own path. When faith was a cultural given, a part of the taken-for-granted background, it created homogeneous conformity. You were born into a tradition and learned it like your native language. Unbelief just wasn't an option. Faith wasn't a choice, it was given. Today, however, with faith in the foreground of individual choice, there is no way to keep everyone on the same page. Homogeneity and conformity gives way to heterogeneous diversity. A unified tradition becomes a pluralistic marketplace.

Beyond the Nova Effect, faith has also become more fragile and unstable. Just like everything in my life that sits in the foreground as the object of choice and decision. No longer taken for granted, faith-as-choice is always exposed and re-exposed to reflection and revisitation. More, as a choice faith must be reasserted, like all our other choices, over and over again. Like waking up every morning and deciding what to wear. Instead of a givenness where I can find rest within, faith has become a perpetual effort of will. 

All this has implications for how we respond to the modern call for intentionality. Intentionality assumes a framework of choice: We choose to be intentional. And while that choice can foster a sense of purpose and self-ownership, it also makes faith provisional and effortful. For if faith depends upon our decisions, then we can just as easily decide otherwise. And decision, by its nature, is work. We grow weary rather than finding rest.

And beyond this weariness and fragility there is also the drift into pluralistic self-expression.

I hope you can see the concern here. Simply put, the call to intentionality is often presented as the cure for modernity’s ailments. But it may be part of the illness itself. In a world where everything is determined by individual choice, being “intentional” about those choices is the only kind of advice we can offer. Yet such advice never touches the deeper sickness.

I recently read in my New York Times news feed that we're drowning in the imperative to be "intentional." Being intentional, it seems, is the cure for everything that is ailing us. Being more intentional with our work, with our relationships, with our health, with our self-care, with our relationship with God.

I've contributed my fair share to this discourse. Intentionality sits behind many of the recommendations and practices I describe in my books. 

For example, in Stranger God I describe Thérèse of Lisieux's Little Way as an intentional practice of hospitality. In Stranger God I devote chapters to intentional practices I call "seeing," "stopping," and "approaching." The point I make in the book is that if we're not being intentional as we move through the day we operate on what I call "social autopilot." This relational autopilot tends to get captured by social psychological dynamics. One of these dynamics is what David Leong has called "the social logic of homogeneity," how like is attracted to like, along with our natural wariness toward difference. As I describe in Stranger God, without intentionally disengaging my social autopilot my relationships unconsciously and naturally drift toward affinity groups. I associate with and befriend people who look like me, exist in the same socio-economic bracket, have the same educational status, vote like me, think like me, and share the same hobbies and interests. The social autopilot draws me into an "echo chamber" of sameness. None of this is willfully malevolent, but it creates the social and relational sorting that makes our relational groups very homogeneous. Given this tendency, the only way to diversify our relationships is to adopt intentional practices of navigating our social world that create opportunities to encounter and develop friendships with people very unlike ourselves. 

In Hunting Magic Eels I describe how recovering enchantment--God being present and filling all things--involves intentional practices of attention. Many modern Christians, for example, default to the metaphysics of scientism. The world is full of inert objects governed by the laws of physics. We've lost what theologians call a "sacramental ontology" where, as Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, the world is charged with the grandeur of God. In the words of Martin Buber, we default to experiencing the world through an I-It relation. The world around me is an It, a dead object devoid of mind and spiritual resonance. Given this attentional default, we need to become more intentional in how we direct and invest our attention. I describe many such practices in Hunting Magic Eels, from liturgy to prayer to nature to poetry to testimony to sacramentals. These practices foster an I-Thou relationship with the world. Through intentional practices of attention a capacity for sacred encounter is cultivated. 

As a last example, The Shape of Joy encourages readers to make an "outward turn" toward transcendence. As I describe in the book, the modern self is self-referential and ruminative. This morbid introversion, being curved inward upon yourself, has destabilized our mental health. When left alone this inward focus is our attentional default. Worse, it's a therapeutic recommendation. We're told to "find our true self." To discover "our truth." Consequently, if we want to reverse the curvature of the self, to flip the ego inside out, we have to become intentional in directing our gaze outward, toward a sacred, cosmic, existential, and transcendent ground of purpose, mattering, and worth. 

Stepping back, as we can see, I've made many calls for becoming more intentional. From the Little Way, to re-enchantment, toward stabilizing our mental health, we need to become more aware of a default state of mind and relating to the world, relationally, spiritually, and psychologically. Otherwise, we move through the world on autopilot. And disengaging this autopilot requires intentionality. 

So, I think intentionality is a good thing. But might there be some problems here as well? 

After Palamas’ defense of the hesychasts in The Triads, his dispute with Barlaam of Calabria soon spread throughout the wider church. A series of councils held in Constantinople between 1341 and 1368 ultimately took up the matter. These councils affirmed Palamas’ teaching, establishing the distinction between essence and energies as central to Orthodox theology, liturgy, and spirituality.

As summarized by Kallistos Ware, the 1351 council was the most important, summarizing the doctrine of divine energies in eight main points: 

1. There is in God a distinction between the essence and the energies or energy. (It is equally legitimate to refer to the latter either in the singular or in the plural).
2. The energy of God is not created but uncreated.
3. This distinction between the uncreated essence and the uncreated energies does not in any way impair the divine simplicity; there is no 'compositeness' in God.
4. The term "deity" may be applied not only to the essence of God but to the energies.
5. The essence enjoys a certain priority or superiority in relation to the energies, in the sense that the energies proceed from the essence.
6. Man can participate in God's energies but not in his essence.
7. The divine energies may be experienced by men in the form of light -- a light which, though beheld through men's bodily eyes, is in itself non-material, 'intelligible' and uncreated. This is the uncreated light that was manifested to the apostles at the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, that is seen during prayer by the saints in our own time, and that will shine upon and from the righteous at their resurrection on the Last Day. It thus possesses an eschatological character: it is "the light of the Age to Come."
8. No energy is to be associated with one divine person to the exclusion of the other two, but the energies are shared in common by all three persons of the Trinity.

As elaborated in Orthodox theology, Palamas' teaching sets forth an ousia/energeia distinction. This distinction also marks the contrast between the apophatic and cataphatic theological traditions. As Kallistos Ware describes:

Apophaticism, then, has both a negative and an affirmative aspect. It underlines, on the one hand, the transcendence and incomprehensibility of God, 'whom no man has seen or can see'; it proclaims, on the other hand, the possibility of an encounter face to face with this unknowable God, of an unmediated union with the Inaccessible. To express this double truth that God is both hidden and revealed, both transcendent and immanent, Orthodox theology makes a distinction between the divine essence (ousia) and the divine energies or operations (energeiai). This latter term, while possessing a philosophical flavour, is in fact also scriptural. Whereas 'the term ousia is used in only one passage of the New Testament (Lk 15: 12--13)- and here it does not refer to God, but means 'property' or 'wealth' - the term energeia, applied to God, is found several times in the Epistles (Ep I: 19, 3: 7; Ph 3: 21; Co 1: 29, 2: 12). 

Ousia or essence means God as he is in himself, the energeiai or energies signify God in action and self-revelation. According to the Orthodox apophatic tradition, the divine essence remains for ever above and beyond all participation and all knowledge on the part of any creature, both in this age and in the Age to Come; the essence of God can be apprehended neither by men nor by angels, but only by the three divine persons themselves. But God's energies, which are God himself, fill the whole world, and by grace all may come to participate in them. The God who is 'essentially' unknowable is thus 'existentially' or 'energetically' revealed.

As described in the last post, since the cosmos is upheld by the energy and action of God the entirety of existence is irradiated by God's sustaining presence. Ware describing this:

This doctrine of the immanent energies implies an intensely dynamic vision of the relationship between God and the world. The whole cosmos is a vast burning bush, permeated but not consumed by the uncreated fire of the divine energies. These energies are 'God with us'. They are the power of God at work within man, the life of God in which he shares. Because of the omnipresence of the divine energies, each of us can know himself as made in the image of God. Through the divine energies, Jesus Christ ceases to be for us an historical figure from the distant past, with whose story we are familiar from books, and he becomes an immediate presence, our personal Saviour. Through the divine energies we know him not merely as a human teacher but as the pre-eternal Logos.

As I mentioned in the first post, Palamas' essence versus energies distinction, the ousia/energeia contrast, is a helpful way of thinking about God's transcendence versus God's immanence. Specifically, God's essence/ousia speaks to the absolute ontological contrast between God and creation. God is transcendent. This boundary is patrolled by apophaticism, the Via Negativa. However, at the same time God is immanently present to us via His energies. God is intimate and close. As Ware describes:

In His essence, God is infinitely transcendent, radically unknowable, utterly beyond all created being, beyond all understanding and all participation from the human side. But, in His energies, God is inexhaustibly immanent, the core of everything, the heart of its heart, closer to the heart of each thing than is that thing’s very own heart. These divine energies, according to the Palamite teaching, are not an intermediary between God and the world, not a created gift that He bestows upon us, but they are God Himself in action; and each uncreated energy is God in His indivisible totality, not a part of Him but the whole.

The cosmos burns but is not consumed, aflame with the Uncreated Fire.

“He sent signs and wonders against you, Egypt”

Psalm 135 is a doxological recapitulation of Israel’s story and the Lord’s mighty acts of deliverance. Scholars view Psalm 135 as highly intertextual, as it densely quotes or echoes many other Scriptures. There are parallels with Psalm 115 in its idol critique, Deuteronomy 32 in its emphasis on God’s vindication, and the Exodus deliverance from Egypt. Some scholars argue that almost every verse of Psalm 135 either alludes to or incorporates other biblical texts, suggesting that the psalm functions as a theological summary of Israel’s identity and history.

For this reflection, I want to focus on Israel’s experience of the Exodus. The paradigmatic experience of salvation in the Old Testament was liberation and emancipation. All Christus Victor images of atonement in the New Testament echo the Exodus. What is important to note about the Exodus is that it did not concern or involve Israel’s guilt. Israel was not sent to Egypt as a punishment. Nor were the oppressions of the Egyptians sent by God. Consider Exodus 6:5–6, with the Lord speaking to Moses:

I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are forcing to work as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment.

Notice how “redemption” here is free of any forensic or penal aspects related to sin and guilt. Redemption simply concerns restoring the enslaved to their original state of freedom and liberty.

To be sure, by the time the New Testament opens, redemption has taken on penal and forensic dimensions. Israel was experiencing a new captivity in exile, and this oppression was understood as the result of covenantal infidelity. Thus, a “second Exodus” would have to deal with guilt. Passover, redemption from slavery, becomes conflated with the Day of Atonement, the expiation of guilt. We see this conflation in John the Baptist’s description of Jesus: “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The reference to the lamb is a Passover image, while the removal of sin draws from the Day of Atonement. It is Israel’s exile that brings these together: an enslavement requiring Passover that is caused by unfaithfulness requiring atonement.

Here is the point I want to make. Atonement is not the end but the means. From the very beginning, salvation was emancipatory. The goal was freedom and liberation, being set free from oppressive and enslaving powers. True, a deserved guilt stood in the way, and that guilt had to be dealt with. But forgiveness was not the goal. It was the means. This is a point often forgotten in evangelical spaces where penal substitutionary atonement functions as the dominant soteriological paradigm. Guilt is only one piece of the whole, and not the most important piece.

Atonement is necessary, but what we ultimately desire and need is Exodus. To make the point plain, even if you are declared innocent from a penal and forensic perspective, you are still going to die. Innocent people still die. Innocent people are still captive to death. Being “forgiven” does you no good if you remain in captivity.

What we most desire is light and life. Salvation is God redeeming us from captivity to darkness and death. Atonement for sin is one part of that work, a means toward that end. Forgiveness is necessary for salvation, but not sufficient. Exodus is greater than atonement. Salvation is greater than forgiveness.

In the last post we described Barlaam of Calabria's criticism of hesychasts' claims of beholding the Uncreated Light of God. Citing Biblical texts, Barlaam argued that no one could see God. Consequently, the light the hesychasts were beholding had to be an imagined, created light. 

The monk, archbishop, and theologian Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) stood up to defend the authenticity of the hesychasts' claims against Barlaam's attacks. Between 1338 and 1341, Palamas wrote For the Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude defending the legitimacy of the hesychast experience. Given that this defense was shared across three books with three treatises in each, the work came to be known as The Triads. And it's in The Triads where Palamas shares his famous distinction between God's essence and God's energies.  

Palamas centers his defense on the experience of Peter, James, and John on Mount Tabor when they beheld Jesus' transfiguration. On the mountian the apostles behold, directly, the glory of God. This glory, Palamas continues, is the same light the hesychasts were experiencing. "Do you not see," Palamas writes, "how this light shines even now in the hearts of the faithful and perfect?"

Against this view, critics like Barlaam were setting themselves up as "enemies of such an illumination" by arguing that "all the lights which God has manifested to the saints are only symbolic apparitions, allusions to immaterial and intelligible realities."

Again, Barlaam had some Biblical support for his contentions. There was also the strong witness of the apophatic tradition and its influence upon scholastic theology. As a scholastic theologian, and like Thomas Aquinas, Barlaam argued that God's essence was unknowable. Consequently, it was impossible for the hesychasts to gaze directly upon God's essence.

Palamas was quick to agree with Barlaam on this point. No one can see or behold God's essence. In good apophatic fashion, Palamas agrees that God's essence "transcends all affirmation and negation." God does not "allow Himself to be seen in His superessential essence." 

But if that's true, what were the hesychasts seeing?

Palamas argues that what the hesychasts beheld, the same light seen by the apostles on Mount Tabor, was not God’s essence but God’s uncreated energy. By “energy” Palamas means God’s direct and uncreated activities, His operations by which He is present and active in the world. The names of these energies are various: virtue, goodness, power, grace, wisdom, illumination, providence, deification. Even existence itself. Palamas uses the metaphor of the sun to explain the contrast. There is a difference between what the sun is in itself (its essence) and the light/energy it radiates which we can enjoy and share. 

Critical to this distinction is that God's essence exceeds all His created effects and activities in the world. God cannot be reduced to this energies. As Palamas says, "Thus, neither the uncreated goodness, nor the eternal glory, nor the divine life nor things akin to these are simply the superessential essence of God, for God transcends them all as Cause." And yet, in an equally crucial move, Palamas argues that God is truly present to us in these operations and activities:  "But since God is entirely present in each of the divine energies, we name Him from each of them, although it is clear that He transcends all of them." Thus, "Essence and energy are thus not totally identical in God, even though He is entirely present in every energy." 

That is the argument in a nutshell. Essence and energy are not identical in God. But God entirely present in every energy. 

Returning, then, to the apophatic tradition, Palamas concludes by saying that the words we use to describe God name God's energies. In contrast, we cannot speak to or describe God's unknowable essence:

Moreover, the Holy Fathers affirm unanimously that it is impossible to find a name to manifest the nature of the uncreated Trinity, but the names belong to the energies...He Who is beyond every name is not identical with what He is named; for the essence and energy of God are not identical.

Concerning divine participation, then, theosis and deification come through God's divine energy. As the soul draws closer to God it experiences an increasing share in God's "deifying energy," what Palamas also calls the "theurgic grace of the Spirit." The energy of God pours into the person bringing about an ontological transformation. And as this transformation happens, the glory of God becomes visible to the spiritual sight of the purified soul. We come to see, says Palamas, "that uncreated light which is the glory of God." 

This deifying light, continues Palamas, exist everywhere. God fills all things. Existing in God, everything is irradiated with God's energy. Since "God is everywhere," Palmas says, "Deification is likewise everywhere, ineffably present." He continues:

But just as one cannot see fire, if there is no matter to receive it, nor any sense organ capable of perceiving its luminous energy, in the same way one cannot contemplate deification if there is no matter to receive the divine manifestation. But if with every veil removed it lays hold of appropriate matter, that is of any purified rational nature, freed from the veil of manifold evil, then it becomes itself visible as a spiritual light. "The prize of virtue," it is said, "is to become God, to be illumined by the purest of lights, by becoming a son of that day which no darkness can dim. For it is another Sun which produces this day, a Sun which shines forth the true light. And once it has illumined us, it no longer hides in the West, but envelops all things with its powerful light. It grants an eternal and endless light to those worthy, and transforms those who participate in this light into other suns."

This is what the hesychasts beheld, the Light of Tabor. Through their ascetical practices, the deifying work of God, that luminous energy everywhere present and latent in the world, was flashing forth. The theurgic grace of the Spirit was doing its divinizing work. Just like Christ before his apostles, transfiguration was being made visible. The Uncreated Light was shining out.

In this series I want to introduce the work of Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) to share perspectives about how to think about divine transcendence versus divine immanence. I think Palamas’ work, while not wholly uncontested within the Christian tradition, provides a helpful lens for reflecting on how God is both transcendent and immanent.

To start, I want to share a bit of the history behind Palamas' writing of The Triads, focusing on the controversy that prompted him to articulate his famous contrast between God's essence versus God's energies.

The controversy started in the 1330s when Barlaam of Calabria, a monk and scholastic theologian, visited Mount Athos. There, Barlaam encountered the hesychasts. Inspired by the desert fathers, the hesychasts were monks devoted to stillness and continual prayer. The name hesychast comes from the Greek hesychia, meaning “quiet.” By the 14th century, the hesychasts had brought their ascetic practices to Mount Athos.

The hesychasts shared with Barlaam mystical experiences in which they beheld the "Uncreated Light" emanating from God's very Being. This was the "Light of Tabor" that flashed out during Christ's transfiguration.

These claims startled Barlaam. Barlaam felt that no human could gaze upon God directly. The Bible seems clear on this point: as God said to Moses, "For no one may see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). 1 Timothy 6:16 and John 1:18 also clearly state that no one has ever seen God. Consequently, whatever the hesychasts were seeing, it couldn't be God. Barlaam contended that the light the hesychasts were reporting was a created light, something generated by their own imaginations, perhaps symbolic of the Uncreated Light, but not the actual Uncreated Light. In claiming to see God directly, the hesychasts were skirting blasphemy.

In response to Barlaam’s criticism of the hesychasts, Palamas set out to defend their mystical experiences. In his For the Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude, Palamas argued that the hesychasts were having a real and direct experience of God. The light they beheld wasn't imagined or symbolic but was, rather, a genuine encounter with divine reality.

At the heart of Palamas' defense was a distinction he made between God's essence versus God's energies.

The controversy between Barlaam and Palamas eventually made its way into the broader church, culminating in the series of councils held in Constantinople between 1341 and 1368. These councils officially affirmed Palamas' teaching and formally recognized the experiences of the hesychasts as authentic. As a result, Palamas' defense of hesychasm, with its contrast between essence and energies, became a cornerstone of Eastern Orthodox theology, spirituality, and liturgical practice. Hesychasm continued to thrive on Mount Athos, shaping Orthodox spirituality to this very day.

With this history now in front of us, in the next post we'll turn to Palamas' The Triads and his essence versus energies distinction.

"The Road to Damascus"

Tracing the fissures,
fingering the shards
of a fractured life.
And you,
the thrown stone.
The cause of my cracking.
It was not a gradual waking,
dully, from sleep.
Our meeting, rather,
sharp and irreversable.
Beholding what I took to be myself
rendered beyond mending.