Review: It happened in Hell

 It seemed to me that this book set out to do two main things. One was to demonstrate that so many of our notions of what goes under the label 'hell' are not well rooted in scripture. The other thing was to promote the doctrine (or is that something else, like event?) of the harrowing of hell. Implied in the first of those projects is a weakening of the notions of 'hell' as permanent, conscious torment. Indeed maybe more than weakening. As I read, I recalled several times that the credal statement in Tudor English "He descended into hell" is translated more recently (the ELLC texts, for example) "He descended to the dead" -Earls doesn't mention this (unless I missed it) but it shows support for his core contention that the word 'hell' needs to be considered carefully in contemporary English usage and theology based in English language. I was and am convinced that Earls is right that the underlying words are 'sheol'* and 'hades'** in Hebrew and Koine Greek respectively. He also deals with a couple of other Greek words (gehenna and tartarus) that are used as well as the word 'paradise' though the substantial points concern sheol and hades. The basic take-away in this is that they don't refer to the medieval torture chamber but rather are simply the abode of the dead. I think that he substantiates this point thoroughly and helpfully: convincingly, indeed.

The second project of commending a doctrine of what has often been termed 'the harrowing of hell'. To do this Earls adduces much scripture and many relevant sermons and writings of early and medieval church teachers of the faith. This is quite convincing in the amount of literature and scripture that can be brought to bear. It is hard not to agree that there is something here that has been neglected by much of modern protestant and especially evangelical teaching. Though it is worth noting that Luther and, to some extent, Calvin both saw it and taught it. It is there in embryo in the creed 'He descended to hell'.

Where I found myself worrying away at what was shared was in relation to the way that the abode of the dead was described by Earls himself. He seems to take the imagery fairly literally in the way he talks about what sheol/hades is. I think what disturbed me about this is that it seems to me that we need to re-locate these 'descriptions' culturally and world-viewishly. It kept feeling to me like I was expected to endorse and believe in the ancient three-decker universe: a firmament (that is a solid dome) above the earth, a flat-ish earth and water underneath and above the solid dome. In this scheme the abode of the dead is pictured as being under the earth (and presumably still above the underlying waters). Earls narrates this imagery and at one or two points, asks us to take it "literally". Well, I'm sorry, I can't: I understand the universe to be structured in a different way and cannot find a way to take seriously the idea that there is literally somewhere beneath our feet, a chamber full of dead people.

There is a lot of work done through the middle of the book by the parable of Dives and Lazarus. I agreed that it is a story using imagery from the wider culture of second Temple Judaism. And I agree that this in itself doesn't invalidate details being taken seriously. Page 51: "This parable doesn’t define Hell in the eternal sense— it shows the pre- resurrection spiritual landscape." I quibble slightly in thinking that 'riffs off' might be more to the point than 'shows'. I kept feeling that Earls makes too much of what are (in my view) incidental story-specific details. He makes doctrine out of what I think are probably best understood as narrative devices and culturally familiar tropes. I think that it is unsafe to make much more of the parable than that there is spiritual peril for the rich and God cares for the poor. It is too speculative and culturally specific or particular to read much more out of it than that. -Particularly in view of the philosophical, world-viewish and theological questions below.

The difficulty for me is that it brings me to this: there's also another problem, theological-philosophically, which remained unaddressed: what is the medium of subsistence of these dead? Presumably it can't be the bodies they had before they died since those are in their graves (or incinerated ... dismembered ).

Relatedly, on p.50 we are told that there is awareness of some kind for the awaiting dead. But I could only then question further: what is the medium of awareness? A body? Some quasi physical realm? God's own awareness? An equivalent of a kind of cyber space? -I have awareness because I have a living physiology that supports it. In some circumstances that awareness can be switched off by physical detriments or processes.

I think that with this imagery and narrative of sheol/hades we have to ask ourselves questions analogous to how we read Genesis1 and Genesis 2 and 3 (as well as other passages, but these can serve as pars pro toto). That is, if we know the physical structure of the universe is not the three-decker universe, how do we find sustenance in these passages as disciples? What insights can we discover to live in the wider world in which we seek to do the work that the Spirit leads us into?

I guess that is what I'm left with. I think Earls is right that we should take seriously the Harrowing of Hell. However, I don't think that means taking it literally, any more than I think we should take literally the imagery of the earth being made in 6x24 hours or the picture of a world surrounded by water with a bubble of air contained above by some kind of crystal dome and below by a firm earth which sits atop the water below it (indeed, now I think on; what is gravity in such a picture -to give 'up' and 'down'?)

I think that this story leaves me, at least, thinking that I do want to affirm that Christ conquered death and liberates those 'captive' in death leading to resurrection. I'm not sure of what the relationship of space and time are in respect of the abode of the dead to our everyday world. But I don't think that excavations of the earth will ever uncover a chamber once full of dead 'spirits' (or still full of them -is it one resurrection or two simply experience by us in two space-times?) I **think** that my take is that when we die we are 'held' in God's remembrance; the medium of our subsistence is not physical but related directly to God's knowing of us. I'm personally skeptical of how conscious we might be between death and Resurrection. And in that matter, I note that the term 'sleep' has been used in scripture and I further note that the fourth Gospel seems to picture an immediate personal awareness of resurrection after death. So I sit light to drawing too many implications from the harrowing of hell imagery or the folk-storying of intermediate states. I suspect that these are ways to affirm or assert that we are not 'lost' and that there is a future for us beyond our graves. I think that the question of how souls in this kind of picture subsist, is a definitive question in exposing the metaphorical nature of the language and imagery. 

I'm bothered by something on p.77 "If he had just been asleep in the tomb since the crucifixion, then he could not have been with the thief in paradise on the same day he died."  -but that presupposes a co-ordination of timelines or that there is a literal underworld running on the same beat of time as us. However, the immateriality (or perhaps the other-materiality?) of the abode of the dead would make calculations based in our space-time problematic (time ran differently in Narnia -if you want an example of the kind of issue I'm trying to indicate). I'm not sure at all that we can give this such literality: it does not have to be literal to be reassuring. My marginal note on this went: "the question here is was the body in the tomb? And if so, what of Jesus descended and where to?" There are answers to this that veer into Apollinarianism, and there are good reasons to avoid that. 

Philosophically I'm probably a non-reductive materialist, and I think that [the wholistic strands of] biblical teaching support this. And that means that we have to ask what might sustain the being of the dead if not a physical or physical-analogue (Paul's "spiritual bodies" come to mind). But in scripture there is this world and there is the new creation. How would we subsist in this 'former' creation without embodiment? This is the lacuna in Earl's account. The dead are under the earth -but not in their graves. These, then, are their resurrection bodies? I think not. 

This is picture language for God's preserving of us through death and calling for hope in the conquering of death by the Resurrection of the Christ. The details of the story and imagery are to encourage us to see the depth and width of the scope of resurrection, not to give us a photo-realistic physical picture. I wonder whether it might help to consider the image of the Harrowing of Hell as a variety of apocalyptic? This would resonate with the 2nd Temple era and culture, I think.

Earls appears to dismiss this  eg, inter alia, on p.99 "Cyril affirms the descent as a real, redemptive action—not symbolic rhetoric." But this false dichotomy misses an important point. All language is symbolic to varying degrees. I would affirm the descent as a real redemptive action. However 'descent' is a metaphor unless you really do believe in a physical underworld cave for the spirits of the dead. In a sense, that is symbolic of entry into death (a phrase that is itself metaphorical -for there is no other way of talking about these things except by such metaphorical [symbolic] language). In such a metaphor we are asked to 'see' death as a move away from the living, descent is an image of caves or cellars where light is feeble and people generally don't want to spend much time and it implicitly contrasts with the 'upness' of the land of the living. It is real in that something actual is being proposed: something happens and something is accomplished. Further, the proposal is that the symbols (that is verbal or visual signs pointing to things 'in the world' via an idea or concept in the mind which we hope to share something of by the deployment of the symbol -that is word or image or proxy therefor) have some kind of indicative power, they gesture towards a perceived reality with enough analogy for that gesture to be meaningful to a conversation partner. So it is not rhetorical if 'rhetorical' means deceptive or misleading expression. It is not seeking to persuade us of something that is to our detriment, rather to our betterment. So, it is possible to see what Earls is arguing for is in fact 'symbolic' without suggesting that it is unreal. My quibble is with the language and imagery being apposite for contemporary western people who do not share the cosmology and who are not philosophically dualist in that sort of way. We want, when pressed, to know what the medium of subsistence (as I term it) would be for putative souls of the dead.

So, with respect to this following sentence on p.193 "This is the Harrowing of Hell. Not mythology or fantasy. Not a metaphor. But the cosmic moment of reversal, when Christ stepped into the deepest human exile and turned it into a highway home." I have to insist that it is indeed metaphor. But it isn't fantasy though, in that it is a pointing to something real and existential for us. In fact the second sentence there translates the imagery in just the way I'm trying to suggest has to happen for us contemporary westerners. We have no experience, as pre-dead people, of death. Any language referring to it has to be metaphor based on our experiences of being alive in this physical world as we know it. It cannot be literal because we do not knowo in experiential terms, what it refers to. The metaphors attempt to tell us important things to give us hope, comfort, tranquility or equanimity in the face of death rooted in the action of God in Christ.

I think Earls is rightly trying to insist that something real and momentous has taken place. However, it is problematic to also insist that it is literally expressed. It cannot be.

A different though slightly related matter comes up on p.193 "The gospel's central theme is that Jesus died to forgive our sin. That through the blood shed on the cross and the sacrifice made by Jesus, we were forgiven and cleansed of the curse of sin we inherited from the first Adam." Having lauded the Christian East for not losing the Christus Victor motif and retaining the Harrowing of Hell, it rang oddly to me that  Earls simply repeats this, the western take. The East leans more to immortality than forgiveness. I've seen and heard Eastern Christians not brought up in the West, genuinely perplexed by the characterising of the gospel in terms of forgiveness of sin. They see and hear the Harrowing in terms of life from death and bringing immortality, not forgiveness. They see the enemy primarily as death not sin. Does that not sit better with Earls's argument?

I read this book partly because I think that there is a place for considering the Harrowing of Hell as a hope-giving image of the work of God in Christ around the Cross and Resurrection. I'd like to make more room for it liturgically on Holy Saturday like the Eastern Orthodox do. However, I'd value too being able to spend time in waiting on Holy Saturday, observing God's hidden works and honouring that sometimes we are called to sit with death (of hopes, beloved people, projects, etc) for a time and consider how surprising resurrection might be. I think we can do both, but the celebration of the Harrowing of Hell, for me, properly belongs with the Resurrection.

In the above, I've hardly commented on the matter of hell as a doctrine of separation into conscious eternal torment. I do agree with what Earls writes on p.198 "... the Lake of Fire is not Hell, it is not even a “place,” but a symbol of God's ultimate judgment and purification, where all that is evil is consumed, and all that is good is refined and restored."

Notes

* See page 30 The Hebrew word שְׁאוֹל (Sheol) is a noun that appears 65 times in the Old Testament. Some bible versions translate it as “grave,” or “pit,” while others translate the word as it should be, Sheol the abode of the dead.

** Page 35 "... the Septuagint nearly always translates the Hebrew Sheol as Hades." And, page 37 "Hades is not the same as eternal punishment— it is a realm awaiting resurrection."

 

Links for the Review:

It Happened in Hell on Amazon

Glenn Earls’ Website

Tag: #ItHappenedInHell

 

A review of Faithful Exchange

 My interest in Christian considerations of economics goes back decades. I studied economics at A level before I started university and have recently -in the last three or four years- been reacquainting myself with the discipline particularly as I got interested in the way that Keynsian economics had continued to be sidelined by Mrs Thatcher's handbag economics -now playing in governments near you as thinly disguised austerity. More recently, I've become well acquainted with modern monetary theory (#MMT) and I've been considering the labour theory of value. I spent a number of years thinking in odd moments (while life rushed me along) about how money works -as MMTers often say, contemporary mainstream economics teaching actually doesn't do much with money; merely noting it as a medium of exchange and sitting it in a demand-supply market framework in monetarist theory. This has had me puzzling over how money actually works as a human cultural artefact. I felt that, when I discovered MMT, here was something that made sense of the various things I had been seeing, considering and remembering. This is the reason why #FaithfulExchange looked interesting to me, and it gives me an 'angle' on understanding to evaluate the book.

My own approch to political economy is shaped heavily by understanding that there is a Divine option for the poor and that justice (an expression of neighbour-love) is a primary category for God's self-revelation within our social and cultural landscapes. I salute this book's author for taking the phrase 'political economy' seriously. I think it is an important framing rather than simply 'economics'.

 Faithful Exchange sets off with an extended brisk walk through the whole of the Christian scriptures, a narrative approach to theology. It's an approach considering the contents and presentation of history and in doing so, paying more attention and highlighting those parts that bear more directly on the question of money and economy. It is good to have this and to see it done mindful of the work of biblical scholars. One of the things that comes through this is that there is a multiplicity of voices and concerns represented in the flow and eddies of what is now captured in the Bible. This takes time to work through but ultimately I found it helpful because it gives a good reminder of how differently various biblical texts are situated and reflect different historical and cultural developments and ideologies which impact on political economies in practice. -And so invites us to consider the ways that God and God's people have tried to live faithfully with differing political economies. I did also find helpful to take such a walk through the scriptures and to consider the different political-economic matters raised along the way. These are handled with good but not intrusive awareness of the critical conversations around the various texts and their backgrounds. It was good to be reminded of how many different approaches the NT shows to matters of money, sharing, common life, engagement in society and household.

I also appreciated the overview of western history in relation to things like usury, slavery and related matters of social justice. In fact, I'm considering that this book would be a useful text book sort of addition to a bibliography for a course on culture or Christian approaches to political  economy.

A couple of times in parts of the book I had to do a double take when capitalism societies seemed to be uncomplicatedly presumed to be better in terms of human wellbeing than the so-called communist societies of the middle of the twentieth century. The reason for my double take is well summed up by a fellow Mastodonite, Geoff Cox: 

"... depends on the frame of reference adopted for the comparison.  My guess would be that if 'the manufactured famines, the repression, the deaths' within countries are compared, 'communist' regimes like the Soviet Union and China are worse; but if you compare whole systems, for instance the British Empire's responsibility for the slave trade, manufactured famines in Ireland, Bengal, etc...; or compare China's relatively benign foreign policy with America's military interventions and undermining of democracy and human rights all around the world - then capitalism looks far worse." https://climatejustice.social/@GeofCox/115388415806262523

These things are recognised in outline later on, but it did seem to this reader that it would have been better to have given something of that recognition at the very points where a comparison was made which gave the impression of "Communism bad, capitalism good". I mention this because it is vitally important that we recognise that the harms that have gone on and been justified or even excused by appeal to 'free markets' (which have rarely, if ever, existed) and 'choice' (which has usually been restricted but the restriction obfuscated by marketing). It's all very well to point at others and see them as dupes of propaganda or, worse, simply bad people and yet not to consider that our own attention may have been directed and that we may have accepted the spin offered by our own societies' dominant stories and slogans. The Christian faith has a stake in demolishing such strongholds of mis- and disinformation.

There's interesting consideration of the issue of slavery and recognising the different emphases of various biblical writers. I personally felt that the author cedes too much to acceptance of slavery without considering more weightedly that the NT writings point to a kind of ultimately-undermining approach (Philemon being the exemplary text in my view). There's a dialogue within scripture between, as I would see it, a tactical and safeguarding acceptance of the way things are and a push towards living in ways that undermine or circumvent a practice that denies the equality of all be before God and the shared siblinghood of all, especially intensively acknowledged among followers of Christ. But I understand why it is presented so, and it is important that we consider the face-value difficulties presented by the biblical texts. It's also important to note this is an example of both the narrative approach and also understanding the task to be about political economy not merely economics.

Once the biblical narrative and related content has been gone through, it's church history. Though I should, I feel, put down a marker here: church history from a western, Graeco-Roman perspective. It might be good to consider, for example, the Syrian churches, Armenian, Mar Thoma, Ethiopian. Though admittedly these have less influence on what we, western, readers actually inherit as Christians.

It is quite salutary, after the biblical narratives, to consider their reception by the earliest Christian communities and their thinkers and influencers and then trace some of those themes forward through western Christian history and thought.

One thing I think it would be good to consider further is what money actually is and means. As mentioned above, I've become interested in Modern Monetary Theory -"sovereign currency powers", as I sometimes call it. I think that when considering political economy as Christians, this is a vital thing to wrestle with. I'd commend readers to look up Stephanie Keen's work or Richard Murphy. Richard is a Quaker and brings Christian values to his exploration of political economy without alienating those who don't share his faith.

This is a long-ish book covering quite a lot and I think needs time to absorb and think about.

Links to book:

Faithful Exchange on Bookshop

Faithful Exchange on Fortress Press

David Opderbeck’s Website

Tag for this book: #FaithfulExchange

Comment on review for Faithful Exchange

This review is given for a book that I received in e-format for the purposes of review. I was not obliged thereby to treat the book any more favourably in my review. Part of the deal was, though, that I'd review it within a month of receiving it. Therefore, as it is a long book, at the point of first publishing this review, it had not been fully read. The review should be added to and further edited as the book is completed.

 

USAican RW Christians misunderstand "socialism"

 The other day on Mastodon, I came across an article about left-wing politics and Jesus. It appears to have been written from a Christian-nationalism sort of perspective and, well it seems so far off: it's a straw-man misunderstanding coupled with prejudice.  I feel it deserves comment at least for my own interest. The first para is odd, really, an 'argument' that needs unpacking to see that it is more a pretext for a prejudice, I think. 

"One of the most bizarre arguments for “Jesus was a socialist” comes from people who say, “Jesus healed and fed people for free; therefore, He was a socialist.” When governments can feed people for free by multiplying loaves and fishes, heal people by touch or a word from a government agency, or raise people from the dead, then I’ll become a socialist. The thing of it is, people who want free college and free healthcare and politicians who promise such things believe that government is god and can turn stones into bread. Our nation’s motto is “In God We Trust” which means in practice “In Government We Trust.” As often as they try, governments can’t perform miracles."

There are several things going on in this. First, though, I think that I've not really come across Jesus offering 'free healthcare' as an argument for socialism in the way laid out there. The argument doesn't get made that way; the author is mischaracterising the thinking for the sake of dismissing a label. I think that perhaps the author has seen some people taking issue with right-wing perspectives which seem to argue that there's a Christian moral imperative not to have government providing things like healthcare for free. 

Some rhetorical responses do indeed suggest that the Jesus that right-wingers purport to follow did actually give this away for free at the point of need. It's not an argument for socialised healthcare when used like that, it's a device to indicate that the right winger has a potential incompatibility hidden in their presuppositions. It is to suggest that there may be more discussion to be had and that perhaps the right-winger has missed something about how the values they espouse might actually need more consideration. 

The actual arguments for socialism from a Christian value base lie elsewhere and are more widely drawn. So to dismiss 'socialism' this way fails to deal with the main arguments of Christian Socialists and contributes to a straw man approach which may make supporters feel like they are 'owing the libs' or something, but really fails to convince people who actually do hold the position.

There's also a practical theological issue about the matter of miracles and healthcare (or other things that a government might do). I think my concern about the gesture towards a position outlined in that blog post could be illustrated as a big contribution to problematising the position as stated.

I have known several Christian medical doctors and health workers during my life. They believe the healthcare they offer and the health improvements they bring about by their service and efforts are God's work. They consider that in some way they are continuing the healing work of Jesus albeit by normally non-miraculous means. They are using their God-given talents to bring about a life which is more abundant for those they treat. Is that not God's work? Or does only 'miraculous' healing count? The lack of 'miracle' (and what is that exactly?) to accomplish something does not mean it's not something that God wants. I think that feeding hungry people using logistics  to transport and distribute food from places that have enough to share is godly. I don't dismiss it as a Christian simply because it doesn't involve miraculous multiplication. I don't dismiss God's provision because the money arrives in a bank account as a result of a contract rather than from the mouth of a fish.

Assuming that we are happy to acknowledge that a medic's work, in broad terms at least, is God's work, then the next matter to consider is this. Is it good or not for them to seek to work in such a way that the poorest of their patients are able to access their help? Is it a bad thing for their care to be free at the point of access? Or are we going to be comfortable with situations where only the relatively rich can benefit from good healthcare? As a Christian I can't be comfortable with that latter situation. 

-And by the way that's not, strictly speaking, 'socialism' -many who are not socialist in parts of the world that have systems of healthcare that are free at the point of use nevertheless consider that it is right and proper to have free healthcare, right wingers included. In my own country, even right wingers make arguments about healthcare provision explicitly reassuring their audiences that they think it should be free at the point of delivery. They have even framed it as helping people to participate in the (capitalist) economy.

Back to that article: it is simply not true that people who think that healthcare, education etc should be free at the point of access, believe that the government is God. Nope. Never happens. I know no-one, not one single person, who does. 

Ironically, of course, it can appear that the kind of nationalism espoused by RWers seems to raise questions about idolatry -of nation. (And it's not enough to claim that a nation and its government are enacting God's agenda -because that's a claim that can be made, and has been made, for other nations and forms of government. It's only the start of a discussion not an end).

So what does drive many Christians toward 'socialist' approaches to thinking about public life and government policy?

Well for most it's rooted in considering the outworking of loving others as oneself, loving neighbour. Let's recall that such love is about willing and working towards the best for our neighbours. To be a bit more explicit: loving others as ourselves? -Well, on the whole, I exercise a degree of care towards myself by going to a medical appointment when something is 'up'. I therefore think that loving my neighbour as myself means making sure that they can do the same. (I vote accordingly and I lobby politicians and involve myself in political debate to try to retain that situation and to have it improve if possible; I see that as part of the outworking of Christian discipleship in pursuit of Christian values.) 

I note that this is still not 'socialism' but socialism is one of the political options that it is compatible with. However, a further consideration is a critique of capitalism. Let's say to start with that for Christians on the left, capitalism looks a lot like 'Mammon' and the 'love of money' -which 1 Timother 6:10 reminds us is "a root of all kinds of evil". Left-leaning Christians, then, on the basis of Jesus' and apostolic teaching are decidedly skeptical about letting what appears to be the idolatry of wealth be in the societal driving seat. It's hard to read James 2 and not feel that supporting making the rich richer and further impoverishing the poor is a major incompatibility with Christian discipleship and constitutes giving a pass to the moral hazard wealth clearly is in Christian teaching -don't forget James is merely expounding Jesus's warnings about wealth, selfishness and the value of each person including the poor and marginalised. 

Note also that James 4:1-6 seems to suggest that wealth is, in effect, stealing from the poor. It is the result of power relations that enable the haves to further extract value from the have-nots to their detriment. That passage implies that God considers that even the humblest in society are due the means to live dignified lives. Jesus's teaching and ministry indicate that the poorest are at the heart of God's concern (and incidentally, this fulfills the teaching of the Hebrew scriptures). To maintain an argument for the Christian-ness of capitalism, it has to be be convincingly argued that it both places the poorest and improving their lot at the heart of policy and concern across society and that there are effective and present ways to mitigate the moral hazard relating to wealth accumulation.

Coming back to James ... "Ah but...!" "Well, actually ..." Yes, yes: there is more to be said to close the gap between then and now and the circumstances in view. But let's note that the RW Christian perspectives often need similar further investigation and more careful extrapolation too. I'll not do that here and now. But I have written about related matters and will continue to do so. Suffice to say, for now, that I think that the most natural politics to come away from Jesus' teaching with is a politics that places improving the lot of the poorest at the heart and which is very skeptical about allowing greed and wealth accumulation to be in the driving seat of society. It also adds weight to the observation that 'trickle-down' economics doesn't seem to happen in practice. This is not only an observation of the last 40 years of western governmental policies, it is an observation of several thousand years.

Ultimate Rest -a review.

 A number of years ago I had a sea-change in my way of receiving communion and recently one of my colleagues in ministry confided that they had undergone a similar change. It was a move to recognising that it was all about the gift, about God's grace and allowing God in Christ to bless us. Previously he and I had been schooled in a free church sort of tradition that had the effect of making it all about our remembrance and somehow we'd imbibed the notion that we had to make it effective by having the right sorts of holy thoughts as we chewed and sipped. 

It seems to me that this approach is very consonant with what David Hewitt is exploring in this book: the change in posture from striving to receiving and resting.

The subtitle is 'The Essence of the Beautiful Gospel" and that is a helpful description. The beautiful gospel is that in Christ God as done everything to bring us into the divine life and so we rest in what God has done. As I read, the old song  'Do not strive' kept coming into my head. This book is an extended meditation and exploration of entering into God's Rest. It was good to be reminded latterly in the book that "if the version of the gospel you have heard doesn't sound to you like good news, then you've not heard the gospel". And I also found it helpful to be reminded that "the gospel has often been presented as a proposition, when in fact it is an announcement." I think that definitely bears reflecting on further.

The exploration and reflection takes us through various biblical passages and this is a strength of the book -that it is scripturally based but in a way that is not picking at minutiae but pulling out a major theme. I felt the approach to the early chapters of Genesis was helpful by focusing on the spiritual dynamics as they relate to contemporary readers which must surely be the right sort of approach.

I was intrigued by a reflection on the word 'insouciance'. David takes it positively as a state of mind of being unperterbed. This challenged me as my associations for the term are drawn from Peter Pan where the insouciance of youth is more focused on a sense of not caring about others.

I found the contemporising of Philippians 4:7 quite helpful too. 'Talk through everything at the beginning of the day or before things happen. And (if you cannot understand it all) be thankful for what you can see God is doing. God's peace becomes the hallmark of the day.' (Though I think that some of the meaning of the preceding verses is carried over into that rendering. The single verse goes like this: "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."). I felt that this was a useful peace of advice.

I think that this is a book to be read a chapter at a time and reflected on rather than read all the way through. As a reviewer I was asked to turn around the review in a month. I think I'd have liked to be able to take longer in order to really let some of the thoughts sink in before feeling I had to move one

I have to confess that I enjoyed too that this is a book written from a British context (Scottish to be more precise though he was brought up not far from where I was brought up in the English midlands) rather than north American. Not that I have anything against the latter but it was just nice to see something by a fellow Brit. I enjoyed too that the theological underpinnings of this mentioned names like the Torrance brothers and Karl Barth. Welcome too was the inclusion of insights by Julian of Norwich. There are a lot of quotes also from John Crowder.

I liked too that there are appendices with a practical slant and that these have been written by other people. I commend the collegiate approach especially in a book that has clearly been written from a community base.

I've also got some homework to do following on from reading this. David uses a couple of English language Bibles which I'd not come across before and I felt that their renderings of the passages discussed were helpful in putting things across and opening out layers of meaning. These weren't the only versons; David seems happy to use a variety (ESV, The Message ...) choosing according to which seems best to convey the meanings that he's wanting to emphasise. One of them I need to look up is The Mirror the other is the Passion translation.

I think whan I wanted more of was ways to help me/us to rest in God in practical terms. Now the appendices do this and there are nuggets of this in the text. It probably says more about where I'm at with it, but I did have a sense of 'yes, I know this' but what I am looking for is things that will help me to interrupt those times when I move away from acting out of peace or rest, to recall me. I recognise there are no easy ways in this respect; knowing the truth and picking oneself up to start all over again is the most likely rhythm of learning in this.

One of the strangenesses in the e-text as I received it, was the occasional changing colour of the typeface. I read white on black text most of the time because I tend to be reading these in the evening and I'm resting my eyes somewhat. So the fact that paragraphs, seemingly randomly (sometimes a sentence or two in) became grey or blue was disconcerting and sometimes required me to alter the light levels to see clearly. I imagine this as an artefact of the preparation of the text for publication which probably didn't show up to a proofreader who would have been simply reading in a more conventional way dark type on a pale background.

 

Links related to this review:

Ultimate Rest on Bookshop

Ultimate Rest on the Rethinking God with Tacos Podcast

Ultimate Rest on the Eat Me, Drink Me Podcast

David Hewitt’s Website

#UltimateRest

 

Retelling atonement forgiveness centred (10)

After quite a while, I return to this consideration because Richard Beck wrote a very interesting blog post about forgiveness. It's provocatively titled "God cannot forgive us", and is definitely worth a read. Interestingly, because of that title and the forceful way the argument begins, it might look as if Richard is taking a different and oppositional stance compared with my own as developed in the foregoing posts of this 'retelling atonement' series. I do not believe that this is the case on closer consideration.

I think the crux (!) of the point being made is this: "God is impassive toward human sin. God doesn't have emotional reactions about our sin. This is what Julian means when she says God "cannot be angry." And maybe even that needs further explication: "what it means to say God is impassive toward sin. God doesn't have triggered or conflicting emotions. Nor are there emotions within God that demand satisfaction or reconciliation."

I think that the essential thing here is something about divine timefullness (some might use 'timelessness' -but there are further philosophical issues there) and sovereignty meaning that God is not triggered (and that's a good theological use of the word!) by our sin, injustice, cruelty etc. God's loving nature is always merciful, always (and this is where I bring in the perspective /trajectory of this series) pushing against harm to the beloved with self-giving compassion.

Richard goes on to state:  "We cannot find a season in the heart of God (like the interval of time between the Fall and Jesus' death) when we were not forgiven. And if we cannot find a season in the heart of God when we were not forgiven that means we've always been forgiven." And again, this is consonant, I think, with what I've tried to develop in thinking along the lines projected by this series. In proposing the idea of the cross (and resurrection) as an eikon of forgiveness, I was making the point that these are a playing-out in our space-time of God's eternal forgiving-ness. The whole of creation, if we expand on Barth's point cited in one of the earlier posts, is built around this.

I think that this is very congruent with what Richard writes towards the end of his post: "if by "forgiveness" you mean a change in the heart of God, this is impossible. God cannot "forgive" if you are describing forgiveness as an emotional flip-flop. Forgiveness can only ever name God's eternal posture of mercy toward human sinfulness, something that never wavers or changes."

My addition to that is to say that the cross/resurrection is an eikon -an incarnation of mercy and the 'reconciliation' of love and love in a pluriform universe such as the one in which we find ourselves.

For the start of this post-thread, go here.

Grievance politics -ethical?

 Reading an article about the way populist leader turn grief into grievance and then to support, these sentences gave me pause for thought.

 pretty much every 

successful populist or authoritarian leader finds ways to riff on shared loss — falling living standards, defeat in war, loss of empire or status or prestige — as a source of grievance and thus political power.

My pause was around these two questions: how would a left-wing version of this go? And; would it be ethical to do so?

I guess the answer to the first is readily found in history. There have been revolutions and uprisings which have "riffed" on the losses experienced by the downtrodden (losses of just shares in wealth, of security, family life, respect etc) and the grievances turned (with some justice) upon those who perpetrate injustices and violence directly as well as upon the wealthy who operate and direct the systems to their own advantage. There is an element of a zero-sum situation. In such cases wealthy people and their collaborators have been targeted. Often there has been some justice in this: they have been people who have been held to account for real crimes small and large. Sometimes (and there are still arguments about how frequent or inherent) relatively innocent people have become suspect and 'rounded up' and the situation has become an opportunity to settle old scores that have little to do with justice.

The left wing version then would focus grievance on holders of structural power, usually mediated by holding much wealth particularly from being a rentier. And this raises the issue about how deserved the opprobrium may be.

Grievances can be deserved or relatively undeserved. To me, it looks like having a sense that there are powerful people who are maintaining their power (usually correlated with wealth) by inflicting degrees of misery on many others. The injustice of that deserves grievance. Blaming migrants for trying to make a better life and avoid misery seems relatively injust, particularly if on further investigation we discover their migration and seeking a better life is driven by the injustices of the aforementioned powerful.

Structural injustice isn't solely or even mainly about people, individually or collectively. Focussing on persons leaves the probability that removing office holders or staff leaves the system intact. One despot replaced by another despot still leaves oppression in place. And yet people still form the system and can be appealed to in order that they might not co-operate, or may sabotage. Leaders might, sometimes, be prevailed upon to make significant changes.

An ethics about this would recognise the harms that change might involve and what kind of changes might invoke what kinds of harm. Obviously that would be considered alongside the existing harms and the 'price' of business as usual.

I note a further dimension, captured later in the article:

how do we defuse this grief to grievance pipeline? If, as Vamik Volkan argues, it’s through a process of collective mourning, then what would that even look like in cases where what we’ve lost isn’t a person whom we loved, but a way of life, a sense of hopefulness about the future, or a healthy group identity with confidence and self-respect?

Now that's really interesting.

Formation for participraying -a PS

 Yesterday I started to read 'Answering God' by Robert Ellis. 'Towards a theology of intercession' is the helpful subtitle. The reason is that I discovered the book on my shelves, unread, and realised it looks like what I've been thinking about lately in the participraying short series of posts. I became interested in the lack of reflection on this topic in the meetings and I felt that it would be good for me to now feed the soil of reflection by seeking further input. 

The book seems to promise a somewhat philosophical approach to what is involved theologically in the issue. Much of it so far echoes thoughts and perspectives I have come to over the years of reflecting piecemeal on it. -But it's only the first chapter!. 

Anyway, one of the things I've been thinking about is the phrase "unanswered prayer" and I'm reminded by it's being mentioned in the book. For a long while I've felt it was a misleading or unhelpful characterisation. If it's right that God always hears our prayer and that God cares deeply for each and all, AND that God is always, in some sense, communicating with us (or striving to) then there can be no such thing as unanswered prayer. The issue is how is the prayer responded to by God. 

It might be better to consider the phenomenon being gestured to in the phrase 'unanswered prayer' as something like, "unrequited prayer" (I quite like that phrase -it might be a good title for an article on the matter). I also wondered about "unfulfilled requests" or "~petitions" but that seems perhaps a bit too like the phrase I'm troubled by. I think we need a phrase that at least hints towards the possibility that God wants to invite us into conversation of some sort about our requests. The request or petition is perhaps meant to be a starting point and not merely a seeking of a short answer but an exploration of our motives and defaults, of God's character and purposes and of the way the world is and how God and we relate to the wider world and creation; singly and together.

In terms of the 'participraying' dimension of this topic, I think that it raises -or, better perhaps, underlines the matter of corporate discernment processes. If we are to respond to God's responding to our raising a matter of concern (whether a request or something more tentative), then we need to be able to question our own motives and assumptions. Doing that corporately raises some delicate questions about developing a group who have the emotional intelligence (or maybe simply the kind regard that characterises neighbour-love) enough to understand how to challenge, or to raise a question that could be quite 'personal' in the sense that it may touch on deeply held convictions and or emotionally-laden matters and beliefs. It also invokes the need on the part of those challenged to respond well to such challenges. These are matters of individual and group formation. 

I can imagine scenarios where this might mean someone's concern or initial request is met within the group with something like, "I understand that this matters to you deeply, I feel something of your anxiety /anger" (Maybe others might chime in affirmatively here). "Could we sit with that for a bit? Would you unpack it a bit to help us to grasp what drives your concern emotionally?"

And in such a scenario, we shouldn't necessarily be assuming that the emotional response is awry of of God's concerns. The point is to understand whether God is in it to affirm, challenge or a bit of both? And, of course, this kind of dynamic could apply also to someone feeling that they have a sense of what God might be communicating about the topic. 

I think that this can be tricky: often there is a church culture which discourages us from pressing the questions that should be offered. Maybe from fear that it would cause affront (and that alerts us to the need, when we offer such insights, to offer them tentatively, inviting 'testing' and finding an inner posture of curiosity rather than being too certain at that point. That in turn would mean learning how to speak about our own inner experience to some extent. Learning how each of us processes possible insights from God, promptings of the Spirit and how we each pass up things that we suspect might merely be our own stuff. It would mean us becoming comfortable with discussing our theology and learning together about how to think about Providence. It would involve bearing with one another as we learn to process all of this. It would involve trust and some intimacy.

I guess we should also acknowledge that because God dwells with people and in situations, we also have to note that these processes may also 'carry' God (this is an image related to that phrase in the psalm about God being enthroned of the praises of his people). This questioning, exploring, self-examination, opening up to mutual scrutiny, mutual vulnerability is participating in God in prayer. It is part of prayer. It is Jacob wresting with the unnamed man at the Jabbok. It is Abraham dialoguing with God at God's instigation at Mamre.