To those of you who've been wondering about my inactivity on the blog - I've been slowly working on a massive project. This is a project that will probably be bigger than my hell project and most likely even bigger than my Satan project.
To give you an idea of how big this might end up being, I had about 50 pages of notes for my Satan project
before I wrote it, and I have over 100 pages for this one. I think this project
will be called "Judaism and the Mystical Christ", to wet your appetite.
But in the meantime, I wanted to write some quick thoughts I had on a
phenomenon that upsets me. I've written before about the statistical
phenomenon dubbed the "Rise of the Nones", as well as writing a post about what I felt at the time was The Greatest Problem Western Christianity Faces.
What I want to write about now is building on those ideas. To put it
very simply, I think the issue that's really at the heart of just about
all of the Church's problems (and when I say "the Church" here I'm
talking about the church universal) is the idea that what we call
"beliefs" are the most important thing that determines whether a person
is good or not. And the reason I put "beliefs" in quotes is because I
think that the way we use this word today - speaking of ideas that one
insists with their mouth (or keyboard) to be true whether or not they can back that up with reasoning or any kind of scientific evidence - is a distortion of
what the word originally meant. The original meaning of the word was
"to be-love" (coming from the Old English "be loef", which meant to hold
dear). And we can illustrate the difference between the modern meaning
and the pre-modern meaning of this word by thinking of the simple
difference between believing someone and believing in someone. Believing in Jesus means that we believe that the way he lived is a
demonstration of "the Way" - the way which will heal the problems the
world faces. This is very different from insisting on ideas about
Jesus.
But we've hammered into people's heads that what being Christian is
all about is insisting on ideas - even if you act like a jerk when you
do it. Having the right ideas is what separates the good and the bad -
or to put it the way a certain documentary is titled, "Good People Go to Hell, Saved People Go to Heaven".
This is, to put it bluntly, complete bullshit. Insisting that right
ideas is what separates the good from the bad is like saying: the sun is
approximately 92,955,807 miles from the earth, and anyone who
disagrees, quotes a different number (even if it's off by a single
digit), or didn't know this fact is a bad person.
And Jesus couldn't have cared less if you had all the right ideas.
This is demonstrated by the fact that in the parable of the sheep and
the goats, the only difference between the sheep and the goats was
in the way they treated other people - not their ideas! Jesus told
another parable to demonstrate how a "neighbor" acted in which the
person who best demonstrated this way of life was a Samaritan - someone
of another religion! Not only that, but someone that the majority of the
Jews of Jesus' day would have considered an enemy! If he told that
story today, I daresay it would be called "the Good Muslim"! And Jesus said that the defining characteristic of someone who was his disciple
was love! Jesus also said that the entirety of scripture was summed up in love (see Mt. 22:40),
so if you want to still insist that theological ideas are important, than you're
going to have to demonstrate to me how those ideas make you more loving
before I'll accept that you've got the right ideas.
This whole idea of "the Bible said it, I believe it, that settles
it" has got to go - it's unrealistic and turns people into jerks, as well as lifting up ignorance and thoughtlessness and pretending that this is righteousness and intelligence. What we call "the
Bible" says things in a translation of a translation of a version of a collection of
documents that have all gone through many many revisions and often we have no
clue who wrote these things down in the first place (the statement you are looking at may not have even been a part of the original document); we interpret these
sayings through our modern lens which all too often distorts the
original meaning and intention of the sayings as they would have been
heard within their historical context; and that definitely doesn't
settle it - there's plenty of room for discussion.
I've seen this problem at work in the reactions on various web forums to an article recently published by Pastor Mark Sandlin - reactions like being told he's a heretic, isn't a Christian, etc.
In this article, Sandlin outlines some problems with the doctrine of
the Trinity - mainly that there is no place in the Bible that even
explicitly states this idea. Oh, you might point out that in certain
translations of the Bible, I John 5:7-8
says "the Father, the Word, and the Spirit" - but this was a later
modification made by overzealous translators who wanted to "settle" this
debate. The phrase was added in during the debate within the church, and all the original version talked about was "the Spirit, the water, and
the blood". This shows you what length people will go to in order to
win an argument about ideas, and it's disgusting to be honest.
It's actually interesting to look into the history of the debate over the doctrine of the Trinity and find out just how ugly this history was! You find out ugly little details like how the Emperor Constantine was pushing the church to come to a decision as soon as possible and exclude anyone who didn't agree with this idea, and he really didn't care what side won - he just wanted a unified church, in order to make it easier for him to control his empire. You find out that during the debates over these issues, people were not only excommunicated from their church, but thrown out of their towns! Character assassinations were rampantly used in order to make these expulsions easier to justify. Secret meetings were held and people were kept from attending these by military force. During the course of a debate over an issue, sometimes a bishop would say one thing, then later on say the opposite, and then insist this was what they had been saying all along. This history is ugly!
Let me put this to you bluntly - believing in the Trinity or not has
no bearing on whether you're a good person. The way you treat
other people does. You want to believe in the Trinity, that's fine!
But don't think that this gives you a license to immediately dismiss
people who don't! You need to hear them out - actually listen to them
and pay attention to their arguments, particularly if they've been well
thought out - before you gently and humbly tell them you disagree with them.
And when you're doing that, make sure you've got a plan of action for
explaining why you disagree with someone, and it better not be full
of logical fallacies like appeals to authority and tradition! Use
evidence and logic! And if you're going to use scripture or other writings, be open to considering other ways of
interpreting ancient language - metaphor is not a bad word and is a device that was used all the time by ancient writers!
Please notice that I haven't said that I don't believe in the
Trinity. I would actually claim belief in the Trinity for myself,
though I want to be given a chance to explain what I mean by the Trinity
and explore the imagery, showing how a certain way of thinking about it
meshes well with modern scientific views - and this is a topic I plan
to explore in my upcoming series "Judaism and the Mystical Christ". But
I'm so tired of seeing people jump on the views of others and use them
as a litmus test for "Christianity" without being willing or able to
defend - using scientific methods of any kind - the reasons why their
own views are correct! I've had it with this refusal amongst Christians
to use the brains that they supposedly believe God gave them!
The Problem with the Creeds
I think the issue I have been
outlining is exasperated by the fact that the creeds reinforce
this idea that the most important thing for a Christian is to affirm
certain ideas. It is astounding to me that the Apostle's Creed and
Nicene Creed - and many churches have all their members say one of
these every single Sunday - say absolutely nothing about Jesus' life
and/or teachings! They focus completely on affirming the Trinity and
Jesus' divinity - neither of which are doctrines that Jesus himself
taught! These were not issues which he felt had to be pressed! There
were much more important issues at hand as far as Jesus was concerned,
and yet his followers seem to think that following him means insisting
that these doctrines are more important than the life he led which
demonstrated the principles he taught! And I don't hear many people
questioning why these creeds that we say every Sunday do this - and I
find that very, very disturbing!
As far as the Nicene Creed and the Apostle's Creed are concerned,
the only reason Jesus lived was so that he could die! They say he was
born of a virgin (and that's questionable, unless you take it metaphorically) and then he died - that's it. Nothing in between. Born
then died. It's as if nothing else about Jesus mattered!
This is why I think modern churches should write their own creeds.
This is what the Maasai people did in 1960 when the missionaries who
came to them realized that the language of the creeds had different
meanings within their culture - meanings that didn't necessarily convey
what the creeds were supposed to be about. This isn't the only instance
of an African tribe writing their own creed, either - I've read that
South Africans as well will use the phrase "eldest brother" instead of
"only son" or "only begotten son" about Jesus, because in their culture
an only son was not as high of a social status as an eldest brother. To
them, an only son is an isolate, whereas an eldest brother was someone
you had access to.
Missionaries tend to recognize that when you are a stranger in a strange
land, you have to use the people's language the way they use it rather
than insisting that they learn to understand you. And they also
recognized that because we are not living in the context in which the
creeds were written, there may be other issues which are more important
in our time. The creeds were written as a response to debates that were
going on inside of the church at the time, and so they were a way of
enforcing the idea that the "true orthodox" were separated from the
false believers by certain ideas - namely how one conceives of the
divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. But defining a "Christian" this way
is not how Jesus defined the marking characteristics of his disciples -
as I've mentioned earlier in this post! So why should we continue to
reinforce this idea Sunday after Sunday? I think that if you're going
to say a creed, at least put something in there about Jesus' life!
Below is an English translation of the Masai Creed I've mentioned.
Besides the fact that it actually mentions some things about Jesus' life, I also appreciate that it mentions that God created out of
love, loves the world and every nation and tribe, and wants Man to be
happy in the world. It also mentions in the final section that a
Christian is supposed to live according to love - which you should
already know is a must have for any creed in my book. I'm not saying
that this creed should become the new thing - I'm saying it should be
considered as each church seeks to define their own statement of
belief. I'm saying we should stop exclusively saying creeds that were
written hundreds of years ago in order to strike the final blow of a
long and costly debate between factions of the church, and start trying
to define what the important issues of being a follower of Jesus are in
our context.
The Maasai Creed
We believe in the one High God, who out of love
created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created Man
and wanted Man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every
nation and tribe on the Earth. We have known this High God in darkness,
and now we know Him in the light. God promised in the book of His word,
the Bible, that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes.
We believe that God made good His promise by sending His Son, Jesus
Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little
village, who left His home and was always on safari doing good, curing
people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the
meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and
nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave,
but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, He rose from
the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.
We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Him. All who have
faith in Him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy
Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in
love, to announce the Good News to others until Jesus comes again. We
are waiting for Him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
He arrived in our lives as an alien....
Humankind lost a beautiful soul when Robin Williams died - he was a man who experienced great pain and yet everyone he touched experienced an irresistible urge to lift the corners of their mouths and utter sounds of joy.
This morning I read a statement by President Obama about Williams' passing, and there was one line that I found to be so profound and meaningful that I teared up as I read it:
"He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."
Christianity holds that Jesus incarnates the presence of God on earth - that when the people of Jesus' time were with him, they were in some sense experiencing "God with us". Exactly how that works out is interpreted in various ways that I do not want to get into in this particular post - the point is that the essence of Christian belief is that Jesus' birth is meant to be seen in a very similar way to the first part of the President's statement there: "he arrived in our lives as an alien."
But the second part of that statement is very important as well - all throughout Jesus' ministry, the title "son of man" is used. The origination of this title comes from a vivid prophetic vision portrayed in Daniel 7. In this vision, four beasts come up out of the sea - each more gruesome looking than the last. It is widely held by scholarship that these beasts are each a symbolic portrayal of the various empires that rose up around the nation of Israel throughout their history - the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. And the reason for portraying them as distorted and horrific beasts is to show the dehumanizing effects of the structures we create that enable one group of people to dominate another. But the vision goes on to mention the coming of another figure - one who looked like a son of man. This is a sharp contrast from the beasts - it's not just a human figure, but a vulnerable child. And Daniel is saying that the way to escape the dehumanizing effects of the Domination System is to make yourself vulnerable - and Christianity holds that Jesus is the perfect example of one who lived this way, and this was "fully human" in a way that perhaps no other human being has experienced.
"He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."
The tragic mistake most Christians seem to make is that they worship Jesus himself in such a way that they miss the whole point of his ministry. Jesus told a parable once - a story that portrays truth symbolically. This story is commonly referred to as the parable of the sheep and the goats. In this story, "the son of man" judges the nations and divides them like a shepherd would separate the goats from his herd of sheep - you see, a shepherd would take his sheep out to graze and often goats which did not belong to him would get mixed into his herd, so he would separate them when he returned. So Jesus is symbolically telling his audience what separates those who belong in the "fully human" category from those who do not. And the one factor that determines whether or not a person is "fully human" is how they treat those who are different from them. The "son of man" in Jesus' story says to the sheep that whenever they showed kindness to "the least of these My brethren", they did it to him. But whenever the goats neglected to give food or drink to the hungry and thirsty, or neglected to help a stranger in need, or neglected to visit someone who was sick or imprisoned, they missed a chance to experience the presence of the divine and thus they did not experience the fullness of humanity.
All too often Christians have distorted Jesus' message into another way to separate one class of humanity from another, and have pretended that one human is more righteous and deserving of love based on what things they assert to be true. But Jesus seemed to care a lot more about how you treated your fellow man than what you believed.
He told another story we commonly call "The Good Samaritan" - and the scandal of this story was that a foreigner who was part of another religion was portrayed as the good guy, while the people from the audience's own land and religion were portrayed as the calloused and heartless ones. It's not about beliefs or customs, Jesus was saying - it's about how you treat each other.
The Jewish law in Deuteronomy 10:19 and Leviticus 19:34 command the Israelites to show kindness to "the stranger" and "the alien" and treat them as part of their community - pointing out that the Israelites were once in the same boat when they were aliens in the land of Egypt. But over time, it seems that this message was obstructed by a faction of Jews who insisted that other rituals and purity customs were more important than showing kindness to strangers.
But Jesus came along and made love - especially love shown to outcasts - the centerpiece of his message. Jesus showed us that welcoming those who are different is how we experience the fullness of humanity.
"He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."
I believe that a fundamental piece of what it means to be alive - to be fully human - is to grow. And you cannot grow if you've closed yourself off to new experiences. If you have shut yourself off into a community where everyone is exactly like you, I believe that in a certain sense you are already dead.
But that does not mean there is no hope - because sometimes an alien comes into your community and touches your spirit, showing you once more what it means to be alive.
We need people who are different to show us what it truly means to be alive, because we cannot grow without seeing the world through the eyes of the alien.
Nanu, nanu, Mr. Williams - you showed us strange perspectives, and thus you called us to grow and be human.
This morning I read a statement by President Obama about Williams' passing, and there was one line that I found to be so profound and meaningful that I teared up as I read it:
"He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."
Christianity holds that Jesus incarnates the presence of God on earth - that when the people of Jesus' time were with him, they were in some sense experiencing "God with us". Exactly how that works out is interpreted in various ways that I do not want to get into in this particular post - the point is that the essence of Christian belief is that Jesus' birth is meant to be seen in a very similar way to the first part of the President's statement there: "he arrived in our lives as an alien."
But the second part of that statement is very important as well - all throughout Jesus' ministry, the title "son of man" is used. The origination of this title comes from a vivid prophetic vision portrayed in Daniel 7. In this vision, four beasts come up out of the sea - each more gruesome looking than the last. It is widely held by scholarship that these beasts are each a symbolic portrayal of the various empires that rose up around the nation of Israel throughout their history - the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. And the reason for portraying them as distorted and horrific beasts is to show the dehumanizing effects of the structures we create that enable one group of people to dominate another. But the vision goes on to mention the coming of another figure - one who looked like a son of man. This is a sharp contrast from the beasts - it's not just a human figure, but a vulnerable child. And Daniel is saying that the way to escape the dehumanizing effects of the Domination System is to make yourself vulnerable - and Christianity holds that Jesus is the perfect example of one who lived this way, and this was "fully human" in a way that perhaps no other human being has experienced.
"He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."
The tragic mistake most Christians seem to make is that they worship Jesus himself in such a way that they miss the whole point of his ministry. Jesus told a parable once - a story that portrays truth symbolically. This story is commonly referred to as the parable of the sheep and the goats. In this story, "the son of man" judges the nations and divides them like a shepherd would separate the goats from his herd of sheep - you see, a shepherd would take his sheep out to graze and often goats which did not belong to him would get mixed into his herd, so he would separate them when he returned. So Jesus is symbolically telling his audience what separates those who belong in the "fully human" category from those who do not. And the one factor that determines whether or not a person is "fully human" is how they treat those who are different from them. The "son of man" in Jesus' story says to the sheep that whenever they showed kindness to "the least of these My brethren", they did it to him. But whenever the goats neglected to give food or drink to the hungry and thirsty, or neglected to help a stranger in need, or neglected to visit someone who was sick or imprisoned, they missed a chance to experience the presence of the divine and thus they did not experience the fullness of humanity.
All too often Christians have distorted Jesus' message into another way to separate one class of humanity from another, and have pretended that one human is more righteous and deserving of love based on what things they assert to be true. But Jesus seemed to care a lot more about how you treated your fellow man than what you believed.
He told another story we commonly call "The Good Samaritan" - and the scandal of this story was that a foreigner who was part of another religion was portrayed as the good guy, while the people from the audience's own land and religion were portrayed as the calloused and heartless ones. It's not about beliefs or customs, Jesus was saying - it's about how you treat each other.
The Jewish law in Deuteronomy 10:19 and Leviticus 19:34 command the Israelites to show kindness to "the stranger" and "the alien" and treat them as part of their community - pointing out that the Israelites were once in the same boat when they were aliens in the land of Egypt. But over time, it seems that this message was obstructed by a faction of Jews who insisted that other rituals and purity customs were more important than showing kindness to strangers.
But Jesus came along and made love - especially love shown to outcasts - the centerpiece of his message. Jesus showed us that welcoming those who are different is how we experience the fullness of humanity.
"He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."
I believe that a fundamental piece of what it means to be alive - to be fully human - is to grow. And you cannot grow if you've closed yourself off to new experiences. If you have shut yourself off into a community where everyone is exactly like you, I believe that in a certain sense you are already dead.
But that does not mean there is no hope - because sometimes an alien comes into your community and touches your spirit, showing you once more what it means to be alive.
We need people who are different to show us what it truly means to be alive, because we cannot grow without seeing the world through the eyes of the alien.
Nanu, nanu, Mr. Williams - you showed us strange perspectives, and thus you called us to grow and be human.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Satan: Lifting the Veil - Part 25: Conclusions?
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
--------------------------------------
Conclusions?
And so this series comes to a close. There is so much information that I wish I could have included somehow within this series - so many ideas and connections I would have liked to have explored. And after all the research I've done, I only feel like I have more to explore - my hope is that for my readers, they have found this exploration to be an experience which opened them up to living a truly human life. And perhaps some of my readers will have decided to do a little research into spiritual matters on their own - this would be a great accomplishment, in my opinion.
I want to give a few concluding thoughts before I end, however. If it is not clear at this point what my position on the matter of "the Satan" is, I will state it clearly at this point: I believe that what I'd call the satanic or the demonic is a reality, in that it is an actual phenomenon that people across all walks of life have experienced. But I do not believe Satan is a distinct personality. Satan is an experience, but not an entity, in my view.
In "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination", Walter Wink writes:
Satan teaches us that evil can be deceptive - it is often disguised as good. But the flipside of this is that even those who have evil also have good in them. And the irony of the "search for Satan" - as I sincerely hope I have communicated through this series - is that as soon as we mark someone else as belonging to Satan, we have taken on the role of the Accuser. And so in order to truly fight this nature, we must find ways to fight for the truth without accusation and scapegoating.
To do this, I believe that the church needs to truly embrace dialogue. First of all, this involves opening dialogue between denominations, and secondly I believe we must learn to dialogue with people of other faiths (or lack thereof). There is so much we can learn from each other if we would do this. And we must be clear - dialogue is not the same thing as arguing. Arguing is really two opposing monologues - two tribal thought models that butt heads. When we argue, we protect the thought model that has been constructed by the tribe, and defend that model at all costs from the "hostile outside tribes" without ever really considering whether or not their point of view has any merits. Outsiders are seen as enemies - and so we become Accusers.
But dialogue is about respect. When I dialogue with you, I don’t necessarily have to end up agreeing with you - I just want to understand why you think the way you do. Dialogue - rather than assuming you're wrong, evil and stupid - assumes that everyone has reasons for believing the things they believe and wishes to understand these reasons. We can hope to earn the right to critique these views after we've listened - but dialogue does not enter into the discussion with this agenda.
In “The Emergent Christ”, Ilia Delio writes:
Think about that first phrase - “do not quench the Spirit.” It is implied that if we immediately reject anything that comes our way which does not agree with the thought model we have already constructed, then we are quenching the Spirit. But conversely, if we accept everything without testing it, we may be subjecting ourselves to evil. So we carefully, thoughtfully, lovingly test what comes our way - hold on to the good, reject the evil.
In order to dialogue, we have to see the good in our "enemies" - rather than finding the "devil" in them.
And we need to see dialogue as more than a way to spread the message of the church - dialogue is good for us, too. During the Bill Nye / Ken Ham debate, at one point Nye brought up the scientific mystery of sex - scientists would ask why sex had developed through evolution: wouldn't it be more efficient for a species to reproduce asexually? And the mystery began to unravel as they studied a certain species of minnow where some of their colonies produced sexually, and others asexually. And the scientists discovered that the asexual minnows were more susceptible to bacterial infections. It seems that sex was a biological communication system - a way for a species to pass on the "knowledge" its immune system had gained within the colony. I think this is a powerful metaphor for what is happening to the church today - because the church has isolated itself, it has become more susceptible to ideological "infections". But if we can dialogue with outsiders, we can learn from them, and our "immune systems" will be stronger.
The Parable of the Long Spoons
There is an old legend that tells of Rabbi Haim's visit in a vision to the realms of Heaven and Hell. The legend tells that the Rabbi was given permission to request anything he wanted by his angel guide, and he asked permission to see both Heaven and Hell. His guide took him first through the gates of Hell, which he was surprised to find were made with ornately worked gold and were quite beautiful. Through the gates, he entered a large dining hall, and the smell of the food within was mouthwatering. Rows of tables were piled with exquisite food. But the people sitting around each table were pale and emaciated - moaning with hunger. As the Rabbi looked closer, he noticed that each person was holding a long spoon, but that both of their arms were splinted with wooden slats so that they could not bend either elbow to bring the food to their mouths.
"I understand", the Rabbi says - his angel guide replies "but do you?" At this point the Rabbi is taken to Heaven. Strangely enough, he notices the gates look quite similar to the gates of Hell. And upon entering, he finds the same beautiful scene - rows and rows of tables piled high with sumptuous food. But in this dining hall, each person sitting around the tables looked healthy and well fed. But strangely enough, the Rabbi noticed that they also had their arms splinted in the same manner, and were holding the same long spoons.
And then he sees it - as the people talked pleasantly, one person would take his spoon, dip it into the food, and lean across the table to feed his neighbor!
The Rabbi pleaded with his angel guide to take him back to Hell so that he could tell them the answer to their plight. The angel complies, and the Rabbi dashes into the room and shouts to the first starving man he sees: "you do not have to go hungry! Use your spoon to feed your neighbor, and he will surely return the favor and feed you!" The man leaps up in anger and shouts in reply: "You expect me to feed the detestable man sitting across the table?! I would rather starve than give him the pleasure of eating!"
And then the Rabbi understood fully - Heaven and Hell offer the same circumstances and conditions. The only difference is in the way that people treat each other.
Forgiving the "Devil"
In order to defeat the Accuser, we must see Jesus' teaching of the love of enemies (Mt. 5:43-48, Lk. 6:32-36) as a key doctrine and mission of the church. And to do this, we must learn to "forgive the devil". We can no longer see anyone as pure evil, or irredeemable, or even as enemy. We must see every person as precious.
St. Jerome once said:
In "The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots", authors T. J. Wray and Gregory Mobley write about the idea of Satan as our half-sibling:
A Final Closing Thought
The battle against the Accuser within, and the Accuser without (expressed through the corporate spirit of the Domination Systems of our society) may seem daunting. But we cannot lose hope - we must learn to see that our faith can move mountains, as Jesus says in Matthew 17:20. Jesus expressly stated that if we have faith like this, "nothing will be impossible for you." Jesus was not a superhero who swooped in and took care of all our problems - rather, he was showing us the Way.
In "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination", Walter Wink outlines a brilliant set of statements that must never be separated. To do so perverts the truth and functions as a danger to ourselves and others. The three statements are:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
--------------------------------------
Conclusions?
And so this series comes to a close. There is so much information that I wish I could have included somehow within this series - so many ideas and connections I would have liked to have explored. And after all the research I've done, I only feel like I have more to explore - my hope is that for my readers, they have found this exploration to be an experience which opened them up to living a truly human life. And perhaps some of my readers will have decided to do a little research into spiritual matters on their own - this would be a great accomplishment, in my opinion.
I want to give a few concluding thoughts before I end, however. If it is not clear at this point what my position on the matter of "the Satan" is, I will state it clearly at this point: I believe that what I'd call the satanic or the demonic is a reality, in that it is an actual phenomenon that people across all walks of life have experienced. But I do not believe Satan is a distinct personality. Satan is an experience, but not an entity, in my view.
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| Face your fears.... |
In "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination", Walter Wink writes:
[T]he New Testament insists that demons can have no effect unless they are able to embody themselves in people (Mark 1:21-28 par.; Matt. 12:43-45//Luke 11:24-26), or pigs (Mark 5:1-20 par.), or political systems (Revelation 12-13).The Satanic is a reality that is expressed in the shaming and fear-ridden voices within, as well as through the collective aggression of a society that has affirmed and cultivated these voices.
Satan teaches us that evil can be deceptive - it is often disguised as good. But the flipside of this is that even those who have evil also have good in them. And the irony of the "search for Satan" - as I sincerely hope I have communicated through this series - is that as soon as we mark someone else as belonging to Satan, we have taken on the role of the Accuser. And so in order to truly fight this nature, we must find ways to fight for the truth without accusation and scapegoating.
To do this, I believe that the church needs to truly embrace dialogue. First of all, this involves opening dialogue between denominations, and secondly I believe we must learn to dialogue with people of other faiths (or lack thereof). There is so much we can learn from each other if we would do this. And we must be clear - dialogue is not the same thing as arguing. Arguing is really two opposing monologues - two tribal thought models that butt heads. When we argue, we protect the thought model that has been constructed by the tribe, and defend that model at all costs from the "hostile outside tribes" without ever really considering whether or not their point of view has any merits. Outsiders are seen as enemies - and so we become Accusers.
But dialogue is about respect. When I dialogue with you, I don’t necessarily have to end up agreeing with you - I just want to understand why you think the way you do. Dialogue - rather than assuming you're wrong, evil and stupid - assumes that everyone has reasons for believing the things they believe and wishes to understand these reasons. We can hope to earn the right to critique these views after we've listened - but dialogue does not enter into the discussion with this agenda.
In “The Emergent Christ”, Ilia Delio writes:
The word dialogue means two interacting logoi, a crossing over from one world into another for the sake of sharing experience, mutual understanding, and mutual trust; a meeting of horizons, enabling return to one's own world with a deepened horizon of meaning. Dialogue is a form of wisdom when knowledge gained through conversation leads to conversion, a deepening in love, and thus a new way of being in the world. Dialogue that is not self-expansive is self-limiting, and self-limiting dialogue is basically a monologue; essentially, we wind up talking to ourselves.I think that the apostle Paul gave a good model for dialogue in I Thessalonians 5:19-22:
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.
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| There is wisdom in the Yin Yang |
In order to dialogue, we have to see the good in our "enemies" - rather than finding the "devil" in them.
And we need to see dialogue as more than a way to spread the message of the church - dialogue is good for us, too. During the Bill Nye / Ken Ham debate, at one point Nye brought up the scientific mystery of sex - scientists would ask why sex had developed through evolution: wouldn't it be more efficient for a species to reproduce asexually? And the mystery began to unravel as they studied a certain species of minnow where some of their colonies produced sexually, and others asexually. And the scientists discovered that the asexual minnows were more susceptible to bacterial infections. It seems that sex was a biological communication system - a way for a species to pass on the "knowledge" its immune system had gained within the colony. I think this is a powerful metaphor for what is happening to the church today - because the church has isolated itself, it has become more susceptible to ideological "infections". But if we can dialogue with outsiders, we can learn from them, and our "immune systems" will be stronger.
The Parable of the Long Spoons
There is an old legend that tells of Rabbi Haim's visit in a vision to the realms of Heaven and Hell. The legend tells that the Rabbi was given permission to request anything he wanted by his angel guide, and he asked permission to see both Heaven and Hell. His guide took him first through the gates of Hell, which he was surprised to find were made with ornately worked gold and were quite beautiful. Through the gates, he entered a large dining hall, and the smell of the food within was mouthwatering. Rows of tables were piled with exquisite food. But the people sitting around each table were pale and emaciated - moaning with hunger. As the Rabbi looked closer, he noticed that each person was holding a long spoon, but that both of their arms were splinted with wooden slats so that they could not bend either elbow to bring the food to their mouths.
"I understand", the Rabbi says - his angel guide replies "but do you?" At this point the Rabbi is taken to Heaven. Strangely enough, he notices the gates look quite similar to the gates of Hell. And upon entering, he finds the same beautiful scene - rows and rows of tables piled high with sumptuous food. But in this dining hall, each person sitting around the tables looked healthy and well fed. But strangely enough, the Rabbi noticed that they also had their arms splinted in the same manner, and were holding the same long spoons.
And then he sees it - as the people talked pleasantly, one person would take his spoon, dip it into the food, and lean across the table to feed his neighbor!
The Rabbi pleaded with his angel guide to take him back to Hell so that he could tell them the answer to their plight. The angel complies, and the Rabbi dashes into the room and shouts to the first starving man he sees: "you do not have to go hungry! Use your spoon to feed your neighbor, and he will surely return the favor and feed you!" The man leaps up in anger and shouts in reply: "You expect me to feed the detestable man sitting across the table?! I would rather starve than give him the pleasure of eating!"
And then the Rabbi understood fully - Heaven and Hell offer the same circumstances and conditions. The only difference is in the way that people treat each other.
Forgiving the "Devil"
In order to defeat the Accuser, we must see Jesus' teaching of the love of enemies (Mt. 5:43-48, Lk. 6:32-36) as a key doctrine and mission of the church. And to do this, we must learn to "forgive the devil". We can no longer see anyone as pure evil, or irredeemable, or even as enemy. We must see every person as precious.
St. Jerome once said:
I know that most persons understand by the story of Nineveh and its king, the ultimate forgiveness of the devil and all rational creatures.Likewise, Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
Unless you know how to love your neighbor, you cannot love God. Before laying an offering on the altar of God, you have to reconcile with your neighbor, because reconciling with your neighbor is to reconcile with God. You can only touch God through his creatures; you will not understand what is true love, the love of God, unless you practice the love of humanity.We need to learn how to see the devil within, and then use this not as a tool for shame, but as a way to open up empathy towards our so-called enemies - so that they might become our brothers.
In "The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots", authors T. J. Wray and Gregory Mobley write about the idea of Satan as our half-sibling:
Another virtue of the story of Satan is that it provides a parallel narrative to orthodoxy. Satan fell, and so did Adam. Satan abused his moral freedom by rebelling against the divine will; such rebellions are humanity’s favorite leisure activity. In the Watchers myth, it was the desire for illicit love, the angels’ amorous interest in the forbidden fruit of mortal women, that led to their fall from grace. Similarly, religious traditions urge their congregants to marry within the tribe. In the Lucifer myth, it was the vaunting pride of the rebel angels that led to their fall; as John Milton had Satan say, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n” (Paradise Lost 1:264). Similarly, as the author of Proverbs warned, “Pride goeth before a fall” (Prov 16:18). Thus, Satan is a useful teaching tool, the ultimate bad example in religious instruction; living proof, if indeed he can be said to “live,” of what happens when freedom is not wedded to responsibility. It is as if Satan is an allegorical representative of the human race. Perhaps this is another reason why Satan remains such an attractive figure in Western culture and why his story matters to us. As strange as it may sound, we might actually feel a degree of kinship with the Devil. Indeed, this truth is buried deep within the lore of Satan, in the core tradition of the Watchers myth. For all his horrific personas, Satan is, in many respects, our half-sibling. As the Watchers myth tells it, Satan’s father may have been one of the rebel angels, but his mother was one of the daughters of men. Satan may be our evil older brother, but he is our brother nonetheless. And, through the ingenious machinations of his temptations and traps, we recognize that Satan knows us better than we know ourselves.
A Final Closing Thought
The battle against the Accuser within, and the Accuser without (expressed through the corporate spirit of the Domination Systems of our society) may seem daunting. But we cannot lose hope - we must learn to see that our faith can move mountains, as Jesus says in Matthew 17:20. Jesus expressly stated that if we have faith like this, "nothing will be impossible for you." Jesus was not a superhero who swooped in and took care of all our problems - rather, he was showing us the Way.
In "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination", Walter Wink outlines a brilliant set of statements that must never be separated. To do so perverts the truth and functions as a danger to ourselves and others. The three statements are:
- The Powers are good (Rom. 13:1-6).
- The Powers are fallen (uh...see Jesus' entire story, and the book of Revelation...for starters).
- The Powers must and will be redeemed (Col. 1:20, Phil. 3:21).
How remarkable, that despite its sober exposes of the Domination System, the New Testament is so free of gloom or quailing before the Powers! From beginning to end, there is only the note of victory - a victory in the unknown and open future, for the whole human race and the universe, and victory even now, in the midst of struggle. There is an absolute and unshakable confidence that the System of Domination has an end. A new world of partnership, of compassion, of human community, of conscious awareness of the limits of power, awaits us. We are to struggle with all our might and courage for its coming, yet we cannot make it come. The conditions of its arrival are beyond our control, yet we have a fairly clear idea what they are; and as a sufficient number of people are attracted to God's domination-free order, and commit their lives and fortunes to bringing it about, it will happen, because it has been happening, and it is happening now.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Satan: Lifting the Veil - Part 24: The Advocate
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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The Advocate
Throughout this series, we've seen how "the Satan" works as the accusing voices within each man, and within society itself. And we've seen how Jesus accomplished a total defeat of these voices when he refused to fight by the same methods.
But even more than this, Jesus presents the face of God as the antithesis of the Accuser - the Advocate. I John 2:1-2 tells us that Jesus is "an Advocate with the Father". The word that is translated as “advocate” is parakletos, and the meaning is along the lines of “defense
attorney” - the opposite of the "prosecuting attorney" that "the Accuser" represents.
Now, those who believe in Penal Substitution often try to turn the situation into Jesus vs. the Father - the Father (who is an angry judge) wishes to condemn us, but Jesus the Advocate stands in the way. But the problem with this is that Jesus has made many statements along the lines of John 10:30, where he tells us that he and the Father are one (or of one essence, as the footnote says). So why would we think the Father has a judgmental, angry personality if Jesus is the complete opposite?
Also, it’s interesting to note that the word parakletos is also used for the Holy Spirit in John 14:15-17 and John 15:26-27. And Jesus identifies this spirit of defending others as the "Spirit of Truth" - so Jesus is saying that ultimate truth is not found in accusing, but in defending!
Jesus changes our image of God from an angry judge to a defense attorney. In fact, the Bible implies that Jesus is the judge (see Mt. 25:31-46 and Rom. 2:16 for a couple examples) - and thus the judge is the Advocate! And how could you lose that case? In fact, Jesus is the judge who does not judge! (See John 8:15)
In John 8:1-11, we see Jesus acting both in the role of judge and of defense attorney when an adulterous woman is brought to him. In refusing to let anyone else stone or condemn this woman, Jesus has taken on the role of the defense attorney. Jesus does judge her in the way an Advocate would when he tells her “Go now and leave your life of sin.” He has pointed out her destructive behavior and commanded her to turn from it – because God loves this woman! Love does not condemn when we disobey – love is saddened because it knows the natural consequences we will face for this destructive behavior. But rather than condemn her, Jesus is standing on her side as a person, and the people he seems most angry with are the stone throwers.
Later on, in Acts 9:1-22, Jesus is also Paul’s defense attorney. It is hard to imagine a more hard-hearted person than one who would travel around stoning Christians simply for being Christians. Paul was full of rage and addicted to control. But Jesus showed love to him, even in his unrepentant state, and softened his heart. Jesus loved and healed Paul – and what did Paul do to deserve this? Nothing.
The good news of the Gospel of Jesus is not that God loves repentant sinners, but that God loves unrepentant sinners.
Perhaps the most dramatic statement of Jesus as defense attorney rather than prosecuting attorney is Jesus’ final words on the cross. The cross shows us a juxtaposition of two realities: the depth of destruction caused by unloving behavior, and the even greater depth of love in God’s response. Rather than condemning those who subjected him to such a violent, cruel, senseless death, Jesus says in Luke 23:34:
The Accuser only serves to entrap people within their harmful, damaging lifestyle - I always say that you can't break a habit, you can only replace it. This is why you will often see smokers gaining weight after quitting - they are merely replacing the bad habit of smoking with a dependency on food to solve their cravings. So rather than accusing the sinner, Jesus the Advocate comes alongside of them and shows them what makes them special - he gives them a purpose, and replaces their bad habits with good ones.
But the picture of God that Jesus shows us is of a merciful Being. After commanding his disciples to love their enemies in Luke 6:35, Jesus states that "you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." Not only does Jesus imply here that mercy and love of enemies is a prerequisite for being "children of the Most High", but Jesus tells us that this is how God is. Jesus follows this statement up by stating this explicitly in verse 36:
Before we can pour out the unconditional love of God, we must defeat shame. In "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead", shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown writes:
Those who do not accept the all-inclusive nature of God, revealed through the doctrine of Biblical Universalism, will be ill-equipped, I fear, to adopt Jesus’ non-violent way and speak the voice of the Advocate. They will have difficulty accepting that violence does not redeem. Jesus pointed to a different way of understanding judgment - judgment was not the end, but a beginning. The fire of judgment does not consume, but purifies - as in the oft-used Biblical metaphor of the refiner’s fire (see Mal. 3:3, Heb. 12:29, I Pet. 1:7 for a few examples). Divine judgment is not intended to destroy, but to awaken through the act of removing impurities. God’s judgment is more often expressed through passive judgment - allowing the wicked to face the destructive traps that they themselves constructed through their exclusive structures of domination. Through this understanding, we find that judgment is not the last word, but often the first Word which initiates New Creation. Jesus’ entire ministry expressed this truth, as he sat at the same table as the “sinners” of his time: those who had been cast out by the political and religious systems.
Jesus the Advocate says “your sins have been forgiven, now go and sin no more” (see John 8:11) - forgiveness comes first and frees the sinner to enter into the kingdom of God, leaving behind their destructive way of life. But to enter this new Way, we must also be willing to forgive our enemies - we must reject the very mechanism of “enemy” that scapegoats others. We must cease to identify people by their sins, but see the image of God in them.
In the Harry Potter series, there is a conversation between Harry and Sirius Black where Harry is worried that he might be bad because he has dark feelings and is often angry. And Sirius says:
So we must learn to see our enemies as a mirror - so often, those we have the most difficulty with are displaying characteristics that are very much a part of us. And this can function as a useful mirror, and show us our own weaknesses which our friends ignore out of love. Our friends rarely tell us about our faults - this is usually what makes them a friend in the first place: that they are willing to overlook our faults and let them be. But our enemies can reveal them to us, and this can transform our enemy from a hurdle into a gift. This becomes a very humbling experience, as we realize that before we can transform our enemies, we must first transform ourselves, and that our enemy has helped us in this task. Then we can look at our enemies and say: “forgive them, for they know not what they do” - because we understand how the same was true of us. We can now understand how our enemy has been deluded by the same rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness, and spiritual forces spoken of in Ephesians 6:12.
It's time for another break - and next time, I will present some concluding thoughts.
--------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
--------------------------------------
The Advocate
Throughout this series, we've seen how "the Satan" works as the accusing voices within each man, and within society itself. And we've seen how Jesus accomplished a total defeat of these voices when he refused to fight by the same methods.
But even more than this, Jesus presents the face of God as the antithesis of the Accuser - the Advocate. I John 2:1-2 tells us that Jesus is "an Advocate with the Father". The word that is translated as “advocate” is parakletos, and the meaning is along the lines of “defense
attorney” - the opposite of the "prosecuting attorney" that "the Accuser" represents. Now, those who believe in Penal Substitution often try to turn the situation into Jesus vs. the Father - the Father (who is an angry judge) wishes to condemn us, but Jesus the Advocate stands in the way. But the problem with this is that Jesus has made many statements along the lines of John 10:30, where he tells us that he and the Father are one (or of one essence, as the footnote says). So why would we think the Father has a judgmental, angry personality if Jesus is the complete opposite?
Also, it’s interesting to note that the word parakletos is also used for the Holy Spirit in John 14:15-17 and John 15:26-27. And Jesus identifies this spirit of defending others as the "Spirit of Truth" - so Jesus is saying that ultimate truth is not found in accusing, but in defending!
Jesus changes our image of God from an angry judge to a defense attorney. In fact, the Bible implies that Jesus is the judge (see Mt. 25:31-46 and Rom. 2:16 for a couple examples) - and thus the judge is the Advocate! And how could you lose that case? In fact, Jesus is the judge who does not judge! (See John 8:15)
In John 8:1-11, we see Jesus acting both in the role of judge and of defense attorney when an adulterous woman is brought to him. In refusing to let anyone else stone or condemn this woman, Jesus has taken on the role of the defense attorney. Jesus does judge her in the way an Advocate would when he tells her “Go now and leave your life of sin.” He has pointed out her destructive behavior and commanded her to turn from it – because God loves this woman! Love does not condemn when we disobey – love is saddened because it knows the natural consequences we will face for this destructive behavior. But rather than condemn her, Jesus is standing on her side as a person, and the people he seems most angry with are the stone throwers.
Later on, in Acts 9:1-22, Jesus is also Paul’s defense attorney. It is hard to imagine a more hard-hearted person than one who would travel around stoning Christians simply for being Christians. Paul was full of rage and addicted to control. But Jesus showed love to him, even in his unrepentant state, and softened his heart. Jesus loved and healed Paul – and what did Paul do to deserve this? Nothing.
The good news of the Gospel of Jesus is not that God loves repentant sinners, but that God loves unrepentant sinners.
Perhaps the most dramatic statement of Jesus as defense attorney rather than prosecuting attorney is Jesus’ final words on the cross. The cross shows us a juxtaposition of two realities: the depth of destruction caused by unloving behavior, and the even greater depth of love in God’s response. Rather than condemning those who subjected him to such a violent, cruel, senseless death, Jesus says in Luke 23:34:
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.Jesus, in his wisdom, knew that you can’t solve the hurt caused by the Accuser by piling on more guilt and fear. This is why you rarely see Jesus confronting sin - in fact, usually the only sin he points out is the pride of the legalistic pharisees! In other words, the sin that Jesus is always going on about is the Accusing nature itself!
The Accuser only serves to entrap people within their harmful, damaging lifestyle - I always say that you can't break a habit, you can only replace it. This is why you will often see smokers gaining weight after quitting - they are merely replacing the bad habit of smoking with a dependency on food to solve their cravings. So rather than accusing the sinner, Jesus the Advocate comes alongside of them and shows them what makes them special - he gives them a purpose, and replaces their bad habits with good ones.
But the picture of God that Jesus shows us is of a merciful Being. After commanding his disciples to love their enemies in Luke 6:35, Jesus states that "you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." Not only does Jesus imply here that mercy and love of enemies is a prerequisite for being "children of the Most High", but Jesus tells us that this is how God is. Jesus follows this statement up by stating this explicitly in verse 36:
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.Jesus follows this statement up by defining just what this mercy looks like (verses 37-38):
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.I am reminded of one of the most powerful scenes in movie history - in "Good Will Hunting", we are introduced to a troubled young man named Will Hunting, who is discovered to be a Math genius. In one of the final scenes of the movie, Will has a breakthrough with his psychologist. All throughout the movie, he has been distant and protective of himself. But as he is talking with his psychologist - Sean (played by Robin Williams) - about the abuse his father put him through, Sean picks up Will's file and says: "Will, you see this, all this shit? It's not your fault." Will says, softly and in a non-committal voice "I know." Sean repeats: "No you don't. It's not your fault." Will repeats his statement: "I know." But Sean is relentless - and in a dramatic act of prophecy, he comes alongside Sean and repeats "it's not your fault" while Will breaks down in tears, and you can see all the hurt he's bottled up inside for years being poured out.
Before we can pour out the unconditional love of God, we must defeat shame. In "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead", shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown writes:
Shame is highly correlated with addiction, violence, aggression, depression, eating disorders, and bullying. Researchers don’t find shame correlated with positive outcomes at all - there are no data to support that shame is a helpful compass for good behavior. In fact, shame is much more likely to be the cause of destructive and hurtful behaviors than it is to be the solution.Elsewhere in the book, Brown illustrates how shame is a function of the Domination System - she tells a story of a session she had with a group of college students where a young man told her about "the box":
Shame works like termites in a house. It’s hidden in the dark behind the walls and constantly eating away at our infrastructure, until one day the stairs suddenly crumble.
“Let me show you the box.” I knew he was a tall guy, but when he stood up, it was clear that he was at least six foot four. He said, “Imagine living like this,” as he crouched down and pretended that he was stuffed inside a small box. Still hunched over, he said, “You really only have three choices. You spend your life fighting to get out, throwing punches at the side of the box and hoping it will break. You always feel angry and you’re always swinging. Or you just give up. You don’t give a shit about anything.” At that point he slumped over on the ground. You could have heard a pin drop in the room."The Box" is the Accuser's assault on individuality. The Accuser cannot stand when others are different - unique is not allowed. I think that some people manage to get out of that box, but then everyone else starts smacking them with baseball bats and trying to stuff them back in! Society hates it when there is a person who doesn’t conform! That’s the Accuser at work! But I believe that Jesus, as Advocate, prizes what makes people unique! God the Advocate boasts of our unique gifts: "look at how special my child is!"
Those who do not accept the all-inclusive nature of God, revealed through the doctrine of Biblical Universalism, will be ill-equipped, I fear, to adopt Jesus’ non-violent way and speak the voice of the Advocate. They will have difficulty accepting that violence does not redeem. Jesus pointed to a different way of understanding judgment - judgment was not the end, but a beginning. The fire of judgment does not consume, but purifies - as in the oft-used Biblical metaphor of the refiner’s fire (see Mal. 3:3, Heb. 12:29, I Pet. 1:7 for a few examples). Divine judgment is not intended to destroy, but to awaken through the act of removing impurities. God’s judgment is more often expressed through passive judgment - allowing the wicked to face the destructive traps that they themselves constructed through their exclusive structures of domination. Through this understanding, we find that judgment is not the last word, but often the first Word which initiates New Creation. Jesus’ entire ministry expressed this truth, as he sat at the same table as the “sinners” of his time: those who had been cast out by the political and religious systems.
Jesus the Advocate says “your sins have been forgiven, now go and sin no more” (see John 8:11) - forgiveness comes first and frees the sinner to enter into the kingdom of God, leaving behind their destructive way of life. But to enter this new Way, we must also be willing to forgive our enemies - we must reject the very mechanism of “enemy” that scapegoats others. We must cease to identify people by their sins, but see the image of God in them.
In the Harry Potter series, there is a conversation between Harry and Sirius Black where Harry is worried that he might be bad because he has dark feelings and is often angry. And Sirius says:
You’re not a bad person. You’re a very good person who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.Often, in order to love our "enemy", we must see the enemy within - thus Jesus' teaching on projection with the illustration of a log in our own eye (Mt. 7:1-5, Lk. 6:41-42). Loving the enemy within enables us to extend this love outward to love the "enemy" without - accepting God’s forgiveness and extending it in response. But if we insist - after being forgiven - that God hates those we hate and refuses to forgive them, we inevitably insert a psychological time-bomb. Our own hypocrisy, while we may successfully deny and hide from it for a time, will come back to haunt us in the end. Unconsciously we know that a deity who is hostile towards certain types of people is potentially hostile to ourselves as well. So we will be locked in a constant battle, and will find no peace. This battle will ultimately descend into a perfectionism which results in the condemnation of all - the devil’s universalism.
 |
| What if "the enemy" represents our own projections? |
So we must learn to see our enemies as a mirror - so often, those we have the most difficulty with are displaying characteristics that are very much a part of us. And this can function as a useful mirror, and show us our own weaknesses which our friends ignore out of love. Our friends rarely tell us about our faults - this is usually what makes them a friend in the first place: that they are willing to overlook our faults and let them be. But our enemies can reveal them to us, and this can transform our enemy from a hurdle into a gift. This becomes a very humbling experience, as we realize that before we can transform our enemies, we must first transform ourselves, and that our enemy has helped us in this task. Then we can look at our enemies and say: “forgive them, for they know not what they do” - because we understand how the same was true of us. We can now understand how our enemy has been deluded by the same rulers, authorities, cosmic powers of this present darkness, and spiritual forces spoken of in Ephesians 6:12.
It's time for another break - and next time, I will present some concluding thoughts.
--------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Satan: Lifting the Veil - Part 23: Death
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
--------------------------------------
The Death of the Domination System
In the last post, we explored how Jesus' answer to the question of resisting the Domination System was through a complete rejection of its methods of violence - through non-violent resistance.
But to truly understand how we can even be capable of resisting this System, we must understand that Jesus' ultimate answer on how to resist the Domination System was to die to it. Paul understood this, and wrote in Colossians 2:20 that we must die "with Christ to the elementary principles of the world" and cease to live by its decrees. And Jesus said we must deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow Him (Mt. 16:24, Lk. 9:23), as well as losing our life for His sake in order to find it (Mt. 16:25, Lk. 9:24). In the second verse of these passages, when Jesus says that those who seek to save their life will lose it, the original language uses the Greek word peripoiein to speak of making secure. This literally refers to setting out a boundary or property lines. And Jesus is saying that by creating walls around ourselves for protection, we are actually shutting ourselves off from life!
By dying to the power of the Domination System, we refuse to give it any hold in our lives - the System loses its power when it ceases to have anything to offer us. Until we do this, no matter what state we are in - whether it be plenty or want - we will continue to be under the power of the Domination System. If we have much wealth, our wealth will dominate us as we seek to protect it. And if we have little wealth, our longing for wealth will dominate us. Walter Wink illustrates this in "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination":
The death we must experience is a total death - both of our grasping desires, and of the illegitimate authority the Domination System claims over us. The first could be called a death of the privatized ego, and the second a death of the superego. Without a death of the superego, the death of the privatized ego may simply mask the fact that we are a cog in the wheel of the Domination System - the false self that is imposed on us by the Powers.
In Galatians 2:19-20, Paul actually uses the word translated to the Latin "ego" for "I" throughout the passage, so that it could be translated like so:
Philippians 2:6-8 shows us that subjugation to Jesus the king means the end of all subjugation - all forms of domination must go! Christ does not make all things subject to himself through coercion, but through service, and when they fall under his dominion they enter into this same mode of service.
We must even be freed from the superego of religiosity - for so often the outward focus of legalism hides our own insistence on my will (rather than thy will), which only results in a subconscious condemnation. And legalism distorts the goodness of God's creation.
But the wisdom of God which was made flesh in Jesus must even be made known to the church and the authorities of the heavenly realms (see Eph. 3:10). As Jesus shows us in Matthew 21:31, sometimes the sinners enter the kingdom before the piously religious.
This shows us that to understand grace, we must actually face our own evil - so much religious thought holds that the true religious experience involves being identified as good by virtue of belonging to the right side. But this ends up feeding into the scapegoating mechanism as we then find ourselves in need of an outlet for our repressed feelings of fear, anger, greed, lust, and hatred. But by experiencing the release that comes from knowing we are sinners but are still accepted by God’s unconditional love, we are freed to pour out this same love and acceptance into the world without fear.
The ego which must die is so beautifully explained by Thomas Merton's concept of "False Self", which appears in "New Seeds of Contemplation". Merton describes the False Self as that which occurs when we turn everything inward in service to ourselves. We make an idol out of ourselves, and then we believe we can find fulfillment through things - creating an idol out of the good things God has created. This does not render them evil - they are still good because God created them that way. But in our misuse of the good gifts God has given us, we pervert them. We also have a tendency - when we do this - to identify ourselves through those idols. We define ourselves by what we wear, what we listen to, or a set of opinions (such as a political identity). We are not those things, though we pretend that we are for a time. That is why Merton calls it a "False Self" - it is nothing, but we treat it like it's something. Merton describes this concept a bit more in these passages:
It's time for another break, and in the next post we will explore the antithesis to the Accuser - the Advocate.
--------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
--------------------------------------
The Death of the Domination System
In the last post, we explored how Jesus' answer to the question of resisting the Domination System was through a complete rejection of its methods of violence - through non-violent resistance.
By dying to the power of the Domination System, we refuse to give it any hold in our lives - the System loses its power when it ceases to have anything to offer us. Until we do this, no matter what state we are in - whether it be plenty or want - we will continue to be under the power of the Domination System. If we have much wealth, our wealth will dominate us as we seek to protect it. And if we have little wealth, our longing for wealth will dominate us. Walter Wink illustrates this in "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination":
Those born to privilege and wealth may miss life by having been installed at the center of a universe revolving around their own desires. Others, born to merciless poverty and the contempt of the ruling class, may miss life by never feeling really human at all. If the advantaged must die to their egocentricity, the underprivileged must die to their hopelessness, fatalism, and acquiescence in their own despoiling. Rationalists may need to die to idolatry of the mind; dominating personalities to their power; proud achievers to their accomplishments.By taking up the cross freely, Jesus and his followers deny the power behind empire’s most potent threat, turning it from an instrument of domination into an instrument of liberation. Only by facing this great fear does one overcome all terror.
The death we must experience is a total death - both of our grasping desires, and of the illegitimate authority the Domination System claims over us. The first could be called a death of the privatized ego, and the second a death of the superego. Without a death of the superego, the death of the privatized ego may simply mask the fact that we are a cog in the wheel of the Domination System - the false self that is imposed on us by the Powers.
In Galatians 2:19-20, Paul actually uses the word translated to the Latin "ego" for "I" throughout the passage, so that it could be translated like so:
For through the Law my ego died to the Law, so that I might live to God. My ego has been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer my ego who lives, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.This shows that in order to live in Christ, we must no longer identify ourselves through ego of any form, but must identify ourselves through the self-emptying True Self that is Christ - the outward focus of unconditional love which empties itself as a servant (Phil. 2:7).
Philippians 2:6-8 shows us that subjugation to Jesus the king means the end of all subjugation - all forms of domination must go! Christ does not make all things subject to himself through coercion, but through service, and when they fall under his dominion they enter into this same mode of service.
We must even be freed from the superego of religiosity - for so often the outward focus of legalism hides our own insistence on my will (rather than thy will), which only results in a subconscious condemnation. And legalism distorts the goodness of God's creation.
But the wisdom of God which was made flesh in Jesus must even be made known to the church and the authorities of the heavenly realms (see Eph. 3:10). As Jesus shows us in Matthew 21:31, sometimes the sinners enter the kingdom before the piously religious.
This shows us that to understand grace, we must actually face our own evil - so much religious thought holds that the true religious experience involves being identified as good by virtue of belonging to the right side. But this ends up feeding into the scapegoating mechanism as we then find ourselves in need of an outlet for our repressed feelings of fear, anger, greed, lust, and hatred. But by experiencing the release that comes from knowing we are sinners but are still accepted by God’s unconditional love, we are freed to pour out this same love and acceptance into the world without fear.
The ego which must die is so beautifully explained by Thomas Merton's concept of "False Self", which appears in "New Seeds of Contemplation". Merton describes the False Self as that which occurs when we turn everything inward in service to ourselves. We make an idol out of ourselves, and then we believe we can find fulfillment through things - creating an idol out of the good things God has created. This does not render them evil - they are still good because God created them that way. But in our misuse of the good gifts God has given us, we pervert them. We also have a tendency - when we do this - to identify ourselves through those idols. We define ourselves by what we wear, what we listen to, or a set of opinions (such as a political identity). We are not those things, though we pretend that we are for a time. That is why Merton calls it a "False Self" - it is nothing, but we treat it like it's something. Merton describes this concept a bit more in these passages:
My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love— outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.
Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between "things" and "God" as if God were another "thing" and as if His creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God. This is an entirely new perspective which many sincerely moral and ascetic minds fail utterly to see. There is no evil in anything created by God, nor can anything of His become an obstacle to our union with Him. The obstacle is in our "self", that is to say in the tenacious need to maintain our separate, external, egotistic will. It is when we refer all things to this outward and false "self" that we alienate ourselves from reality and from God. It is then the false self that is our god, and we love everything for the sake of this self. We use all things, so to speak, for the worship of this idol which is our imaginary self. In so doing we pervert and corrupt things, or rather we turn our relationship to them into a corrupt and sinful relationship. We do not thereby make them evil, but we use them to increase our attachment to our illusory self.Later on, Merton writes about the contrasting "True Self". The "True Self" is what God always intended us to be - we were created in His image, and He is a giver and a creator. This is what unconditional love is - it's an outward focus, rather than an inward focus. And when we focus the gifts God has given us outward, then we will be engaging our "True Self". Merton writes:
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.If we die to this False Self, the promise of the Gospel of Jesus is that we will be resurrected into new life - and this very event mocks the Domination System itself! The point of Jesus' resurrection was not merely that a miracle happened - it was that it symbolized the complete defeat of the Domination System in a way that invalidated its power! Brian McLaren writes in "Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World":
Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.
If, therefore, I do anything or think anything of say anything or know anything that is not purely for the love of God, it cannot give me peace, or rest, or fulfillment, or joy.
The scandal of Easter was not simply that a supernatural event occurred. Minds in the ancient world weren't divided by the rigid natural-supernatural dualism that forms modern minds. In those days miracles were notable not for defying the laws of nature (a concept that was unknown until recent centuries), but for conveying an unexpected meaning or message through an unusual or unexplainable medium. What was the scandalous meaning conveyed by the resurrection of Jesus?Belief in the resurrection is a complete denial of the only power the Domination System ever had - and this is the way to overcome all fear, and thus free us to love our enemies without ceasing.
It was not simply that a dead man was raised. It was who the raised man was. Someone rejected, mocked, condemned, and executed by both the political and religious establishments was raised. A convicted outlaw, troublemaker, and rabble rouser was raised. A condemned blasphemer and lawbreaker was raised. A nonviolent nonconformist who included the outcasts - and therefore became an outcast - was raised. What does that mean about the authoritative institutions that condemned him? What does that mean about his nonconformist message and nonviolent ways?
It's time for another break, and in the next post we will explore the antithesis to the Accuser - the Advocate.
--------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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