Shall We Dance?: Considering an All-inclusive Worldview

This is my third blog post regarding worldviews. On July 30, I wrote (here) about the importance of expanding one’s worldview. The theme of my August 20 post was the sadness of shrinking one’s worldview. In this article, please consider the all-inclusive worldview (my term) presented by Jon Paul Sydnor in his 2024 book, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology.*¹  

You may think it strange, but I never learned to dance. Growing up in a traditional Southern Baptist church, social dancing was frowned upon—and I didn’t have any trouble with that. In the last 20 years, though, I have read three theology books with “Dance” in the title.

The first of those was Molly Marshall’s 2003 book, Joining the Dance: A Theology of the Spirit. Seven years ago, I read Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (2016). Then this month I finished reading Sydnor’s engaging new book.

These three books are largely, but not wholly, about the Christian concept of the Trinity, and all three authors write about the Greek word perichōrēsis, which I became aware of when reading Marshall’s book.

In 2022 (here), Rohr wrote, “Trinitarian theology says that God is a ‘circular’ rotation (perichoresis) of total outpouring and perfect receiving among three intimate partners.” That “circular rotation” is depicted as “the divine dance” in Rohr’s book noted above.*²

(I am quite sure that such “circular rotation” is quite different from the sexually stimulating social dancing that I have eschewed since my teenage years.)

The “great open dance” views all reality as being fully interrelated. Dance partners are obviously not one; they are separate selves. But they also are not two. Sydnor says the same is true for everything.

In interfaith discussions in Japan, my Japanese Buddhist friends sometimes talked about the term/concept funi (不二), which literally means not two. In his first chapter, Sydnor points out that “'not-two' refers to the unity-in-difference upon which our universe is based.” This is a nondual worldview.*³

Sydnor continues: “Nondualism asserts that all reality is inherently related.” Thus, “nondualism offers intellectual resistance to the false divisions that cause our suffering, implicitly condemning sexism, racism, classism, nationalism, … and every other divisive worldview.”

“The Persons of the Trinity Relate to One Another in a Divine Dance” is the title of one subjection in Sydnor’s first chapter. There he says, “When a skilled couple dances you cannot detect who is leading…. Their movements appear spontaneously generated.”

And so it is with the Trinity: “They [the ‘Persons’ of the Trinity] dance freely, spontaneously, always in relation to one another but never determined by one another, co-originating one another in joyful mutuality.”

This, then, leads to the central theme of the book: “We, being made in the image of God, are made to dance—with God, with one another, and with the cosmos.” This theme forms the basis for a worldview that is deeper and wider than most of us have—or have even thought of.

On this basis, Sydnor elucidates an all-inclusive worldview, one based on the perfect, unconditional, and universal love expressed by the Greek word agapé. Thus he asserts, “God is three persons united through agapic love into one nondual community. God is agapic nonduality.”

Sydnor acknowledges that “people want faith to give them more life, and people want faith to make society more just, and people want faith to grant the world more peace.” He then states that he has “written this book in the conviction that Trinitarian, agapic nondualism can do so.”

In his third chapter, Sydnor cites this foundational Bible verse: “There is one God and Creator of all, who is over all, who works through all and is within all” (Ephesians. 4:6, The Inclusive Bible, 2022). All here means, well, all, and that is the basis for Sydnor’s all-inclusive worldview.

Such a perspective is completely based on agape, “the unconditional, universal love of God for all creation.” These words of Sydnor in the first chapter lead to this statement in the ninth chapter: “What would society look like if its members truly trusted God and enacted the divine love? Certainly, it would be universalist.”

So, shall we dance, joining the great open dance of God and adopting a universal, all-inclusive worldview based on agapic nonduality? Sounds good to me.

_____

*¹ I received a free copy of the e-book edition of Sydnor’s book from Mike Morrell and his Speakeasy website which provides “quality books in exchange for candid reviews.” This post is in partial fulfillment of that promise, but I am also publishing a review of the book on another blogsite (see here).

*² As indicated on the cover of Rohr’s book, it was written “with Mike Morrell.”

*³ Funi is the Japanese translation of the Sanskrit words advaita in Hinduism and advaya in Buddhism. Sydnor is also the co-editor of (the very expensive) book, Nondualism: An Interreligious Exploration (2023) and the founding director of The Nondualism Project (click here to access their attractive website).

Is the Secularization of Society Beyond Doubt?

This post’s title comes from a new book by three sociologists and some of the article’s content is my reflection on a new novel. 

Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society (2023) is a scholarly work authored by three sociologists.* One of the three is Phil Zuckerman, a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.

Many large, public universities have Religious Studies departments. For example, my daughter Karen is the head of the Department of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona.

But in 2011, Zuckerman founded the Secular Studies department at Pitzer, the first college academic program in the nation dedicated exclusively to studying secular culture.

Zuckerman is also the author of several books on secularity, including Living the Secular Life (2014) and What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living An Ethical Life (2019).

He can also be found on YouTube, speaking on various secular or agnostic/atheist sites. For example, here is the link to his March 31 talk titled “How Secular Values Will Save the USA.” It is an attractively presented talk, and I agreed with much of what he said.

However, I was also “turned off” by that talk: even though he is an academic, Zukerman came across as an “evangelist” for secularity and presented misleading “facts.” As often happens, he presented the best examples of secular morality and the worst examples of religious morality. 

Heaven & Earth (2023) is a challenging novel by Joshua Senter (b. 1979), who was born in the Missouri Ozarks and reared/homeschooled in a fundamentalist Christian home

.Senter’s book is about a disgraced megachurch pastor Sam, who was born near Conway, Mo., a small town on Route 66 and about 40 miles west of the author’s hometown.

But even more, Heaven & Earth is about Sam’s wife Ruth, who was abandoned by her hippy mother and raised by her devout Christian grandmother. Until the last chapter, Ruth is also an exemplary Christian, but she jettisons her faith to embrace the secular worldview of her mother.

The sociologists’ book documents how religion is currently losing out to secularization and Senter’s novel depicts how that happened in the case of one particular Christian believer. 

Religion is not always good and secularization is not always bad (as many religionists imply). But the opposite is also true: secularization (=secularism) is not always good and religion (=faith) is not always bad (as many secularists imply).

As I have often emphasized, secularization is better than secularism and faith is superior to religion.**

I agree with the sociologists: the further secularization of American society is quite surely “beyond doubt.” But that is not necessarily a bad thing. Secularization is an antidote to the current widespread advocacy of (White) Christian nationalism, and it helps ensure the freedom of religion for all citizens.

And I agree with the strong emphasis of Ruth’s mother in the novel: we need to embrace the joy of living now instead of focusing only the “life beyond.”

However, I strongly disagree with Zuckerman’s insistence that secular morality is (always) good and religious morality is (always) bad. He even says that it is not only possible to be moral without belief in God, theistic belief is often a barrier to morality.

Zuckerman’s negative view of religion seems to be based largely on the errors and excesses of conservative (fundamentalist) Christianity. (Sad to say, Pat Robertson, who died on June 8, did incalculable damage to U.S. Christianity.) But Zuckerman mostly neglects other forms of Christianity.

And in the novel, an atheistic nurse tells Ruth that “living for today as opposed to living for some future grandeur [that is, Heaven]” is a gift, “a wonderful realization. Life is suddenly so potent” (p. 217). That is the view that Ruth adopts at the end of the book.

But it doesn’t have to be either/or. It is certainly possible to believe in Heaven and to fully appreciate/enjoy the grandeur of life in this world now.

Perhaps everything is sacred (religious) and nothing is profane (secular), as Fr. Richard Rohr contends in his insightful “daily meditation” for June 12. 

_____

* The authors are Isabella Kasselstrand, Phil Zuckerman,  and Ryan T. Cragun. Zuckerman (b. 1969) is the oldest and most prominent of the three.

** See, for example, my 2/19/20 blog post titled “Affirming Secularization, Opposing Secularism” and “Faith and Religion Are Not the Same,” my 6/10/18 post.

"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.

An Asian Theologian Worth Knowing

Most likely, many readers of this blog know of few, if any, Asian theologians. In this article, I am introducing one of my favorites, C.S. Song, the Taiwanese theologian who celebrated his 90^th birthday yesterday. 

Introducing Song

Song Choan-Seng (宋 泉盛), generally known in the West as C.S. Song, was born on October 19, 1929, in the southwestern Taiwan city of Tainan. He earned the Ph.D. degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1965.

After years of being a theology professor and college/seminary administrator in Taiwan, Song taught for many years at the Pacific School of Religion in California and is now the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Theology and Asian Cultures of that institution.

From 1997 to 2004, Song was also the president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

Back in 1990, Song came to Japan and I was able to hear his lectures in Kyoto. Not only was I impressed by what he said, I was also impressed by what a warm and genuine human being he is.

I went to hear Song’s lectures because I had read several of his books; after that, I read and published reviews of a few more of his books.

Introducing Song’s Books

C.S. Song’s first major book was Christian Mission in Reconstruction: An Asian Analysis (1975). As a relatively young missionary, I read that work with considerable interest.

It was his next two books, though, that I found to be even more engaging: Third-Eye Theology: Theology in Formation in Asian Settings (1979) and The Compassionate God: An Exercise in the Theology of Transposition (1982).

Seeking a theological perspective from an East Asian rather than a Western viewpoint, I found Song’s books to be both challenging and rewarding.

In 1983 I wrote a lengthy two-part essay about Song’s theology that was published (in Japanese) in The Seinan Theological Review, the academic journal of the Department of Theology, Seinan Gakuin University.

After the publishing of his important 1986 work Theology from the Womb of Asia, Song wrote a trilogy on the person and message of Jesus: Jesus, the Crucified People (1990), Jesus and the Reign of God (1993), and Jesus in the Power of the Spirit (1994).

These are not the only books that Song has written, but they are the ones that were most important to me as I increasingly tried to think about theology in an Asian context.

Introducing Song’s Importance

In the early 1970s, the Taiwanese theologian known in the West as Shoki Coe (1914~88) began to emphasize contextualizing theology. That approach was forwarded by Song, his younger colleague whose early books especially emphasized the Asian context.

As an American seeking to teach Christian Studies and Christian theology to Japanese students and as a worker in Japanese churches, Song’s work became quite influential to my theological outlook.

Among other things, Song questioned the “Western” concept of “salvation history” (to which I referred in my 11/25/18 blog article). The appeal of the historical meaning of the Israelites in “Old Testament” times and later of Jesus Christ and the early church is much greater, to say the least, in the Western world than in Asia.

Song’s strong emphasis on God being known through Creation is another main idea that I encountered from reading his books. In his 2019 book The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr has, in a similar vein, significantly written about creation being the first Incarnation.

Whereas Western Christians emphasize God as being knowable only, or at least mainly, through Jesus Christ, as an East Asian Christian theologian Song emphasized God as also being knowable through the creation and by means of Asian spirituality.

Although he has now come to the end of his productive life as a theologian, C.S. Song is certainly an Asian theologian worth knowing.

_______

Bonus:  Early on the morning of March 30, 1990, when I was in Kyoto for Dr. Song's lectures, I wrote the following poem at the foot of Mt. Hiei, the “holy mountain” near Kyoto.

Monk upon the mountain, high above the city,
Do you look, bewildered, down on us with pity?
What does your holy hill have to do with Kyoto?
Can we catch its splendor in our instant photo?

From your ancient mountain, filled with moldy glories,
Can we understand your past and present stories?
What has God been saying, what are His mighty works?
Can you share the story which on your mountain lurks?

Let us bring a vessel, dip it in the fountain,
And drink from the story of the monk upon the mountain.

Is the Fear of Fascism Ill-Founded?

Being an alarmist has never appealed to me, and I have usually taken a rather negative view toward those who seemed to be alarmists. There are highly reputable people, though, who now assert that we in the U.S. should be alarmed about the nation’s drift toward fascism. Is such fear of fascism ill-founded?

Warnings about Fascism

Two important books published last year stressed the looming danger of fascism in the U.S. In September 2018, Random House published Yale professor Jason Stanley’s small book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.

In his book Stanley (b. 1969) identifies three essential features of fascism: invoking a mythic past, sowing division, and attacking truth. Guess who he sees as blatantly doing that in the U.S. now? 

Stanley’s main points are summarized in a video you can see here. It is titled “If You’re Not Scared About Fascism in the U.S., You Should Be.” It's well worth five minutes of your time.

Earlier last year, Madeleine Albright’s book Fascism: A Warning was published. She, too, is highly critical of DJT. In the last chapter of her book she writes,

Trump is the first anti-democratic president in modern U.S. history. On too many days, beginning in the early hours, he flaunts his disdain for democratic institutions, the ideals of equality and social justice, civil discourse, civic virtues, and America itself (p. 246).

And things have only gotten worse in the year and more since Albright wrote her powerful book—just consider DJT’s deplorable tweets about “the Squad” last week and what he said in North Carolina on Wednesday evening. 

Barmen 1934

Are there significant similarities between the U.S. as it is now and Germany as it was in 1934? Both Stanley and Albright seem to think so, although they realize there are many differences also.

In opposition to the rise of fascism in Germany under Hitler and the Nazis—and most German Christians who supported them—a group of perceptive Christians formed what was known as the Confessing Church.

Led by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in May 1934 they and their colleagues produced what was titled (in English) The Theological Declaration of Barmen. (Barmen is the name of a city in Germany.) 

This Barmen Declaration was drawn up in opposition to the political situation in Germany under Hitler and the Nazi Party. But it was primarily a statement of opposition to the state church, which affirmed the actions and leadership of Nazi Germany in order to ensure its privileged place in society.

Certainly, one of the major failings of 20th century Christianity was the failure of most German Christians to stand against Hitler and the Nazis—and to stand up for the Jewish people who were so hideously mistreated and killed.

Barmen Today

Just about a year ago, Richard Rohr as well as faculty and students of the Living School at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, created a petition on Change.org. The petition’s title is “Barmen Today: A Contemporary Contemplative Declaration.” As of this morning, more than 19,200 people, including me, have signed it.  

After giving a brief introduction to the Barmen Declaration of 1934, the Barmen Today petition states,

In contemporary America, we face parallel threats and affirmations as prominent and privileged leaders of America’s Christian churches choose to closely and publicly support the policies and actions of our nation’s leadership – policies and actions irreconcilable with the pursuit of peace and justice. Many of these policies and actions demean people of color, support hate-filled speech from white supremacists, ostracize gender minorities, demonize refugees and immigrants, and ignore climate change realities.

One alarming similarity between the U.S. now and Germany in 1934 is the overwhelming support of the current President and his Administration by so many conservative evangelical Christians.

Will You Sign, Sign On?

Here is the link to where you can sign Barmen Today. I hope many of you will do that. Unfortunately, the fear of fascism in the U.S. certainly does not seem to be ill-founded.

The Importance of "And"

Last month I posted articles directly related to new books by the noted authors / theologians Richard Rohr and Serene Jones. Each in their own way emphasized the importance of the word/term “and.”  

Rohr’s Emphasis on “And”

For many years now, and in many ways, the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr has emphasized the importance of “and.”

In 1986 Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation. Concerning that name, he has said repeatedly that the most important word in the Center’s name is “and.”

In his new book, about which I wrote last month (here), as well as in his book The Naked Now (2009), which I have just finished reading, Rohr writes about the importance of “and” by explaining the deep significance of paradox, nonduality, and “third eye” thinking.

In The Naked Now, Rohr has a lucid section in the 20th chapter titled “The Value of Paradox” (pp. 144~9). He writes,

Because paradox undermines dual thinking at its very root, the dualistic mind immediately attacks paradox as weak thinking or confusion, separate from hard logic. The modern phenomenon of fundamentalism shows an almost complete incapacity to deal with paradox (p. 144).

Rohr goes on then to assert, “The history of spirituality tells us that we must learn to accept paradoxes or we will never love anything or see it correctly” (ibid.).

“Dual thinking” sees things as either/or--so that is the reason Rohr emphasizes nonduality. 

At the very end of The Naked Now, Rohr makes 26 short statements about what he calls “The Shining Word ‘And.’” (You can also read those statements at this link.)

Jones’s Emphasis on “And”

While not as direct as Rohr, in her book Call It Grace (2019), Serene Jones makes repeated emphasis on “and” by linking seemingly opposing concepts. Her book is divided into four “stations” (rather than parts), and the title of each is two (or three) words connected by “and.”

Jones emphasizes “Sin and Grace,” “Destiny and Freedom,” “Hatred and Forgiveness,” as well as “Redeeming Life and Death.” In addition, like both Luther and Calvin, she writes in the last chapter of her book, “We are saints and sinners, flawed and graced, the extremes always mingling in us” (p. 295, bolding added.)

Jones, a Protestant, like Rohr, a Catholic, adeptly recognizes and emphasizes the importance of “and.”

My Emphasis on “And”

As some of you know, my doctoral dissertation, completed more than 50 years ago, was titled “The Meaning of Paradox.” It was because of my early recognition of the importance of “both/and” thinking that I chose that topic--and it has been a key to my theological (and other) thought through the years.

Some of you also know that the 17th chapter of my recently published book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now is titled “Both/And Is Generally Better and More Nearly True than Either/Or.” (That chapter was written before I read Rohr enough to cite him in the chapter.)

There is so much we could understand more correctly--and so much mistaken thinking and action we could avoid--if we just learned to appreciate the importance of “and.”

_________

In a more “popular” book, Jen Pollock Michel has just published Surprised by Paradox: The Promise of “And” in an Either-Or World. A review of Michel’s book appears in the June 2019 issue of Christianity Today.

The reviewer concludes: “Surprised by Paradox asks us to reject an either-or approach to certain irreducible mysteries of Christian faith, assuming instead a posture of humility and wonder as we contemplate the fathomless riches of God and his grace.”

The Universal Christ

Many of you are familiar with the name Richard Rohr, the Franciscan friar who was born in Kansas in 1943 and who has long lived in New Mexico. A few of you may even remember “Listening to Richard Rohr” (pun intended), my 2015 article about him. This article is about his highly significant new book.

Rohr’s Potent Book

The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe was issued on March 5 in hardback & paperback, and on Kindle. According to this National Catholic Reporter article, that potent book debuted at No. 12 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction.

As indicated in my previous blog article, I spent 30-minutes (or more) every day for a couple of weeks carefully reading Rohr’s book, and I found it to be of great profundity.

Perhaps because I have been reading Rohr’s daily meditations for the last few years, I found the first part of the book more helpful than the latter chapters, which were mostly ideas that he had previously explored in his meditations.

Rohr begins his book with a fairly long quote from Caryll Houselander (1901~54), an English mystic whom I had not heard of before. Reflecting on her words, Rohr refers to “the Christ Mystery” as “the indwelling of the Divine Presence in everyone and everything since the beginning of time” (p. 1).

That is the basis for his thought-provoking exposition of the meaning and significance of the universal Christ.  

Rohr’s Main Point

More than anything else, Rohr emphasizes Incarnation on a far broader scale than most of us have ever seriously considered. Incarnation begins with Creation, he says, and thus we live in a “sacramental universe.”

Rohr’s viewpoint is one of thoroughgoing panentheism. He is clear about that point: “I am really a panentheist (God lies within all things, but also transcends them), exactly like both Jesus and Paul” (p. 43).

Thus, God is seen as present throughout and within the whole world. Rohr starts his fourth chapter with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words, which I have long liked:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.

“Christ Is Not Jesus’s Last Name” is the title of Rohr’s first chapter, which I found to be the most challenging of the book. There he states clearly that “the first incarnation was the moment described in Genesis 1” (p. 12).

He goes on to say that “‘Christ’ is a word for the Primordial Template (‘Logos’) through whom ‘all things came into being, and not one thing had its being except through him’ (John 1:3)” (p. 13).

It was that “Template” (“Logos”) that became flesh in Jesus. So, Rohr clearly affirms both the particularity of Jesus of Nazareth and the universality of Christ.

This is all closely related to what I wrote about in the third chapter of my new book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now, although I wrote it before having the benefit of Rohr’s lucid book.

The title of that chapter is “God Is Fully Revealed in Jesus, But the Christ is Not Limited to Jesus.” Rohr makes that point more emphatically than I was able to do there.

Rohr’s Key Emphasis

There is so much more that needs to be said about Rohr’s thought-provoking book, but the following words summarize a key emphasis found in it:

A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reason to fight, exclude, or reject anyone (p. 33).

We Christians need to think long and hard about those words—and about Rohr’s entire book.

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.

What about “The Shack”?

“An African-American, a Jew, and an Asian walk into a bar” might be the beginning of somebody’s joke. But Wm. Paul Young is dead serious when he centers his 2007 novel The Shack on three such persons—and this weekend the movie by the same name opened in theaters across the country. 

DESCRIBING “THE SHACK”

Young (b. 1955) is a Canadian novelist who self-published The Shack after his manuscript was turned down by 26 publishers. Remarkably, by June 2008 it had sold a million copies—and now sales are said to be over 25 million!

While definitely fiction, the book is also a theodicy, an argument for God’s goodness in the face of evil. Much of the book is response to Missy’s question about “how come [God’s] so mean?” (p. 33).

The book/movie is also a reflection on the nature of the Trinity. While clearly a temporary manifestation to Mack, the central human being in the book, God appears as Elousia, an African-American woman usually called “Papa”; Jesus, a Jewish carpenter; and Sarayu, a willowy Asian woman. 

When first meeting these three “persons,” Mack asks which one of them is God. “’I am,’ said all three in unison” (p. 89).

What a marvelous time, and what a healing time, Mack spends with this amazing Trinity!  

TRASHING “THE SHACK”

There have been some very negative reviews of the book—mostly by conservative Christians. In 2010 Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called it (here) “deeply troubling” and declared that it “includes undiluted heresy.”

Earlier, in May 2008, Charles Colson advised his readers (here), “Stay Out of The Shack.”

These are just two of many written criticisms of the theological content of The Shack. In addition, though, just about a year ago a 79-minute documentary film was produced with the title “The Shack: Its Dangerous Theology and Error.”

There are perhaps some legitimate concerns about the theology of the book—but the more conservative or traditional one is, the greater those concerns will likely be.

In addition to the conservative Christians who criticize the theology of The Shack, there are now many secular movie critics who trash the film.

Returning home after watching the movie, with delight, late Friday afternoon, I looked up some movie reviews of the film—and was disappointed in what I found. They were mostly negative—especially the one by Peter Sobczynski on RogerEbert.com. 

Perhaps “The Shack” is most appreciated/enjoyed by people with a moderate/liberal Christian worldview.

PRAISING “THE SHACK”

“When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize, the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!” 

These words, by Eugene Peterson (of The Message fame) are perhaps the most effusive in praising The Shack, but there have been numerous clerics and moderate to liberal Christian writers who have had positive words about it.

Many of you know and appreciate Richard Rohr. (I wrote about him, here, in Nov. 2015.) Last year Fr. Rohr published The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation. I found it interesting that in this major book about the Trinity, Rohr had Young write the Foreword, mentions Young in the Introduction, and calls him a “dear brother” in the Acknowledgments. 

Except to my most (theologically) conservative and most secular friends, I highly recommend this delightful book/movie. It offers much to think about regarding the Triune God, dealing with grief, relationships (with God and other humans), as well as freedom of choice and the problem of evil.

Listening to Richard Rohr

The pun is intended, but the man who is now a Franciscan priest, prolific author, and wise teacher was named Richard when he was born in Kansas in 1943, the first son of Richard and Eleanore Rohr. The way he writes and speaks, though, is more like a reassuring purr than a roar.

 Although I don’t agree with some of his Catholic beliefs and don’t find some of what he writes particularly helpful, on the whole I have found in recent years that Rohr is, indeed, a wise teacher and someone worth listening to.

On our way to Tucson the last of September, June and I made a brief visit to the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque. That is a rather modest facility for the organization that Rohr founded in 1986, and it has been the hub of his activities for nearly 30 years now.

As expected, we didn’t get to meet Rohr. It was meaningful, though, to spend some time in the Visitor Center and to talk with the woman who worked there.

We also walked the Labyrinth of the Dancing Christ. CAC issues this invitation to their guests: “Walk the seven circuits slowly, circling inward to rest at the center in Presence. As you circle outward, carry with you the awareness of union with all in the Divine.”

 I don’t know if we got the full benefit, but we found it meaningful to slowly walk in and out of the labyrinth.

 A few days ago I finished reading Rohr’s 2009 book The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. It is a fine book that needs to be read slowly and thought about deeply. Throughout, Rohr calls for religious growth.

Rohr states, “Transformation into love is the heart of religious conversion.” He also says that mature religion involves “letting ourselves be changed by a mysterious encounter with grace, mercy, and forgiveness” (pp. 87-88).

He goes on to say, many of those who have negative views toward religion are “right in what they are suspicious of, which is usually the immature form of religion, a form that is largely dominant today” (p. 120).

Now I am all set to start reading Rohr’s book Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent.

Although I don’t remember anything ever being said about Advent at the Baptist church that I attended weekly as a boy, for many years now I have belonged to churches where Advent is observed.

In recent years I have also often read daily devotions during the days of Advent. This year I will be listening to Richard Rohr each day from this coming Sunday, the beginning of Advent, until Christmas.

To this point I have read only the Introduction in Rohr’s Advent book. He says there that Christmas is more than “the sweet coming of a baby” and that the Word of God “confronts, converts, and consoles us—in that order. The suffering, injustice and devastation on this planet are too great now to settle for any infantile gospel or any infantile Jesus.”

Noteworthy words!