Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

If we acknowledge that the metaphor of sin as rebellion and God as "Just Judge" is limited and of use in describing both sin and God's way of dealing with it in limited circumstances then we must wonder what other metaphors may be used to describe these things. In Eastern Christianity a very common set of metaphors is to describe sin as a disease which infects the human condition and to think of God in all of the persons as The Great Physician who heals the afflicted and brings wellness and wholeness to those who are sick. This picture of sin and God is derived mainly from Matthew 12:9-13 and offers a compelling metaphor as it comes from the mouth of Jesus itself.

When developed theologically, sin becomes an affliction or disease that affects all of humankind. In the West, it is the sin itself that infects us all while in the East it is the heightened desire to sin the we contract from Adam and Eve and their choices in the Garden. In either case, God is seen as the Physician who comes in to heal all those who seek his aid. As with all untreated disease, the end product of sin is death. God comes to restore wholeness to all who desire it. The passage in John 5 that relates the story of Jesus healing the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda is an example of this. When Jesus asks the man a question, He asks him, "Do you want to be whole?" (Contrary to most translations which translate the passage as "Do you want to be well?" or "Do you want to walk again?") When the man is made well but then denies any responsibility for being healed of his lameness on the Sabbath, Jesus finds him and tells him to stop sinning or worse things will happen than being lame. In this we see that Jesus seeks to do more than just help the guy walk; He wants to make him whole again.

As another example, when Jesus describes the person of the Holy Spirit as streams of living water, He calls forth the life-giving, healing and cleaning properties of running water as a curative to the thirst that keeps one from eternal life. A Jewish reader of this passage would have clearly seen the symbolism of running water as a source of cleanliness and healing. Several passages in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament say that God withholds water due to the sinfulness of the nation of Israel and that He uses water to both save the people and heal the land.

What is interesting is the sense I have that over the last twenty of thirty years, this metaphor, once in more common usage in the mainstream, more liturgical churches in America (as evidenced in songbooks, calls to worship and scholarly commentaries), has slowly fallen out of favor for the more juridical model discussed previously. I think that this is really unfortunate. John Burke is his book, No Prefect People Allowed, suggests that the two issues facing emerging, postmodern generations are addiction and sexual brokenness. Addiction in our culture is usually described as a disease which allows for the use of a "God as Great Physician" model in a very natural way. In addition, such a metaphor leads to the drawing in of and opening up to God to deal with sin rather than Him being separate, distant and judgmental. For this reason, I think it may be time for the North American Church to re-examine and re-energize this particular metaphor. Healing and wholeness are both processes rather than events and thus the metaphor also works well with a model of spiritual formation that focuses on deification or growing closer to God through a lifelong practice of spiritual disciplines. They work well with the idea that our growing more like God does not rely on a single event (justification) but that sin is dealt with through time as a process (sanctification).

For those reading this, I would ask you to consider what it might mean to view others as struggling with a disease rather than looking at them as rebels or criminals. The "Just Judge" model leads one to think of others not as fellow travelers on the journey of faith but as transgressors against it or highway robbers along the trail. Shifting the ground by shifting the metaphor leads to seeing others as battling a hideous sort of cancer that only the best Doctor can treat. The idea then becomes one of helping someone "get an appointment" and supporting them as they try to get better. As a culture we're very good at this sort of relational approach to dealing with real disease (though we still struggle with applying this to addiction) and I think it would help the Church to reach out so much more effectively.

Thanks for Reading. More to Come on this topic.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Sunday, October 19, 2008

As promised, this is a follow-up to my previous post on the metaphors for sin and God found in Scripture that we commonly use to help us understand how to view both. As I mentioned in that entry, I feel that there are at least four commonly used metaphors in Christian literature but the conversation in evangelical Christianity here in North America tends to be dominated by one of those metaphors; that of sin as either rebellion or crime against the kingdom of God and God as the "Just Judge" who passes sentence on those who are sinners.

The Scriptural support for this view is found in several places in the Bible, most prominently in the Psalms in the Hebrew Testament and in Romans, and to a lesser degree in Hebrews and Galatians, in the New Testament. In my discussion here I'd like to focus on the metaphor as expressed by the apostle Paul to the church in Rome. Many commentators have noted that the language Paul uses in discussing sin and the process God has in dealing with it is very technical. It is loaded with specifically judicial words from Greek that any citizen of the city of Rome, the seat of the greatest empire of the time, would have been familiar. Much like Washington, D.C. now, Rome was filled with law and policy makers from all over the Empire. While the Romans weren't always known as the most artistically creative people ever, they are notable for their abilities to administrate, legislate and engineer. This led to a society that placed a lot of emphasis in good law making and good law enforcement which led to a very strong judicial system. So, when Paul writes to the church in Rome he chooses to use a metaphor with which they will be familiar to describe how God deals with sin. In this metaphor, he describes sin as an infraction against the kingdom of God (either as a crime or, more seriously, a rebellion). He explains very clearly that the sentence for this infraction is death (which was always the Roman penalty for rebellion). In the dealing with this sin, God is described as the adjucant or judge; the One who will decide whether rebellion has taken place and what the sentence will be by an examination of the evidence. If the rebel is found to be innocent, not only is a verdict of innocent registered but the very accusation that a crime has ever occurred is removed from the defendant's "record". The way in an innocent verdict is arrived at is through the intervention on behalf of the rebel by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who vouches that He knows the defendant that that the accused is "with Him", as it were.

This is expanded upon by the church in the West through the inclusion of other Scriptures to produce a fully judicial model wherein the defendant (you and me) will stand before the Judge on the "last days". At the prosecutor's table will be the Accuser or Adversary whom we usually refer to as Satan. As our side will be the Paraclete, which is the name given to the Holy Spirit by Christ at the Last Supper as recorded by the apostle John. In the Roman legal system the defendant had to conduct their own defense but could have someone to stand beside them to offer counsel, advice, support and comfort. In this court the Accuser will offer up to the Judge all of the ways in which the defendant has committed crimes against the realm. He will exhort the defendant to admit to the guilt of his or her actions and to accept the punishment of death for the rebellion they have lived out. The Advocate will stand beside the accused and counsel them to confess their rebellion and beg for the court's mercy, unwarranted though it may be. The Judge will then call but one Witness, the Lamb, to speak. The One will speak and either say that He knows the defendant and that He has taken upon HImself all of the guilt for their crimes or He will say that He knew them not. On the basis of this testimony the Judge will render His verdict.

I think Paul uses this metaphor not only because the church in Rome and it's descendants will understand it in the context of those things that were important in their culture but because it offered great hope. The time at which Paul wrote was a time of great political and judicial instability. For those who still followed the old Romans gods, they had to admit that Jupiter and the gang were a pretty capricious bunch. As one writer said, the gods were more like superpowered humans than some sort of moral force upon which to found an ethical system. They lied, cheated, had sex, fought wars and much, much more for reasons that had more to do with their own egos than any higher purpose. In his metaphor, Paul was offering a God that ruled according to just principles and the higher ethic of love. In addition, the Roman judicial system was often compromised by corruption and the machinations of the three immoral and increasingly erratic emperors; Caligula, Claudius and Nero. In describing God as a Just Judge, Paul was, in essence, telling the people of Rome that while true justice might not be attainable in this world, the One, True God would see that justice was done in the hereafter.

This is a powerful metaphor for an oppressed, minority church struggling to survive persecution and terror brought about by a system hostile to its existence. I believe that this metaphor still has a great deal of resonance in America in reaching out to the disadvantaged or to those who are locked out from social or economic justice. Many African-American spirituals sing of a God who is just and good and who will judge fairly. In addition, in third world countries where justice can be bought and sold and where right is determined by the people who have accumulated the most power, a metaphor of God who is above such manipulation is one of astounding hope.

The difficulty with the metaphor, especially when it is the only one offered, is that it can present a significantly distorted picture of God. In this picture, God sits far away from creation and humanity on some great and royal throne. His purpose becomes only that of pronouncing judgment while the other aspects of the Christian message are placed on the persons of either the Son or the Spirit. With that assignment, Christianity can become a faith of judgment rather than love and of division and separation instead of inclusion and unification. For those who have not suffered oppression from any place but a church that struggles with judgment this is a very difficult picture to accept. There is a real contradiction between the messages of "God so loved the world that He sent His Son to save and redeem it" and "God is a righteous judge that will send you to eternal damnation if you don't have the right relationship with Him." In a postmodern society which questions whether anyone, including God, has the authority to pronounce such judgment it is clear that a different metaphor is needed in order to reach out to those seeking to escape the emptiness of a culture that sets each person up as their own authority with no accountability to anyone or anything and that offers nothing beyond the titillations of the here and now. What is also clear is that this metaphor must offer things which the "Just Judge" metaphor does not; things such as unification, wholeness and rescue. In my next post I'll begin to speak to just such metaphors.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Saturday, October 18, 2008

In the Christian group for which I am the faculty sponsor there is a discussion that seems to arise every year regarding God and how He deals with sin. The specifics of this conversation change from year to year but one of the things that these students seem to want to do is to understand the theology of redemption beyond a mere "Jesus died for my sins" level. While such an understand is correct insofar as it goes, it doesn't offer much in the way of dealing with the often complex issues and situations that college students encounter.

This year, the conversation began in a conversation about whether we should remember our sins or not. My colleague in leading these studies, Gary, is Orthodox and much of the writing of the early church fathers on this topic indicates that perhaps it is better that we remember our sins as a way of reinforcing our humility before a holy God. Some of the students who came from an evangelical mindset found this particularly challenging as they've always been taught that since God has forgiven their sins and remembers them no more then they should endeavor to do the same. The great thing that happened is that we managed to avoid the occasional east/west impasse that develops in the conversation. I was able to do this by understanding that while east and west often times use the same words, they can have different meanings or implications. In this case, Gary meant that we should remember that we are prone to sin and use as evidence of that fact our past actions and present tendencies. What a couple of the students heard was that we should remember our guilt associated with that sin due to the Western emphasis of the association of guilt with sin. What ensued was a great discussion of how we can remember our sin even as we acknowledge that God has dealt with and removed the guilt. I think it was a real eye-opening insight for the students and for us as leaders to understand that while the traditions of the East and West often use the same language, we sometimes have very different understands of the words. This is especially true once you move to North American evangelical Christianity with it's roots coming out of so many different theological traditions.

The more interesting thing that this led to for me was a discussion Gary and I had about the metaphors we use as a faith to describe how sin gets described and how God deals with it. As an aside, I have to say that Gary and I end up having one or two of these sorts of extended dialogues a semester regarding Christianity and I have found it to be one of the most rewarding conversations I've ever had. What emerged in my mind from this specific part of the conversation is that Scripture holds within it several metaphors to describe both sin and how God deals with it. In the West, especially in the tradition of Protestantism, we have focused on one of these metaphors (almost exclusively within some faith traditions) while neglecting the others. There are good reasons for this but as Gary and I considered and compared views from the East the West it got me to thinking very deeply about how such metaphors inform not only how we deal with our own sin and it's affect on our relationship with God but also how we deal with and treat others who are struggling with these things.

The specific metaphors for sin that I've found to date are sin as rebellion, sin as illness, sin as a wandering away from God and sin as brokenness. Another metaphor that I've used is that of poison but I'm not sure I've found much Scriptural support for that metaphor beyond a few references to snakes. The corresponding metaphors for how God deals with sin are God as "Just Judge", God as "The Great Physician", God as "The Good Shepherd" and God as the repairer of the divisions. I'm sure that there are more metaphors than just these, I just haven't found them as of yet. The unfortunate thing I think is that here in North America there's a really strong tendency to focus on just one of these and then claim that anyone who doesn't see it the same way is somehow changing the meaning of Scripture or teaching untruths.

A better way to look at this, I think, is that each of these pictures are metaphors for God stated in terms that humans can understand. Each of them is true as far as the metaphor goes but they aren't exclusive to the other metaphors. In some ways the rebellion/Just Judge metaphor is true and in other ways the illness/Great Physician one is. Neither of them completely describes or explains God because no description, metaphorical or otherwise, in finite human language can describe an infinite God or our relationship with Him. What's important to understand is that whatever metaphor we use, it affects how we look at and treat others. Thus it's important for us to understand this topic through as many metaphors as we can.

I'll discuss each other metaphors as I see them in later blogs but this is a good start.

Thanks for reading and Grace and Peace to you.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Friday, October 17, 2008

I may have written this before but at the risk of repeating myself I have to talk about assessment for just a minute. One of the things that I've realized in my long years as a college professor is that while educators may say that assessment comes in basically two forms, summative and formative; there is really a third type of assessment: behavioral. The main reason I give roughly weekly quizzes in my classes is not because I want to assess what they know at a point in time or because I want the quiz to help them learn a new skill or piece of knowledge but rather because I want to them to keep up in the class. The assumption is that if I give quizzes every week, the students, not wanting to do poorly on them, will keep up with the work and studying in the class.

What this means is that I'm using a relatively minor assessment to drive the big thing I want to change, namely the students' behavior. The quizzes become the tail that wags the dog of behavior (using a metaphor often used to describe the escalation of response to Serbian nationalist killing the Archduke of Austria in 1914). A colleague of mine and I often refer to giving a quiz as "Wagging the Dog". Usually this is a pretty effective technique for modifying the typical student behavior of waiting until the last minute to study for the bigger exams in the class.

Not so much in one of my physics classes this semester. I gave a quiz today and the number of answers that showed that almost no preparation had been done was pretty high for a sophomore level course full of students who have said that they'd like to enter professional careers somewhere down the line. Most of those students who did poorly have also managed to miss at least one class period a week for each of the last three weeks which certainly is a contributing factor to their cluelessness. Again, usually the fear of doing poorly on the weekly quiz over the previous week's material at least motivates them to come to class but not some of this group.

Not to be a curmudgeon or a cynic (or that old guy that says everything's going to hell in a handbasket) but it really seems that there's this increasingly pervasive attitude among many students that a college education is an entitlement. Usually students who have this ailment of thought don't make it to my class as they are washed out in their earlier coursework. However, this semester I seem to have gotten a group of students whose really strong natural talent has allowed them to get through much of their first year coursework with sufficient grades to allow them to make it into my course. Unfortunately, most of these students have ignored the lower than hoped for grades in the two courses that are the best predictors of success in my class, Precalculus and Chemistry II, and so have not learned the lessons necessary to be successful here.

Unfortunately, the last day to withdraw from the class without penalty has come and gone.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Well, in spite of my best intentions, the cycling season has come to an end. Unfortunately, that means I won't be racing the state TT championship. Before anyone gets too concerned, I haven't gotten injured or anything but I can tell that if I continue to try and push to extend the season I will endanger next season pretty seriously. I tried to stave off this occurrence by taking a week off a couple of weeks ago but when I came back it was pretty clear that my body wasn't having any of it. As I tried to ride with effort during the week I could get my heart rate to a good place but I was worn out after 45 minutes and I was suffering from a lot of post ride muscle pain. Add to that the fact that I can't seem to get enough sleep and I've had a couple of episodes of slight vertigo I see all the signs of overtraining. If I try to push for another two weeks I can see that I might push my body way over the edge or make a big training mistake and injury myself. So, it's three weeks off the bike and into some low intensity, low impact stuff. It's also time to go on a diet to make sure I don't put on a bunch of weight and maybe I can lose some without having to worry about negatively affecting my training.

I have a good plan for the time off. I'll do yoga/Pilates work three days a week to develop core strength and flexibility and on three days I'll do some light weightlifting to prep by joints for some heavier work in late October. I'll probably add some swimming to the mix to keep the aerobic systems active and to help rebalance by nervous system from mostly lower body to a full body state. I'm hoping that the pool work will also help me to work on breathing in rhythm for time trialing next year. It's weird how everything is planned in my mind for the three week "off season" to make for a better next season. I really want to take a biger step up next year. I'm tried of being a great time trialist and then not seeing anything for it in many of the stage races. I think that with some coaching I can develop enough of a burst that I can be threat to win road races that have any sort of selective section. It's all going to be in the training I do from January through March that's at or above my Lactate Threshold that develops my VO2Max system more fully.

I'm amazed at how much I've learned about racing and training this year. The high point of the season has to be the Tour of Atlanta and my second place finish in my first race for the Security Bank team. That's the other really great aspect of the season. For the first time I'm riding for a team that actually rides as a team. To work with Robert, Ron, Bill and Doug to get an excellent set of results has been fantastic. I really believe we've been the best team in 4/5 in the state. We've managed to start changing the culture of negative racing in the cat 4 group thats plagued racing in Georgia for a long time. That's a hugely positive development and I think next year will be a much more wide open season because of it. Add to that the fact that we've moved Doug and Jake into higher categories and have something that's looking like a good small Cat 3 team and I think we have a lot to be proud of. We won every team time trial in our division including the state championship and took a first and second in the ToA.

Looking forward to next year I'm not sure if we'll all try to race Masters class (and get our butts kicked around for a while) or if we'll try to move more guys up but I'm game for whatever it is. For me, I'll do a better job of managing my season so that I don't end up digging myself a hole in late May and early June and then spend the rest of the year fighting to stay out of it. I think the new Georgia Cup schedule with a big break in the summer will really allow me to work hard in the spring, take the good break and rest in the summer and then finish a lot stronger in the fall. I'll definitely restructure my training and see if I can breakthrough in '09.

As I write this I'm witnessing some thing I never thought I'd see. By beating Auburn, Vanderbilt is in first place in the SEC East division ahead of Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. I remember the days when Vandy was the doormat of the SEC East and now they're leading it. They still have to play Florida and Georgia but 5-0 is an amazing thing. Nice to see the geeks doing well.

Thanks for reading and I'll update a little later in the week.

The Physicist   Link Me    |