Category Archives: poetry and prose

Charles Williams on “bibliolatry”

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One of the basic problems with biblical literalism is that its adherents often take themselves too seriously, so seriously that if you examine them closely it often appears to be all about them.  Sometimes they use their faith to bludgeon others into submission, into believing “right.”  As Goethe noted, “They call is Reason, using light celestial, just to outdo the beasts in being bestial.”

People with this theological/spiritual stance transfer their activities from themselves as a center to their belief as a center.  They use their anger on behalf of their religion, and their morals, and their greed, and their fear, and their pride.  It operates on behalf of its notion of God as it originally operated on behalf of itself.  It aims honestly at better behavior, but it does not usually aim at change.  (paraphrased from Charles Williams, He Came Down from Heaven)

And this leaves their faith lumped with what the Apostle Paul called “the works of the flesh.”

The sin of bibliolatry

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I really like the Bible.  Now able to approach it as an adult, I find that it offers profound wisdom about the human experience and has practical direction for day-to-day life.  But, I don’t feel you have to view it the same way and if you don’t…even should you burn it…I WILL NOT BE TRYING TO KILL YOU!

This recent “trouble” in Afghanistan re the accidental burning of the Koran reflects one of the problems that comes with being a “people of the book”, particularly those who are extreme literalists. I would never harm or deface the Bible; even if it was quite tattered and worn and I did not want to keep it, I would take it somewhere and leave it for someone else to make use of.  Yes, I am so traditional that I will always treat the Bible with reverence.  BUT IF YOU DO OTHERWISE, I WILL NOT BE ATTEMPTING TO KILL YOU!

The problem with this fanaticism is that the “holy writ” is taken to be sacred in itself, not being merely “words” that point one in the direction of the truth.  The literal words themselves are taken to be sacred.  The admonishment of the Buddha is not taken into account, “the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”  Or, to use the words of Gabriel Marcel, “Words have meaning only when they ‘burgeon forth’ into a region beyond themselves.”  Therefore the word, for example, “G-o-d”, is not “God” but merely a sign/symbol that makes reference to that Ultimate Experience that we all hunger for and many of us find in some faint tenuous fashion from time to time in our life.  The “word is not the thing.”

Now this is relevant to personal identity and this issue itself is relevant to personal and collective identity.  For example, my name is Lewis but “L-e-w-i-s” is not “Lewis” as a name is only a sound that we have learned to respond to.  But if I am guilty of the sin of misplaced concreteness, I might venture to the extreme in which I would take my personal identity to be only memories of those subjective experiences that are evoked when I hear the sound “L-e-w-i-s”; or when I ruminate about myself.  And, if I have ventured to that point even  the sound “G-o-d” could come to mean the experience of “God” and I might have to kill you if you believed differently than myself!

Now actually, I’ve said all of that not to address the problem with other religions.  In our culture, and in the Christian tradition, there is the same tendency to be guilty of the sin of “bibliolatry.”  We definitely have extremes in our culture but thankfully we channel our anger and violence in such a way…that is, we “sublimate” it… that rarely is anyone in danger of being killed because of believing differently than ourselves.  But, beneath the surface the same arrogance, contempt and scorn are usually present.

Jacques Ellul addressed this issue in The Ethics of Freedom:

For we have to realize that Satan can use God’s truth itself to tempt man.  He even uses holy scripture…Thus obedience to the letter of scripture can be obedience to Satan if the text serves to bring about isolation and independence in relation to the one who has inspired it.  It can be a means of self-affirmation over against God in in repression of his truth and his will.  The biblical text, and obedience to it, do not guarantee anything.  They may be the best means of not hearing God speak.  (Ellul here points out that the Pharisees were) authentic believers, faithful adherents of scripture, and rich in good works and piety.  In reality everything depends on our attitude to the text of the scripture.  If I seize it, use it, and exploit it to my own ends...then I am obeying Satan under the cover of what the Bible says.  (Or, as Shakespeare noted, “With devotions visage and pious action we do sugar o’er the devil himself.”)

Jacque Ellul and the Prophetic Function

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Thanks for the response to my posting re Jacques Ellul. I owe this to one of my
new friends in the blog-o-sphere who re-posted the matter.

Let me tell you a little more about Ellul. I’ve seen him described as a
“Christian anarchist” and I can understand that though I disagree. I feel he
merely served a prophetic function in our Christian culture and any prophet who
follows his calling it is always “anarchic” to the existing religious/spiritual
status quo.  If he was an anarchist of any kind then so am I but I firmly
renounce any such accusation—I believe too strongly in purpose in life and
feel that mature faith will always cling to hope and will always offer
purposeful behavior even when things appear the most dire.  I passionately
believe that there is “method to our madness” that divinity doeth shape
our ends, rough-hew them how we may.”  (Shakespeare)

I think Ellul was one of the most powerful voices in the 20th century in
religion though he does not get a lot of attention. Though I think The Judgment of Jonah was the most powerful of his books but I also highly recommend The Ethics of Freedom.

I would like to close with another quotation from Judgment, “From the moment faith develops in us, we must be permeated by the conviction that  that if grace is conferred on us it is primarily for others.  It is never for our own personal satisfaction.”

The Observing Ego

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The “observing ego” is that ability to self-monitor and make appropriate choices about public, social behavior.  Without this faculty one is knee-deep in abject narcissism.  And I argue that all of us have this problem to some degree, individually and collectively.  That is why we need to be socially involved AND to be sensitive to the feedback we get from others, explicit feedback and feedback that is more subtle.  Some have described it as having “antennae”.  And close, intimate relationships is the arena where the feedback is the richest as those people who are “close” and “intimate” see us best.

Here is Shakespeare’s observation re this issue in Julius Caesar:

And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of.

 

Meditative prayer…again!

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I have often quoted a line from Hamlet re prayer.  King Claudius is on his knees, in prayer, saying, “My words fly up.  My thoughts remain below.  Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

That is a very subtle observation as is often the case when something is profound.  Shakespeare noted the distinction between a prosaic, formal, perfunctory prayer and one that is essentially meditation, “thoughts” and “words” conjoined.   Richard Rohr’s blog posting of today presents this notion more eloquently:

In what is commonly called prayer, you and your hurts, needs, and perspectives are still the central reference point, not really God. But you have decided to invite a Major Power in to help you with your already determined solution! God can perhaps help you get what you want, but it is still a self-centered desire, instead of God’s much better role—which is to help you know what you really desire (Luke 11:13, Matthew 7:11). It always takes a bit of time to widen this lens, and therefore the screen, of life.

One goes through serious withdrawal pain for a while until the screen is widened to a high-definition screen. It is work to learn how to pray, largely the work of emptying the mind and filling the heart—that is prayer in one concise and truthful phrase. Or as some say, “pulling the mind down into the heart” until they both operate as one.

Faith and doubt

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I was taught in my youth that faith and doubt were incompatible.  Now, I find they go hand-in-hand.  I feel that faith without doubt is largely dishonest, or as Sartre described it, “Bad faith.”

And note what Unamuno had to say on the subject:

Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe in the God idea, not God himself. ~Miguel de Unamuno

And William Butler Yeats puts this truth so pithily:

Oh God, guard me from those thoughts

Men think in the mind alone.

He who sings a lasting song

Must think in the marrow bone.

 

The Power of Thought

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Just a couple notes re the power of thought.

Mike Dooley noted, “Freedom from the past, or anything else for that matter always comes in the very instant you stop thinking about it.”

For, thought has a powerful hand in perpetuating our reality. This is true individually and collectively. It makes me think of an old bromide, author unknown, “Our thoughts become us.”

And peripherally related, Shakespeare noted, “Nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

And I close with another observation of Mike Dooley, “Thoughts are things. Choose the good ones.”

“Heavenly hurt it sends us”

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Richard Rohr argues that there is “an incurable wound at the heart everything” and that in the second half of one’s life maturity comes when we recognize and accept this. He states in a recent blog that “your holding and ‘suffering’ of this tragic wound, your persistent but failed attempts to heal it, your final surrender to it, will ironically make you into a wise and holy person.”

Now, I would qualify this and note that this “incurable wound” comes to us in varying degrees. For many, those who are merely the “walking wounded” it presents itself as plain vanilla depression and anxiety. But even that “plain vanilla” version of pain must be confronted, just as others must confront their “incurable wound.” It makes me wonder if this is what Paul meant by his “thorn in the flesh.”

And note here what a “difference” Emily Dickinson’s “heavenly hurt” brought her:

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the heft
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.

Prayer and humility

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I have discoursed several times re prayer and its meditative function. I don’t believe that God sits “up there” waiting to bestow “stuff” on us when we want or to bail us out of a mess we have created with our life. I think prayer, like all dimensions of spirituality, is ultimately a mystery. I don’t know definitively how it works but I do believe that it is important that we pray.  So I think you should pray as you are inclined to pray. You know as much about this mystery as I do. But I hope that you will consider the perspective that I offer from time to time.

Rabbi Adam Jacobs made an interesting point in the Huffington Post that I would like to share. He noted that in the Hebrew language the word “to pray” is a reflexive verb, something you do to yourself. And the root of the word means “to judge”, “rendering the actual translation of prayer as something more akin to self-evaluation. Therefore, when a person stands before God to communicate, she is taking stock of her capabilities, current level of spiritual consciousness and willingness to accept reality for what it truly is. The deeper notion is that we are willfully trying to integrate the inescapable fact that we are utterly dependent on the Creator.”
The upshot of this observation is that humility is an essential element in prayer. And humility always comes hard to those of us who have been educated into “humility.”  And I close with my favorite Shakespearean observation re prayer, King Claudius on his knees in prayer, offering the following observation, “My words fly up.  My thoughts remain below.  Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

Shakespeare and hypocrisy

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I love Shakespeare with a passion. He is perhaps the greatest gift that the gods have offered us to date, with due respect to the holy men and women who have also graced our lives.

He was a very spiritual man and thus had a critical eye re “spirituality” and astutely took we “spiritual sorts” to task for our innate tendency to be hypocritical and insincere.

For example, in King Richard III the King confesses:

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stol’n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

And then my favorite observation on this note was: With devotions visage and pious action, we do sugar o’er the devil himself. (Hamlet)

And I close with one of my favorite lines from Goethe’s Faust: They call it Reason, using light celestial, just to outdo the beasts in being bestial.