In The Slavery of Death I introduce readers to the Orthodox vision of "Ancestral Sin" as opposed to the vision known as "Original Sin." Through the influence of Augustine, especially in his debate with Julian, Original Sin came to be the dominant vision of the Fall in Genesis 3 in Latin Christendom. But in the East, a different take on Genesis 3 held sway.

The contrasting visions focus on a simple question: What, exactly, did we inherit from Adam and Eve's disobedience?

According to Original Sin, we inherit from Adam and Eve a congenitally defective nature, a nature enslaved to sin. Sometimes this view is called "total depravity."

According to Ancestral Sin, by contrast, what we inherit from Adam and Eve is mortality. We inherit death. Exiled from Eden, we are no longer connected to the Tree of Life and, thus, experience corruption and decay. This vision is described in Wisdom 1:13, which baldly states that "God did not make death." Rather, death entered into the world through the deceptions of Satan: "for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil's envy death entered the world..."(Wisdom 2.23-24a).

In Romans, Paul also describes the spread of death to all of humanity through Adam's sin: "So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned" (Romans 5:12). 

To be sure, the translation of that last clause muddies the waters a bit. The translation "because all sinned" is contested. As the NET translation notes describe:

The translation of the phrase ἐφ᾿ ᾧ (eph hō) has been heavily debated. For a discussion of all the possibilities, see C. E. B. Cranfield, “On Some of the Problems in the Interpretation of Romans 5.12,” SJT 22 (1969): 324-41. Only a few of the major options can be mentioned here: (1) the phrase can be taken as a relative clause in which the pronoun refers to Adam, “death spread to all people in whom [Adam] all sinned.” (2) The phrase can be taken with consecutive (resultative) force, meaning “death spread to all people with the result that all sinned.” (3) Others take the phrase as causal in force: “death spread to all people because all sinned.”

The first two options, eph hō taken as a relative clause or with consecutive (resultative) force, fit with the vision of Ancestral Sin. Due to Adam's sin, in whom all sinned, "death spread to all people." Or, because death spread to all people, the result was that all people sinned. This last reverses how we typically think of the cause-effect relation between sin and death. Specifically, instead of sin causing death, death causes sin. As it says in 1 Cor. 15:56: "The sting of death is sin." Sin is death's consequent and result.

This view--death as the cause of sin--fits the text I build The Slavery of Death around:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2.14-15)

Here in Hebrews 2, "the power of death" is wielded by the devil to keep us estranged from God. That specific power is described as holding us in slavery, all our lives, through the fear of death. This neatly fits the vision of Ancestral Sin. As biological creatures, death creates in us survival-focused fears and anxieties. In our post-Edenic situation, this death-saturated existence, Satan uses these anxieties to tempt us away from God.

The best exposition of this vision is the Orthodox theologian John Romanides' book Ancestral Sin. Here, for example, is Romanides describing how our fear of death becomes implicated in sin:

Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man's fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him...Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man's weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent. Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement, egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up.

In The Slavery of Death I describe these survival- and resource-based concerns as basic anxiety. These are the fears at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But in the book I go on to describe how Satan also uses existential anxieties to tempt us toward self-love. These are neurotic anxieties, higher up on Maslow's hierarchy, and are rooted in self-esteem and self-enhancement. As Romanides continues:

In addition to the fact that man, [as John Chrysostom has written,] "subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying," he constantly fears that his life is without meaning. Thus, he strives to demonstrate to himself and to others that it has worth. He loves flatterers and hates his detractors. He seeks his own and envies the success of others. He loves those who love him and hates those who hate him. He seeks security and happiness and wealth, glory, bodily pleasures, and he may even imagine that his destiny is a self-seeking eudaemonistic and passionless enjoyment of the presence of God regardless of whether or not he has true active, unselfish love for others.

The point in making this contrast between Ancestral and Original Sin is that there are other ways of thinking about the Fall in Genesis 3 and what exactly we inherit from Adam and Eve's disobedience. To be sure, the causal relation between sin and death is complex and reciprocal. But by highlighting the reversal emphasized by Ancestral Sin--death (or the fear of death) causing sin--we can avoid some of the more morbid visions of human nature that have haunted Latin Christendom in the West. Human nature isn't "depraved" so much as anxious and weak. This anxious weakness inevitably leads to sin, keeping us stuck in a sin-death loop. We still need help to come to us from the outside. But our vision of human nature is more straightforward and realistic and doesn't require us to imagine human persons as congenitally damaged and broken.

I’ve been writing online since 2007, and over the years I’ve covered many different topics. One of my favorite series was on the snake-handling churches of Appalachia.

One of the most fascinating aspects of these churches is how they have dealt with the theological problem of snakebite. And what’s even more interesting is how this issue, found in a very bizarre and esoteric branch of Christianity, has broader relevance. The problem posed by snakebite is a problem every Christian shares, even if they don’t handle snakes.

But before we get there, some background.

Around 1910, George Went Hensley walked down from White Oak Mountain in Tennessee convinced that one of the signs of baptism in the Holy Ghost was power over deadly serpents. Ever since the Azusa Street Revival in 1906, the primary sign of Spirit baptism had been speaking in tongues, along with other miraculous manifestations such as healing. But because of his literal reading of Mark 16, Hensley concluded that handling poisonous serpents should also be among the signs of "them that believe":

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17–18)

Hensley descended White Oak Mountain, snake in hand, and launched his first snake-handling revival in Grasshopper Valley. So powerful were these services that snake handling spread across Appalachia and, for a time, was even endorsed by the Church of God.

In the early days the message was triumphalistic. Believers would handle serpents and not be bitten. But over time, people were bitten. The witness shifted: the Spirit would protect from death by snakebite rather than from snakebite itself. But that too had to be revised when people died. Hensley himself, who survived 446 bites, finally succumbed in 1955 at the age of 75 after a rattlesnake struck him during a revival in Florida.

According to researchers Ralph Hood and Paul Williamson (Them That Believe, Appendix 1), from 1921 to 2006 there were 90 documented deaths associated with snake-handling worship. That’s about one a year in these churches. And given that this is a small and tight-knit community, one death a year is significant.

All this presented a theological problem.

The central experience of snake handling is victory over death. As worshipers reach into the boxes, they report an acute awareness of death. Their preachers repeat, “There is death in these boxes.” Handling snakes is an eschatological act, a confrontation with death itself. The snakes are symbols of Death.

But people do die. So how is “victory” experienced when death occurs? And not only death. Many bites bring days of agonizing pain and permanent tissue damage. How to make sense of that suffering?

In response, the snake-handling churches slowly abandoned the triumphalistic theology. It became clear that “the anointing,” the prompting of the Spirit to take up serpents, did not guarantee immunity. People were bitten, people suffered, people died. Victory, then, could not be immunity.

The key insight came from a closer reading of Mark 16. Notice what the text actually says: “They shall take up serpents.” That’s it. There is no promise of immunity. The sign is simply in taking up the serpents. Even if you get bitten. Even if you die.

So victory shifted from immunity to fearless obedience. The sign to the unbeliever was not invulnerability, but eschatological fearlessness in the face of death.

This evolution is a striking illustration of how the fear of death is our deepest spiritual predicament. As Hebrews puts it:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14–15)

Salvation is liberation from the fear of death. Snakebite becomes a symbol of this fear, and taking up snakes a “sign” of salvation.

But does that mean we should take up serpents, or pursue other reckless risks, as a demonstration of faith?

As I argue in The Slavery of Death, this is where the snake-handling churches miss something. Fearlessness, by itself, is not a Christian virtue. Detached from love, fearlessness slides toward recklessness, even a morbid courting of death.

The real problem with fear is how it cripples love, how it enslaves us to self-preservation rather than freeing us for self-giving. Hebrews tells us that Christ delivers us from the slavery of death (Hebrews 2). John tells us that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4). Put together, the victory over death is not just boldness in the face of danger but a liberation to love.

And yes, there are snakes everywhere. Each of us faces fears, large and small, that tempt us away from love. To “take up” these snakes means loving sacrificially in the face of death.

In the end, it is not fearlessness that marks the believer, but love. 

Love is the sign of them that believe.

"the continual sekyng of the soule plesith God ful mekyl"

In Chapter 10 Julian moves from her first showing—Christ crowned with thorns—to her second showing: The bloodied and discolored face of Jesus on the cross. 

Again, what Julian does in her Revelations is share spiritual insights from each of her showings. Concerning this second showing, the discolored face of Christ, Julian spends her time reflecting upon how much God is pleased with our seeking Him. As she writes: "the continual sekyng of the soule plesith God ful mekyl, for it may do no more than sekyn, suffrin, and trusten." Translation: "the continual seeking of the soul pleases God very much, for it may do no more than seek, suffer, and trust."

Crucially for Julian, seeking does not always lead to seeing. As she observes: "And thus was I lernyd to myn understondyng, that sekyng is as good as beholdyng for the tyme that He will suffer the soule to be in travel." Translation: "And thus I learned, to my understanding, that seeking is as good as beholding for the time that He suffers the soul to be in travail." As Julian goes on to say, the seeking part is the only part we can control. The beholding is in God's hands. In the meantime, and through the travail, we learn patience. 

And Julian is confidant that if we are faithful in the seeking, God will, in His own time, reveal Himself: "We knowen He shall appere sodenly and blisfully to al His lovers, for His werkyng is privy, and He wil be perceivid; and His appering shal be swith sodeyn, and He wil be trowid..." Translation: "We know He shall appear suddenly and blissfully to all His lovers, for His working is secret, and He wishes to be perceived; and His appearing shall be very sudden, and He wills to be believed..."

Stepping back, Chapter 10 is an encouragement to keep seeking God, trusting that He will at some point, reveal Himself. As Julian says, the continual seeking of the soul pleases God very much, even if sight is delayed and the soul is in travail. I'm put in mind of Thomas Merton's famous prayer: 

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Ever since the Protestant Reformation, Christians have tended to read Paul as opposing any notion of “works-based righteousness.” Salvation, in this familiar telling, is secured entirely by faith. Judgment, if it appears at all, has already been settled in advance.

But this reading sits uneasily alongside a large body of material in Paul. Again and again, Paul speaks of a coming judgment in which each person will be evaluated according to what they have done. We will be judged according to our works.

One reason for how we've come misread Paul is that we have been trained to collapse justification and judgment into a single event. That is, the future verdict of the final judgment—“righteous,” “not guilty”—is pulled backward into the present. Because I will be acquitted then, I stand acquitted now.

This is a tidy solution, and it also meets a pastoral concern. Specifically, if justification is already the final verdict, then our future salvation is secure. There is no anxiety. No fear of falling away. No need to worry about whether our lives will “measure up.” But the trouble with this reading is that there are many locations where Paul describes a future judgment that is both pending and based upon works. 

For example:

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. (1 Thess 3.12-13) 

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. (1 Thess 4.3-7) 

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. (1 Thess 5.23-24)

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor 3.11-15) 

So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. (1 Cor 5.4-5)

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Cor 9.24-27) 

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea...Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness...These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Cor 10.1,5,11-12)

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Cor 5.10) 

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? (2 Cor 13.5) 

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal 5.19-21)

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Gal 6.7-9) 

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. (Rom 6.11-14)

The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. (Rom 8.6-8) 

Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. (Rom 8.12-13)

Again, as you survey these passages it is clear that there is a coming judgment and that our fate at that judgement is contingent and dependent upon how we live our lives. Paul makes this very clear. As he writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). We will reap what we sow in this life (Gal 6.7). Some of us will receive a reward, and others will suffer loss (1 Cor 3.11-15).

As mentioned above, these passages suggest that justification and judgment are not identical events. Justification, as Paul presents it, declares us forgiven, reconciled, and freed from the penalty of sin. But judgment remains a distinct, future event, in which our lives, our works, and our obedience will be assessed. Paul emphasizes that being declared righteous does not automatically erase the need to live faithfully. As he writes, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves” (2 Cor. 13:5), and again, “For no one can lay any foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ…each one's work will become manifest” (1 Cor. 3:11-13).

In other words, justification secures our position before God—it restores our standing and sets us free from condemnation—but it does not remove the responsibilities, obligations, or consequences of our daily walk in the Spirit. Justification is the foundation and judgment is the assessment of how we have built upon that foundation. Paul’s concern is not only to assure us of grace but to call us to faithful, persevering action. Faith and obedience are intertwined, yet distinct. Grace secures our starting point. Works reflect our ongoing participation in the life God has given.

A helpful lens for understanding this comes from John Barclay’s work on grace in Paul and the Gift. Barclay argues that Paul’s vision of grace was radical in its incongruity. Grace flows to the undeserving, ignoring merit or worth. Crucially, however, Paul did not perfect the “non-circularity” (non-reciprocity) of grace. Grace is a gift that obligates. Grace creates bonds of covenantal responsibility. Justification is unconditioned—we receive it freely—but it is not unconditional. Once received, grace carries the expectation that we will respond faithfully. Paul is clear on this point, the obligating nature of grace: “We have an obligation … if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:12-13).

This insight illuminates the decoupling of justification and judgment. Justification is rooted in God’s generous, incongruous gift. We do not earn it. Grace ignores our merit. But judgment is conditional. Judgment evaluates how we have lived in response to God’s gift, how faithfully we have honored the obligations that grace establishes. God’s free pardon sets us on our feet, and God’s Spirit equips us to run the race. And the race must be run. As Paul says, "Run in such a way as to get the prize."

From this perspective, the seemingly contradictory elements in Paul’s letters all fall into place. Justification by faith ensures that we are no longer under condemnation. Our unmerited justification by grace is the source of our freedom and empowerment. Judgment by works tests our response to that gift, evaluating our obedience, perseverance, and participation in the new life God has given. Grace gives us a new start, and the obligations of discipleship guides our steps from that starting point toward the day of Christ’s return.

And while it may be scary to face the prospect of judgment, Paul calls us to confidence. This is a joy-filled journey because of the one who accompanies, consoles, forgives, and empowers us. The Spirit is with us, helping us to will and to act according to God's good purpose (Phil. 2:13). The Spirit strengthens us when we are weak, guides us when we are uncertain, and helps us endure when the way is hard. God will finish what he started in us.

As Paul declares, “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

From the Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 6:

For though we through the grace of God can know fully about all other matters, and think about them — yes, even the very works of God himself — yet of God himself can no one think. Therefore I will leave on one side everything I can think, and choose for my love that thing which I cannot think! Why? Because God may well be loved, but not thought. By love God can be caught and held, but by thinking never.

Echos, here, of 1 John: "The one who loves knows God."

God can be loved, but not thought. 

Last month I was asked to preach at my church, and I used that opportunity to praise some of the doctrinal beliefs of our tradition, the Churches of Christ. One of the beliefs I praised was our amillennialism.

To understand why, it helps to contrast amillennialism with the forms of premillennialism that dominate much of American evangelicalism. Premillennial theology tends to read biblical prophecy through a futurist lens, where many events described in books like Daniel and Revelation are still waiting to occur in the future. In these systems you often find an elaborate End Times timeline: the Rapture, the Tribulation, the rise of the Antichrist, the Battle of Armageddon, a literal thousand year reign of Christ upon the earth, and then the Final Judgment. Current world events become signs to be interpreted, clues to be uncovered, and a code to be cracked. Geopolitical conflicts become charged with apocalyptic significance.

By contrast, the Churches of Christ have historically endorsed amillennialism. In amillennial theology, the "thousand year reign" described in Revelation is not understood as a future literal political kingdom established upon the earth after the return of Christ. Rather, the millennium is understood symbolically, referring to the current reign of Christ through the church age between the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and his eventual Second Coming and Final Judgment. Consequently, amillennialism does not expect a future sequence of End Times events involving a Rapture, Tribulation, rise of the Antichrist, Battle of Armageddon, and a literal thousand year earthly reign of Christ centered upon geopolitical developments in the Middle East.

This understanding of Revelation and biblical prophecy is closely connected to what is called preterism. Preterism holds that biblical prophecies, especially those found in Daniel and Revelation, were fulfilled in the first century through events such as the destruction of Jerusalem, the persecution of the early church, the conflict between Christianity and the Roman Empire, and the fall of Rome. This stands in sharp contrast to premillennial futurism, which reads these prophecies as predicting events still awaiting fulfillment in our future. In futurism, Revelation is used to predict coming geopolitical upheavals and apocalyptic events. In preterism, Revelation was primarily addressing the suffering, hopes, and historical circumstances of the early Christians to whom it was originally written.

Historically, most Churches of Christ subscribed not to full preterism, but to partial preterism. Full preterism holds that all biblical prophecy, including the Second Coming and Final Judgment, has already occurred. Partial preterism, by contrast, holds that most prophecy has been fulfilled except for the future bodily return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the Final Judgment. Thus, the only great prophetic event remaining is the Second Coming of Christ, though it should be mentioned that full preterism is espoused by some within the Churches of Christ.

Concerning the Second Coming, our tradition emphasized two things over and over again. First, it would be absolutely unpredictable. Jesus would come "like a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:2). Second, it would happen instantaneously, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Corinthians 15:52). Consequently, the Christian posture was not speculation, prediction, or code-cracking. The posture was watchfulness, faithfulness, and readiness. Trying to decipher newspaper headlines, identify the Antichrist, or connect world events to secret prophetic timelines was viewed as pointless and useless.

To put the matter plainly, according to amillennialism there is nothing currently happening in the Middle East, nor will anything ever happen in the Middle East, that affects the Second Coming.

I praised this amillennial and preterist tradition in my sermon because of how it has protected us from much of the premillennial madness that has twisted evangelical political theology.

Two obvious things jump out at me about this saner eschatology.

First, growing up in an amillennial tradition gives you some immunity to conspiratorial thinking. I didn't grow up reading Revelation as a code to be cracked or becoming fretful about "signs of the end times" playing out in daily news events. Politics, in our tradition, lacked apocalyptic intensity. This has largely protected us from going down conspiratorial YouTube rabbit holes trafficking in premillennial fever dreams.

Second, and more importantly, amillennialism has allowed us to care for and love all the people of the Middle East fully and equally, both Israeli and Palestinian. If the modern state of Israel possesses no prophetic role in ushering in the End Times, then we are freed from treating one population as actors in a divine script and the other as disposable background characters in an apocalyptic drama. We can simply see human beings. Human suffering. Human dignity. Human tragedy. Human neighbors to be loved. My amillennial tradition has allowed me to look upon a troubled world without bias or prejudice against anyone. My love doesn't have to pick a side.

In our Adult Faith Bible class at church, we were studying 1 and 2 Thessalonians. One of my assigned classes was to cover 2 Thessalonians 2.

This is the passage about the Man of Lawlessness and the Restrainer (the katechon). Regular readers know I’ve written a bit about the katechon in relation to René Girard and Peter Thiel. I spared the class that conversation. But we did spend the first part of the class discussing the various historical figures who have been associated with the Man of Lawlessness and the speculations of the early church about the Restrainer. Most of this conversation was preterist rather than futurist. That is, whoever the two mysterious figures are in 2 Thessalonians, they were figures operative in the early centuries of the church, in our historical past. (The word preterist comes from the Latin praeter, meaning “past.”) That is to say, the Man of Lawlessness is not an “end-times” figure who appears in the future.

Not wanting to get bogged down in speculation, I focused on the themes of truth and lies in the text. Here’s the passage in all its ambiguous and weird glory. For our purposes, I’ve highlighted the epistemological themes:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him: We ask you, brothers and sisters, not to be easily upset or troubled, either by a prophecy or by a message or by a letter supposedly from us, alleging that the day of the Lord has come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits in God’s temple, proclaiming that he himself is God.

Don’t you remember that when I was still with you I used to tell you about this? And you know what currently restrains him, so that he will be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one now restraining will do so until he is out of the way, and then the lawless one will be revealed. The Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of his mouth and will bring him to nothing at the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan’s working, with every kind of miracle, both signs and wonders serving the lie, and with every wicked deception among those who are perishing. They perish because they did not accept the love of the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a strong delusion so that they will believe the lie, so that all will be condemned—those who did not believe the truth but delighted in unrighteousness.

But we ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

Whoever the Man of Lawlessness is, his power is that of deception and lies. This is a theme in Scripture, how Satan’s power affects perception and knowing. In John 8, Jesus describes Satan as “a liar and the father of lies.” Second Corinthians 11:14 speaks of how Satan “disguises himself as an angel of light.” In Revelation 12:9, Satan, the Great Dragon, is called “the deceiver of the whole world.” In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Satan, as “the god of this world,” has blinded the minds of unbelievers. All this fits the description of the satanic power of the Man of Lawlessness, who causes the world to “believe the lie.”

The point I made about this for the class, to pivot toward a pastoral application, concerns what theologians call “the noetic effects” of sin. The noetic effects of sin refer to the idea that sin distorts human cognition (“noetic” from the Greek nous, meaning mind or intellect). Because of humanity’s fallen condition, our reasoning, perception, and judgment are impaired, making it harder to recognize truth, especially about God and moral reality. The concept was discussed by theologians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, who argued that sin darkens the intellect, even while it does not destroy our rational capacities entirely.

Summarizing, the noetic effects of sin concern the idea that sin affects cognition: it can cloud judgment, distort perception, and incline us toward falsehood, even as our basic rational capacities remain intact. A summary of these effects:

Perception: Sin biases how we see reality. We misinterpret situations in self-serving ways, overlook moral significances, or fail to perceive goodness and beauty clearly.

Reasoning: Sin disrupts our ability to think soundly, leading to rationalization, motivated reasoning, and intellectual pride. We use logic to justify what we already want rather than to pursue truth.

Judgment: Sin weakens moral discernment. We may call good evil and evil good, minimize wrongdoing, or apply standards inconsistently depending on our personal interests.

Desire for truth: Sin affects not just what we know but what we want to know. We become resistant to inconvenient truths, preferring ignorance, denial, or falsehood when truth threatens our autonomy, comfort, or identity.

One interesting dynamic that plays out in 2 Thessalonians 2 is how a refusal to love the truth makes one susceptible to deception ("believing the lie") which results in hardened unbelief. 

Let's call it the Noetic Highway to Hell. 

"it was not shewid me that God lovid me better"

In Chapter 9 Julian pauses and steps back to consider how her showings situate her within the larger Christian community. She's acutely concerned that, because she has been given these revelations, that she will be perceived, by herself and others, as being in a more elevated spiritual position. Julian wants to rebut that view, even if just for herself. She writes:

For sothly it was not shewid me that God lovid me better than the lest soule that is in grace, for I am sekir that there be many that never had shewing ner sight but of the comon techyng of Holy Church that loven God better than I.

My translation:

For surely it was not showed to me that God loved me better than the least soul that is in grace, for I am sure that there are many who never had showings or sights, except that of the common teaching of the Holy Church, who love God better than I.

As Julian recognizes, there are many who love God better than she does who have not received special visions or mystical revelations. As she succinctly puts it: "For if I loke singularly to myselfe I am right nowte." (Translation: "For if I look directly at myself, I am nothing.") In short, the faithful cannot be sorted on account of mystical experiences or insights.

This is an observation that flows right out of 1 Corinthians 13: "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 

Julian is also keen to point out that her showings are in accord with the teachings of the Church. As she writes:

But in al thing I leve as Holy Church levith, preachith, and teachith. For the feith of Holy Church, the which I had afornhand understonden and, as I hope, by the grace of God wilfully kept in use and custome, stode continualy in my sight, willing and meneing never to receive onything that might be contrary therunto.

My translation:

But in everything I believe as the Holy Church believes, preaches, and teaches. For the faith of the Holy Church, which I had come to understand and, as I hope, by the grace of God to faithfully observe in practice, stood continually before my sight, so that I would never will or intend to receive anything that might be contrary to it.

Stepping back, Chapter 9 is a great expression of humility. While Julian has had extraordinary visions and insights, she does not think that these place her in any elevated position. More, she does not privilege her experiences over the church. She seeks to find depth and illumination from within recieved boundaries. 

I'm put in mind of Paul's own desire to check his mystical revelations and insights over against the understandings and authority of others. From Galatians 2:

Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.

Previously, in Chapter 1, Paul describes how he had received his gospel: "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." And yet, having received his gospel as a "revelation from Jesus Christ," Paul describes, here in Chapter 2, checking that revelation against the understandings of the Jerusalem church, with Peter and James specifically, in order to determine if he "was not running and had not been running my race in vain." This is very similar to how Julian was checking her own visions against the teachings of the church. And critical to all of this is the virtue of humility. Beware the narcissistic mystic.

Another point I made in my recent series on theologies inspired by Karl Barth and Friedrich Schleiermacher and their historical antagonisms was that "Tillich is back." The Tillich in question was the theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965).

Tillich was famous for his synthesis of existentialism with Christian theology. This was a popular move in America during the 1950s and 1960s, decades that were the high-water mark for liberal theology in American culture. Tillich's influence has dramatically declined since, and I have yet to engage with a theologian for whom Tillich is an inspiration. I've mostly heard Tillich disparaged or dismissed.

And yet, I've claimed that Tillich's existentialism is at the leading edge of post-Christian evangelism. Going back to Part 1, much of "the Ache" we see around us concerns existential struggles. The crisis of meaning among young people and the rise in deaths of despair are well-known examples. And once again, this existential approach to evangelism was pioneered by Blaise Pascal in his Pensées.

As Graham Tomlin describes in his biography of Pascal, Pascal was one of the first Christian thinkers to appreciate the existential impact of modern science upon human self-consciousness. The vastness of the cosmos threatens to diminish human pretensions of cosmic significance and importance. Contemplating the universe, Pascal would write, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me." A confession that would anticipate the existentialist contention that human existence, in the face of a vast, indifferent universe, is "absurd."

And yet, for Pascal, evoking this absurdity was a part of his two-step evangelistic strategy. Evangelism, argued Pascal, can begin by creating a sense of existential vertigo. And some of the most famous passages in Pascal's Pensées are his experiments in describing the existential predicament of humanity without God. For example:

We are floating in a medium of vast extent, always drifting uncertainly, blown to and fro; whenever we think we have a fixed point to which we can cling and make fast, it shifts and leaves us behind; if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips away, and flees eternally before us. Nothing stands still for us. This is our natural state and yet the state most contrary to our inclinations. We burn with desire to find a firm footing, an ultimate, lasting base on which to build a tower rising up to infinity, but our whole foundation cracks and the earth opens up into the depth of the abyss.

Pascal evokes the precarity and fragility of our meaning-making efforts. We long for a fixed point and firm footing, a lasting base upon which to build. But the fixed point shifts and eludes our grasp. Nothing stands still for us. And every foundation cracks, opening an abyss at our feet.

As an existential diagnostician, Pascal is pushing here, hard, on the Ache. And he does so for evangelistic purposes. The Pascalian Two-Step: the evocation of existential angst to make an evangelistic appeal.

In my recent series on Karl Barth and Friedrich Schleiermacher, I talked about theological approaches that start with either the Wholly Otherness of God or human experience. I made the argument in that series that these approaches need each other. One example I used to make that point is how, if theology ignores human experience, evangelism becomes positivistic, the imposition of alien metaphysical claims upon people who are forced to swallow them.

What I argued for was a more Augustinian approach to evangelism. As Augustine famously prayed, our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Knowing this, we can begin a conversation about God with the restlessness we find within human experience. In Hunting Magic Eels I call this "the Ache." This is a strategy I use in The Shape of Joy, using our mental health crisis to raise questions about transcendence.

But Augustine isn't the only one we can cite in describing this evangelistic approach. Perhaps the greatest proponent and exemplar of this type of evangelism is Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and his Pensées.

Before his untimely death at the age of 39, Pascal was working on an apology for the Christian faith. He did not finish the work, but the collection of his notes regarding the planned work was published after his death. Though incomplete, within this collection of his thoughts—pensées means "thoughts"—Pascal sketches out his apologetic and evangelistic strategy:

First part: Wretchedness of man without God

Second part: Happiness of man with God

Notice how the first move is an appeal to the Ache rather than to logic, reason, or proof. This is interesting, as Pascal himself had a very rational, analytical mind. Pascal was a historically significant scientist and mathematician, even an early pioneer in the history of computers. And yet, throughout the Pensées Pascal argues that logical proofs of God's existence are ineffective in reaching skeptics and unbelievers. As Pascal would put it,

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.

Pascal was convinced that rational argument and logical proofs will leave the human heart cold. Thus, the evangelistic appeal had to be addressed to the restlessness of the heart. And you do that by surveying the Ache, the "wretchedness of man without God." And from there, we turn to our happiness with God.

This Pascalian two-step approach is the structure of The Shape of Joy, which starts with our mental health struggles and moves, using the research of positive psychology, to discuss faith, spirituality, and transcendence. And for my money, if you want to evangelize an increasingly post-Christian culture the Pascalian Two-Step is the best approach out there.

Over the last few posts I've been reflecting on the vision of postliberal theology.

Specifically, postliberal theology posits a hard (or clear) church/world contrast. The point of this contrast is to create a thick cultural community where the Christian virtues can be formed. This "community of contrast" exists as a "colony of heaven" within the larger pluralistic and liberal culture. Such communities can be called "Benedict Option" communities.

Given the church/world contrast, David Congdon worries about an implicit dehumanization that can tip over into political illiberalism. A postliberal ecclesiology becoming a postliberal politics. And you see examples of this trend. Rod Dreher, the author of The Benedict Option, shilled for Orbán's political vision for an "illiberal state" (Orbán's own description) in Hungary. Doug Wilson built a Christian community in Moscow, Idaho, and using Canon Press to promote an ethnocentric and misogynistic vision of Christian nationalism.

For my part, as a post-progressive Christian, I also work with a strong church/world contrast. I think the church matters. But the boundary markers are not the culture wars. To be sure, a moral vision is espoused, catechesis and formation are necessary, but moralism is not the boundary marker. Witness Jesus' embrace of sinners here. Moralism wasn't his boundary marker. The main boundary marker of the post-progressive church/world contrast is sacramental. Making God visible. The church is that place where, in the midst of the world, God is encountered, confessed, and worshiped. 

Okay, so having sorted through some of my thoughts about postliberal ecclesiology, noting all the dragons to the right and left, let me turn now to the issue of postliberal politics, the illiberal and authoritarian projects of Christian nationalism and Catholic integralism.

Maybe this is an oversimplification, but it seems to me, having pondered Congdon's article, that the critical issue here is cultural pluralism. Liberal democracy produces cultural pluralism. Indifferent to the good, the liberal and democratic state allows its citizens scope for "the pursuit of happiness," however they envision that happiness. In the space created by this liberty Americans move in many different directions.

According to the postliberal political thinkers, people like Patrick Deneen, and leaning upon the earlier work of Alasdair MacIntyre, this pluralism in relation to the good within liberal democracies tends toward cultural dissolution and conflict. Unable to "pull together" as a nation toward a shared vision of societal flourishing, the nation slowly falls and/or comes apart.

And so postliberal political thinkers draw the straightforward conclusion: The state must impose a Christian vision of the good upon the populace. Crucially, if this effort is to be both comprehensive and stable, lasting longer than the short four years of a presidential term in office, the democratic values of freedom and liberty must be suspended and subordinated to the state. For the nation to flourish a turn to illiberalism and authoritarianism is necessary.

The logic here is clear and uncomplicated. But few Christian thinkers are willing to grasp the nettle here. For doing so is to reject a core feature of America's founding, freedom from a coercive state and the liberty to pursue your own happiness as you see fit. And yet, with the rise of Donald Trump, postliberal political thinkers have been increasingly willing to flirt with or embrace an illiberal politics. The most well known example is how Patrick Deneen followed up How Liberalism Failed with Regime Change.

Okay, so how does a post-progressive Christian think about illiberal, postliberal politics?

Well, let's lean into the progressive side first. Postliberal political thinkers tend to describe liberalism as a cesspool of depravity and moral relativism. But this is not true. Liberalism has a moral vision, and as Tom Holland has pointed out, it's the vision it inherited from Judeo-Christianity. The two most important examples here are slavery and women's rights. Consequently, it's diagnostic that the postliberals have to deal with misogyny and racism within their ranks. And I will commend both Rod Dreher and Doug Wilson for the work they have done pushing back against these elements on the postliberal right. But the fact that these two sins—misogyny and racism—haunt postliberal politics illustrates the bankruptcy of the claim that liberalism is morally relativistic. Liberalism has secured moral goods for the world. To ignore and deny those goods invites some dark forces back into our world, the very same forces the liberal state defeated. This is why the postliberals might be better described as antiliberal, given how they refuse to recognize, praise, and secure the moral goods of liberalism precisely as the moral goods of liberalism.

A progressive Christian view of liberalism, by contrast, given its liberationist vision of the gospel, will praise liberalism as an emancipatory power within world history. Precisely because this emancipatory power is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus, to deny or ignore these moral goods of liberalism is to deny the gospel itself. In this sense, the antiliberalism of the postliberals is also antichristian.

For their part, many on the postliberal right see this clearly, the moral incompatibility between Christianity and illiberalism. They are aware that the illiberalism and authoritarianism they are espousing is better served by Nietzsche's will to power than the Crucified Christ. The "strong gods" of paganism are much more suited for the postliberal political vision.

That said, the moral report card of liberalism is mixed. Postliberals look past liberalism's moral achievements to decry its existential bankruptcy and decadent libertinism. On these points I often find myself, as a post-progressive, in common cause. Hunting Magic Eels describes what I call "the Ache" produced by our culture. In The Shape of Joy I survey our mental health crisis. I blogged through Louise Perry's The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, noting how the sexual politics of our liberal and progressive culture have produced some very bad outcomes.

Notice, however, how my concerns and criticisms about liberalism are being expressed. Instead of throwing culture war bombs I'm offering immanent criticism from within the liberal order. On its own terms liberalism fails. Which is why, as a post-progressive, I believe liberals need the gospel. The moral goods of liberalism shouldn't be jettisoned, the demons of racism and misogyny shall remain locked up, but the ailments of liberalism demand medicinal interventions. The church beckons.

Which brings me to a final reflection. My post-progressive perspective remains exclusively ecclesial. The tools of social transformation are persuasive and evangelistic rather than authoritarian and coercive. This commitment is not defeatist, as many on the postliberal right describe it, but theological. The church follows a crucified Messiah. The power revealed in Jesus is persuasive, invitational, and self-giving rather than coercive. Jesus did not seize the levers of imperial power to impose the kingdom of God. In the temptation narratives Jesus explicitly rejected this diabolical option. Rather, Jesus proclaimed good news, healed the broken, welcomed sinners, and suffered violence rather than inflicting it. If the church is the body of Christ its methods must mirror the life of Christ. More, faith cannot be compelled, for the moment belief is produced by political pressure it ceases to be faith and becomes conformity. Which is why the church's tools of social transformation are proclamation, witness, repentance, and conversion. In keeping with its sacramental vocation the church makes God visible in the midst of the world and leaves the response to the freedom of those who encounter that witness.

Now, this is not to say, to go back to my colleague Brad East's essay on Christian nationalism, that Christians cannot participate in democratic elections as Christians to win victories for their preferred policies. That's just regular old democracy, and they shouldn't be decried as "Christian nationalists" for such efforts. That said, should Christians experience political losses or reversals, they must lick their wounds and resign themselves to the will of the people. Crucially, given what I've shared in this series, they cannot let their political desires cause them to become unwitting or functional Christian nationalists, trafficking in conspiratorial and prophetically couched election denialism. Scripture describes Christians who are deluded like this as being in league with the Antichrist.

Stepping back and taking in the whole of this debate, I can see how a strong church/world contrast can be tempted toward dehumanization and make one sympathetic, or supportive of, authoritarian politics. The slide David Congdon frets over has happened and does happen. That said, a whole lot depends upon how one envisions both the church and world sides of the equation. I would never contend that the views I espouse don't have their own particular temptations. No matter where you stand, there are dragons to your right and your left. To say nothing of those above, below, facing, behind, and within you. Sin will hunt you precisely where you are. You and I are not immune. Duly noting this, however, I've tried to sketch across these posts a vision of the church/world contrast that, I think, is necessary yet avoids many of the pitfalls one finds on both the liberal and postliberal sides of this debate.

One of the things I wholeheartedly embrace from the postliberal theological vision, from people like Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder, is their focus upon the church. And in this regard, there is a lot I like in Rod Dreher's postliberal description of the Benedict Option.

And yet, I take to heart David Congdon's concern that the hard church/world contrast found in postliberal theology can tend toward othering and dehumanization. Why do I take that concern seriously? Well, because you see a lot of dehumanization coming from people like Rod Dreher and Doug Wilson.

Back in 2015 I described how BenOp communities tend toward the Pharisaical and how the gospels raise questions about that tendency. Specifically, a debate about the BenOp is at the heart of the gospels. In the gospels we observe a conservative religious group who, reacting to the corruption of the political and religious establishment under empire, decide to turn inward to reclaim their distinctive culture and traditions in order to cultivate the virtues that would sustain them. This BenOp group were the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were the conservative advocates of the BenOp of their day. Observing how the political and religious institutions had been co-opted by empire, the Pharisees called for a BenOp, a call for communities to invest in local synagogues where teaching, liturgy, and the daily practices of Torah observance would sustain the Jewish people in the dark age they were living in.

According to modern BenOp proponents, that first-century situation is not unlike our own, which means that today's calls for a BenOp are going to be haunted by this same shadow of Pharisaism.

Given this temptation I've called for a progressive vision of the BenOp, one that will resist the Pharisaical tendency. Consider, as an example here, Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector:

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’” (Luke 18.9–12)

According to Jesus, a Pharisaical BenOp involves the contemptuous moral sorting of the world into the saints and sinners, the good guys and the bad guys, Us and Them. Precisely what you see from people like Dreher and Wilson. A Pharisaical BenOp turns inward and polices boundaries of moral purity. The BenOp of Jesus, by contrast, turns outward and violates those boundaries:

And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’” (Matthew 9.10–13)

A progressive expression of the BenOp will exhibit the radical hospitality of Jesus. Examples of progressive BenOp communities practicing community and radical hospitality are Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's Rutba House and the Catholic Worker movement. And it's so diagnostic, damning really, that Dreher didn't give attention to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker in The Benedict Option. Dorothy Day's commitment to social justice and radical hospitality just didn't fit with Dreher's Pharisaical vision, so he left her out.

Beyond the Pharisaism that shadows the BenOp, a related concern is how many BenOp expressions on the political right are patriarchal. While there are healthy BenOp communities that practice traditional gender roles, it's also true that women and children are especially vulnerable in insular patriarchal communities. This history of abuse is the dark side of the BenOp.

All that to say, I think that there are Dreher and Wilson–style BenOps that are Pharisaical and explicitly traffic in the dehumanization that Congdon worries about. But as I've just described, taking a cue from Dorothy Day, there are progressive expressions of the BenOp. Rather than damning the world, stones in hand, progressive BenOp communities exist, to borrow from Bonhoeffer, for the sake of the world. As Bonhoeffer wrote, “The church is the church only when it exists for others.” To make a contrast with Dreher's vision, I've described this as The Francis Option, given how the early Franciscans were noteworthy for their care in leper colonies. Pope Francis, not coincidentally, also promoted this vision.

So those are the dragons to the right: Rod Dreher's Pharisaical BenOp, along with its insular patriarchy. What are the dragons to the left?

These were the dragons that Dorothy Day had to deal with when young liberal activists showed up at the Catholic Worker. Day's Catholic devoutness, her intense and committed religiosity, conflicted with the irreligion and moral libertinism of the younger Workers. Just as challenging was Day's commitment to Catholic personalism. Dorothy Day could protest with the best of them, but her daily praxis was sitting with the poor, demented, and insane and having a cup of coffee with them. Day's mission was simple: the Works of Mercy. For the younger Workers yearning for revolution, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and burying the dead didn't seem relevant enough. Rather than Jesus of Nazareth they wanted Che Guevara.

That tension persists. Progressive churches struggle because of the political reductionism I've described in this series. When church reduces to political activism or becomes a local non-profit, its reason for existing evaporates. This is what has happened to the Protestant Mainline. Consequently, when a church begins to exist for others it has to hold onto the truth that it also exists before God. God cannot be eclipsed by the political. And this isn't a moral demand. It's for progressives' own good. From our mental health crisis to our "bowling alone" isolation, we need God. I tell this story in Hunting Magic Eels and The Shape of Joy. As I've argued, ontology matters for mental health.

Which is another contrast between how the Pharisaical BenOp talks about church and how I, as a progressive, talk about church. Pharisaical BenOps define themselves through culture war contrasts with the world. This is why they overflow with bile. The progressive BenOp, by contrast, exists for the world and doesn't define itself with culture war boundary markers. The question of God, in these spaces, concerns ontology, the reality of God. Again, Dorothy Day broadly shared the political vision of the younger Workers. Their differences concerned ontology, the reality of the living God, the issue of religiosity. And progressives desperately need this religiosity as they blindly bump around in the spiritual-but-not-religious fog. This is what animates my post-progressive quarrel with them: the reality of God and their need for God. And it's here where I agree so much with the postliberal calls for a thick and rich sacramental community, a place where ontological realities come into view. A progressive vision of the BenOp is able to hold the activism and ontology together.

"God is al thing that is gode, as to my sight, and the godenes that al thing hath, it is He."

In Chapter 8 Julian comes to the end of her first showing—Christ crowned with thorns—and reviews the insights God has revealed to her in this showing. Six insights in all.

The most famous of these insights is the one from the hazelnut vision: "He that made all things for love; be the same love it is kept and shall be withoute end." Fr. John-Julian’s translation: “He created everything for love and by that same love everything is protected and shall be without end.”

The sixth and final insight from the showing is that "God is al thing that is gode, as to my sight, and the godenes that al thing hath, it is He." In Fr. John-Julian's translation: "God is everything that is good, as I see it, and the goodness that everything has, it is He."

Julian's view is similar to Maximus the Confessor's belief that God is the source and origin of all virtue. As Maximus writes:

There can be no doubt that the one Word of God is the substance of virtue in each person. For our Lord Jesus Christ himself is the substance of all the virtues...It is evident that every person who participates in virtue as a matter of habit unquestionably participates in God, the substance of virtues. 

Or, as Julian puts it: God is everything that is good. And the goodness in everything is God.

In the last post I described my hermeneutical posture as liberationist and described how this posture keeps me on the "liberal" and "progressive" side of many moral and political debates. That is to say, my readings of the Bible will be heard as "good news" by oppressed and marginalized groups.

And yet, as I've pointed out over the last two posts, I describe myself as post-progressive in light of many problems, issues, and failures I perceive on the liberal and progressive side of Christianity. In naming and worrying about these issues I tend to agree with many postliberal theologians and their influences. Both Barth and Hauerwas, for example, to say nothing of Augustine and Aquinas, have had huge impacts upon me. So, while I shared in the last post why I'm staying woke, in this post let me share where I agree with the postliberal theologians. (Remember! In this series the difference is between the postliberal theologians and the postliberal political thinkers. I love the former, but I am...how to put this...not a fan of the latter, for reasons I'll share as this series goes on.)

As I said above, I tend to land on the progressive side of moral and political debates. If so, then where am I expressing reservations about American liberalism and progressivism? Why am I post-progressive?

I did a whole series about this back in 2019, but for the purposes of this series I'll boil my many issues with progressive Christianity down to two. To regular readers what follows should be familiar.

The first issue concerns the political reductionism that tends to characterize progressive Christians.

I could say many things here. Why progressive church attendance and membership are in free fall. Why progressives don't do evangelism. Why progressives can't read the Bible, especially the Old Testament and Paul, without having a hissy fit. Why progressives are squeamish about core Christian beliefs, from the resurrection of Jesus to going to heaven when you die. To my eye, it all boils down to how progressives reduce Christianity to social justice and political activism. To be clear, as I said in the last post, I'm staying woke. So I'm with the progressives on the social justice front. My problem with progressives is their political reductionism. As a post-progressive Christian, I'm woke. And I believe in God. And the historical resurrection of Jesus. And in Judgment Day. And in going to heaven when you die. I also think the Apostle Paul is amazing and that progressive Christians owe him a huge apology.

Due to their political reductionism progressives also tend toward disenchantment. This ontological vacuum leads to the existential crises we're observing in our culture, most notably in our declining mental health. Read The Shape of Joy for my detailed treatment of this. Man does not live by politics alone.

And so here's what I've noticed in many of my conversations with my more traditional (that is to say, "not progressive") university colleagues and pastor friends. When we're talking about morality or politics we tend to find ourselves disagreeing. They are more traditional, and I am more progressive. But when we talk about things theological, metaphysical, doctrinal, sacramental, ecclesiological, or ontological we often find ourselves in strong agreement. I'm a big church guy. I thump my Bible. I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I am religious and not spiritual. And so on. I just tend to hold all those things while espousing a liberationist hermeneutic. And it all makes sense to me. I wish more people would join this team.

My second big concern with progressive Christianity is with the content of its moral vision. Progressive morality tends to boil down to the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy and not much else beyond that. There's not much room for things like mercy, grace, and forgiveness. In fact, if you spend any time in progressive spaces you'll eventually hear "forgiveness" described as "problematic." There's not a strong commitment to loving one's enemies. (Ask them if they love Donald J. Trump.) And as I have pointed out in The Book of Love, the cruciform shape of Jesus' love is a challenge for both progressives and conservatives alike.

There's also moral pathologies within the progressive political vision. As the author of Unclean, in 2015 I was one of the first to describe what I called then "the purity culture of progressive Christianity." When the postliberals decry "Wokeism" they are typically pointing toward this purity culture, with its social justice-inflected puritanism. And much of this purity culture is due to the things I mentioned above as missing, virtues like mercy, tolerance, and grace.

Finally, beyond the moral content of the progressive vision, there's all the missing stuff that makes our moral efforts joyful and sustainable. Things like real, ontological hope.

Again, for regular readers I'm just replaying my Greatest Hits here. I've written about all this stuff extensively. But I share it all again for the purposes of this series to note how much I find myself in agreement with postliberal criticisms of progressivism, culturally and in its Christian expressions. There are legitimate problems here. Progressivism is not healthy. And the postliberals have done a lot of good work pointing out these pathologies. That they throw rocks from inside a glass house escapes their attention. But still, they've done some good critical work. Now, that I agree with many of these criticisms of progressivism doesn't mean I think the progressives are wrong on their moral or political positions. It just means you can be right and profoundly unwell at the same time.