Why Science Needs Faith

My evening devotional reading over the last few weeks has involved delving again into the writings of George MacDonald.  MacDonald's the brilliant hard-nosed last 19th century Scots mystic who's been a substantial part of my adult spiritual development.  He's not light reading, not at all, but that he's best read and then carefully digested makes his work great for pre-sleep meditation.

I've been carefully moving through his "Hope of the Gospel," in which MacDonald has let his imagination wander into some fascinating places.   His reflections towards the end of that work on the nature of animal life go into some pretty esoteric places.

At one point in talking about the spirits of the simpler, less sentient living beings around us, his mystic's sense of the interconnection of all being goes so far as to almost be talking about reincarnation, or some peculiarly iterative view of the nature of the soul.

It's a bit hard to tell, as he's intentionally coy about exactly what he means.

But as he gets deeper and deeper into his talk about animals and their souls - a line of thinking that was stirred by the gentle question of one of his children - his fierce Scots temper turns in anger against science.

Now, I love science and appreciate its insights, so the sudden wave of invective against it from a spiritual teacher came as a bit of a surprise.   MacDonald didn't appear to have the benefit of an editor for much of his writing, so a full page or more of "science is monstrous" pours out of MacDonald before he explains why he's so cheesed off.

When the reason came to light, though, it makes sense.  MacDonald had clearly been in conversation with late 19th century biologists, and was aware of some of the scientific practices of that era.  He was particularly horrified at the practice of vivisection and the way animals were used in experimentation.

From his mystical inclination, all living beings had value.  Where the pursuit of knowledge objectified beings capable of suffering, and inflicted suffering for the sole purpose of expanding knowledge, MacDonald saw a horror.

That has always been the challenge for science.  Our efforts to develop an ever deepening understanding of creation are fascinating, but they have always been fraught with danger.  If we perceive existence as ultimately reducible to mechanics and process, life itself becomes less and less significant.  The first to fall are the simpler beings around us, the trees and the fish and the cattle.  But eventually, even sentient and self-aware life becomes meaningless, little more than the mechanism by which complex proteins replicate themselves.

MacDonald heard the arguments of scientists, that knowledge itself was the primary value, and rejected it.  If an action violates the integrity of another being, and radically devalues that living being, then the end goal of understanding is itself broken.  Without a deep sense of compassion for living things driving the process of seeking, one cannot seek the greater good.

Without compassion as a fundamental guide, science does not really deepen understanding.  It simply deepens our ability to project power.   And that isn't a good thing, either for the world around us or for the creatures who share it.

Cleansing the Temple

Over the years, the story of Jesus whomping on the moneychangers and the sellers of temple livestock has become one of my least favorite passages of Scripture.

There's a reason for this, of course.  Christians get all temple-cleansy when we're at our most vociferously self-righteous, when we're most eager to toss out the heretics and the unbelievers.   We all want to be Jesus, stomping into the temple and snapping his whip like Indiana Jones, while the Apostle Short Round scampers around around poking' 'em in the knees and generally being annoying.  We particularly want to be this way when we are faced with those who don't see the world the way we do.

I've heard that passage from Mark 11 pitched out by conservatives eager to rid the church of the apostate worldly corrupt influence of liberalism.  Clearly, the moneychangers represent the interpersonal decadence and corrupting influence of libertine culture.  I've also heard it mirrored right back by those on the left who are eager for the church to be rid of the hateful, bigoted voices of patriarchal oppression.  Clearly, the moneychangers represent the reactionary forces of cultural stagnation and capitalism.

It's the primary proof text we go to when we're looking for an excuse to fight, hate, and demonize others.  Given how often I see it paraded around, you'd think it was as important as the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety.  Watching it used as a biblical warrant for scorched-earth hatred on both sides in an intractable church conflict was deeply painful.

But this week, in perusing John's version of this story, I found myself noticing something I can't remember ever seeing before.  Sure, I might have seen it, but maybe I didn't remember.   As John tells it...and John is as ever the minority report in the face of the unified witness of the Synoptics...there was a detail that just sprang out and bopped me on the noggin.  John places the story at a very different place in the narrative, right near the beginning, reflecting the very different purposes of that Gospel.

That wasn't it, though.  I knew that already.

What got me were a couple of details that John has that are utterly missing from the other Gospels.  John is the only story to mention the whip of cords, a familiar image if we're visualizing the tushie-kickin' Jesus lays out.  There is another detail, though.

In John, Jesus does not use that whip to attack the sellers of animals.  Instead, he "drove all of them out," but by all of them, the Gospel writer means "both the sheep and the cattle."   He also poured out the coins and knocks over the tables...both objects, not people.  And he tells those selling doves to "Take these things out of here!"

He gets those dogies rolling, sure.  But what is most markedly lacking in the Johannine version is an attack on the persons themselves.   Jesus assails the system that comprises the ritual economy that has sprung up around the temple.  He actively disrupts it.  What he does not do is go a-whuppin' the people.  He challenges them, sure.  But as John tells it, he does not seem bent on driving them out, too.

That is a non-trivial difference.

We may not like that version as much.  It doesn't satisfy our hunger to put a hurting on those who oppose us.

But there are times when the minority report is worth hearing, just so we don't imagine that every conflict we want to justify is as important to God as we'd like to think it is.

Animals and Eternal Rest

Having already done two posts on our pets and heaven, I'll wander away from scripture and the patterns of traditional theology and more into my own spiritual sense of the eternal destiny of the animals that fill our world. It might be a bit too esoteric to share with your typical seven-year old wondering whether Mr. Barky is in heaven...but then again, seven year olds often surprise you with what they can take in.

My own personal spiritual predilections are pretty intensely mystic in character. Those moments of numinous, ecstatic presence that shook me from a position of alternately cynical and hopeful agnosticism into my current faith in Christ and Creator have left me feeling rather differently about the creatures around me. Meaning, no more Vietnamese steak marinated in red wine and rolled in pepper on a bed of lightly dressed salad, no matter how much that thought still evokes a Pavlovian response.

Ultimately, I believe that the existential barriers of self that we perceive as unbreachable boundaries between us mean exactly diddly squat. With Thomas Merton and other Christian mystics, I see our awareness in this life as deeply limited. Though we do not now directly perceive the harms or joys we cause in the same way as the beings with whom we interact, that lack of perception is a limitation of our temporal and material existence. We are, whether we like it or not, all participants in one another. Once we enter into the unmediated presence of God, we come into the wholeness of what the Apostle Paul would have called our "spiritual body." That, as I have come to understand it, is not just the "us" that we know, but the full fruit of our words and actions as they play out across every relationship in which we have participated.

Every joy caused and every harm inflicted is unmediated and fully us, written forever into the fabric of existence. That standard, as I know it through my faith, includes not just our interactions with the homo sapiens sapiens around us. It also includes the creatures with which we share this beautiful and fragile little planet. If I strike or harm another being, that harm is mine, forever scarring me. If I give comfort to another being, that comfort is a part of my place in eternity.

For simpler creatures that lack awareness of self, this interweaving of being is just part of what they are. The lion will know the death throes of the wildebeest, and the wildebeest will know the contented sleep of the full bellied lion. Feel free to start singing that Lion King song, if you must. Creatures that exist moment to moment are simply living as they must live. They have little understanding of themselves as selves, and even less understanding of the other as a self.

As beings grow in sentience and awareness of self and other, they become more...spiritually complicated. But the interconnectedness remains the same. It is to that interconnectedness that the greatest and only law of the Gospel speaks. We are to be aware that we are part of a glorious something that transcends us and our culture and our species, and to love that Glory with all our heart and mind and strength. As a part of that knowledge, we are called to love the Other as we love ourselves.

The creatures around me are part of the great story that God is telling, just as I am part of it. Our destiny is the same. We move into the presence of God as one.

When I come through the door at the end of a long day, and our little puppy comes galumphing up with her tail wagging in unconditional, exuberant joy at my arrival, that knowledge is a pleasure.

Reezus Reist Ris Ry Rord Rand Ravior

Why wouldn't our lickity pals be able to chase that frisbee through the pearly gates? A heaven without our furry friends would seem like rather less than a delightful place.

But that doesn't mean that there might not be folks out there whose theology is not..umm...dog friendly. As I fished around in my noggin for a hypothetical reason some compulsive Calvinist might deny eternal reward to a pup, I was only able to come up with one. So, here goes:

For many Christians, it is axiomatic that a prerequisite for entry into heaven is professing faith in Jesus as one's Lord and Savior. In fact, that's a pretty standard refrain for those who would consider themselves pure-bred orthodox. If faith in Jesus is a necessary prerequisite for salvation, then dogs and cats and sea monkeys are pretty much out of luck. Just getting Ms. Barkerton not to poop on the rug is hard enough. But getting her to speak and...believe in the salvific power of Jesus Christ? I'm not sure that even the most dedicated megachurch doggie training ministry could pull that one off.

From that radical position, salvation is two things. First, it is intensely anthropocentric. Meaning, about humans, kids. True, deep and right relationship with the Creator is only something that applies to humankind, which is made in the image of God. Other creatures, being less Goddy, are just SOL. Second, the fulfillment of that right relationship with our Creator can only be worked through faith in Jesus Christ. As animals...even the smarter ones...are not capable of having that faith, they're presumably just consigned to nonexistence. Their earnest howling and meyowling isn't part of the heavenly choir.

If your pastor is a heartless pharisaic sunnavabeetch, this is what he'll tell your children when your dog dies. Should that be even a remote possibility, I recommend finding another church.

But this theological position...which is the only one I could come up with...has within it a major flaw. Beyond it's obnoxiousness, I mean. If we are being truly orthodox about the purpose of Christ's saving work among us, we understand that work as undoing the brokenness that was wrought in the Fall. From that second creation story in Genesis, humankind drifted out of the perfect awareness of our place in Creation and with our Creator. We ate of the knowledge of evil...for we already knew the good...and drove ourselves from the Garden. By we, I mean "human beings." From a strictly Biblical perspective, there is no evidence that any other creature other than the serpent shares in our fallen state.

Dogs aren't fallen creatures. Neither are gerbils or hamsters. I'm not so sure about some cats, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And if animals are not fallen, then they are not in need of reconciliation and restoration to be what God meant them to be. We're messed up, sure. We find all sorts of ways to not be the gracious, just, and loving beings we are intended to be. But they already are what they were intended to be. As such, there is no doctrine of sin that could meaningfully apply to them. And if that's the case, well, there's no reason that the pets of even the most rigidly orthodox can't join them in the hereafter.

Of course, this is all working within the framework of orthodox Christian thinking. Though I buy it in part, I'm...well...not quite that person.

So next post, I'll get around to presenting my own spiritual sense of this pressing, pressing issue. ;)

The Definitive Teaching About Dogs and Heaven

There's been a little bit of lull in my blogging lately. And my Facebookin'. And, in fact, across much of the other non-essential activities of my existence. The reason for that is the introduction into our household of a little scampering bundle of lickity affection. After forty-one orbits around the sun, and a full year of lobbying from my nine year old, I have a dog for the very first time.

Ellie is an eight week old blend of Golden Retriever and Standard Poodle. She eats, she sleeps, she runs in crazy little circles. I haven't been this focused on feeding schedules and their resultant output since my younger son was a tot. It's not as intense, as she's far lower maintenance than an equivalent toddler. She's tiring, but in an utterly-worth-it sort of way. I am, as the missus puts it, totally smitten.

In one of those synchronous events, one of the blogs I feed pitched out a musing about dogs the other day. It's the blog of a leader of one of the most ferociously hard-core conservative cells within my denomination. Carmen tends to look for things that trouble her in the church, signs of liberality and progressivism and the creeping influence of secular/Wiccan/socialist/French heresies. Here, though, she was "going after" a church that allows dogs in it's services. It seemed tailor-made for harrumphing. Not taking worship seriously! Not showing respect to the orderly praise of the Creator of the Universe! Only, try as she might, she couldn't quite bring herself to get into high dudgeon about it. Because she..well..she loves dogs. It's hard to get all ornery about them, even if being ornery is your favorite hobby.

The conversation that followed among her commenters surfaced the classic question asked by every earnest 12 year old: Does little Barky go to heaven? One of her readers said no, for reasons that probably have to do with having presuppositional apologetics beating in their chest where their heart should be. But the majority (true-believing conservatives all) said, um, maybe. Probably. It'd be nice if they did. That's not a good enough answer, though. In my capacity as the Pastor Who Spends Way Too Much Time Thinking About Things (tm), I will now offer up the definitive Christian answer to that question: Yes.

Why yes? Well, let me elucidate. First, from scripture.

The Bible doesn't spend a whole heck of a lot of time talking about the eternal lives of canines, felines, gerbils, and hamsters. For some reason, this probably didn't seem like the highest priority for an ancient Semitic people. But as we look at how creatures are directly approached in the Hebrew Scriptures, it's clear that there are some moral and spiritual obligations towards the animals in our care. From the Torah, we hear in the 10 Commandments that the Sabbath is to be kept sacred by all. A day of rest is to be given not just to those who are part of Israel, but also to the stranger in the land and the bondservant...and to the animals. This assertion of care for the well-being of domestic animals is repeated in the Exodus teachings about the value of the Sabbath. Critters get included in.

Now, some might say this is simply utilitarian. You got to keep 'em rested, so they can work harder and/or taste better. There is no spiritual component to this, some might say. But in the Writings, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes speaks directly to the question of the spirit behind the inscrutable eyes of your cat. The answer, from this wisest of the wise souls in the Bible, is that there is no difference between humankind and animals. We are all creatures of earth. We are all animated by the same breath.

So on the infrequent occasions that the Bible teaches directly about the non-human beings around us, it seems to point to the strong possibility of animals sharing in whatever our eternal destiny may be.

But there are deeper Christian theological principles at play here too...which I'll deal with in my next post.

Save the Whales

Every Sunday on my way to my bitty church, I pass my local up-and-coming independent mini-mega church. They've been running a sermon series for the last month or so on heaven, and the question posed on their signage today was a simple one: ANIMALS IN HEAVEN?

The purpose of such a question is rather simple...will there be a doggie door on our heavenly mansion for Mr. Barky? Anyone who has a pet to which they've had deep emotional ties really doesn't want there to be any question: Captain Fluffykins will be there forever and ever.

Of course, I tend to find that way of understanding heaven a bit simplistic, but when you get right down to it, I think...sure. Yes. Of course animals are there. If you're OCD about scriptural references, it straight up says so in Ecclesiastes. Not the cheeriest of prooftexts, but hey, it answers the question.

Animals, of course, tend to be simpler creatures, and one could argue that they're considerably less aware than we are of their surroundings. As beings that have less self-awareness, they aren't prone to the type of destructive self-seeking that defines human sin...and therefore they'd just automatically get in. That, I would think, would be the theological position that a thoughtful pastor consoling a churchgoer at the loss of a companion animal might provide if pressed.

There's a deeper fuddle to this, though. Not all animals lack self-awareness. Higher primates like chimps and orangutans and gorillas clearly demonstrate memory, awareness of themselves as selves, and are even capable of grasping and expressing certain forms of human language. They can show compassion towards one another, and are also capable of intense brutality. But can they sin? If they have self-awareness, the answer would seem to be yes. If so...then are they somehow inherently unsaved according to the evangelical rubric? Koko the Gorilla never signed that she had accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, after all.

A solid counterargument would be that even the brightest of the "lesser creatures" are like children, and thus not fully culpable for their actions. But...what about creatures that aren't meaningfully "lesser" than many folks who've responded to an altar call. Elephants have fairly sophisticated infrasonic language, and have brains and vocabularies that meet or exceed those of most reality TV stars. Cetaceans are clearly our equals, although the forms and structures of their intellects are very different from ours. That doesn't matter, though.

If they have sentience, and they have will, and they are aware...then from the basic underlying assumptions of orthodox theology, they should be capable of sin. But they don't know nor can they know Jesus, as they're not able to read the tracts we earnestly press up against the glass wall at SeaWorld.

Does this mean they're inherently damned? Or just that the contemporary evangelical understanding of sin and Christ's purpose isn't quite adequate to the task of explaining it's way through this conundrum?