Looking through my news feeds tonight before I go to bed tonight, I came across this headline that I decided to click on. (You can read the news story yourself by clicking on it.)

Sen. McCain Says Republicans Will Block All Court Nominations If Clinton Wins

What is wrong with these people? Senator McCain does not say that he and his Republican Senate colleagues will carefully vet all of a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees, he says that they will block them all.

The Senator says this because he is trying to rally Republican voters to come out and vote to keep the United States Senate in Republican hands. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if people received the opposite message: Republicans should not be allowed to keep the Senate as this proves they want only obstruction. They are not interested in sharing power when called upon by the voters to do so. It’s their way or the highway.

Good grief!

Thought I should post this pic of my newest niece, Sedona, with her grandmother. Sedona was just born last week. FYI the commentary is not mine.

Like many folks I have ambitious moments when I decide to take on a big project only to realize that I have “bitten off more than I can chew” (as my grandparents used to say.) My parishioners in the local church where I serve as minister undoubtedly have stories about something I got excited about only to set it aside not long afterwards. Yes, I find it more than a little embarrassing that I have trouble holding to commitments. Fortunately, I know that I am not alone with that particular problem!

Unfortunately, I have an additional challenge: I have depression. Not only do I have trouble with my follow-through, but I also struggle with moods that frequently make ordinary tasks seem incredibly difficult. A crushing feeling of abject failure or an overwhelming sense of hopelessness make it very hard to carry out regular duties to say nothing of anything that requires special effort.

When I started «Fides quaerens intellectum» I had high hopes for what I could accomplish with this website. My mind ran in so many directions, and I thought I’d have ample opportunity to explore many (if not all) of them. I could only see limitless possibilities.

But then my old “friend” depression showed up and reminded me that exploring all those options may not always be possible for me. That’s one reason I have yet to produce a second installment to my series “What Good is God?” Depression has grabbed a hold of me and made it incredibly difficult to write about theology.

Depression for me is a crisis of faith of gigantic proportions. Our Christian tradition rests on the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Love doesn’t present a particular challenge for me, but the other two — especially hope — seem beyond my reach at times.

As a preacher I exhort my parishioners to see God in the little workings of our everyday lives. I recognize that too often sin and suffering take a more visible role in the world. I try to help our people see with eyes of faith that enable us to have hope that God is at work in the world — a hope that sin and suffering are not the final word. In short, I am encouraging people to look for grace.

Depression, however, interferes with that process within my own mind. I often do not see grace at work in the world at all. Many times I find myself wondering if life is even worth living at all. Looking into the future all I see is a great darkness of death and destruction — all consequences of human misdeeds. I can’t see any light there.

I think it is safe to to say that at its root the Christian faith makes two important assertions about human existence: (1) the world — despite all appearances to the contrary — is a good world and (2) our lives — despite all appearances to the contrary — have meaning. We call this source of goodness and meaning “God.” Empowered by this insight, as beloved children of God, we are sent out into the world as a healing presence for righteous, justice, and peace.

That all sounds well and good, but when I’m in the stranglehold of depression those words ring awfully empty. I cannot — no matter how hard I try — see the world as a good place. Likewise, my mediocre, bourgeois life does not appear to have much in the way of meaning.  Furthermore, it is equally hard to see myself as a beloved child of God.

How do I look for grace when I’m being sucked down the drain?

Christian holy days often inspire me to think deeply about our human lives and what it means to live faithfully as God’s beloved community. This Christmas has not been any different in that regard. I’ve had many different thoughts buzzing around in my head. Please allow me to take a few moments of your time.

Several years ago, when I was working in a cubicle, I received what appeared to me to be an amazing promotion with a matching pay increase. I had recently moved into my own apartment in Browne’s Addition. Things really seemed to be looking good for me. Someone even said to me regarding my promotion, “Wow. God has really been blessing you.”

I resisted that interpretation. Now some people would not like that viewpoint because they would want to take credit for the promotion. They would argue that they worked hard for it and that they deserved it. Like anybody else, I too am prone to think that I deserved something good, but that was not the reason for my resistance this time.

I’ve been around businesses long enough to know that people get promotions for many different reasons. Sometimes it’s because they are the best for the job, but sometimes it’s because they interview well or because they have a relationship with the boss or maybe because they are just better looking than the other candidates. There are dozens of reasons why someone may have gotten a promotion – most of which have nothing to do with God.

How could I in good conscience believe that God intended me to get that promotion and raise? How did I know that someone else didn’t need it more than I did? I just couldn’t bring myself to say that it was the result of God blessing me.

I grew up in a family where we prayed before every meal, where we thanked God for providing our food. Our language seemed to indicate that God had literally provided the food we were eating, but that didn’t match up with the fact that my dad was earning money to buy the food or that many dozens of workers had been involved in producing that food and getting it to us or that my mother had worked for hours in the kitchen preparing it. In what sense could we say that God gave us this food?

And what does that say about the billions of people in the world who do not have enough food to eat? Did that mean that somehow I was more loved by God or more deserving? I’m self-aware enough to know that cannot be the case.

Eventually, I stopped praying before meals. I also stopped thinking that God had somehow given me that food. After much reflection I decided that God, through creation, had established a world that was capable of feeding every man, woman, and child, but that human sinfulness prevented that from actually happening. The only reason I had food was that I lived in a human-made system that benefited me at the expense of billions of others. Once again, God had nothing to do with it.

Now I still believe that job promotions have very little to do with God, and the same goes for who does and doesn’t have enough food to eat in the world. We live in a complex and chaotic world where God’s will is frequently hindered (if not overruled) by human sinfulness. God is not to blame for the unjust systems we humans have established.

I also began to realize that I had misunderstood the purpose of saying that “God had blessed me” or that “God had provided my food.” I wish I could remember when I had this epiphany, but I can’t. Did I read it in a book somewhere? Did some random person tell me about it? I honestly don’t know. I recognized that the purpose of these little phrases is not to make some sort of truth claim about how I got the promotion or how the food got on my dinner table. Rather these pious Christian phrases were designed to instill and nurture a particular virtue within us Christians. That virtue is none other than gratitude.

Gratitude does not require belief that God gave me the promotion. Nor does gratitude require that I believe God literally gave me food that other children were denied. Gratitude instead is a spirit of thankfulness, recognizing our utter dependence upon God. Gratitude reminds us that the good things we do enjoy are not because we are somehow better than others. Gratitude is a feeling that permeates our whole loves, helping make us better followers of Jesus. Gratitude enables us to see beyond our own small worlds into a much bigger world where others do not enjoy all the benefits that we do.

In this post-Christmas season where most of us have received much, we need to turn to gratitude. Gratitude calls to us, reminding us of the boundless abundance of God’s world without somehow crediting our own good works for it. Let us together cultivate gratitude so that we can become better people and a better community of love and justice to share God’s light to this hurting world.

Peace,

+Chris.

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

–Theodore Parker

I frequently contemplate the words above. I and many others suspect them to be the inspiration for Martin Luther King’s saying “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Often, however, I find it incredibly difficult to believe these words. A short clip from the evening news is usually enough to make a person wonder if the arc truly does bend towards justice.

When I was an undergrad in college I used to say to myself regularly “God is in control!” My intention was to bolster my wavering hope. I was usually trying to encourage myself when I was in the deep darkness of depression. Despite every appearance to the contrary, my thinking went, God was pulling the strings and moving things in a direction that would be better for everybody. I could have confident hope because God had everything taken care of. Nothing could happen outside of God’s will.

A number of theologians, however, have pointed serious flaws with such a position. The first is that it makes God responsible for evil in the world. Because God could make things otherwise, God has to assume at least some of the blame for the evil in the world. To declare that God is in control is also to make God culpable for sin.

One common way to refute that culpability is to invoke free will. “God has given us free will.” Although free will may very well alleviate God of any responsibility for evil, free will also indicates that God is not actually in control. If God has turned over power to us by giving us free will, then God has given up some or even all of God’s power, meaning that God is not in control. Turning power over to someone else precludes God from exercising it (at least for the time period where that is the case.)

On the other hand, if God has not turned over control to us but continues to direct the world, then God holds at least some responsibility for evil in the world. Indicating that God is in control strongly suggests that God has willed evil to exist in our world. One might be able to argue that God has only permitted the evil — not actually willed it — but I find that fine distinction unhelpful. If God is permitting events that God does not actually will, then how can we assert that God is still in control? Either way we need to give up the notion that God is in control.

I do not see that as a bad thing, however. As I have gotten older I have learned more and more about human history and about human cruelty to one another. That knowledge has made it the harder for me to defend the God who is in control. The same went for my increased awareness of current events. How could all these terrible things happen with God in charge? Either God was indifferent to what was happening “down here” on earth, or God must be some sort of moral monster. Neither of those options were something I wanted to defend or even consider. The answer, I think, is to give up the notion that God is in control.

The second problem with asserting “God is in control” appears when we talk about human responsibility. This point is more-or-less the flip side of the first point concerning God’s culpability. If God is in control, does it matter what we humans do? Do we humans bear any responsibility for the way the world is and do we have any obligation to repair the damage?

This question reminds me of a story a friend from seminary once told me. It involves a dialog between two ministers.

First: “I want to ask God why he allows so much oppression in this world.”
Second: “Why don’t you?”
First: “I’m afraid he’ll ask me the same question.”

This snippet demonstrates an important truth; often we want to make God responsible for why our world is the way it is. We also want to depend on God to fix it. Again, however, this presumes a God who is in control, a God who micro-manages our lives and everything else. What if that assumption is just plain wrong?

If we let go of such a God, we realize that God has given us the tools needed for the job. We can see that God has already made the problem solvable. I am advocating an empowering God who authorizes us to step into the fray to make the world better. God shouldn’t need to act in most cases, because it is within our ability to fix it ourselves.

I have examined the two biggest problems with seeing God as in control, but what does our Scripture have to say about it?

In fact it was the Bible that first helped me see the problem with seeing God in control. The challenge unexpectedly arose from words I said every Sunday in church. Those words turned out to be the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.¹

If you look carefully at the the third petition “your will be done” you will notice that it is not a statement of fact. Such a declaration would read “your will is done.” The verb in this phrase is in the subjunctive mood, which Wikipedia reminds us is “typically used to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, obligation, or action that has not yet occurred.”² This passage of the Lord’s Prayer strongly implies that God is not actually in control (at least in the present time.) Stuff happens in our world that is not according to God’s will.

Recognizing that God was not in control has allowed me to see that God truly is a good God and that God truly is loving. The harsh reality of our world need not preclude God’s benevolence. Letting go of the God in control frees me to see God in a whole new light.

We in the United States have been accustomed to a Santa Claus-like God who gives us what we need and even sometimes gives us what we want. This includes anything from a free parking spot downtown to a miraculous cure from cancer. This belief, however, rests on the assumption that God controls this world. What happens if we let this go?

I can hear your question: If God is not in control, what good is God? That is a great question! I will discuss that very subject in my next piece! I will also talk more about the moral arc of the universe.

End Notes

1. Praying Together (English Language Liturgical Consultation, 1988) 10.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood. Accessed August 5, 2015.

Marcus Borg, a prominent theologian and biblical scholar died on Wednesday (January 21). Although in the end I did not follow his pathway to faith, I did find his books insightful and liberating.  He helped me move from the conservative Evangelical faith of my youth into my adult faith.  His writings, in many ways, enabled me to stay a Christian.  I know many other folk had similar experiences.

As I was reading about him this morning, I came across this amazing quote, which I think sums up an important Christian truth.

So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don’t have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know.

What amazing words!  As a minister I will undoubtedly use them going forward.  Thank you Marcus Borg for all that you have given me and Christ’s church.

Peace,

+Chris.