All right, go read it real quick.
Now, proposal: could one definition of blasphemy be using God's name to justify ungodly things?
Please discuss.
Dear Sandy,
I am addressing you in this manner as I think only an open letter where others can view my bigotry, intolerance and close-mindedness for what they're worth will be able to keep in check the rage, anguish and frustration that overtakes me as I think of you, and where you have turned, and everything else that has come to light in recent times.
So, I'll start with the primary thing: why I can't talk to you.
Namely, it involves betrayal. But not the kind of betrayal I lament, but the kind of betrayal that throws me into fits of horrific, ungodly rage; a kind of rage where the visions of violence bring solace, and grievous wishes of harm to thee and thine bring a smile to my face. I hate those feelings. I hate the fact that I have those feelings. I hate the fact, especially, that I have those feelings towards you and I nonetheless feel quite justified in them.
You bring up the past repeatedly, and I wonder if it's ever occurred to you that precisely because of that past, I cannot face you. I, in fact, am filled with a unique and overwhelming sense of abhorrence because of all that we have stood side by side and fought for. Every hard stand we've taken together now testifies against you. Every time we have stood on the Word, or discussed the very puddle of dog's vomit which you, like a bitch, have now gone back to, now stands as witness against the way you have betrayed me, betrayed us, and betrayed all we fought for. You have even gone on at lengths about how the agenda of those with whom you now stand in alliance would desecrate, divide and destroy the church. Now it is your turn. You are desecrating, dividing and destroying the church after we, for seven long years, stood to face that corruption in the hopes that we could turn the tide coming against God's kingdom. I am William Wallace now, stunned and looking upon Robert the Bruce standing with the English. The past seven years are become ash to me. The person in whom I'd put so much trust and friendship is either a horrible lie, or passed on and no more. The past seven years do not exist. Traitor.
Further to all this, I feel taken for a fool. I gave you the benefit of the doubt when others accused you of falling into the same kind of iniquity which you now openly flaunt, and flaunt as something that you believe God Himself has led you to. Blasphemer.I stood up for you, I told others you were a new creation. I see I was the fool for doing so.
When Pastor Billy at Nation of the Underground 3 told me about that strange phone call he got from someone sharing your name, I put the thought out of my mind that you were in any way connected. In fact, I even blamed others before I blamed you. Even when at points I'd think about that incident, and think of how his account fit your speech patterns and even, to a large extent, your temperament, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and trusted you as a friend and counselor. Again, the foolishness was on my part alone.
I think of all the times that people told me you were manipulating me, growing co-dependent with me, and exploiting my charitable emotions to fill your own damaged and felt needs – and how by and large I ignored those accusers because of our shared past, because of all we'd been through and stood for. Well, no more of that, either. I've been played the fool by you long enough. It ends here.
You have shown your true colours, you have destroyed my trust, you have even gone so far as to drag at least two baby Christians with you into the morass with yourself. For these reasons, and others besides I'm sure, I now officially sever all bonds of fellowship we may have ever shared.
I hear Revolution is still having some great services in Williamsburg though, and I hear that mainline denominations all throughout the Western world are growing more and more accomodating to any and all types of deviance from Christian morality – even as matters regarding things like, y'know, whether Jesus even was the Messiah grow more and more irrelevant in their eyes as well. Shoot! I'm pretty sure the very people against whom you and I stood as Underground Church was broken and burned away would welcome you with open arms. Most of them don't even believe in God any more (leastwise, not the God of the Bible) and they sure as anything don't give two flips about personal morals.
Do not mourn so much this break in fellowship, as you brought it on yourself when you refused to even confront me face to face about this sin that you parade as a blessing. You had to have my wife do it. But besides that, you have plenty of opportunities for fellowship and "Christian" comaraderie. I even feel that Jesus Himself would be much more sympathetic to you than I am right now – but I am not our Lord. I am not even a terribly good ambassador for Him. I am a human being, and a particularly vile one at that (will you believe me now?) who is lonely, slighted, betrayed and depressed. Go to Jesus, Sandy, but don't you even think about going to me.
I should leave off on a final note of gratitude, I suppose; gratitude that you have reminded me not to trust anyone, not to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, to know that if there's one thing I can count on from the people in my life it is that they will leave me alone, embarassed, high and dry fighting for something that no one else believes in; mourning for something that no one else sees fit to mourn. Thank you for reminding me of my destiny and my calling. Thank you for reminding me that no one likes me, and I shouldn't care. The only regret I have concerning this particular topic is that this is a lesson I'm sure I will soon forget, and have to re-learn time and time again. But thanks, at least, for the temporary reminder.
Please do not make any further attempts to contact me. Please do not exploit our mutual friendships to contact me, either. It is over. It has been over since you declared your position on this matter, and went on to form a posse with which to approach the new Bible study.
Every time I think Underground Church has had the final nail put into its coffin, I keep thinking that no further will come. Well, bravo for proving me wrong yet again.
Solange und vorbei,
Austin Williams
All right, go read it real quick.
Now, proposal: could one definition of blasphemy be using God's name to justify ungodly things?
Please discuss.
There's a good deal of bellyaching about the "post-modern" or "emergent" movements in Evangelicalism. Some of it is quite necessary; other parts, not so much. The "I'm Okay - You're Okay" theology moving along within that sect and the glorification of old church traditions and rituals that still aren't old enough to accurately reflect the beliefs or practises of original Christians are two examples that come to mind. To be sure, a great deal of what they're resurrecting within Protestantism might be some of the most nefarious examples of syncretism that set Jesus' movement down the wide and comfy path that leadeth unto Constantine.
But not all of it is...
A few criticisms in particular strike me as burning the body to fix the warts. While "messy spirituality" has become a codeword for cheap grace, and the "solidarity" with the felt needs of unbelievers seems like the new wave of seeker sensitivism (which the emergent movement supposedly goes against) – not to mention an easy out on ever having to stand for anything, other aspects of the emergent church could probably use re-assessment from some of those so thoroughly opposed to it.
What troubles me more is that some of these aspects seem so integral, so utterly biblical that it boggles my mind how the theological intelligentsia has come to have such grave issues with them. Particularly, I keep hearing about the evils of "mysticism", "contemplation" and "spirituality".
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to pick these notions apart right now, and point out that while the emergent toffs still probably get it wrong, these matters in themselves are absolutely vital in experiencing God, and living out the Christianity fully.
Spirituality – Yes, it's a word that gets co-opted a lot. What most people mean when they say "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual" is that they've dabbled in enough Far-Eastern gobbledygook and read their horoscopes so often that they feel like they're better, holier and more enlightened than everyone else – and they can receive this feeling without having to actually change one iota of what they believe or do in their every day life. All right, it's ridiculous, but let's move on; let's not let Shirley MacLaine and the Beatles steal away a good term which, in essence, means beliefs pertaining to spiritual matters.
As Christians, the nature of our beliefs are inherently spiritual. We believe God ministers to us through the Holy Spirit. Angels and demons wage war over this realm – these are described as spiritual beings. In biblical thought, every person has a spirit. God Himself is described as being a "spirit", and in the very same verse believers are commanded to worship Him in spirit.
So, with all these things having to do with spirits, how could we not embrace – with caveats – the notion of spirituality? Christianity is a spiritual religion. Bottom line. We don't just believe that the material realm is all there is. We believe that there are underlying causes behind what goes on in every person's life and the world around us. This, folks, is spirituality. Learn to embrace biblical spirituality, because you're not going to be able to have that relationship and experience with God that Christ died to bring us if you don't.
Contemplation – God says that when we reject knowledge, He will reject us. So what does it mean to contemplate? It means to think, reflect or meditate on something, particularly with an aim towards arriving at deeper truths regarding a given matter. It's a way of attaining (wait for it...) knowledge.
If one thing seems tautologically evident, it's that people who condemn "contemplatives" probably spend very little time contemplating anything themselves.
It goes back to spirituality, particularly God calling us to know Him and grow deeper in Him. Without contemplation, whether it be on the Scripture, on the nature of Christ, on God's impact in our lives, or on the salvific history that has brought us to where we are, we stagnate. We grow cold. We grow distant from the LORD, and are left with rote slogans and other people's words to take for the truth about Him.
He does not want us like this!
God wants us going forward, striving onward. Without contemplation, our spirituality will be hollow and meaningless; our very testimonies become hollow and meaningless. Yes, neo-Catholics and emergent monk-wannabes engage in contemplation – of sorts – but that doesn't mean that contemplation is a bad thing. Shoot! A lot of the things that the monk-wannabes do can even be quite helpful, even if it isn't entirely biblical, and honestly – considering all the things we have no problem doing in everyday life that the Bible never even comes close to prescribing, I don't think there's much argument against these "questionable" forms of contemplation simply from the Bible's silence. Guard against things that the Bible forbids, not what the Bible doesn't talk about.
And finally...
Mysticism – This is a tricky one, because good protestants across the spectrum have abjured mysticism for centuries. Personally, I get forced to wonder two things in this light: first, why is mysticism so bad? Second, how do they read their Bible and stay so immune to it?
Supposedly, mysticism leads to witchcraft, spiritism, and all types of unbiblical things. I'd counter saying that taking an interest in any abstract subject – whether it be thought, spirituality, theories or even fictional literature – could open up those types of doorways. Like I said above, we shouldn't be wary based on the Bible's silence, but based on the Bible's prohibition.
So we shouldn't summon Baal Shaggoth in order for him to enchant a charm bracelet that will give us esoteric powers, but neither should we resist ecstatic and mystical experiences as the Holy Spirit provides them, nor should we be utterly closed off to the possibility of "mystic truths" being written into the Bible. If one examines the way NT authors use OT Scripture, you would quickly note that they found nothing unbiblical or unchristian about doing this.
Nor should we go as far as some do to say that the Holy Spirit simply doesn't provide ecstatic experiences. I could say based on my own testimony that this is hogwash. Further to the point, Jews contemporary to Jesus believed that the Holy Spirit existed so that God could communicate with His people through prophecies, visions, etc., etc. Things that fall under that umbra of "mystical".
Mysticism is all throughout the Bible. Genesis 1 is actually an incredibly mystical passage that gets trampled by the ultra-literalistic and concrete reading given to it by so many who fear mysticism and its implications. Ezekiel 1 is among the most mystical passages of the world's literature, so strange, alluring, otherworldly and in-depth is its narrative. The Book of Daniel, the Book of Revelation, the Book of Zechariah, even the Psalms and the Proverbs – what are these books if not mystical in their imagery and teachings?
Perhaps it's Paul's fault. Perhaps we Christians just get so hung up on a concrete reading of the Pauline corpus in order to form a more perfect systematic theology, or a better guide to who gets into Heaven and who doesn't, that we pass over the richness and depth that both we and those who don't (or no longer) believe are missing. If we refuse to recognise and embrace the mysticism inherent in such things as Ezekiel 1 or Jesus' transfiguration, then we are rejecting what God has for us in His word. We are rejecting knowlegde that He puts before us. I'll refer you to the above Hosea passage to let you chew on that.
I have never seen someone die.
This should be a good thing, right? I should count myself lucky that the face of our own mortality has never stared back at me, never beckoned to me, never said “You’re next.” I’ve had friends and family who have died, sure, but I see them after the fact. Their faces are made up all pretty; serenity and calm encompass their features. It’s death, but it’s a very cleansed, refined sort of death. It’s like death done by Disney.
I feel strangely cheated by the fact that I've never seen anyone die.
Despite the prevalence of animated violence on televisions and cinema screens, I get the feeling that few people in the Industrialised World – excuse me, certain well-to-do and influential segments of the Industrialised World – would be able to look at death and maintain any calm or sensibility. This is something of an oddity, from an historical standpoint. Death is a part of life; it’s as much a part of life as sex, eating, drinking and pursuing happiness. To be sure, one could technically go through life without engaging in any of these matters – but death is an experience everyone gets to take in. Eventually.
The closest I’ve come to seeing real death is with the death of animals: eviscerated deer on the side of the road, birds that fly into the window, rats drowned in subway pools. These strike me about as closely as anything I see in a film though, or like the massive statistics I hear about concerning disease, war, famine and neglect. But the only deaths I have witnessed in all their wretched fullness would probably be those of my cats.
I remember when the cat I grew up with, George, had a stroke just after we’d both turned thirteen. He slumped around for about a week, seemed to be getting better, but then I went into the backyard and saw him lying on the ground, his eyes wide open, flies spinning in and out of his mouth.
Just recently my cat Ze’ev died. He was only two years old. He had a congenital heart problem. The right side of his heart had shut down. He was dying, and my wife and I were presented with a choice – let him go now, or give him surgery, medicine, all that and watch him go in a year. There was little hope for our little wolf kitty who played football with his food and jumped into baths. Brit and I stood by as the doctor administered the overdose of barbiturates, his heart stopped beating, and all control over his muscles relaxed leaving him limp – but still warm. We couldn't save his life, so we let him go, peacefully, quietly, mercifully.
It was the right thing to do, right?
It’s a funny thing when I hear about lives saved. I always wonder if all the research and regulations would better be touted as prolonging life, rather than saving it. Nothing really saves lives, y’know. All those cancer survivors, seat-belted children, retired smokers – they’re going to die. Their lives have not been saved. Even Lazarus passed away eventually.
The cruelty of nature provides a strange mercy that we lack in this day and age. We spend our golden years withering away on test tubes, pissing ourselves senseless and watching helplessly as every good thing we loved turns to ash and irrelevance. We must euthanize what nature would have otherwise eliminated before all our “life-saving” advances came along. In the natural world though, there are predators. Our systems fail and give out long before the worst overtakes us. The weak move on to a better world; the strong stay with the choice to leave a better world behind, or a worse.
People cling to their lives, and who can blame them? God knows if I were faced with a life-threatening situation, I’ll do everything I can to breathe another day. I find suicide cowardly, letting go of life a true sign of weakness. This life does matter, but perhaps the massive disconnect we make nowadays between death and commonplace existence causes us to forget just why life matters. It coddles us and makes us weak, it makes us think that we can get on without facing eternity, it makes us question God when bad things happen – which is silly, because death is an act of mercy.
Consider it – according to the Bible, we live in a marred world. The real presence of evil and its affect on this world causes us to sin, rebel and bring ruin to God’s previously beautiful and perfect creation. God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden after they tasted of the fruit of rebellion, and Genesis specifically notes that God does not want them to eat of the Tree of Life and, essentially, become godlike. Many people use this to illustrate God’s pettiness, but I think it illustrates His wisdom and mercy. Have we tried to think of what life would be like if God never said “All right, no more”? Have we considered what would happen if no matter how many wounds we suffered, how many diseases crippled us, how many other aspects of our marred reality attacked us that we could not move on to the comfort of oblivion? Why, just the overpopulation issues alone would make life less and less worth living – yet if we were immortal, we would have no way out.
It’s informative to note that the Tree of Life is still offered to those made in God’s image. It is offered to us in the world to come, when all of evil’s presence will be wiped away and the marred creation shall be made whole. It is in this that lives will be saved. Medicine does not save lives. Safety procedures do not save lives. Even miracles do not save lives. These only stave off the inevitable. There is only one thing that will save life – the Resurrection. Only then, too, will life be what it is supposed to be.
The Friday night Bible study has been going exceedingly well, and I'm glad for all of you who have been able to make it out for this. We're still reading through Luke 21 right now, though we should be finishing this the next time we meet for the Bible study.
We will not, however, be having the Bible study this Friday.
Instead, we're having a Pesach seder at Chelsea Simon's gaff!
You might wonder, what's Pesach, and why should I care? Isn't next Friday Good Friday? Shouldn't I, as a good Christian, be celebrating that Christian holiday of Easter?
Well, in case you haven't been reading this blog long enough, let it be known that I answered both of those questions a little more than a year ago.
However, since we will not be having the Bible study this Friday at Christine Kim's place, here's how to get to the Pescah Seder we will be having at Chelsea Simon's place:
THE ADDRESS:
345 Cumberland St.
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(I don't know what the apartment number is – it's not on the Facebook invite.)
Either take the B, D, N, Q, R, 2, 3, 4 or 5 trains to Atlantic Ave./Pacific St., walk down Atlantic Ave., take a left on Cumberland St. If you walk by 3rd Ave., you're going the wrong direction.
Or take the G to Fulton St., or the C to Lafayette Ave. and walk to Cumberland St. and take a right. If you come across St. Felix St. or Ashland Pl., you're going the wrong direction.
If you have a car, just Google map it because I'd have no clue what to tell you anyway...
Anyway, after this Friday though, it'll be business as usual at Christine's place (directions here) until she deserts us and buggers off to Philadelphia.
Hope to see you there!