Witnessing Witnessing

After some emails and some writing last night, I went on another long contemplative walk, meandering along a bustling bike path through the beautiful cool of a spring evening.   Dusk settled, slowly, the air full of the riot of springtime.  

As it grew darker, the flow of cyclists and walkers dwindled.  I moved quietly, mindfully silencing my steps, so that my own footfalls would not impede my ability to hear the world.  The whir of bat wings overhead.  The jogger, approaching from behind, whose breathing told me from ten yards that he was a man and tired.  The Tie-Fighter engine howl of bike tires on pavement, dopplering subtly as they passed in the twilight.

I timed my walking so that I would return to where my son would need to be picked up from his drum rehearsal about fifteen minutes before pickup time.

I arrived at the studio and sat, feeling quiet.   Two other souls were in the room, one, the pleasant  young woman who manages the office.   The other, a rangy, long-haired guitar instructor.   They talked, and I sat, noodling at my smartphone but mostly still in a place of listening.

He was deep into a shaggy dog story about some guy who robbed his house and escaped on rollerblades after crashing through a plate glass window.  "I mean, dude.  Seriously!  Rollerblades!  I was like, dude!"  He laughed through his wild tale, as did she. He was clearly happy to be having the conversation.

Then she told a story, one that involved mistaken identity and her boyfriend.  Listening to the spring air filled with text and subtext, I think this may have been how how he heard it:  "Something something something, I have a boyfriend, something something, I have a boyfriend."

And then it changed.  It became a conversation about church, and Jesus, him leading.   Churchy people suck, but Christianity is great.  He got an amen from her on that, and a story about how a small-town Baptist church they'd attended had driven her family out because her mom...taught ballet.

Lord have mercy.

So the conversation went on, as he talked about how much he'd liked a particular church.   He talked about how he couldn't stand judgmental churches, like especially ones that thought sex was bad.  But his church didn't!  "It's an awesome thing, man."   And then talk about how his church did this talking about faith event in a bar, and people had beer, and it was awesome, like totally real, not fake, just like, totally accepting.

You have to accept people, he said, because we're all sinners.   We need to forgive each other.  She agreed.

To illustrate this, he told another story.  This one was about how the single guy who fronted for the praise band at his church had been caught in a homosexual relationship.  "But, like, he repented, so it was, like, cool.  We totally forgave him.  Not like those judgmental Christians.  'Cause, you know, we're all sinners."

And though he kept going with his spiel, all the way through to pitching her the link to a pastor podcast, it felt as if the conversation cooled just a bit.

Funny, how hard it is for us to see our own biases.

Poets in Hell

As part of my summer plan to catch up on some reading I've been missing, my bedstand is now occupied by a rather thick collection of the poetry of Jalalladin Rumi. Rumi is a contender for the title of Everyone's Favorite Muslim (c), and after spending an hour or so with his poetry, I can see why.

Rumi is perhaps the best known among the Sufi, that mystical strain of Islam that Westerners used to call "whirling dervishes." Though folks tend to think of mystics as austere, distant, and cryptic, Rumi is none of that. His writing wonderfully melds the earthy and the transcendent. It's full of fragrance and flavor and mischief, and through this articulates a deep and passionate yearning for reconciliation and reunion with God. While it's not Christian, sometimes...particularly when his poetry sings the praises of Jesus and the Holy Spirit...it's hard to tell.

What amazes me whenever I engage with someone from another tradition who is so obviously and self-evidently suffused with grace is how easily AmeriChrist, Inc. declares folks like Rumi to be hell-fodder. Sure, he's delightful and talented and gentle. Yeah, he yearns for and seeks reconciliation with God. He appears to have a deep and abiding respect for Christians and for Jesus in particular.

But having not heard The Jesus Prayer coming from Rumi's lips, our Lord and Savior is obligated to consign him to an eternity of listening to poetry that is 1) written by fifteen year old girls whose parents have recently divorced, and 2) sung aloud by Fran Drescher and Gilbert Gottfried.

Whenever I lament this rather peculiar understanding of Good News, I tend to get the same response from a particular wing of Christianity. That response is, basically: "Sure, but that's just the way it is. Either you come up at the altar call, or it's Fran and Gilbert forever." That's followed by a few choice scriptures, and an offer to earnestly pray for my evidently deluded soul.

As someone who both feels and regularly articulates the importance of Jesus of Nazareth, I know personally that deep certainty of His Wayness, His Truthness, and His Lifeness. It's a real thing. In Christ, the purpose and intent for all human beings is expressed. In him, it lives and breathes. By following that path, we find ourselves at one with God and at peace with one another. We have found the Way, and we walk it in confidence.

When others curse that path, and mock it, and live their lives in opposition to it, then I think all is not well with them. But when others come near, and smile, and speak and act well of the journey, I can't for the life of me imagine that Jesus...the source of all my grace...is somehow less graceful and less forgiving than I am.

Judgment and Empathy

As I mused over the recent charges leveled by American conservatism against "empathy" as a judicial virtue, I found myself wondering how that played off against specific Biblical instances of justice. Two came to mind:

The first is perhaps one of the most famous stories of jurisprudential skill from scripture: Solomon and the Bisected Baby. It's a classic tale, in which two women both claim to be the mother of a child. Solomon suggests that the baby be cut in half, thus giving each woman what she wants. The real mom refuses, relinquishing her claim so that the child might be spared. At that point, Solomon gives the child to the one who clearly loves it more. This sort of story is common in the wisdom traditions of the Ancient Near East, as a way of evidencing the benevolence and discernment of a worthy ruler.

What's the Biblical metric here? It's not a knowledge of the law. It's a willingness to apply it gracefully. What makes Solomon's decision in this story worthy is not that it meets the standards of precedent, but rather that it comes from a deeper and more powerful understanding of the role of the law. It's driven by discernment of the human heart. In other words, by empathy.

The second instance is the story of Christ before Pilate. Presented with someone he knew he could free, and who he suspected was not guilty of any significant charge, Pilate yielded to to two things. First, to precedent. Only one prisoner was typically released. Though it was within his power to pardon who he saw fit, he couldn't bring himself to make a bold decision, even if that decision was in the interests of justice. Second, Pilate yielded to the will of the people. The people, stirred and agitated by those whose power was threatened, called out for the blood of a man who he knew was innocent...and he acquiesced. It was not that Pilate lacked empathy. It was that he lacked the moral integrity to let it drive his decisions. He hid behind the structures of the law, and for that act of cowardice, he has been found wanting by billions across thousands of years.

Given that most of the folks who are dead set against empathy as a judicial virtue claim to be Christian, I do wonder sometimes about the quality of pastors these days.

Therefore...

So what’s Paul doing rhetorically in Romans 1? In terms of ethos, logos, and pathos, Paul starts, appropriately, with ethos. Remember, Paul hadn’t yet visited Rome. This letter was his best foot forward, a sincere effort to establish himself and his authority in a church that didn’t really know him yet. It was like that sermon a pastor preaches the very first Sunday in their new church. You pull out the stops. Read through Romans 1:1-17, and you see him establishing common ground, and presenting his spiritual credentials.

When we reach verse 18-32, Paul moves to pathos. He’s trying to evoke a sense of indignation at the sin of idolatry, which is the root sin expressed in Romans 1:22-23. It is idolatry that drives human beings to fall from God. The link between idolatry and the practices that Paul cites is cemented by his use of the Greek word dio, which we see translated as “therefore.” One thing happens, therefore another follows on.

According to Paul, what follows on from idolatry is twofold. First, there is degradation of desire (Romans 1:24-25), and second, the degradation of the mind (Romans 1:28). As an example of the first, Paul cites the giving up of phusiken kresin, or the “natural function” between men and women. As an example of the second, Paul runs through another one of his naughty lists, in verses 29-30.

Let’s set aside for a moment the argument about the root cause of homosexuality. Most people who are so inclined will tell you that they knew they felt same-sex attraction from childhood. Very few of them—at least in the survey and scientific data I’ve seen—indicate that they began feeling same sex attraction after they set up a small shrine to Regis Philbin in their basement. The causal link between worshipping idols and gayness is, shall we say, tenuous.

But I’m willing to spot Paul that point of fact, for two reasons. First, he’s using this as an example of fallenness—and idolatry as a concept, not a practice--based on his own observations of Roman Imperial culture. Second, it’s not his purpose. This section isn’t the point of his message. It serves much the same function as that cheesy canned anecdote your preacher uses to get you laughing before he gets around to the real message. The clear effect of Paul’s use of pathos is to make his listeners nod their heads at these wretched, godforsaken souls. They lived in Rome. They knew what went on. It would have lead some of his hearers, perhaps, feel a little more sure of their own righteousness under the law.

So when Paul continues on to the point of his argument in chapter two—an argument that will be sustained through to Romans 8:39—his listeners may well expect the “Therefore..” that begins chapter 2, verse one to lead to more of the same. They’re expecting Paul to lay in to a familiar list of known sinners in a way that would do Ann Coulter proud. Instead, having used pathos to stir that feeling, Paul switches to a formal rhetorical style known as diatribe, and they get this:

Romans 2:1-5 Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, "We know that God's judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth." Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

Paul's point--and a core theme of Romans--is that all of us are sinners, and that all fall short of the demands of the law. If we only nod along to the pathos, and fail to hear the sharpness of Paul's challenge to our graceless judgments that this pathos establishes, then we've missed that point.

Back to Pastor Strangelove

Heck-A-Slammin'

More on the Hell thread...

The primary theological challenge, it would seem, is reconciling eternal damnation with the Christian affirmation that God is Love. How can a loving God be wrathful?

To that end, it helps to have an idea of what love is. Numerous Christian writers have dealt with this--C.S. Lewis's "Four Loves" is an excellent primer. Most theologians hold that God's love is "agape" love, a love that transcends self-interest or emotionalism, and involves full participation in the life and spirit of another. Being a flagrant theologeek, I tend to favor the articulation found in the writings of 20^th century existentialist theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich defines love as our yearning to participate in another being, to truly know that other being, to share in their joys and their pains. Love is seeking yourself in another, reaching out across the boundaries that limit us. Love is our struggle against our separateness, our struggle against all that divides us from one another. We human beings do this clumsily and imperfectly, if at all.

But while we struggle to make love real, God exists as love in its perfection. Love is God's very nature, and love is, therefore, the foundation and root of all existence. We are created in love, and to love we will return. When we profess a faith in a God who is love, we profess faith in a Love that tears down the boundaries that divide us, and in a Love that allows us to truly be a part of another.