Searching for God # 41

 In the last post, the words and thoughts of Jurgen Moltmann and James Hillman were juxtaposed on the subject of ‘hope’ the former from a theological perspective, the latter from an archetypal psychological perspective. Neither cancels or contradicts the other, although the Moltmann perspective relies on a depth of faith when no signs of probable change appear. The Hillman perspective is finely focused on the paradox of hope in a medical setting which, he speculates, might even lead to increased illness and anxiety….especially as, in hoping for the status quo, omits the subject of morbidity.

These two were followed by an extensive segment from Tolstoy’s ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You,’ a favourite source here, exhorting his and our readers to resist evil non-violently with force, as he proposes the application of the Sermon on the Mount.

The premise of a God-given inheritance of brotherhood, compassion, equality and the insight to recognize and to identify evil, while both broad and deep, when considering the nature of human begins, seems to eclipse effectively and unequivocally, or perhaps to imagine a rising above and replacing the notion of original sin, as another universal ‘step’ in the fulfilment of the aspiration and promise of the “Sermon”. The Moltmann notion of “looking to the future in hope”  (especially where there is no apparent probability for such a perspective) as integral to his theology seems quite compatible and coherent with the Tolstoy vision, as it also recognizes the ubiquity of violence imposed by those in power on those without a voice, as the core expression of human history.

There is a pragmatic perspective in Tolstoy’s recitation of history as unjust offensive and evil violence through the design and imposition of laws to which not everyone can or will agree in the light of a common, universal exhortation to resist evil non-violently with force. The principle has inspired and emboldened men like Ghandi and Mandela along with Martin Luther King Jr. and writers such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. The realism expressed by Tolstoy and other writers may seem to contradict the ‘apocalypticism’ of a second coming.

And, while the apocalypse has, like a shooting star flashed across the screens of both theologians’ and science fiction writers’ imaginations for centuries, almost like a book-end to the ‘Good Samaritan’ and the Crucifixion archetypes as benchmarks, signposts and foundational images for Christian theology, Tolstoy impels his readers to live and breathe deeply of the contemporary injustices we see, and often turn away from in every generation.

Sadly, the church has, both by its direct actions and decisions, as well as by its complicity with the power structures of our society, defined itself as either or both ‘murderers’ or ‘accomplices’ in violence against those without power and voice to oppose. The pursuit of some kind of ‘pure order’ irrespective of how that order is defined, Natural Law,  Church Dogmatics, Church Tradition, and the discipline that one is both instructed to learn, and then to embody and incarnate, as dedicated and loyal ‘supplicants, pilgrims, and those in religious orders’ has come to erase, or to turn a blind eye to the darkness, the Dionysian and elevated the Appollonian and reason, including more recently literalism and empiricism to a status of near-sacred.

Celebrated artists, of course, composers, painters, dancers, photographers, actors and even highly successful political and military leaders have found favour among the church hierarchy; some have even been venerated. However, as for the ordinary lives of ordinary, non-schooled, men and women sitting in church pews, the catechisms and the expectations, the church rules on marriage, sexuality, inter-church relations, have clouded over, or perhaps even turned a deliberately blind eye to the successive, inescapable, seemingly irreversible and heinous forms of violence that secular authorities have designed and imposed, ‘for the protection’ of their respective people.

Only within the last two weeks, after months of violence in the deportation of immigrants and refugees from the United States, allegedly undocumented, did the Roman Catholic College of Bishops finally speak out publicly in direct and forceful opposition. Ironically and tragically, the Russian Orthodox church hierarchy has long ago expressed support for the illegitimate and illegal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian forces of Putin.

In a reflective piece on reflections.yale.edu, by Miroslav Volf, entitled, Christianity and Violence we read:

The more we reduce Christian faith to vague religiosity which serves primarily to energize, heal and give meaning to the business of life whose content is shaped by factors other than faith (such as national or economic interests), the worse off we will be. Inversely, the more Christian faith matters to its adherents as faith and the more they practice it as an ongoing tradition with strong ties to its origins and with clear cognitive and moral content, the better off we will be. ‘Thin’ but zealous practice of the Christian faith is likely to foster violence; ‘thick’ and committed practice will help generate and sustain a culture of peace.

Unfortunately, ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ Christianity evokes images of ‘saved’ and ‘unsaved,’ both words and judgements that were imprinted deeply in my earliest resistance to a ‘divided’ church and theology. While Christians will defer to the Judgement Day as the final verdict on the afterlife, and who is ‘admitted’ nevertheless, my experience within the church over several decades, tells me that ‘judgement’ on an hourly, daily basis pervades each and every sanctuary, as well as every committee a diocesan meeting. Never being able to discern between a ‘secular-cultural-personality’ divide, and a ‘spiritual-purity-impurity’ divide, there seemed in most of not all incidents to be a moral-divide.

As a divorced male, I was barely tolerated, if at all, on the list of ‘postulants for orders.’ As a curious, energetic and somewhat ‘debate-prone’ student in theology school, I was scorned by many classmates. “Just tell me what I need to know, without all the questions, so I can go out and save the world!” was one student’s protest when I asked a question of the church history professor. And I too shared my own ‘biases’ with a degree of ‘less respect’ for the theology taught and practices at Wycliff College, when I was enrolled at Trinity College. Fundamentalism, in all of its many forms, including literal biblical interpretation, prosletyzing and evangelizing to ‘save sinner’s and ‘grow the church numbers, seemed counter-intuitive to what I either envisioned the church to be or wished it would become.

My sense of  a ‘calling’ came not from the church’s leadership seeking another ‘star candidate’ but rather from my own inner voice asking me to ‘dig deeper into my psyche’ in order to find the roots of my driven-workaholism and insatiable appetite for public affirmation. My search for the ‘truth’ of my own addiction might be at least partly satisfied by opportunities for reflection, reading, a critical supervision, not so much of academic and cognitive rigour but of what I then considered ‘personal angst’.

Reflections on the deployment of power, especially power over others, has been like that proverbial crow on the shoulder, asking, in typical raw crow-like rasping voice, ‘Why is that power, regulation, law, rule, abuse even necessary?’ And, ‘what will be the blow-back from such abuses?’ It has been obvious from a very early age that everyone I had met had some kind of internal ‘compass’ that spoke clearly of ‘what was considered ethical and moral, and whether did not meet the ‘smell test’. From my perspective, however, judgements were often, if not always, made on the basis of a very superficial and templated, as well as stereotyped, perspective. In teaching, I often heard guidance teachers comment, ‘Well, how can we expect anything different or better from ‘him’ (or her), given that the whole family is dumb (or some other equally dismissive adjective)?’ Schools try to operate on two premises: prevent trouble, or minimize its spill-over into the public. The school’s need and interest often eclipses that of the student, whose personal life is only briefly known, checked or supported. Incidents of conflict, between students, or even between student and teacher are often categorized in a manner convenient to the schools ‘set of expectations.’ A similar pattern, only more rigorously and less legalistically enforced, happens within the church.   

 Ordination, for example, while submitting to obedience to the episcopal authority of the bishop, never seemed to me to be a sacrifice of my mind, body or spirit, and certainly not of my soul. Indeed, ‘questioning authority’ might be considered integral to my theology, on all questions. Personal and private salvation has always given way for me to the saving of the world; similarly, gender choices have always been more significant than the church’s isolation, contempt and ecclesial categorizing as ‘evil’. The ordination of women, another of the hot-buttons for many, also comes with the caveat, ‘How can I oppose ordination for my three daughters, should they seek such a choice?”

(Not incidentally), the recent stories about the surge of Anglican/episcopal clergy and bishops converting to Roman Catholicism, primarily on the basis of the ordination of women, is both appalling and unjustified. The monopolistic mysogyny of the Roman church can no longer be justified either sociologically or theologically. And, for many male clerics to find refuge in the Roman Catholic church, without having to question or face the theology of ‘equal access to ordination for women’ is a regression of the theology of the institution akin to the recent announcement of the retrieval of purgatory by the Roman Catholic church.

We all wrestle with the ‘problem of evil’ as a professor asked his first-year class to write about, from Augustine’s point of view. What is evil, how do we know what it looks like? How do we know the motivation of one who appears to be imposing evil on  another? How do we know what God considers evil? What authority do we seek and retrieve in order to justify our definitions and enforcements of punishments and sanctions of evil acts? Why has the church focused so deeply on private sin? Is the church’s need to control its patrons an aspect of evil? Can such a question even be permitted publicly, without transgressing church polity and church law?

Even if we accept that God has imbued humans with conscience, the lens through which Tolstoy views that conscience is very different from the protestant, fundamental lens on the Original Fall into sin of mankind, and the need for redemption and forgiveness, in other words, ‘salvation’. And Hillman’s note that we have attributed many psychic ‘problems’ to evil, and relegated them either to legal or medical ‘treatment’ (including medication, hospitalization, incarceration and other nefarious stripping of licenses, qualifications, and practices) is also a fresh and somewhat liberating perspective.

The secular authorities, as well as those charged with ecclesial authority and responsibility, would do well to reflect on how the ‘elimination’ of what is conventionally and professionally and clinically considered ‘abnormal’ psychology,. Such elimination, through imprisonment, or through voluntary and/or involuntary hospitalization may never be a pragmatic solution, nor an ethical solution, depending on the perspective of the investigators and prosecutors.

Being increasingly described by psychological terminology, by untrained and highly neurotic persons in authority, while perhaps offering a degree of efficiency and order, also compromises very often the remaining years of the subject’s life. Does either the church or the public authorities ever reflect on the ethics and morality of such a template which has obvious and universal application?

There is a cliché running around the social media that says something like, ‘Never before, if I said something like, ‘He’s evil’ would everyone in the world know who I meant!’ Now, indeed, everyone in the world knows at least one ‘face’ of evil….and the question begging a universal response, is, ‘How could we possibly face such a threat, given that it has a physical face and body?’

What does non-violent confrontation of evil with force look like for all of us, including all those engaged in a faith community? And, even if confronted, the whole world faces an existential threat, to which we all contribute, that demands a universal recognition, confrontation and remediation of its potential to human life: the rising temperatures of global warming and climate crisis….

Can we shift our perspective from one exclusively focused on individual transgressions to the summation of universal greed, narcissism and hubris three qualities which seem to identify many if not all of the billionaires and trillionaires. Acknowledging that the church must bear some responsibility and accountability for having taught and inculcated two thousand years of personal/private sin and evil, without permitting itself or institutions generally to be held accountable for their evil, especially the abuse of unfettered power and violence, the church, too, has an obligation to come clean on the perspective it has imposed and sanctioned from the beginning.

Is the church open to such a reflective consideration?

The clock is ticking…and the pace of theological reflection and accountability is predictably and invariably glacial.

Moltmann's theology of hope, in the face of no favourable evidence, as well as Hillman's nudge away from an exclusive literal, empirical appreception of the universe and Tolstoy's reading of the "Sermon" aund dedicating the whole of humanity to that inherent vision, taken together, could not be more timely in their application than contemporarily.

The imagination lies ready, eager and able to be 'recruited, resurrected and re-applied' for all to reclaim.