Erics Book Report

Genesis 6

2010-03-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the LORD said: 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them. Jewish Publication Society Genesis 5-7

What is the character of God? Surely Platonic theology must always seek to downplay the plain display here of Yahweh's character that seems at odds with itself. To get a handle on the potency of this passage it is good to read some Christian and Jewish commentary of it. Here is the Geneva Study Bible's commentary on verse 6.

"God never repents, but he speaks in human terms, because he destroyed him, and in a way that denied him as a creature."

If you are a Calvinist (Plato influenced) Christian, the writer of Genesis must have slipped into a "human" mode of explanation since God's thoughts cannot be understood and later Scripture and theology flatly denies that God is capable of repenting his own actions.

Wesley is just as uncomfortable with Genesis 6:6. Here is his commentary.

"And it repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth" — That he had made a creature of such noble powers, and had put him on this earth, which he built and furnished on purpose to be a comfortable habitation for him; and it grieved him at his heart - These are expressions after the manner of men, and must be understood so as not to reflect upon God's immutability or felicity. It doth not speak any passion or uneasiness in God, nothing can create disturbance to the eternal mind; but it speaks his just and holy displeasure against sin and sinners: neither doth it speak any change of God's mind; for with him there is no variableness; but it speaks a change of his way. When God had made man upright, he rested and was refreshed, Exodus 31:17. and his way towards him was such as shewed him well pleased with the work of his own hands; but now man was apostatized, he could not do otherwise, but shew himself displeased; so that the change was in man, not in God.

I must hasten to point out that both commentaries are uneasy with Yahweh's unease. "It doth not speak any passion or uneasiness in God, nothing can create disturbance to the eternal mind." Both Wesley and the Geneva Bible manage to miss the point. Yahweh's passion cannot be denied as he repents of his own act of creation, and his subsequent, perhaps even hasty decision to blot out man from the earth in an unparalleled act of human genocide. Any sense of God's Immutability (A Platonic ideal) is deeply called into question by this passage, and I would submit that all of us, of every theological and secular stripe are left disturbed here.

Historically Genesis 6 was probably written by the writer scholars call "J." The early Old Testament was more than likely a combination of complex, subtle and not so subtle edits of various writers designated as J, E, P, and D. J, the Yahwist, because his writings all contain Yahweh or "The Lord" may have been the earliest writer in the Bible. This explains the cognitive dissonance evoked by certain verses, and also why some of Genesis makes more sense when the J passages are separated from the rest.

I was fifteen when I first read Genesis 6, and nothing brought into question the theology of my Christian upbringing more than my own contemplation of Yahweh's character, particularly as it is presented here. Nothing is more anti-theological than Yahweh who will be where he will be, and won't be where he won't (Exodus 3). "Immutable" is a theological concept, and Yahweh does indeed seem to become immutable over time (E, P and D each present a more unchanging Yahweh with less character). Yet even Christian theologians are disturbed by this passage. The "J" verses are often quoted by "Open theists" as proof that God can change his mind, and that he in fact learns as he goes, giving us the choice. God and Man Choose together. This is close to a Jewish treatment of Genesis 6. I recommend Arbraham Herschel's "God in Search of Man." Most Jews by definition would be "open theists" except with-out Christ. It's only the Platonic influenced parts of Judaism that are disrupted by this passage. Kabbalah influenced commentaries seem to ignore it altogether, instead focusing on the numerology of the verses in a complex way. It is easier to ignore Genesis 6 then to face it, particularly if you are theologically driven. If you are a Christian and not an Open theist you may be disturbed by the ramifications of Yahweh's character displayed here. One apologetics website fights Open Theism with this retort:

(Genesis 6:6).. is not a problem for Classical Christian Theism nor is it a proof text for Open Theism. The verse simply tells us that the Lord was grieved and had sorrow in His heart for making man. Why? Because mankind had fallen into great sin and this grieved the Lord. Does it mean that God didn't know that mankind would fall and become sinful? Of course not. Cannot God know that they would become sinners and also be grieved when it happens? Of course. Let me illustrate.

I have children. I love them and provide for them. But, they have grieved me in their various sins -- as any child will do to his parents. I knew they would grieve me when they were born because I know they are sinners by nature. This doesn't mean I was surprised and didn't know they would rebel when it happened. Quite the contrary; knowing they would sin doesn't mean I won't be grieved when their rebellion and sin is finally manifested.

The open theist would have us believe that God was grieved because He was surprised or didn't know the depths of sin to which the world would fall. But surely, even in Open Theism, God knew that people would sin. So, this verse can't be claimed to demonstrate that God didn't know the future choices of people.

This is funny because it misses the point. The apologetics writer here may know that his children are going to rebel against him. But he doesn't decide to drown them out of his foreknowledge! Yahweh is more shocked then we want to admit, and this may be disturbing to some, but I find it quite liberating. "All too human" is a good description of Yahweh as he is presented in "J." We can write whatever we want about Genesis 6, but we cannot change the wording of it. All of our theological disruptions go back to it, and careful readers of the Bible can drown in it, without the ark of theology and later explanation.

Blue Like Jazz: Donald Miller

2008-07-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

As a Jazz Musician, I found it disappointing to find Miller's book had little or nothing to do with Jazz. I've read too much Christian literature lately, and Miller's book is another in a long line of tired attempts to modernize American Christianity beyond its "conservative traditional" mystique. I have commented elsewhere in this blog on Emergent Christianity, and how impressive it is that given its assumptions each of us could in fact become our own Church, with our own sense of Church authority, whatever that might mean for any particular individual, I'm not sure.

I have often observed that both Right and Left winged American Evangelical Christianity are children of Emerson with different emphasis. The choruses they sing are Walt Whitman's Song of Myself where "Jesus" is a metaphor of "myself." The preaching is Emerson's monumental Self Reliance: the principle essay that still moves American politics both Right and Left, despite the fact that fewer and fewer of us have read it.

Miller is just another in a long line of American self invented Christians. One must admire his poetry, and good humor and his writing style. He has his own "particularism" reminiscent of Anne Lamott, or even Victor Hugo, but with a Christian twist. Miller is thoughtful, modern, and "real." I mean "real" in the sense of how any self invented twenty or thirty something wants to think of themselves as "real" these days. Which probably means half-digested truths applied to a bumper sticker that seeks to be more profound than that. I suppose one could call it "post-modern" as numerous reviews I read of it did. But post-modern is a much brandied about term in Christian circles, and I seriously doubt any of them have ever read Lyotard.

What would Emerson have made of Miller and his fellow emergents? I think perhaps he would approve of the contradictions inherent in Miller's framework as much as he would like the over-all freedom of it. If Christianity is "blue like Jazz," than it also necessarily is as individual, personal, and free to be whatever it happens to be. "Everybody sings their song the way they feel it. Everybody lifts up their hands."

In the end its not a question of intellect but one's own personal experience. It is always about the self, yet Miller in Anne Lamott fashion, with good humor, dismisses his self's ability to make a clear judgement. Only an American Christian can be so self driven while insisting the self is no longer relevant. Miller writes "The most difficult lie I ever contended with is this: life is a story about me." Yet Walt Whitman has his revenge after-all as Miller's profound journey is in the nether regions of his self awareness. The problems of the world are not out there, but inside Miller himself "The needy thing in his chest." What can set it free other than a new self alignment? That in the end is his prescription and I can only shake my head in awe of the audacity of it all.

American Christians like Miller are selfish selves, who humble themselves, give of themselves to God, who also lives in them and contends with themselves. God gets all the glory but he lives with-in them. Does the self reap the glory in the end? I suspect that it does.

Miller recounts humorous experiences of Individuals undergoing a "God thing." Can they ever separate the self from the God? Such a question is necessarily alien to them, as the nuances of their language allow a strange "knowing" distinction. Such a knowing is the "spark" or the "gnostic" urge so celebrated by Walt Whitman and Emerson, which can also be found in Kabbalah.

The God with-in apprehends the God with-out, or so Emerson thought. I love the poetry, though I fear the social/political consequences are something else. The nuances of doctrine are no longer necessary in Miller, only the particulars of situation. One of my favorite Emerson quotes is: "Our prayers are the disease of the will, and our creeds the disease of the intellect." Would Miller go that far? I suspect he would. Only an Emersonian Christian could somehow appropriate at least the last half of this formulation, the way Miller does. My hat is off to him and his audacious quest. Is it freedom he gains? I often wonder, is it freedom for the self? Or from other selves? I suspect the later, despite emergent Christian protestations to the contrary.

This book will last a short period in American consciousness as the Christian Church undergoes another metamorphosis, with an increasing hunger for the "fresh" perspectives. The sentiments of Miller, which belong to Emerson and Walt Whitman are timeless and have so infected Leftward Evangelical Christianity that I can scarcely distinguish them.

The Quest of The Historical Jesus: Albert Schweitzer

2008-03-15T06:35:00.001-07:00

I have been away from this blog for a while, due mostly to difficult life circumstances, but now I return to it. I have received some emails regarding previous posts; I try to respond as quickly as I can.

Of all the questers I've read, Schweitzer stands as the most poignant. This book in particular is probably essential reading for theologians, pastors, serious Christians, and skeptics. Since it was published in 1911, it has stood as a landmark book. In the study of Jesus, no scholar can completely ignore Schweitzer. He writes:

“The critical study of the life of Jesus has been for theology a school of honesty. The world had never seen before, and will never see again, a struggle for truth so full of pain and renunciation as that of which the lives of Jesus of the last hundred years contain the cryptic record…

Schweitzer begins his critique with an astounding survey of all of the German scholarship on Jesus, taking us through the Eschatology focus of Reimarus, the early rationalists, the fictitious lives, Paulus, Strauss, Bauer, Renan, and finally Wrede.

N.T. Wright, and other so-called “third questers” are often credited for comprehending Jesus in his Jewish context. Yet many of them owe their views to Schweitzer who was among the first to try to place Jesus in his Jewish surroundings.

Schweitzer, more than anyone else at the time, summed up the basic point of German scholarship, and concluded that the Jesus of history was quite alien to the Jesus of faith. Like almost all scholars, he wrestles with the enigma of Jesus as presented in the book of Mark, and concludes that Jesus—and thus Christianity was shaped more by the failure of the Parousia (the second coming) to take place. Jesus in his own lifetime expected a dramatic eschatological occurrence of redemption and salvation for Israel, which failed to come. His disciples chose to see the redemption in his death, and later his resurrection.

The whole history of “Christianity” down to the present day, that is to say, the real inner history of it, is based on the delay of the Parousia, the non-occurrence of the Parousia, the abandonment of eschatology, the progress and completion of the ‘de-eschatological’ of religion, which has been connected therewith. (p.358)

Schweitzer was among the first to recognize and historically trace a dramatic disappointment in Christianity, underneath its message of universal triumph.

There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the life of Jesus….the historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma. The study of the Life of Jesus…set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him, it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Saviour. It loosed the bands by which He had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine, and rejoiced to see life and movement coming into the figure once more, and the historical Jesus advancing, as it seemed, to meet it. But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to His own. What surprised and dismayed the theology of the last forty years was that despite, all forced and arbitrary interpretations, it could not keep Him in our time, but had to let him go.

Schweitzer the historian realizes that it is not the study of History that can discover Jesus, he writes:

“History can destroy the present; it can reconcile the present with the past; can even to a certain extent transport the present into the past; but to contribute to the making of the present is not given unto it.”

Schweitzer at spiritual odds with his historical conclusions recognizes a kind of sincerity, which feels to him like truth.

Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from Him and flows through our time also. This fact can neither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of Christianity.

With a kind of anguish, Schweitzer recognizes the temptation for the reader to read himself into Jesus’ life.

It is nothing less than a misfortune for modern theology that it mixes history with everything and ends by being proud of the skill with which it finds its own thoughts.

Many of Schweitzer’s views have been disproved, by modern scholarship. He did not have access to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and one wonders what he would make of their cryptic resemblances to the New Testament. Yet, he stands as the most important Jesus scholar of the 20th century. Schweitzer was a great man, a wonderful musician, a missionary, and a winner of the Nobel Prize. It was as if he thought of St. Paul in First Corinthians 13, and the moving poem he quotes of love, hope, and faith, but the greatest of these is love. After an incredibly vigorous and poignant historical survey, Schweitzer had no faith, no hope. But he retained love.

The Book of Mark

2007-12-10T15:21:00.000-08:00

It is fitting to begin the Jesus Quest with a review of this most surprising Gospel, which can be read in one sitting.

Imagine yourself with Mark in your hands, and it is now the only Gospel you possess, and you know of no other Luke, or John or Matthew. Then remember that most scholars—almost all of them—believe that Mark was the very first Gospel written, and that Matthew, Luke, and perhaps even John had at least parts of this Gospel open in front of them when they wrote.

Even some Christians I’ve read are shocked by the ferocity of Jesus when they encounter him here, particularly without the softening of the other evangelists. It is somehow significant that the demons understand who Jesus is, while his disciples and family generally do not. Stranger still is how Jesus talks in parables with the intent to confuse. After Jesus gives the parable of the sower, Mark quotes Isaiah 6. Here in Mark 4…

Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.
But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!”

The parable of the sower represents the attempt by Jesus to sow the Word of God, and in Mark the disciples hopelessly fail to understand, although in Matthew (13) they do. Birds devouring the Savior’s seeds belong to, indeed are, Satan. Does Mark understand either the parable or Jesus’ interpretation? Mark doesn’t say so; we have to assume that he knew that his Jesus was alluding to Isaiah’s bitter irony, in which Yahweh sends forth a willing prophet while remarking that he will not be understood. Matthew, softening Mark’s harshness overtly quotes Isaiah, thus giving us a rather more conventional Jesus, who can shrug off any slowness of understanding, whether among the people or his own disciples. But what happens to Mark’s utterly characteristic sense of how mysterious Jesus is, if we accept Matthew’s revision?

Robert Frost captures the fierceness of Jesus as an enigma brilliantly in his poem “Directive:”

I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it,
So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t.

Frank Kermode is my guide here in his most fascinating book A Genesis of Secrecy. I highly recommend it. He points out that the ending of Mark raises even more questions. The book ends with:

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The women are running away from what is no longer the tomb of Jesus. Do they yet see and perceive, hear and understand? Running away afraid is hardly a tonality of good news. Chapter 16:9-20 is an editorial after-thought attempting to remedy this striking abruptness. Some scholars believe that Mark originally had a different ending that was edited out. But this is conjecture, since we really don't know.

Greek scholars tell me that Mark was written in a hurried form of Greek. The favorite word of the Gospel is “immediately;” used some forty times. The ending, like the rest of the Gospel is either clumsy or powerfully subtle. Harold Bloom in his book Jesus and Yahweh helpfully suggests that Mark is both clumsy and subtle, reminding us of the enigma of the literature of Edgar Allen Poe.

The upshot is that the secretive Jesus in Mark is woefully enigmatic and difficult to grasp. We the readers see without perceiving and hear without understanding, and like the three women, we run away from the tomb afraid. In Mark, Jesus is talking to insiders, but even the assumed insiders fail to understand. The literary result is an open-ended tonality that rules very few possibilities out. Thus Jesus questers must begin with a hypothesis of a narrative sort that can explain the enigma of Jesus’ behavior here.

No scholar who takes Jesus seriously can quite shake the potent mystery of Jesus’ secret ministry. Schweitzer, Wrede, Remius, and many other scholars since were all powerfully moved by the ferocious puzzle of Jesus in this Gospel. For this reason alone, I believe it contains all the other Gospels, and subsequent gnosticisms, and theological possibilities, which sought to answer the riddle.

Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of ReligionR.A. Knox

2007-11-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

Every so often I find a book that reminds me what it is I love about reading, and why I go to all this trouble! Knox is brilliant, articulate, knowledgeable, and penetrating, he is a pleasure to read. I have spent many long hours trying to understand the enthusiastic religious temperament, and Knox, a reasonable Catholic offers a most welcome perspective.

Knox compellingly shows us the two different kinds of religious enthusiasm, which he would like to define as "ultrasupernaturalism."

I would suggest a distinction between "mystical" and "evangelical" enthusiasm. One, taking its point of departure from the Incarnation rather than atonement, by-passes the theology of grace and concentrates on the God within...The other, more acutely conscious of man's fallen state, thinks always in terms of redemption; to know, somehow, that your sins are forgiven, that you are a new creature in God's sight, is all that matters...either tendency can be a signpost to the morass. Your Anabaptist or Ranter may consult the light within him..The mystic's claim is that he adheres to the 'base' or 'apex' of his soul--call it which you will; an inner sanctum, beyond the reach of sense, but apt for communion with the divine...cuts himself in two; half of him is in the clouds, the other half remains on earth, mysteriously divorced from its spiritual partner...on the opposite slope lies the peril of pure antinomianism (Not being subject to morals or a divine law) St. Paul with his Omnia mihi licent (All things are lawful) St. Augustine, with his Ama, et fac quod vis (Love and then what you will, do) Luther with his Pecca Fortiter (Sin without fear)..is it certain that any natural law of morals is binding on a soul which has emancipated itself from the natural, and lives now by a law of grace? (Parenthetical translations are mine--Enthusiasm: 581-582)

This is a pleasure to read. Knox has just described the two sides of Protestantism taken to doctrinal extremes, one illumined by an "inner light" that finds God with-in, and the other illumined by an "inner-light" that can interpret the Bible. Knox takes us through the vexed history of Enthusiasm from Paul's opponents in First Corinthians through John Wesley and modern revivalists. He concludes that all kinds of enthusiasm have their point of departure in a rejection of Authority. I couldn't help but detect a veiled criticism of Protestantism itself, though he also is quick to recognize periods of enthusiasm within Catholicism. Indeed, his primary thesis is that Enthusiasm is "ultra-supernaturalism" on a recurrent theme. Knox rightly calls America the last vestige of Enthusiasm, taking note how similar we are to the Donatists, Montanists, Anabaptists, and so on.

There are so many wonderful quotes in this book, although as a reader I was bogged down in some places dealing with obscure Enthusiasts. Even so, Knox's wisdom and great writing has won me over. I highly recommend this book.

Deep River: Reflections on the Religious Insight of Certain Negro Spirituals

2007-10-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

Five or Six decades after its origin, the Negro spiritual was observed by Maurice Ravel to be America’s greatest musical contribution because it was an authentic human outcry of suffering in the worshipful presence of God. After listening to (and attempting to transcribe) some of Ravel's music, I decided to read this tough little book, written by Howard Thurman and Orton Jones.

There is a sublime severity to the Negro folk song, which was born out of the African slaves intrinsic sense of him or herself as a child of God. Thurman and Jones conclude that the materials of the Negro Spiritual were derived from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, along with a sophisticated conception of nature, and the personal experiences of the common lot of the people. One can go further. The Negro spiritual is the charged inward manifestation for the African slave of the Jewish burden and concept of life, nature, and personal experience, as it is presented in the Old Testament. This profound appropriation is easily identified in the lyrics of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, or Wade in the water. But the sound of the music has a curious people-forming mystique to it as well. Wynton Marsalis and others easily persuade me that this music belongs to African Americans and should be sung and performed by their authentic voice. Jazz too can be continually formed out of this charged African American atmosphere of hope in the daily grind of suffering, and it holds to this mythos even today.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves music, and wishes to understand the roots of the sounds we all groove to.

Postponements: Women, Sensuality, and Death in Nietzsche by David Farrell Krell

2007-10-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

From a distance Nietzsche displays an unmitigated misogyny, profoundly misread by modern deconstructionists who would turn him into a feminist. But Krell has evidence from Nietzsche's notebooks, and a drama he was preparing that Nietzsche's views on women were immeasurably more complex than either view. Nietzsche was undoubtedly influenced by Schopenhauer's On Women, an unfortunate 19th century persuasion that will read hopelessly sexist even by modernity's most conservative standards. Yet Krell reminds us compellingly of Pana and her decisive role in Zarathustra's thought. Also there was Corinna, who is the principal female character in the deferred drama Nietzsche was writing. Krell argues that she displays the philosopher's inability to find resolution for the confrontation of women with sensuality and death, only indefinite postponement.

It occurred to me as I was reading Krell that Nietzsche's ambivalence toward women could stem from his own lack of success with them. What else could prompt: "“You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!” from Thus Spake Zarathustra? Nevertheless there is a kind of irony always in his regard toward women, which strikes me as the basis for much of what he called "instinct." Krell illuminates the tension of Nietzsche's concept of belatedness, born out of his ideas about women and tragedy. Krell is writing against Walter Kaufmann, and I find him very compelling. Nietzsche's sense of tragedy is a metaphor for his own tragedy, which certainly included his relations with women. All of this must be central to his philosophy. I recommend this book for anyone who would try to understand Nietzsche better.

Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics By William Lane Craig

2007-10-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

What is the secular skeptic who loves literature to do with a well-constructed Christian apologetic written for seminary students? Despite William Lane Craig’s assertions to the contrary, I remain convinced that apologia of any kind is always written out of a kind of anguish over God’s belatedness: the divine failure to act in a public, undeniable way. Every Christian apologetic writer and reader must always suffer the written word in place of the deed. Another alternative for them is the illuminating inward turn of the lonely personal experience, the discovery of Jesus or the Holy Spirit with-in, which must always supplant reason. Is faith and reason really compatible as Craig so persuasively asserts? As I read Craig’s ideas I couldn’t help but think of Holocaust survivor Rabbi Leo Baeck, and his devastating critique of Christian theology and its accompanying historical determinisms in his Essay Romantic Religion:

It {Christianity} knows nothing of the great message, which can demand further struggles for the days to come; it only knows only what had been decreed as the universal end. It always feels as if it had been born belatedly. This alone would be reason enough why culture could not have any place in Romanticism; it could only be a completed culture, and that is a contradiction in terms, for true culture must demand ever-new possibilities.

It is thus typically romantic when the Christian Church claims that what is most essential in all events was terminated with a particular occurrence, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and so lets the entire religious ideal be fulfilled once and for all in a single extraordinary existence. This one event becomes the absolute, the unsurpassable event in all history, and whatever comes later can be judged only in accordance with its attitude toward this one event. It becomes the quintessence of religion, that one becomes absorbed in the incomparable event which once occurred and tries to re-experience it. The past is turned into dogma.
This essentially unhistorical attitude toward history is particularly evident in modern Protestantism; indeed, here above all, because a completed story is almost all that remains to it. After it has given up most dogmas, a completed story remains almost its only axiom of faith. The question of the “unique” personality of Jesus becomes for it the question of the very existence of religion. All its exertions and aspirations must be directed again and again toward some kind of historical evidence for this one particular life, to counter the ever-new objections. All its striving and efforts are thus a perpetual restoration, an ever-renewed attempt to present the one event of the past in a fitting style; restoration is, after all, a romantic enterprise. The relation to religion becomes a relation to a story… faith is made dependent upon the certification of a story…the idea of further creative activity…is rejected from the outset… (Leo Baeck From Judaism and Christianity Page 219)

I quote this because I love it so much. It always feels that it was born belatedly. That expresses my sensation with the faith of my Christian youth more eloquently than anything I’ve ever read. A dispassionate observer will note that Baeck has just described Craig who knows the origin of the universe along with the fate of mankind, and his own destiny to immortality, from his own admitted inward personal experience; and yet he must somehow continually strive to know more through a vigorous, ethical, scientific, philosophical, and historically exacting description of a particular story. I’m nearly certain that Christian evangelical apologists like Craig are Romantics—that is in Baeck’s terminology—Gnostics dressed in rationalist finery, and I’m not unmoved by the poetry that moves them, though I have to think that what they really find in the caverns of their inner most selves is not Jesus, but a reflection of their own nature.

One of the great ironies of our so-called “post-modern era” is that Christian Evangelicalism, from Gresham Machen, Francis Schaeffer, and William Lane Craig can be more philosophical than the blissfully vacuous pragmatists of our half-digested secularisms. (The last secularist I talked with was attempting to convince me that aliens created the universe). Evangelicals—characterized by Harold Bloom and other skeptics as “Know-Nothings” can be surprisingly erudite, and thoughtful, and this is particularly true of Craig, though in the end I suspect that most Evangelicals will hardly read him. Alas, secularism too is an easy intellectual target. However, a thoughtfully secular point-by-point rebuttal to Craig can be found here:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/chris_hallquist/faith.html#ch1

Chris Hallquist does a fair job of summarizing and refuting Craig’s perspective, although it should be pointed out that Craig is writing to Evangelical Seminary students, who have most likely never even heard of David Hume. I think its safe to say that that many of Craig’s assertions are developed far better elsewhere. The point must be made again that Craig is speaking to believers, and would probably take a different tone with secularists like Hallquist or myself. A casual Google search of Craig reveals a vast assortment of Christian/Atheist debates, of which Craig is a champion. I’ve never been certain what debates of this sort accomplish, since they tend to only convince the convinced.

Since Craig utilizes what is called “offensive apologetics,” he does not address the secular objection to the problem of Evil in light of God’s existence. Instead he presents the existence of God as an objective value for good. This can be demonstrated by the meaninglessness of divine absence. Craig is at his best when discussing the absurdity of life without God. He writes:
If each individual person passes out of existence when he dies, then what ultimate meaning can be given to his life? Does it really matter whether he existed at all? It might be said that his life was important because it influenced others or affected the course of history. But this only shows a relative significance to his life, not an ultimate significance. His life may be important relative to certain other events, but what is the ultimate significance of any of those events? If all the events are meaningless, then what can be the ultimate meaning of influencing any of them? Ultimately it makes no difference.

Hallquist points out correctly that each event is not given “ultimate” meaning by the next moment. The value of a thing may not have anything to do with what eventually happens to it. But Craig wittingly appeals to the most basic human desire of immortal completeness. I remain convinced that this is the superlative attraction of our various Plato inspired religions, which is a kind of spilled over poetry. It is Craig’s strongest argument, and it is in fact the least rational. The mundane world of this-ness, a world bereft of dualisms, with no spiritual other, is unthinkable to the Christian. The fundamental difficulty is apprehending this world, its tyrannies and injustices, without a spiritual remedy. The role of this comprehension is—and has always been the secular humanities. The entire function of Ethics and Philosophy from Socrates to Lyotard is predicated upon the acceptance of the human condition, in its entire frail splendor, which is ultimately rejected by Craig and nearly all of Christendom. Craig’s assurance that he will transcend becomes the basis for how he will employ his ethics, science, and philosophy, not how he will subject himself to them.
Still, I am not unmoved by Craig’s analysis, but I would gently point out that when we love, sacrifice, and toil with ethics, without affirming our immortality, or God, our moral struggles and uncertainties take on their own poetic transcendence. Some philosophers (Socrates as the ultimate example) accepted their eventual death, and still took their precious time in this world to try to understand what it means to be “good.”

Furthermore, Christians are not immune to ethical bewilderment, even in their divine assurance, especially since the entire sublime function of the New Testament, Augustine, and Luther, as I read them, is to replace the moral law of the Old Testament, with a man.

But then my approach to the Bible tends to be literary and it should be pointed out that neither Hallquist, nor Craig are sensitive to the characters of Yahweh or Jesus, but only in showing or denying their existence. Jesus is absent entirely from Craig's moral arguments, as is Satan. Meaning to him is based upon immortality and God's existence, which in the end are the same thing. God and the resurrected Jesus are fused into a gigantic metaphor for a human who will live forever, provided he can get the story right.
Craig does not shy away from good philosophy, and I am impressed with his proof for God’s existence, which makes up the Kalam Cosmological argument, so reminiscent of Locke and a strong misreading of Augustine. I also agreed with much that he had to say regarding the disciplines of History and Science. His "intelligent design" apologetic is as strong as any I've read, though I find the genre incredibly speculative and subjective. The book takes a turn in the area of New Testament Miracles with proofs that are often begging for clarification. It occurs to me after reading Hallquist’s objections to Craig that some Christians and Atheists are oblivious to metaphor in the Bible.

Craig Blomberg co-wrote Chapter 6 on the Historical Reliability of the New Testament, and I found myself blinking every other paragraph. He does a fair job of outlining the basic components of modern New Testament research, but he falls far short in his proofs on the historical reliability and harmonization of the various accounts.
Craig is somewhat more persuasive in the subsequent chapters on Jesus’ resurrection and his self-understanding. I tended to agree with him on many fine points, but his over-all conclusions bewildered me. I recommend this book because it is well written, and Craig is a thoughtful Christian.

The Shaping of American Religion--A series of Essays

2007-08-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

I have spent six months contemplating the role of religion in America, reading and thinking about its unique emergence in the history of religion. American Religion provides a welcome perspective, summing up our strengths and faults. I am in total agreement with Richard Niebuhr that American pluralism is the key to our religious tolerance, and our tremendous denominational diversity, at the expense of an over-arching authority. The American faith is both denominational and non-denominational at the same time, even with-in the same person. Such complexity and divergence of thought with-in each of us underscores the perplexities of how we come together to worship at all. Yet we do come together, perhaps in a celebration of our own individuality. Each of us can have our own Jesus Christ, or our own relationship with God, in an unmediated inward turn that finds God--not in our various denominations but--with-in ourselves. Personal Experience is a hallmark of the American faith, and perhaps our supreme distinction from our European Christian traditions, which are both ironically less Biblical, and less open to pluralism then we are.

I am reminded of Paul Johnson's observation in his popular History of Christianity that American's tended to ignore the depths of European Christian history, and instead went straight back to the 40 days after Jesus rose from the dead. Nearly every American Christian I know views him self as an insider, privy to the secrets and knowledge of the early disciples and the apostle Paul. Much of this knowledge is experience driven. Thus, the American soul shows every sign of a kind of gnosticism in an age of total appropriation. Thus Joseph Smith has emerged as an American God, by now he is ruling his own planet. Leiland Jamison observes in his essay that there is no way to categorize all the various sects, cults, and divergent paths of the American faith.

Nietzsche's laments of God's death and burial cannot shake the American soul which finds proof of God inwardly in the lonely frontier at Cane Ridge and the tent meetings of the so called Great Revival. Europe can hardly touch us at all, which means that its traditional structures will slowly degrade over time here as Henry Browne and Oscar Handlin demonstrate in their surveys of Judaism and Catholicism.

My disappointment with the Book was that it failed to show the African influence upon this process with its gnostic undertones. The Afrikan Little me that is myself that is in me, bares a close relationship to Jesus living in our hearts, and one can marvel at Africa's influence over our soul even as we continue to send missionaries to their shores. It is no surprise to me that Pentecostals will soon--if not already--represent the largest influx of Christianities converts.

What is the price for our triumph? The American soul has an unmediated exchange with God that is as self evident as our constitutional rights. Since we spurn authority, no Church can impose its will upon us without our consent. We have the ultimate freedom of worship, but it is not freedom for the self but alas, from other selves. Tocqueville is our best Religious critic, who warned of the Democratic desire for flattery. The conquest of the frontier has turned us inward to find the manifest destiny with-in the self which wants no part of creation, but would over-come it to find each of us alone in the Garden with Jesus. This comes to us from the moderate Baptist tradition which may be America's most creative religious achievement, as Sidney Ahlstrom points out the brilliant theology of Edgar Mullins in his essay on American theology. The social political consequences of all of this are something else.

I am more moved by aesthetics than politics, and the American faith is a thing of beauty in its sheer complexity, and pluralistic diversity. Johnathan Edwards may write to our conscience, but Emerson and Walt Whitman both write to our soul, which finds God with-in. Our theological mind belongs to William James who most moves the liberals and moderates among us, as Daniel Williams points out.

This book was edited in the 60's and much has changed since. But I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to contemplate American democracy and its impact on faith.

Long Day's Journey Into Night--Eugene O'Neil

2007-07-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

My dear mother has introduced me to the genius of the American Playwright. A better start could not be made than Eugene O'Neil's Pulitzer Prize winning play. The major characters are a Mary, James Tyrone, Edmund, and Jamie. Mary struggles with a potent morphine addiction and violent mood swings, James Tyrone is a retired actor who had potential to be great, but settled for a second hand acting position in an unfulfilling play. He is frugal--almost to a fault. Jamie is the failed elder son, who lives a life of squander and debauchery. Edmund is poetic, thoughtful, sickly and suffering from consumption.

O'Neil paints a vivid portrait of a family striving with itself against a cascading anguish of denial, regret, and emotional trauma. Mary stands out most acutely for her morphine addiction and heart wrenching mood swings, she is somehow with them but very distant. Her poignant ending words: "I married James Tyrone and was happy for a time..." ache with a pathos that finds love out of human frailty. Only the best actors could pull off a play like this which relies so much on dialogue and very little action.

The most vivid character is Edmund who must represent Eugene himself in this nearly autobiographical portrayal of his own family. The most moving line of the play comes before it in the introduction:

For Carlotta, on our 12th Wedding Anniversary. Dearest: I give you the original script of this play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood. A sadly inappropriate gift, it would seem, for a day celebrating happiness. But you will understand. I mean it as a tribute to our love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love that enabled me to face my dead at last and write this play--write it with deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones....These twelve years have been a journey into light--into love. You know my gratitude. And my love!

Deep seated regret is a recurring theme in 20th century literature, and Eugene O'Neil brilliantly captures the mood of a family desperately trying to love in spite of itself.

I highly recommend this book.

I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek

2007-07-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

I have often observed the audaciousness of the American religion, of which conservative, evangelical fundamentalism is the most boundless in its drive to know beyond belief. Why must we transcend faith with near certainty? Perhaps it is our will for religious freedom, not for the self, but from other selves that drives our fundamentalisms. Regarding the American religion, and the title of this book, I realize that it could take courage to be an atheist, which makes me think of Kierkegaard and his poignant question: "How does one become a Christian in the age of Christendom?" What special remnant exists in a nation where gallup informs me that 70% of us pray to Jesus?

Geisler and Turek have compiled an impressive argument that ranges from scientific, textual, philosophical, and moral defenses that make up a new kind of apologia for evangelicalism. Though many would regard evangelical Christianity as a kind of faith, the authors have formulated a rational defense that renders their conceptions of science, philosophy, morality and the Bible nearly certain.

To be sure, modern day secularism is an easy target in America, since I remain convinced that very few of us are actually secular. To that end, sometimes justifiably, the authors portray atheism as a kind of bankrupt philosophy that has no basis for objective morality and truth.

"If God exists, then there's ultimate meaning and purpose to your life. If There's a real purpose to your life, then there's a real right and wrong way to live it. Choices you make now not only affect you here but will affect you in eternity. On the other hand, if there is no God, then your life ultimately means nothing. Since there is no enduring purpose to life, there is no right or wrong way to live it. And it doesn't matter how you live or what you believe--your destiny is dust."

This revealing paragraph does not describe a thought-out atheist, but the author's conception of what atheism would lead to. Where would Geisler and Turek be without their certainty? "Your destiny is dust."

In a way, I feel sorry for them. The authors build for us a rational universe based upon a Newtonian--or even an Augustinian model that pretends--whenever possible, that the last five hundred years did not happen. Reducing Emmanuel Kant and David Hume to self defeating simpletons, the authors trash the depths of secularism through a wide general survey, that aches for clarification. One struggles to get through a book like this. It nearly defeated me as I began to realize that the devil was always in the details of these wide sweeping judgements. The more I read the more I began to realize that Science and Reason had become gigantic metaphors for a Bible that contained no words. Instead only half digested grunts and yearnings of certainty and moral authority were all that remained, which could mindlessly impose themselves on anyone who would sanction this shallow relief from critical thinking.

Geisler and Turek find atheism to be vacuous because it lacks moral objectivity. I wonder if either have ever read Bertrand Russell or Ayn Rand? Rand in particular is interesting since Christian Evangelicals often share her conservative fiscal conceptions of rational self interest. John Galt could be a Christian speaker at the Suburban Christian Business man's Prayer breakfast.

After reading I don't have... I began to imagine a Christian moralist, sitting comfortably in his Church discussing the plight of American secularism and the decline of foundational ethics and morality, while the Marxist Atheist is dolling out soup in the inner city, with no "objective basis for his beliefs." Since conservative evangelical ethics are similar to Ayn Rand's objectivism, it is almost funny to contemplate how Rand wouldn't be caught dead in a soup kitchen.

The discussion on Science and Evolution wore me down, and after a while I began to realize that both Evolution and Creationism have an anxious relationship to one another. Their development can be traced as literary scheme that is anti-thetical in some ways to the other. Perhaps much can be learned and unlearned from scientists in both camps.

On the section of Biblical inerrancy and the historical Jesus, I am left cold by the Author's certainty which goes beyond speculation, to almost sheer fantasy. I am beginning to realize that "inerrant" does not describe anybodies actual experience in reading the Bible, which is a biblia or anthology of Jewish books that first and foremost contain language. The Bible is written with real words and a human being has the unique ability to decipher and evaluate them if she chooses to. Geisler and Turek offer to decipher those words for us, so that we need not read the Bible, or read a book on Evolution or Creation Science. They will do it for us, and thus they will convince the convinced.

A Confederacy of Dunces

2007-07-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Great fiction is fun! This is a beautiful work of art that was published eleven years after John Kennedy Toole, the author, tragically commited suicide.

The book tells the story of the creative, scholastic, eccentric yet delusional Ignatius J. Reilly, a slothful character who is a kind of modern reinvention of Don Quixote or perhaps Thomas Aquinas. His disdain for modernity takes on the shape of a delusional catharsis. For instance, he is an avid movie fan, who attends simply to critique and bemoan the depravity of man. Ignatius is a multi-faceted character who belongs in the middle ages, or in the next world to come. He humorously invokes the Goddess Fortuna as circumstances befall him, spinning him in a spiral downward.

Myrna Minx is as fascinated by Ignatius as he is by her (although one wonders what either sees in the other). She is a Jewish beatnik from New York. Her religious, social, and political ideas couldn't be more different from his, which perhaps explains their chemistry that is predicated upon multiple layers of misunderstanding.

Toole takes the reader through a hodgepodge mixture of humor, satire, and gritty human experience to tell a very engaging and funny story. Confederacy reflects the structure of Ignatius' favorite book The Consolation of Philosophy, the book Boethius (6th century or so)wrote while in prison for a year. The irony couldn't be more rich, as Ignatius lives with his mother at age 30!

After reading the book, I find myself concluding with my Mom (She recommended the book) that Gus Levy is perhaps the most real character in the book, the one most like the author. He has both knowledge and compassion. Nearly everyone else in the story is missing those traits.

This is an amazing book, and it won a Pulitzer prize (Post humously). I highly recommend it.

A Generous Orthodoxy

2007-07-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Why I am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN ---By Brian Mclaren

I have long observed the audaciousness of the American religion as a phenomenon unique to Christianity. The so called "Emergent Church" could be a belated manifestation of what Nietzsche called our Will to power, or the surprisingly sophisticated theology of E.Y. Mullins, the Southern Baptist theologian who in the early 20th century, coined the phrase "Soul Competency;" every soul was determined competent to have an un-mediated Christian experience with the Bible. Soul Competency describes perfectly what liberal Christianity seeks, in a rejection of traditional creedal authority. Yet Mullins was perhaps too confident of his theological footing for liberals like Mclaren, who are embattled with evangelical fundamentalists who exude certainty and knowledge.

Though I am primarily a humanistic secularist, I side with Harrold Bloom, and others who find Liberal Christianity to be an imaginative triumph for the American experience, combining what is best in our poetic/religious past, John Milton, Emerson, Walt Whitman, with the pragmatism found in William James. Mclaren is both poetic and pragmatic in his faith that echos the great revivalist pastor, Henry Beecher who wrote "Charity before clarity." He wades in deep waters, and he is often unsure of his footing. One strives without success to find dogma in Mclaren.

I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts … rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move on … To help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus (while learning it better myself), I would gladly become one of them (whoever they are), to whatever degree I can, to embrace them, to join them, to enter into their world without judgment but with saving love as mine has been entered by the Lord (Pages 260-264)

This impassioned plea for love is also a tantamount rejection of Church authority. Like John Milton, Emergents are each "a sect of one," Mclaren being a prime example. Both Catholicism and traditional Protestantisms form a kind of social order--a people--through various practices and sacraments. Mclaren embraces what he deems the positive aspects of each branch of Christianity, while rejecting the over-arching authority of them, to find a new authentic love of Jesus. Somehow he succeeds in turning orthodoxy and its claims to authenticity on its head. The role of the Church in this scheme is difficult for me to decipher, since Liberal Christians from Roger Williams, E.Y. Mullins to Brian Mclaren have undermined traditional European Church Authority to the extent that any one person can become his own church. This leads me to my conclusion that American Christianity is boundless in its audacious claims to an un-mediated experience, of which Ralph Waldo Emerson is our immediate spiritual predecessor.

A dispassionate observer gets the sense that this is the eventual fate of protestantism in general, as it continues to evolve closer to the American experience, and it fades in Europe. Jesus is now non-denominational, and it is interesting to watch what he may emerge into. The best guide to Protestantism and its propensity toward this boundless freedom from Church authority is Ronald Knox, a Catholic who writes of the revivalists:

Religion became identified in the popular mind with a series of moods, in which the worshipper, disposed thereto by all the arts of the revivalist, reached the flavors of spiritual peace. You needed neither a theology nor a liturgy; you did not take the strain of intellectual inquiry, nor associate yourself whole-heartedly with any historic tradition of worship. You floated, safely enough, on the little raft of your own faith, eagerly throwing out the lifeline to such drowning neighbours as were ready to catch it; meanwhile the ship was floundering.

One reads this with pleasure! Emergents are not exactly revivalists (although they could be), but I can't help but think of Mclaren here, who's little raft is emergence while the ship is orthodoxy. One can ask are Mclaren's formulations dialectical or simply self-contradictory? The same could be asked of Mullins and Roger Williams. Liberal Christianity perhaps finds in itself the boundless ability to defy its own reason, leaving us a new kind of spiritual poetry, and I am not unmoved by it. Will his generous orthodoxy breed a new kind of dogma? I'm nearly certain of it. The shape of it may even look something like the Fundamentalism it so anxiously wants to break with. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to contemplate the Liberal Christian mindset.

The Closing of the American Mind

2007-07-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Alan Bloom's translations of Plato's Republic, and Rousseau's Emily sit on a desk not far from my chair; they are torn and tattered from too much use. I share an odd sense of companionship with both writers that have been with me since my late teens, thanks to Bloom. Books can be like friends, or so Bloom thought in his monumental treatise on American Education, its precursors, and its failures, The Closing of the American Mind.

I have just finished rereading this amazing book after fifteen years of contemplating it. Bloom was the first contemporary writer to reach me, and pull me into the wonders of philosophy. He can be overtly dogmatic and he generalizes too much, but his point is wonderful. Education is about the wonder of life, the philosophical walk, that seeks to always improve, and live to the fullest, yearning for knowledge as the source of the Good life. Part of our education has always been about finding and producing treasure (tech schools and MBA's). But we have forgotten that other more important side that teaches us how to live with that treasure, appreciate it to its fullest, and find other spiritual nourishment through the great writers (Liberal Arts).

Valuing value is Blooms goal, as he treads upon the philosophical waters of Nietzsche and Plato, bringing us face to face with our easy going relativism's. "You're OK, I'm OK. As long as we both agree to be a bit haunted together." Bloom is a cultural relativist, not in the spiritually decadent sense of a Hip Hop rapper, or a Left Wing politician, but in the sense of one who understands the cost of relativism, the price of the abyss, and the joyous wonder of liberation an educated mind can find. Bloom revels in his freedom, illuminating for us our shallow half digested truths, and their German derivations. Relativism and subjectivity are mere steps along the way, corridors of thought open to us, but there are others and we are in danger of forgetting them.

Bloom died in 1992, too early for a great mind who took seriously Socrates quest. Philosophy was not merely a discipline, but a way of life. I highly recommend this book.

Paul and Palestinian Judaism

2007-06-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

E.P. Sanders is the rarest of Biblical critics I have encountered, and this is perhaps his most poignant, imaginative, yet erudite account of the world's best known Christian, St. Paul. Paul and Palestinian Judaism is the first of what would later become "A New Perspective" on the question of Paul and the nature of his relationship with his opponents, those early Christians who perhaps were more Jewish and less Christian.

I have spent my adult lifetime being mystified by Paul, and I highly welcome Sander's scholarship on this subject, which does not begin with Paul, but on Judaism in an exhaustive survey of nearly all the relevant documents and facts we now posses. The question begins with how does one get in and stay in the Jewish Covenant? Though Jewish thought in the first century proves to be highly diverse, Sanders introduces the concept of "Covenantal Nomism." All Jews were part of the covenant and believed themselves accessible to God, his forgiveness, atonement and salvation. From this formulation, Sanders concludes that Paul did not start from the weakness of Judaism to formulate his doctrine, but rather the person of Christ. Paul's conviction of Jesus led him to the conclusion that salvation could only come through him. It is difficult to argue with Sanders, and perhaps only a true Bible Scholar can formulate the kinds of arguments necessary to combat this highly exhaustive study. The Book's value to me was its survey of Judaism, and the respect Sanders--a Christian--gives it becomes a formidable argument to the common Calvinistic or Lutheran theological assumptions of Jewish legalism as the understood practice for Hebrew salvation. "Legalism" is hardly descriptive of the complexity of first century Jewish ideology, and Christians (and secularists) have generally been slow to realize the sophistication of Jewish theology in comparison to its heretical offspring.

Christianity would not have been understood as the only answer for God's atonement and forgiveness by any observant Covenantal Jew, unless they somehow were presented with Christ. Christians may agree with this, but Sanders introduces us to the depths of Judaism, long argued by Jewish and agnostic scholars as a highly motivated, diverse, sophisticated, and theologically formidable religion. My observation (going further than Sanders) is that Christianity is a Jewish Heresy that replaces the covenant with the person of Christ, succeeding via a dramatic and highly successful creative misreading of the Hebrew Bible. Paul's line of reasoning, his ingenious (and not so ingenious) revisions of the Hebrew Bible, and his audaciousness become more explainable when one considers Paul as less Jewish and more Christian. Sanders is a welcome addition to any Library as well as to anyone who would know more about this extremely touchy subject.

Sailors To The End

2007-06-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

In July of 1967, The mighty aircraft carrier U.S.S Forestal saw only four days of combat duty in the waters of Vietnam. In the middle of Day four, on July 29 a rocket was accidentally launched from a parked plane. The rocket slammed into (Senator) John McCain's plane and then exploded on the flight deck. The ensuing fire caused nine 500-1000 pound bombs, sitting on the flight deck in parked planes to explode at full force, doing some 73 million dollars worth of damage to the ship and aircraft, and killing 139 men. Most of them died in the initial explosion. More would suffer horrible deaths and severe burns in a raging fire.

Gregory A. Freeman writes a vivid description of the horrors and heroism of the 5000 men of the Forestal who defeated the fire, and saved the ship. Though Freeman's story telling is good, I am most moved by the accounts of the disaster by my father, Cecil Clancy, who served aboard the Forestal as a communications man (My vision of him was always Lt. Uhura from Star Trek--not in the least bit accurate) . He confirms most of Freeman's report, adding his own vexed recollections of horror and irony.

In many ways the hellish tragedy on board the Forestal (Later Navy men called it "Forest Fire") was a result of a bureaucratic Navy and U.S. Government unable to decide how best to conduct its actions in Vietnam. The large bombs that went off on the flight deck were old World War two bombs, a condition endemic of the ammunition shortage that plagued war efforts. Older bombs become quite unstable, and the "cook times" are quite dangerous even in normal operations, much less a Jet fuel fire.

The heroism of the men who survived the fire is a testament to the U.S. Navy, and the kind of greatness we too easily take for granted. My father rarely talks about his Forestal experiences, but I notice that he becomes quiet, even pensive every July. Fifteen years ago, I watched him leave the room one day when I was watching the movie Backdraft. What is remarkable about my father to me is that, unlike so many war veterans I have come to know, he never openly broods on the past. Still there is a vague disquiet, and it is all the more understandable to me now that I have read Freeman. Like many of the other 5000 men on board the Forestal, my father is a hero. But even heroes have to live with the traumas of war. The same quality that made them brave must be re-employed to keep them from being consumed by tragedy in the past. Freeman reminds me of the strength of my father, now and before I was born.

I recommend this book.

God: A Biography

2007-06-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

Jack Miles is not only a wonderful writer of Biblical commentary, but an amazing reader of the Bible. Miles gives us the splendor of the "Stained Glass Window" of the Bible in its portrayal of the world's most awe inspiring literary character.

Following the Hebrew Bible in the order of the books--and not the revised Christian Old Testament ordering, Miles illuminates a God who starts out all powerful, but not all knowing, over time he becomes something of a mystery, perhaps even to himself. Each change signals a compelling historical reality of the Jewish victory and later misery and the drama of how God must react in order to stay relevant to his people. As the prophets and later writers begin bursting at the seams as Israel declines, Miles illuminates how God is also bursting. Though the text of the Hebrew Bible gives us a God who cannot be shaken, and is supreme, Miles presents the changes he must undergo in order to give us that sense of divine control. Each trial for Israel reveals something very new in God's character, revising the meaning of his prior actions, allowing him a new kind of future.

Mile's perspective perhaps is reminiscent of Leo Strauss' tough little book: Persecution and the Art of Writing. Strauss illuminates how great books often conceal as much as they reveal of their fundamental purpose. I'm also reminded of Northrop Frye's The Great Code, which celebrates the Bible's typology. Frye's conception of typology is what I would normally call "revision". However, Miles perhaps was a close reader of both Frye and Strauss, demonstrating the literary unity of a strong misreading.

Over-time, when Israel begins to be occupied by foreign captors, the God of Israel must somehow keep his covenant with his people. To do so, God becomes more mysterious, more powerful, yet more distant. Mile's observes that God no longer speaks after the nearly scandalous book of Job, he becomes more distant, and reclusive, culminating in the "ancient of days" in Daniel, and the repetitive round of I and II Chronicles.

Most humans consider God at some point in their life, which is why I heartily recommend this book. Miles confronts us with the God of the Old Testament, ignoring the New, giving us a refreshing look at God, his development, and his profound yet anguished relationship with his people.

After reading Miles, I contemplate the Jewish scribes who took God's punishment upon themselves, as captors invaded their lands. God somehow remains whole, unscathed, while the Jew offers himself, sinful, fallen, depraved. The World History of Jewish persecution aches with the pathos of the Jewish scribes who courageously took God's absence, and failure to act upon themselves. I don't see modern Christians doing anything quite like this, and I begin to wonder if the world will ever again see such religious courage?

The troubling question I had after reading Miles was what must God do to match such incredible love? The result perhaps is God's own persecution and Resurrection, in the New Testament. Could God's suffering for his people be a kind of parody of their suffering for him in the Old? It seems likely to me.

Miles finds completion in the Hebrew Bible, concluding that it needs no further revelation, although the modern reader familiar with the New Testament or the Hebrew Talmuds is left with a nagging doubt.

Miles raises serious questions for the New Testament, and all later theology in general, so I was quite happy to find a second book by him: Christ: Crisis in the Life of God, which I will try to review later.

For anyone interested in the literary aspects of the Bible, these are tremendous books to start with.

The Postmodern Condition: A report on Knowledge

2007-06-06T16:37:00.000-07:00

Author Jean-Francois Lyotard gives us a fascinating glimpse into the postmodern condition which simplifying to the "extreme is a incredulity toward meta narrative." Though his target is communism--marxism in fact, any particular "narrative" ideology or viewpoint may get its back up when confronted with the claims of Lyotard's discussion here. Christianity, Freudism, Judaism, New Age Ophisms, are certainly "narrative" worldviews, for instance which may ironically find a common enemy in postmodern philosophy.

But it occurs to me that their fear is un-founded. Postmodernism at its core remains for me a rhetorical tool, that does not describe reality, since postmodernism is itself narrative in its description, but it can help illuminate other directions and currents. Language Games--Lyotard's trope relying upon Wittgenstein's Tractatus remind us of the limitations of language in dealing with, and describing the human condition. Lyotard is convincing, and difficult to refute, but in the end his words are relying upon narrative tradition, a weakness he continually addresses in the book--perhaps not to even his total satisfaction.

All words are narratives, relying on tradition. Are we too complicated then for the words we chain ourselves to? My suspicion is that we are, though words are also powerful tools which can accurately convey what we want from one another. They cannot always describe our purpose and true meaning, which to me rests in the fields of the arts, poetry, music, and perhaps religion. It occurs to me that Lyotard exposes unwittingly that Philosophy has reduced itself to the reductionism of postmodernism and must come full circle again to refocus its energies on the other humanities in order to speak to us.

All religions are narratives, and are imperfect in describing our human experience, yet it would be naive to suggest that people don't find meaning in them anyways. Lyotard is a thoughtful atheist, and I am moved by his philosophy, though I feel that a proper aesthetic can reduce postmodernism to a mere rhetoric, and not an over-arching ideology--which it seeks to continually disrupt.

Welcome

2007-06-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my Book Report Blog.

I try to read 1-2 books per week. You can also check out my website at www.ericclancy.com