Admiring the Color Purple

The Color Purple by Alice Walker was a Pulitzer Prize winning novel and Stephen Spielberg’s 1985 movie by the same name was nominated for eleven Academy Awards. Last month June and I both re-read the book and watched the movie again—and were impressed again by both. 

Alice Walker is a talented novelist and poet. She is also a lifetime social activist and the one who coined the term “womanist” (in “Coming Apart,” her 1979 short story).

Walker was born in Georgia, the youngest of her sharecropper parents’ eight children. She was an excellent student, and upon graduating from high school she received a scholarship to prestigious (HBCU) Spelman College in Atlanta. Howard Zinn was one of her professors there.

Under the direction of SNCC, Alice and many other Spelman students joined the effort to desegregate Atlanta. They were supported by Prof. Zinn—who subsequently was fired in the summer of 1963. Because of that, Alice transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York and graduated in 1965.

Through the 1970s Walker was active both as a teacher and an author, and then 40 years ago, in 1982, The Color Purple, her third novel was published. The next year she became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The Color Purple is a feminist work about Celie, an abused and uneducated African American woman’s struggle for empowerment. According to Britannica, among other things the novel was “praised for the depth of its female characters and for its eloquent use of Black English Vernacular.”

Here is a short conversation between Shug and Celie that shows some of that vernacular—and indicates where the title of the book came from:

Listen, God love everything you love—and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration. You saying God vain? I ast. Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it (Kindle ed., p. 195).

The same Britannica article goes on to say, “The Color Purple movingly depicts the growing up and self-realization of Celie, who overcomes oppression and abuse to find fulfillment and independence.”  

The novel is a classic, for there are many today who need to overcome oppression and abuse the same as Celie did 100 years ago. More broadly, as a theology professor in Australia writes, The Color Purple is

both a cry of rage and protest against the injustices and inhumanity we humans inflict on one another, and a stubborn affirmation of hope in the midst of suffering, of endurance against all odds, of a kind of triumph in the end as we become more and more who we truly are.*

The Color Purple is also a book about God. The above quote from the book is just one of many referring to God.

The author herself said in a 2006 interview, “Twenty-five-years later, it still puzzles me that The Color Purple is so infrequently discussed as a book about God. About ‘God’ versus ‘the God image.’”**

The blogger cited above explains that Walker clearly holds a panentheist view of God in which “the divine is deeply immanent within everything, a faithful creator and life-giving Spirit. She revolts against the intellectual idolatry that reduces God to the white, to the male, to the human.”

And Walker herself states that the “core teaching of the novel” is delivered by Shug, who says to Celie, “I believe God is everything, . . . Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found it” (Kindle ed., p. 194).

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Look how the wild flowers grow. They don't work hard to make their clothes. But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth wasn't as well clothed as one of them” (Matt. 6:27-28, CEB).

Perhaps when he said this, Jesus was looking out over a field of wild flowers and admiring the color purple.

_____

* Michael O’Neil in a 2016 blog post.

** From the Introduction of the book in the Kindle version (loc. 80).

Note: For an abundance of information about Alice Walker and her outstanding book, see https://bookanalysis.com/alice-walker/the-color-purple/.

"Deus Aderit": Learning from Carl Jung

Thinking Friend Dick Wilson in North Carolina didn’t know about my intention to write this article on Carl Jung when he ended his comments on my July 25 blog post, “vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit [Invited or not, God shows up!],” words long associated with the famed Swiss psychoanalyst. 

Jung’s Formative Years

Jung was born 145 years ago (on July 26, 1875) in a city about 50 miles northeast of Zürich, Switzerland. His father was a Swiss Reformed Church pastor, and his mother was the daughter of a distinguished churchman and academic—but she was also emotionally unbalanced when Jung was young.

Carl initially wanted to become a pastor, but he decided against the path of religious traditionalism and decided instead to pursue psychiatry and medicine. Consequently, at the age of 20 he began to study medicine at the University of Basel.

In 1900, Jung moved to Zürich and began working in a psychiatric hospital. Three years later he married Emma Rauschenbach, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist.

Jung met Sigmund Freud in 1907 and the two psychiatrists had a close relationship until 1912. They met for the last time in 1913, when Freud wrote, “We took leave from one another without feeling the need to meet again.”

In 1908 the Jungs bought land near Lake Zürich in Küsnacht, Switzerland, and had a large three-story house constructed there with money Emma had inherited. That was Carl’s home until his death in June 1961. (Emma died in 1955).

Above the entrance doorway, the Jungs had these words permanently inscribed: VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT. An alternative translation to that given by Dick (above) is: “Invoked or not invoked, God is present.” Those Latin words are also engraved on Jung’s tombstone.  

Entrance doorway to Carl and Emma Jung's house

Jung’s Productive Years

During the first half of his adult life, Jung developed an approach toward understanding the human psyche that contrasted that of Sigmund Freud. His important books during this time are Psychology of the Unconscious (1912), Psychological Types (1921), and Psychology and Religion (1938).

During these productive years, Jung introduced such terms as archetypes, collective unconscious, introvert and extrovert (originally extravert), persona, and shadow.

Unlike Freud, who understood God as a human fabrication, the infantile projection of the human need for protection, Jung was primarily positive toward religion and the reality of God.

(Click here to access my 10/15/14 blog post titled “Was Freud a Fraud?” In that article, I question Freud’s assertion that belief in God is just wish fulfillment and that religion is ““the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity.”)

Jung’s Reflective Years

While Jung’s concept of God wasn’t necessarily that of traditional Christianity, neither was it oppositional. His position seems clearly to have been starkly in contrast to Freud’s.

In 1952, when he was past 75, he wrote to a clergyman, “I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted to Him” (cited here in 2016).

Seven years later in a BBC “Face to Face” interview, Jung was asked if he believed in God. He replied, “I don’t need to believe, I know.”

According to psychologist Steve Myers (see here), in that statement Jung affirmed God as “a certainty” that was “based on evidence. His practice as a psychotherapist and his mythological research had convinced him of God’s existence.”

It was my reading of the highly respected (by me and many others) Richard Rohr that prompted this article on Jung. In his 2019 book The Universal Christ, Rohr has a three-page subsection about Jung and later cites the Latin inscription above the doorway to Jung’s house.

In his “daily meditation” for 1/2/15, Rohr writes about his “wisdom lineage.” He refers to “the brilliant psychology of Carl Jung,” and that is the only twentieth-century name mentioned.

The world would be better off if more people would spurn Freud and learn from Jung. Everyone needs to realize, as Jung evidently did, that Deus aderit: God is present, whether invoked or not.

The Domestication of God

The sixth chapter of my book The Limits of Liberalism, which I am currently revising, slightly, and updating for re-publication at the end of this year, is titled “Limits of Liberal Views of God.” This blog post is based on parts of that chapter. 

Is God’s Transcendence a Problem?

Among theological liberals, there has been rather strongly stated opposition to what some label as “supernatural theism.” For example, the noted British scholar Karen Armstrong has publicly rejected what she calls “the God of supernatural theism.”

This opposition is, in other words, a rejection of the transcendence of God, the idea/belief that God is “above” and “beyond” the natural world that we humans can know by science.

Since there is a tendency to think that all knowledge of the physical world (nature) can be obtained by modern scientific means, whatever is considered not a part of nature is, therefore, supernatural.

Consequently, belief in a “supernatural” Creator of heaven and earth, the concept of God who is somehow not completely an integral part of the natural world, is rejected.

For modern people, for whom liberal thinkers seek to speak, the transcendence or “otherness” of God—or the “infinite qualitative distinction” between God and human beings that Kierkegaard emphasized—is seen as a problem to be overcome by a newer, more enlightened, view of God.

Is God’s “Domestication” the Answer?

Over the last seventy years especially, many liberal theologians and philosophers have rejected the concept of God’s transcendence by emphasizing the complete immanence of God.

William C. Placher was a leading postliberal theologian in the United States. Back in 1996, he published a book titled The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking about God Went Wrong.

In his book, Placher (1948~2008) contended that the shift from a transcendental theism to an immanental pantheism led to what he calls (and titles his fifth chapter) “the domestication of God”—a pregnant phrase that indicates a significant aspect of the limits of liberal thinking about God.

That is part of the reason that Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre quipped in 1966, “Theists are offering atheists less and less in which to disbelieve.”

What about Experience of God?

In the fall of 1957, I began my final two years of college as a transfer student at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. One of my courses that fall was Philosophy of Religion.

Professor Murray Hunt chose Philosophy of Religion as our textbook. It was authored by the Quaker scholar D. Elton Trueblood, Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, and published earlier that year.

Because of that course and Trueblood’s book, the philosophy of religion became my main academic interest, and it remained so for decades.

Part II, the heart of Trueblood’s book, is titled “Theistic Realism,” which, although he doesn’t use those words, is a rebuttal/rejection of the movement toward the domestication of God.

Trueblood begins “The Theistic Hypothesis,” the first chapter of Part II, with these words: “God, when carefully defined, either is or is not.” He then goes on to explain,

To say that God “is” means to give assent to the proposition that the idea of God is not merely an idea in the minds of men, but actually refers to what is objectively the case—something which was before we came to be aware of it and which now is, independent of our awareness or lack of awareness (p. 79).

Those who have sought to domesticate God have often spoken of the “God within” human beings. Thus, God is understood as a subjective experience of individual persons. This stands in contrast to the theistic realism Trueblood expounds, and his position, I believe, is far more coherent.

The last chapter of Part II is “The Evidence of Religious Experience.” I was studying philosophy of religion because I was preparing to become a Christian pastor—and I was preparing for that vocation (literally) because of what I firmly believed, and still believe, was a definite “call” by God.

My experience was not highly ecstatic or “otherworldly.” It was much more like the “still small voice” that the prophet Elijah heard (according to 1 Kings 19:12, KJV). But it was unquestionably real.

Those who wish to domesticate God would explain my, and Elijah’s, experience as only a subjective one. But I am convinced that making everything related to God subjective, or immanent, is one of the debilitating limits of liberalism.

Interpreting the Resurrection of Jesus

Even though today is Good Friday, this article is about the Easter story and how Jesus’ resurrection can be affirmed by contemporary people.

A Novel Interpretation

The writing of this article was spurred by my reading of a novel: Martin Gardner’s The Flight of Peter Fromm (1973, 1994). After finishing it in 2012, I wrote this in my “books read” record: “One of the most challenging theological novels I ever read. A book of great profundity and erudition.”

Last month I finished reading Gardner’s book for the second time—and I was impressed and disturbed by it again.

If you haven’t read the novel, I don’t necessarily recommend it. Why? Because debunking the resurrection of Jesus is one of the main themes of the book.

At the beginning of the novel, Peter Fromm is a precocious, fundamentalist, Pentecostal Christian boy from Oklahoma who chooses to go to the University of Chicago Divinity School. There he is “slowly but surely” led by Homer Wilson, his mentor who is a part-time professor and a Unitarian minister, to question and then to reject many of his Christian beliefs, including the reality of Jesus’ resurrection.

On Easter Sunday, shortly before he is scheduled to receive his doctor’s degree, to marry, and to be ordained and assume a full-time church position, Peter preaches at his mentor’s church—and has a dramatic psychological breakdown.

Questionable Interpretations

In spite of being a minister and seminary professor, early in the book Wilson acknowledges, “I do not consider myself a Christian except in the widest, most humanistic sense. I do not, for example, believe in God.”

Homer Wilson spends considerable time discussing theological ideas with Peter, who gradually begins to discard belief in the reality of the resurrection—along with ideas about the transcendence of God. So Peter comes largely to adopt what Wilson calls “secular humanism.”

Wilson tells Peter that one who preaches to modern people has “to choose between being a truthful traitor or a loyal liar.” In order to serve in a paid church position, he believes, it is necessary to choose the latter: that seems clearly to have been Homer’s choice, and Peter also apparently comes to accept that position. The duplicity of that choice, however, leads to Peter’s breakdown.

Much of the problem in accepting the reality of the Easter story centers on the interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection as being the resuscitation of his physical body. Peter assumes that that is the view of resurrection found in the New Testament.

Of course, Peter also considers, and rejects, Jesus’ resurrection as simply the spirit or idea of Jesus being “resurrected” in the minds of his disciples.

Recommended Interpretation

My interpretation of, and belief in, the resurrection is based on firm belief in the reality of God and in transcendence. Thus, my affirmation of the reality of Easter is grounded in a worldview quite different from that of secular humanism.

If one believes, as Homer Wilson and then Peter Fromm did, that the physical world, which can be fully examined by science, is the totality of reality, then resurrection cannot be affirmed in any historical sense.

My views are in general agreement with those of the eminent New Testament scholar N.T. Wright as summarily presented in his book Surprised by Hope (2008), which I highly recommend.

For me, and for Wright, Jesus’ resurrection can be, and must be, understood as something other than literal resuscitation and certainly as something other than a metaphorical, completely non-historical story.

Firm belief in God and transcendence, however, makes affirmation of Jesus’ resurrection possible, understandable, and a matter of great joy and hope.

Happy Easter!

TTT #2 The Better We Know God, the Broader and Deeper Will Be Our Understanding of the Universe and Everything in It

Ten days ago, I posted the first of 30 articles of my not-yet-published book titled Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (abbreviated as TTT). This article presents the gist of the second chapter, which is closely related to the first chapter but does not require prior reading of that opening chapter.

An Important Question

Many people seem to think that embracing a religious faith narrows one’s understanding of the world. Some people have even jettisoned religion because they wanted a broader worldview. Such people have viewed belief in God as a straitjacket that limits thought about the world in which we live. But are such views well founded?

It cannot be denied that some types of religion do limit exploration of, and acceptance of, a more comprehensive view of the universe than that has traditionally been held. There has long been, for example, an anti-intellectual bias among some Christians. Such a position, though, is clearly a perversion of what Christianity is, or at least should be.

The Answer of the Early Scientists

Many people have held the widespread perception that “warfare” between science and religion has persisted through the centuries. But investigation into the true nature of the situation reveals that most of the early scientists in the Western world were people of deep faith in God.

As most of you know well, Nicholas Copernicus initiated a massive change in how people understand the nature of the universe. The Polish-born Copernicus (1473-1543) was a first-class astronomer, but he was also a Catholic cleric and an ardent believer in God.

The striking painting below is titled “Astronomer Copernicus: Conversation with God.” It is an 1873 work of the prominent Polish painter Jan Matejko.  

Is Theology the “Queen of the Sciences”?

There was a time, long ago, when theology was widely considered to be the “queen of the sciences.” It was so called because if God is the creator and sustainer of the entire universe from the beginning to the present and on into the vast future, there is nothing that is not related to God.

So theology, the study of God, must include everything since everything is related to God.

Because of various misunderstandings of God – mostly because of parochial views that failed to grasp the greatness of God – and because of a growing secularization which grew partly as a reaction against the narrowness into which religion had fallen, theology gradually lost its place as the “queen of the sciences.”

Now theology is even seen by many in the academic world as an unwanted stepchild.

Nevertheless, the attempt to know God includes the desire to know everything related to God – and as we have seen, the physical sciences were developed as a means not just to understand the universe better but also as a means to know God better. Thus, the study of God includes the theology of science and the theology of nature.

Rightly understood, the idea of theology as the “queen” of our human quest for understanding the universe is a claim worth taking seriously.

God and the Basic Virtues

In both Western and Eastern societies, truth, beauty, and goodness have long been understood as basic virtues. If we accept the “true thing” explicated in the first chapter, then we can consider the likelihood that God is the basis for all truth, beauty, and goodness.

So, it seems clear that the better we know God, the broader and deeper will be our understanding of the universe and everything in it.

Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now

During this year of 2018, I will be doing something different with many of my blog posts. For 30 out of the 72 scheduled articles for the year, I plan to post articles based on my as-yet-unpublished book that has the title you see above.

Preface

In the preface of the book, which you can read here, I tell how the idea for the book came from Gordon Livingston’s 2004 bestselling book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now.

There are 30 short chapters in the book, so 30 times this year I plan to summarize a chapter in 600 words, or less, and then provide a link so that those who have the time and interest can read the entire chapter.

Please give attention now to the main points from the first of the “thirty true things” (which I will occasionally abbreviate as TTT).

#1  God is Greater Than We Think, or Even Can Think

I don’t fully understand God. And unless you are greatly different from everyone else, you don’t fully understand God either. But that is all right, for as someone wisely said many, many years ago, “A comprehended god is no god.” (That statement may go back as far as John Chrysostom, c.349-407, but it is often attributed to Gerhard Tersteegen, 1697-1769, a German Pietist.)     

One of the reasons why God is greater than we think or even can think is related to the assertion that God is the Creator, maker of heaven and earth. If God is really the Creator, the cause or source of all that is, for that reason alone we are not able to comprehend the greatness of God. Since we cannot even begin to grasp the size and nature of the physical universe, how could we possibly grasp the “size” and nature of God, the creator of all that is?

If God is really the creator of all, then every person must be related to God in some way, and there surely must be some awareness of God by all the peoples of the world. John Hick (b. 1922~2012) has been one of the most prominent and prolific religious philosophers/theologians during my lifetime, and he is the author of a book titled God Has Many Names (1980).

A recognition of the fact that God has many names helps free us from one of the main problems of many religious people, Christians included: the problem of tribalism, the belief that one’s own “tribe” is inherently superior to all others.

So, why is this “true thing” important?

First, it is important because it allows us to embrace a view of God large enough that there will be nothing we can learn about the physical universe that will conflict with our belief in God.

Further, when we truly understand that God is greater than we think, or even can think, we can then more easily affirm the idea that God is the God of all people, regardless of how they perceive God or even regardless of whether or not they acknowledge God.

So, even though Livingston was probably right in saying that most people get “too soon old, too late smart,” and even though it may be rather late in life for some of us, let’s try to be smart enough now to comprehend that God is, indeed, greater than we think, or even can think.

[To read the five-page first chapter of TTT, please click on this link.]

Are Sinners Really in the Hands of a Loving God?

Brian Zahnd, founding pastor of the Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Mo., is a man I consider a new friend. I first met Brian on June 25 when I went to St. Joe to hear him preach, and then I drove back to St. Joe to have lunch with him on July 13. I have found him to be a warm and genuine person, an engaging preacher, and an author of engrossing books.

A Bit about BZ

June and I started referring to Brian Zahnd as BZ, partly because we know other Zahnds and other Brians. I could take this whole article just to introduce him, but I will make this part brief.

BZ was born in 1959 in Savannah, Mo., the oldest son of an attorney who later became a county judge. Glen Zahnd was also a leading member of the First Baptist Church in that county-seat town.

When BZ was a high school student, he became a “Jesus freak,” and joined other young Christians who practiced their faith in “The Catacombs” in St. Joe. From that group he started the Word of Life Church when he was 22—and he is still the pastor of that congregation, which became and still is a megachurch.

Culminating in 2004, BZ experienced a rather drastic theological change. He turned from what he refers to as “cotton candy Christianity” to what he believes is a more authentic Christian faith based upon a fuller understanding of Jesus Christ.

Because of that change of emphasis, BZ told me that he lost about a thousand members from his church that had had a weekly attendance of about 4,000.

A Bit about BZ’s Books

BZ’s book Water to Wine: Some of My Story (2016) tells about his “conversion” in 2004. It was the first of his books that I read, and I found it fascinating.

Then I read BZ’s 2014 book titled A Farewell to Mars and really enjoyed it also. His views on war and peace are very much in harmony with that of the Mennonites—and he now often speaks at Anabaptist conferences, although his church is not affiliated with any denomination.

BZ’s newest book was released on August 15, and my reading of it prompted this article, for its title is Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.

The Point of BZ’s Newest Book

When he was a young charismatic/evangelical preacher, BZ made regular use of Johnathan Edwards’s (in)famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” But his theological change in 2004 led BZ to reject what he came to call the “monster God” and to affirm God as the God of love for all people at all times.  

BZ’s emphasis on the unchangeable love of God led him to reject the doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. (You can review here my recent article about PSA, which ended with reference to Rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal son.)

The cover illustration of BZ’s new book is of the prodigal son being welcomed by his loving father. That depiction of God as always loving, always forgiving, always accepting is the key to an adequate understanding of God.

Further, BZ’s emphasizes that “hell” is the terrible conditions some people experience in this life rather than as some future state of eternal punishment decreed by God. To BZ, no one at any time who wishes to experience the loving acceptance of God is ever rejected or caused to suffer punishment by God for any reason.

BZ’s book may seem odious to some conservative evangelical Christians, but it boldly, and correctly, promulgates the “scandalous truth” that sinners really are in the hands of a loving God.

What about Penal Substitutionary Atonement?

There will be decidedly different reactions to the main topic of this article. Some readers no doubt think that the Christian doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is of utmost importance. Others, however, think that such a doctrine is wrongheaded and should be opposed. So, which side is right?

The Emphasis on PSA

The emphasis on penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) has been prominent in Protestant theology for nearly 500 years now. That theory of the atonement, however, has come under more and more scrutiny in recent decades

Some Protestants even reject the idea of PSA. Wm. Paul Young, about whom I wrote in my June 25 blog article (see here), is just one such person.

Because of the growing opposition to the idea of PSA, last month the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution affirming “the truthfulness, efficacy, and beauty of the biblical doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement as the burning core of the Gospel message and the only hope of a fallen race.”

That strong emphasis on PSA probably expresses the position of the majority of conservative evangelical Christians.

But other Christians disagree.

Questioning PSA

In addition to Young’s contention that the core element of PSA might be thought of as a “lie” believed about God, there are contemporary theologians who seriously question the PSA on biblical and theological grounds.

Of many who might be cited, let me mention only two Mennonite theologians: J. Denny Weaver and Ted Grimsrud. Weaver (b. 1941) is now Professor Emeritus of Religion at Bluffington University. He is the author of two important books about the atonement: The Nonviolent Atonement (2^nd ed., 2011) and, secondarily, The Nonviolent God (2013).

Grimsrud (b. 1954) served as a professor of theology at Eastern Mennonite University until his early retirement in 2016. He is the author of Instead of Atonement: The Bible’s Salvation Story and Our Hope for Wholeness (2013).

Both of these theologians reject the traditional doctrine of PSA, emphasizing that violent retribution, such as by Jesus’ crucifixion, was not necessary in order for humans to be saved from God’s wrath. Rather, because of God’s unfathomable love and mercy God has always been able to forgive sin and to restore sinners who seek forgiveness.

An Alternative to PSA

In 1967 when I was still in Japanese language school, I read Interpreting the Atonement, a new book by Dr. Robert H. Culpepper, my missionary sempai (older colleague).

After reading the book, I wrote two typewritten pages (which I still have) of reflections and questions. The main question I raised was about the necessity of penal substitutionary atonement, although I didn’t use those exact words.

Bob, as I came to know him, wrote a good and helpful book, but even then I was drawn primarily to the subjective, rather than an objective, view of the atonement.

An objective view of the atonement means that something had to be done, in history, in order for God to be able to forgive sinful humans. Sin had to be punished. The “something” done was the crucifixion of Christ, who became the substitute for sinful humankind.

The subjective view posits the need for repentance but sees no objective, historical event as necessary for God to be able to forgive sinful humans. God is seen as all-merciful, all-loving, and always ready to forgive repentant persons.

According to this latter view, the prodigal son’s father can be seen as depicting the true nature of God. Restoration with a wayward child is dependent only on that child's repentance and returning home. No violent sacrifice is necessary.

Reflect deeply on this point as you look at the following detail of Rembrandt’s “Return of the Prodigal Son.”  

Lies We Believe about God

Lies My Teacher Told Me (1995) by James W. Loewen is an interesting and important book. Following that lead, a few years ago I did some preliminary work on a book titled Lies My Preacher Told Me. It could have been a good book—but, alas, I didn’t get it written. Earlier this year, however, Wm. Paul Young has published a somewhat related book, Lies We Believe about God.

Young’s Theology

As most of you remember, Young is the author of the bestselling novel The Shack (2007), which I wrote about in a blog article posted on March 5. (There were more pageviews than usual on that post.)

Young also wrote the fantasy novel Eve (2015). (My May 5 article on that book got fewer pageviews than usual.)

This piece is about Young’s new book, which is not a novel but a theological reflection about God. In it, Young deals with 28 different “lies” that he thinks many people believe about God.

Young also wrote the Foreword for Richard Rohr’s new book The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (2016). Among other things, Young graphically averred, 

Bad theology is like pornography—the imagination of a real relationship without the risk of one. It tends to be transactional and propositional rather than relational and mysterious. You don’t have to trust Person, or care for Person. It becomes an exercise in self-gratification that ultimately dehumanizes the self and the community of humanity in order to avoid the painful processes of humbling and trusting. Bad theology is not a victimless crime. It dehumanizes God and turns the wonder and the messy mystery of intimate relationship into a centerfold to be used and discarded.

Young thinks that many popular ideas about God are pornographic, in the way he just expressed. Those ideas express bad theology, for they are lies believed about God. So he sets out to state good/correct theological statements about God.

For the most part, I think Young did a commendable job. Naturally, there are some who disagree—and the more conservative/traditional a person is, the more they will likely disagree with Young’s theology.

Young’s Perceived Lies about God

In general, Young says that all ideas about God that depict God as in any way vengeful or vindictive are not true. All views about God that fail to embrace God’s grace, God’s unconditional love and acceptance of all people, are “lies” about God.

Further, all statements that exclude people from God’s embrace or locate them outside the reach of God’s forgiveness are also seen as lies.

“Every human being you meet, interact with, react and respond to, treat rudely or with kindness and mercy: every one is a child of God,” says Young (on p. 206).

Conservative Christians do not like Young’s emphases for two main reasons: they appear to be universalistic (everyone is forgiven/”saved”) and they deny the idea of the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ.

According to Young, God does not need to be appeased. God’s wrath does not need to be assuaged. God’s righteousness does not need to be “satisfied.”

Is “Penal Substitutionary Atonement” a Lie about God?

The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention was held earlier this month. As always, there were several resolutions deliberated and passed at that meeting. One was titled “On the Necessity of Penal Substitutionary Atonement.”

In a news article about that resolution, Bob Allen of Baptist News Global mentioned Young’s criticism of that penal substitutionary theory of atonement. As noted above, Young thinks it is one of the lies believed about God.

Is he right?

Let’s think more about that important issue soon.

The Gospel According to "Eve"

Wm. Paul Young, as perhaps most of you know, is the author of The Shack (2008), which was made into a movie by the same name and released earlier this year. Some of you may also remember the blog article I posted on the book/movie back in March (see here). Then in April, I read Young’s 2015 novel, Eve.

A FANTASY NOVEL

Eve is classified as a Christian fantasy novel. For some reason, though, I have never cared much for fantasy books, Christian or otherwise. I have not read the highly acclaimed fantasy fiction of C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien, although some of my children and grandchildren have greatly enjoyed their books of fantasy.  

An online dictionary defines fantasy as “the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable.” Maybe that is my problem: I just don’t have enough imagination to enjoy fantasy. At least that was my main problem in reading Eve.

Looking at the reviews of Eve on Goodreads.com was interesting (see here). Some readers gave it five stars and praised the book. Others gave it one star. One such person is Megz, a young white woman in South Africa. She is a fan of The Shack, she said, but then stated bluntly, “I don’t have a nice way of starting this review: I hated this book.”

I certainly didn’t hate it—but I had trouble appreciating the fantasy.

SOME FANTASTIC STATEMENTS

While I had trouble with much of the fantastic (= “imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality”) parts of the book, which was most of it, I was, nevertheless, impressed with some fantastic (= “extraordinarily good or attractive”) statements in it. Here are some examples.

Near the end of the book Eve says, “Perhaps this desire to reach out to the other [to Adam in her case], to make amends and repair loss, to build a bridge and heal, is a part of God’s maternal being that is in all of us” (p. 282).

One theme of the book is human freedom, which includes being able to make bad choices. In that regard, Eve says, “I have learned that God has more respect for me than I do for myself, that God submits to the choices I make, that my ability to say no and turn my face away is essential for Love to be Love.”

Eve then goes on to state,

Adonai has never hidden His face from me, nor has He kept from me the consequences of my choosing. That is why many of my sons and my daughters curse the face and name of God. But God refuses to be like what we have become and take power and dominion. He has the audacity to consent and even submit to all our choosing. Then He joins us in the darkness we create because of all our turning (p. 283). 

A THEOLOGICAL NOVEL

There are some appealing theological aspects to Eve. As in The Shack, the feminine aspects of God, whom (because of his strong Trinitarian ideas) Young regularly refers to with plural pronouns, are highlighted. That maternal side of God is also portrayed as a part of all humans, made in the image of God.

God allows human freedom, as mentioned above, even when that leads to turning away from God. But they (God as the plural Trinity) still love unconditionally those who turn (sinners), and they are very eager to embrace all those who re-turn.

Another Goodreads reviewer, Rhonda in Virginia, wrote, “This book caused me to think deeply about my own brokenness.” Perhaps it also helped her, and others, to see the gospel (good news) according to Eve: God’s love is always available for the healing of every broken person.

What Is Your Ultimate Concern?

Several years before Polish priest Maximilian Kolbe died (was killed) in the Auschwitz concentration camp (see my previous article), Paul Tillich, a university professor in Germany, criticized the Nazis in public lectures and speeches and then left the country in the year Hitler became Chancellor.

Paul Tillich

Today (August 20) is the 130th anniversary of Tillich’s birth in a small village that is now known as Starosiedle, Poland. When he was a young teen, his family moved to Berlin. Then after completing his Ph.D., and following in his father’s footsteps, Tillich was ordained as a Lutheran minister in 1912.

During World War I Tillich served as a chaplain in the German army. After the war he became a university professor. Because of his public opposition to the Nazi movement, though, he was dismissed from his position as Professor of Theology at the University of Frankfurt in 1933.

Tillich then fled to New York, where he became a professor at Union Theological Seminary. In 1940 became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Then from 1955 to 1962 he was a University Professor at Harvard Divinity School.

During his teaching and writing career of more than 30 years in the U.S. Tillich became one of the world’s most influential theologians.

Tillich Park

On the first day of our June car trip to Maryland, my wife and I stopped by New Harmony, Indiana, for a far-too-short-visit of that historic town. At the impressive visitors’ center we learned much about the town’s history.

It was started as a utopian community in 1814. Then in 1824 the whole town was sold to Robert Owen, a wealthy Welshman who similarly wanted to build a model community for social reform. 

We also visited the Paul Tillich Park in that quaint little town of New Harmony. That park was dedicated in June 1963, and after Tillich’s death in October 1965 his ashes were interred there. Along the park’s walkway there are several large stones with inscribed quotations from Tillich’s writings. 

There is also a sculpture of Tillich’s head, and this is the picture I took of it: 

Ultimate Concern 

Tillich authored many significant theology books, and as a seminary student in the early 1960s I read several of those books with great interest (although the three volumes of his Systematic Theology were not particularly easy to read and understand).

In 1963 I also had the privilege of hearing Tillich give a lecture in Lexington, Kentucky. At that time he was 77 years old and still a professor at the University of Chicago, where he had moved just the year before.

One of Tillich’s smaller, and most influential, books is The Dynamics of Faith (1957). In the very first sentence he asserts that faith is “the state of being ultimately concerned.” In other words, what we consider as more important than anything else is our “god,” and our allegiance to that god is the basic meaning of faith. 

From the standpoint of Christianity, the Creator God should be one’s ultimate concern, and if anyone’s ultimate concern is something else, that person has faith in an idol.

Thus, having ultimate concern for one’s family, for the nation (such as Hitler demanded for the Third Reich), or for recreation/entertainment (which seems highly popular at the present time) is idolatry. 

Tillich encouraged ultimate concern for “the God beyond god,” that is, the God who is beyond all tribal, national, or limited concepts of God. Such concern is faith in God who, to use his terms, is Being-Itself or the Ground of Being. 

What is your ultimate concern?