The Offensive Christ

One of the things I've always wondered about Christianity and its interaction with the postmodern Western world is why Christianity seems to be so offensive to people, as opposed to other religions. Now, one reason is likely that because the postmodern Western world owes its existence to Christianity, probably some of the offense comes from the reaction of troubled off-spring to a parent that they find odiously embarrassing (I can't claim that analogy; it springs from the mind of one of Regent's professors [also an international economist!], Paul Williams).

But another one of my professors, Craig Gay, in his book The Way of the (Modern) World Or, Why It's Tempting to Live as if God Doesn't Exist suggests the following:
"...It is not particularly surprising to find that the Christian understanding of God's personal self-revelation in Christ - particularly as expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity - has proven offensive to modern post-Christian sensibilities. After all, Christian understanding intensifies what Kierkegaard termed 'the earnestness of existence' by quite clearly placing us in a position of having to respond to God's call. We would much rather not have been placed in this position, and in an attempt to evade our 'response-ability,' modern post-Christian thought has sought to debunk the suggestion that God could possibly have gotten so close to us as to be able to call us into personal relationship with himself."

As people living in the modern post-Christian world, we generally want to be responsible for our own self-definition, and we do not want to be held, as Gay terms it, "response-able" to God's definition for us. Modern post-Christians (as we are) are suspicious of anything that looks like it is going to take from us the freedom we believe that we need and deserve for defining ourselves. This supposed freedom to self-define results, however, in a state of anxiety that is peculiar to this age of Western society. We are anxious to be able to define ourselves for we feel constantly that our self-definition is slipping away. We are terribly afraid that if we can't make our own meanings, then we will lose ourselves. Yet our ability to make our own meaning is so tenuous and ill-grounded (for if there is no ultimate meaning in which to ground personal meaning, then how does one know that one is defining oneself effectively?) that we are constantly needing to redefine and re-establish ourselves.

To all appearances, the God of Christianity looks like an autocrat who will force a definition on our selves that we would much rather not have, we think. We will have our freedoms (to choose our own behaviour, perhaps?) taken away from us. So, we attempt to reject the God of the Bible, we attempt to argue away the possibilities of the Trinity, of revelation, of the incarnation (i.e. who was Jesus, anyway? probably just a man with some good ideas).

Gay says, "For while God's call to us in Christ opens up the possibility of true personal existence, it also calls for our decision and so leaves open the possibility that we might refuse the invitation, indeed, that we might go our own way and try to establish ourselves in some other fashion."

Generally in our world, we have gone the way of establishing ourselves in some other fashion. And when the God who suggests that this fashion is unhealthy, unfulfilled (and don't we always feel that we are unfulfilled in our own self-definitions), and incomplete, asks us to respond to Him, we attempt to argue Him out of existence.

So perhaps that's why Jesus seems to be particularly offensive to the modern mind. I really have often wondered. But I think that it's because when we offer a relationship with Jesus to the modern person, we are offering a relationship that calls for response, and that is something that the modern person doesn't want to have (they think). I wish that I had some way to communicate to people that this relationship with Jesus really isn't one that will usurp your right to self-definition, or, rather, that the right to self-definition isn't something that you would want anyway.

I don't know how organised all these thoughts were, but there they are. Please respond! :-)

Maybe those Daoists were on to something...

Ah, I am very far behind in my world religions study. It is the only reading-based course that doesn't require some kind of written response or summary, so its readings are sacrificed for the greater good. Or something.

I am currently playing catch-up, which isn't easy when the subject matter is the writings of the Daoists of China. China is far too ancient a nation. Their people had way too much time to come up with complicated ideas that I need to read in a hurry. They also contradict themselves too often. Can somebody pass me the Daoism for Dummies? What do you mean that would be a contradiction in terms??

Anyway, one of Daoisms major tenets is the idea of non-action (wu-wei). Non-action is not what it sounds like in that poor English translation. It's more like...doing by not doing. Haha, that clarified things for you, didn't it? Feel my pain.

The point is that striving to get what you want is only going to make life harder than it needs to be for you. To quote the Tao Te Ching, "He who stands on tiptoe is not steady; he who strides cannot maintain the pace." So, maybe in pushing myself to read 40 pages of Daoist writings today, I am "striding" instead of...strolling? Maybe a stroll through the writings is what I need. Dang, I should have thought of that before I skipped the world religions reading to put more time into my iconoclasm paper...

So, that's my life today. Interspersed with abstract Chinese thought (not just Daoism...I also read 40 pages of Confucianism as well...) was an attempt to figure out how and when we are getting to Galiano Island next week (yay!) and how to get rid of the infuriating little flies in my house plant.

10 things I learned today

1. The flies in my plant are not flies, but fungus gnats.
2. Galiano Island is between Vancouver Island and the mainland.
3. Houseplants should not be potted in plastic pots, especially if you live in a ridiculously moist climate like this one (people from the southern US are now allowed to laugh at that comment about the moist climate).
4. John Duns Scotus was, despite being the source of the word "dunce," actually a very smart man.
5. My father just completed his convocation from Royal Military College after nearly 40 years of military service and an undisclosed amount of life experience. Go Dad!
6. Most people over-water their house plants (so I don't have to feel bad that I sometimes forget to water them...)
7. The Chinese are an ancient and utterly mesmerizing people.
8. I would make a better Confucianist than I would a Daoist (let's face it: I try too hard to be a good Daoist, and I actually LIKE set social roles).
9. Some people cure their plants of fungus gnats by introducing carnivorous plants into the household.
10. The real Dracula's daddy was an illustrious member of the Order of the Dragon, an order of holy knights dedicated to keeping Islam out of Eastern Europe. Vlad the Impaler's father was called Dracul, which means dragon. Dracula means "little dragon."

Have a great weekend (but don't try too hard...)

Violence Against Women

It might be something of a cop-out to post a link to someone else's blog as my own blog, but I was so struck with the insight of this particular posting that I needed to pass it on to as many people as possible.

What's in a name?

Why did I choose the name "At the Well" for my blog? Well, it's not a particularly deep story, to begin with. The simple fact is that the original name I was going to choose, "At His Feet," was already taken. I had intended to use that name to reference Luke 10:38-42, the story of Mary and Martha. In this story, Martha invites Jesus into her home where she lives with her sister. While Martha is making (dinner?) preparations, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to him teach. Martha gets a little annoyed at Mary's seeming indolence and calls out to Jesus, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" (Luke 10:40, TNIV). Jesus replies, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed -- or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:41, TNIV). It will not be taken away from her.

Although this Scripture has often been taken as juxtaposing the active life of service against the contemplative life of meditation, I prefer to take the interpretation that many scholars have been suggesting in recent years, that this story of Mary and Martha is a way for the Lord to communicate the new place for women in the Kingdom -- at His feet. That is, women have been accepted as disciples, students, of the Lord, and it will not be taken away from them. So, as a theological student, these are words of great hope for me.

Okay, but that wasn't the name that I was able to choose for my blog. So, I looked for another story of a woman coming in contact with Jesus. This story I found in John 4:1-42, and it is the story of the Samaritan woman. In this story, Jesus is travelling through Samaria (a pretty big deal, since Jews didn't really have anything to do with the Samaritans most of the time), when he stops at Jacob's well. A woman comes along, and Jesus asks for a drink. Now, there's a lot of stuff I could tell you about the situation here, about how the woman was not nice and how we know that not only from what Jesus says to her but also because she's coming to get water in the middle of the day instead of first thing in the morning with all the nice ladies. But I'll save that detail for another day. For me, the key verse is this: "Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, 'What do you want?' or 'Why are you talking with her?' " (John 4:27 TNIV) I guess the disciples were catching on by now...sort of.

But I think it's important to note that the disciples were surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman. I think a lot of Jesus' disciples today are surprised to find Jesus talking with a woman! It is in this context that I am entering into theological studies...a woman, maybe not with the sordid past that the Samaritan woman had, but a woman nonetheless.

I'll pick apart this passage some more from time to time on here, when I can't think of anything else to post (like that's going to happen...I am at Regent College, after all).

The other amazing thing about the name of this blog is this: I chose this name quite a long time ago. It was before I had applied to Regent, while I was still in the midst of my third and final audio correspondence course with them. But when I finally got to Regent, I made a very wonderful discovery. In the Regent bookstore is a little coffeeshop. The name of this coffeeshop is...The Well.

How perfect is that?

Let this Scripture close my blog for today:
Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:13-14 TNIV)