Category: Book Reviews

Heath Carter and “Union Made”

My mom has never been very religious but always very concerned about my earning potential. She was worried when I became a Christian and started to entertain church work as a vocation that I’d end up destitute. The church didn’t fit my Wall-Street, southern Connecticut based upbringing and family. However, relief was allayed: I was getting ordained in The Episcopal Church. “Oh!” she said, “The Episcopal Church is a very wealthy church! You’ll be paid well!” The comment went in one ear and out the other; I never fully thought to question why that was even a thing or if it should bother me.

But it does bother me. And now, after all this time since that first conversation, I’ve been instructed in why it bothers me. I give credit to this enlightenment to Heath W. Carter and his book, “Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago.” This book by Carter is a tour de force of the battle for economic equality and the development and fight for the “Union Made” Social Gospel in Chicago’s history. The rise of material wealth in Chicago brought with it the evangelical clerics and their churches. Being able to purchase expensive preachers and pay them handsomely moved the church from a position of working alongside the average working person to a member of the elite class. As the capital trend went, so did the pulpits. Carter deftly explains the ebb and flow of what was the constant struggle for the working/earning class against capitalism’s monstrous appetite that consumes everything even the gospel.

Carter focuses on a specific era of Chicago’s history—roughly the era encompassing the ante-bellum to the early 1900s, tracking the formation and establishment of and the need for (!) unions for wage-earners. The reality is, the thrust of Carter’s work isn’t restricted to that handful of decades. To a significant degree Carter is using history to shine the light on the reality of our current era. That reality is: there is currently a constant struggle against capitalism and an elite and privileged version of the gospel that is plaguing the western world in this 21st century. Thus, while I am convicted and saddened by this reality (and by the part I play and have played in it), I am also very optimistic for the future because this book exists.

To preach the word of God is–for the preacher–to actively engage in proclaiming to all of God’s people the radical and revolutionary wisdom of God, which is in contradiction with the wisdom and the status quo of the world and against oppressive power structures and elite hierarchies. God and God’s word will always side with those who are oppressed and marginalized, with the far off and rejected, with the homeless and the hungry, and the naked. To engage in this preaching, to enter into pastoral ministry for any reason—especially for financial gain—is anathema to the Gospel and an offense to God.

This book is a must read if we want to actually learn from history and not just about it. This book is a must read if we want to embrace the reality that the cries of the oppressed and marginalized cannot be chalked up to or pushed away as mere echoes of a bygone era. Carter writes at the end of his “Epilogue”,

“Now, in the early decades of the twenty-first century, American capitalism appears once more poised to overwhelm American democracy…It remains to be seen whether present-day believers will quietly abide this state of affairs, or whether it will at some point call forth a nation of prophets comparable to those that visited Gilded Age Chicago” (182).

For those who are losing their lives in this constant battle and fight against Capitalism, we, gospel believing, Christ following Christian disciples have no time to lose; let us heed the call.

 

 

I recommend you follow Dr. Heath Carter on Twitter; to do so, here’s his handle: @heathwcarter. And his blog is here: https://heathwcarter.com/

Posted on by laurenlarkin 4

Once More with David Schnarch and “Passionate Marriage”: Schnarch, Moltmann, and the Self.

This is the last installment of my intentional engagement with David Schnarch and “Passionate Marriage.” (All that to say, since the book hasn’t been shelved and is still roaming about my house, I’m sure I’ll be dipping in here and there in the future.)

Here are the previous posts in this mini series:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

This last excerpt is taken from Chapter 14, from the section Self Transcendence and Self-Dissolution.  (bold is mine)

“Sebastian Moore says that our desire of fullness is, in essence, a ‘death wish’: life crises like falling in love, undergoing conversion, or suffering bereavement present the painful and bewildering demands that the ‘you’ whose desire brought this about must die. Boundary experiences arise from confronting the limits of what you can attain as the person you are currently. To fulfill your desires, you  have to change in ways that make that fulfillment possible. This means that the smaller ‘you’ dies as a fuller ‘you,’ a more unique ‘you,’ is born. We desire our self to death in the most positive sense.

“We can consider the paradox from another perspective: throughout this book…we have explored the need to hold onto yourself. But holding onto yourself and becoming more differentiated actually leads to the loss of the self you’ve been holding onto. My clients begin to mourn their ‘old self’ dying in the process of a new self being born. (…) It’s the death that gives life, but they’re often wistful about it. They talk of not knowing who they are, but more accurately they mean who they are becoming. Ironically, they’ve never been more clear about who they are.

“This process of your ‘old’ self dying as your ‘new, larger’ self is born is how self-transcendence and self-dissolution go hand in hand…Self-dissolution is as much a part of this process as is self-transcendence.

“Herein lies an important point that is sometimes hard to grasp: many people who seek self-transcendence don’t want to give anything up, and they want the path safe and clearly mapped. However, our unwillingness to give up what no longer fits (i.e., self-dissolution) blocks us from self-transcendence.And once you recognize yourself…as the manifestation of Spirit seeking its own fulfillment, then your refusal to grow is not just a personal shortcoming but also a thwarting of Spirit. This is where sin fits in…

“Sin isn’t about unconfined desire–it’s our refusal to desire and grow, our refusal with denial or rejection of the pleasurable parts of life. But as Lama Yeshe, Tibetan master of Buddhist Tantra points out, religion often becomes a form of suppression instead of a method for transcending our limitations. Instead of viewing pleasure and desire as something to be avoided at all costs, Tantra recognizes the energy aroused by our desires to be an indispensable resource for spiritual enlightenment. This same view is expressed in the Talmud in the words of third-centruy Rabbi Arika, who said that we will have to account to God for all the good things our eyes beheld but which we refused to enjoy.

“It’s not hard to understand why we in this way (not pursuing our own potentials): self-transcendence is fraught with discontinuities–and self-dissolution. Wilber notes that nature progresses by sudden leaps and deep transformations, rather than through piecemeal adjustments. He cites evidence from many fields of science to illustrate that dynamic systems do not evolve smoothly and continuously over time, but, rather, in comparatively sudden leaps and bursts.

The overarching narrative Schnarch is playing with (the dissolution of self) is the death to self that is so common and familiar in Christianity. The death of self is emphasized from every quadrant of Christianity. I believe both men and women suffer under the burden of dying to self; but I believe women often suffer more. Specifically in evangelical Christianity, this is true. Though, I wasn’t raised Christian and was still fed enough bull to believe I was here to be as demure as possible, a substance barely person to make men happy. The “don’t disturb the waters” and “do whatever he wants” was loud and clear. In trying to achieve that standard (expectation?) women (not all, but most) learn the hard process of dying to themselves. The concept of having to die to self, for me, has, is, will never be foreign. I think most of you would agree with me.

What’s foreign to me is the emphasis on the reception of a new self or a self at all; Schnarch is on point to emphasize this aspect of the death to self. But, there’s something he’s wrong about that I want to address first.

Schnarch argues, “But holding onto yourself and becoming more differentiated actually leads to the loss of the self you’ve been holding onto.” (Again, as in previous posts, I’ll be using “I” to simplify my sentences and thoughts.) I’m not sure how I can hold onto myself, holding to my integrity while simultaneously dying to myself to allow the new self to emerge. I’m not very (as in: at all) sold that by pressing into myself more that I’m going to come to the death of myself (for how does this happen while I’m holding onto myself?), and also that from there transitioning through to a new self. I think the best we get there is a weird inside-out version of Lauren (*shudders), not necessarily a new self. Also, by focusing on the self (which I must do to hold onto myself), I would negate the processes by which I would die to myself.

(Side note: this is also a criticism I can use against Ayn Rand and Objectivism’s claim that I can be so selfish that I become other focused: I cannot be so self focused that somehow (miraculously?)–without any encounter with an other, an external event–I’m now caring for my neighbor.)

The dissolution of self is not predicated on the transcending of self; rather, the opposite is true. The transcended self emerges from the dissolution of self. Specifically, the transcended self, the new self is born out of the death that the old self has surrendered to. Thus, there is no “holding on” to the self but a letting go of the self, giving in to the dark pull of the abyss that is the event of the conflict encounter (usually with an other self). Holding on to the self would be a fighting against loss; surrender of the self to the event, to what is occurring and happening, is an embrace of the impending loss of self. So, as long as we are still holding on to self and fighting to be more transcended selves, the less likely the dissolution of self will happen and (with it) a transcended (a new) self is less likely to emerge if at all.

Jürgen Moltmann writes,

“It is much more the question of [a person’s] own personal identity and integrity, for every self-emptying in historical action is a venture, and a way into non-identity. A [person] abandons himself as he was and as he knew himself to be, and, by emptying himself, finds a new self. Jesus’s eschatological saying tells us that ‘Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loess his life will preserve it'” (The Crucified God 15).

What Moltmann refers to as both self-abandonment and self-emptying correspond to self-surrender as defined as a surrender not to the self but away from the self and to the event of the conflict encounter. Very much, I cannot hold onto myself in this equation, but I must lose myself entirely (no dependence on myself in any way shape or form).

So, what is missing from Schnarch is the surrendering (“self-abandonment”/”self-emptying”) to the event of the conflict encounter that results in the dissolution of self which then results in the transcended self. Dissolution precedes transendence because the dissolution begins with that sharp awareness that what was can be no longer and something most shift, change, be altered in the self. The surrender to this awareness and desire for change is (as described above by Schnarch) dramatic and sudden and rarely ordinary and lethargic. But just as quick is the birth of the new self, the transcended self. The self is either dead or alive and never a little bit of one or the other. Thus, the birth of the new self is and is suddenly.

Again, recourse to Motlmann,

“Only by self-emptying in encounter with what is alien, unknown and different does [a person] achieve selfhood…trust in the hidden and guaranteed identity with Christ in God (Col. 3:3) makes possible the self-abandonment, the road into non-identity and unidentifiability, which neither clings to ancient forms of identity, nor anxiously reaches out for the forms of identity of those one is fighting in common” (The Crucified God 16).

The fundamental component that is missing from Schnarch is the God-encounter. For the hearer who is encountered in the event of God’s self-disclosure in Christ and the conflict that ensues within the person in this event of encounter a demand is felt and that demand is to self-empty and to self-abandon and let go not into a dark abyss of nothingness but into God and God’s self. In other words, go ahead and let yo’self go, Boo; God very much got you.

“Becoming is never safe or secure, especially if we’re dependent on a reflected sense of self. We don’t get to stop when we’re scared or uncomfortable, because we grow by going into the unknown, including the Great Unknown” (Schnarch 399).

The letting go of self (not the holding on to self) that comprises the self-surrender, self-abandonment, self-emptying in the event of the conflict encounter with God’s self-disclosure in Christ is that death from which a transcended-self, a new self is born. This death and new life is far from safe and easy; it demands a beautiful desperation that has occurred by seeking our hope in everything but God and having that hope returned to us void, thus thrusting us deep into our own crucibles. The self’s last ditch effort to be an authentic self, a new self is counterintuitive to self-preservation: it lies in entering into that darkness, into death. But rather than the flat-line being the last thing the self hears as it enters into the darkness of death, it hears the trumpet summoning it awake, resurrecting it from death.

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Projection and Distortion, more from David Schnarch and “Passionate Marriage”

The following excerpt from David Schnarch’s “Passionate Marriage” caught my eye as I was reading a couple of days ago. The chapter is “Your Crucible Survival Guide” and the section is Holding onto Yourself Requires an Accurate Picture. The quote starts on page 333 of a 408 page book, this means that when something catches my eye as I’m trucking through to the end, it’s significant. A concept, statement, or thought, has to be so substantial as to still my quickly moving eye. The following quote is one of those concepts/statement/thought. (Bold is mine.)

We all have distorted views of our own lives–it’s part of being human. We develop ways of stringing together events that are plausible and give them particular meaning. Sometimes we create overly bland pictures of our childhoods; other times we may overemphasize some points and ignore others. Overall, the interpretation and emotional impact of things remembered–not just things forgotten–are blunted. The truth is often hidden–right out in the open–camouflaged as something else. People make a lot more sense (and seem less crazy) when their picture is accurately focused; until then the hazy image can be interpreted in ways that they prefer.

…

Invariably, poorly differentiated people hold onto the part of themselves that constructed the distorted self-portrait. They demand that their partner understand them, in part, because they don’t really understand themselves. They feel understood, accepted, and validated when their partner sees them the way they picture themselves. Their partner’s refusal to see them the way the want to be seen is upsetting. But the problem isn’t a failure to communicate: their spouse can’t understand them the way they demand, because they view their own behavior and the details of their life differently than their partner does. This discrepancy challenges their inaccurate picture of themselves–which they have difficulty maintaining to begin with.

You may think it’s a problem when your partner won’t ‘accept you the way you are,’ but consider what happens when you demand that he validate the distorted lens you use to look at yourself, your life, and your marriage. The problem in many marriages is not that spouses won’t validate each other, it’s that what gets validated is an inaccurate self-portrait. Distortions and projections keep us from seeing our partners and ourselves. That’s important to remember next time you feel like demanding your partner ‘understand’ you the way you understand yourself.

Here’s what caught my eye: demanding validation for a distorted self-portrait. What does this mean exactly? In my opinion, it means that I demand that another person see me as I see myself. This can work in two ways. 1. I may demand that someone view me as awesome as I think I am, which leads to a worshiping situation. In this case, there’s an automatic hierarchy created in the relationship, which results in one person consuming the other person in order to satisfy the attention appetite of the consuming person. There’s no room here for two distinct selves; just one self in love with itself. Narcissism should come to mind. While Schnarch isn’t talking about this narcissistic attribute in relationships, I think it applies. One can easily up-sell themselves as much as one can down-sell themselves.

And that leads me to: 2.  (The down-sell) I may demand that someone view me as poorly as I view myself. (And, this is inherent in what Schnarch is talking about, but I’ll tease it out a bit differently.) It’s not just that I (and I’m using I to make writing clearer) have a “false” perception of myself that is fabricated from a hyper-focus on a negative event or a glossing over of a bland childhood; it’s that I legitimately have been handed the script for a negative view of self and am refusing to read from any other script. I then force others in my life (and here, again, we can expand from the marriage relationship mentioned above out into other relationships like friendships/work relationships) to read from the same script. The problem is everyone in my life is the worst method actors and can’t (for the life of them) stay on script let alone read it correctly.

In other words, I have had traumatic experiences that have radically altered my self-perception and now I look through that experience and claim it as my identity. Anyone who comes up against that identity with an alternate identity for me (what they say/see to be true) is shut out. To remove from me or challenge my trauma-identity, would result in the loss of myself. My trauma-identity is my shell that protects me and keeps people away and either you play along (validating my trauma-identity) or you fight it and then reject me and (still) validate my trauma-identity. It’s lose/lose for you; I control the whole thing and, thus, it’s win/win for me.

I allow my brokenness to be the genuine thing about me. It also becomes my justification for things, like: not changing, rejecting those who won’t play along, and defaulting to the “see, I knew I was always a failure” when I’m rejected. It’s the defensiveness and anger that rears her head because someone dare ask her not to see herself through the lens of her past. It’s the, “You just don’t get it, do you!?” that flies from spiteful lips or bounces around an irate mind. Who likes to have their identity–that they’ve mistaken for their essence–ripped from their death grip. As Schnarch mentions above, “This discrepancy challenges their inaccurate picture of themselves–which they have difficulty maintaining to begin with.” I need you to play along because I’m barely keeping this act alive;  your playing along helps me dupe myself and is the fodder for me pressing more and more into that distorted self-view.

If you’ve ever become angry because someone pushed against your trauma-identity, then you know exactly what I’m talking about and explaining. The scariest thing in the world is to step out from this broken identity (and I don’t mean identity of brokenness; I mean the identity is broken). To shed the costume of the always victim and leave behind the familiar and over-handled script is to step into *real* vulnerability and the unknown. (I stress *real* vulnerability because I can use my trauma-identity to share my trauma with you as an act of seeming vulnerable but I’m still standing behind that trauma. Vulnerability demands full exposure of the self in the presence of another different self. There’s no standing behind anything in the truly vulnerable.) Being willing to say, “Yes, I will move on from this; I will begin anew” demands a death of the old identity and self, new eyes and ears, even new language. It demands habitually forcing your mind to work in a different way; it demands that you train your own voice to call yourself higher. It demands a dare to believe this other identity. Dare I believe another story about me one that is future oriented and present focused rather than stuck in the past?

And, oddly (at least I find it odd), in this shedding of the trauma identity and stepping into real vulnerability, I’m concurrently stepping into my real self. My real self isn’t my trauma self because the trauma self is dependent on an other validating that story line; stepping out from that distortion demands an alterity and a self-validation. I am more myself as I move forward in the present than I am when I’m consumed with the past.

 

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Another Excerpt from “Passionate Marriage”

Previous post here. From chapter 11, “Two-Choice Dilemmas and Normal Marital Sadism” (bold is me):

We have the fantasy that we have the choice between being anxious or not. Unfortunately, we don’t. Our choice is between one anxiety or another. Do something scary–or face problems from not doing it. Make an error by commission–or omission. Face the anxiety that things will change–or stay the same. Do (sexual) things you’ve never done–or forfeit that taste for life. Face the anxiety of growing up–or the terror of facing life as a perpetual child. Confront the fear of differentiation or the dread of marital living death.

These are examples of the two-choice dilemmas inherent in emotionally committed relationships. Such dilemmas arise from our human nature: we are fundamentally separate life forms who value both attachment and autonomy. … Once you realize you and your partner are in two separate ‘boats,’ you understand the nature of your dilemma: you want to steer your own boat–and your partner’s, too. We call this ‘togetherness’–as longs as you are steering for both of you. When your partner does the same thing, however, it’s called ‘control.’ If you want both absolute certainty of your partner’s course and certainty that you’re not controlling him or her–you’ve just run into a two-choice dilemma.

If you check your dictionary, you’ll find the phrase ‘two-choice dilemma’ is redundant–technically, a dilemma is a situation necessitating a choice between two or more unpleasant alternatives. However, many people think of a dilemma according to the dictionary’s secondary definition: a perplexing or awkward situation. In my clinical work I use the term ‘two-choice dilemma’ to highlight that (a) we often try to remain in our perplexing, awkward, and painful situations to keep everything in check, (b) a choice is often required to solve our situation, (c) we usually want two choices but we only get one, and (d) we try to avoid choosing (by remaining in difficult situations) to avoid losses inherent in giving up one option for another (i.e., solution). While not linguistically correct in all cases, clients have found the term ‘two-choice dilemma’ a powerful tool…

There is no point in staying dead in a living dead marriage; doing so is the main reason why monogamous marriage is not able to withstand the blows of alternative relational existences. Why are we letting some of our primary relationships kill us? Why aren’t we fighting to stay alive?

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David Schnarch and “Passionate Marriage”

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been researching (heavily and obsessively, I confess) the concept of intimate relationships, specifically marriage and it’s variants. This week I’ve been reading “Passionate Marriage” by Dr. David Schnarch at a devouring and voracious rate. Schnarch is “a licensed clinical psychologist and certified sex therapist” (from the back cover). The book is, well, excellent; I’m enjoying every chapter. In fact, it’s even altered my view on the concept of monogamous marriage…for the better. Could marriage between two adults actually look like this? According to the book, it seems possible. Addressing the concepts of self-differentiation and the solid-self, enmeshment and emotional fusion, other-validation v. self-validation, intimacy and desire during sex (to name a few), the book offers a reconstructed idea of what a “good” marriage looks like, an idea I had not previously known was possible let alone actually existed. I recommend reading it (even tough I’m only 2/3 the way through), but not at work…he’s a sex therapist, and the case studies in the book will…ummm…make you wish you weren’t at work 😉

Here’s an excerpt from chapter 9 “Mental Dimensions of Sexual Experience” (bold is me):

We insist on being our spouse’s one and only–even in fantasy. On the surface it may seem like we’re following the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,’ but underneath it’s our narcissism demanding, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods! Worship only me!’ … We don’t want our partner fantasizing about anyone else! It’s not easy to accept, even if we do it, too. Realizing they’re doing it during sex with us adds insult to emotional injury.

Research indicates that, of all sexual fantasies, thinking of someone other than your partner is the most common. These are called ‘partner replacement’ fantasies. When confronted about their fantasies about other partners, many people assume it’s better to deny everything and be glad it’s hard to prove they are lying. They think partner replacement fantasies belong to the category of ‘the few things not said each day that improve a marriage.’

Wanting to be our partner’s ‘one and only’ in fantasy is not just an extension of the principle of monogamy. It has to do with being dependent on our partner’s validation. Our mate’s sexual fantasies play havoc with our reflected sense of self. Validation from our partner evaporates while he or she fantasizes about someone else. We can tell ourselves we don’t have to take it personally. But if we’ve spent our lives pursuing validation from others, we don’t really have much choice but to take it personally when we are not the focus of our partner’s fantasies.

What I’m describing isn’t a problem if you handle it properly. Granted, ti doesn’t feel good at first. But it’s part of marriage’s people-growing machine. You can persist in hating the fact that your spouse’s fantasies don’t always include you, or you can develop a more stable sense of yourself.

For several chapters we’ve look at what happens to marriages dominated by other-validated intimacy. To review the general characteristics of partners in these marriages: (a) they have difficulty introducing novelty into their sexual relationship, (b) they experience anxiety and resist change when their partner does something new, and (c) they have difficulty with maintaining a clear sense of self when out of synch with their partner. More important to our current discussion, they are likely to tune out their partner during sex and focus on body sensations to reach orgasm. Over time, they are more likely to experience sexual boredom and resort to partner replacement fantasies for sexual variety.

Here’s the paradox: the very thing that makes poorly differentiated people go crazy over their partner’s sexual fantasies predisposes them to do the same thing themselves! People wounded by the discovery that they are not their partner’s ‘one and only’ are likely to be fantasizing about someone else. Being dependent on validation from others, they have to lie about it even while they are complaining about their partner. And in the midst of all this, they want their partner to validate them and make them feel secure. Like the exercise wheel inside a squirrel cage, this process drives marriage’s people-growing machinery.

If this pattern rings true for you so far, consider the impact during sex: desire to fuse with your partner actually increases the likelihood of experiencing less intimacy during sex. Your heads are inevitably in different places. you can  feel your partner tune you out even if you’re ‘in synch’ enough to grind.

I’m not saying that there is anything ‘wrong’ with mind-wandering and partner replacement fantasies during sex. I’m putting them in context so you can use them productively. Mind-wandering during sex is probably inevitable–but you can reduce it significantly and increase the intimacy and potency of your sex. The benefit can generalize to the rest of your life, because it involves increasing your level of differentiation.

Humans will always fantasize; that’s not necessarily a problem. The difficulty is that the way we fantasize (and hide it) interferes with intimacy and wall-socket sex. Like hugging, kissing, desire, and monogamy, fantasies operate differently depending on your level of differentiation.

While predominately about sex, the concepts discussed above apply to a number of other aspects that often plague monogamous marriage. And, good Lord, let us hear lest we cease to sense the something-fierce need to overhaul and reconfigure monogamous marriage.

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NT Wright and Simply Christian

In advance, the following is a paper that I wrote reviewing a portion of NT Wright’s “Simply Christian”  for an ethics class for my second Master’s degree. It’s not a review of the full book, because our class was broken into groups and each member of the group covered different portions of the book. Thus, in the following, I’m looking at Chapters 8-10. You’ve been warned.

———

N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian, is a love filled attempt to provide a description of what Christianity is about being an explanation to Christians and commendation to non-Christians (ix).  Every page pours forth love.  There is no mistaking it: Wright is a faithful, wise, and sincere lover of Jesus Christ and he communicates Jesus’ love to others magnificently.  Last week, we covered the first four chapters that discuss the echoes of justice, the quest for spirituality, the desire for relationships, and the draw of beauty.  This week, the reading took us further into the Bible story.  Wright, in chapters 5-7, walks the reader through who God is and what His relation to  Heaven and Earth is (pantheism? Panenthies? Or Overlapping, Interlocking?); who Israel is and what they believed and hoped for; and, finally, Jesus and the coming of God’s kingdom.  In chapters 8-10, Wright covers a description of who Jesus was (and is), the Holy Spirit, and the effecting work of the Spirit in the life of the believer (living by the Spirit).  For the purposes of this paper, I will be focusing on chapter 8: “Jesus: Rescue and Renewal”.  There will first be a summary of the chapter, followed by a critique of Wright’s understanding of Jesus’ awareness of his divinity and what I believe to be a lack of discussion of God’s wrath and the Cross.

Wright begins by attempting to answer the question “why did Jesus’s followers hail him as Messiah?” especially since he didn’t act like the expected Messiah (106).  Jesus was not a military leader nor did he instigate any military uprisings (intentionally) (106).  There was no mention of rebuilding the Temple (106).  He spoke with knowledge and wisdom (like a prophet) and he did miraculous works; but, according to Wright, this is not enough to call him the Messiah (107).  The Messiah, it was believed in Jewish tradition, would be a Ruler, a mighty king like David, the one who would lead “the triumphant fight against Israel’s enemies” (Wright 107).  Jesus was none of these.  Rather, He suffered and died; and this, says Wright, His followers could never have understood, no matter how many times Jesus told them (107).

Jesus was a royal and suffering servant, as it was recorded in Isaiah.  “…it is in Isaiah…that we find …God’s coming kingdom, the renewal of creation expressed not least in remarkable healings, the power of God’s ‘word’ to save and restore, the ultimate victory over all the ‘Babylons’ of the world, and the figure of the Servant itself” (107-8).  What was not understood about the Messiah was that in order for evil to have its true end, the Messiah, the propitiation for sins, had to suffer the result of sin: death; and be resurrected to defeat it.  Wright phrases it this way, “God’s plan to rescue the world from evil would be put into effect by evil doing its worst to the Servant–that is, to Jesus himself–and thereby exhausting its power” (108).

Wright then turns his attention to Jesus and his relation to the Temple.  As we know from the bible, Jesus attacks the Temple (for example, turning over tables) with the intent to challenge “…in the name of Israel’s God, the very place where God was supposed to live and do business with his people….God would destroy the city and the Temple, and would vindicate not the Jewish nation as a whole, but Jesus himself and his followers” (109).  The enemy was not Rome, “but the powers of evil that stood behind human arrogance and violence, powers of evil with which Israel’s leaders had fatally colluded” (110).  The rescue was coming, “not from mere political enemies, but from evil itself, from the sin which had enslaved them.  His death would do what the Temple, with its sacrificial system, had pointed toward but had never actually accomplished” (110).  Jesus was the intersecting point of the in-breaking of the kingdom, turning what people considered truth on its head, just as he had done to the merchant tables in the temple.  He would be the unexpected royal and suffering Messiah (110).  Nothing could have prepared his followers for this: not anything from the history of paganism nor the “puzzling, shadowy prophecy” in the Old Testament (Wright 111).  Wright puts it excellently, “The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews, the bearer of Israel’s destiny, the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns….Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter” (111).

The next item on Wright’s agenda is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and, subsequently, the rise of Christianity.  He writes, “…we are talking here about resurrection, not resuscitation” (112).  He poses two theories that attempt to contradict the reality of Jesus’ resurrection.  The first is “cognitive dissonance”, which is, “the phenomenon whereby people who believe something strongly go on saying it all the more shrilly when faced with contrary evidence” (112).  Wright explains how this theory fails by using the example of self-proclaimed Messiah, Simeon ben Kosiba, who was killed by the Romans in AD 135 (ref. 106), “nobody went around afterward saying he really was the messiah after all, however much they had wanted to believe that he had been” (112).  The second is the argument that the concept of “resurrection”  was a common characteristic of religions in the ancient Near East.  “Dying and rising ‘gods,’ yes…But–even supposing Jesus’s very Jewish followers knew any traditions like those pagan ones–nobody in those religions ever supposed it actually happened to individual humans“ (113).  Wright, I think, comes to the correct conclusion about Jesus’ resurrection and the rise of the church, “…the best explanation…for the rise of Christianity is that Jesus really did reappear, not as a battered, bleeding survivor, not as a ghost…but as a living, bodily human being” (113).  A bodily resurrection it was; for had it not been (had it been “Ghost” like), Jesus’ well-read Jewish followers would have described his body as a shining star, the way the righteous appear at the resurrection in Daniel 12:3 (113).  Jesus’ interaction with Thomas (plus other examples) indicates that His body was real in His resurrection.

Believing the resurrection is not an easy thing to do, especially considering our post-modern, skeptic, science based worldview (Wright 114).  Believing, says Wright, requires a worldview switch.  “Sometimes, to make sense of the actual evidence before us, we have to pull our worldview, our sense of what’s possible, into a new shape.  That is the kind of thing demanded by the evidence about Easter” (114).  Believing in the resurrection is more than just the comforting thought of an afterlife, which, according to Wright, has been the significant “wrong turn” by Western Christendom (114).  Wright explains, “Resurrection isn’t a fancy way of saying ‘going to heaven when you die.’  It is not about ‘life after death’ as such.  Rather, it’s a way of talking about being bodily alive again after a period of being bodily dead.  Resurrection is a second-stage postmortem life: ‘life after ‘life after death’” (115).  In other words, since Jesus has been raised, God’s kingdom has been ushered in, “and that means we have a job to do.  The world must hear what the God of Israel, the creator God, has achieved through his Messiah” (114-5).  The resurrection is one more event of heaven and earth intersecting and interlocking (Wright 115).  By the resurrection of the Suffering God–one who really does know our pain and anguish–the world and humanity have been renewed and revived, lifted up and given new breath, with a commission to go and “make new creation happen in the world” (Wright 116).

The final portion of the chapter deals with Jesus divinity.  Jesus is, according to Wright, not merely an echo but the actual voice, “a voice which speaks of rescue from evil and death, and hence of new creation” (116).  Historically, Wright explains, those who followed Jesus “had never imagined that a Messiah would be divine” (116).  However, the early Christian Church adhered to Jewish monotheism while affirming that Jesus was divine; this occurred not many centuries later after much thought and contemplation, but within a single generation of the event of the Cross, resurrection, and ascension (Wright 117).

Though the early Church was aware of Jesus’ divinity, Wright explains that Jesus was not (118).  What Wright argues is “…not to diminish the full incarnation of Jesus but to explore its deepest dimension, is that Jesus was aware of a call, a vocation, to do and be what, according to the Scriptures, only Israel’s God gets to do and be.  That, I believe, is what it means to speak about Jesus being both truly divine and truly human(118).  Wright explains, “The closer we get to the cross, the clearer the answer we get to the question, Who did Jesus think he was?” (118).  The closer we get to the Cross the better we see Jesus as fulfilling what God wanted to do: return Israel to himself, to judge and to save, assuming authority over the Temple (Wright 118).  Did Jesus, who had this divine sense of vocation ever think he was mad?  Wright affirms, “certainly”; yet,

“Jesus was certainly shrewd enough to be aware of the possibility of delusion.  But …he was sustained not only by his reading of scripture, in which he found so clearly the lines of his own vocation, but also by his intimate prayer life with the one he called Abba, Father.  Somehow, Jesus both prayed to the Father and took upon himself a role which, in the ancient prophecies, was reserved for YHWH–that of rescuing Israel and the world.  He was obedient to the Father, simultaneously doing what only God can do” (118-9).

Wright closes by emphasizing that Jesus was not aware of his divinity as you and I are aware of our gender or the temperature outside (119).  Jesus’ awareness was closer to a deep awareness of a vocation; like I know I want to be a professor, Jesus had a deep knowledge, “a powerful and all-consuming belief…that within the very being of God there was a give-and-take, a to-and-fro, a love given and received.  Jesus seems to have believed that he, the fully human prophet from Nazareth, was one of those partners in love” (119).

Wait.  What?  What did he just say?

It’s not often I get to see an overlap between 1990’s British Teen-Pop with 2000’s British  Brilliance.  Recently, I was listening to the Spice Girls all time chart busting tune: “Wannabe” (don’t judge).  This song explains what it takes to be their “lover”: essentially, you have to be accepted by their friends.  But there’s more to the song.  The songwriters want to tell you what they really want, (really, really, really want).  But they don’t.  Essentially, they say, “I’m gonna tell you what I want and it’s “zigazig ha”.  Wait. What?  I don’t know what that even is.  I, the listener, am dragged along thinking I’m gonna know, finally, what they really want…yet I end up disappointed with nothing really explained.  I’m left with “zigazig ha”.

This is how I feel here, with N.T. Wright’s understanding of Jesus’ awareness of His divinity.  Wright seems to explain Jesus’ awareness of His divinity as an hyper-enlightened man who intuitively got his vocation right.  “Zigazig ha”.  While I appreciate Wright’s ability to play-up Jesus’ humanity, he simultaneously down-plays (in a significant way) Jesus’ divinity.  With the events of the Transfiguration and Jesus’ Baptism rattling around in my head, I cannot help but be confused by Wright’s language.  How could  Jesus’ experience, at His Baptism, when the dove floated down from heaven with God’s voice booming above, “This is my son.  My chosen one.  Listen to him” (Luke 9).  Or, certainly, if not at His baptism Jesus would have had an awareness (the real awareness) that he was divine (though also human) at the Transfiguration.  In addition, throughout Jesus’ ministry, he knew he had the power to forgive sins, which only God could do; and He said that if you’ve seen Him (Jesus) you’ve seen the Father.  Not to mention all the people recorded as referring to him as the Lord, as in God.  All of this indicates that at some level Jesus was aware of his divinity in more of an active way than just a deep knowledge of a vocation.  I feel that Wright has given his reader “zigazig ha”.

Yes, I am attempting to be comical (Wright’s writing is significantly better than the Spice Girls’); yet, I feel that what Wright has done at many penultimate moments within his book is drop his reader short of really understanding something truly beautiful, truly brilliant.  For instance, in chapter 8, there is virtually no discussion about Jesus being the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, the one upon whom God would fully unleash His wrath.  Wright correctly identifies Jesus as the Suffering Servant–suffering for the world because of sin; yet, he seems hesitant to make reference to God’s just wrath over sin and how Jesus is the perfect propitiation, the Judge judged in our place.  This is one of the primary points of the Cross:  we are the ones who failed, we are the ones who deserve God’s wrath, yet, through Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross God’s wrath is fully mete out, fully satisfied, once and for all.  By faith in Jesus we are justified, pronounced “not guilty”, and able to stand in God’s presence (in Christ, not on our own); this is the message that I need to hear daily.  This is the message I long to hear in Wright’s book, but I don’t.

 

 

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

Book Recommendation: Justin and Lindsey Holcomb’s “God Made All of Me”

laurenlarkin's avatarLaurenRELarkin.com

I might be completely addicted to these two people.

And I’m not afraid to admit it.

Justin and Lindsey Holcomb have written some of my favorite books: Rid of My Disgrace and Is It My Fault?  I’ve reviewed both of those books on http://www.mbird.com and posted those reviews on amazon. I can’t speak highly enough about these books and their authors. I believe that both of these books should be on every book shelf.

Oh, and this book, too, for children:

“God Made All of Me”

It’s new. Like, just-released-today new. This book offers an accessible discussion for children about how special our bodies are because God has made every part, and that because they are special no one has the right to touch any part of you without your consent.  This book is geared to empower children with the language to say, “No!”, and to call, “Help!” This…

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Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

Book Recommendation: Justin and Lindsey Holcomb’s “God Made All of Me”

I might be completely addicted to these two people.

And I’m not afraid to admit it.

Justin and Lindsey Holcomb have written some of my favorite books: Rid of My Disgrace and Is It My Fault?  I’ve reviewed both of those books on http://www.mbird.com and posted those reviews on amazon. I can’t speak highly enough about these books and their authors. I believe that both of these books should be on every book shelf.

Oh, and this book, too, for children:

“God Made All of Me”

It’s new. Like, just-released-today new. This book offers an accessible discussion for children about how special our bodies are because God has made every part, and that because they are special no one has the right to touch any part of you without your consent.  This book is geared to empower children with the language to say, “No!”, and to call, “Help!” This book is also geared to  empower parents and adults with the language to initiate this rather heavy conversation with the children we love.

I’ve had the pleasure (and honor) to read this and I can tell you–with all certainty–that this book is a must have for children…if you have children, work with children, know children, have ever seen a child, or heard of the idea of children, you should have this book, and maybe 5 back-up copies to hand out.

You can check out the book here on Amazon.

Go.

What are you waiting for?

There’s no time to lose.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 2