Irene Oudyk-Suk Obituary

Over the past six months I have not written anything for my blog. This is because Irene, my spouse and  beloved, was diagnosed in late November, 2023 with glioblastoma, an incurable type of brain cancer. I have spent the past six months nursing Irene. This week, Irene died. Her obituary follows.

Irene Oudyk-Suk passed away peacefully by MAID* on Thursday, May 9, with family and friends gathered around at her lakeside patio.

 

Irene is survived by John, her loving husband of nearly 45 years, and her children, William (Gillian Kupakuwana-Suk) of Kingston and David (Kate Benham-Suk) of Oakland, CA. She loved her grandchildren and was deeply involved in their lives: Dela, Tapiwa, Benjamin, Phoebe, and Linden. She loved Dela’s mother, Mariya.

 

Irene is also survived by her brothers John and George. She was predeceased by her father, John Oudyk; her mother Diane Flim; her stepmother Alice Broenink; and her brother Richard.

 

Irene’s parents were post-war Dutch immigrants who settled in Whitby, Ontario. Irene received a B.Ed. from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and an MSW from the University of Michigan. 

 

Irene was intensely aware of what a great difference intentional, loving, emotionally rich and open childrearing can make. She poured much of her life into raising her boys, and then welcoming others into the shelter of her home and family.

 

For the past twenty years Irene owned a very successful couples and sex therapy practice, Couples In Step. As a therapist, retreat leader, colleague, and mentor Irene was always in demand. Irene changed many lives for the better.

 

Irene was always happily involved with the church communities she was a part of. In Grand Rapids, she was the first woman in the Christian Reformed Church to chair a Classis meeting of regional churches. After moving to Kingston, she often spoke of how much she missed Lawrence Park Community Church (United), “her,” church.

 

After her glioblastoma diagnosis, a “Farewell Irene,” service was held at Lawrence Park Community Church, on January 20, 2024. The recording can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfdud41Ttc8. The family will gather for a private interment ceremony at Fallis Cemetery, near Bethany, Ontario, this summer. 

*********

*MAID: Medical assistance in dying.

My Favorite Books for 2023: From Ancient Canaan to Galaxies Far Away

Here are ten of my favorite reads from 2023. They’ll take you from ancient Canaan to galaxy’s far away and long ago. Five of these books are fiction, and five are non-fiction. There is an emphasis on ancient religion in the latter—but ancient religion is fascinating, especially when many of us claim to still follow its “unchanging” truths in the present. Anyway, here’s my list.

Fiction

 

David Copperfield (Charles Dickens) and Demon Copperhead (Barbara Kingsolver). Irene and I listened to these two books on our winter drive from Kingston, Ontario to Florida and then California. Demon Copperhead was inspired by Dickens, so we listened to an abridged version of that first. And then Kingsolver’s book. 

Both were fantastic. The narrative voice in Demon Copperhead, in particular, is unforgettable. Demon is a character you will fall in love with as he falls in and out of trouble—but never drowns.

The Promise (Damon Gadget). I’ve read several books, both fiction and nonfiction, about South Africa this year, partly because I’m writing my own novel set there (be patient; it’s coming!). 

This one, full of the rusty sepia tones of my own ethnic and religious upbringing, was remarkable for . . . well, the promise and one person’s insistence that it mattered. Without making it the core of the story, this novel also illuminates the multiple realities of contemporary South Africa.

 

Americanah (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). So, you think moving from Nigeria to the West would be just the thing? Why? What really matters in life? Do we have it here? Among the topics Adichie explores are race (especially what it is to discover you’re black), class, education, poverty, corruption, and family. The heroine, Ifemelu, is especially lovely—smart but vulnerable. She’s always in search of love and connection in ways that are universal to us all. 

 

The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula Le Guin). Published over fifty years ago, this novel is still relevant to and insightful to for today’s sexual mores and politics. It’s especially pertinent when it comes to gender. But it transcends the narrow focus of on “issue,” to embrace many others, especially commitment and friendship. An interesting look at the cultural functions of shame and status as well. It’s a great adventure story as well, set in a far-away, icy world is beautifully described. I’m going to reread more of Le Guin’s books!

 

Leviathan Wakes (James Corey, an alias for two other guys). Well, it isn’t great literature; it’s a space opera. Science-fiction is my go-to escape place—I read about a dozen of these a year. This is a really good one. It’s also the basis for the hit television series, “The Expanse.” Corey is especially good at English. It isn’t high art, but it’s coherent and sometimes evocative. The writing is fine, the pacing is about right, and (surprising for lots of sci-fi) the characters jump off the page. This is the first in a series of about a dozen books. I’ve read four this past month!

Non-Fiction

 

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire (Caroline Elkins). I grew up with maps of the British Empire (“our” territory marked in pink) hanging in my classroom. The teacher described the Empire as a noble endeavor, a civilizing force, and a bulwark against pagan religions and “bad” European powers. In fact, the British Empire, like every Empire before or since, was a violent enterprise run for the profit of a very select few, always in the national interest and never in the interest of those ruled. Elkins manages to tell this story without becoming preachy. She has a light touch in spite of the massive amount of material that she covers. Her book is especially good on the Belfour Declaration and the many ways in which Britain played a major role in messing up the Middle East today. The book is worth reading for that reason alone.

 

The Origins of Judaism (Yonatan Adler). Adler makes the case that some of the characteristic practices of Torah-Judaism should have left archeological and literary evidence in the record if they were practiced. So, for example, if ancient Jews didn’t eat pork, we shouldn’t find pork bones in ancient Jewish settlements. (He did). Besides pork remains, Adler examines ancient Judea’s synagogues, other dietary remains, art, tefillin and so on to determine their history in ancient Israel’s life. He concludes that there is very little evidence in the archeological record for anything like Judaism defined as awareness of and respect for the Torah until the second century BC, during the Hasmonean era. Loved it. Clarity, depth of scholarship, wide research--it's all here.

Yahweh Before Israel (Daniel Fleming) and The Origin and Character of God (Theodore Lewis). There is a lot of ferment in contemporary studies of the history of ancient Judah, Israel, and Canaan. A lot of it centers on the question, “What is the history of contemporary Judaism’s Yahweh?”  

The emerging consensus is that he was a Canaanite god (maybe from the South, maybe from the foothills in the North-East) who was worshipped as one of many such gods. But sometime late in Judah’s monarchy, Yahweh was adopted as Judah’s “special” god (among the many others). And after the exile, this adoption slowly evolved into the monotheistic religions of today. Certainly not the Evangelical take! Companion books to Adler’s (see above). Compelling, probably right, and to the degree it is, the occasion to rethink modern monotheisms, including their plausibility, from the bottom up.

 

The Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution that Made Our Modern Religious World (Philip Jenkins). Jenkins is almost always gold. This examination of what we used to call the Inter-testamentary era is a fascinating look at the diverse movements, scriptures, and people who made both modern Judaism and Christianity, in all their current and past variants, what they are today. 

A bit dense at the beginning as he lays out his argument and main players, but it gets more and more interesting as the book winds to its end. I wish I had something like this to read while I was in seminary! We’ve come a long way since John Bright.

 

How God Becomes Real (T.M. Luhrman).  In the past, I've written articles for Christian Century, The Banner, and a Christianity Today blog that argued one cannot have a personal relationship with God or Jesus--at least not in the common grammatical sense of such words. We can't share a glass of wine, or phone or email God, and then expect a similar response. We can't go to a church and hear Jesus preach and then ask questions after. We can’t shake hands.

 

People responded to these articles not by arguing the logic, but by describing their experiences of a personal relationships with the divine. In this book, Luhrmann explains the social practices, the settings, the psychology, the spiritual kindling and attunement that allows people to put their trust in these experiences regardless of whether or not there really is a god in that relationship. 

Whether or not you think you can have a personal relationship with God or Jesus, describing that relationship from below, as Luhrman does, makes any pastor a wiser, more thoughtful spiritual leader.

 

Bonus Book (for Tweeners and Younger)

 

Space Boy (Stephen McCranie). I read this graphic novel aloud with my eight-year-old grandson. It's not anime, though influenced by it, I think. He loved it. 

I appreciated how it wasn't about battles and death. No rough language. It’s a story about a girl's emotions and trials as she tries to fit into earth culture after moving to earth from a galaxy far away. 

She misses her old friends. She is lonely. She wants to fit in. She meets people, makes her way, becomes aware of how her preconceptions about earth culture were wrong. She shows empathy for people who, like her, don't seem to fit in. 

 

The tension in the book is real, keeps you on the edge of your seat, but doesn't overwhelm. It's a great opportunity to talk with about issues of friendship, loneliness, beauty, adventure, and otherness. The drawings are well done--cartoonish with a realistic bent. If you want to talk with your Tween about stuff that matters, try this!

Nostalgia, Star Wars, and Even a Bit of Church

 

         Not long ago, while watching Rise of Skywalker, I wept. Not just a bit around the edges, but big tears rolled down my face. Even though I wasn’t sad, really. Or especially happy. Why?

 

         Was it the movie? Probably not. No one, even in a galaxy far away, is ever going to tell you that any of the nine Star Wars movies were high art. 

 

         Mind you, Rise of Skywalker had three Oscar nominations: Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. But besides not actually winning an Oscar, it certainly didn’t get any acting or drama nominations.

Rise of Skywalker Poster

         You probably know Rise of Skywalker’s plot, more or less, even if you didn’t see the movie. It is very nearly the same plot the other eight Star Wars movies had. In brief, the Resistance—the good guys and gals—is once again down on its luck and hiding. The evil Emperor Palpatine is back with a new fleet of planet destroyers. The last and most beautiful Jedi knight, Rey, is the chosen one to save the universe. And after several light sabre duels and gun battles; after jumping from one moving space ship to another and sailing a tiny boat across a raging sea; after dying and rising from the dead; Rey Palpatine—for it turns out that Rey is actually the evil emperor’s granddaughter—Rey Palpatine defeats the evil emperor and decides to change her name to Rey Skywalker (the good). The universe is saved. The end.

         Was it silly? Yes. Was it cartoonish? Absolutely. 

 

         And yet. I wept.

 

         Why the tears?

 

         Nostalgia. It just seized me, there, in front of my TV, and wouldn’t let me go. Nostalgia.

 

         I saw the first Star Wars movie in the summer of 1977. I was just 20 years old. I went with three other guys, a few days before we all hopped in a car and drove across Canada and back on ten dollars a day. I was so carefree back then. I wasn’t taking my studies seriously. I wasn’t thinking about the future or my dreams. I had a loving family that blessed my wanderlust. Life was good.

 

         But now, as I watched the last Star Wars movie and remembered the first long ago, I realized that of the four who went on that road trip, one of us—maybe two—has already died. I’ve lost track of them. So right off, sitting before my TV, I’m thinking both about how good life can be, and also about how brief and full of loss it can be. Most of you have been there.

 

         Nostalgia. It is lovely, but it hurts. Nostalgia is this sense of the past as something both lost and precious that informs our hopes for the future.

 

         Nostalgia is usually scorned because it is seen as a yearning for something that really never was and contempt for the present. Sort of like President Trump’s notion that America was great, once upon a time, in the long-ago past, but not now—or at least, not unless he is reelected. Nostalgia used to be scorned as a dreamy inability to face up to present reality by romantically inflating the past. 

 

         And there is some truth to this concern with nostalgia, because on the whole, the past was not always as wonderful as we imagine it was. In fact, on the whole, the past was pretty rough.

 

​         Not quite fifty years ago, mortgage rates were 18 percent and unemployment over 13 percent. The Vietnam war raged. Decade after decade, famines raged throughout the world. Not long ago most cancers could not be beaten, the cold war filled us with fear, labour strikes were regular occurrences, and acid rain had killed many of our lakes. Residential schools sundered children from parents and tribes. Looking a bit deeper into the past, infectious diseases were the number one killer, as many as twenty million people were starved to death by the Soviets in Ukraine, there was WWII, the Holocaust, slavery Jim Crow, and we lived, on average, twenty years less than we do now. 

 

         We should not idealize a past that never was.

 

         And yet, as with many things, there are two sides to this story. In fact, there is also a more personal, more positive aspect to Nostalgia.

 

         Contemporary Psychologists explain. For them, nostalgia is not a malady, but a powerful stimulant to feel optimistic about the future. What is past, even if lost, can fuel hope for the future. Constantine Sedikides recounts how concentration camp survivors often told stories to each other about past meals and gatherings. “This is what we did,” one survivor said. “We used our memories [of past feasts] to temporarily alter our perception of the state we were in. It was not a solution, but the temporary change in perception allowed you to persevere just a bit longer. And that could be crucial.” Nostalgia need not lead us down a rabbit hole of regret and anger. Nostalgia can encourage perseverance.

 

         Such nostalgia—let’s say, nostalgia around personal experiences, nostalgia at its best—may serve as an emotional anchor chain. Nostalgia may ground tomorrow’s challenging voyage in yesterday’s safe harbour, in good memories, in refuge and shelter, so that we can face what’s coming at us with hope for better times, and the energy to strive for them.

 

         Nostalgia, then—my tears at the Star Wars movie—need not be a sign of weakness, but a harbinger of tomorrow’s possibilities. Sure, nostalgia marks the loss of a past we can’t truly relive, but it may also serve as fuel for a life lived out of gratitude rather than bitterness; nostalgia is an invitation to more adventures rather than a decision to set down roots in the land of loss. 

 

         As usual, I tend to look at these memorable moments through the lens of my experience as a minister. Churches of every stripe—liberal ones first, though now the evangelicals are following hard on our heels—are struggling with membership decline and all of its attendant troubles. In my last, liberal, congregation, I sometimes heard people describe a Sunday school that years ago had two hundred kids or a sanctuary packed with five hundred adults. 

 

         That must have been nice. Those were the best of times and those kids and adults went on to help make Canada and the world what it is today. Amazing stuff, really. We should be thankful for those memories and those people.

 

         But what I’ve also heard, once or twice, is a longing for the past not balanced by hope for the future, as if this past is a reproach of the present, a criticism of what we have become. I have heard what I think of as a weaponized past that stands in judgement on what we could be for each other, a "make our churches great again," fighting words refrain.

 

         But I’m not for the weaponized past. At its best, nostalgia, as I said moments ago, is fuel for a life lived out of gratitude rather than bitterness. Memories that help us navigate the present in order to seize the future. Nostalgia is an invitation to adventure rather than inertia. Nostalgia is an invitation to carry on, hope for—work for—more and better and tomorrow.

 

         The churches I served were all safe, encouraging, holy places in times of trouble or uncertainty or change. And now,  our liberal churches are hidden treasures just waiting to be found and brought into the light again, so that the world will remember that Jesus’ example, courage, and vision are not now merely dim reminiscences, but a roadmap for tomorrow.

 

         For us, it’s very exciting. I could almost cry. Which I did. At the last Star Wars movie.

Church and Empire: A Deadly Dance

 

         I have a theory about one of the important root causes for the church’s amazing decline in the Europe and North America. It doesn’t explain everything, but it is probably a factor. But before I can get to my theory, I need to tell a difficult story that reaches from the far past to the present: the story of the British Empire.

 

         I've been reading "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire." It is a sad, Pulitzer-Prize-winning book that lays bare what most of us suspect: the only way to acquire and maintain empire is through extreme violence. Think Babylon, the Aztecs, Rome, and so, on. Empires are created through superior armed conflict and once won, are kept in line through the use of violence by the occupiers.

         The British Empire was no different, although it tried hard to bury this truth by promoting the myth of itself beneficent guide charged with "civilizing savages." Yet, the empire sucked its conquered lands dry of resources, and killed (through war or famine or other means) millions of people for the profit of rich Britons and their royals. Read the book for endless examples of this inhuman violence.

 

          Personally, I am most familiar with the British conquest of the independent Boer Republics at the turn of the last century in the so-called “Boer War,” which was actually fought on the backs and what should have been the territory of black Africans. I know of this war first hand since I had a relative (some generations removed!) who died fighting that war. During the Boer War, the British perfected their invention of concentration camps. After first burning their homes to the ground, the English piled Blacks, Boer women, and children onto wagons, brought them to camps, then intentionally starved them in unhygienic conditions. Tens of thousands of Boer women and children and black Africans died in those camps. The Nazis were impressed. 

 

         This war, by the way, was also Canada’s first foreign war. And as brave and patriotic as Canadian soldiers were, it was nevertheless an absolutely unjust war fought solely for the economic gain of the British Empire and especially its ruling class. At root, you see, the Boers, had discovered gold and diamonds in their republics, right next door to British Territory. And so, the British and their allies took it. For profit and because they could.

 

         I remember, from my primary schooling in Canada, classroom walls festooned with world maps marked by British Empire pink. Such a pretty color to remind us that the empire was benevolent. The Empire was educating its “savage,” and “uncivilized,” and “barbarian,” subjects. They were to be brought up to white, British standards, for which they would one day, so the story went, give the British thanks. Ironically, the British never admitted to actually accomplishing this goal anywhere except in its three white colonies! 

 

         We Christians, one and all, drank the myth up. The missionary and explorer David Livingston's famous rallying cry, "Christianity, commerce, and civilization," in defense of empire is typical. Think proselytization, residential schools, and the many ways Western culture has been  enforced as “the way.” And all the while the rich in Britain benefited most. 

 

         And it continues. This past week, King Charles sent his personal chaplain to the First Nation reservation of Tyendinaga, not far from my home, to celebrate the fact that the Mohawks exiled from the United States found shelter there during the American Revolutionary War (I live in Loyalist Township on Loyalist Parkway!). Even the last surviving student of the residential school that used to be there was on hand for the ceremony—why, I cannot imagine. No mention was made of how the First Nations were drawn into these European settler wars, and then abandoned and discriminated after, for hundreds of years.

 

         At the ceremony, the chaplain, Rev. Canon Paul Wright, (his official title is “sub-dean of the Chapel Royal” and “Deputy Clerk of the Closet," which sounds as hilariously impressive as his robes looked ostentatious) went on to note that the king would promote “faith, community, commonwealth, and environment.” After nearly two-hundred years, the royals are still echoing David Livingston. Here, the British church is sticking to the sickbed of British Royalty even while  the Empire’s sick follow-up, the Commonwealth, is in decline. Mentioning the environment is one of those nice, civilized things that just has to be said in this day and age, I suppose.

 

         But now the church decline theory. There is not much to it really. I think that the church's complicity with the whole Beneficent Empire myth, even now, is just another brick in the wall for its decline. As the colonies fought their revolutions all around the world; and as British citizens became more and more aware of the violence and coercion and pain that Empire caused, not to mention their own casualties; and as the scale of the church's absolute complicity in the Empire's horrors became more and more clear, people--consciously or not—rejected the church for its complicity. And they left it. After all, they could not leave Britain, unless it was for another “white,” country, probably equally complicit in empire, one way or another.

 

         The same disgust for national sins with which the churches were complicit contributed to similar church declines in all the major European colonial powers: the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France come especially to mind. 

 

         Felicité de La Mennais was a French-Revolution-era reformer, philosopher, and one-time priest before he himself left the church. He championed the separation of church and state. In doing so, he once remarked that the French Catholic church had lost three generations of believers because it allied itself with the French monarchy rather than the people. As a result of this alliance, he said, the people rejected the church, just as they violently rejected the monarchy, at least in France. People all around the world have often rightly projected their distaste and anger at the State by rejecting its ally, the church.

 

         So what do we modern-day Christians take from all this? Well, while it is fair—and important—for Christians, as citizens, to participate in the body politic just like everyone else, the church needs to go to great lengths not to identify itself with the coercive power of the state, and to refrain from drinking from the trough of any state’s (always short-term) approval or support. It’s a self-destructive behaviour.

Is Yahweh the God Who Never Was?

 

         Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never was. 

 

         That is, Yahweh wasn’t what I was brought up to believe or what I was taught in seminary. In this post I will explain why he never was and I will ask what that might mean for modern faith.

 

         What I learned as a child was that God appeared to Moses at a burning bush, and said his name was “Yahweh.” He had showed up earlier in the Bible, of course. But the people of Israel, stuck in slavery, had either forgotten God’s name, or forgotten God altogether. Moses was a new beginning.

William Blake: "The Ancient of Days." 1794

         What I learned in seminary was that there were several strands of oral and/or written tradition in the Old Testament (the JEDP theory) masterfully woven together by an editor or two. Be that as it may, the stories found in the Old Testament—perhaps with the exception of Genesis 1-11—pretty much happened as recorded. This was so because the Bible was thought to be God’s inspired, infallible word.

 

         What I’ve learned since then is that there are many clues within scripture itself, and some others from archeological studies, that suggest the Old Testament contains very little of what we would call history, and nothing like a straightforward revelation of who Yahweh (or El, one of God’s other many names) is.

 

         Contemporary scholars believe that for most of Israel’s history, right up to Judah’s exile in 597 BC, Yahweh was one of several God’s worshipped in the temple, albeit he was also conceived of as Israel’s personal, national God. He had a consort, too, the goddess Asherah, whose statue was also found in the temples of Jerusalem and Samaria.

 

         These same scholars argue about when and how Israel and Judah settled on Yahweh as their national God, an equal to the national Gods of the surrounding nations. Some (perhaps most) think that Yahweh was a tribal God for people in the South—Midianites, Edomites, or Kennites. Others think that Yahweh is the Israelite name given to Israel’s version of Baal, the storm God. 

 

         The view that the Israelites worshipped many Gods for most of their history, but they finally adopted one of them as their favorite “national” God is called monolatry. When both Israel and Judah went into exile, their temples in Samaria and Jerusalem destroyed, religious leaders looked for a way to explain things. The did so by anchoring Israel’s religious beliefs not in a place—the temple—but in a book, the law. The story of how the law came to be is the near final edit of all the Bible’s material--now usually called the Deuteronomist source. This edit shaped much of the Hebrew Bible to agree with the new view, although discerning readers can find many traces of the older, monolatrous views in scripture as well.

 

         The move of Israel’s religious and ethnic self-understanding to the law allowed the Hebrew Bible’s final editors to argue that it was Israel’s purported refusal to keep the law that resulted in the one and only God Yahweh to use foreigners such as the Babylonians and Assyrians to punish Israel. God could do so because he actually was the one and only and almighty God.

 

         In this short space I cannot make a detailed defense of these sort of claims. However, at the end of this post, I’ve listed a half dozen great resources that explain this scholarship in depth.

 

         I think, though, that Evangelicals who hold to the inspiration of scripture, and its basic factual correctness, have to stop dealing with modern scholarship by hiding behind this doctrine as a way of avoiding or rejecting such scholarship. It is shocking how few evangelical journals even review this sort of contemporary scholarship. I think that if Evangelicals want to argue for something like divine inspiration, they will have to show that such inspiration is still plausible given what we now know about both scriptures and Israel’s history.

 

         The deeper question that all this raises for me, however, is this. Given that we can recreate the story of how Judaism evolved from following many gods to a monolatrous to a monotheistic religion over the course of six or seven hundred years, can we really know anything about who Yahweh really is, if he or she is at all?

 

         Perhaps not. Perhaps all we can say is what an interesting story this is—like the Atrahasis Epic, or the Gilgamesh Epic, or the Beowulf epic are interesting.

 

         Or, we might say that what really matters here is how the values and hopes and dreams of Israel shaped the story which in turn still shapes Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These values continue to play a critical role in our present time.

 

         Or, we might say that whatever the history of how Yahweh came to be the (related but quite different) Gods of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, what really matters is that Yahweh somehow shaped that evolution, so that where the Bible ends up is the picture an actual Yahweh wants us to invest in. Some versions of this view are labeled “progressive revelation.” 

 

         Personally, on most days, I am a theist. But the truth is, we—or Buddhists or Muslims or Animists—we all get about as much about God as we get about the algorithms that shape our web searches. Whoever or whatever God is, he or she or it is hard to find. 

 

         After all, as Isaiah puts it, “Truly, you are a God who hides himself” (45:15).

 

Bibliography: Robert Bellah, “Religion in Human Evolution.” James Kugel, “The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times.” Jurgen van Oorschot and Markus Witte (Eds), “The Origins of Yahwism.” Thomas Römer, “The Invention of God;” Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, “The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture.” Franceseca Stavrakopoulou, “God: An Anatomy.” Karel Vander Toorn, “Scribal Culture.” 

 

            Just over two years ago, just before Covid, I found myself weeping in a theatre. The movie, The Rise of Skywalker, was part of the Star Wars franchise. 

            Why the tears? The movie, was not, after all, high art. It’s a cartoon drawn with live actors and full of especially silly effects.

Luke, Leia, and Han!

            A bit of background. The Rise of Skywalker’s plot is much the same as that of every Star Wars movie. The Resistance—good guys and gals—is once again down on its luck and hiding. The evil Emperor Palpatine is back with a new fleet of planet destroyers. The last and most beautiful Jedi knight, Rey, is the chosen one to save the universe. After several light-saber duels and gun battles; after jumping from one moving space ship to another; after sailing a tiny boat across a raging sea; after dying and rising from the dead; Rey Palpatine—for it turns out that she is the evil emperor’s granddaughter—Rey Palpatine defeats the evil emperor and decides to change her name to Rey Skywalker (the good). The universe is saved. The end.

            Silly? Yes. Cartoonish? Absolutely. 

            And yet. watching a The Rise of Skywalker matinee at Yorkdale theatre in Toronto, I wept. Not just a bit around the edges, but big tears rolled down my face. Why?

            Nostalgia. I saw the first Star Wars movie in the summer of 1977. I was 20. I went with three other guys, days before we all hopped in a car and drove across Canada and back on ten dollars a day. I was so carefree back then. I wasn’t taking my studies seriously. I had an uncomplicated relationship with church and faith that fed me. I wasn’t thinking about the future or my dreams. I had a loving family. Life was good.

            But now, as I watched the latest Star Wars movie and remembered the first, I realized that of the four of us who went on that road trip, two have already died untimely deaths. So right off, sitting in that theatre, I’m thinking both about how good life can be, but also how brief and full of loss it can be. You know. Several family members have died. My church and faith life have become hugely problematic. And all of it choked me up.

            We’ve come a way since the Psalmist said we might live to be seventy—or eighty if our strength endured. Many of us will actually live to 90 or even 100. Still, I won’t live forever, and my life, like yours, is now full of cares and concerns, as well as joys and satisfaction, that I could not have imaged when I was 20. Watching Rise of Skywalker triggered memories of my first Star Wars movie and homesickness for carefree times. Those were the days, my friends. 

            Once, a few years ago, before my tears, I wrote a sermon critical of nostalgia. I said that nostalgia has a sweet aroma, but we too often weaponize it. For example, we may unrealistically remember the past as nothing but a time of surpassing blessing and think less of the present by way of comparison. This sort of nostalgia that inspires slogans like, “Make America Great Again.” But if you think about it, “great” like when? When Ronald Reagan was president? But his campaign slogan was also “Make America Great Again.” So great like when? Like the pre-civil-rights era? Great like the Great Depression? Great like during the slavery or reconstruction eras? Great like when Sir John A. McDonald and other Fathers of Confederation conspired to cultural – and physical -- genocide by setting up Residential Schools and using hunger as a political tool?

           Nostalgia can also be weaponized by using true memories to beat on the present. This happens in churches, a lot. Why don’t we have two hundred kids in Sunday School anymore? Why is church empty compared to thirty years ago? Why is there so much strife and anger in our denomination compared to when I was a kid? 

            But nostalgia doesn’t have to be weaponized. As with other human emotions, nostalgia can also build us up. Nostalgia can inform our hopes and dreams for the future, even if we’re in trouble now. 

           

            Constantine Sedikides recounts how concentration camp sustained themselves by telling stories about past meals and gatherings, before the Nazis came. “This is what we did,” one survivor said. “We used our memories to temporarily alter our perception of the state we were in. It was not a solution, but the temporary change in perception allowed you to persevere just a bit longer. And that could be crucial.” Nostalgia insists on emotionally monetizing the past, even when it wasn’t perfect.

            Nostalgia, then—tears at a Star Wars movie—doesn’t have to be a sign of weakness. On that day nostalgia was mostly a harbinger for tomorrow’s possibilities. There will be more road trips, more friends, more loving family, and more carefree days—along with disappointments, too.

            But I will face these disappointments with gratitude rather than bitterness. Nostalgia’s sweetness—in spite of difficult memories mixed in—is an invitation to new adventures rather than a setting down one’s roots in the land of loss. 

            It’s very exciting. I could almost cry. Which I did. At the Star Wars movie.

The Invention of Israel's--and Our--Gods

 

            How many gods have graced human history? Probably many tens of thousands—perhaps even millions. From Marduk to Mars, Thor to Thoth, Bastet to Baal, and El to YHWH, the list is endless. Inventing gods is a uniquely, nearly universal, human activity.

 

            But why would I include El and YHWH on this list? After all, most Christians, Jews and Muslims would say that thinking of god as an “invention” is blasphemy. We believe our god, the god of Abraham, is the one and only, the compassionate and almighty, eternal and omniscient, and so on and so forth god of the universe and all that is beyond it, too. Really.

 

            Still, given the sheer multitude of gods humans have adored (read Neil Gaiman’s novel, American Gods for a fun take on this, and on what happens to gods who lose their audiences) isn’t it sheer hubris to think that we finally got it right? Did YHWH actually reveal himself to Adam and Noah and Moses? Did scripture objectively capture these theophanies? Did YHWH also reveal himself, later, via dreams and visions, to the prophets? Did the one god of the universe pour himself and his (always his) truth into scripture, and then into a man named Jesus? 

 

YHWH's Divine Council

           Most people will answer such questions based on what they were taught in Sunday school or hymns they sang in church. For years, I answered such questions based on the narrow but intense education I received in seminary. Scholars who suggested different truths were either ignored or panned. Everyone—whether persons of faith or not—answers questions about who god is based on their presuppositions. Presuppositions, after all, save a lot of time by winnowing and narrowing the evidence one has to consider to answer such questions.

 

            Nevertheless, over time, my presuppositions have been challenged and my theological paradigm has been overturned. I now doubt the Bible is an accurate historical record of anything that happened in the Old Testament. 

 

            Well, just for example, what sort of a god would use two bears to kill 42 young boys (or perhaps they were young men), just because they teased a prophet (2 Kings 2:23-25)? Did that really happen? Would you worship such a god if it did happen? 

 

            Why did god command Moses to kill 3,000 Israelites for worshipping a golden calf (Exodus 32)? It was, on their part, an honest mistake, given Moses’ absence and Aaron’s leadership. Or why did god send an angel of death to kill 70,000 Israelites just because their king counted the fighting men? 

 

            And these examples don’t even get us to a flood which is supposed to have killed off pretty much the whole human race and 99.9 percent (or more) of earth’s animals too. Where is the justice in such acts of god? The compassion? The kindness? And if such passages are to be explained not as history, but rather, as a bit of imaginative flourish by an unknown author or editor or scribe—well, what does that say about the rest of scripture’s dependability as a historical record? How can orthodox scholars defend this sort of god? 

 

            Why, if god is a spirit, does he so often appear as a human to people in the Old Testament, much as Zeus or Thor are often described? How is it that god is sometimes surrounded by a council of other divine beings (for example, Psalm 82, 89, 1 Kings 22)?

 

            Why, if the Israelites are god’s chosen people does he allow the Assyrians and Babylonians to destroy them? No freedom of religion for god’s people? But isn’t such freedom a universal human right? Wouldn’t a real god have known that? And, why should the Israelites stick with such a jealous god, anyway?

 

            Is there a better explanation for the Biblical god than that offered by orthodox evangelical scholars? I think so.

 

            Most contemporary (but not evangelical) scholars of ancient Near-Eastern religion believe that ideas about who or what the god of Abraham is all about have a history, and that history is partly visible in the mixed-bag picture of god in the Old Testament. In short, that history goes something like this—although there are scholarly variations on the details. Once upon a time—well over 3,000 years ago—a tribal people who lived south of present-day Israel (or perhaps closer, actually in Palestine) worshipped a storm god who went by the name of (or a variation of the name of) YHWH. 

 

            Certain tribes of Palestinian people—what would become Judah and Israel—worshipped this god along with others: Asherah, Baal, El, and so on. Everyone in what would become Judah and Israel worshipped and made images of these gods, putting these idols in high places and temples and even homes. Some of the stories they told each other about these many gods, including YWHW, had broad similarities to the mythic stories of neighboring ancient Near-Eastern peoples. At some point, for reasons that are disputed, the identities of YHWH and EL began to merge, although both names for God still appear in what Christians usually call the Old Testament.

 

            And, over time the relative importance of YHWH increased, especially in the North, where most of the Old Testament prophets worked. Though he was still seen as one among many gods, YHWH was also seen as a god who had a special place in his heart for Israel. This god also had a consort, Asherah, whose image, along with Baal’s and perhaps others, graced temples in both Jerusalem and Samaria throughout most of their histories.

 

            After the Assyrian defeat of the Northern kingdom, southern King Josiah undertook a reform of Judahite worship in order to centralize the cult in Jerusalem. He cleared the temple of gods other than YHWH, and perhaps even destroyed images of YHWH at this time. His scribes pulled together the many strands of oral and written myth and legend that existed at that time and began the job of editing it all from a monotheistic point of view. An early version of Deuteronomy, Moses’ farewell speech, was written at this time. 

 

            After Judah was also defeated and exiled, the remaining religious leaders—priests and scribes weeping by Babylon’s rivers—continued to refine the notion of YHWH. He was seen now not only as Israel’s god, but the god of the conquerors too—and by extension, the one and only god of the universe. This one, universal god was said to have used the conquerors to punish Israel for her sins. These religious leaders invented Israelite monotheism more or less as we know it. And the religious leaders of that time bequeathed this new, mono-, almighty god to Israel forever after. And eventually to Christians and Muslims, too.

 

            So, it turns out that the god of Abraham—the god Christians worship—has a history. This history explains Biblical texts that are mythic or contradictory—such texts come from different strands of memory, and so from different times, when people had different ideas and stories. Historically, the god of post-exile Israel was not always the one and only. 

 

            Does this reality undercut the claim that the god of scripture really is the sort of god the monotheistic religions of the world say he (or she) is?

 

            I think so. Seriously so.

 

            It has not been easy for me to come to this conclusion. It removes me from easy theological agreement with the Christian communities I love. It disorients me with respect to the shape of my own faith. It erases the easy back and forth I have enjoyed with many of my Christian friends. It makes me question the worth of my years of leadership in both evangelical and liberal denominations.

 

            So, what’s next for me, faith-wise? I don’t know. I still want to belong to a community of people who search for deeper spiritual and philosophic meaning. I love being part of a community that is focused on meaning and on social justice for neighbours both near and far. But communities that not only allow for, but invite, a wide range of serious religious flavors are rare. I’m searching. Wish me luck or providence, as the case might be, for you! 

 

            And stay tuned as I explore different possibilitities.

 

Post Script

 

            Interested in exploring this history of god more deeply, yourself? Here’s a top-six list of books that have influenced me. Although all of them are specialist books, any dedicated reader can manage them!

 

Thomas Römer, The Invention of God. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, 2015. (A very readable history of the idea of god in ancient Judah and Israel).

 

Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter. Translated by Peter Lewis. The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture. Cambridge. Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2021. (Great background read on the history of the Bible, which should be read in conjunction with Van Der Toorn’s book, below).

 

Karel Van Der Toorn. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, 2007. (Somebody had to edit the Old Testament to combine the many strands of tradition, oral or written, that existed in Israel five- or six-hundred years before the birth of Jesus. This is their story.)

 

Robert Bellah. Religion in Human Evolution. From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age. Cambridge. Belknap Press of Harvard UP. 2011. (The notion of an axial age is disputed, even if there was a remarkable convergence of religious developments around the world from about 800 BCE to 200 BCE. Still, Bellah’s summary of what happened in Israel, written as it is by a scholar who is not a specialist in OT history or language, makes it very accessible.) 

 

James Kugel & Ellen Geiger. The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times. New York. Houghten, Miflin, Harcourt. 2017. (Kugel is a great scholar who has had a long career. This is likely his last book, and though he is less radical than Römer and others, it is a great introduction to the literary world of the Old Testament.)

 

Francesca Stavrakopoulou. God: An Anatomy. New York. Knopf Publishing Group. 2022. (A tour de force. An intense reminder of how our presuppositions about scripture can lead us to miss some of its—and god’s—most obvious features. In this case, it is the fact that throughout the early history of YHWH, he was conceived of as having a body, not unlike Zeus or Thor. The evidence of this permeates the Old Testament.)