Green Fields

There is a fossilized and often frightened part of us that does not want to be unsettled by different than we are. We find defense and support for our too often moribund opinions in unexamined creeds, anachronistic institutions, and hackneyed cant. To think with fresh insight may threaten our worldviews and thereby our stability and protected enclaves. To question authority and the “known” may bring down upon us the wrath of present orthodoxy. We often speak past one another with different definitions of the same terms in our attempts to be diplomatic. Or we rail against those in disagreement with us—those who “stupidly” don’t see things the way we do. It may be frightening to question foundational understandings and doctrinaire presumptions, but it is this that leads to green fields and fills our hearts with existential knowing. To become unsettled in truth seeking is the joy in the pain of birthing.

Christian Atheism

No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.—George H. Bush

—Echoes of Caesar. It is enlightening to know that early Christians were referred to as "atheists." They came along not believing in any of the many gods of Rome or in Caesar as god. When the state foists a particular religion onto its citizens with the judgement that they are not "citizens" or "patriots" because they do not believe in the subscribed gods, the people of the state are no longer free, and the minds and hearts of its people are enslaved. It seems to me a good thing to be "atheistic" or at least agnostic regarding the cant of the establishment whether political, secular, or religious. 

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure—that is all that agnosticism means.—Clarence Darrow

What Do We Do with Spiritual Disciplines?

Let's have a conversation on the increasing controversy about Christian Spiritual transformation. As you may know, many Christians are concerned about, what they regard as, the rise of Catholic and Eastern mysticism in Protestant churches practicing the various techniques intended as means to spiritual transformation.Lectio divina, meditation, centering prayer, imaging, and a host of other practices or disciplines have been offered to the spiritually hungry as means to intimacy with God. 

What say you? Is there reason for concern or caution? Or should these kinds of practices be employed without discrimination? So as not to sway the beginning discussion, I will wait for the first comment before I give my take on the issues.

To Be Wrong

The claim that Christ died for the sins of the world rests upon who Christ is. That is, Christology will inform Christian beliefs regarding the all-important work, acceptance, status, and accessibility of salvation as provided by Christ. To be wrong here is to miss the mark and to believe a lie.

God-Man

Jesus Christ is the agent, foundation, center, and completion of salvation. All that is required for lost creation is found in the salvific work of Christ. God’s incarnation pointed to the need of Jesus' suffering on the cross, and nothing was allowed to get in the way of that mission, not even those who were closest to him (Mark 8: 31-33). This was God communicating his will in his incarnation to affect salvation. The God-man’s free-will action demonstrated an unimaginable union of God and man for the satisfaction of God and the salvation of man.

One Person

To suppose that a man, Jesus, was assumed by God proposes two minds and two wills. Minds and wills belong to persons. So in order for Christ to have two, he would have to be two persons. One mind and will belonging to God and the second set to the man Jesus. Jesus would possess his own mind and will before God’s incarnation and assumption of him and, if it were of necessity, after God were to leave him. Not only so, but these two minds and wills would be active in the God-man. This incredible proposition of schizophrenia, in the bearer of the world’s salvation, violates the accepted axiom that “Christ is one person with two natures; therefore, whatever goes with natures, Christ has two of, and whatever goes with persons, he has one of.” Christ’s self-consciousness and self-determination are established and found in and only in the God-man as two natures and one person. Christ’s nature found itself only in union with the divine and has no being apart from that union.

Fundamentalism Isn’t Too Violent, It Isn’t Violent Enough

By Peter Rollins

The title for this post comes from the title of one of the talks I have been giving on the ‘Lessons’ tour. The main gist of the argument lies in exploring how the fundamentalism we witness at work today is, at its core, a movement that conserves and preserves the status quo. Its violence at the subjective level (e.g. defending the evils of misogyny, homophobia, unjust conflicts and self-interested foreign policy) is the direct outworking of its ultimate impotence when it comes to instigating real change.

Take the example of so many wars today. Amidst all their violence they are more often than not fought in order to preserve the way things are, to protect people in power, or to accumulate more resources. Thus their horrific violence at the subjective level hides the fact that they preserve the deeper objective violence of the system itself. The bloodshed thus helps to maintain the injustice that currently exists, ensuring that structures of oppression remain unchallenged.

In the same way fundamentalism, while violent at a surface level (at the level of everyday life) is simply a mask that hides the fact that it does not rock the very foundations of worldly power. Its frantic posturing and aggression is ultimately in the service of those with power, money, and voice. In this way their various highly funded projects designed to change society actually ensure that nothing of any significance really changes (those who are oppressed continue to be oppressed, the rich continue to get richer, the poor continue to get poorer).

Let us not then attack such a position for being too violent (apart from anything else, this is what such a movement thrives on; seeing itself as the church militant), rather we must pull back the curtain and show the impotent wizard for who it really is.

In contrast to fundamentalism it is people like Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King who, in their pacifism, are truly violent (who are the true church militant). In their non-participation and uncompromising actions they lived out an alternative vision of how the world could work, directly challenging the foundations of worldy power. In their seductive vision of an alternative world and their unrelenting quest to pursue it they ruptured the systems of power that surrounded them and thus expressed the true violence of Christianity. A violence that shifts the underground by allowing the outsider to be heard.

Thus, the next time we hear of some blustering speaker attempt to bolster their support by making themselves sound like the follower of a cage-fighting, bodybuilding Jesus, we should avoid the trap of arguing that their image of Jesus is too violent and instead show how it isn’t nearly violent enough. Drawing out how, amidst all their seeming machismo they are little more than a timid sheep in wolves clothing.

By Peter Rollins

http://peterrollins.net/blog/?cat=14