William A. Walker III

Pastor, Professor, Theologian, Spiritual Director

Author: Bill Walker (Page 17 of 24)

Kierkegaard's Passionate Individual Inwardness

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On August 6, 2013

In Ethics, Spirituality, Theology

Uncertainty - more work to do

“An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth attainable for an existing individual . . . The truth is precisely the venture which chooses an objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite.  I contemplate the order of nature in the hope of finding God, and I see omnipotence and wisdom; but I also see much else that disturbs my mind and excites anxiety.  The sum of all this is an objective uncertainty.  But it is for this very reason that the inwardness becomes as intense as it is, for it embraces this objective uncertainty with the entire passion of the infinite . . . Without risk there is no faith.  Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual’s inwardness and the objective uncertainty.” p. 182

“Existence is the child that is born of the infinite and the finite, the eternal and the temporal, and is therefore a constant striving.” p. 84

“An existing individual is himself in process of becoming . . . In existence the watchword is always forward.”  p. 368

Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript

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Themes in Richard Rohr's Teachings

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On August 2, 2013

In Theology

As usual, Rohr has me thinking.  There may be more to say here, as well as things that could be said differently (e.g., the usefulness of a healthy fear of God — especially when it comes to justice… and I don’t like that way he talks about “the goal of all religion,” leaving out the distinctively Christian notion of the Kingdom of God for instance), but this list nonetheless strikes me as profound and impressively comprehensive:

1. Scripture as validated by experience, and experience as validated by Tradition are good scales for one’s spiritual world view (METHODOLOGY).

2. If God is Trinity and Jesus is the face of God, then it is a benevolent universe. God is not someone to be afraid of, but is the Ground of Being and on our side (FOUNDATION).

3. There is only one Reality. Any distinction between natural and supernatural, sacred and profane, is a bogus one (FRAME).

4. Everything belongs, and no one needs to be scapegoated or excluded. Evil or Untruth cannot be directly fought or separated from as much as exposed to the Light (ECUMENICAL).

5. The “separate self” is the major problem, not the shadow self which only takes deeper forms of disguise (TRANSFORMATION).

6. The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines (PROCESS).

7. Reality is paradoxical and complementary. Non dual thinking is the highest level of consciousness. Divine union, not private perfection, is the goal of all religion (GOAL).

Taken from Rohr’s website here.

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What is Salvation?

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On July 25, 2013

In Theology

Here McLaren underscores mostly one side of the story of salvation, but it is the ever-so-still neglected side in our North American context.

Mark Galli on Rob Bell in Christianity Today

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On July 19, 2013

In Theology

I saw this a little while back in last month’s Christianity Today issue and thought it was worth sharing.  Though the rest of the article moves on to be critical of Bell for other reasons, I’m grateful for editor Mark Gali’s generosity and fairness here.  This is the kind of attitude and careful attention I wish more conservative evangelicals would take toward Bell, as I believe it is a Christ-like one:

 

The former pastor of Mars Hill Church believes God exists and can be experienced and yet cannot be contained by rational explanations. He affirms the divinity and humanity of Christ, as well as the Resurrection. He believes the Spirit is active in our lives and in the world. He believes the Bible is authoritative at some level—that is, he always tries to understand his life in light of his reading of the Bible. He is indignant about self-righteousness and injustice, and contrary to popular opinion, he actually believes in a judgment: He says people who abuse and exploit others and creation will not participate in the glorious restoration of heaven on earth. Yes, he holds out hope that perhaps everyone will someday be saved, but in one sense, so do many evangelicals. Even God is said to wish that no one should perish.

So unlike some of my other fellow believers, I cannot say, “Farewell, Rob Bell.” Instead, I think of him as my brother in Christ.

The rest of the article can be found online here.

Thomas Keating on Sharing the Gospel and the Mythic Membership Level of Consciousness

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On July 12, 2013

In Church and World

Seal of the Society for the Propagation of the...

Seal of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The church constantly has to integrate new wisdom, new science, new information into the Gospel if she is going to communicate it to contemporary people and to people of other cultures.  Unfortunately, those of little faith tend to identify the values of the Gospel with particular structures or symbols.  Then if the symbol is modified, like turning the altar around or receiving communion in the hand, they think the values of the Gospel are being rejected.  People have to grow beyond this over-identification.  Ancient symbols can sometimes prevent the value of the Gospel from being fully transmitted in new circumstances.  Even words develop opposite meanings over time.  Would we say that Jesus was not in continuity with Moses and the prophets?  They bore witness to him on the mountain.  Yet he was completely free about following their tradition.  He paid no attention to the rabbinical practice of preaching only in synagogues and only with regard to scripture.

[However,] in the parable of the sower Jesus seems to be referring to his own preaching.  Some of the seed, he says, falls on the footpath, that is, on the hard path, the path that goes through the field but that has no give, no flexibility, and is almost as hard as concrete . . . there is no chance of this seed bearing fruit because it can’t get through the concrete.  The concrete represents the mythic membership level of consciousness and the worldviews in which people live with unquestioning presuppositions and preconceived ideas: the world of racism, sexism, prejudice, and every kind of bias. — Thomas Keating, Reawakenings

The over-identification of structures or symbols with the gospel is indeed a problem, but I often see in myself and in others an over-identification with certain leaders, churches, experiences and even language itself as well.  All of these conduits for transmitting the message must be constantly relativized.  Theologically speaking, old forms like Thomism, Calvinism or traditional American evangelicalism, for instance, might also serve to substantially limit the gospel message today.

Moreover, what Keating calls “mythic membership level of consciousness” is similar to Niebuhr’s characterization of “henotheism” in the previous post.  It seems appropriate then to broaden the definition of this inferior kind of faith to include these other types of prejudices along the lines of identity politics — politics from the standpoint of both the oppressor and the oppressed.  Obviously, the two are not equal, but as closed-society faith forms, they are both insufficiently commensurate with the gospel or true faith.

True Faith according to H. Richard Niebuhr

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On July 8, 2013

In Ethics

“To deny the reality of a supernatural being called God is one thing; to live without confidence in some center of value and without loyalty to a cause is another” (H. Richard Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture, p. 25).

Here Richard Niebuhr begins to explain what I think is the essence of theology and ethics — namely, the study of our 1) orientation toward, 2) trust in and 3) commitment to meaning and purpose.  Most people have this, and it is directed at something.  Niebuhr calls this henotheism, or the faith of a “closed-society” — a “social” faith. God is identified with something bigger than the individual, but this god has a finite horizon.  The most common expressions of this kind of faith takes the shape of nationalism or some sort of conventional individual moralism.  Of course, it can also be seen in other groups besides national ones, such as tribes and factions of many varieties.  Similarly, individual moralism can quickly become collective.  The point is, at some point lines are drawn and insider/outsider distinctions are made.  It is a way to distinctive “us” from “them” and to create insulated mono-cultures of security and certainty of identity.  This is not altogether a bad thing.  It’s actually somewhat necessary.

The second form of faith that society takes is “polytheism,” which, in Niebuhr’s schema, tends to follow henotheism as it dissolves.  It comes from the “revelation that an apparently unified society is without integrity.”  It is “the breakup of the confidence that life as worthwhile as lived from and toward the community center.”  According to Sartre, in its most radical form it has individuals making themselves in order to be God and “losing [oneself] in order that the self-cause may exist” (Being and Nothingness, 1956, p. 626).  Niebuhr says “the more common alternative to communal confidence and loyalty appears to be less radical egoism in which an unintegrated, diffuse self-system depends for its meanings on many centers and gives its partial loyalties to many interests” (RM, p. 29).

The third form of human faith is what Niebuhr refers to in the title of his book as “Radical Monotheism.” This faith can only be achieved socially in fleeting moments and times in history.  Most of the time social faith remains susceptible to triumphalism and exclusion, and therefore violence and falsehood.  In radical monotheism, or what I’ll just call “true faith,”

“the value-center is neither closed society nor the principle of such a society but the principle of being itself. It is the assurance that because I am, I am valued, and because you are, you are beloved, and because whatever is has being, therefore it is worthy of love.  It is the confidence that whatever is, is good, because it exists as one thing among the many which all have their origin and their being in the One — the principle of being which is also the principle of value” (RM, p. 32).

In every church and society there is a mixture of social faith, polytheism and some radical monotheism.  Individually and collectively, people tend toward egoism and the fragmentation or absolutization of finite value.  Only faith in the God who is the source and sustenance of all being and therefore value itself — that is, the good — can give way toward fullness of life and love.

A Little bit on the Gospel and Culture

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On July 1, 2013

In Church and World, Spirituality

I found the following selection from Simon Critchley‘s recent op-ed in the New York Times entitled “the Gospel According to ‘Me'” to be a particularly acute diagnosis of some popular spiritualities today (read it all here):

In the gospel of authenticity, well-being has become the primary goal of human life. Rather than being the by-product of some collective project, some upbuilding of the New Jerusalem, well-being is an end in itself. The stroke of genius in the ideology of authenticity is that it doesn’t really require a belief in anything, and certainly not a belief in anything that might transcend the serene and contented living of one’s authentic life and baseline well-being. In this, one can claim to be beyond dogma.

Whereas the American dream used to be tied to external reality — say, America as the place where one can openly practice any religion, America as a safe haven from political oppression or America as the land of opportunity where one need not struggle as hard as one’s parents — now, the dream is one of pure psychological transformation.

This is the phenomenon that one might call, with an appreciative nod to Nietzsche, passive nihilism. Authenticity is its dominant contemporary expression. In a seemingly meaningless, inauthentic world awash in nonstop media reports of war, violence and inequality, we close our eyes and turn ourselves into islands. We may even say a little prayer to an obscure but benign Eastern goddess and feel some weak spiritual energy connecting everything as we listen to some tastefully selected ambient music. Authenticity, needing no reference to anything outside itself, is an evacuation of history. The power of now.

Here Thomas Merton writes several decades earlier in a way that I think illumines a Christian response:

All over the face of the earth the avarice and lust of [people] breed unceasing division among them, and the wounds that tear [them] from union with one another widen and open out into huge wars.  Murder, massacres, revolution, hatred, the slaughter and torture of the bodies and souls of [human beings], the destruction of cities by fire, the starvation of millions, the annihilation of populations and finally the cosmic inhumanity of atomic war: Christ is massacred in his members, torn limb from limb; God is murdered in [humanity].

From such blood-drinking gods the human race was once liberated with great toil and terrible sorrow, by the death of God who delivered himself to the cross and suffered the pathological cruelty of his own creatures out of pity for them.  In conquering death God opened their eyes to the reality of love which overcomes hatred and destroys death.

Humanistic love will not serve.  As long as we believe that we hate no one, that we are merciful, that we are kind by our very nature, we deceive ourselves; our hatred is merely smoldering under the gray ashes of complacent optimism.  We are apparently at peace with everyone because we think we are worthy.

To serve the hate-gods, one has only to be blinded by collective passion.  To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor.

Church as Messianic or Prophetic? Attempting a Clarification

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On June 24, 2013

In Church and World

Soren Kierkegaard studying

Soren Kierkegaard studying (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In his book, The Nature and Destiny of [Humanity], Reinhold Niebuhr distinguishes between three different kinds of religious “identity” and “purpose” (my words).  I see them closely corresponding to Soren Kierkegaard‘s three stages of life: the aesthetic, the ethical-moral, and the religious.

In the first place, there is the sensual life of indulgent self-interest.  And lest we be too hard on this group, it should be acknolwedged that the “aesthetic” life can be quite civil and friendly.  I think about the relative peace enjoyed by those who benefit, for example, from pax romana, or presently, pax america — that is, the economic and political stability established as a result of imperialism.  It is a climate in which we are more or less free to pursue our own ambitions and dreams without too much interference, as long as we don’t harm anyone else and obey the law.

A second mode of existence is one that recognizes and strives to adhere to a higher moral law.  Today we might actually reverse the Kierkegaardian language and call this mode the “religious” life.  The religious life can be very good, and deeply prophetic.  While it risks a great deal of self-righteousness, it also has the capacity to speak truth to power, criticize injustice and inspire generosity.  This mode looks out for the disenfranchised.  The trouble is that it can tend to miss the “log in its own eye.”

Thirdly, there is what Niebuhr calls the messianic consciousness, which is the properly Christian one for him.  The key lesson from messianism is that we cannot achieve justice or be righteous on our own no matter how hard we try.  Sin and egoism have so enslaved us as to make our good deeds no more than “filthy rags” before God’s throne, as Scripture says.  Only a sinless, suffering servant can bring about the full redemption and peace we all long for…

***********

My friend Bo Sanders over at Homebrewed Christianity has become fond of talking about three different kinds of churches: the therapeutic, messianic and prophetic (he claims to get this from Cornell West and Slavoj Zizek).  What’s so interesting to me, and what might already be clear, is the way that the messianic and the prophetic are switched so as to alter the Niebuhrian logic.  On this reading, the prophetic is preferable to and “higher” than the messianic, because the messianic is cynically interpreted to be escapist and other-worldly — i.e., God cleaning up the mess for us, and our responsibility is proportionally shrunk as long as we’re counted among the “saved.”

Now, I think it’s possible to see that both series of depictions are getting at essentially the same thing, but each with slightly greater respective emphasis on one of two necessary components to the life of the church: namely, the messianic (merciful) and the prophetic (just).  Jewish liberation theologian Marc Ellis was the person who first made the point to me about the problem with sheer messianism.  Of course, the naive Christian in me at the time wanted to challenge him by replying with the weaknesses of strict propheticism, some of which have already been highlighted above.  But actually I believe now that Ellis was right.

This is because Ellis also discusses the concept of revolutionary forgiveness.  This is an especially useful motif with regard to political, ethnic and national reconciliation, but surely it can apply to interpersonal relationships as well.  By this phrase, Ellis means first that no one gets to claim innocence for themselves.  Once all parties agree to this, then there can be some healing and transformation toward a better future, and — I would venture to say — toward salvation itself, which is always messianic and prophetic.

William James' "Will to Believe" for a Post-Christian Age

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On June 17, 2013

In Spirituality

Portrait of William James and Josiah Royce

Portrait of William James and Josiah Royce (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the one hand, it’s common to hear sometimes these days about a church or Christianity “beyond belief.”  I think this is good and needed.  On the other hand, obviously belief still matters.  This is why the words of William James are interesting to me.

The “will to believe” for James is a living, forced and momentous choice.  He calls those who might be willing to risk belief “tender-minded individuals.”  James talks about the benefits of religious belief in this life — not just the cost-benefit game of Pascal’s wager after life.

But by benefits now, James does not mean to endorse a kind of therapeutic or health and wealth gospel.  Nonetheless, belief gains us certain values and goods for living without which we would be much amiss.This view is not the same as advocating that we go around believing in fairy tales.  Moreover, the consolation that comes from belief is not about circumstance or even reward.  Rather, I think, he understands it to be about truth itself — beauty, goodness, and other “transcendentals.”  Of course, as a pragmatist James doesn’t tend to use the traditional metaphysical vocabulary much, but I don’t see why we can’t.

In sum, for James the religious question “is primarily a question of life, of living or not living in the higher union which opens itself to us a gift.”  I’m pretty sure this sort of thing resonates with people today, with those outside and inside the church alike:  “higher union,” “openness,” “gift”… this is the language of faith, serenity and purpose we all look for.

What Jesus does is concretize belief, but not in a way that confines or merely regionalizes it.  He makes belief accessible to everyone, always with respect for context.  As soon as folks gather around belief though in a more organized and religious way, it gets messy.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t organize, but it means we need to be careful about how and why we do.  I want to talk about some modes of ecclesial organization in the next post.

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Karl Rahner on humanity's sense of guilt before God

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On June 14, 2013

In Theology

rahner begegnen

rahner begegnen (Photo credit: mimax)

“The topic, “humanity as a being threatened radically by guilt,” is undoubtedly burdened today with a special difficulty: we cannot say that people today are bothered in a very immediate way and at a clear and tangible level of their consciousness by the question whether and how as sinners in their individual histories of salvation and its opposite they find a merciful God, or how they are justified by God and before God.  The normal person today does not fear God in this sense, and the question of his or her individual justification, which was, once with Augustine and then again at the time of the Reformation, the question on which the church was to survive or perish, this question does not bother people today very much or maybe even not at all . . . It might be the case, of course, that in the depths of an individual’s conscience and a really decisive points in someone’s person history it is a very different matter.  But judging by first impressions, in everyday life people today have no clear consciousness that they stand before God burdened by guilt and blame which cannot be shifted and as people deserving condemnation, but who nevertheless are saved by the incalculable miracle of God’s pardon, by God’s grace alone, and are accepted by God (Luther, Pascal, etc.) . . . A person today, then, is more likely to have the impression that God has to justify the unhappy condition of the world before human beings, that they are the sacrifice and not the cause of the condition of the world and of human history.”

– Karl Rahner, Foundations of the Christian Faith

Rahner goes on to make several other compelling observations.  First, regardless of the above, human beings do have a sense of the moral and what they “must” do in their lives.  We experience all of our finitude, fragility and ambiguity in the area of moral norms, he says.  Rahner understands this morality in terms of both our freedom and responsibility.  His notion of freedom is not about the ability to make arbitrary decisions one way or the other, however;  rather, Rahner sees humanity’s freedom as a totality of the direction of one’s existence expressed in the form of either a “yes” or “no” to God.

But this “yes” and “no” are not mere parallels choices.  Nor are they in any way the mere some of our good and evil acts.   A “no” to God can only be understood in light of the possibility and God’s intention for our “yes.”  Similarly, guilt can really only be grasped in a dialectical relationship with forgiveness.  In a way then, Rahner is saying we must be “Hearers of the Word” before we can truly know our radical dependence on God and need for the forgiveness that is offered in the coming of God to humanity through Christ.

What has always interested me about Rahner though is the extent to which he refuses to put up boundaries that demarcate access or status for anyone’s existential relationship before God.  As he rightly argues, the warnings in Scripture about judgement are just that — warnings — and they pertain to life here and now.  Eschatological accounts or mentionings of “hell” are not predictions for any individuals per se.  What these sayings do tell us, however, is that the possibility of a life decision against God is real, has final consequences, and should be taken very seriously.

Rahner tells us not to worry about the end so much or who and who’s not going to make it, but to focus on the way that leads there.  In other words, in many respects the decision is “hidden” — even though the way is made known and fruit will be shown.

My question in light of all this is, how do Christians convey this existential need and guilt before God — particularly given the difficulties set forth by Rahner’s above outline of the contemporary attitude?  I find his description of people today to be very accurate, and it probably describes me too from time to time!  Is this really bad?

I think it is . . . and it isn’t.  People just don’t believe as easily anymore that God is out to smite them.  Frankly, I’m kind of glad.  At the same time, I recognize that there are lots of potential problems with this.  The damage of individualism cuts both ways, in Christian and non-Christian circles.  Individualism can have a kind of positive expression, in which we isolate ourselves before God in the Kierkegaardian sense, but individualism today in the Western context looks more like ignoring responsibility for social ills and personal piety.  This is related to Rahner’s characterization of humanity ontological condition of freedom and responsibility.  It makes me think of the situation of globalization today very much and the lack of awareness and concern for the humanity’s heightened interdependence and the contingency of society and the planet itself.  We do not appreciate these realities, and yet they may be making the best case possible for the truth about sin and guilt.

Maybe this is a clue into a new way of talking about sin at the popular level.  The problem is not as much that any one person’s “no” is so condemnable — though in a sense it is! — but more so  that our collective “no” is.  The pain, betrayal, lust, hate and violence caused by human beings trying to run their own show and revolve the world around themselves is inexpressibly dire.  Everybody knows this if they’re honest, and we all see some of it even in ourselves.  We participate in it, and we should all take part of the blame.  According to Rahner, we know it too because of our openness to the “beyondness” (transcendence) and mystery of God that is historically mediated to every person’s experience of reality.  This openness is what raises our awareness of guilt before God despite our varying degrees of “righteousness” before each other.

Maybe the conversation can start with that.

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Bill is the Director of Vocation at Christ Church of Austin. He also teaches Christians ethics in the Business School at Baylor and theology as an adjunct professor at Truett Seminary. His first book, "A Theology of the Drug War: Globalization, Violence and Salvation" was published in 2020 with Lexington-Fortress Press. Read More...

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