FOR EPIPHANY: THE ETERNALLY LATE FOURTH WISE MAN...

(Not to be confused with the old Henry Van Dyke story, "The Other Wise Man.")

The French writer Michael Tournier wrote a wonderful treatment of the “fourth wise man” legend in his 1982 novel, “The Four Wise Men.” (In the event you think you might actually read this novel, I would suggest you stop here and go do that; otherwise, read on.)

The last two paragraphs of the book have stayed with me over the years, and I offer them on this January 6th as a kind of Epiphany devotional. Here is a brief set-up: The fourth wise man, Taor, Prince of Mangalore, was late in setting out, and the other three had no choice but to start without him. Once he does begin his journey, he meets with many delays and misfortunes, the greatest of which is being imprisoned in the salt mines of Sodom. His travails and prison sentence take such a toll of time, that, having set out in search of a newborn baby, he is not able to pick up the trail until 33 years have passed; he is now an old man. But he does pick up the trail. Released from the mines, and having learned from a fellow prisoner that the baby grew to be a prophet named Jesus, who blessed the poor and spoke of peace, Taor sets off and makes inquiries along the way. He hears one report after another, he is getting closer. Finally, he learns that on that very day Jesus and his disciples are having the Passover meal at the home of one Joseph of Arimathea, and that he may be able to find him there if he hurries. After some vague directions, he comes upon the room. Here are those concluding paragraphs:

“The room was empty. Once again he had come too late. People had eaten at this table. There were still thirteen wide, shallow goblets, each with a squat foot and two handles. In some of the goblets there were still a few pieces of the unleavened bread which the Jews eat at Passover time in memory of their fathers’ flight from Egypt.

“Taor’s head reeled. Bread and wine! He reached for a goblet and raised it to his lips. He picked up a piece of unleavened bread and ate it. Then he toppled forward, but he did not fall. The two angels, who had been watching over him since he left the salt mines, gathered him into their great wings. The night sky opened, revealing a sea of light, and into it they bore the man who, after having been last, the eternal latecomer, had just been the first to receive the Eucharist.”

The Four Wise Men, Grand Staircase
National Monument, Utah

THORDIS AND VI: THE CHURCH

In 1958, my sixth grade Sunday School class at American Lutheran Church in Huron, South Dakota was comprised of an unfortunate number of cutups—me among them. One fateful Sunday morning we were in the process of achieving new levels of hilarious misbehavior when our teacher stood up and walked out. And never came back. Ever.

In the immediate aftermath of her departure we got quiet, and, stifling giggles, stared ominously across the teacherless table at one another. And then the door opened, and in walked Thordis Bultena—the Sunday School Superintendent. Our heads bowed in repentant expectation; the giggling stopped. Mrs. Bultena was one of those teachers who actually seemed to deserve—not demand—our respect. She was kind of a combination of Saturday Night Live’s “Church Lady” and the mom in “Leave It To Beaver.” She was no nonsense, but she was so darn loving. And the main reason for the bowing of one of those heads that morning was that she was my mom’s best friend. Uh-oh.

I don’t remember if Thordis (who remained with our class for the rest of the year) told my mom about the incident; I don’t think she did. I do however, trace my growing admiration for Thordis as a woman of faith and of the church from that time on, no doubt because I also came to an understated but deep realization that she cared about me. My baptism had been a quasi-emegency, and I never got to know the neighbors my parents had recruited to be my on-the-spot godparents. Thordis and John, I now realize, were my real godparents.

Mom and Dad and Thordis and John (about whom I’ve written here) were often together in those casual church potluck and backyard picnic table sort of events; they had the kind of friendship that could be measured in gallons of coffee (and—for John and my dad—the very occasional Hamms beer). And in what was a coincidence of employment-triggered mobility, both of our families moved from Huron to Rapid City within a year or so of each other, and became, as before, members of the same church. Often, on my visits home from college, and, later, seminary, Mom would say, “You should go over and say hi to John and Thordis.” Which I was happy to do. Of course we had coffee.

Then came the day, not long after my dad had died, I was visiting my mom—now alone in that Rapid City house, just down the hill from South Canyon Lutheran Church where my dad’s funeral had been held. I asked her how she was doing, and my mom—a lifelong woman of the church—said, a bit downcast, “I’m not sure how much faith I have right now.” And then she brightened just a bit and said, “But Thordis has enough faith for both of us.”

That’s the Church. Thordis and Vi: The Church.

Change and decay in all around I see...

...O Thou who changest not, abide with me. ~ Henry Lyte, 1847 

In the midst of life we are in death. ~ Book of Common Prayer, 1552

Rust never sleeps. ~ Neil Young, 1979

Oxford University Church of St. Mary the Virgin.
Behind scaffolding (off-and-on) since 1258

The last time we were in Oxford (I have friends who will accuse me of writing this post just so I can use that phrase) it occurred to me that if one were not employed in Oxford’s primary occupation -- the pursuit of study both arcane and lively -- the business to be in would be the scaffold business.

Scaffolding, that is to say, and related construction and remodeling trades. As we sat in one 800-year old pub (a pub or ale house had existed in that location since the thirteenth century), I peered over the rim of my pint to look around the pleasant room and wonder what had been involved over the centuries in the conversion from candles to gas lighting and from gas to electricity. What duct-work and cabling within the thick walls? What tunneling under? What scaffolding on the exterior?

As we walked the winding streets (stepping reverently over the black cross embedded in the cobblestone to mark the site of the 1556 burning of the martyrs), my gaze traveled downward from the “dreaming spires” to ground level.  Building after building, tower after tower were enveloped in scaffolding. The effect of the whole was a sort of lattice-work, an almost delicate-looking exoskeleton that existed to silently and steadfastly prop up the bustle of life and community within.

In a sort of algebraic equation, the age of Oxford + the unremitting processes of decay + the ever-changing applications of construction technology = an almost constant need for upgrading = scaffolding.

Age and dignified beauty only serve to make Oxford a telling example of the rule that affects everything—and everyone: In the words of the Poet Rainer Rilke, “All have this falling sickness none withstands.” In buildings, this sickness is wind, water, ice, the shifting of the earth. In us: Well, as my late friend and colleague Gerhard Frost used to put it, “Ah, yes, Richard, it is true; we are all very busy dying.”

Jorgensen Manor.
Propping up ladders since 1929.

Our house has the “falling sickness.” (So does yours.) Not as grand as an Oxford edifice, but within the last year it was surrounded by scaffolds and ladders for much-needed carpentry and painting – part of our effort to prepare for a possible sale. The result is that we like it so much (we’ve always liked it), we’re considering staying. But then we think of those elements of entropy: wind, water, ice; and it occurs to us that perhaps getting out while the getting is good is another way of saying that the next owners can be the ones who hire the next scaffold-erectors. 

And each of us? Our scaffolding is exercise, pills, the latest diet -- the lattice of  support that enables us to carry on the “inner life,” of love, relationship, and meaning in which we live. But rust never sleeps; in the midst of life we are in death. As an old friend said, of his impending death, “This is the end of the road upon which we all travel. The only alternative would be to never have taken the journey at all. And who would want that?”

There would be no journeying to Oxford—no pints in ancient pubs, no evensong in sunlit chapels—without the centuries of scaffolding lining the path. I now think of the scaffolds of Oxford as part of the beauty of the place. I haven't, however, had such a romantic notion about the ladders and paint brushes needed to stave off the ravages of weather on my own house. Why? Could it be that the failure of most of us to include the practicalities of forward-looking maintenance in our budgets and calendars is not so much a matter of procrastination and forgetfulness as it is a subtle but deep-seated denial of death? Averting one's eyes from the creeping, sleepless rust? But the vitality of places like Oxford are an architecturally poetic expression of the truth that ladders and scaffolds are not signs of death, but life!

In the thirty-eighth chapter of Job, God is described as erecting "bars and gates" to hold back the chaos of the sea so that life can flourish. Deuteronomy assures us that underneath this transitory life are "the everlasting arms." Scaffolding.

     The leaves are falling;
     this hand is falling, too.
     All have this falling sickness none withstands.
     Yet there is one whose ever-holding hands
     this everlasting falling
     can't fall through.

                             ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, d. 1926

LOSING MY RELIGION

Sermon preached on the occasion of my retirement from First English Lutheran Church, Faribault, Minnesota; and from full-time ministry.


I went to four years of college and four years of seminary, and then I came to University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis, and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Anchorage, and now, for 24 years, to First English Lutheran Church, to learn how to become a pastor.

As with all good education, what I learned most – at Augustana College and the University of Minnesota and Luther Seminary – was how to learn. So my life among you has been a sort of graduate school. You were my teachers (and you paid me!). If I throw into the mix thirty-six years of the siren song of good books new and old, a collection of tremendously smart and supportive and challenging colleagues (within and beyond these walls), and a good dose of life experience, I am happy to report that I have been and continue to be a life-long learner.

Of course the chief textbook in this great life class is the Bible, the chief teacher, the Holy Spirit. The lesson goes on. As Luther said about baptism we can say about our faith: We have enough to study and learn all our lives long. (And my view of heaven is that God will answer all our questions, solve all those perplexities, and then he’ll say, “Now, how about this one…?” And we’ll be off again – questing, learning!)

I add to this philosophy of life-long learning two other philosophies, learned from colleagues, that I have found to be true: The one is from my friend in Anchorage, Pastor JoAnn Post, who once said, as we gathered with others at a preachers’ text study, “I can’t preach on this text until I figure out how it changes me!” (Now, there is a reason for study and pondering and praying and talking with you and with colleagues: “How does this text change me!”) The other is similar, from another colleague: “Every time you open that book, expect to find something new.” Oh, and I do, and I pray you do, too.

Let me talk about a pastor’s adventures in finding something new, again and again.

I remember a time – just a few years ago – that the new thing I found – that dawned on me – when the assigned gospel was Jesus’ charge to remove the log from my own eye before the speck in my brother’s – was that this log-removing is a life-long project!

I have to confess that, as a good religious boy, I had sort of loosely assumed that somehow I could make quick work of getting this log out my eye and then I could turn and work on you. But then, I thought, “When, exactly – would that be? When, exactly, can I say, ‘OK, log gone; now I get to judge you!’” When indeed? Log-removing is a lifetime task. “Judge not lest ye be judged” is another way that someone – Oh, yes, Jesus – put it.

And that’s another thing, another thing that I have learned, another way in which I have been changed. The more I get to know Jesus, the less religious I am. The more I get to know the Bible, the less religious I am. The more my faith is deepened, the less religious I am. This is not as heretical as it sounds; for the truth that came to me – that has been there from the beginning – is that the Bible is not a book of religion, but of life. In fact, in a way, the Bible is a very anti-religious book -- Old Testament and New.  (If you know someone who says, “I don’t go in for this religion stuff,” you might say, “Have I got a book for you!”) What does God say through the prophet Amos? “I take no delight in your solemn assemblies, take away from me the noise of your songs; let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” So much for religion.

And Jesus: “You are sitting in church and there you remember that your brother has something against you? What are you doing sitting in church? Go – be reconciled to your brother!” So much for religion. Jesus’ harshest words were for the most religious people of his day: “You talk about my teachings with your mouth, you honor me with your lips, but you don't do the things I say to do. In vain you worship me, teaching human commandments as the doctrine of God.” So much for religion.

The word religion has an honorable meaning and background, but it is one of the most misunderstood and misused in our vocabulary. Rather than a set of rules, as Pastor Mike reminded us last week, reading in James: “Here is true religion – to take care of the widows and orphans.” James is echoing Jesus in today’s gospel: “Good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free…,” and Amos – true religion is “let justice roll down….”

And justice means that I am called to a life bigger than myself, I’ve been freed from a fearful, selfish concern for my own life, freed in Christ. Justice, righteousness (the rightness of things) means I am called to look out for the life of the widow, the orphan, the poor, the oppressed. As someone said at election time, the question, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” is not a Christian question. (It's just selfishness.) The Christian question is, “Is my neighbor better off…? Are the poor better off?” Let justice roll down.

So if it’s not about religion – in fact if the Bible is an anti-religious book, and faith is something other than “religion” – then what is it about? Life. There is no intricate word play needed here; Jesus says it quite directly: “I have come that you may have life – life in all its abundance.” How dare we turn the richness of this faith into religious rules – especially rules that we can direct at other people? It is the wholeness of life itself that Jesus invites us – and all – into.

It is religious rules that drove the nails into the cross, but the tables are turned, for, as Paul says, the law itself is nailed to the cross with Christ. It is religious rules that drove the nails – the gift of resurrection is the gift of life. And, in Paul’s striking image, we see the law book fluttering in the breeze, nailed to the cross. No intricate wordplay, no twisted interpretation needed. Paul says quite directly, “Christ is the end of the law.”

Martin Luther had a liberating, life-changing experience when – lost in his own despair and sinfulness – he read, in Romans, that we are forgiven and saved as a free gift of God’s grace, and not by rules of repentance. My life and my revelation is not as dramatic as Luther’s, but I felt something similar when I read, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Letters and Papers from Prison,” that “Jesus didn’t come to make us religious – he came to give us life!” But it wasn’t new with Bonhoeffer – it’s what Jesus had told us all along.

One part of a “religious” life is a kind of base selfishness: I want to keep these rules so that I, personally, can live forever. But if God’s grace is enough, if my salvation is a free gift, then what becomes of a life of rule-keeping? Well, for one thing, as Mike said last week, “I can’t do it -- I cannot do it!” For another, I am called not to religion, but to life – life that is given away freely for the sake of my Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of others, in which I discover all that life can be. And more than that, in baptism I am born into the life of Christ. How I live is not a matter of rules, but identity. I’m a child of God! I’m a son of the king! Living this life is who I am!

As another of my mentors, Big Jeff Rohr of blessed memory, once said (in another post-graduate moment that taught me something new), “I trust God to his promises of the life to come, but living the Christian life is reward enough.”

Paul says that “Faith, Hope, and love abide,” and the greatest of these is love. I don’t see religion in that list.

And so, this is not a religious assembly. It is the “body of Christ.” It is an assembly of faith, hope, and love, where “nothing in my hand I bring simply to thy cross I cling.” Where we open-handedly and open-heartedly receive life – life in all its abundance – in the name of Jesus Christ, through whose Spirit we learn something new – are changed – every day.

NO THANKS

I had an epiphany while attending a stewardship workshop a couple of years ago. (Stewardship is a profoundly rich concept that has gained a very boring reputation because it has become synonymous with “fund-raising” – which is like defining poetry as “making up rhymes.”) The presenter was emphasizing the need to “thank, thank, thank” those who give, and my epiphany was this: Nobody gets thanked in the Bible. (Well, Paul does thank a couple of people who “risked their necks” to save his life, but that’s about it – and certainly no one is thanked for giving. Paul’s style instead is to lift up the contributions of the impoverished Macedonians in order to shame the wealthier Corinthians into giving more.)

I have become convinced that a “thanks”-based approach to stewardship is short-sighted, unbiblical, and an insult to the giver, who doesn’t give in order to earn thanks, but out of a compulsion of faith and love – a variation on the old spiritual, “How can I keep from singing?”

This is not to say that Paul and other biblical writers are not purveyors of gratitude – It’s just that the one who is thanked is God. “I thank my God every time I remember you…” is Paul’s expression of gratitude for the “partnership in the gospel” that the Philippians’ have shared with him.

Jesus is not so magnanimous. Here is Jesus’ thanks to those who have accomplished something good:  “When you have done all that you were ordered to do, say. ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.’”

Now, I have to confess that my  “epiphany” may be a little self-serving because I do not, in fact, thank people enough – for all kinds of things. So I’m thinking of having some thank-you cards made up. To be true to my convictions I can't simply say, "Thank you," so I’m trying to decide between having them inscribed with, “I thank my God for you…” or “Dear Worthless Slave…” Hmmm….  

"I'M ALMOST CERTAIN THERE IS NO GOD..., WELL, PRETTY SURE..."

Here lie I, Martin Elginbrod,
Have mercy on my soul, Lord God,
As I would do, were I Lord God,
And thou wert Martin Elginbrod!
   ~ tombstone, from George MacDonald

I am fascinated by the faith-science interchange and the dialogue/controversy between people of faith and the "new atheists" which is a subset of it. It is in part a matter of intellectual recreation for me, and in part an earnest component of my mindset and beliefs.

I have never entered an internet "chat room" (always been kind of scared of them), but a few days ago, while following a link, I stumbled upon the blog of a self-described skeptic and joined the blog's comment chain that, for a while, became a real-time back-and-forth debate. After hunching over my keyboard for about forty-five minutes, firing comments into the ether as fast as they were fired back at me, I extricated myself from the fray, and have not returned. I felt like I was fleeing a crescendoing spiral of madness out of Fellini. (Not "madness" because of the content of the comments, but because of the feeling that one could become trapped in a Hydra-headed argument without end.)

The subject of the comment chain was (to oversimplify a bit) "is there a God?". There were six or seven of us in the real-time back-and-forth, and I was the only one arguing for the philosophical possibility that God might exist. I was not arguing for the Judeo-Christian God, or against evolution (which I buy), but for an uncreated non-material force that was the causative agent for everything material.  Two things surprised me. One was that the conversation - though frustratingly anonymous - was relatively civil. The other was the number of my correspondents who said something to the effect that of course there is a chance that something like a god exists but, "he's certainly not doing much," to paraphrase one comment. I was surprised that some so easily allowed a chink to open in their skeptical armor. (The argument seemed to be "I may be persuaded that God exists if only he behaves according to my pre-conceived notions of how God would behave if God existed.")

Although I do not have a record of this exchange (as I said, I ran away, so I admit this is a one-sided report from my memory), I found the arguments rather un-subtle. It is as though they had given up belief in a Sunday School God, and the only thing that would convince them would be a divine Sunday School performance. I came away with the distinct impression that they -- like the more well-known atheists Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins -- mainly just have a beef with the church and with "religion" (as do I); they do not probe very deeply into the philosophical question of whether or not there may be a god. Certainly doubt is a part of faith (including mine), but this exchange wasn't so much about faith as reason.

All this to introduce a good essay on this subject by Gary Gutting in the New York Times Opinionator blog. I recommend following the links referred to in the essay. But, be careful, you might get trapped!

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I have posted elsewhere on this subject. Here and here.  

MY FAVORITE ATHEIST

Update note: This was written just after Christopher Hitchens was diagnosed with the cancer that would lead to his death, and just before I read his memoir, "Hitch 22," which was terrific.

Christopher Hitchens is a superb writer and an insightful social and literary critic. I have just purchased and am looking forward to reading his memoir, “Hitch 22.” (Here’s an enticing excerpt.) A wise and wily provocateur who challenges many of my beliefs, he fills the role that the late William F. Buckley used to play in my so-called intellectual life.

Although it is not surprising that -- as a Christian believer and a pastor -- I disagree with Hitchens’ atheism, my disagreement is not so much a black-and-white reaction to one who opposes what I stand for as it is based on a rare instance in which this probing and acerbic thinker may be accused of muddled thought. Like his fellow (but less congenial) “new atheists,” Hitchens’ critique has mainly to do with “religion” and the failings of the church (and Christians) -- a critique with which, for the most part, I agree -- and very little to do with whether or not there is a God. The “muddled” part is not just that he confuses religion with the existence of God, it is also that he gives scant evidence of acknowledging that many people of faith embrace skepticism and doubt, and are completely open to the world of science and ideas.

Abler critics than I have pointed out that the new atheists select the most insipid model of faith to attack as a straw man. Carl Sagan once wrote, “The difference between people of faith and people of science is that people of faith never question their authorities.” Sagan was apparently unaware of the Psalms! Or the whole tradition of biblical criticism. (As Douglas John Hall says, “The Bible writers will give up on the glory of God before they’ll ignore the reality of human suffering.”)

In an expression that Hitchens could almost sign on to, the theologian Adolph Harnack once complained, “Jesus promised the kingdom, and what did we get? The church!” The dastardly deeds of the church (most recently Roman Catholic sexual abuses, but Hitchens recites an historical litany of them) cause both Hitchens and me to shake our heads -- Hitchens at the idea that anyone could believe in a God who would condone such things, I at the idea that anyone could believe that such things could be attributed to God. The question “Is there a God?” hovers somewhat tangentially over the discussion.

Critical thinking makes strange bedfellows, and thoughtful, skeptical Christians have perhaps more in common with Christopher Hitchens’ approach than with the unquestioning religion of “Bible-believing” literalists. And, to use a recent coinage, “Who would you rather have a beer with?”

The Apostle Paul says that our human understanding is like looking into a cloudy glass. So there we stand, side-by-side, looking into that clouded window -- my friend Christopher Hitchens and I.

Is the burden of proof on the believer or the unbeliever? Here's a proposition that says it's equal.

PUT THE TRUTH OUT ON THE STREET AND LET IT TAKE CARE OF ITSELF

Although I fully subscribe to the science of evolution and cosmology, my main interest in it – as a pastor, parent, and teacher – is the faith of our children, and this faith is threatened far more by a misguided and ignorance-based insistence on teaching certain parts of the Bible as science than it is by exposing our kids to the most rigorous and challenging scientific thinking. Even if some try to protect them from it, children will eventually be introduced – in high school or college or through their own reading or curiosity – to modern science. At that point, if they have been led to believe that they must choose between science and faith, they will either give up on science, or – more likely – they will leave their faith behind. Either of these choices is a tragedy, because it is a false choice, one that neither the Bible nor faith asks them to make.

Genesis, and, indeed, all the books of the Bible, stake a claim on the truth, yes, but literal scientific factualness was a non-issue for the ancient writers and readers of a pre-scientific age. The Bible is a multi-century collection of different kinds of books (poetry, hymns, history, love songs, letters, sermons, etc.), and people of faith have always used their capacity for thinking and reasoning to interpret them. If I tell my daughter that she is a gem, I am communicating something truthful to her, yet no one would even consider discussing whether or not she is really (“literally”) a gem. The Christian does not exist who does not use some kind of judgment to decide which aspects of scripture are to be interpreted literally and which are to be understood metaphorically, and Martin Luther reminded us that “plain reason” is a partner with Holy Scripture in understanding the word of God.

There are two distinct accounts of creation in Genesis (different authors, different styles). The first account ends and the second begins in the middle of what we call Chapter 2, verse 4. (Those helpful monks who outlined the text with chapters and verses a few hundred years ago didn’t always locate the most logical breaks.) In the first account, the method of creation is simply the spoken word: “Let there be….” In the second it is a hands-on process: God forms a mud-man and breathes life into him; God plants a garden. The first account has the sound and repetition of a liturgy; the second is a narrative, a story. To attempt to correlate either of these with the instruments of science is to miss the real questions the writers are addressing (For example, the main question addressed in the second Genesis account is, “If God meant the world to be good, how did it get so messed up?”)

And then there’s the book of Job. In the 38^th chapter of this book we come upon yet another explanation of creation, in a narrative in which God himself tells the story. In this delightful and somewhat sarcastic exchange, God is saying, in effect, “Tell me about it if you think you know so much!” and the passage suggests still another method of creating: the builder’s arts of carpentry and construction:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?... Who stretched the measuring-line upon it?... Who laid its cornerstone?... Who shut in the sea with doors and made it fast with a bolted gate?... Who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens?”

Next time you hear someone say, “I believe literally in the creation story of Genesis,” I propose two questions; 1) “Which one?” and 2) “What about Job 38?” If a creationist reading of Genesis requires a literal Adam and Eve, for example, and is used to launch expeditions to seek Noah’s Ark, then shouldn’t this declaration to Job from the mouth of God cause us to develop science projects such as, “How big are the bolts on the doors which hold back the sea?” and “Where should we travel to find the cornerstone or the pillars of the earth?” I suspect that even literal creationists read these as metaphors, but why? Why is this passage less worthy of a literal interpretation than those in Genesis? And if there are no literal gates holding back the sea, then what is the writer trying to say? Do we look for a scientific meaning or a theological one?

We don’t need to protect our children (or the Bible) from scientific inquiry. We can “put the truth out on the street and let it take care of itself.” We can teach our children that there is no conflict between the theological world-view of Genesis and the discoveries of science.  We can be at least as open-minded as reformer John Calvin (hardly a flaming liberal), who, in 1557, wrote:

Genesis described in popular style what all ordinary men without training perceive with their ordinary senses. Scientists, on the other hand, investigate with great labor whatever the keenness of man’s intellect is able to discover. Such study is certainly not to be disapproved, nor science condemned with the insolence of some fanatics who habitually reject whatever is unknown to them.*

 With John Calvin, people of faith can see science (“whatever the keenness of intellect is able to discover”) as a kind of “third testament” to the creative will of God, and not as an enemy.

The Roman Catholic Church only recently (1992!) admitted that it was a mistake to try to silence Galileo and his theories over 300 years ago. Sadly various school boards and whole church bodies (this time influenced by a blinders-on fundamentalism) are making the same mistake regarding evolution. I don’t want them teaching my kids – in church or in school.

*Ironically, the Texas School Board just replaced Thomas Jefferson with John Calvin in its outline of the study of civilization's ideas. Thus, I propose that this quote be engraved over their office door.

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth, ... when the morning stars sang together...? ~ Job 38:7

I find a mystical connection among and between science, theology and poetry. I mean "mystical" quite literally (if the word "mystical" can, in fact, be used literally): That is, it is a connection that is difficult to get hold of or put into words (not that that's going to stop me from trying). The connection of which I speak is not the usual "dialogue" between science and religion, and it is not a covert or overt attempt to use science to prove theology or vice-versa. It is rather an interplay in which the one can almost stand in for the other, or a composition in which they sing in harmony (the harmony and the individual parts being a unity and separate at the same time). And the voice of the song -- the language that describes the interplay -- is poetry.

For the purposes of this discussion I define "science" as the limitless searchings of physics and cosmology, with infinity as the nexus at which it meets theology. "Let there be light" and the"big bang" of the primal explosion each speak of ultimate beginnings which are really penultimate (what was there before...?), and they are each metaphors -- poetic expression.

Here's one of those mystical connections: The "word" referred to in John's gospel ("In the beginning was the word") is both the utterance "let there be light" and the one who uttered it: the Word. The primal explosion of the big bang is an explosion of light -- the light brought into being by the word. Physics and Metaphysics. The element that strings it all together? Poetry. Perhaps there at the beginning before the beginning is not a micro-micro-nano-particle, but a word.

Another take: Deuteronomy reports, "The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms," and Einstein assures us of the conservation of matter and energy (nothing is lost). I am a Bible-believing Christian (the perspective from which I write), but my belief in eternal life is fed as much by the physics as by the Bible. A poetic view allows us to posit that they are saying the same thing. (As is Norman Maclean, in the absolutely beautiful last lines of A River Runs Through It: "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.")

I am haunted by the cosmology of faith and the faith of cosmology. The language (the words) of the haunting is poetry. Here's A.R. Ammons:

This is just a place.

We go our round distance yearly in a star’s atmosphere,

turning daily into and out of direct light

and slanting through the quadrant seasons.

Deep space begins at our heels,

nearly rousing us loose.

We look up or out so high

sight’s silk almost draws us away.

This is just a place.

Currents worry themselves, coiled and free,

in airs and oceans;

Water picks up mineral shadow

and plasm into billions of designs:

frames trees, grains, bacteria.

But is love a reality we made here ourselves?

And grief – did we design that?

Or do these, like currents,

wind in and out among us merely

as we arrive and go?

This is just a place.

The reality we agree with that agrees with us,

outbounding this, arrives to touch,

joining with us from far away.

Our home, which defines us, is elsewhere

(but not so far away we have forgotten).

This is just a place.

If the conservation of matter and energy only allows for eternal life to be infinitely recycled stardust, so be it -- infinity is infinity. But if we stir in the possibility that the whole schmere is God's love project, then it is stardust held in the everlasting arms. I can live with that.

We must become more than what is left of our bodies

And will see and become what is always
Rushing toward us and around us. (David Wagoner)

citations:
A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean, University of Chicago Press, 2001

In Memoriam For May Noblett (This is just a place), A.R. Ammons

How It Will Be, David Wagoner

SO, MAYBE I AM A KNEE-JERK LIBERAL AFTER ALL!

Since reading a few tentative reports a while back, I've been intrigued by the possibility that our faith response and our degree of liberal or conservative persuasion may be at least in part directed by our genes. (The links in the sentence above are representative articles; there are more scholarly publications available, but these summarize the ideas.) As I interpret it, the research on political tendencies does not suggest the existence of a "republican gene" and a "democratic gene," but rather points to genetically-influenced differences in how we think about problems, approach difficulties, etc., leading to life-long patterns that tend toward conservatism or liberalism.

The faith research is grounded in part on twins studies that demonstrate -- among other things -- that identical twins maintain similar approaches to faith into and throughout adulthood, while fraternal twins are less likely to do so. Both sides of the "is there a God" debate use this research to support their cause: It's all just biology, so there goes God; or, this genetic pointer reveals the divine because there is a divine to be revealed -- it is a way to draw us into relationship with God.

Those arguments aside, I find that the genetic theory offers some creative hope in dealing with human differences. It could have the effect of changing the tenor of our political conversations from, "How can you be so stupid?" to "Vive la difference!" Some politicians are fond of saying that we need a strong opposition in order to keep the debate vigorous and honest. If the genetic construct is demonstrated to be true, that idea will prove to be an organic inevitability.

This is not an exercise in celebrating science as savior. It would not eliminate cynicism or even meanness from politics. (He can't help himself -- he's a conservative -- nyah nyah nya nyaah nyahh...!") And one could imagine "Brave New World" sci-fi scenarios in which one side gets the upper hand and labels the other persuasion as a "genetic deficiency," imprisoning their opponents in political reservations, or forcing "corrective" genetic surgery on them. (Hey... I might be on to something here!) It seems that human history, including the history of the application of science, leaves as an open question the postulation of whether a confirmed genetics of politics would produce more positive than negative consequences. Reader?

Regarding faith, the notion that some may be genetically incapable of it would lend credence to that strong scriptural theme that God wills and works for the salvation of all as an act of pure grace. (And that those who are genetically "blessed" are here to serve the rest?)

Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. ~ A desperate man, to Jesus, in Mark 9:24