Agnostics Anonymous Or Finding God By Embracing Suffering And Doubt

Hello my name is Chris and I'm an agnostic. I've looked at the proofs for and against the existence of God and I am under whelmed. Sure, if you have committed to one side or the other they can make you feel good about your decision but the reason loads of people are not flocking to one side or the other is that they are just not that compelling.

In the second temple period (Jesus time) Jews and Christians might have argued about where you could find God. For the Jewish people opposed to Jesus the one place God was guaranteed to be was in the heart of the temple, behind a huge curtain. For Christians (all Jewish) the place God was, was with Jesus. Yet, at the end of Mark's gospel the curtain in the temple is ripped in two and there is nothing behind the curtain. Jesus is on the cross, at his greatest point of greatest need, and after calling out "my God my God why have you forsaken me" there is no response and no reply. They are simply Jesus very last words in the gospel.

All Jewish people wanted their suffering at the hands of the Romans to end. The Pharisees hoped that compliance (and compromise) with Rome would end the suffering. The revolutionaries hoped that there might be some kind of Maccabean style uprising to end the suffering. Jesus followers, I'm guessing, were hoping for an expansion of Jesus healings and miracles that would somehow result in a takeover of Roman power and an end of suffering. None of these occur. Instead Jesus resolutely embraces an ultimate suffering in his death and he no longer believes God is with him. Despite feeling called to the cross he is now abandoned, swamped in doubt.

Having witnessed all this, despite having initially run away the disciples are inspired to emulate Jesus, give away all their money, give up their security and for most suffer execution. Sure the empty tomb helped them change their minds but, for many of the most confident Christians today (myself most included) our response to Jesus death and the empty tomb is to squirrel ourselves away in suburbia, put on a few Christians CDs and wait till we grow old and die hoping we get in to heaven. Hoping that even though the sinners prayer appears nowhere in scripture that praying this as a teenager was all that the call to follow Jesus could amount to. What if to follow Jesus, to pick up our crosses and follow means to follow Jesus in to both doubt and suffering?

Like Job and many of the prophets before him, for Jesus to be faithful to his call meant that he would go into a pit of suffering, despair and doubt. As they let go of all they thought God was they moved into suffering into confusion and into doubt. It is only when their actions trump their beliefs that they meet God face to face. I suspect this was true for Mother Teresa who faced dark nights of the soul, doubted the existence of God but carried on with her call, pushed through the suffering through the doubt and despair and again found God. Chuck Palahniuk writes in Fight Club, "you have to give up", "it's only after we've have lost everything that we are free to do anything".

I cannot help think that at the moment Martin Luther King declared he had a dream, but that he may not get there (aware very powerful people wanted him dead) he would of experienced doubt. A "God why have you forsaken me" moment. Oscar Romero when he declared "they can kill a bishop“ would have experienced the same. But above their belief in God they had a call, a call about what it means to be human, to live life to the full, what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and they followed this. 

To follow Jesus is to embrace love which which will lead to suffering, which will lead doubt. When we have given up all the comforts all the riches all the soft options that life has to offer and all that we have left is suffering born out of love that is when we will cry "My God my God why have you forsaken me" and in that moment, that is where, having followed Jesus, we will meet God.

My name is Chris I am an agnostic but I have a call, a call about what it means to be human, to really live, to experience life at its richest. That call is to follow Jesus. My hope and my faith is that one day by loving as Jesus did I will no longer be agnostic.

Kevin Rudd: The Man Who Should Have Been An Activist

Lots has been said about Kevin Rudd in the last couple of months. Some have reflected on his Xy and seen it as not much more than a political stunt originally to take the "Xn vote" away from John Howard. And, that Kevin's true, less than Xn, self came out in the way he unfairly dealt with people. I think something less conniving was going on. I think Kevin Rudd was a man of principles (probably not all that I would agree with) and passion and, in the world of slow moving politics that passion is easily corrupted. I think it might have been Tony Blair who once lamented that even though he was Prime Minister he still didn't have the power to get done the things he wanted to get done. I suspect Kevin Rudd found himself in a similar position and pushed himself and those around him to follow his own agenda - which I'm sure might have changed as quickly as it does for any of us. It was a recipe for burnout, clashes and eventually mutiny. For all that his apology to the stolen generation and avoiding of the GFC (albeit on excellent advice from treasury) should be remembered as two great moments.

I think Kevin Rudd just made the wrong career choice. I think he should have been an activist not a politician. Activists create the space for politicians to make the right decisions (Ched Myers). With his passion and the way he could wrap the media around his finger he would be great at raising awareness and creating the space for politicians to make the right decisions.

Giving Up Theological Certainty For Lent

I was asked by someone at church if I was giving up anything for lent. I said "no". Saying I'm giving up "theological certainty" just made me sound like a complete tosser. Which probably isn't too far from the truth.

Christians from the fundamentalist variety through to the liberal variety all tend to make statements with great certainty about what God is like and how God acts in the world. For 40 days (plus Sundays) I've decided to look at my own certainties and the certainties of others and say "maybe", "perhaps" or "I don't know". My life has become for all intents and purposes agnostic.

For all this I doubt anyone around me would have noticed. I've still prayed, still read the Bible, still gave money to people in need and have not binged on sex, drugs and rock n' roll. With all the theological uncertainty in the world I am still asking myself, "What does it mean to be human?" and, "How best might I live?" In answering these questions I still find myself turning to the Xn story.

Maybe when talking about our faith to others it might be worth ditching the theology, trying to convince people of what we believe about God, sin and death and stick to the material reality of how we live and why we turn to the Xn story to inform that?

Valley Songs: Reverend Vince Anderson

Every so often I make the mistake of thinking that my Valley Songs collection is a closed cannon. Then right under my nose I discovered the Reverend Vince Anderson. I say right under my nose because I've been listening to the Revolution sermon podcasts for the last year or so and Vince is the co-pastor and occasional sermon giver there. He's quite talented at the sermon thing so my assumption was his music wouldn't be all that great. I was wrong. Watch this...

Pretty friggin awesome right? and his sermons are great too. Listen to this Sermon by Vince about Exorcism.

Although I decided to start The Filthy Jesus Experiment before discovering Vince I am now even more inspired. He describes his music as "dirty gospel".

My other favourite YouTube video of his is a cover of Johnny Cash's "Water in to Wine" I love Johnny Cash but was never a fan of this song. Now, thanks to Vince, I am.

You can hear Vince talk about his music here an interview on Heritage Radio.

If you search through the Valley Songs Pages on the side bar of this blog you will find the lyrics and chords for these two songs.

Christus Victor - Alternative to Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Usually I don't just copy and paste other peoples stuff. But, Tony Jones wrote such a great summary of Christus Victor, an alternative understanding of the Atonement, I've reposted it below. You can read it on his blog here.

In 1930, a relatively unknown Swedish bishop and theologian revived an understanding of the atonement that had largely been forgotten for 1,000 years. Gustaf Aulén’s book, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Atonement was translated into English the next year, and it’s stayed in print ever since.

The Christus Victor model, Aulén argues, was the predominant theory for the first millennium of the church, and it was held by the majority of the church fathers whom we still revere. Along came Anselm and changed the game — for reasons I’ve written about before and will discuss in an upcoming post — and CV was relegated to history’s rubbish bin. Until Aulén.

Today, CV has had something of a resurgence. ;) That’s been led by Greg Boyd – who’s personal brand was called, until recently, Christus Victor Ministries — and others.

CV falls under a broader umbrella called the Ransom Theory. In this understanding, the original sin of Adam and Eve placed all of humanity under subjugation to Satan. Christ, the second person of the Trinity, came to Earth and died, giving his life as a ransom for many.

At this point, CV may sound like the penal substitution model that many of us grew up with. But that’s where Aulén said we’re wrong. The early church did not understand the death of Christ as paying a penalty in some transactional sense that only God’s son could pay. The crucifixion is not, in that sense, cosmically necessary to reconcile God and humanity.

Instead, Christ’s death is God’s victory over sin and death. God conquers death by fully entering into it. God conquers Satan by using the very means employed by the Evil One.

Thus, the crucifixion is not a necessary transaction to appease a wrathful and justice-demanding deity, but an act of divine love.

God entered fully into the bondage of death, turned it inside out by making it a moment of victory, and thereby liberates humanity to live lives of love without the fear of death.

It’s a beautiful thing, the crucifixion, in this view. And, for those of us who are robustly trinitarian, it maintains an egalitarian view of the Trinity — one in which the Son and Spirit are not junior partners in the atonement.