If it's a symbol, to hell with it.

“I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater… She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual…. Toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it. That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.” - Flannery O'Connor

What a joy to read such a statement of faith. And isn't this the statement of faith said when one partakes in the Eucharist?
'The Body of Christ.'
'Amen.'

And the Eucharist and the the Resurrection are tied to together.
The real presence of the Eucharist is the parallel claim of the historical resurrection, which is of particular importance during the Lenten season. Both are declaration that God is not silent. That God works with and within the world. It proclaims that God's action are mediated through immediacy.

However, we are incredulous toward the Real. Instead we allow our post-modern sensibility to transfix us in the infinite regression of meaning through symbol and myth. And if this is true, Joseph Campbell is the false savior of our time. He offers a translation of meaning and existence through 'universal' symbols, but which can never answer the metaphysical. Such a project can only defer meaning, which is exactly what philosophers like Derrida would like us have to believe.

What is more troubling are those happy fools in theology who still wittingly align themselves with Tillichian and Bultmannian philosophy. No two theologians have done more theological damage in recent decades, as they have persuaded many that the Eucharist, the Virgin Birth, the miracles, the Resurrection are nothing more than mere symbols. Fantastic, helpful, 'meaningful' symbols, but symbols nonetheless. They are merely powerful earthly representation that help translate the world, but they don't represent the Real. They defer meaning. They merely translate. Tillich and Bultmann were crass logical positivists dressed in theologian garb.

A few months ago a few friends and I were discussing Borg. We decided that Borg’s resurrection was metaphorical. That deeply troubled a friend of mine. Days later he returned to me, and said Jason, you know why a metaphorical resurrection bothers me? He answered his own question, “Because I am not going to metaphorically die! I am going to actually, factually die! And I want a savior who actually saved me from sin and death!” Bultmann seems to be offering something similar, but instead of a metaphor, it’s a myth.

So, if it's only metaphor, if it's only myth, or if it's only symbol then to hell with it. To hell with a religion that is merely 'trying its best' to translate the world. To hell with a religion that can be construed into a spiritual 'preference'.

But, if it is the Eucharist that translates the meaning of the world, and not the world that dictates the meaning of the Eucharist, then perhaps the only word appropriate is 'amen'.

Sacrificial 'Ram': "The Wrestler" as the Story of Job

"He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5

The new movie by Darren Aronofsky, "The Wrestler" is the beautiful and terrible story of an aging professional wrestler, Randy 'The Ram', played by Mickey Rourke. The hard-bodied and oafish Randy finds no comfort in the world outside the ring. He lives in a dilapidated trailer, has an estranged daughter and an demeaning side job at a local grocery store. He lives for the weekends when he can wrestler.

The movie is really a modern story of Job.

Of course, Randy doesn't fit the traditional Job-archetype. Through the movie you realize he is derelict, a delinquent father, a drug-user. He is not pious in any conventional sense.

Yet, he is unshakable in his faith. Not for God, but for wrestling.

The heart-aches, the heart-attacks, the poverty, and the alienation from friends and family are all endured. He is unflinching faithful to the religion and ritual of wrestling. And for his fidelity, what felicities does it bring him? None. His age relegates him to minor contests, his steroid use leaves him deformed, while still always true to profession.

During the movie, he begins a relationship with a stripper named Cassidy, played by the Marisa Tomei. She is the parallel to Randy; both live off the exploits of their flesh, and they are past the peak of their prime. While talking to Randy at a club she jokingly says, "You were pierced for our transgressions, you were crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace is upon you. You are the sacrificial Ram." And he is. You can almost here Randy 'the Ram' saying to the gods of Wrestling, 'Forgive them - the fans - for they know not what they make me do."

Also, see this article of "Job as Wrestler". Art immitating the Bible, and Bible immitating Art.

Spiritual, Non Religious?

I was reading about F. Schleiermacher today. One of the few things we have in common is our discontent for what the Enlightenment did to theology.

A passage reminded me of the banal position of many in this generation, that of being 'spiritual, but not religious.'

He writes, "The emptiness of a rational religion consists in the fact that it is not a real religion at all, but an eclectic collection of dead fragments. It has not grown from a living intuition, but has been distilled from a dying form. It is attractive to many because, lacking any positive character, it offends no one. It creates discussions groups, but not churches; it rests on thought and not on feelings. It is not wonder that it appeals widely to the religiously indifferent, for it is an abstraction, and thus it stirs up on of the strong feelings aroused by concrete realities. Who can hate an abstraction? But then again, who can love one? (Makers of the Modern Theological Mind: Friedrich Schleiermacher, by C. W. Christian).

It makes me wonder... how many of our churches are already mere 'discussion groups.'

Cosmic Evangelizing: The Need to Shoot Bibles Into Space?

After reading Sagan's Gifford Lectures, I turned anxiously to his novel Contact. The vastness of space and the seemingly inexhaustible amount material that comprise the comets, moons, planets, stars and black holes leaves one reeling. It is even a bit scary.

My good friend, The Monad, responded to my last post by writing,

"The question of what salvation would be on other planets is mind-boggling. I suppose if there is evil on those other planets than salvation is necessary...can Satan exercise dominion on other planets? What's to say that he can't? Then the question becomes one of soteriology. How does Jesus save? Is there something about the way in which Jesus brings salvation that is unique to this planet? We have no way of knowing."

The question indeed is of soteriology. If there is tripartite (mind, body and soul) life that is shackled by sin on other planets how are they saved? Are they saved?

My other good friend sees orthodox soteriology as being not only an anthropological but a cosmological panacea.

"The problems of finite-thinking have come about because of the belief that Christ's redemption ONLY applies to humans and not to rest of creation as well. Once we understand salvation as applying not to the salvation of souls but to the promise of the 'new heavens and new earth', the question about life on other planets and how they fit into the overall scheme of things, really is a moot point."

This answer isn't satisfying.

The value of reading Sagan is that we are challenged to strongly critique the entire anthrocentric enterprise. Christianity, wrongly or rightly, has a soteriology that is completely enthralled with the notion of humanity. Early Church history and controversy deal almost exclusively on the communicatio idiomatum.

Patristic thought may concede that Christ vindicated creation (universe and all), but they will stubbornly hold that specific salvation of humanity was only possible through the Incarnation.

St. Athanasius famously states, "He was made man, so that we might be made gods."

Poignantly, the soteriological question for St. Anselm was, Cur Deus Homo? or Why Did God Become Man?

Perhaps most provocative is St. Gregory of Nazianzus claim, "That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved."

Extraterrestrials (a name for that itself is thoroughly anthropocentric) are not going to have a human nature. In that case, will their unassumed nature not be healed? If they are in every way like humans, except for having three eyes instead of two, will that third eye not be saved?

My friend writes,

"Sure the life, death and resurrection of the incarnate God happened in a remote corner of the universe, but that shouldn't limit its cosmic implications."

Well, of course it does!
The Gospel is the Good News. Thus, any good soteriology should be able to pass the scrutiny of the most important question for pastors: Is it preachable?
This is only conjecture, but Christian soteriology will probably not stir the soul of E.T.

On the other hand, if my good friend is right: God has vindicated all creation and creatures and promised a 'new heaven and earth' (or earths?). Then it seems that Evangelicals need to set new priorities. Forget Asia and Africa - there are as many as a billion worlds that need to know that God through Christ has given them new life! Evangelicals should become the biggest supporters of NASA, and begin a program to shoot bibles into space.

I'm not joking.

If one is convinced that Christ has undeniably, solely saved the fate of the entire cosmos one ought to feel an uncontrollable desire to rush headlong into the vast blackness of space only to hope to come across intelligent life and proclaim, "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!"

A Serious Cosmological Theology

Today I was reading the transcript of Carl Sagan's Gifford Lectures in the book, "The Varieties of Scientific Experience.” I think Sagan is thoroughly modern, eschewing all notion of faith or belief. However, he helpfully critiques the narrowness of Western-religion's cosmology.

He writes, "The number of external galaxies beyond the Milky Way is at least in the thousands of millions and perhaps in the hundreds of thousands of millions each of which contains a number of stars more or less comparable to that in our own galaxy. So if you multiple out how many stars that means, it is some number - let's see, ten to the... It's something like a one followed by twenty-three zeros, of which our Sun is but one. It is a useful calibration of our place in the universe. And this vast number of worlds, the enormous scale of the universe, in my view has been taken into account, even superficially, in virtually no religions and especially no Western religions." (27).

The immensity of the universe begs the question of the uniqueness of life. And if life is rare, but not unique, what of the arc of the salvific history espoused by Christianity? Does all life inevitably trace this story line? Thomas Paine wrote of this question, "From whence, then, could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who has millions of worlds equally dependent on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world because, they say, one man and one woman ate an apple? And on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world in the boundless creation has an Eve, an apple, a serpent and a redeemer?" While Process Theology has enumerable and intractable problems, the tradition has at least taken cosmology seriously. Michael Lodahl, and, of course, Alfred North Whitehead, come to mind. Though, this tradition then usually jettisons the salvific history, for an endless processing history, which seems to reform the very historic Christianity into just another universal (read, ahistoric) religion. In comparison, Radial Orthodoxy has not shown that they are open to accepting modern science. The reunification of faith and reason stops short of evolution. This is a strange demarcation line considering the Catholic Church, which strongly influences R.O., has long held that evolutions and faith are fully commensurable. More broadly, C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy seems to suggest that the chapters of history play out on all planets that inhabit life, and God, rather than abandoning all others for the sake of one, provides His Providence and, ultimately, Salvation, to all.


Perhaps more concerning is the finite-tenancy we have on the Earth. Sagan writes, "Some 5, 6, or 7 billion years from now, the Sun will become a red giant star and will engulf the orbits of Mercury and Venus and probably the Earth. The Earth then would be inside the Sun and some of the problems that face us on this particular day will appear, by comparison, modest. On the other hand, since it is 5,000 or more million years away, it is not our most pressing problem. But it is something to bear in mind. It has theological implications." (20).
Indeed, theological implications abound.

While addressing the important theological questions of ecological-stewardship, some attention should be given to cosmological-theology in general, and cosmological-stewardship in specific. More broadly, issues of eschatology, economy, and revelation all garner relevance in this endeavor.

To end, Sagan has some helpful thoughts: “In fact, a general problem with much of Western theology in my view is that the god portrayed is too small. It is a god of a tiny world and not a god of a galaxy, much les of a universe.” Here Sagan and I are in complete agreement. He continues, “I don’t propose that it is a virtue to revel in our limitations. But it’s important to understand how much we do not know. There is an enormous amount we do not know; there is a tiny amount that we do.” (30). Christians may respond that what they do know is that God’s creation is good – no matter how vast or how dark, or how empty it might seem to be.