My Agnosticism: Longing and Thirst

 

         In 2012 I interviewed for the position of minister at Lawrence Park Community Church (LPCC). Along the way one of the search committee members asked me if I believed in God. Belief in God had become a talking point at LPCC since the previous minister had been a post-theist. That is, he thought that at a minimum God’s time in the church was up, and that this was a good thing. He leaned to thinking there was no God at all.

         I answered the committee that I wasn’t really sure.

         LPCC hired me. I served that congregation for nine years—the richest years of my career. It was a big-tent church. We were made up of people who liked the community but maybe not orthodoxy tests, people who did and didn’t believe in God, and people who just were not sure. We tried to think of theology as a playground rather than a battlefield. We tried, together, to figure out what a good life was, how we might live such a life, and how we might spread our privilege around by doing good works and seeking justice. All of us were impressed by the example of Jesus.

         And I was their minister. When pressed—and sometimes when not—I admitted to my congregants that I did not know whether or not there was a God. I was agnostic.

         What did that mean? Well, ironically, the person who best summed the matter up for me was someone trying to explain his (mostly) Christian and (partly) Jewish faith—the New York Times columnist David Brooks. He described what William James called moments of “an ineffable joy and exultation,” numinous experiences in the mountains, and on subway trains, that ultimately convinced him that there was a God. (See “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be.” Dec. 22, 2024). 

         I have not had such experiences, something that I have written about in my book, Not Sure: A Pastor’s Journey from Faith to Doubt, and in articles published in Christian Century and other journals. I do not doubt that Brooks was deeply moved by such experiences to change his ideas about faith. But I can’t personally identify with them myself, in spite of having sought them for years at silent retreats, through searching of scripture, in worship, and by practicing spiritual disciplines such as prayer and fasting. 

         So, over all, I do not identify with Brooks’ personal story. However, along the way, Brooks makes one claim that resonated with me. “The most surprising thing I’ve learned since then is that ‘faith’ is the wrong word for faith as I experience it. The word ‘faith’ implies possession of something, whereas I experience faith as a yearning for something beautiful that I can sense but not fully grasp. For me faith is more about longing and thirsting than knowing and possessing.”

         And that is exactly what agnosticism is for me—that longing and thirsting to understand what I cannot fully grasp—love, or beauty, or the meaning of life. But whereas Brooks a turns to religion as the explanation for what he cannot grasp, I have learned that what is just beyond the rim our understanding is mostly what scientists are working on, with quite a bit of success.  There is no God of the gaps, no God of the numinous, for me. 

         From here on, however, as much as I respect Brooks, I think he gets faith, spirituality and religion mostly wrong. He quotes Rabbi David Wolpe, who denigrates spirituality and celebrates religion: “Spirituality is an emotion. Religion is an obligation. Spirituality soothes. Religion mobilizes. Spirituality is satisfied with itself. Religion is dissatisfied with the world.” 

         Such broad generalizations not grounded in evidence. Spirituality is an emotion? So what? Are emotions somehow less valuable or beneficial than religious obligations? Do emotions require less work to understand and integrate into your life? And is spirituality just an emotion? Is it not far more complex, emotions being just one facet? And as for religion being obligation, yes, we’ve all heard of Calvinistic or Fundamentalistic legalism, of women’s so-called obligation to obey their husbands, or gays’ obligation to never love. Remember Julian Barnes’ warning. “Religion tends to authoritarianism as capitalism tends to monopoly.” Sure, religion is obligation, but the obligations are often horribly misplaced. 

         To continue, does spirituality merely soothe while religion mobilizes? Do not both religion and spirituality both sometimes soothe, or sometimes not? To suggest soothing is bad, or that it belongs primarily to spirituality but not religion, or that spirituality can’t mobilize while religion can—well, all of these ideas are just silly and not borne out by experience. And as long as we’re talking mobilization and religion, let’s not forget the Evangelicals and MAGA and Christian nationalism, or the Southern Baptists and Presbyterians and slavery, or the role religion has played in harassing gay people, women, or promoting the worst kinds of colonial empire building. And all these are just for starters. Mobilization can be good or bad.

         And why would anyone say that spirituality is merely a matter of self-satisfaction? Again, this is a claim without any justification, and self-evidently false if you think about it. Whether Ghandi or Einstein, Seimone Weil or my one-time neighbour, Sarah . . . there are plenty of spiritual people who are not satisfied with the status quo, who seek justice, who engage in (sometimes at great personal cost) uncomfortable and self-sacrificial acts. And yes, religious people are often dissatisfied with the world, which might explain the crusades, or 100-year religious wars in Europe, or the inquisition, or the persecution of Jews (who have always been scapegoats for all sorts of worldly dissatisfactions). 

         So, what of Brooks’ former agnosticism? I will not claim that it is the best option or only option. But for me, personally, agnosticism baptizes my longing to know more, to seek out strange new truths and let go of unconvincing myths. In most religious people’s eyes, agnosticism might make for a poor spirituality and religion both. But it is what I’ve got.

I suppose, at this point, I could write a tome about how matters such as the evolution of the God Yawheh from an ancient tribal God to the one and only God of the universe, in Judaism left me doubting that this is the one and only God. (For more on this, see the Aug 18 and Oct 15, 2022 posts in this blog.) Or, I could explain why the problem of evil leaves me doubting that possibility of a good God. And there is even a little part of me that argues I should go back and reread some of Nick Wolterstorff’s or Alvin Plantinga’s books. I admired them a great deal, so shouldn’t I give them another chance? And then there is my personal agnosticism abyss—the many joys and comforts I have foregone now that I have left behind not only God, but the church I grew up in, its community, and my place in it. Changing one’s mind isn’t always easy or cozy.

As a half-way measure, by way of avoiding agnosticism, I’ve even tried on different kinds of Christian religion, ones that would give me room to embrace God while not being tied down to some narrow dogmatic confession about who this God is or what the actual truth about this God is. I went from mainline theologians like Douglas John Hall or Walter Pannenberg to more radical theologians such as Richard Kearny, John Caputo, or Catherine Keller. However, I found much in their works to be so complex, so full of “just so” arguments when it came to unique descriptions of God, as to be both unappealing and unconvincing.

In the end, I was reminded of something Malcom Muggeridge once said. "One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we've developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God, they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse; they believe in anything." Perhaps so, at least sometimes. But in light of a fantastic variety of Christian sects and radical theologians, it is worth asking why Muggeridge didn’t think Christians are the credulous who will believe anything. Now, my old religion seems to me to be much like a very impressive cell phone without reception. It was always in airplane mode, if you will. The infrastructure, coding, icons, and algorithms and are all there, but there is no signal to enliven it all.

Ultimately, agnosticism is a refusal to be credulous. It is an attempt to keep an open and searching mind. Agnosticism is not doubt, which, after all, belongs to faith. Agnostics simply admit a truth they may not much like, namely that they, even after much effort, do not know. I am agnostic.

          This is not decision by indecision. It is, rather, the difficult decision to admit to one’s own limitations. My agnosticism creates a longing and thirst to explore life’s mysteries rather than a belief that I can know and can possess ultimate truth.

My Five (or Maybe Six, or Seven) Best Reads from 2024

 

Make sure to read the big reveal about my book at the end of this post!
 
I read many fewer books in 2024 than I usually do. This was on account of my wife’s illness with glioblastoma, and her death in May. I didn’t read a single book that entire six-month period. Since then, slowly at first, but eventually often, and with pleasure, I began to read again. Here—from my shorter than usual 2024 list are five of my favorites from 2024, rather than the ten I usually offer. Though I couldn’t help but sneak a few more in on the fringes.
 
ONE: I’ve been reading and rereading many books about the history of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and about the history of Judaism and monotheism. I’ve come to the conclusion—widely shared in scholarly circles—that although monotheism is written “back” into the Hebrew Bible, it was actually a late invention. While monotheism might have been a minority view at the time Judah went into exile, it did not win broad support until just before or during the Hasmonean era.
 Last year Yonatan Adler’s The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal, made my list, and I would still recommend it as a must read for all ministers and interested lay people. I read it again in 2024 just for the pleasure of it.
 
I also reread Jurgen van Oorschot and Markus Witte (eds) The Origins of Yahwism. It brings together many scholars, each with a slightly different take on where and when Yahweh became a god (one among many) in Israel’s orbit. But all the scholars agree that somewhere along the line, a tribal god became Israel’s special God, and eventually the seed out of which Jewish monotheism evolved. Even though both books were 2024 rereads, they were still two of the two most engaging books I read this year. 

TWO: Science fiction is my go-to, get-away-from-it-all, escape reading. I’ve enjoyed Jame’s Corey’s Expanse series, though after about five books I tired of it. Now Corey comes out with a new series, titled “The Captive’s War.” The first book, The Mercy of Gods, was fabulous. Great character development, great plotting, and even some Hebrew Bible memes related especially to exile. Very intelligent. 
I have a runner up in this category. Riley August’s The Last Gifts of the Universe, is a lively, often silly, fun take on staring down an apocalypse. You will encounter spaceships and ancient artifacts, a dark, dark enemy and a very nice cat. This book doesn't take itself too seriously, doesn't engage in tons of speculative description of tech or engage in long, boring descriptions of battles. And yet . . . the end is coming. 

THREE: My kids buy me books sometimes. Usually, I think they do so in order to expand my reading beyond my favorite niches. The last such book was Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby. It wasn’t really a fun read—the subculture Peters describes definitely has its “downs,” along with its highs. But it was a compelling story, well-told, and it invited me to see things from something other than my cis-liberal comfort zone.

FOUR: My fourth book is Dave Warnock’s Childish Things: A Memoir. Warnock details his life as a minister in a very conservative evangelical church. He also explains why he eventually left the ministry and lost his faith. I liked this one for the insight it gave me about a kind of evangelicalism I had little experience with as an evangelical minister myself. In fact, it was very difficult for me to identify with nearly anything in Warnock’s tradition—including the fact that he became a minister without any formal training. However, Warnock’s struggles with faith, with a God who could but does not answer prayers, with children enmeshed in toxic churches, and with abusive ministers—all of it was fascinating and illuminating.

 
FIVE: Finally, are looking for a book about something that you never thought much about? Perhaps a book full of fascinating insights about a time long ago? Try Richard Manning’s, Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization. It is a review of the layered and complex interaction between Hunter-Gatherer cultures and Agricultural cultures in our ancient past, and how those interactions still influence our lives today. 

 
AND DON’T MISS: The best book of 2025 will my new novel, Inyoni and the Pale Man, to be published by Archway Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. This historical novel tells the story of Pieter, a young Dutch schoolteacher who gets mixed up with Boers, girls, and Africans on the eve of the Boer-Anglo-African War. Pieter wants to be a good man, but discovers this is impossible. Look here—and on my Facebook page—for more information. I’ll keep you informed!

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.”