Forgiveness and Penn State

So I'm sure we've all heard about the Penn State scandal at this point. Obviously, a lot of horrific stuff was covered up by men who were more concerned about their reputations and the reputation of their institution than the well-being of the children who were being victimized by Sandusky. I think it's moments like this in our culture that test the meaning of the word "forgiveness" in a way that other situations don't.

Perhaps the most complicated story in all of this is that of McQueary, who was the first person to directly witness an assault by Sandusky on a child; he was at the time a 28 year old graduate assistant and, after seeing Sandusky raping a boy in the showers of a Penn State locker room, decided to report the issue to football coach Joe Paterno (and only Paterno). Since these facts have come to light, McQueary has received so many threats that he been moved to a secure location.

I've seen quite a few commentators (bloggers and such) piling onto McQueary, and perhaps rightly so. I'm quite sure that no one would try to justify NOT reporting the rape of a child to the police. Some have also attacked him for not running in to physically protect the child. And I'm going to say right here that I hope, I pray that if I am ever in the situations McQueary found himself in, I would at the very least call the police; still, I've never been confronted by such an insane situation, so I can't say with certainty. Here I'm referring to not just the rape of a child, but a rape being perpetrated by a friend and a respected member of the community (apparently McQueary had known Sandusky for a while).

So while I'd be just as happy to condemn McQueary and move on, I do not think God ever gives us that option. I've been thinking about a recent episode in my own life, and I'm seeing parallels. A few days ago, I was walking home on a very cold, windy night; I was walking by the entrance to the local subway station and I saw a (apparently) homeless man sleeping by the entrance (or at least I suppose he was). His ankles were exposed as he didn't look to have any socks. I felt a pang - maybe I could go get him a pair of my socks, or maybe even a blanket. I didn't have the resources to give him a bed or the money to get him a room, but I could at least give him something to keep him warm. My home was only a few hundred feet away, it would not have been much trouble. And yet . . . What if he was on drugs? What if he was mentally ill? What if he just wanted to be left alone? Poor excuses, all of those - the worst thing that could have possibly happened is I would have been rebuffed and gone back home.

We allow this sort of thing to happen in our country every day. It's more visible here in NYC than in most places, as we have a large homeless population. The point is, it is an EVIL state of affairs and we are all complicit in it. Human beings should not have to spend the night on the street in the cold, without even adequate clothing to keep them warm, period. And yet it's an evil we tolerate, because we feel powerless to stop it. Maybe that's how McQueary felt when he saw a young boy being raped. I know that's how I felt when I saw that man by the subway. And yet he could have called the police. I could have gotten that man a blanket.

Am I here trying to create some sort of false equivalence? Well no, of course not. But I am trying to point out that all of us are bystanders to various sorts of evil in the world. By acknowledging our own need for forgiveness, we can find it easier to forgive others, such as McQueary, who fall woefully short. Why is this important? For one, God commands it. For another, if we cannot forgive others, how can we ourselves be forgiven when we inevitably fall?

The Dual Nature of our Existence

Augustine, in book XXII of his City of God, lays out the final fate of the City of God, or rather those who are true followers of Christ. What I found most intriguing, however, came in chapters 22-24, where he first lays out a litany of woes to which mankind is subject, and then comes to chapter 24, where he lists an incredible array of ways in which we are blessed, many of them the result of human ingenuity. This reality is readily apparent to, I'd say, everyone. This world is so incredibly full of horrendous awfulness, that to even look at a tiny part of it is to understand that we are a broken race. Even in my day to day life, I walk down the street every day and encounter homeless, desperate people, riding on the train beneath where millionaires live and work. Why is that? We convince ourselves that it's an inevitability, but that's merely a pleasant lie we tell ourselves so that we feel a little less guilty.

At the same time, the world is incredibly beautiful - I live in a community of believers who really try to do Christian life together. Not perfectly, by any stretch of the imagination, but I find so much to be thankful for in my day-to-day life, and a new life in my soul that I never thought possible. I see the muck and grime and the smell the sewage in the subways, but also see an incredible feat of human engineering that allows this city to even exist in its present form. I see the internet, which is allows people to indulge their worst vices, or to band together to fight for just causes far more effectively than ever before. Indeed God, after all, created the world, created US, a miracle of complex cell structures and firing neurons and saw that "it was very good" - the Fall hardly changed that, but what a morass of sadness it added.

This duality gives us as believers pause. Sometimes, I think, the temptation is to close up ranks and try to just live with one another in our safe communities - not try to change the world, but to get by in it, until we can shake these earthly bonds and go to meet our father. In addition to being impossible in a city like New York, it is also not a desirable outcome. The Lord's Prayer doesn't give us this option - "Your Kingdom come, on Earth as it is in Heaven." Now, one could say that that's merely an entreaty for the Lord to return, to set everything right, to remake the world as it was meant to be. However, when you truly are passionate about something, when you really want something to happen, you strive for it, work toward a goal. I would say that for believers, that goal should be nothing less than the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

Now, I know that that statement sounds both dangerously Utopian, and smacks of a Theocracy, but that's not what I'm saying. I've always said that the only way to enact change is from within, not from on high - and in the end, power almost always acts as a corrupting agent to even devout Christians. What I am saying, however, is that we must not let the seeming inevitability of the brokenness of the world deter us from going out in it and trying to bring the Kingdom here. I think Paul's assertion that Christians must be , as pastors often paraphrase "In the world but not of it", really strikes the proper balance. We must live and work in this world, but we cannot allow it mold our faith or goals.

This brings me back to Augustine. When he speaks of the two cities, the City of God and the City of Devil, he points to a dual existence here on earth, one for those living as followers of Christ, and one for those living as worshipers of anything other than God. But he never says that we just have to let this be as it is. In his Confessions, he writes of his mother living a deeply Christian life, married to his father, a pagan. However, Augustine's father, thanks to the ministrations of his mother, had a deathbed conversion experience, which Augustine credits to his mother living the life she led (he also gives her a great deal of credit for his own conversion). This then, to me, provides an excellent model for Christian living - that if we show through our lives the truth of the gospels, than others will take notice. That is actually how I, too, discovered faith, through the realization that these people are living how I wished I could live. And that desire to understand helped me to finally ask God for that last little push.

On a further point about duality, I've found it amazing that virtually anything can become sinful. I found that I was beginning to substitute reading ABOUT God for a relationship WITH God. And this is easy to do; books have a concrete beginning and an end, and we almost inevitably pick up some bit of knowledge from reading one. And yet prayer, for me at least, is quite difficult. I'm very much still learning to hear His voice, what Elijah encountered on Mount Horeb as the "Still Small Voice" (1 Kings 19:12), and so it's been difficult. But this has pointed out to me how even an obviously good thing - it's hard to find many believers who would criticize the study of scripture or theology - can become an idol in itself. Crazy world we live in.

Scripture Through the Ages

I recently finished a monster of a book by theologian N. T. Wright, entitled Jesus and the Victory of God, an exhaustive analysis of the three synoptic gospels, examining not only their veracity, but the likely meaning of Jesus' statements within them, as well as the possible symbolic meaning of his actions. Wright comes to the conclusion that virtually everything Jesus says and does in these gospels is in the mode of a "warning prophet", like Isaiah or Jeremiah, telling Israel about its misdeeds and warning of a great calamity should these behaviors not be corrected. This is put up against many contemporary (and some less contemporary) writers and theologians who have interpreted these passages in a much more universal sense. For instance, whereas most modern-day preachers take on the prodigal son parable as a story of God's infinite love for us, no matter how much we might screw up, Wright sees it as an allegory for Israel's exile, return, and renewal, even in the face of objections from those who remained. Wright points out the parallels between the the younger son engaging in riotous living, and as a consequence being forced to feed pigs to survive, and Israel engaging in Pagan worship rites, and as a result being carried off to Babylon as slaves, in many cases being forced to work with pigs, clearly a taboo profession among the Jewish people. The older brother, who objects to the celebration being held for the younger is, according to Wright, analogous to the Jews who stayed behind.

After devoting an entire chapter to this parable, Wright goes on to analyze quite a few other saying, parables, and actions of Jesus in a similar light. He envisions the Sermon on the Mount as a re-imagining of Leviticus; Jesus ascending the mount of Olives and weeping over the future destruction of Jerusalem as similar to Isaiah going naked, or Jeremiah smashing a pot; and the Pharisees as the wicked tenants in another well-known parable. In other words, Wright sees Jesus' ministry as set entirely within his time, and firmly within the Jewish context. For instance, he points to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70 by the Romans as likely what Jesus was talking about when he referred to "the Day of the Lord", on the day about which Jesus says, "For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’", whereas most modern-day analyses I've seen hold to the idea that the passage refers to what is often called "the end-times". Whether you take one view or the other, it's clearly, at this point, not an idea one can just take for granted.

Now, regardless where one stands on the issue of how much can really be known about the historicity of the bible (and I find Wright's methods and arguments quite convincing), it poses the question: how, in the modern day, are we to read scripture? Clearly, we are not the people to whom Jesus made these statements specifically. On the other side, even if you do take a more universal view of Jesus' words (or believe that he had an eye toward the future as opposed to just his audience), one still has to admit the he spoke them to an audience of people with very different priorities, understandings, and issues than we have in the present day, and out of that audience was born a movement that would eventually become the church as we know it today.

Personally, I think that the scriptures must, in fact, be read both ways (and Wright echoes this sentiment, at least in passing - he seems to assume it as a given. After all, if Jesus' ministry were meant only for the people of his time, then it's safe to assume modern day preachers would all be out of a job). Despite its certain relevance to the present day, I still think an historical reading of scripture is essential, especially, for instance, when it comes to prophecy. As Wright's book makes clear, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that most of the events prophesied by Jesus in the bible already happened (except for that whole coming again in judgment of both the living and the dead bit), and that therefore sitting around trying to read into current events as signifying the end times is more than a little useless. For instance, as Wright points out, the passage where Jesus mentions "the Son of Man coming on a cloud" can be just as easily read (Wright states that in fact it's the most likely interpretation) as Jesus returning FROM Earth TO Heaven, thus prophesying his eventual ascension, and not the inverse, as is commonly thought.

I would also argue that historical readings of scripture, even when they somehow seem less relevant to the present day, can inform modern readings. Take, for instance, the parable of the seed. Wright takes this parable to mean that in fact the seed which falls on good soil is Jesus himself, and the seeds falling in other, less fruitful areas as the prophets who came before him, which actually gives this parable a much more hopeful quality than might other interpretations.

I've chosen to focus this post more on the historical end of the debate mainly because it's what I've been reading about, but in no way do I think that it's more important than the timeless truths to be found in the bible as well. The historical view merely lends yet another dimension to what already are vast, complex truths.

An Introduction

Here I am, beginning my second attempt at blogging. I've been reading so many books on theology lately, and I hope that writing on the subject will help clarify my thoughts. I believe that the most important factor in life is our relationship with God, and that means not just communion with Him through prayer and worship, but also trying to figure out what exactly it is that we can really know about Him through scripture; this then leads us, naturally, to theology. While in a sense it's just my "hobby" (I am in fact a musician by profession, which has a great deal to do with how I came to faith in the first place), I consider it far more crucial than anything I will ever do to make money. And something I've discovered is that putting thoughts on paper (or at least a computer screen) can lend them a clarity that they lack when they just remain upstairs.

In other words, this isn't some attempt to enlighten anyone with my "wisdom". I haven't been a Christian long enough to imagine I have any on the subject. And we all know what the bible says about human wisdom anyways. That said, others have told me that, as a lifelong-atheist-turned-committed-Christian, I have a rather unique viewpoint on this subject, and that it might be helpful to others (particularly to those on the fence about faith) to get that narrative out there. So I guess there's that. And hey, two of my favorite authors (C. S. Lewis and Saint Augustine) converted at roughly the same point in their lives (late 20's/early 30's), so I guess that means I'm someday destined to write books that touch millions of lives, right? Yes, that's a reasonable conclusion to draw.

At any rate, anything I write is non-denominational, and doesn't presuppose any fixed doctrine. One thing I've noticed is that I'm finding great writings in a wide variety of places, from a great many Christian traditions - you certainly don't have to believe in Papal infallibility to find a lot of useful wisdom in Catholic writings, both ancient and contemporary. Another point is that I will be using simple, matter-of-fact language to describe issues because I think that's the best way to construct an argument - little is worse than an essay gummed up with a bunch of "I believes" or "in my opinions" - but don't assume that that presupposes certainty or even strong confidence. I admit I'm sure to be treading into oft-times controversial waters on some things, and am well aware that quite a few theological issues remain very unsettled (and am most likely equally unaware of some that for all intents and purposes have been), but that is what it is. Heck, if no one ends up reading this than it won't matter anyways, but just in case, it needs to be said.

Hitchens vs D'Souza

So just this afternoon I watched two debates on religion between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza (youtube is a wonderful thing. Here and Here). A rather exhausting exercise in its own way, to be honest. I recently read Dinesh's book Life After Death, and had heard from fellow believers that he was an excellent debater, and wanted to see him in action. I've watched other people debate Hitchens on this topic, both before I became a believer and after, as of all of the atheist commentators, he has been and is still my favorite, his rather dismissive, at times insulting rhetoric aside. None of his opponents have ever, in my best estimation, really put up a good fight. D'Souza certainly did better than most, but on balance I'd still have to say that I find Hitchens' arguments more convincing on their face, in spite of the fact that I'm thoroughly on D'Souza's side. Here's what I see as the problem:

D'Souza co-opts science for his own ends without, I think, properly allowing that just because our current best knowledge of science leaves room God, God is not inevitably going to be the conclusion. He is correct in pointing out that modern scientific knowledge in no way disproves God, but this is not a difficult point to make, and of course Hitchens jumps all over it.

Strangely enough, I've never seen any of Hitchens' opponents point out perhaps the greatest flaw in his arguments: that so many of the atrocities and attitudes in religion that he is pointing to that cause human misery are simply espoused nowhere in the New Testament.

Now, there is of course the main point to be had that he simply doesn't agree with the idea of giving one's will over to a supreme being, and that of course is the ultimate hurdle, and at its core the truest critique of Christianity (and I'd say the root of most objections to it). I'm not saying that is the reason he has rejected Christianity, as that would be doing him an immense disservice, but theologically speaking, at least in that sense he seems to understand the religion quite well. However, in so many others he falls completely short.

For instance, he loves to point out events where various branches of Christianity have sanctioned the behavior of one tyrant or another. Two examples from the debates I watched today: the Catholic Church allowing Robert Mugabe to come and receive sacraments at the Vatican while excommunicating a bishop for having a sexual relationship with his housekeeper. Another example he gave was the Russian Orthodox church sanctioning the recent Putin regime and allowing itself to become the only religion (and, for that matter, branch of Christianity) legal to be practiced in Russia.

The salient point to be made here is that there is nothing in the bible that sanctions these sorts of things. In fact, Paul is very clear in this, that the only way to pursue God in this world is from a position of weakness, not power, and so any branch of Christianity tying itself to a state government has no theological basis. The original model for Christianity was small communities getting together to strengthen one another in their way of life, to be a model in opposition to the ways and power structures of the world. Admittedly, I can see why D'Souza would hesitate to make these arguments, as it brings up difficult doctrinal points, and that many Christian thinkers disagree with me on this. That said, I can't find any places in the New Testament where we are told, as believers, to aspire to positions of earthly power. In fact, we are told that such things are dangerous, and make it more difficult to enter the kingdom of God. And I have no clue by what theological basis the Catholic Church allows Mugabe anywhere near its premises, given his track record of tyranny. The reality is that the Catholic Church is a man-made institution (no matter what some might say to the contrary) and thus vulnerable to all of the same corruptions and frailties that every power structure has. Power has and always will bring out the worst in a great many people. In this case, Mugabe remains quite popular in many parts of Africa, and the Catholic Church is busy establishing a heavy presence there. Thus, politically speaking, it makes sense to maintain ties with him, despite the fact that they have threatened excommunication to public figures for far less heinous crimes (Catholic statesmen in America being in favor of the legalization of gay marriage and abortion, for instance. Now, no matter what your opinions on the issue, and I happen to be very much against abortion, the "crime" of being able to separate your beliefs as a Christian from your vocation as a statesman in a pluralist nation is in no may comparable to the massive plundering of the resources of an entire nation, so much so that its people are literally starving to death).

So where is the fault of Christianity in all of this? Nowhere, of course; the fault lies with people; frail, broken people. And so goes the way of most of Hitchens' arguments. They either rely on massive misinterpretations of scripture (I don't want heaven to be sitting on a cloud singing praises all day for all eternity, either) or simply a thoroughly flawed concept of what the bible actually commands. For another example, he points out that Christianity really espouses an "us against them" mentality, that heaven is for "us" and hell for "them", that there is really a great pleasure to be had for believers knowing that their enemies will be tormented in hell. To me, this is an incredibly insulting caricature of my religion - I know that there are believer out there who do feel this way (sadly), but I've never met them. It actually fills me with a great sadness that many people will simply never accept God (both on the human and spiritual level), because I believe that it means most will never find their true calling, find what it means to be truly human. For, if God created us, and created us in his image, then we are meant to exist with His grace at the forefront of our minds - nothing less will ever fulfill us. I know this will be seen by many as extreme arrogance on my part ("I know how to live better than you so listen up"), but arrogant or not, it is the only tenable conclusion one can arrive at after accepting the core tenets of the Christian faith.

Now, clearly, as for Hitchens' primary objection, that Jesus' command to give no thought for family, for tomorrow, and simply to follow Him, is insane and evil, well, of course, if God is not God, Hitchens is certainly right. If God in fact does exist, however, and if He created all of us, it is not a crazy assumption at all. In fact, it is crazy NOT to do exactly that, as we know that nothing less will ever bring us true fulfillment. And furthermore, as to Hitchens' idea of most believers as weak and looking for answers and simply too gullible to find something better, well, I hold myself up as an example of another model. I tried looking for answers everywhere else, but found nothing until I found God. I also can say confidently that I have experienced the presence of God directly in my own life, and have had experiences that I would call supernatural, so much so that I would consider it INSANE for me NOT to believe in God. Now, clearly, this is never going to convince a hard-core skeptic, people so convinced of a certain reality (or perhaps too terrified of another one) that it would be easier for them to say that I made up all of these experiences, that I just imagined them, than actually admit that there may be something to all this. And D'Souza, in what I think is his best argument, points this out: that 95% of the world believes in a God of some sort, believes in the supernatural. Is this because 95% of the world is gullible, uneducated, stupid? Or is it because they all know people who have told credible stories of things just a little bit too strange to really be a coincidence? Try reading Augustine's Confessions, where he lays bare his life story, warts and all, and then tell me he is merely making up the very few accounts of miraculous events that occur in bits of his writings (one notable, and very detailed, account can be found in The City of God, Book XXII, Chapter 8). To call all of us who experience the miraculous at best gullible, at worst liars, really strains credibility.

Of course, I've come to the conclusion that apologetics, arguments, accounts of the supernatural - none of them have the power to convince anyone that God exists, still less the power to convince someone to follow Jesus. The same holds true for Atheism in many ways: try to convince a life-long believer that God doesn't exist, even if said believer has no real concrete evidence that He does, and you're likely to get nowhere. And so the two sides continue to talk past one another, D'Souza (I believe incorrectly) co-opting science to make his points, and Hitchens unfairly abusing Christianity to make his.

Unfortunately, there's very little to be done about this. It's a reality of our modern world that people tend to take seriously the beliefs that reinforce their own world-views, and screen out or laugh off the ones that don't. I only converted after being saturated in the ideas of Christianity week in and week out for 18 months, after being a committed skeptic for most of my life. Some might well claim I was just manipulated. I'd say that, being an atheist for so long, I had a pretty strong resistance to Christian ideas to begin with, and it was only their quality and truth that eventually won out.