Christian Theology: The Cross

I continue this series of posts on Christian theological reflection with an entry on the meaning of the cross. Admittedly, these gestures reflect an inchoate effort at translating traditional Christian symbolics into a language more familiar to my Unitarian Universalist parlance. This dialogical engagement is of utmost importance, I believe. Not only does Christian rhetoric claim significant currency in our culture, but the Living Tradition traces its rich heritage in and through Christianity's winding legacy.

As for the cross:

1) The Cross as Exposure: despite the darkness that covered Golgotha (Matthew 27:45), the crucifixion-event served as a form of illumination. In this way, it was God dwelling in the dark clouds (1 Kings 8:12). The cross cast a spotlight back on the world of violence that nailed Jesus to those beams. It exposed the raw hatred, power-fetishes and brutality simmering below the facade of empire. It pierced the Real and, in so doing, demonstrated the contingency of the Symbolic (Zizek) - the radical possibility of egalitarian re-configuration. Rosemary Reuther refers to this process as the unmasking of idols and proclamation of the good news of "abundant life in loving mutuality."


2) The Cross as Verdict: rejecting Jesus' invitation to conversion into solidarity with the downtrodden, the political and religious authorities cast their verdict. The antagonists in this violent drama should not be overlooked. In this way, the oppositional "verdict of the Father" (Barth), as signified by the resurrection, calls those who encounter the living Christ to similarly oppose the politics of empire and dehumanizing orthodoxy of calcified institutional religion in our time. "The cross means human beings rejecting human beings," C.S. Song writes. This is true. But we, as religious enthusiasts with an eye on current events, must not forget that the perpetrators were those alleging political treason and religious blasphemy.


3) The Cross as Mystery: the most haunting scene of the crucifixion narrative undoubtedly centers on Jesus' desperate cry for God's presence amidst isolation and estrangement. This scene tempers the well-intentioned tendency to view the Calvary story as a triumphalist cosmic victory over evil. As Rosemary Reuther intuits, the horizontal evils plaguing human history are often cast aside amidst enthusiastic fervor surrounding the vertical action of the "god-man" satisfying God's supposed wrath. We cannot succumb to this interpretive temptation. Rather, the disturbing absence of God during periods of the crucifixion-event testifies to God's mysterious and unknowable nature. On the one hand, "God means to put an end to all the crosses of history" (Boff). On the other, we must neither romanticize suffering nor arrogantly claim secret insight into God's will. At the end of the day, "God cannot be owned" (Countryman).


Print this post

Christian Theology: The Human

I offer some cursory reflections that bubbled up from the Christian theology course I am currently taking at EDS:

Lactantius once wrote: “since humanity is the image of God…the strongest bond which unites us is humanity.” This perspective tempers, I believe, the misreading of stewardship in terms of exploitation. Rather, redemption involves bringing the image of God to its fulfillment despite the reality of sin - and doing so together.

On questions of theodicy, I am inclined to preference the analogy of sin as a power which holds us captive (much like evil in Greek tragic theater) over and against viewing sin as a hereditary disease or guilt passed down from generation to generation. In this way, I am skeptical of Pelagius’ overly generous faith in humanity’s good works, while similarly cautious not to allow the human mind to crumble under the weight of Augustinian pessimism. Here, I appreciate Delores Williams’ characterization of sin as estrangement from the source of one’s Being, which in the womanist context maps onto a loss of identity and, by extension, connection. Tying the notions of imago Dei and sin together, I arrive at Migliore’s stopgap: “Being created in the image of God is not a state or condition but a movement with a goal.”

It is through grace, then, that we hold fast to, and walk with God (concursus Dei) towards, the promise of pleroma – sharing in the fullness of God’s life in community, in restored and faithful relationship, with oneself, with others, with nature and God. Or, as C.S. Song puts it, “Our world expands!”

Print this post

Faith in the Play of Life

I have long since wrestled with the Hindu notion of "lila" (play) as a description of divine action in the world. The idea of Shiva sporadically indwelling in human-like form to playfully and teasingly court a devotee, before unexpectedly disappearing back into the divine realm, both intrigues and troubles me. In some ways, the description seems apt. Despite our rigorous attempts at taming and controlling the natural world, humanity remains a helpless bystander of raging hurricanes and shifting teutonic plates. The awe-fulness of the Holy never fails to stunt our feeble efforts at domesticating nature's raw force - Kali, the Dark Mother, always slips through our clasped fists. At the same time, I want to believe that we as humans participate in, from time to time even co-direct, this game. Much as Radha's love for Krishna sustains the deity's existence, so too we are the hands of God. Is there not a certain reciprocity, a mutual dependence, an intimate relationality?

One of my favorite verses in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib reads: "Naked we come, and naked we go; in between, we put on a show" (1238). Life exhibits a playful quality - if you watch humanity long enough, you have to laugh at our bizarre eccentricities, our foolishnesses, our absurdities. And yet, life also contains a sense of spectacle. Moments of grace that take our breath away. Moments of disgust at the violence and hatred and bigotry.

In today's shabad, we are exhorted to witness and praise the "wondrous play of the Lord" (SGGS 407). I am inclined to suggest that faith, that audacious act of fides, rests precisely on our trusting in such divine lila.


Print this post

Winter Chalice Lighting

Again the earth shifts;
Again the nights grow long and the days short;
Again snows lace the frigid earth with blankets of chalk
And waves crash under the soft glow of darkening skies.
In this season of flickering shadows and cooling breezes
People all over the world celebrate the faithfulness of God
To distill creation out of chaos
Month after month,
Season after season,
Year after year.
Let this fragile flame be our prayer of boundless gratitude.


Print this post

Season of Light

As the days grow shorter, the wind gains its frigid bite and thick blankets of snow quarantine frenzied holiday preparations to overcrowded living rooms, many people of faith turn to light as the radiating balm of new hope and regeneration. We light menorahs and kinaras. We string garlands of light on pine trees. "Light has come into the world," we proclaim. And we must not forget that the light we invite into the world shines brighter on account of nature's ongoing dance with shadows.

In this season of illumination, we are called not only to welcome the light, but to embody it. Guru Nanak tells us: "Amongst all is the Light-You are that Light. By this Illumination, that Light is radiant within all" (SGGS 13). The light of God flickers deep within our souls, and this season demands that we kindle that spark through empathy, compassion and the great peace of a softly glowing flame.

When we live into this light, we learn to see the old shadows with new eyes. Universalist minister Hosea Ballou puts it this way: "The action of light in the natural world is not to create objects for us to see, but to manifest those objects of which we are ignorant, or which are hidden from us by reason of darkness." By moving into Love, we illumine the love that sits patiently, expectantly, within each and every heart. We participate in Emerson's "eternal revelation" and reaffirm our faith that "God is, not was; that he speaketh, not spake."

Peace is palpable. People emit quietude. Sitting next to a person with a quiet soul stills our wandering mind and centers our whole being. So too with tenderness. So too with attentiveness. So too with light.

May we take time this holiday season to offer ourselves to the Light. May we, as the Sri Guru Granth Sahib describes it, rejoice in the human "lamp-lit worship service" of life, celebrating those passing moments of unexpected grace that keep the candelabrum burning for yet another day.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.


Print this post

On Our Principles

In her recent UU World reflection, Meg Barnhouse exhorts Unitarian Universalists to approach the Seven Principles in a more concrete, embodied way. Try attaching “beginning in our homes and congregations” to each line, she commends practitioners. Extending her own advice, she finally arrives at the following observation: "If I start with my own heart, the demands of our Principles get even heavier. Peace and compassion in my heart? Justice too? Freedom as well?"

It is often easier and, hence, more enchanting to treat the Principles as abstractions, as lofty ideals. I admire Barnhouse's desire to re-focus our attention on the immanent and urgent messiness of being-in-the-world. Interestingly, her intuition that the demands of justice begin in "my own heart" resonates with Francis Greenwood Peabody's compelling assertion that "the individual and the kingdom grow together." For Peabody, Jesus addresses the individual in an attempt to reanimate the social: "The kingdom is to come, answers Jesus, not by outward force or social organization or apocalyptic dream, but by the progressive sanctification of individual human souls." Martin Buber shares this orientation as well: Political uprisings “are futile and bound to be self-destructive so long as a new structure of genuinely communal human life is not born out of the soul’s renewal."

It is no accident, thus, that the Seven Principles begin with the individual and conclude with the collective. As Peabody suggests: "the social order is not a product of mechanism but of personality, and that personality fulfils itself only in the social order."


Print this post

What Would Unitarian Universalists Tweet?

I'm currently working on a project that addresses issues in online ministerial identity. One section of the paper discusses the Twitterverse - which led to the following question: what would a 140 character UU elevator speech look like?

I warmly welcome your thoughts and responses - please, be as creative as you like!