Building Upon Something New(Ancient) and How the Church Probably Can’t Help Us
What an absurd time we live in... our society is rupturing and convulsing in real-time. Millions (including me) are trying to make meaning out of the craziness of politics, environmental change, gun violence, and more.
Meanwhile, the church is not in a position to help with much of this. This is primarily true because the church breathes the same air everyone else does. We think if we can "get something" (e.g., salvation, redemption, grace, favor, blessing, etc.), then fulfillment will follow. There are two (yea, even three) problems with this approach:
If you never "get it," you'll never “get it!”
As many of us know, you can "get it" and still not find peace.
You already have what you need.
I am Lacanian, Hegelian, and mostly Girardian in these matters... I think the "it" is a type of mythical sacred object. We see it first in what the other wants. Though eventually, we see it in who the other is. We imagine they have something that makes them complete, and we want who they are. Except, sigh... the object of desire never really lives up to its promise. It only, to borrow from T.S. Elliot, "famishes the craving it promises to feed." And so, we never arrive at a state of completeness, wholeness, or fulfillment. To be human is to constantly be wrestling with our "lack" and seeing in the other, the answer to our problem.
For exaple, Christopher Nolan is a film director who constantly plays with the themes of desire, lack, and scapegoating. Take his film, The Prestige. Note that the main characters, Robert Angier and Alfred Bordin, are finding in each other what they are missing in themselves. The result is a sad, desperate, lifelong series of imitations between the two characters. Oh, and also for example, the bible is a book that constantly plays with the themes of desire, lack, and scapegoating. Take the story of Cain and Abel. Cain, caught in a vortex of lack, desire, and envy, is driven to imitate what he thinks his brother has. So he Cain kills his brother, not just out of murderous intent, but out of an excess of desire. Driven by his awareness of what he is missing and what he imagines his brother has, he takes it for himself.
Girardian thinking leads us to see how desperate we are to gain peace. In psycho-spiritual moves of projection, we offload our problems onto the backs of the other, which only justifies our treatment of the other. Here's where it gets challenging for lots of American Christians. (Myself included.) We've been conditioned to think that even though all of this scapegoating behavior is bad, that God needed a scapegoat. So, we read the gospel story in a way that tells us Jesus became a scapegoat to pay for our sins, reconnect us with God, and fill our lack. Therefore, if we trust him, pray to him, ask him into our hearts, etc... then we'll be good.
Except there are massive problems with this approach. First, it puts God in a position of needing death and forcing us to believe in a particular way before God can really love us. That is not good. Second, it cycles back into the aforementioned problem that Lacan, Girard, and others have already helped us identify: one doesn't just get Jesus and automatically become good, fulfilled, complete, without lack, etc. One can pray to receive Jesus into their heart and still feel anxious.
I propose a different approach. (And when I say I, of course, I mean me and a whole bunch of intelligent, well-intentioned, deeply profound thinkers, theologians, and human beings who have gone before me. Primarily from Girardian and Open and Relational camps, but others as well.) I propose something that could revolutionize American Christianity. That is, that…
the lack we feel is not evidence we are separate from God; instead, it is simply part and parcel of what it means to be human.
we are not separate from God; instead, God is with us, has always been with us, and is never not going to be with us, for God is love.
Therefore, one doesn't have to get "it" before one can be loved, forgiven, at home, at peace, fulfilled, made right, etc. The only thing you have to get, so to speak, is that God already gets you. There are a hundred other implications that I could write about here, but this is the foundational move: you are good as you are. God loves you. The judgment is... love.
This is both great and super challenging news. Great because yes, God really does love us. Super challenging because, well, if one doesn't have to change, it means God loves everyone, even the people we don't like. This is why it's so hard for American Christianity (myself included). We've built so much of our theology on the idea that truly, there are some immoral people out there, and since God doesn't love them, we don't really have to love them either. Or, put another way, since God doesn't condone their behavior, actions, lifestyle, choices, orientation, etc., I am not required to be in a relationship with them. I can be separate because God is separate.
I hope you see where this is going. There is no absolute separation. And there is no “sacred object" out there, distant from me, that I am required to get inside of me to make me acceptable to God. (e.g., God didn't need his son to die to accept all his other children any more than I would need one of my kids to die to accept the others.) We are all together. I have to take responsibility for my brother. It doesn't mean there aren't various levels of culpability, but it does mean that we are all one.
Sigh, I am one with…
the victim and the shooter,
the pro-life and the pro-choice,
the people who want stricter gun laws, the people who do not,
the "good people" and the "bad people."
When Jesus identified with the sinners, became cursed and crucified like a sinner, had nowhere to lay his head like the homeless, and became one of the least of these, he showed us we are all level playing field here.
That doesn't mean laws, rules, and expectations aren’t important. I'm not saying that this means we throw all caution to the wind. Of course, there are times when we should be prudent, wise as serpents (and gentle as doves). I am compelled to condemn the shooter (but I also compelled to condemn myself.) We are all entangled. To love our neighbor is to love ourselves. To love God is to love our neighbor. To love ourselves is to love God. We already have what we need: a God with us in the midst of our problems.
So, may we stop building our religious projects on separateness. May we be at one with everything.
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Practical implications. We all know this approach won't stop gun violence. However, it could...
help us raise fewer children turning to violence because they might know from the beginning that their anxiety is a part of being human and that God is with them.
help us rehabilitate people who have turned to violence. Prison systems built on separation likely reinforce the "us vs. them" binary way of thinking that contributed to people getting into prison in the first place. Prison systems built on relationships and unity might give offenders a chance. Though, admittedly, I've never run a correctional facility.
help us stop verbal violence. Almost always, physical violence is preceded by verbal violence
help us raise human beings who, in general, have less anxiety about their standing with God. I have had countless conversations with people over the years who reveal that their religious upbringing caused them to be afraid, scared, anxious, or insecure. I don't think any of us are satisfied with that.
help us not retreat back into the rhetoric of fear, defense, buying more guns, and looking out for ourselves. Again, I don't think any of us really want that.
help us build faith communities, churches, mosques, and synagogues that aren't constructed upon defining how bad the other is; but rather defined on the goodness and brilliance of every human being alive.
help us stop worshipping certain passages of our holy books that seem to condone violence. Look, we all know there are violent passages in these books. But there are also non-violent passages. We could choose to elevate the one over the other if we wanted.
help us paint a better picture of God. A God of love is the only God worthy of worship.
it won't stop gun violence, but it would help us curb gun violence. No one could be completely pleased with that statement, but it is so much better than the direction we are currently going.
