Ten weeks into this little blogging experiment, and on the edge of a new year filled with new challenges and new hopes, I wanted to take a moment to say “thank you“ to all of you who have taken the time to partner with me on this journey. You’ve made this far more enjoyable than I dared to even imagine it could be, and I hope that my efforts in the coming year will reward your kind and appreciated commitment to this project.
Yours in Christ,
Scott
As expected, President Barack Obama backed off his veto threat and signed the NDAA 2012 into law. So, as of this moment, it is now legal to detain American citizens indefinitely without access to either a hearing or a fair trial. On the upside, President Obama would like you to know he has “signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.” Moreover, he also wants you to know that his “administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” Indeed, he believes “that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”
So here’s my question. If President Obama has such “serious reservations,” why did he sign this bill in the first place? Does he, or does he not, have veto power?
Three months ago, in September 2011, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a new study on income disparity and economic stability. While this may not seem like the kind of thing that I might be prone to discuss on a site that deals with Christian theology and culture, I would argue that the findings of this report are extremely significant for a Church that is seeking to bear witness to the realities and the justice of the Kingdom of God.
So let’s start by taking a look at the report. According to the study, countries whose wealth was distributed more equitably between the poles of wealth and poverty tended to experience stronger and more consistent economic growth over a sustained period of time. In other words, countries with a sizable and strong middle class tended to experience consistent economic growth that was accessible to broader portions of the population.
By contrast, in countries where there was a greater economic disparity between the wealthy citizens and the impoverished citizens, economies tended to experience more frequent recessions that lasted longer and plunged deeper. So, in other words, countries with weak middle classes tended to experience greater economic instability, which in turn produced hardships for all levels of society.
So why should this concern us? Because over the past 30 years, the income gap in the United States is growing at an alarming rate. Thirty years ago, the wealthiest 1% of all Americans controlled just over 30% of the national wealth. But today, that same group of people now controls 40% of the nation’s wealth. So as the United States enters a period of time where its income gap is growing and its middle class is weakening, we, as Christians, need to ask some very serious questions regarding justice. For in times of deep recession and economic hardship, it is not the wealthy that bear the weight of the burden. The wealthy, by virtue of their economic power, tend to have the resources in reserve to sustain themselves in periods of hardship. But the poorest of the poor, a group that we are called to defend as Christians, do not have the economic reserves to sustain themselves in these periods of instability.[1]
So the question is: how do we as American Christians defend the poor among us when the system that we live and breath within is currently being managed in such a way as to concentrate wealth within a miniscule segment of society?
[1] Interestingly enough, this same phenomenon appears to occur even within the United States itself. According to the most recent 2010 census data, the 10 states with smallest average income gap had an average unemployment rate of 6%. By comparison, the states with the highest average income gap experienced an unemployment rate of 8.9%, which is almost 50% higher than the states with lesser income gaps.
Literary debuts don’t get any bigger than the Millenium trilogy authored by Swedish journalist, Stieg Larrson. With worldwide sales of over 53 million copies, it was only a matter of time before the books would inevitably be turned into American films. And when that time came, it was almost equally inevitable that David Fincher, director of thrillers such as Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, and Zodiac, would be the auteur of choice to helm such nihilistically, dark material.
So does the film work? Sadly, that question is not as easy to answer as one might expect. On the one hand, Fincher’s extensive experience honed over the past 26 years in the industry has taught him how to focus this story, which, in its original printed form, was a bit meandering at times. Moreover, he knows how to frame a scene, and so, as one would expect, the film looks and sounds stunningly beautiful. There is a raw elegance in the landscapes he captures that perfectly mirrors the hollow nature of the main characters’ souls. And likewise, the brief, but shockingly potent, bursts of extreme violence are captured in such a way as to actually advance the storyline as opposed to being voyeuristic outlets for those that fancy the emerging genre of “torture-porn.”
So what’s missing? The heart of the novel. Prior to making its way across the Atlantic, the novel was published in Sweden under the name Man som hatar kvinnor, which translated into English means: Men Who Hate Women. At its core, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is about misogyny on scales writ both large and small. While Fincher expertly captures the larger, grotesque acts of violence perpetrated against women, he misses the small acts found in his main character, Mikael Blomkvist. For you see, in the book, Blomkvist’s defining characteristic is his alarmingly, insatiable sexual appetite. He regularly sleeps with every single major female character in the book, the likes of which include: a woman half his age (Salander), his married co-owner of the magazine he works for, as well as the married niece of the man who hired him to solve the 40-year old cold case. But here, in Fincher’s film, he is only ever shown sleeping with Salander, which completely alters the meaning of the closing scene.
*** MILD SPOILER ALERT ***
When Salander comes to give Blomkvist a gift at the end of the film, she sees him walking off into the night with his colleague. And the rage she feels isn’t merely the rage of jealousy, as it is in the film. The rage she feels, in the book, is the rage of having once again been violated by a man who took advantage of her to satisfy his own sexual urges. In other words, in the book, Blomkvist is among the misogynistic offenders who violate women by their casual willingness to sexually use and discard them. But here, in the film, it simply comes across as Salander being jealous of a new lover, because Fincher never sees fit to show Blomkvist, the ostensible “hero” of the film, as guilty in his own way.
But this should not come as a surprise in American culture. For ours is a culture that hypocritically glorifies the sexual promiscuity of men, even as it purports to uphold female dignity and empowerment as a national virtue. So, in the end, Fincher’s curious decision to white-wash his lead character is not surprising, and yet, it is absolutely fatal to the film because it effectively neuters Larrson’s central message, and reduces the film to nothing more than a visually splashy who-dunnit shot in exotic locales. And in a society that openly degrades women in the manner that ours does, this is a shame because Larrson’s core theme is one that could really have challenged people to think.
This film has been rated R by the MPAA for language, violence and sexuality.
In 2008, on the eve of the globalized economic meltdown, a young analyst at a Lehmen-Brothers-esque financial institution, comes to a startling conclusion. His firm is dangerously over-leveraged with cancerous assets and is only weeks away from a complete and total collapse. Faced with a seven-figure payoff, he and his fellow traders are asked to make a choice. Are they willing to bite the bullet and reap the consequences of their own greed, or should they sell the toxic assets in one fierce day of trading, thus further spreading the disease to the rest of an already strained financial industry?
Hailed by David Denby of The New Yorker as “one of strongest American films of the year and easily the best Wall Street movie ever made,” Margin Call is the sharply-written debut effort from writer-director J.C. Chandor. Shot against the New York skyline, it dares to look at these “gods” staring down from their lofty towers of privilege and power and asks the question: can you humanize the demonized? Or, in this era of Nietzschian politics, must you continue to paint them as sub-human monsters fit only for extermination.
This film is rated R by the MPAA for language.
Genius comes in many forms, including a six-year old boy’s awesome ability to craft truly deranged and nightmarish snow scenes! Oh, how we miss you and your beloved tiger, little man.
As for those of you who found yourself smiling from ear to ear, perhaps you can add this to your Christmas list. Just click the picture, and it’ll take you right to the definitive collection on amazon.com. Enjoy!
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a recurring federal law that has been adopted on an annual basis for each of the past 48 years. Broadly speaking, it seeks to establish the budget for the United States Department of Defense.
This year, the 2012 NDAA has been passed with a controversial new proviso. According to section 1031, United States citizens may now be held for indefinite detention, without access to either a trial or a fair hearing. Such detention “under the law of war” could last “until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
When the bill was first being considered in the upper chamber of the United States Congress, Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) proposed an amendment to the 2012 NDAA, which would have expressly protected American citizens from this Act.[1] Unfortunately, in a rather short-sited move, the Senate voted the amendment down, leaving Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) with the unenviable task of drafting a new amendment to try to salvage the rights of American citizens. While Feinstein’s amendment was passed by a vote of 99-1, the wording was extremely vague, allowing for broad latitude in interpretation. Feinstein herself believes that current U.S. law prohibits indefinite detention of U.S. citizens, while senators such as John McCain and Carl Levin and even the Obama administration itself argues that current law allows for such detention. Thus, the Feinstein amendment ultimately means nothing; and the 2012 NDAA stands.[2]
So what does this have to do with Christians? And why is this being discussed on a website about theology and culture? Because Christians have an obligation to stand up for justice. And any system that allows for the indefinite detention of its citizens is, at bare minimum, on the road towards injustice and tyranny. This is why the Founding Fathers of the United States saw fit to pass the first ten amendments, the sixth of which reads as follows:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
So what do you think? If a man or a woman is suspected of colluding with terrorists, should that trump his or her right to a fair and speedy trial? Should it trump the sixth amendment? And what does it say about us, as a society, when we allow fear to be a governing force in restricting access to justice? Should we do this in the interest of preventing another September 11th? Or do we lose something just as valuable as the lives we lost on that infamous day, when, in seeking to defeat the monster, we become the monster ourselves?
[1] http://www.markudall.com/content/page/full_text_of_the_udall_detainee_amendment.
[2] Knickerbocker, Brad (3 December, 2011). “Guantánamo for US citizens? Senate bill raises questions”. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
Clockwise from Top to the Center: Wesley, Calvin, Lewis, Augustine, Luther, Wright, and an Eastern Icon of Jesus the Christ
Welcome back to our discussion on theosis and deification. If you haven’t been following the series thus far, I’d like to suggest that you scroll down to the end of the article and take a look at the links I have listed. For without the background of these articles, very little of what is said in the remainder of this series is going to make sense to you.
Now, as you know, the genesis of this series was a question posed by a friend of mine. He wanted to know if the Eastern Orthodox concept of theosis (“becoming one with God”) was related to Oswald Chambers’ “Christian Perfectionism.” So I began the series by unpacking 2 Peter 1:3-11, the most famous text upon which this presumably Eastern theology is built. Following that, I moved the discussion forward by exploring significant Catholic thinkers who have defended the theology as well.
So the question that lies before us today is this: is theosis (or deification) taught by significant Protestant and evangelical theologians? When I first started this series, my immediate, ill-considered impulse was to answer this question with a rather non-committal “probably not.” But the fact of the matter is, I could not have been more wrong. As it turns out, Western theologians, as far back as Augustine[1] himself, have taught a version of theosis. Consider this list of Western theological giants: Anselm of Canterbury,[2] Martin Luther,[3] John Calvin,[4] John Wesley, Charles Wesley,[5] Jonathan Edwards,[6] C.S. Lewis,[7] and N.T. Wright.[8] All of them, without exception, have wrestled with the concept of theosis, and all of them, without exception, have defended the idea that through our union with Christ – by being “in Christ” – we are in some way deified, and made into a “god.” Lewis himself says it most clearly (to our modern ears), when he writes in Mere Christianity:
“[God] said that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him-for we can prevent Him if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for.”[9]
And so there you have it. Whether we are comfortable with it or not, there is no doubt that in the historical, orthodox teaching of the universal Church, theosis and deification have been taught. And for those of us in the Western, Protestant, evangelical tradition, this probably comes as something of a shock to our systems. What are we supposed to do with this? Is this idolatry? Wasn’t this the sin of humanity at the Tower of Babel? All of these are great questions, and as the series continues, I will unpack some of these ideas and more. But for now, I wish to leave you again with the words of C. S. Lewis. May you ponder them as you look upon the people that surround you in your everyday life.
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . .”
—C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory[10]
Recommended Reading in this Series on Theosis and Deificaiton:
Becoming a “god” … Through the Catholic Church?! … (part 2)
Becoming a “god,” Razorback Ridge, and the Things that Tend to Scare Us … (part 4)
Becoming a “god” … Need a Roadmap? … (part 6)
[1] While it is true that Augustine lived and worked prior to the Great Schism that divided the East and the West in 1054 AD, he is generally thought of as a Western theologian, primarily because the Western Catholic Church and the Western Protestant Church has leaned upon him so heavily.
[2] N.R. Kerr, “St Anselm: Theoria and the Doctrinal Logic of Perfection,” in M.J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung, eds., Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
[3] In his writings, Luther used the term Vergottung, to express this idea. Moreover, he most explicitly defended this doctrine in his Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, where he refers to the justified Christian as ein gottliche Creatur (“the divine creature”).
[4] J. Todd Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). It should be noted that amongst this list of theologians, Calvin’s doctrine of deification would be the weakest as he maintained the largest gap between a Holy God and a totally depraved humanity. Nevertheless, his writing in The Bondage and Liberation of the Will provides the clearest understanding of Calvin’s understanding of union with God though Christ.
[5] S. T. Kimbrough, “Theosis in the Writings of Charles Wesley,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52 (2008), pp. 199-212.
[6] Richard B. Steele, “Transfiguring Light: The Moral Beauty of the Christian Life According to Gregory Palamas and Jonathan Edwards,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52 (2008), pp. 403-449.
[7] Lewis touches on this theme in multiple works including (but not limited to): The Weight of Glory, A Grief Observed, and even his classic, Mere Christianity.
[8] See http://dunelm.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/nt-wright-and-theosis/. For an audio mp3 of the actual lecture, you can follow this link: http://media.intervarsity.org/mp3/N.T.Wright2-Glory.mp3
[9] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1976), 174-75.
[10] C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” in The Weight of Glory (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1976), 45.
So are you starting to wonder where this discussion goes and what this means for evangelicals? Well let me tell you just a little bit about where we’re going. I’m not often one for giving my readers or my listening audience a road map, but in this case, it seems like you’ve earned it. Besides, when something goes on for this long, you kind of need to know that they journey has a destination.
Post 7: This post is going to lay out significant Protestant theologians and pastors that have subscribed to some version of theosis or deification. This is probably going to be the post that blows a fuse in your mind, because you’re going to wonder: “Why haven’t I heard about this?”
Post 8: This is likely going to be the hardest post for you to grasp. It will be the most technical, and yet, I would argue that it will be one of the most important in the series. Because if you get theosis or deification wrong, you end up in some really bad places.
Post 9: This is the big “so what?” post. If you’re wondering what all of this means and how it might actually change how you live your life, this is the post for you.
Post 10: The post will close out the series by asking one really significant question that will challenge you to re-think the need for theology.
So that’s it, friends. Four more posts to go after this one. Hope you’re enjoying the series; and I hope you find yourself thinking about God, creation, salvation and a host of other topics in ways that are simultaneously surprising and enriching at the same time.
As for those of you who are just now tuning in, here’s a few critical posts that will help you catch up with the conversation:
