The BEGINNING

(a portion of this next section first appeared here)



A mystery is a problem that encroaches upon itself because the questioner becomes the object of the question. Getting to Mars is a problem. Falling in love is a mystery.

--Gabriel Marcel


I love that quote. It reminds me that getting to Mars is a problem, a science and engineering problem. Mysteries, however, are different. Whether it’s the science of spirituality, the afterlife and consciousness, or how man was birthed on this planet, science tries to solve mysteries, as well. Yet, mysteries may sometimes be more elusive. We don’t really solve mysteries, we resolve them. Solutions of problems may require active work, whereas resolutions often warrant an explanation that dissipates the tension. One of the biggest mysteries today is a simple question: How did we get here?

Often, this question has been housed within a theoscientific debate about evolution. The most recent micro-debate inside this dialogue is the question of Adam and Eve. Scientific evidence is pointing to confounding possibilities that challenge a literal understanding of Adam and Eve as recorded in the Torah and Old Testament.

First, the scientifically matrilineal tracking of our earliest traceable, female ancestor and the scientifically patrilineal tracking of our earliest traceable, male ancestor do not arrive at the same point in time. Science has found two ways to track our ancestors. We can use the DNA in the mitochondria (passed in tact from a mother to her offspring) of cells of a person to connect a person to her mother, then to the mother’s mother, and through this process eventually to the mother of all humans, a woman we will call mitochondrial Eve. Science dates this woman to about 200,000 years ago. There is another group of genetic anthropologists that use markers on the Y-chromosome (since it is passed in tact from father to son) to trace our patrilineal heritage to the first man, our forefather, someone we will call Y-chromosomal Adam. Science roughly dates this person living between 142,000 or 60,000 years ago, depending on which measurement you use.

So our first conundrum is that science has inferred an Adam and an Eve.

There’s only one problem.

They lived at least 60,000 years apart.


However, this doesn’t have to be a contradiction to the Adam and Eve story, yet, since mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam only represent the most recent common ancestors (MRCA) of living humans through unbroken lines. The emphasis on unbroken lines is important because it’s possible we have an earlier male ancestor who had sons and somewhere along the way, one generation of sons had no male children to pass his Y-chromosomal DNA intact to someone living today. The same could be true of mitochondrial Eve and her daughter’s daughters. Additionally, the age of Y-chromosomal Adam can change if increased Y-chromosomal sampling uncovers new, very different Y-chromosomes or Y-chromosomes with very different mutations requiring an older MRCA.

So, that may not be a problem, but what happens when you pick a couple that lived together, say 140,000 years ago, and name them our progenitors? That couple could not have produced all contemporary human beings on their own. Scientists say that we should have less genetic diversity than we actually have, if we came from only two people. The genetic diversity, today, leads scientists to infer that all contemporary humans probably came from a small group of first humans (around 10,000) in order to display the genetic diversity that we do.

The June 2011 issue of Christianity Today contained an article, “The Search for the Historical Adam” about this controversy. NPR also wrote a story on this topic, seemingly presenting only two sides. Since then there have been many responses and blogs to these stories which highlight the preponderance of complex and nuanced views in between the extremes.

Some people like Tim Keller, C. John Collins, and an editorial writer in Christianity Today, believe that if there is no historical Adam, then the gospel doesn’t exist or make sense. Though David Lose disagrees, I love a diversity of views. What has bothered me more is the number of men such as former and current seminary professors John Walton, Pete Enns, Bruce Waltke, and Tremper Longman III, who all resigned or were fired because of their interpretation of the Bible and Genesis 1-3. Karl Giberson, a former Physics professor at Eastern Nazarene College experienced a similar situation for his views, and Calvin college professor John Schneider took early retirement due to controversy related to his views on the lack of a historical Adam or Eve.

Doubt has many roles. Even if a scientist, in one instance, uses doubt to cast a shadow on a particular theory or another person’s conclusion, still, fundamental to science and the scientific method as it is practiced today, is not to sit comfortably in doubt, but to seek answers to questions, to uncover answers to doubts, to discover answers to conundrums. Faith is different, of course. So the firings and retirements and calls of “heretic” scare me. We sometimes forget that God is mystery and a life of faith is one that is lived in the tension of never fully knowing. We often do a disservice in our faith communities when we use a scientific approach, regarding answers, in issues of faith.


I was watching a Christian documentary called “Furious Love” which contained an interview of Dutch pastor/missionary Jan Sjoerd Pasterkamp who quoted a Dutch church historian as saying “We have dozens of Protestant denominations and Christian groups because, to the Dutch person, truth is more important than unity.” By truth he meant dogmatic views and doctrine, or more importantly “my” interpretation of scriptures. And I admit it’s hard; we’re not just divided about doctrinal issues, but we’re even divided about what is fundamental to being a Christian, Jew, or Muslim. That’s why people like Rob Bell can write a book like “Love Wins” and be labeled a non-Christian. Of course this dividing truth is the factual, scientific kind of truth because the truth to which the Judeo-Christian tradition points is not factual, scientific truth but transformative truth. In that way the truth of faith is love. So you can be divided and confused about scientific knowledge and yet have unity based on a different kind of knowledge—love.

I’ve experienced that science and faith have a commonality: what you believe is not as important as how you believe. There are climate scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by man. Though they are in the vast minority, they are scientists not because of what they believe, but rather because of how they believe or practice. They arrive at their conclusions based on the scientific method and their concluding judgment. Likewise, though in the minority, there are atheist scientists who do not support the theory of evolution. It’s not their belief that makes them scientists. No, they are scientists because they use the scientific method and judgment in arriving at their belief.

Faith is similar. A life of faith is not so much a set of beliefs. Rather, faith is the transformative experience that opens you up to belief. Faith isn’t really believing the right things, as it is more about an experience that allows you to breathe and believe in the right way—a belief predicated on love. Faith is the love-forming experience that allows you to believe and doubt in the aftermath of that experience. In this way, Peter Rollins would say that orthodoxy is (mis)understood no longer as right (ortho) belief (doxy), but, read from right to left, now as “believing in the right way.”

Though scientists may accuse another scientist of being a pseudo-scientist, in my small experience, such accusations tend to happen less in science than in faith. As long as you can defend your view, you’re still a scientist; you simply disagree, even if it is within a heated debate. What I long for is more of the same in faith circles. If faith is predicated on love, and unity is one aspect of love, we are failing in the love department. In my faith communities, I’ve seen growing unity across linguistic, national, and sociocultural differences, but where is the unity across theological differences? Are we not called to that, in love? Or in faith, is what you believe more important than how you believe?

As much as I describe faith a certain way theoretically, I am fully cognizant that I am simultaneously trying to push the practice of faith in that direction, for us to realize it as it is. Science seeks understanding. However, to use a word Brian McLaren coined, I long for the days when people of faith linger in mysteries instead of answers we don’t have and, in unity, seek “wonderstanding.”

A CHURCH THAT MALIGNS THE CHARACTER OF GOD

So as I said, I was reflecting on love because as I’ve heard before and heard recently again someone felt I was maligning the character of God. When I heard and read that, I responded “Yes I do malign the character of God.” I have done it in the past and I currently do it. Hopefully my understanding of the character of God is getting better in time, but I’m grateful for the knowledge or cognizance that my understanding of God or God’s character is incomplete, fractured, and wrong, yet hopefully improving.

The fact that I hear that means people probably don’t fully understand what I’m saying. I have been talking about a move away (a way) from orthodoxy as right belief (ortho – correct, doxy – belief) to a reverse reading from right to left as believing in the right way. In this way, yes we do believe certain things. Beliefs help us to navigate the world, make sense of it, and ponder the mystery of God in the aftermath of the event of God. But to claim that everything that I understand and believe about God, this life, the nature of our world, and the nature of the human spirit-body being is correct is too high and haughty a claim for me to make. I’ve gone too far; I’m too aware how wrong I’ve been, am, and will be. Rather, I believe and simultaneously disbelieve in what I believe knowing that in the future it may change. One way of looking at fundamentalism is based on how one believes and not the content. Fundamentalism can be said to be a way of believing in which one believes in what one believes. I believe and yet hold lightly what I believe while fundamentalism is a way of believing where one excludes all others in correspondence to the proportion with which others’ beliefs differ from one’s own.

For my sake and the sake of others, I’m glad right theology doesn’t mean I rightly know God or else I’d be in trouble.

So when I say wrong things and you feel I’m wrong, I agree. I agree with your disagreement and yearn and crave for more. One experience for me, however is that God is less concerned about my maligning his character are than those who believe they understand (the parts of God’s character I’m maligning) are. My experience is God’s concern with me living out love (believing in that way) and wrestling out faith. So I decided to imagine what I would love to see in a church.

My church would. . .

Spend more money on others than on themselves

Go beyond any seeming law (like in the statement above) and simply share EVERYthing they have. Instead of asking “how much do I give” they will share everything

Meets in buildings, spaces, and outdoor locations so as not to have to pay any fees such as utilities, where all money can go to do good works and redistributive justice

Would somehow have the ability to suspend class, race, economic differences (I’m inspired by the IKON community in Ireland and my conversation with Mike Venables in the Sparks section)

Would be as attractive to people as Jesus was (this paradox of people hating the church contradicts the historical Jesus who drew all kinds of people to himself)

Was completely open and inviting to people of different orientations, religions, nationalities, tribes, languages, ages, genders, etc.

Would involve others (including lay people) in the preparation of the sermon, so that we don’t hear a sermon that is the result of one person’s individual study but rather we hear a sermon that is the result of a community wrestling with a topic

Would use interactive discussions or at least a sermon with Q&A afterwards (Mark Driscoll does this sometimes)

Would not feature the sermon as the central point in our gathering, but would have all types of REGULAR gatherings

Would avoid the introspection – service divide, by having service work that simultaneously transformed the inside of people as well, a holistic church
Practice, taught, and lived a law of love rather than of rules not just on the visible or public level but even subconsciously and individually (currently working on what this looks like)

Engaged in art as a means to escape what words can’t describe (by art we look at Jesus’s creative use of short fiction (parables), poetry (Beatitudes), guerilla theatre (cleansing the temple, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem), performance art (healings, feedings, etc.; thanks to McLaren for this understanding)

There’s more, but I’ll stop here for now. . .

PETER ROLLINS

God isn’t the different patches of meaning we all place on the wind of the unknowing; God IS the wind.

Pete is one of my favorite philosophers and theological studiers. He’s a researcher at Trinity in Dublin, and he’s written a few books. The thing I love about it him is that he understand theology as a means to an end and is ultimately more interested in working with communities that want to put some of these thoughts into action.


I was introduced to him by a great friend named April. She’s a beautiful, unassuming, sometimes self-effacing nurse with a real quiet, strong spirit. She’s increasingly more humble each day and ever so patient to let me rant and rave in my ego and arrogance while she just loves me constantly. What is most beautiful about her is that she is willing to be challenged away from the environment she grew up in, as long as it leads to what is true. So we’re searching for that together.


This first link is to a 20 minute video. There are several things on the web page...just scroll down to the video and press play.

http://solarcrash.com/2009/07/peter-rollins-stuff/

These other three are consecutive lectures that he gave...they'll be a little longer, but if you like the video content you'll want to hear these too.



http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1616209/rollins1.m4a

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1616209/rollins2.m4a

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1616209/rollins4.m4a


I’ll tell you why I like what Rollins says. Like Rob Bell, he’s the first to tell you it’s ok to disagree with him. In fact, Peter often disagrees with himself. This resonates with me as I’m still searching, struggling, figuring things out, trying to understand how to live in this world. I absolute love when people disagree with me because there is a chance on either side to learn and grow. And if the thing about which we disagree has a certain answer (an apple sits behind a curtain; you think it’s red, I think it’s green) one of us has an opportunity to learn what it is and maybe learn about why we thought it was something else (maybe both of us do). In fact if you disagree with Rollins, then you’ve already agreed with him (huh?).

Rollins also speaks about the heart of Christianity. I sometimes shy away from using the word Christianity because it seems useless to use it to mean what Jesus meant since it has so many other interpretations and realizations in the world, today. But Rollins doesn’t shy away from that. He calls it an irreligious religion, an atheistic theism. I understand this and try to help my groups back in South Africa understand that doubt was not something to fear. It did not have to be a hindrance to faith, but rather a necessary stepping stone. He talks about Christian atheists like Nietzsche. How cool is that?

There’s a philosopher-writer who thought about how anything can exist in our world. He said there were three ways. First, something could exist as an idea. This is the lowest level, and (to this philosopher since others would consider this the highest level) this is rubbish. What can you do with an idea? It’s not yet physically real. For example, I can have an idea of a new type of school, but if the school is not created, it’s only an idea.

Secondly, there is actual reality that was first conceived by the mind. For example, I can imagine a building in my mind (lowest level) and then I go out and build it. The physical building is now a reality that was first conceived in my mind. This is the 2nd level, a higher level.

Third, he hypothesized that perhaps there is a higher level. Imagine any type of reality that cannot be contained by the mind, cannot be understand by the mind. If something could exist in reality but be beyond the mind’s capacity to comprehend or contain, this would be the highest level, the third level. In fact, he thought if anything like this exists, it must be God.

In other words, most agnostics or agnostic atheists imagine that we don’t know God out of anonymity. If there is a God, he’s acting in a hidden, invisible way. He’s anonymous. His work, his touch is anonymous. And we can’t know God because he’s anonymous if he even exists; he may not exist.

The philosopher above is saying something different. He’s saying if God is a type of reality that is above and beyond the ability of our minds to comprehend, he’s not anonymous, but he’s hyper-nonymous. In other words, it is not that we don’t know God out of anonymity, we don’t know God due to his hypernymity. In other words, maybe he’s too much to know or understand. It’s an excess that our minds can’t handle. He’s everywhere. His imprint of excess is too much or great to take in.

This resonates more with me, personally, than anonymity due to the evidence both for a God and against a God. But this is too theoretical. Let me show how Rollins lives some of this out and how it resonates with some of the things I’ve been doing in South Africa.

Rollins has a group called IKON. Unlike most Christian churches that severely believe in man-made authority and leadership over each other, IKON operates with a doughnut structure where everyone is on the outside and no one is at the center. So there’s no membership for instance. Another example is that there is no professional hospitality or greeting team. In other words, if the person sitting next to you doesn’t reach out and say hello and love you then they’ve all failed. It’s on everyone and everyone does it; it’s not a role for some, it’s a living principle embodied by all. I could continue with more, but you can begin to see. Most traditional Christian churches feel that this could never stand or hold up, but I’ve learned that where there is love, perfect love, authority disappears. So when I tried to get my church to have a speaker about human trafficking and they wouldn’t allow it because they had a set agenda for months of sermon series and topics--that’s authority that’s not listening to the breeze of the wind through the people.

They offer an Omega course. Ha! It’s like exiting Christianity in 12 weeks. It’s like Alpha (and I like Alpha and am not knocking it as many people have started a relationship with God through it) but no answers are given in the end about anything so there is even less of an issue of saying the wrong thing or not believing the “correct” thing in Omega than in Alpha. This reminds me a little of a doubt series I did with my life/small/cell/house group while in South Africa. We did a few sessions on doubt. We had Doubt Night. People could write down their doubts about the faith on sheets of paper and enter it anonymously into a bin and we would read them out and talk about them. No answers, no resolution. Just doubt. Why? God doesn’t resolve (read “Blue Like Jazz”) like jazz music. Yes, some of those questions we had answers, but many we didn’t. It’s the tension of humanity that is our daily lot while living in the human condition.

They have atheism for Lent. They read all the big atheists during Lent, like Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, etc. I LOVE this. Why? I read atheists. I read as much as I can about people who think and believe differently than me. I want to understand. More honestly, there are parts of me that agree with them as I doubt things that I do believe. I once gave a book about love to a Christian homosexual (non-practicing at the time) friend of mine struggling with homosexuality and not feeling that he could have someone to love while being a Christian. This book is called “Sex God” by Rob Bell and doesn’t even mention homosexuality directly (Rob can be vague sometimes), but he deals with love and sex so holistically and from a place of tension and release that I love. The church bookstore keeper order tons of books because she thought it would go well with the 6-part “sex” sermon series going on at the time. The pastor saw the book and rejected and told her to return all the boxes of copies saying that it was theologically shaky. She saved a book for my friend. This happened again with a book I wanted my small group/life group to read (I was leading the life group at the time). The pastor again rejected “Velvet Elvis” by Rob Bell because it was theologically shaky. And it killed me because I longed to be in a place where instead of sheltering sheep from different thoughts you expose people and allow them to doubt and breathe and question and understand while not understanding. Does that make sense? So many pastors are in a protection mode from even people with different thoughts within the SAME RELIGION. Many pastors, for instance, told their congregations not to read “The Shack” which I found a wonderfully challenging book. I’d love to be a pastor and have my congregation read from Richard Dawkins. It’s good to understand, see, feel, empathize, and sometime agree (and disagree).

They have anti-evangelism. My friend Jeannie asked me about being evangelical. It’s a bit like when a person ends a long relationship, engagement, marriage and it’s quite painful. The thing the heartbroken person wants most is to get back into the relationship or to find someone else. At least that’s what they say they want. In reality, they just want comfort and security and the feeling of being loved. If you give them what they want and they quickly find someone new it can be a waste and hurtful and disingenuous. Instead, you withhold the very thing they want in order for them to find it. You tell them, “No, you don’t need to get into a new relationship. Go do something with yourself. Get a hobby, develop yourself. Work on yourself.” Once you do that, and are engaged and actually fulfilled without some elusive love, you actually end up finding that love when you aren’t looking for it. Sometimes it can be similar with God if that makes sense. I won’t go on, but they encourage doubt in their evangelism as Christianity is a type of atheism mixed with theism, in a sense.

They do other things like Suspended Space, but I’ll stop for now. I encourage you, if you want, to go to the IKON website or just check out the links above in which he talks about these things. If you don’t want, that’s cool, too. I just love talking and moreso doing some of these things.