To be sure, there is no direct inference to be made from the Torah to contemporary politics. Jews have identified with all shades of the political spectrum: from Trotsky to Milton Friedman, from socialism and communism to laissez faire capitalism. The Torah is not an economic theory or a party political program. It is about eternity, whereas politics is about the here-and-now: the mediation of competing claims and the management of change. The Torah - especially Sefer Vayikra, Chapter 25 - sets out the parameters of a society based on equality and liberty. These are eternal values. But they conflict. It is hard to pursue both fully at the same time
Communism favors equality at the cost of liberty. Free market capitalism favors liberty at the cost of equality. How we construct the balance varies from age to age and place to place.
--"The Proper Use Of Power "by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
http://www.jewishpress.com/printArticle.cfm?contentid=43593
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Pastoral Caricatures and the Consumers Who Love Them
Here is an excellent blog entry on pastoral types: The Professor, the Master of Ceremonies, The Shopkeeper, the Drill Sergeant, the CEO, the Visionary Leader, Spiritual Technician.
Which type will Christian Consumers prefer this week, I wonder?
Which type am I tempted toward?
My Husband's Thoughts for Trinity Sunday
from Steve's blog, Tight Lines on the River of God
Craftsmen
Recently I was talking with church members who would be vacationing in New Mexico. I urged them to stop in to see the Loretto Chapel when they visit Santa Fe. The old chapel, which is now privately owned as a museum, contains a marvelous wooden spiral staircase constructed around 1880. The identity of the craftsman behind the staircase is unknown and a sweet little legend surrounds it. It's told in such a way that one might imagine that St. Joseph or even Jesus Himself appeared to build a staircase for the Sisters' of Loretto new chapel.
We have only speculation about Jesus actually practicing carpentry (He is called a carpenter only in Mark 6:3) and what sort of wood craftsman He might have been. Yet our sermon text for this week Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, is part of the biblical understanding of the second person of the Trinity as a Craftsman of Creation.
Our text played a huge part in the christological controversies of the fourth century. Everyone at the time agreed that Proverbs 8:22-31 (some spoil-sport modern commentators with no poetry in their souls disagree) is to be understood by Christians as about the pre-incarnate Jesus. What troubled the waters was verse 22's simple statement "I was created as the first of your works." The Arians trotted it out as proof that Jesus was less than God the Father, that He was only the first being God made before all others. Others, markedly Athanasius, took the orthodox view to be that "created" here is to be understood here as "begotten." Several evangelical modern versions follow suit, hence the NIV's "brought forth." The point is that the second person of the Trinity is not created in time, but stands in an eternal relationship with the Father. "Begotten, not made," is the Nicene Creed's formulation.
The point of all this is to be able to affirm that far from being the object of divine creation, even as the first creature, Jesus Christ is the agent of creation, along the lines of John 1:3, "Through him all things were made." Which is key to our affirmation for this Sunday, which is Trinity Sunday. The three persons of God are not separate deities each playing unique and distinct roles almost like three gods. Attempts at a gender neutral doxology using functional titles like "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer," get it all wrong. The Son (and the Spirit) is just as involved in creation as the Father. And the Father and Spirit also redeem us just as the Father and Son also sustain us.
No, with Athanasius we affirm this text as a celebration of the Son's divinity and participation in creation alongside and coequal with the Father. And verse 30 gives us a blessed and wonderful insight into the divine life and relationships, "I was constantly at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in humankind." The persons of the Trinity love and delight in each other, and out of that delightful relationship they love and delight in what they have made: the world and us. We are the objects of a shared Joy which is at the root of our existence. We are created because it delights those three Persons to share the joy of their mutual love with us as they experience it together.
So when we come to the Trinitarian meditation of our epistle lesson, Romans 5:1-5, the love which is "poured out into our hearts," is this great, already-shared Love of the three Persons of God, filled with delight in each other and filled with delight in us. And that thought of God's great delight, both internal and external, sustains us and sees us through whatever may befall.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Bobby McFerrin and the Power of the Pentatonic Scale
via Ann: maybe there are some things which are innate...
World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Missional Muslims III: Letter to a Muslim student
I posted some responses to S's videos challenging the straw men that they presented as Christianity. Last night he wrote me, bothered that I was "taking taking everything seriously and asking fanatical questions" in public on FB, so he removed me from his Wall. Mercifully, however, he still will talk to me off the record. Here is what I wrote him. Please pray for this fine young man, and even more for me, that I will be able to speak Christ's Truth in love.
Dear S.,
Forgive me if I have offended you! I really like you too, and I don't want to lose you as a friend.
As a philosophy professor, it is my calling to ask hard questions and engaging in deep discussions. In the West, we do that in public all the time. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is used to that, and so I apologize. I did not mean to come off as "fanatical," only as one who sincerely loves truth, and seeks to have more of it. My desire is to be able to find truths we both share, so that we can together glorify God.
One way of doing that, when people disagree about what consititutes God's word, is by working from the other direction, using their minds to consider:
1) if there are any contradictions in what is being said (for, like Muslims, I believe contradictions are signs of error)
2) if what is being said can account for a person's objective and subjective experience. (The more it can, the more truth there is to what is being said)
3) if what is being said can be put into practice, and lived out. (In English, we say this is being able to "walk your talk." If someone says, "Do what I say, not what I do," we tend to be skeptical of them.)
You know that I do not accept the Qu'ran, just as I know you do not accept the Old and New Testament. We can't discuss "from the top down" so we have to work "from the bottom up," using something like these three criteria to arrive at truth. I must admit I am confused, because what I took away from the videos you were showing was that people like Deen and the young married couple were interested in truth as well, and were using their minds to consider these three criteria, applying them toward Christianity.
Deen in particular was saying that the Incarnation is a contradiction: that God cannot take on human flesh. Not only would it be "beneath him," it would be *logically impossible,* so that anyone who believed Jesus was fully God and fully man would be like a person who believes there are square circles. I was only trying to show that what Deen supposed was a contradiction really was NOT a contradiction, so that the incarnation is at least *logically* possible, and is not an immediate sign of error.
From what I have read of Al Farabi, أبو نصر محمد الفارابي Averroes ابن رشد and Avicennaابن سینا , it seems that there is a long tradition of Muslim philosophers, so I am thinking Islam welcomes both faith and reason. Is that not correct? Those great Muslim philosophers were responsible for re-introducing Aristotle to the West during the Middle Ages in Europe, which was a very important thing! They helped inspire my great philosophical hero, St. Thomas Aquinas, who also thought it was important to find a place for both faith and reason in Christianity.
S., I promise not to talk about these things any more with you, because I value our friendship and I don't want you to be upset with me. But I wonder if you know any Muslim philosophers that I could dialogue with. As I wrote above, I am a person who sincerely loves truth, and seeks to have more of it. My desire is to be able to find the truths both Muslims and Christians share, and to remove the false teachings we have about each other, so that we can together glorify God.
I apologize that this has gotten so long! Please do not be angry with me!
God bless you,
Beth
Dear S.,
Forgive me if I have offended you! I really like you too, and I don't want to lose you as a friend.
As a philosophy professor, it is my calling to ask hard questions and engaging in deep discussions. In the West, we do that in public all the time. Sometimes I forget that not everyone is used to that, and so I apologize. I did not mean to come off as "fanatical," only as one who sincerely loves truth, and seeks to have more of it. My desire is to be able to find truths we both share, so that we can together glorify God.
One way of doing that, when people disagree about what consititutes God's word, is by working from the other direction, using their minds to consider:
1) if there are any contradictions in what is being said (for, like Muslims, I believe contradictions are signs of error)
2) if what is being said can account for a person's objective and subjective experience. (The more it can, the more truth there is to what is being said)
3) if what is being said can be put into practice, and lived out. (In English, we say this is being able to "walk your talk." If someone says, "Do what I say, not what I do," we tend to be skeptical of them.)
You know that I do not accept the Qu'ran, just as I know you do not accept the Old and New Testament. We can't discuss "from the top down" so we have to work "from the bottom up," using something like these three criteria to arrive at truth. I must admit I am confused, because what I took away from the videos you were showing was that people like Deen and the young married couple were interested in truth as well, and were using their minds to consider these three criteria, applying them toward Christianity.
Deen in particular was saying that the Incarnation is a contradiction: that God cannot take on human flesh. Not only would it be "beneath him," it would be *logically impossible,* so that anyone who believed Jesus was fully God and fully man would be like a person who believes there are square circles. I was only trying to show that what Deen supposed was a contradiction really was NOT a contradiction, so that the incarnation is at least *logically* possible, and is not an immediate sign of error.
From what I have read of Al Farabi, أبو نصر محمد الفارابي Averroes ابن رشد and Avicennaابن سینا , it seems that there is a long tradition of Muslim philosophers, so I am thinking Islam welcomes both faith and reason. Is that not correct? Those great Muslim philosophers were responsible for re-introducing Aristotle to the West during the Middle Ages in Europe, which was a very important thing! They helped inspire my great philosophical hero, St. Thomas Aquinas, who also thought it was important to find a place for both faith and reason in Christianity.
S., I promise not to talk about these things any more with you, because I value our friendship and I don't want you to be upset with me. But I wonder if you know any Muslim philosophers that I could dialogue with. As I wrote above, I am a person who sincerely loves truth, and seeks to have more of it. My desire is to be able to find the truths both Muslims and Christians share, and to remove the false teachings we have about each other, so that we can together glorify God.
I apologize that this has gotten so long! Please do not be angry with me!
God bless you,
Beth
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Missional Muslims II: "Misconceptions about Islam" video
This video is entitled "Misconceptions about Islam," but it seems to be more about misconceptions about Christianity. Oh, if we could just eliminate the straw men!
I really admire the way Muslims respect the mind. But we must remember that while truth is truth wherever we find it, truth and rationality are not identical. Rationality is relative to cultures. Rationality is the means; but truth is the end.
In premodern times (particularly the Middle Ages,) Christians saw faith and reason as complementary, and sought to live by the motto, "faith seeking understanding." They maintained Aristotle's insight that any rational explanation requires discussing four causes: formal, material, efficient and final. Most important was the final cause, or purpose for the thing or event: the "why." which ultimately pointed to God.
However, In the West during the modern period (Renaissance to 19th century), people began to idolize reason and neglect or even reject their faith. During this period, rational explanation was "trimmed" to mean only efficient causality. That is, people stopped asking "why?" and only began asking "how?" That question was easy to answer in terms of quantities and measurements, whereas the "why" question was more spiritual. These people took rationality/ reason to be simply "deduction" and "induction," (left brain) and rejected intuitive knowing (right brain) as irrational.
Today in the West we have the opposite problem: people reject "logic" and rush to embrace contradictions and all manner of irrationalities, taking that to be the "rational" thing to do! People no longer seek to conform themselves to the truth, but instead vainly imagine that they can create it for themselves.
I would encourage Muslims not to repeat the errors of modernism, and think that their form of rationality is the only way to get truth. On the other hand, I would encourage Muslims not to dismiss reason in order to exult faith. Isn't all truth is God's truth?
Faithful Christians believe that they do not create the truth, but discover it, as it is given through God's word and His creation. We also do not read God's word "flatly." We consider all scripture as authoritative, but we do not take every person as a model, whose actions we must imitate. Judas betrays Jesus; but we are NOT meant to imitate Judas. David commits adultery, but we are NOT meant to be adulterers. These are cautionary tales, meant to illustrate what kind of people we should NOT be, alongside the stories of people we should be like: Abraham, Hosea, and the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11.
I really admire the way Muslims respect the mind. But we must remember that while truth is truth wherever we find it, truth and rationality are not identical. Rationality is relative to cultures. Rationality is the means; but truth is the end.
In premodern times (particularly the Middle Ages,) Christians saw faith and reason as complementary, and sought to live by the motto, "faith seeking understanding." They maintained Aristotle's insight that any rational explanation requires discussing four causes: formal, material, efficient and final. Most important was the final cause, or purpose for the thing or event: the "why." which ultimately pointed to God.
However, In the West during the modern period (Renaissance to 19th century), people began to idolize reason and neglect or even reject their faith. During this period, rational explanation was "trimmed" to mean only efficient causality. That is, people stopped asking "why?" and only began asking "how?" That question was easy to answer in terms of quantities and measurements, whereas the "why" question was more spiritual. These people took rationality/ reason to be simply "deduction" and "induction," (left brain) and rejected intuitive knowing (right brain) as irrational.
Today in the West we have the opposite problem: people reject "logic" and rush to embrace contradictions and all manner of irrationalities, taking that to be the "rational" thing to do! People no longer seek to conform themselves to the truth, but instead vainly imagine that they can create it for themselves.
I would encourage Muslims not to repeat the errors of modernism, and think that their form of rationality is the only way to get truth. On the other hand, I would encourage Muslims not to dismiss reason in order to exult faith. Isn't all truth is God's truth?
Faithful Christians believe that they do not create the truth, but discover it, as it is given through God's word and His creation. We also do not read God's word "flatly." We consider all scripture as authoritative, but we do not take every person as a model, whose actions we must imitate. Judas betrays Jesus; but we are NOT meant to imitate Judas. David commits adultery, but we are NOT meant to be adulterers. These are cautionary tales, meant to illustrate what kind of people we should NOT be, alongside the stories of people we should be like: Abraham, Hosea, and the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Missional Muslims I
I've started a dialogue with a young, dedicated Muslim student at the U of O. He is introducing me to the world of Missional Islam. Here is a sampling of the videos he sends out to friends around him, in his excitement to share his faith:
-----------------------------------------------------------
American architect accepts ISLAM, non-Muslims MUST SEE!!!
Here is my response to him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi S.--
God IS one! All Christians agree with their Muslim brothers and sisters that there is only ONE God. We do NOT believe in three Gods, contrary to what Muslims may think we believe. After all, it would be a contradiction to say that God is one God and three Gods! We believe, like them, that God is powerful and high above humans—in fact, God SO high and powerful that His Divine Being is not contained within just one person, but rather he is Three Persons in One Being, which are called “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Here is a crude analogy: the yolk is egg, the white is egg, the shell is egg; but the yolk is not the white, the white is not the shell, and the shell is not the yolk. Yet it would not be an egg without all three: yolk, white and shell.
So the big difference between Islam and Christianity is that in Christianity, the notion of participation is an essential quality of God. This is why relationship is so important to Christians, because God Himself is Three in One.
Further, Christians do not believe that the Three in One is the Father, Mary and Jesus; nor do we believe that Jesus was born by sexual intercourse. Saying those things is as offensive to Christians when Muslims are offended by the following lies: “Islam teaches that Mohammed is God,” or “Muslims worship Mohammed.” Here is what Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb have to say regarding this "gross distortion of biblical teaching:"
The Bible refers to Christ as the "only begotten" Son of God (John 1:18; cf. 3:16). However, Muslim scholars often misconstrue this in a fleshly, carnal sense of someone literally begetting children. For them, to beget implies a physical act. This they believe is absurd, since God is a Spirit with no body. As the noted Muslim apologist Deedat contends, "He [God] does not beget because begetting is an animal act. It belongs to the lower animal act of sex. We do not attribute such an act to God." For the Islamic mind begetting is creating and "God cannot create another God. … He cannot create another uncreated." The foregoing statements reveal the degree to which the biblical concept of Christ’s sonship is misunderstood by Muslim scholars. For no orthodox Christian scholar believes that "begat" is to be equated with "made" or "create." No wonder Dawud concludes that from a "Muslim point of belief the Christian dogma concerning the eternal birth or generation of the Son is blasphemy."
However, this extreme reaction to Christ’s eternal Sonship is both unnecessary and unfounded. The phrase "only begotten" does not refer to physical generation but to a special relationship with the Father. Like the biblical phrase "Firstborn" (Col. 1:15), it means priority in rank, not in time (cf. vs. 16-17). It could be translated, as the New International Version does, God’s "One and Only" Son. It does not imply creation by the Father but unique relation to him. Just as an earthly father and son have a special filial relationship, even so the eternal Father and his eternal Son are uniquely related. It does not refer to any physical generation but to an eternal procession from the Father. Just as for Muslims the Word of God (Qur’an) is not identical to God but eternally proceeds from him, even so for Christians, Christ, as God’s "Word" (4:171) eternally proceeds from him. Words like "generation" and "procession" are used by Christians of Christ in a filial and relational sense, not in a carnal and physical sense.
Misunderstanding of Christ’s sonship reaches an apex when some Muslim scholars confuse it with the virgin Birth. Nazir-Ali notes that "in the Muslim mind the generation of the Son often means his birth of the Virgin Mary." … With such a carnal misrepresentation of a spiritual reality, little wonder Muslims reject the Christian concept of eternal Father and Son.
(Geisler & Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross [Baker Books, Grand Rapids MI; updated and revised, second edition 2002], pp. 263-264)
For more on why the Quran’s reasoning regarding God needing a wife in order to have a son is simply fallacious, please read this.
-----------------------------------------------------------
American architect accepts ISLAM, non-Muslims MUST SEE!!!
Here is my response to him.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi S.--
God IS one! All Christians agree with their Muslim brothers and sisters that there is only ONE God. We do NOT believe in three Gods, contrary to what Muslims may think we believe. After all, it would be a contradiction to say that God is one God and three Gods! We believe, like them, that God is powerful and high above humans—in fact, God SO high and powerful that His Divine Being is not contained within just one person, but rather he is Three Persons in One Being, which are called “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. Here is a crude analogy: the yolk is egg, the white is egg, the shell is egg; but the yolk is not the white, the white is not the shell, and the shell is not the yolk. Yet it would not be an egg without all three: yolk, white and shell.
So the big difference between Islam and Christianity is that in Christianity, the notion of participation is an essential quality of God. This is why relationship is so important to Christians, because God Himself is Three in One.
Further, Christians do not believe that the Three in One is the Father, Mary and Jesus; nor do we believe that Jesus was born by sexual intercourse. Saying those things is as offensive to Christians when Muslims are offended by the following lies: “Islam teaches that Mohammed is God,” or “Muslims worship Mohammed.” Here is what Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb have to say regarding this "gross distortion of biblical teaching:"
The Bible refers to Christ as the "only begotten" Son of God (John 1:18; cf. 3:16). However, Muslim scholars often misconstrue this in a fleshly, carnal sense of someone literally begetting children. For them, to beget implies a physical act. This they believe is absurd, since God is a Spirit with no body. As the noted Muslim apologist Deedat contends, "He [God] does not beget because begetting is an animal act. It belongs to the lower animal act of sex. We do not attribute such an act to God." For the Islamic mind begetting is creating and "God cannot create another God. … He cannot create another uncreated." The foregoing statements reveal the degree to which the biblical concept of Christ’s sonship is misunderstood by Muslim scholars. For no orthodox Christian scholar believes that "begat" is to be equated with "made" or "create." No wonder Dawud concludes that from a "Muslim point of belief the Christian dogma concerning the eternal birth or generation of the Son is blasphemy."
However, this extreme reaction to Christ’s eternal Sonship is both unnecessary and unfounded. The phrase "only begotten" does not refer to physical generation but to a special relationship with the Father. Like the biblical phrase "Firstborn" (Col. 1:15), it means priority in rank, not in time (cf. vs. 16-17). It could be translated, as the New International Version does, God’s "One and Only" Son. It does not imply creation by the Father but unique relation to him. Just as an earthly father and son have a special filial relationship, even so the eternal Father and his eternal Son are uniquely related. It does not refer to any physical generation but to an eternal procession from the Father. Just as for Muslims the Word of God (Qur’an) is not identical to God but eternally proceeds from him, even so for Christians, Christ, as God’s "Word" (4:171) eternally proceeds from him. Words like "generation" and "procession" are used by Christians of Christ in a filial and relational sense, not in a carnal and physical sense.
Misunderstanding of Christ’s sonship reaches an apex when some Muslim scholars confuse it with the virgin Birth. Nazir-Ali notes that "in the Muslim mind the generation of the Son often means his birth of the Virgin Mary." … With such a carnal misrepresentation of a spiritual reality, little wonder Muslims reject the Christian concept of eternal Father and Son.
(Geisler & Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross [Baker Books, Grand Rapids MI; updated and revised, second edition 2002], pp. 263-264)
For more on why the Quran’s reasoning regarding God needing a wife in order to have a son is simply fallacious, please read this.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Oh, to teach PH102, "Fundamentals of Reasoning" again!
I wish Critical Thinking was still offered at EBC--oh, excuse me, after June 10 EBC is no more; we will be "New Hope Christian College." Anyway, if I were to teach that class again, I would definitely use this video:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's | ||||
| ||||
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
LOST: Jacob isn't Esau: the MIB is
"There are only two kinds of people, in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'thy will be done.' -- C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
I didn't hate "Across the Sea" the way that so many on Doc Jensen's column did, though I agree with them about the kid actors, particularly the one portraying Jacob.
My lenses are always sensitive to premodern and postmodern themes, and last night we got to see how MIB represents modernism, what with his championing of autonomy, technology, and disregard for tradition. OTOH the writers seems to want us to take Jacob as representing premodernism: he doesn't challenge authority; he weaves by hand, he is content to remain "on the island."
There is a famous essay by Kant that is taken as the declaration of Modernism, called "What is Enlightenment?" The Wikipedia summary isn't too bad:
Kant answers the question quite succinctly in the first sentence of the essay: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." He argues that the immaturity is self-inflicted not from a lack of understanding, but from the lack of courage to use one's reason, intellect, and wisdom without the guidance of another. Our fear of thinking for ourselves. He exclaims that the motto of enlightenment is "Sapere aude"! --Dare to know!
The German word Unmündigkeit means not having attained age of majority or legal adulthood. It is sometimes also translated as "tutelage" or "nonage" (the condition of "not [being] of age"). Kant, whose moral philosophy is centred around the concept of autonomy, is distinguishing here between a person who is intellectually autonomous and one who keeps him/herself in an intellectually heteronymous, i.e. dependent and immature status. Kant understands the majority of people to be imprisoned by the guiding forces of society, such as the Church and the Monarchy, and therefore unable to throw off the yoke of their immaturity due to a lack of courage and resolution to be autonomous. It is difficult for individuals to work their way out of this immature, cowardly life because we are so uncomfortable with the idea of thinking for ourselves. Kant says that even if we did throw off the spoon-fed dogma and formulas that we have been given all our lives, we would still be stuck, because we have never "cultivated our minds."The key to throwing off these chains of mental immaturity is reason. There is hope that the entire public could become a force of free thinking individuals if they are free to do so. Why? There will always be a few people, even among guardians, who think only for themselves. They will help the rest of us to "cultivate our minds." Then Kant shows he is a man of his times when he says: "a revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism . . . or power-seeking oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking." Kant seems to be criticising the recently completed American Revolution, but he points out that new prejudice will replace the old and will become a new leash to control the "great unthinking masses...."
"...Religious immaturity is the most pernicious and dishonourable variety of all."If Enlightenment is man's emergence from his "self incurred immaturity" and the guiding forces of society, then simply put: the church is a political force which constrains public behaviour through the use of doctrine. By defining doctrines and making them politically binding, the Church can control the growth of reason, therefore, publicly it is in your own self interest to assent a set of beliefs which hinder the development of your reason. It is in man's interest to surpass those that prevent him from using his own reason.
THis describes MIB, doesn't it? Somewhere someone refers to MIB's adolescent questioning and Ma's introduction of the boys to the Light as a "bar mitzvah." Well, MIB doesn't buy it. He is going to overthrow superstition and even the rules: "someday you can make up your own rules." He snashes the decanters of Tradition. This is the spirit of the Enlightenment, the soul of Modernism.
Jacob, however, imbibes premodernism: he takes the cup. It is no accident that this scene has eucharistic overtones. Think of how Jesus prayed to "have this cup taken" from him, "but not my will, but Thy will be done." That is the essence of Christian faith: to resist the pull of autonomy--"self-law" and have the law of Christ written upon one's heart.
So, "Across the Sea" is a twist on the Biblical Jacob and Esau story. Doc Jensen is correct insofar as the Lost characters are not identical with the Biblical characters; however, they are types of them. So I revise my previous assessement: Jacob is not the archangel Michael; he is the biblical Jacob; and MIB is not the archangel Sameal; he is the biblical Esau. Esau puts himself-- his own will/stomach before anything else and so loses his inheritance. What is rightfully his is not what he desires. Jacob is the one who values what the island represents, and so inherits it, and is responsible for preserving it and passing it on. Not for nothing is this episode entitled "Across the Sea!"
Of course, by now you know where my sympathies lie.
Friday, May 07, 2010
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Table or Altar?
I appreciated this response from Brandon. One can be a Zwinglian at a table, but never at an altar. This discussion brilliantly highlights the differences between Protestant "either/or" and Catholic "both +and" worldviews.
I have always been impressed with the fact that the Risen Christ still bore the marks of His crucifixion. This seems to show that suffering and joyous victory are not mutually exclusive: the two are intelligible only if not separated. Why should we expect anything different from Eucharist? Only if we already have a prior commitment to a metaphysic that cannot ccount for participation or sacrament.
Scot McKnight wrote:
The Eucharist, whether you celebrate and participate daily, weekly, monthly or otherwise, needs to be seen as a Table instead of an Altar. The apostle Paul calls it the "Lord's Table" in 1 Cor 10:1 and on the table food was served.
At the altar, blood was spilled or poured out; what was sacrificed in the Temple was then eaten at the Table. The Altar for the Christian is the Cross; the Table is for the Lord's Supper.
At the Altar, the sinner is forgiven; at the Table the forgiven sinner communes with God.
The cross is a place of sorrow; the Table a place for joy.
So, if you today are celebrating Eucharist, ponder the difference between Altar and Table, and imagine yourself at the Lord's Table to give thanksgiving for the joy of communing with God in the forgiveness of sins.
Brandon Vogt replied:
May 2, 2010 3:46 PM
http://www.thinveil.net
The only proper description of "the table" as an altar is in the Catholic Mass, a liturgy that involves the re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary. If there is no sacrifice, there is no altar.
The idea of altar doesn't really make sense in the Protestant world, but in the Catholic mind the sacrifice of the Mass is central. Hebrews describes Jesus as the living high-priest. Central to this role of priest is the sacrifice he offers for his people. No sacrifice, no priest; giving sacrifices is what makes a priest a priest.
I think this idea of altar/sacrifice also has deep ramifications for the ways that Catholics and Protestants each understand their faiths. Protestants come to "the table" only to be fed, which at times is a blunt form of spiritual consumerism; it doesn't require much other than to show up. Whereas Catholics come to be fed (at "the table"), but also to participate in Jesus' sacrifice, in addition; to give, to sacrifice.
You are right in noting that after sacrifice, the sacrifice is consumed at the Table. This is the whole spirituality of the Eucharist, the literal body and blood of Jesus. We eat the sacrifice, as in the Passover.
Without a proper understanding of sacrifice and Eucharist, I would argue that "the Table" and the "Lord's supper" are incomplete and--to a certain extent--become incoherent
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