This post may come off as condescending towards the denominations of my youth. I am still coming to terms with things, and writing is part of that process. That being said, I'm not accusing all charismatic christians of being delusional. There are plenty of authentic spiritual experiences in that environment and perhaps I will write about that one day. For now, I apologize beforehand if I sound overly negative.
If there is one negative scar that my religious upbringing has left on my life it is the distrust of emotion when mixed with religion. Oh sure, I have other scars that I have carried with me along the way, but in terms of the environments and beliefs that I was immersed in (at church, christian youth organizations, and spiritual retreats), "emotional experiences" are the one thing that I have recoiled from since I came back to faith.
It is telling that when I finally did come back to the Christian faith, it was by way of the liturgical tradition, the antithesis of the type of full-body experience of the "charismatic" Christianity that I had grown up with. The Charismatic movement seeks to engage the believer in a more intimate and mystical relationship with the Holy Spirit. This kind of thing has become almost a parody of itself in its most extreme form, Pentecostalism. Though most of the experiences I had were a far cry from the kind of rolling-on-the-floor-barking-in-tongues kind of thing, many of them did involve being "overwhelmed." Tears and laughter were a common expression of internal conviction and joy. In fact, it often seemed as if rapturous emotion was the goal, if not the sign, of a good christian.
And yet, even as a young man, I found myself beginning to doubt and become wary of that way of life. On one hand, the effects of these experience were fleeting and shallow. On the other hand, these experiences often seemed more due to mass hysteria and self-deception than they were due to any sort of actual mystical encounter. These doubts were only made more firm with my observations about the way that these experiences were achieved. For one thing, music was almost always involved. Overly dramatic sounds of swelling chords or tragic melancholy that seemed designed to produce a certain desired emotional reaction in the congregation. On the other hand, these experiences were always directed and guided. It all seemed... forced. Forced upon a hungry crowd that was ready to tell themselves that they "felt" something special. Heck, I even had people lay their hands on me to "impart blessing" only to find them trying to physically make me fall over. It all must sound surreal and ridiculous to an outsider, and sinisterly delusional to a non-believer. To me it just ended up being disappointing.
I left the church early into college. Angry, bitter, and disappointed, I felt like I had been living my life amidst self-delusion and lies. The more I reflected on all the false experiences I had witnessed and personally gone through, the more unsure I became that I could truly trust any of the experiences that I had gone through as a young Christian. To compensate, my spiritual search took a much more dry and intellectual direction. Once I started working my way back towards Christ, I took a stoic path. Preferring pews and incense to swelling synths and rapturous voices. I preferred services that were written down and that had been scrutinized for centuries instead of those that were left to the spontaneous "guidings of the spirit."
I had grown up in a world where doubting and thinking seemed to be frowned upon, and blind faith and emotions were given more credence than any conclusions reached with our limited, fallen, human reason. There is a lot of irony here. For our emotions are just as limited, fallen, and base as our intellect, and arguably more easily deceived. But of course, as I have learned, the irony goes both ways, for as I mature, I realize that emotions are an essential and valid way to make decisions and receive "truth." I am surprised it has taken me so long to figure this out. While philosophy, reason, and philosophy played a large part in my return to the church, so did literature and nature. In fact, though my "eureka moment" about the necessary existence of the soul was the result of a long logical process, it was brought on by a visceral reaction to nature's beauty. And my choice of liturgy over stage-lights, was more of a rejection of previous environments rather than of emotion. Kneeling between pews on a stone floor, while the Kyrie mingles with the incense, is a profoundly moving experience. Deeply emotional. A whisper can be as hair-raising as a scream, and in the reverence of the vaulted ceilings I could hear things that were previously hidden under the drums and guitars.
Humans are multifaceted beings. We are made of heart as well as mind. I have started to understand that and see that if I am to be "wholly" spiritually engaged, I must involve both my emotions as well as my mind. Otherwise, things seem to "dry out." Now, I am not saying that I have decided to seek out rapturous experiences, rather I am going to open myself up to have emotional reactions to the truths that have become more firm within me in recent years. After all, closing yourself up to feelings is as self-deceptive as tricking yourself into feeling something that isn't there. The trick will be finding the balance.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Giving in to the impulse
After years of fighting against returning to Christianity, a few years ago I finally gave up and returned to the flock. I use this defeatist language quite consciously, because for years a very strong part of me yearned to return, but I struggled against it. It felt like swimming upstream, but I didn’t want to give in because I wasn’t exactly sure where this impulse came from and if I could trust it. So what changed? Did I end up making sense of the impulse? Not really. In a way, I decided that it didn’t matter. And that fighting it didn’t really make sense. So I gave up, and gave in.
As I mentioned above, the reason I took so long to make a decision was because I was suspicious and confused about what was pulling me back to Christianity. The mystics among you might explain it as a some sort of spiritual movement. A cerebral Christian might say that it was the natural conclusion to years of seeking, finally coming to terms with undeniability of a perceived spiritual Truth. The cynic or unbeliever would say that I simply gave into a religious indoctrination that I have been unable to shake off since my childhood. At different times, I have agreed with all of you to a certain extent. I have seen my pull as something spiritual, as something intellectual, or delusional.
For a long time, I really struggled with this issue. I agonized over whether I was the subject of a kind of pavlovian conditioning that involved a church bell instead of a dinner bell. At my most cynical I was pretty sure that even though my rational mind knew that it was just a bell, I couldn’t help but salivate. But other days I would wake up certain that the more study and searching I did (which, in my defense, was quite a bit), and the farther I distanced myself from Christianity, the more reasonable it seemed. But I still couldn’t help but wonder how much of my brain was hardwired to see certain arguments and realities as reasonable. But, after a while, I realized something: it didn’t really matter what was pushing me towards a certain set of beliefs.
I came to realize that I would never be happy without Christianity. Whether it was because it had become undeniable, or because it was hardwired within me, all my attempts to disprove it or leave it behind were simply making me more unhappy. So I changed tactics. I embraced it. I thought, "if the whole point of this is happiness* and the only way I will ever be happy is to be a Christian. It doesn't matter why I am inexorably drawn back towards these things, the fact of the matter is that I am. So be it."
Now, I recognize the weaknesses of this approach. Heck, I even recognize how intellectually sloppy and even irresponsible it is, to a certain degree. At the same time, I cannot argue with the resulting peace that has come with this decision. I am also aware of all the other psychological forces at work, and how hard they are to extricate from the process, and that in the end I had to accept that the resulting peace of acceptance would be the same, regardless of what the driving force was. In some ways, perhaps this can help people who have been miserably fighting these forces for a long time too.
*I’ll admit that this premise is appoint of a lot of philosophical contention...
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Book Review: "A History of Christianity..." by, Diarmaid MacCulloch
A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
MacCulloch, the author, goes farther back on the timeline than what you would logically think of as purely Christian history; after all, the title claims to speak of the 3000 year history of a religion that has officially only been in existence around 2000 years. But it is impossible to speak of Christianity without addressing Judaism, as well as the philosophical developments of the Hellenistic mediterranean. From there he flies forward through the historical Christ, the early church, the development of the imperial church and the eastern churches, the Churches that eventually came from the patriarchate of Constantinople, the impact of islam, the Church during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the spread of the church across the globe, and finally the impact of American Evangelicalism. Not half bad for a one volume book.
The few faults I could find with this book are those of every history book, they will inevitably favor certain historical theories and ideas over other ones. This especially happens in the first 200 pages, where the story is a bit more uncertain and theoretical. And like most historians, MacCulloch favors certain figures with more attention than other people might have (Origen comes to mind) and is oddly succinct about others (I thought his section of Aquinas was quite succinct, and I can't remember hearing Duns Scotus even mentioned). But despite these acceptable and expected shortcomings, I found that the author is delightfully openminded and objective, keeping a respectful and enthusiastic tone about most every aspect of the Christian religion. He is quite candid about both the good and the bad effects that Christianity has had on the world.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book as a way to become familiar with the cultural and historical context in which Christianity exists today. It is readable and enthralling. I haven't seen a book of its type on the market which can rival it.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Book review: "The Last Word..." by, NT Wright
The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture.
ECA (my evangelical high school) dedicated a fair portion of their curriculum to biblical studies. Not only that, but they were fairly in-depth (more so than my required bible survey courses in college). But for the most part they were so out of date that they were bordering on ridiculous and obsolete in many areas. In the 90's we were using books written in the 70s and 80s that still represented the theology of the 50s. Very conservative theology of the 50s. As a result, when many of us left the high school, were faced with the real world and with up to date ways of thinking, we found our faith floundering. To a great degree, I think that many of the frustrations and doubts that former ECAers have with Christianity aren't doubts about the religion itself but with the image of it that we grew up with. The more I research and study theology, the more pluralistic it seems, and the more freedom that brings. N.T. Wright represents what I wish we had been taught in high school; not necessarily a representative of what I believe, but of what and how I wish we had been taught. He still represents a traditional view of the Bible and of Christianity, but he is up to date, openminded, and very well educated. If describing someone as traditional but not conservative makes any sense, that is what he is. Representative of this fact is the book I am currently reading The Meaning of Jesus, in which he dialogues with his friend Marcus Borg, prominent member of the Jesus Seminar, about the different historical and theological views on Jesus (I'll review this when I am done). Now, "The Last Word" was a short book (about 150 pages) and it tried to address a lot of things: different views on the bible, errors of the enlightenment and postmodernism, errors of fundamentalism, the importance of historical context, the Bible as a narrative view of the divine/human struggle, etc. Of course, the book is too short to really address any of these things properly and really falls short in the postmodern sections. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable overview of this man's theology and made me want to read more of his stuff. In a way it was comforting simply to hear someone discuss these issues in an intelligent manner, which in turn made me feel less like a fool for being so preoccupied with them. Did it change the way I think about anything? Not much. Did it encourage me to continue with my questions? Definitely.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
The problem of interpretation
I have been struggling with the bible for as far back as I can remember. I have never been comfortable with it. In part, I think it is because I was never taught to read it in a way that I can respect. Instead, school and church took a more "obey it. it is law" kind of approach, where I was simply expected to believe and not question. That demands a certain amount of faith that I have never had. Church perhaps had its reasons to do so (it is a church after all, made up of people who share the same core beliefs), and it has a necessary presupposition of biblical authority without which would be impossible to advance any sort of teaching. But I do place more blame on my christian school, which gave extreme priority to a right wing, non-intellectual, literalist approach to hermeneutics that seemed to fly in the face of any contemporary studies of philosophy, literary theory, or even biblical exegesis itself. Even as a teenager I couldn't help but have a hard time swallowing much of what they were trying to teach me.
As I grew up it became clear that a fundamentalist/literalist approach to scripture was not only ridiculous, it was itself unbiblical (just take the absurd flights of fancy that creationists are forced to take in order to justify this sort of behavior as an example). After all, much of the Bible was written not as literal instruction, but as poetry, allegory, etc. Of course, once you realize that the bible must be interpreted (though any literary theorist will tell you that even the most "literal" approach necessitates interpretation) then the threat of overwhelming subjectivity is nearly paralyzing.
Of course, I just made it worse by majoring and then getting a MA in literature. Not only that, but I have done so in the midst of the so-called post-modern age, the age of deconstruction. Derrida, Fish, Lacan, and the rest of their ilk have called into question (though admittedly full of paradoxes themselves) the availability, knowability and expressibility of knowledge through words (and therefore, at all). Everything seems like a power play of subjectivity. While this provides delicious and infinite approaches to a literary work, it is completely disconcerting when it comes to a text that is supposed to contain Truth.
Now some people may say that the Bible is different (and as a christian I should certainly hope so) because it is the living word of God and because the Holy Sprit empowers us in its readings. While this sounds great in theory, in historical practice we can see a church filled with schisms and heresy, all stemming from interpretative differences. Even if we accept that the Bible has authority we still run into the hermeneutical problem of how to access it.
Even NT Wright (a theologian whom I enjoy very much, but who isn't able to give a much better reason than the one I was given in my youth: postmodern interpretation is wrong just because) admits the problem: "... a tension developing between authority and interpretation: How far can a reinterpretation of the text go before it ceases to carry the authority which was the point of interpreting it in the first place?" His solution leans on tradition of interpretation and context. I can partially get on board with this, for New Historicism is also a product of the post-modern critical era and it has quite a bit in common with what he advocates.
I know this post is poorly structured and probably incoherent, and therefore meaningless to most of you (especially the critical theory jargon bits), but I am open to comments, disagreements, and reading suggestions.
As I grew up it became clear that a fundamentalist/literalist approach to scripture was not only ridiculous, it was itself unbiblical (just take the absurd flights of fancy that creationists are forced to take in order to justify this sort of behavior as an example). After all, much of the Bible was written not as literal instruction, but as poetry, allegory, etc. Of course, once you realize that the bible must be interpreted (though any literary theorist will tell you that even the most "literal" approach necessitates interpretation) then the threat of overwhelming subjectivity is nearly paralyzing.
Of course, I just made it worse by majoring and then getting a MA in literature. Not only that, but I have done so in the midst of the so-called post-modern age, the age of deconstruction. Derrida, Fish, Lacan, and the rest of their ilk have called into question (though admittedly full of paradoxes themselves) the availability, knowability and expressibility of knowledge through words (and therefore, at all). Everything seems like a power play of subjectivity. While this provides delicious and infinite approaches to a literary work, it is completely disconcerting when it comes to a text that is supposed to contain Truth.
Now some people may say that the Bible is different (and as a christian I should certainly hope so) because it is the living word of God and because the Holy Sprit empowers us in its readings. While this sounds great in theory, in historical practice we can see a church filled with schisms and heresy, all stemming from interpretative differences. Even if we accept that the Bible has authority we still run into the hermeneutical problem of how to access it.
Even NT Wright (a theologian whom I enjoy very much, but who isn't able to give a much better reason than the one I was given in my youth: postmodern interpretation is wrong just because) admits the problem: "... a tension developing between authority and interpretation: How far can a reinterpretation of the text go before it ceases to carry the authority which was the point of interpreting it in the first place?" His solution leans on tradition of interpretation and context. I can partially get on board with this, for New Historicism is also a product of the post-modern critical era and it has quite a bit in common with what he advocates.
I know this post is poorly structured and probably incoherent, and therefore meaningless to most of you (especially the critical theory jargon bits), but I am open to comments, disagreements, and reading suggestions.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Reopening the blog (again)
To those who are old readers: "welcome back."
To those who are new readers: "welcome."
This is a blog that evolved from a previous blog that focused on the spiritual and religious questions of a lost college student. But it didn't go very far last time I re-opened it, perhaps because I was too distracted with other things, or exhausted and tired of the anxiety that comes with asking questions to which you may never get a clear answer.
So why am I reopening this blog now? I have come to a point in my life where I can no longer simply float along ignoring all the nagging theological and philosophical questions that I have regarding faith and religion in my own christian context. It is humbling to see how many of my old questions (canon, scriptural authority and interpretation, authorship, human meddling in the construction of dogma, the availability and knowability of Truth, etc) are still just as pressing as they were back in the day. I would like to think that I come to this task with a greater sense of purpose, humility and maturity than I did 4-5 years ago; but I would be lying if I said that this process has been any less anxiety producing than it was back then. If anything, I have been gifted with a bit more experience under my belt (which in turn has created patience) and with time to read and research these topics more carefully.
So, if you will, feel free to join me in this adventure of understanding and acceptance that we call faith. Please feel free to comment, offer advice and questions, and to agree and disagree with me.
To those who are new readers: "welcome."
This is a blog that evolved from a previous blog that focused on the spiritual and religious questions of a lost college student. But it didn't go very far last time I re-opened it, perhaps because I was too distracted with other things, or exhausted and tired of the anxiety that comes with asking questions to which you may never get a clear answer.
So why am I reopening this blog now? I have come to a point in my life where I can no longer simply float along ignoring all the nagging theological and philosophical questions that I have regarding faith and religion in my own christian context. It is humbling to see how many of my old questions (canon, scriptural authority and interpretation, authorship, human meddling in the construction of dogma, the availability and knowability of Truth, etc) are still just as pressing as they were back in the day. I would like to think that I come to this task with a greater sense of purpose, humility and maturity than I did 4-5 years ago; but I would be lying if I said that this process has been any less anxiety producing than it was back then. If anything, I have been gifted with a bit more experience under my belt (which in turn has created patience) and with time to read and research these topics more carefully.
So, if you will, feel free to join me in this adventure of understanding and acceptance that we call faith. Please feel free to comment, offer advice and questions, and to agree and disagree with me.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Introductory Rant
After a day of reading about different aspects of Christianity (such as its relation to Judaism, the influence of neoplatonism, and the history of ecclesiastical councils...) I found myself suddenly overwhelmed by the seemingly unending strings of theological thought and possibility. Reeling, I went to take a shower to collect my thoughts... I groaned in frustration. "How can anyone claim to adhere to anything? So much of what we follow is the result of arbitrary human decision! It all seems so subjective!"
And indeed it does. And as such, shouldn't it be studied in detail before it is affirmed by a believer? But then, how can anyone but the most studious theologian ever make an informed decision? How can someone say the Nicene creed without having studied the council's decisions and the "heresies" it tried to correct? Why do western branches of Christianity accept the christology offered by the council of Chalcedon, but not the oriental churches? Does it even matter? (To give you an idea of why is seems so petty sometimes: the council of Chalcedon established that the nature of Christ is both fully human and fully divine in separate natures. The Oriental Churches (not to be confused with the Eastern Church), who accepted the previous councils, rejected this conclusion however, stating that that Christ's divine and human nature are not separate, but that he is of one nature that is both equally divine and human. To me, it almost seems like a question of semantics, arbitrary and subjective). From there it all splinters. Every church, every council, every denomination... splinters of interpretation, every branch claiming to have that special insight... And most members not even knowing what it is that they stand for, what they believe.
It is in times like these that I hold orthodox Jews in highest regard. It is no wonder that they spend such great amounts of their youth in study, scrutinizing their scriptures and commentaries. In the end, their awareness of their beliefs at least justifies their faith. So many Christians have no clue why they hold something to be true, they merely do. And among those who have studied their faith, most have merely studied "their way", with no real way to say if theirs is the "best" dogma because they haven't studied other theological alternatives. Sadly, even our seminarians tend to be stuck in "defensive theology", learning about other views from militaristic perspectives created to shoot down other ideas without any real desires for objectivism.
But even so, not everyone has the time nor the mental ability to dissect theology. This is where protestantism finds itself looking absurdly hypocritical. It staunchly defends individual rights of scriptural interpretation and looks down on Catholicism's emphasis on tradition. And yet, the average protestant believer, nay the average protestant church even, relies on traditional interpretation just as much as the church of Rome does. At least the catholics acknowledge their debt and reliance on past decisions. I suppose protestants at least have the luxury of dissent if they so please and the awareness of human error. But it is this same awareness that is driving me mad. Unable to simply rest in the decisions of our forefathers, I find myself compelled to go back farther and father, demolishing thousands of years of religion in an attempt to find a clean base on which to start building. Now, probably I will end up using those same bricks to rebuild my beliefs, but it is a maddening process because it is so large. I often pull out one brick, only to have 7 more fall on my head, leaving me dazed and overwhelmed.
In the end, I try to stick to the scriptures (and try not to think about the cannon, because that is another maddening issue) and use them to find the basics. Fortunately, when I really get swamped, I can always fall back on "God is Love" and his greatest commandment. Those beliefs tend to stay strong, and following them tends to keep me out of trouble.
This has turned into quite the rant. Obviously my mind is going back and forth this evening. I'll try to have a more coherent post next time.
And indeed it does. And as such, shouldn't it be studied in detail before it is affirmed by a believer? But then, how can anyone but the most studious theologian ever make an informed decision? How can someone say the Nicene creed without having studied the council's decisions and the "heresies" it tried to correct? Why do western branches of Christianity accept the christology offered by the council of Chalcedon, but not the oriental churches? Does it even matter? (To give you an idea of why is seems so petty sometimes: the council of Chalcedon established that the nature of Christ is both fully human and fully divine in separate natures. The Oriental Churches (not to be confused with the Eastern Church), who accepted the previous councils, rejected this conclusion however, stating that that Christ's divine and human nature are not separate, but that he is of one nature that is both equally divine and human. To me, it almost seems like a question of semantics, arbitrary and subjective). From there it all splinters. Every church, every council, every denomination... splinters of interpretation, every branch claiming to have that special insight... And most members not even knowing what it is that they stand for, what they believe.
It is in times like these that I hold orthodox Jews in highest regard. It is no wonder that they spend such great amounts of their youth in study, scrutinizing their scriptures and commentaries. In the end, their awareness of their beliefs at least justifies their faith. So many Christians have no clue why they hold something to be true, they merely do. And among those who have studied their faith, most have merely studied "their way", with no real way to say if theirs is the "best" dogma because they haven't studied other theological alternatives. Sadly, even our seminarians tend to be stuck in "defensive theology", learning about other views from militaristic perspectives created to shoot down other ideas without any real desires for objectivism.
But even so, not everyone has the time nor the mental ability to dissect theology. This is where protestantism finds itself looking absurdly hypocritical. It staunchly defends individual rights of scriptural interpretation and looks down on Catholicism's emphasis on tradition. And yet, the average protestant believer, nay the average protestant church even, relies on traditional interpretation just as much as the church of Rome does. At least the catholics acknowledge their debt and reliance on past decisions. I suppose protestants at least have the luxury of dissent if they so please and the awareness of human error. But it is this same awareness that is driving me mad. Unable to simply rest in the decisions of our forefathers, I find myself compelled to go back farther and father, demolishing thousands of years of religion in an attempt to find a clean base on which to start building. Now, probably I will end up using those same bricks to rebuild my beliefs, but it is a maddening process because it is so large. I often pull out one brick, only to have 7 more fall on my head, leaving me dazed and overwhelmed.
In the end, I try to stick to the scriptures (and try not to think about the cannon, because that is another maddening issue) and use them to find the basics. Fortunately, when I really get swamped, I can always fall back on "God is Love" and his greatest commandment. Those beliefs tend to stay strong, and following them tends to keep me out of trouble.
This has turned into quite the rant. Obviously my mind is going back and forth this evening. I'll try to have a more coherent post next time.
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