"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8 NRSV)
So goes the passage from Hebrews that was found in the Revised Common Lectionary for last Sunday (Sept. 1).
That's an excellent place to start my conversation with Peter Rollins How (Not) to Speak of God, an excellent text that brings much insight into the "emerging conversation" regarding the future of Christianity in a postmodern culture.
Rollins uses the phrase "emerging conversation" in place of Phyllis Tickle's "emerging church" because he feels that what is happening on the emerging frontier of Christianity right now is too flexible and fluid to define as a church - instead it's more of a conversation that is being held through the Internet as well as print books and journal articles (but mostly through blog posts and the power of Twitter!)
I found "emerging conversation" to be a more helpful description of what's going on because it reminds us that part of our call as Christians is to be in dialogue with one another and with other traditions. It also serves as a gentle reminder that what is happening now is not something that has been set in stone, but rather is open to a variety of interpretations and should be examined thoughtfully and carefully before we make a response to it - just as Christians should listen in love before speaking in love.
Rollins uses the phrase "emerging conversation" in place of Phyllis Tickle's "emerging church" because he feels that what is happening on the emerging frontier of Christianity right now is too flexible and fluid to define as a church - instead it's more of a conversation that is being held through the Internet as well as print books and journal articles (but mostly through blog posts and the power of Twitter!)
I found "emerging conversation" to be a more helpful description of what's going on because it reminds us that part of our call as Christians is to be in dialogue with one another and with other traditions. It also serves as a gentle reminder that what is happening now is not something that has been set in stone, but rather is open to a variety of interpretations and should be examined thoughtfully and carefully before we make a response to it - just as Christians should listen in love before speaking in love.
Rollins sets up the first chapter by looking at how Christians have traditionally thought of God, as part of the emerging conversation involves rethinking how our definitions of God work in our contexts - not necessarily to discard and come up with new ones, but to help us see how these definitions actually define our contexts more than they define God. In fact, Rollins goes so far as to say that Christians- especially those among us who are transitioning from modernity and postmodernity - have a history of committing what he calls (and I love) the "idolatry of ideology." Simply enough this is just the sin of focusing so much on one particular image or idea of God that we disregard the plethora of descriptions of God found in scripture as well as our theological traditions.
Now this isn't breaking news. . Theologians have been trying to shake up our mental images of God for years. For example black theology comes up with an idea that "God is black" to help shake up the Anglo-Saxon identity of God that many in the Western Church picture (although few of us would readily admit it). Feminist theology works to break us out of a traditional image of God as masculine - "Father" is one of many images that help us understand our relationship with God, and there are plenty of feminine references to the Creator. Rollins is not giving us new information, rather he's just giving us a language to name what's going on.
Enter the Hebrews text. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Yet, what exactly does that mean? The Gospels themselves give us four very different portrayals of Jesus.
Let's look at the Passion narratives, for example. There are some key differences between Mark and John. Mark's Jesus is angry and upset at God for what happens on the cross, while John's Jesus accepts it. Did Jesus change? Or is the solution somewhat simpler, in that each author had to convey a different theological message about Jesus' work on earth and our role in the events leading up to his death and resurrection?
Is Jesus like this (famous) image of the duck/rabbit?
The image itself doesn't change, but our perception of the image does. Sometimes we look at it and see a duck, and sometimes we see a rabbit. Yet, both are present simultaneously.
Rollins uses this duck/rabbit image to talk about how humans describe about our objective knowledge of the world. He argues, I believe correctly, that "we can say that we never see the world as it really is (as symbolized by the lines) but always place meaning onto it (symbolized by the duck or rabbit). (Rollins, 9) The fancy word for this concept is the critique of ideology - the belief that we can never actually say something objective about the world because our subjective experiences place meaning onto the objective nature of things. The critique of ideology has often been used to argue against objective truth in favor of objective truth.
This brings us back to our discussion of Jesus remaining the same yesterday and today and forever. Jesus, in the image above, would be symbolized by the lines (or pixels if you prefer) of the image. We can call John's depiction of Jesus the rabbit and Mark's depiction of Jesus the duck. Both are present in the person of Jesus Christ, yet their depictions are more telling of the author's subjective world than the objective Christ. And yet, both of them help draw our attention to the lines of the image - the objective Christ, the member of the Trinity that is unchanging.
Our experience as fallen creatures however, keeps bringing us back to one image or the other. We want to focus exclusively on the rabbit or the duck. Whenever I see the duck/rabbit image, I'm reminded of an episode of How I Met Your Mother where the five characters in the show almost get into a fist fight over whether the image above is a rabbit or a duck. (Season 5, Episode 15)
Likewise, it is easy for us to get so very focused on one particular image of God, that anything that contradicts or challenges that image is reacted against, usually violently. And in doing so, Rollins pushes us to think (and I affirm) that when this happens we have committed idolatry. Our image of God is no longer the living vibrant God of Judeo-Christian tradition(s), but rather it has become a faded snapshot that might have reflected God once, but certainly doesn't continue to do so.
Fortunately for us, we have been provided an entire scrapbook of these snapshots that allow us to piece together a more comprehensive (if not downright confusing) idea of who the living God is. Rollins writes: "The Bible itself is a dynamic text full of poetry, prose, history, law and myth all clashing together in a cacophony of voices." (12-13) We need only open the scriptures to come face to face with several images that point us to who God is and how God acts in the world. There are rabbits and ducks aplenty, but we must keep in mind that they are still only images created out of their author's contexts and experiences. We cannot pick one and decide that is exclusively who God is.
This "cacophony of voices" can be confusing at times, yet we need not be afraid by the plurality of images for God. Instead it is good news for the Christian!
It reminds us that we are able to know something of God - that God loves us and embraces us, and in our relationship with God, we are transformed by God's unending love. It does not matter if we get a correct interpretation of God, because by trying to interpret God's word we are transformed by the love that is found there.
The plurality of images for God gives us reason to keep coming back to the text, again and again - the way we might return to a painting that we love, or read a book that we love, or watch a movie over and over again (guess which ones I'm guilty of). Each time we return to the text, we encounter a new depiction of God - something resonates within us that wasn't there the last time. This new encounter happens, not because God has changed, because as Hebrews reminds us, "[God] is the same yesterday and today and forever," but we constantly change. Our new experiences allow us to shift slightly and see a duck where once we saw the rabbit.
And so, perhaps the healthiest thing that we could do each time we come to the text is pray the prayer that Meister Eckhart prayed, for "God to rid me of God." (Found in Rollins, 19) We want each encounter with the text to be something new so that we see all of the different images of God without retaining one - for God rest in the lines where the images change, not in the images themselves. When we begin to look for God in the midst of these images, then we can start experiencing the living God.
All of this is--to be frank--terrifying because deep down in the heart of my heart I don't want God to be so slippery as to be a rabbit one moment and a duck the next. I'm not disagreeing at all--far from it--but I can see how many would resist this notion. The world around us is so full of change and impermanence and it is always comforting to know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. When I sit in the hospital and cry my heart out because my mother has died, I want Jesus to be the one whose hand will wipe away all tears with mercy and love. I need to know God IS this and ALWAYS will be. However, when I see injustice in places of power, I want Jesus to be the one who forms the whip and drives out the corrupt and those who prey upon the vulnerable. Hmmmm, perhaps that is a duck/rabbit image right there?
ReplyDeleteStill, this is difficult and something very valuable to think through. I look forward to seeing what else you post on this book.
"father" is not simply an image to "help" us with our relationship. Rather, it is the name of the first person of the Trinity who is in eternal relationship with the Son and Spirit. "We need only open the scriptures to come face to face with several images that point us to who God is and how God acts in the world. We cannot pick one and decide that is exclusively who God is." Image is not identity.Are not the Creeds meant to identify who God is and what God has done? Are the apostles not faithful in their witness? If we labor to seek the "plurality" of images in scripture we may miss the point entirely. God's specific identity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is integrally linked with salvation; it matters that we not confuse God as an image.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, however, our names are not the only things that form our identity. My name is Jared, but knowing that, I cannot say that you wholly know who I am and what I'm like. It's only through conversation that more and more pieces of my identity are going to emerge. And if you were going to share that identity with others, you would use images. Well he likes sports, just like John. Or he plays video games like Lucas. But if you were just to say, "He's Jared" others are not likely to know who I am. Or, if by chance, they have met me, their knowledge of me will draw upon their own images to describe who I am - which will likely differ from your own images that you would use to describe me.
DeleteWe do get, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" as a name for God, but we also have YHWH and Elohim. They are all different names to evoke different images to really get to the heart of an entity who we, at the end of the day, cannot adequately use language to describe.
The Creeds are a faithful witness to God's work in the world, but in a culture that is increasingly unfamiliar with the vocabulary of our traditions that we are steeped in as seminarians, we cannot rely upon them solely in our conversations with others.
When accessing the "plurality" of images without having the narrow focus on the cross one can simply find their own definition of God for their own purposes. This is why ecclesiology is pivotal in talk about scripture. Where does this paradigm lead? The author cites ( or you do) western imperialism as a justifying measure for groups to search the "plurality" of images to come up with one of their own to fit the agenda. Thus, it matters how we approach scripture. We go to scripture not as WASP's or African Americans but as children of God united in that common context. The one who unties us is Christ hanging on a cross. It matters who God is and how he is revealed.
ReplyDeleteWhat Peter Rollins is arguing for, and I wholeheartedly agree, is that it's almost impossible for us to separate ourselves from all of our cultural contexts, not just the fact that we are Children of God, but that we are also Americans, that we live in a postmodern world, etc. We can't escape it, we can't help it, and it's not a bad thing, as long as we continually communicate with all of scripture, all of tradition, and with all of our sisters and brothers in Christ around the world. By doing so, we round out our cultural blind spots, so to speak, and allow us to keep coming back to the cross again and again and again, so that we might gaze upon the living God that hangs there and be transformed by Love that is present there.
DeleteI agree that it matters who God is and how God is revealed, but I also think that we do the Holy Spirit a disservice if we forget that God continues to meet us where we are today. Which is also why it is important to be continually communicate within the whole body of Christ, as a way of keeping ourselves accountable. Otherwise, we do have a natural tendency to "pick and choose" the images of God that align with our cultural backgrounds, which are insufficient to approach the fullness of God.
"We go to scripture not as WASP's or African Americans but as children of God united in that common context."
DeleteThis is a noble intent, but it also ignores the insurmountable truth that we all come with our own idiomatic biases. Our viewpoints are shaped by our context, and while we should certainly aim to encounter God purely as children of God, we nevertheless must recognize where our biases lie or else rely on others to point them out for us. When we assume we have no biases, we risk creating a one-size-fits-all vision of God who is anything but. Therefore it is important to know those biases, communicate our riotously multifaceted vision of God, and revel in the differences that God has made in us so we may more fully approach that fullness of God. The one constant, as you pointed out, is the Cross.