A Wrath-less God Has Victims

[I]t’s actually the non-angry god who appears morally distasteful, for ‘a non-indignant God would be an accomplice in injustice, deception, and violence.’

Maybe, I can’t help but wonder, we prefer that god, the one who is a passive accomplice to injustice, because, on some subconscious level, that is what we know ourselves to be.

Accomplices to injustice is an important phrase in this. I would connect this insight up with CS Lewis' noticing that wrath is (or at least can be and in God's case is) something driven by love. When we love someone or something, we are affronted, outraged and/or saddened by abuses and disparagement of the object of our love. If we are not affronted or outraged, do we really love? I think probably not. So if we believe God to be love, then something like wrath must be part of God's reaction to wrongs done to beloved creatures (and I know that begs all sorts of philosophical questions around the relationship between time and eternity). 'Beloved creatures' -that would be all of us.

That last line, though, is something to take away and use to reflect on our own being in the world and indeed on God's call.

A Wrath-less God Has Victims (by Jason Micheli):

Naming the Unnameable by Dr. Matthew Fox | Homebound Publications

I got hold of this book because I often find Matthew Fox's writings intriguing and stimulating. I read them not expecting to agree with everything but because I think he points his finger on things that we need to pay attention to. The challenge for me is to work out, sometimes, why I'm not at ease with some of the things he says and to work out how to deal with the issue he raises in a way that I find consistent with my own starting points.

This book is no exception.

I love the project of thinking about our namings of God. Not least because I think it is something that the Lord's prayer implicitly calls us to do -'hallowing the name' implies identifying what kinds of ways we might find to attempt to name God. That point also brings us to the matter of the difficulties with the project of naming God anyway -which the start of the book helpfully outlines, so at that level it is a useful and brief primer in the spiritual help and danger of naming God, noting the limits of language and human imagination faced with an infinite and very different being.

This book has a similar effect on me. I want to affirm some things but one thing bugs me. What I find I can't quite embrace is where some of the namings seem to equate God to creation in some way. The first point I ran into this was in the naming of God as the "planetary mind field". I find this difficult because of my own work on corporisations (principalities, powers, angels, dominions etc): these I identify as emergent 'properties' ("entities" might be better) of human and other communities under certain conditions. What Fox seems to be naming, in this case, is actually potentially a corporisation. This is very much a being of creation. It may be a being which could be a residing place for God's nearer presence (much like an angel in the Hebrew scriptures) but it is not itself God.

I have similar issues with naming God as evolution and the mind of the universe. I sense that there is potential in this to honour the panentheistic intent and also the transcendent dimension, but that work seems not to have been done and leaves open the potential for evolution to be deified with the kind of difficulties CS Lewis dramatises in that conceptualisation in That Hideous Strength -where identifying evolution with deity ends up justifying eugenics. I think some kind of wrestling with issues of providence needs to be undertaken in this respect to give an account of immanence which doesn't drift into eugenics, in effect. While I agree that so much of evolution needs to be understood with a symbiotic and synergistic content, yet there are theodicy issues. This bit of the book tends to come over a bit too simplistic-'new-age' in feel.

It is one of the difficulties for me that I keep bumping into when I read Fox. I applaud the desire to honour and recognise the immanent God, I warm to a panentheistic perspective but I do wish that he could find a way to conceptualise these things that doesn't keep falling over into identifying God with created things. Or at least that's how it keeps coming over to me: panentheism tips over into pantheism which is a very different thing and has a set of problematics all of its own.

I hope this comes over as 'friendly' criticism. I really do warm to much of Fox's project, but I also quite understand why some people have a real problem with it, and because they don't 'get' the heart of the project, they bluster off at it. For the record I think Fox is right in affirming the joyous, loving, justice-making delight in creation and Spirit and the life-affirming fundamental stance which resonates with the best of the early Charismatic movement and of, for example, Hasidic Jewish spirituality. I think he is right in wanting to strengthen spirituality to support us in struggle against ecocidal trajectories, policies and lifestyles.

I was interested to note that Deepak Chopra is quoted several times, in a way that seems to take him as authoritative. I guess I'm not necessarily convinced of that. I think I'd have liked to have seen some of these namings argued rather than having Chopra and medieval Christians quoted as if beyond questioning. Don't get me wrong; I'm happy to learn from Aquinas, Eckhart and others and I will be happy to find that Deepak Chopra may have a way of saying something that is helpful and productive of insight -but I don't take their word for it; particularly when the conceptualising of the relationship between God and creation seems hazy and perhaps even unhelpfully blurred.

So I'd say that there were some bits of this that I found helpful and inspiringly put. There were other bits that didn't work so well and might even be cause for concern.


I should say, I got an e-copy of this book as part of a review package which asked that I read the book and post a review on my blog in exchange for a free copy. There is no obligation or pressure for me to publish a review which is anything other than my own response and evaluation.

Naming the Unnameable on Amazon
Naming the Unnameable Website
Matthew Fox Website
Fox Institute of Creation Spirituality Website

Please tag your posts for this book as #NamingTheUnnameable

Naming the Unnameable by Dr. Matthew Fox | Homebound Publications

Rants to Revelations: a review

I hadn't taken in when I got this for review, that it is written by a 'Unity' minister; a term I was not familiar with. The Author Ogun Holder, we discover through reading the chapters of the book, was brought up a fairly traditional conservative Christian in the Carribean and later moved to the USA and following something of a crisis of faith (though not the kind that typically goes under that label) found himself in a Unity church. As we read the book, those who haven't ever encountered 'Unity' churches or people discover that it is a New Thought movement expression, so an essentially monist philosophy with a penchant for the actualisation of thought into reality -which is a way of thinking that tends to inform Prosperity teaching, and indeed one of the chapters deals with that facet of the teaching.

However, it would be very unfair to let you think that Prosperity teaching and monism as usually understood in Christian circles characterises well the writing in this book. I have had some of my preconceptions disarmed and have come to an appreciation through Ogun's writing that many 'put downs' of this kind of thought are just too simplistic: there are people who inhabit this kind of thought-world who do so with nuance, understanding of the hard realities and pastoral grace. In addition, it seems to me that in nuancing and grappling with hard realities, Ogun shows that sometimes we come closer to one another's ways of thinking than the set-piece standard positioning might have us think.

I enjoyed the style this is written in. It's down to earth and conversational and a kind of theological reflection on aspects of life. So there's an often-witty telling of an incident and then an unpacking of what this might mean and the implications and 'theology' that might help understand it helpfully. You almost don't notice that there's some really good quality thinking going on at the back of it all! Each chapter is a different incident, so rather than being a long argument, this is a series of cameos which makes it easy to read in short chunks.

Two things were particularly interesting, for me. One was the prosperity thing and the other was the personhood of God in a monistic view. The chapter on the manifesting of ones desire which is also called in the Unity Movement 'prosperity' is written with some very interesting caveats about how we are embedded in a larger reality than just ourselves; this is no solipsist text and so there is a useful nuance about responsible and 'realistic' desire in this respect. I still felt that the really hard issue about people in regions of starvation didn't get a helping hand from the reflection, though I thought that what was said was potentially amenable to some kind of parallel reflection to that which I give in a chapter in Praying the Pattern where I note that a lot of prosperity gospellers don't really take account of the faithfulness of those in famine areas who pray for food and don't get it and they forget that the planet is only so big and that consumption at USAmerican levels would require about five Earths. I get the sense that Ogun could deal with that.

I was interested to note the philosophical way that he deals with the issue of personhood, and while still maintaining an ultimate non-personal reality (I think) he manages to deal with the immanence of the Divine in such a way as to make personhood more 'necessary' than monism usually does, although I suspect it probably still comes down to a necessary human-interface in some way. That said, I would also have to note that in Christian theology, God transcends personhood as well, so it's not a clear-blue-water division.

This is a book I wouldn't have chosen to read were it not for reviewing it: I would have shied away from the New Thought basis. However, I'm happy to have read it and to have had some preconceptions challenged and to have food for thought.

  Rants to Revelations: Unabashedly Honest Reflections on Life, Spirituality, and the Meaning of God

How your friends' friends can affect your mood

One of the aspects of our being inherently social is that, well, look at this: How your friends' friends can affect your mood - life - 30 December 2008 - New Scientist: "Recent research shows that our moods are far more strongly influenced by those around us than we tend to think. Not only that, we are also beholden to the moods of friends of friends, and of friends of friends of friends - people three degrees of separation away from us who we have never met, but whose disposition can pass through our social network like a virus."

Now, cutting a long story short, but something I keep banging on about, the reason is probably empathic mimicry.
"Some researchers think one of the most likely mechanisms is empathetic mimicry. Psychologists have shown that people unconsciously copy the facial expressions, manner of speech, posture, body language and other behaviours of those around them, often with remarkable speed and accuracy. This then causes them, through a kind of neural feedback, to actually experience the emotions associated with the particular behaviour they are mimicking."
My interest spiritually is recognising the corporateness of faith living both in terms of 'not giving up meeting together' but also in terms of the effects of living in faith-hostile environments. Also we should note the likelihood of certain kinds of behaviour, notably and most extremely those associated with certain kinds of revivalism, are more about empathic mimicry than about the spirit of God. That's not to say God may not be involved, but we should be wary of making it all-or-nothing. God can indeed be touching people's lives and this may show through psycho-somatic means. These may then be picked up by others. In some cases doing so may enable them to 'tune in' to some degree to the presence of God. In some cases, however, it may only transmit 'odd' mannerisms. Our bodies are sacramental, in a sense, but not ex opere operato: the behaviour does not 'produce' or necessarily connote the presence or move of God; though it may.

Of course, it is possible to go to the extreme of saying that such scientific research disproves the God stuff: it's all just a somatic-psycho-spiritual 'infection'. This is, of course, as much nonsense as saying that such things 'prove' God. We need to recall that as embodied beings, if we are to have spiritual experiences they will have to be mediated through our bodily (=neural) experience. Conversely we should note that in evolutionary terms our vocal apparatus is not 'designed' for speech, however, that does not mean that language does not really exist. Similarly, just because certain of our somatic systems can be co-opted for spiritual experience does not mean that something genuinely spiritual does not underlie that co-option.

Belief in a caring god improves response to medical treatment for depression, study finds

Another embarrassing study for atheists. Evidence keeps mounting up that believing in God seems to have a variety of psycholagical benefits. You'd almost think that we were designed to function better with a God thing going on in our lives. However, it was only a small study. Still, it's not the first or only such. Belief in a caring god improves response to medical treatment for depression, study finds: "In patients diagnosed with clinical depression, belief in a concerned God can improve response to medical treatment,"

Malaysian court: Christians can worship Allah

This seems to be the obverse of an attitude some of our students come with (and sometimes leave with): that 'Allah' is a Muslim God.
Attacks after Malaysian court rules Christians can worship Allah - Times Online: "many Malaysian Muslims, who make up 60 per cent of the population, say that Allah should be reserved to refer exclusively to the Muslim deity and that use of it in a Biblical context encourages conversion to Christianity, a crime under the country’s Islamic laws."
The attitude by both some Muslims in Malaysia and some Christians in the UK and USA ignores the fact that Arabic-speaking Christians have no other 'ordinary' word for God. We should note that both sides are doing their theology in a language other than the original language concerned and have imported the word into their own languages.

I could say more but I'll leave it for now. It is, however, an interesting study in sociolinguistics as well as theology and interfaith dialogue.

UK "haunted by religion"

Rowan with a memorable turn of phrase: "'I don't believe we are living in a secular society and I don't believe we are living in a deeply religiously divided society. I believe we are living in a country that is uncomfortably haunted by the memory of religion and doesn't quite know what to do with it ... a society which is religiously plural and confused and therefore not necessarily hostile.'"
I think he may be right. The 'religiously' plural' and 'not necessarily hostile' are actually a product of the Christian heritage where neighbour-love and respect for the other are part of what is taken for granted as a sine-qua-non of spirituality whatever else may be added to the mix. Now, this may not be well thought out and suffer from the sentimentalisation that arguably bedevils our culture, but it does have Christian roots. Interestingly we find this informing the way that non-Christian elements are taken into people's spiritual mix: love is taken to be a defining characteristic of the Divine. Even given that, for example, a Buddhist take on life, the universe and everything is ultimately impersonal (remember Francis Schaeffer's 'He is There and He is Not Silent'?) And I recall an Ida Glaser review of a book on Islam written by a British convert in which she pointed out that the author's account of God is not properly Islamic, being informed ultimately by the Christian view that 'God is love' which would not be an Islamic way of viewing God's nature. It also seems to me, connecting this up with my experience of New Age and neo-Pagan discourse, that the idea that Ultimately Reality is (or should be) Love is well-embedded in our cultural consciousness.

Let's recall that ancient Paganism had gods that were capricious and on the whole did not care much for humans, let's recall that ultimate reality in Buddhism is impersonal, that God in Islam maybe beneficent and merciful but loving is not really in there, that only now neo-Paganism is beginning to explore non-personalism more fully ...

So is this a clue to mission in post-Christendom Britain? Can we help people connect the religious haunting to the Holy Ghost in a positive way? Or would it be a downer to our mission in the longer term to be pointing out that the idea of a loving God is actually Christian and doesn't necessarily 'work' with other views of ultimate reality? It might well be; in politics negative briefing tends to be viewed as potentially self-defeating (though it's still done).

Of course, it does beg the question of why the idea of a loving God should be so persistent and seem so self-evident? Is it culture only? Or is this a concept that has deeper resonances in the human psyche? And if it is the latter, is that part of the god-imagedness of humanity?
UK haunted by religion, says archbishop | UK news | The Guardian:

Metaphysics and the God of Israel -a review

This looks very, very interesting. So much so that I've put it on my wish list for future reading. I'm particularly interested since it seems to offer help -or at least perspective- to the the issue of God's relatedness to time and space which is a major background issue for thinking about God and language. Here's what Ben Myers writes.

Neil MacDonald’s book, Metaphysics and the God of Israel, is a remarkably creative and provocative attempt to rethink this relation – indeed, to rethink metaphysics as a whole – from the standpoint of divine self-determination. MacDonald’s central thesis is simple enough: the mode of all divine action is self-determination. God acts by determining himself to be the one who acts. In other words, God acts by directing his own identity, by acting on his own being. According to MacDonald, all divine action can be understood along these lines. God is creator, for example, simply because he determines himself to be the world’s creator. This determination is strictly something God does to himself.

The question I have -which Ben tangles with to some degree also- is whether this view doesn't end up making creation essentially un-contingent; in other words potentially uncaused. But I like the way that it appears to be able to pull in some of the stronger insights or possibilities that are important in process theologies while maintaining (I think) a largely orthodox theism. Obviously, I'll have to read the book!

Whatever is ... true ... lovely ... noble ... think about such things

How intriguing is this?

Prof. Ara Norenzayan found that priming people with 'god concepts' -- by activating subconscious thoughts through word games -- promoted altruism. In addition, the researchers found that this effect was consistent in behaviour whether people declared themselves believers or not. The researchers also found that secular notions of civic responsibility promote cooperation and generosity.

I need to ponder this more, as it's related to some reading I have just finished (A Mind of its Own) dealing with the experimental psychology results on schemas and stereotypes.
ScienceDaily: Thinking About God Leads To Generosity, Study Suggests:

Let’s call God Allah ... ?

Given the amount of times I have to question some Christians about making out that Allah is a fundamentally different deity to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I felt, if only for my own future reference, that it would be useful to flag this up:

Christian and Muslim Arabs use the words God and Allah interchangeably. ... the word Allah was already in use by Christians in the pre-Islamic period.

In other words: if one goes around saying Allah is fundamentally different, then you have Christians brothers and sisters in Arabic-influenced lands that are being traduced.
Oh, and the bishop that said this is no pushover when it comes to Islam either:

In the past, Bishop Muskens has offended many Muslims. In 2005 he said Islam was a religion without a future because it had too many violent aspects.

Ref. Dutch Bishop: Let’s call God Allah

Unionising heaven

Having just set in motion becoming a member of the Higher Education union UCU, I was interested in Walton's comment about unions just out today. I've been noting how the unions I've been involved with in the last five years or so have been in the process of becoming more focused on the all round welfare of members in terms of career development, financial services and deals with organisations to help get goods and services at better rates. Which is probably as it should be. Walton made me smile with this;
"But unions have had to rethink themselves quite drastically, and there are some early signs that this is paying off in some interesting and exciting ways.
Unions have been reaching out to groups of workers who have never been organised before. The union I work for, Unite - traditionally an engineering union - now has a faith workers branch, with clergy from most religions. The union has a recognition agreement with the Church of Scotland, and it is a very interesting and heartening experience to meet a senior shop steward with the title 'Reverend'.
Comrade reverend, do you think the members will vote for strike action if their demands for more divine intervention are not met?
That'd make the old gaffer sit up and take notice."
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Red Star Coven: The end of black men in blue overalls?: