The Freedom of God

Something that has become more clear in focusing on Barth's theology of freedom is that when one thinks of the freedom of God, they must focus on the freedom revealed in Christ. Even as I began to rethink human freedom as obedience and not autonomy, when thinking of God's freedom, I still projected autonomy as the absolute and perfect form of freedom. It was God's choice to create, it was God's choice to enter into the covenant with Israel. It seems blasphemous to say otherwise, but is it? What about Christ's life suggests autonomous choice? His unrelenting ministry to those who could never repay him (see Luke 14:12-14)? Often this servitude associated with Christ's humanity and not his divinity - we are to serve unquestioningly as Jesus did. But if Jesus reveals the "friendliness of God" to us, what is revealed to us about the freedom of God?

Jesus reveals that God's freedom is not that of pure autonomy, and it is only a human desire to attain the same that suggests such. God's freedom exists in community, and not only the community of the Trinity (the unfortunate suggestion of many otherwise helpful trinitarian theologies). God's freedom is tied to humanity through the covenantal relationship with us. God finds freedom in obedience to the covenant just as we find freedom in obedience to God. It is hard to wrap a western, liberal mind around freedom as something other than unrestricted choice, but once one sees beyond their own acculturation, the freedom of God demonstrated in Christ begins to make sense. True freedom is not the choice to reject the obligations that relationships entail. Rather, true freedom is found in nurturing relationships-saying 'yes' to the other (albeit in a multiplicity of ways). Christ reveals to us that God's freedom is found in maintaining and repairing the broken relationship with humanity. Our freedom is found in responding 'yes' to God's call. 'No' does not offer the freedom of choice. Instead, rejecting the call of the other results in slavery and bondage (i.e. the parable of the prodigal son).

There are more complexities to this conception of freedom that I will not articulate yet, but it is important to remember that the freedom of God is not pure autonomy - Christ shows us the opposite.

Leonardo Boff

It has been a long time since I have posted anything here, for most of my writing efforts are directed toward papers, but today I ran across a wonderful article by Leonardo Boff (one of my favorite theologians) and thought I would post it. It is an article that recognizes the dire consequences of ecological degradation, but does not leave us hopeless. Boff's articles can be found at his website www.leonardoboff.com in the "articles" link. The following is his article:


Elasticity and Ecological Drama

We are, without a doubt, already confronting global warming, which presents a grave danger for the future of the planet and of humanity. Not only are the ecological groups highly mobilized, but also great entrepreneurs, and the central and the peripheral States.

We live in urgent times, because it is not impossible that the Earth could suddenly enter a state of chaos. Unimaginable catastrophes could occur, that could affect the biosphere and decimate millions of human beings. But we do not consider this situation as a tragedy that could end in disaster, but as a crisis that reveals and sets aside that which is aggregate or accidental, and liberates a nucleus of values, visions and alternative practices that must serve as bases for a new essay in civilization. It depends on us to ensure that climatic disturbances are not transformed into tragedies but into crises of growth, towards a better level in the relationship of human beings and nature.

In this context it is worth considering the concept of elasticity [ resiliência in Portuguese], not much used among us, but one that appears more and more in thoughtful circles.

The term comes from metallurgy and medicine. In metallurgy, it is the quality that metals have to regain their original state without deformity, after enduring heavy pressure. In medicine, in osteology, it is the capacity of the bones to regrow correctly after suffering a serious fracture. From these fields, the concept spread to other areas such as education, psychology, pedagogy, ecology, business management ... in short, to all living phenomena that imply fluctuations, adaptations, crises, and the overcoming of failures or stress.

Elasticity implies two components: resistance to adversity - the capacity to stay whole when subjected to great demands and pressures, and the capacity to face difficulties, learn from defeat and creatively rebuild, transforming the negative aspects into new opportunities and advantages. In a word, all complex adaptive systems, at any level, are elastic systems. This is the same for every human being, and the whole system of the earth.

The risks that accompany global warming, with the scarcity of drinking water, the extinction of the biodiversity and the crucifixion of this Earth that has a Third World face and hangs from the cross of suffering, must be seen not so much as failures, but as challenges that invite substantial changes that will enrich our life in our unique Common Home. The worst approach is to resign and do nothing, because that implies renouncing elasticity, and creative solutions.

Students of elasticity tell us that to be positively elastic we need above all to cultivate the affective link, in our case, with the Earth: to care for her with understanding, compassion and love; to ease her pain through rational and moderate use of her resources, renouncing all violence against her ecosystems. The North must stage a sustainable retreat of her consumerist thirst, so that the South may have sustainable development, in harmony with the community of life. It is important to stimulate optimism, because life has passed through countless forms of devastation and it has always been elastic and has grown in biodiversity. It is determinative that we project a utopic horizon that gives meaning to our alternatives, that will configure the new that will save us all. In this unhealthy environment it is important to maintain health; such that Gaia will also be healthy and benevolent with us all.

The Vonder of Vinter

It is 2:30 A.M. and there is a fresh dusting of snow on the ground. The plows have yet to come out and transform the roads into the slushy mixture of brine and brown that characterizes winter in the city. I had just walked my friend Noah out the corner to catch a taxi home. As long as I can remember falling snow causes me to feel (what ought to be an ironic) combination of joy, excitement and contentment at the same time. I feel like I could do anything but would be happy doing nothing. I can recall my first couple of years hunting in which I would sit stoically in the woods for hours while the snow fell around me and be glad to see and hear nothing (perhaps this makes me less than an excellent hunter).

As I turn the corner a man runs up alongside me. I had no idea what to expect, but envisioned digging through my pocket for change. Instead he said to me in what I believe to be an Eastern European accent (so remember that the F's and W's sound more like V's): "Finally, I thought I would never get to freeze my ass off in a real Canadian winter!" Caught by surprise, I answered in a rather uninspired voice: "Yeah, I know." (It has not snowed much yet this year) He then said: "Well, have a wonderful year!" and proceeded to jog off to the intersection of Niagara and Richmond where he ran out in the street and like a child seeing their first snow began to slide all over - kicking snow into the air and laughing. Rarely have I seen a man (in what I would guess to be his early thirties) show such unabashed joy and pleasure. He then began to make snow balls and push them around with his hands until a taxi approached the intersection and he ran back to the sidewalk and further south.

His pleasure in the snow reawakened my own feelings of joy and also caused me to wonder if I am as good at guessing accents as I thought. Or perhaps I am not as good at geography and corresponding meteorological patterns, for I would have assumed that most Eastern Europeans would have had the opportunity to experience snow before they reached their thirties.

In any case, I do intend to have a good year Sir, thank you for the blessing. I hope that you continue to enjoy the wonders of life.

Critical Theory CAN be Exciting!

While critical theory may not have initially excited my intellect, after a semester and research on a particular critical theorist (who is aware that he has moved forward in a way that other critical theorists may not), I have really appreciated the class I took and become a bit more excited about their project.

While this may not be an example of critical theory par excellence, I will include a small snippet of Herbert Marcuse's An Essay on Liberation:

"This society is obscene in producing and indecently exposing a stifling abundance of wares while depriving its victims abroad of the necessities of life; obscene in stuffing itself and its garbage cans while poisoning and burning the scarce foodstuffs in the fields of its aggression; obscene in the words and smiles of its politicians and entertainers; in its prayers, in its ignorance, and in the wisdom of its kept intellectuals.
"Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the Establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions of its own morality but to those of another. Obscene is not the picture of a naked woman who exposes her pubic hair but that of a fully clad general who exposes his medals rewarded in a war of aggression; obscene is not the ritual of the Hippies but the declaration of a high dignitary of the Church that war is necessary for peace."

While I do not fully agree with Marcuse's ideas of revolt, I find his scathing critique of consumeristic culture intellectually enlivening, and it reminds me why I wanted to study philosophy.

Being/Named

I write this in response to Catherine Keller’s 12th chapter in Face of the Deep:

While I certainly understand the problems with ontotheology, I am left wondering what we do with the name of God. There is certainly something to the unpronounceable name of YHWH, but this did not prevent the Hebrew people from giving the "nameless" God a superfluity of names. Some of these names were less helpful than others, and it is important that the naming of YHWH was dynamic, but in the context of a certain time and situation the naming of the un-nameable was essential and unavoidable.

Keller pushes my boundaries by naming God in ways that I am less than comfortable with, but claims to do so in the apophatic tradition. I want to agree with her, but are there times where finding a firm name for God (for the time-being) is important? Are there also ways in which God ought not be named (for instance, naming God as a warrior-king certainly contributed to genocide)?

I am particularly responding to a small excerpt that Keller includes from Nicholas of Cusa:

Pagan: What are you worshiping?
Christian: God.
Pagan: Who is the God you worship?
Christian: I do not know.
Pagan: How can you so earnestly worship that which you do not know?
Christian: It is because I do not know that I worship.

While certainly an excellent example of apophatic theology, I wonder how it is possible to worship earnestly that who is not known? Do we not always know God at a certain time in a certain way? Does not God at times break in and refuse to allow us to pronounce a particular name? At the same time, does not God at times reveal a name (for example: Jesu) that meets us at our needs?

Particularly in response to Keller’s theology, is it ever helpful to name God as chaos? I have yet to see how it is, yet I am willing to listen with an open mind. I agree that God can not always be named, and that God cannot always be named in a certain way, but does relationship not require a naming of the other, even if it is temporary? Is it possible to name without exerting dominance over that which is being named?

Embodying Christ

Exactly a week from today I went to see a person speak who has had an important impact on my life. James Loney spoke at the University of Toronto's peace week, and I had the privilege of going to hear him. I was surprised at how much he talked about his time in captivity, he was very open and honest, even when it appeared to be painfully so.

I thought I had made a post about Loney's situation previously, but I guess I never actually published it. So here's the background: Loney was one of four Christian Peacemakers who was taken hostage in Iraq. The events that occurred with Loney and the others caused me to deeply question what it meant to be a Christian and whether I could lay down my own life and comfort in the name of Christ.

In "traditional" evangelicalism, I had been forced to think through such a scenario before. Many books (such as the Left Behind series) forced me to ask if I could give up my life for my beliefs. What always bothered me was that my answer was always no. How could I give up my life for a belief when that is all it was? My beliefs did not direct me to take positive action. If anything, they only gave me negative directives (abstain from all "worldly" things - except capitalism). The only real positive direction my belief gave me was to go out and try to rationally convince people that what I believed was right. I never felt comfortable doing that either.

As I developed, and particularly as I began reading liberation theology, I began to experience a fundamental shift in my beliefs. My faith in Christ no longer had to do with negative moral imperatives. Rather, I found that I was commanded to care for the poor and the oppressed (about 2,000 times - though quantitative arguments in and of themselves are not of much value). Around the same time, four men were kidnapped while trying to answer this call themselves. The Christian Peacemakers work out of the assumption that if men and women are willing to give their lives for their beliefs (both for nation and religion) in war that they would also be willing to give their lives for peace.

Their actions again caused me to ask myself if I was willing to give my life for my beliefs, but this time for beliefs that made a difference to my neighbor. (Not just particularly my neighbor, but my neighbor who is suffering). Unfortunately, I am still unsure that I can answer that question as they did. I hope that I would be able, but I find myself giving the excuse that I am in grad school. Of course, I constantly question whether or not I ought to be in grad school, taking advantage of my privileged status in the world, but I do truly believe that in teaching I will be able to make a significant difference. While I tell myself this, it still feels empty when so many are starving as a result of my desire for cheap sugar, clothes, etc.

This post was supposed to report on what Loney said, but apparently the impact of his actions were more severe than his words the other night. I will say that I was able to shake his hand at the end of the lecture (or confession) and attempt to express what his work has meant to me. I get incredibly nervous around people (particularly people I respect), so it was all I could do to go to the front and talk to him (suddenly I am reminded of the alter calls of my youth). However, I did make it and waited for what felt like forever behind a woman who had just given him a gift (I believe it was a pin. It was strange, many people seemed to have gifts for him in the form of t-shirts and the like). I told him that the events he was involved in had a great impact on my life, thanked him for sharing them, and finished by telling him that I believed he was embodying Christ. I wish I could have said more, but there was a line, I was nervous, and I did not want to monopolize his time. However, I am glad that I could say what was most important. I do believe that he is embodying Christ, perhaps more than anything else I believe right now.

I had to make a quick post regarding Moltmann's view of heaven and earth. I find the idea quite exciting, and open to new possibilities. Here is an important excerpt:

"For the earth 'the heavens' means the kingdom of God's creative potentialities. 'The heavenly beings', the angels, are God's potencies in the realm of his potentialities. That is why we can call heaven the relative transcendence of the earth, and the earth the relative immanence of heaven. "

A world without heaven, or transcendent possibilities, is incapable of anything truly new.

"A world like this would be a closed system, resting and revolving within itself. A world without transcendence is a world in which nothing new can ever happen. It is the world of the eternal return to the same thing."

This is not the typical "transcendence and immanence", but don't ask me how yet. All that is important is the recognition that there is a capability for the radical in-breaking of the new. This is not new from a vacuum, but from relationship and covenant. I don't know what to really do with it right now, but I really do like it. Thank goodness Moltmann is working on overcoming Barth's rather monistic view of transcendence and immanence as well!

My morality is based on accepted universal religious convictions which in no way can be described, how about yours?

"'Veggie Tales' stirs up a religious controversy" - Exactly the kind of headline I wake up in the morning to read! Apparently one of the few uses of media that Evangelicals have managed to do better than a half-assed job with was picked up by NBC to be run on Saturday mornings. Here is the kicker: the Parents Television Council (not that is not a typo, they are the ones that omitted the apostrophe) is upset about censorship! NBC edited all of the references to God out of the episodes, including the tag-line "Remember kids, God made you special and he loves you very much."

While I am terribly excited that the PTC is getting a taste of their own medicine, I have to admit, I may agree with them for once. NBC picked up Veggie Tales for the good moral messages, but why present these morals from a vacuum? What good is a moral message with no founding story? I can see why NBC might fear such an ethos, because they would have to end shows with the tag-line "Remember, there is no god but Mammon!" Hey, at least there would be honesty in broadcasting.

The funny thing is that NBC even recognizes that they portray a 'universal religious value.' Alan Wurtzel (the broadcast standards executive) said: “There’s a fine line of universally accepted religious values. We don’t get too specific with any particular religious doctrine or any particular religious denomination.” I would suggest that the supposedly universal religious values that NBC is willing to protect is Western consumeristic capitalism. As long as a show protects the consumer mindset, it matters little what other religious values a show portrays - we just can't reveal that as the underlying religious assumption. After all, if a show critiqued capitalism, the hundreds of commercials we are exposed to wouldn't fit so fluidly within the programs, would they? The President understands this. His suggestion to the American people after the tragedy of September 11 was to continue business as usual (read as: "keep buying products so our economy doesn't fall flat on its face). The networks didn't have to worry about editing that out.

So I support the blatant statement of religious values which found moral messages...as long as they are honest. Of course, the PTC would probably have a problem with an Islamic animated tomato proposing the same moral values and ending each show with "Remember kids, Allah made you special and loves you very much." They might even begin a petition for the censorship and removal of such a program. It would also be an awkward show when Jr. Asparagus asks his dad why they drive an SUV and learns that it is because the earth is going to be burned up in the future anyway, and that we were placed here to subdue the earth and use as many of its natural resources as possible.

A Night at the TSO

Again I took advantage of one of the greatest deals in this city: $12 for a ticket to the symphony (in a seat that normally costs $75). During the first performance I could only think about how ugly and cold the Roy Thompson hall is (while interesting from the outside, the actually concert hall looks like a cement silo that someone has randomly attached birch panelling to - it has to have been built during the same era as Robarts Library). The place seems to be a sponge for sound as well, the power of the symphony is lost very quickly. It was most noticeable when during Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 a program was dropped in the mezzanine and was several times louder than the music on the stage (albeit it was during the Larghetto, it was much louder).

However, I quickly forgot about the hall after the performance of five songs by Mahler. They were composed for poems by Friedrich Ruckert (I have no way to type in German characters), and I really enjoyed the first and third poems. The first poem is on love, and I will copy the English translation here:

If you love for beauty's sake,
do not love me!
Love the sun; it wears hair of gold!
If you love for youth's sake, do not love me!
Love the spring,
which is young every year!

If you love me for treasure's sake,
do not love me!
Love the mermaid,
who owns many lucent pearls!

If you love me for love's sake, yes, then love me!
Love me always, as I love you always forever.

Um Mitternacht (At Midnight) was preformed third, and the music that Mahler paired with this poem was phenomenal. I'd like to get my hands on a recording of it sometime. I would post the poem for it as well, but it is much longer than the first.

Finally, the performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 made me completely forget about the (in my opinion, unfortunate) venue. It was powerful, moving, and impressive. The orchestra is certainly world-class. This young people of this city are certainly fortunate to have tsoundcheck to make such experiences affordable. A night at the symphony for about the same price as a movie in the theater is certainly much more rewarding.

Rubem Alves

I could not resist posting some of his work, it is absolutely beautiful. All comes from I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body, and is translated from Portuguese:

In the context of a woman caressing the womb in the expectation of future life, he writes this poem:

"Can this be?
Perhaps...
We, who try the first fruits
We, who experience the aperitif of the future
We, who were caressed by Someone, from the future."

He follows with this prose:

"How lovely is this image. It brings together the ideas of pleasure and of longing, of having enjoyed and wanting more. So different from the weariness of those who have feathered their nests and pour themselves out, flaccid and sweaty, in the sunspots, to digest the rich foods. Which helps us to understand why it is so hard for the rich and the strong to enter the Kingdom. Their plenty makes them solid inhabitants of the now. They prefer obesity to pregnancy."

Another poem:

"'I believe in the resurrection of the body...'
Body forever; face of the Spirit.
Thirsting body,
sick body,
migrant body,
hungry body,
body in prison.
'When you did it to one of these my little ones, you did it to me....'
Body: sanctuary, altar, host.
Holy of holies.
The Spirit loves,
the love becomes garden,
bodies,
which love each other in the garden;
garden of the Spirit,
Jesus of Nazareth,
who became bread and wine,
body distributed
for more love:
seed of the Universe-garden,
body of God,
Christ.
Us.
I."

Maybe only because I am a theologian, but this is some of the most beautiful, refreshing words I have read in quite some time.