Thursday, June 30, 2011

Clarifications on Personifications and Deifications

Dear friends, I talk a lot, and I say a lot. Some of you have noticed that I, at times, contradict myself. That's okay, so does the Bible. I would like to clarify an issue that was brought to my attention today. I have written several times of not believing in a "God Entity" and would like to make a retraction for clarity's sake. I do indeed believe in something outside of the universe. In our series of big bangs and big crashes and evolutionary cycles, there had to be something that started it. That something, is my God. I do not however believe in a personified God. Giving God human qualities is not something I think is practical. I will often joke that my God is a prankster, and if God has to have human qualities, I hope one of them is a sense of humor. I do, however, believe that there is something that I am ignorant of, a power that exists outside my ability to perceive. To me, it's neither here nor there that God be personified.

What do I mean by personified? I don't think or believe that God needs the ability to smile, run, think, or love as we do to be God, and be my God, or to be a God with which I can have a relationship. In poetry, we give the sun the power to smile over the earth, because we can relate to that much more simply, gently, and warmly than we can a phrase like, "The heat and light produced by the sun fall on the Earth." It's much more comfortable to imagine it smiling, and in a way it does. It makes the sun active and personal, and brings us closer to it. The parallel I hope to make, is that the sun isn't actively conscious of what it is doing, but it does it anyways, and we perceive it happily. We project on it qualities it does not have in order to bring it into our world, include it in our understanding. I am okay with God being that way too. Whatever it is, I am comfortable speaking in terms of personable qualities, like Creator. Whether the things accomplished by the power that lies outside of my understanding actively and cognitively creates, or only functionally creates like the Sun, the job is still done, and I welcome it into my realm of understanding, despite the ignorance that it lies without.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Irkoy

Many of you know that I spent a semester abroad in Niger. Furthermore, you may know that I picked up some Zarma. I really enjoyed learning it, as well as its bizarre grammatical structure. In fact, you might have heard some strange noises coming from my mouth and responded with a facial expression along the lines of, "Did you just hiccup in a very bizarre manner or were you speaking in tongues?"

A good word to know in many languages is "God." In this case, "Irkoy." While this seems like a large grammatical tangent, I swear it will tie back to "The Religious Case Against Belief" soon. The word "Irkoy" is the joining of the Zarma word for "we," "us," and "our" (iri), and the Zarma word for "owner," or "to go" Thus we have "Us owner," and "We go." I'm going to break this post up into those two definitions of "Irkoy." It will all come together quite nicely in the end, if all goes well.

"Us Owner": None of us like to think of ourselves as having an "owner," at least not in those terms. The connotation of that word sounds possessive and reminiscent of the era of slavery to our American ears. However, if we insert this concept into the circumstance of an artist and that which is created by the artist, it feels less uncomfortable. Typically, we consider the artist who spent days, upon months, upon years into his masterpiece the original owner- if only because she made an investment of time, material, and energy. Of course, works of art change hands- an idea parallel to our notions of free will. Despite our freedom, our creator has a lasting connection to us, in that she will always know exactly what she made. Further, we come from a part of our creator, much like Eve came from the rib of Adam, we come from the imagination of our creator. Thus, our creator will always be a part of us, we will always be a part of our creator. We are the culmination of ideas, dreams, hopes, and fantasmic wanderings of the consciousness.

"We Go": Going is something we humans do all the time. We go from a state of sleeping to a state of consciousness. We go from bleary-eyed to breakfast. We go from being stationary to being transitory. We go. Notice here, that I use only the form of the word "go" that indicates a change in state. Paul Tillich defines religion as the "state of being grasped by the ultimate concern." Here he is substituting the "ultimate concern," for a deity, in an effort to keep his definition from limiting religion to those institutions with many deities, or no deities at all. From where I stand now, maybe the "deity" or that which is divine, is "the state of being grasped," that place where we change states, that place where "we go" to being grasped.

Had "koy" been Zarma for "maker," and "make," you better believe I would have included a reference to Dr. Neville. Oh look- I managed it anyways. To bring this back to Carse's "The Religious Case Against Belief," we can allude to his writings concerning many different concepts of God, many different interpretations of God, and many interpretations of texts. While I don't think the Djerma people intended for their language to be exigeted, I don't think they would throw around too many objections.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Religion needs a mind

I have found my Christian manifesto: Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld's In Praise of Doubt. As those of you who take the time to read this blog know, doubt has been a recurring theme in my life for the past few months. Ironically, this theme comes after I brazenly proclaimed in a meeting with my beloved boss Brother Larry Whitney, that I have no doubts when it comes to my faith. That, my friends, is what we call a blatant misrepresentation of the truth (read: lie). At the time I was making poor linguistic choices. What I wanted to say, was that I had no doubt that being a Christian, loving God and others, and dedicating my life to those principles, was what I should be doing. Beyond that, a statement that can be made "standing on one foot," all else is subject to wide interpretation and endless questioning.

I frequently enter into discussions over the merits (or lack thereof) of blind faith with my Christian brethren. As Berger and Zijderveld state in their panegyric work on doubt: many of the world's religious institutions put importance on blind faith. Of course, why wouldn't they? What better way to secure the longevity and well-being of an institution than to declare it infallible? What better way to legitimate that infallibility than to quote the many Bible verses on faith, specifically "faith of a little child"?

Yes, Christianity is based on some level of faith. God, by sheer definition, is beyond our knowing. How could we ever truly understand a being necessarily beyond any mental capabilities that we could have? How could we empirically study something that created us? Yet, faith in the existence of God must contain doubt-doubt as to what God's relationship with his creations is; doubt as to how to live our lives once we have established that we believe in a God. Blind faith is only applicable to that one belief, it no longer applies to our daily decisions. We can't ever know what God is telling us to do, so we must test, retest, pray, and ponder on all of our decisions. This is where institutions step in, acting as handy how-to guides to all of life's conundrums. This is where faith becomes dangerous.

Applying infallibility to the divine is one thing, applying it to a human or groups of humans is pure folly. Humans are not perfect, therefore, groups of humans are not perfect, no matter how enlightened they are or claim to be. Unfortunately for us, human fallibility applies to the Bible as well. Not necessarily in the text itself, which is an entirely different issue, but in our interpretation of it. Our humanity invariably sinks in.

Our lives as Christians, the way we relate to God, Jesus, and his teachings, these things require a mind. One of the main reasons I am a United Methodist is because of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. For John Wesley, this quadrilateral applied to the interpretation of the Bible. Reason, experience, and the established tradition of the Church were used as supplementary tools for deciphering the meaning behind scripture, which was the most important basis for the search for truth. I am fond of applying the Wesley Quadrilateral to many of my every day decisions. Personally, I rank the pillars of the Quadrilateral from most important to least important in the following order: the scripture, reason, experience, and the tradition of the church.

The incorporation of reason and experience are key, in my opinion, to the practice of faith as well as the interpretation of scripture. God gave us a mind, I'm sure he expects us to use it. The application of reason to scripture, religion, and the divine is not a threat to any of the above unless they are patently unjust or false.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Troubled Waters

This past Sunday I returned from the Fund for Theological Education's (FTE), Leaders in Ministry conference hosted by Dillard University of New Orleans. For four days over a hundred undergrads, seminarians, and current leaders in ministry talked, laughed, and sang their faith. Readers, I was astounded by the energy, talents, and love I saw in these people. The FTE fellows, staff, and the pastors, social workers, and activists working in New Orleans are so inspiring, I was frequently lifted out of my seat by the elation I felt at being around them. If these are the future leaders of the church, I have a renewed sense of hope that the church will be a positive force in the world.

I can only describe my experience in New Orleans as life-shattering. When a shy undergraduate with a voice so small you had to lean in to hear him stood up, and, on fire with the Holy Spirit, spoke thundering words of wisdom to a crowd of over one hundred, I realized that fear is never an excuse. When the tiny Reverend Dejean belted in her beautiful voice that "God is real," I felt His hand sweep across the room, touching the hearts of every person there. When I talked with the other fellows, and heard their plans for ministry, their dedication and commitment to serving others, I realized that I wasn't alone. When I listened to the panel discussions on serving the community I was reawakened to a sense of urgency to provide relief from disasters and help for those who need it most.

Most of these experiences sound like things that should affirm my life goals, not shatter them, and, in a way they do. Since I felt a call to ministry two years ago I have never doubted that this was my place in the world. Yet, I've always had doubts. Doubts in my ability to effectively help others, doubts as to where in the world I'm called to go, doubts as to what I should do with my gifts. I doubt that my body is capable of handling missionary work in remote regions; I doubt that my mind is strong enough to overcome burnout, disillusionment, despair with the state of the world.

I was comforted to discover that many people who feel called to ministry experience these doubts. However, the conference put none of these questions to rest. As Reverend Dejean quipped, "another level, another demon." As I reached a new level in commitment to a life of service, the path to that life became even more muddled and riddled with insecurities.

Many critics of faith in God describe religion as a human fabrication created in order to somehow validate our own lives as human beings. God is seen by many atheists as a false father-figure, making all of our decisions and pacifying our fears with moral platitudes. Life with a god, they reason, is an easier life. They couldn't be further from the truth. God does not pacify, God ignites. God unsettles. Believing in God and his authority in this world does not make our role any easier, it makes it infinitely harder. We immediately become accountable for our actions, held to the highest standard possible: that of being like Jesus, the only perfect human being. We are, in a phrase, called to do the impossible.

Lately I've been feeling a lot like Moses. For the past week, New Orleans was holy ground. Even though I was faced with a burning bush, a miraculous space of religious experience, like Moses, I found myself asking God "Who am I, God, to do this work?" What if no one believes me?" Surrounded by so many talented preachers, so many young people with the gift of speech, I find myself echoing Moses' lament: "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue" (Exodus 4: 10). Faced with the challenges, the burning questions, and the back-breaking responsibility of a life of ministry I, more than once, have asked God: "O Lord, please send someone else to do it" (Exodus 4:13).

Inability will never excuse us from what we must do in this life. When God calls, we answer. In the face of our overwhelming fear, our sheer inadequacy, God steps in, gives us a shove of encouragement in the small of our backs, and hands us the tools we need to get the job done. He answers us as he answered Moses: "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and teach you what to say" (Exodus 4:11-12).

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Classified Information

Now on the last leg of Carse's book, "The Religious Case Against Belief," I feel as though Carse is dancing around a simple resolution and solution for all of the questions posed and engendered by his book. Though I wouldn't be surprised if he has no answers, but rather abandons us to find our own. I would be alright with that ending as well. In the mean time, Carse's discussions connect with an idea I previously addressed. Two posts ago, I discussed how humans experience discomfort when dealing with ambiguities- at times so much so that we rearrange our beliefs in order to cope.

To play with a slightly different standpoint on this idea, I propose a discussion of evil. This is not a topic I like to discuss much, or even think about. For me, it's very hard to imagine an active good-opposing force that acts nefariously in our world. Carse allows me the option of letting evil be an inescapable byproduct of human intention rather than a superhuman force. He again plays with blurry boundaries in saying that it's very hard for us to define evil at all. He suggests that we can recognize instances of evil, and that is enough. I am a big fan of casuistry, so this made my heart happy.

I think it nearly impossible for us to write rules, especially ones tied to religion, that can be applied to everyone and every case- creating laws to prevent evil-doings and acts. Especially rules, that in Christianity, were created thousands of years ago. Times change- it happens. For those who would like to say that the rules never change because God never changes, I do not at all think it has to be that way. Humanity changes, so do our laws, social concepts, social constructs, languages, civilizations, etc. Why would laws NOT change? Yes I think they are important, yes I think continuity and a certain amount of stability need to exist to legitimize them, but at the same time, stagnancy of law can itself be evil. Until reading Carse, I had never liked the statement "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." I thought that it alluded to a delusional nature, the idea that we know so little that even that which we perceive to be good, is not. Reading Carse, I think a slightly less condescending spin on this might be that our intentions, our goals, as much good as they can produce, will have unintentional side effects. Side effects that could possibly be evil, without being an active force, or even actively achieved.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation... Generating

My apologies for incorporating my musical taste into a blog title. There is a good reason for bringing The Who into this conversation. In the next piece of "The Religious Case Against Belief," Carse writes about the exegetical dynamic of the Protestant Reformation. He discusses various interpretations of the Gospels during the Enlightenment period, each in terms of the ideological movements of the day.  He does so in a chronological manner (despite large gaps in time), in my mind, setting up a framework of generations in the family that is the Christian church.  As the lyrics in The Who's rock and roll anthem suggest,  a new generation offers a new spin- many spins in fact. 

So why, as the church, do we seem surprised by this?  Why, when I describe my rather unconventional beliefs, do I get wide-eyes and dropped jaws?  It seems that we have forgotten that change has always been a part of faith.  We think of the infant religion just after Jesus' death as an ideal, cooperative, agreeing faith community- a community stronger because of it's consensus.  However, as Carse points out, that was never the case.  Disagreement existed even before the Bible was written, and as the Bible was written, as we see in the conflicting Gospel stories.  How, as Christians distant from Christ, linked only by faith and text, are we to cope with a text that disagrees with itself?!  Literal interpretations of the Bible are feeble at best, but offer security within the structure.  Going beyond the text opens up so many doors that the security of consensus is lost.  How can we keep the text pertinent, without foisting contradicting stories and beliefs as a monolithic and correct view? 

Carse offers what I believe is brilliant and reassuring wisdom for this generation of generators: "We can read it for what we think it says, or we can read it for what it allows us to say. We can regard the text as definitive, containing all we need to know, or as generative, leading beyond itself to what is not yet known."  Besides being extraordinarily eloquent, Carse doesn't hold the Bible responsible for having all of the answers.  

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Two by Two

Many theologians write of holy numbers, something like a key or unifying factor. I'm not quite sure I get it all, because as an extremely left-brained anthropology major, all math is pretty ungodly. There are a few numbers tossed around though, so we might as well play with them. Some people like three, some people like seven, some people like one hundred and forty four thousand. I propose a new holy number (if numbers must be holy): two. This is just a segue for me to talk about "The Religious Case Against Belief" some more, promise. Noah's ark went in two's, we began with two genders, two tablets with commandments on them, etc. I want to discuss another two: the concept of dichotomies.

Many anthropologists believe that humans process the Divine in response to understanding the world in a series of opposites. Our concept of dark cannot exist without light, up without down, land without water, life without death, logical and illogical, etc. It is when there are in-betweens and idiosyncrasies that we become uncomfortable, and look for something other-worldly to explain this. I am not saying that this delegitimizes God or spirituality in any way. It is precisely the evolution of our human brain that allows us to experience what we perceive as the Divine consciously.

In Carses' book, he discusses how when we pit ideas against each other, one necessitates the other. Fundamentalists need progressives in order for their agenda to exist. The Pope needed Galileo, and vice versa. Christian believers need non-believers in order to fulfill the evangelical ideas presented in the Bible. The sacred needs the profane, to exist. The extraordinary needs the ordinary. Most things in our perception operate this way- or so we think. Can we perceive anything in between? We began with two genders and one sexual orientation, and now those are flexible. Our concept of race has been demolished by science and genetics. Things we once thought were concrete, are no longer. We are slowly learning that maybe dichotomies are not all there is to understand. After all, there are frequencies that we cannot hear- but they exist outside of our capacity to detect them.

Maybe spirituality is quite the same: there is more than we can perceive as humans, that's less clear cut than a "God beyond understanding." We have set up the dichotomy of an entity-God and the lack thereof. But what if the Divine is somewhere in between the two opposite ends of the spectrum- neither extreme, but somewhere inside- or even somewhere outside. The point is- what is there that we cannot know because of limited capacities, or our unwillingness to be in-between?

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Sex, BU, and the Soul

I arrived on Boston University's campus in August of 2008 a depressed and disillusioned eighteen-year-old underwhelmed by the idea of going to college. The past year of my life had seen so many tragic twists and turns, romantic and otherwise, that I was veritably tired of feeling. Still in the clutches of a long-term, long-distance relationship with the pressure for it to become life-long, I had neither the time, the energy, or the inclination to participate in the party-scene. As I emerged from my shell-shocked state into the world again, the inclination never returned. Thus, in my three years of college party experience consists of one benign frat party, a couple of dry club outings, and two counts of being tipsy.

As I read Donna Freitas' book Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America's College Campuses, I found myself reacting almost as a shocked parent might to her descriptions of the seemingly ubiquitous "hook-up culture." Of course, I am not so sheltered or naive to have been unaware of this culture, but hearing stories of your friends' night out in a social setting is one thing, and students honestly and openly talking about their sexual and social regrets in private is another.

Freitas, a Boston University professor, conducted both online surveys and in-depth personal interviews with college students across the nation who attended a wide variety of schools, public and private, religious and secular. After Freitas conducted her research she divided the schools into two broad categories: spiritual colleges, which included both secular and catholic schools; and religious schools, the evangelical colleges. What emerged from her interviews with students from both types of schools was two systems for dealing with sexuality and the soul, both flawed, skewed, and often painful for those involved.

In her exploration of sexuality in evangelical christian schools Freitas uncovered a culture in which chastity is the ultimate marker of social status and religious purity. Most evangelical students come from strict evangelical backgrounds in which they are taught that sex before marriage is the apogee of sin. Men and women are taught to do battle against their sexual nature, sometimes not even kissing before they are married. Most of the pressure to protect a couple's purity falls on the christian woman. Many of the female students that Freitas interviewed had fantasies of giving their virginity as a gift to their husbands on their wedding night, an image I found strangely disturbing. In many cases this attitude on dating and sexuality led to early marriage, in most evangelical college students described a senior scramble to find a spouse before graduation.

Those that reach marriage with their virginity intact are revered as purity "princesses" or "warriors", those that partake in sexual activity before taking their vows face regret, and social opprobrium. Such is the stigma of premarital sex, that many students are afraid to openly share their feelings and remorse with their peers, professors, counselors, and religious leaders. Despair and shame are faced alone, without guidance.

The view of sexuality in secular and some catholic schools is widely disparate. The campus party scene is hyper-sexualized, represented by popular theme parties with names like "CEOs and Office Hos." Women, sparked by the media's portrayal of sex, are taught to cater to men's raunchy fantasies, using their bodies as poker chips in a high stakes game for potential intimacy. Many of the women Freitas interviewed portrayed casual sexual activity as the only way to a long-term relationship. One student likened sex with a stranger to getting to know someone before spending time and resources on a date. Students at these schools tend to completely separate God and sexuality, viewing sex as a requisite of the college experience and reacting against religious mores against lust.

Which brings me to our own Boston University. BU is amazingly diverse; multiple realities exist on our mile-long campus. My experience at Boston University is very different from the perspectives of many of the students Freitas interviewed. During my three years of college, I have been in one long term relationship and am in the process of committing to another. I have friends and acquaintances who range across the board in terms of romantic situations. Some are celibate, some single and part of the hook-up scene. I know people who are still dating their high-school sweethearts, and others who met their partners in college.

Many of us came to BU for its diversity. We hoped to learn from those who think and act differently than we do. Why then, does Donna Freitas write of a lack of communication about sex and religion on secular college campuses? Why is sex a taboo on our campus? Freitas calls for open conversation on sexuality and religion. I second her motion. We can learn so much from each other. Why don't we start?