Category Archives: Theology

Two amazing responses to Theology as Art

This week I have been honored to be the Guest Director of Ecclesio, an online magazine/conversation from my friend Cynthia Holder Rich. Throughout the year, Ecclesio begins a conversation on topic and asks two people to officially respond. My contribution was to ask two stellar theologians to reflect with me on an adaptation of my ebook Theology Is Art.

One of the responses comes from Mihee Kim-Kort, who takes the idea of theology as a primarily symbolic art form one amazing step further with “Pneumatological God-Talk: The Poetry of Theology.”

From her article:

Theology is not meant to be experienced in the ivory white tower or in the stratosphere of religious experience because it is not only about God, it is about God and humanity. It opens the doors to connecting more deeply with one’s experience, and more importantly, with each other’s experiences. Landon echoes this sentiment in a way: “Art, according to Langer, is also symbolic. Its purpose is not to define, lock down, or restrict. Rather, art wants to suggest, set free, and expand. While precision may have a role to play, ultimately, art wants something more not less. Art wants abundance, not scarcity.” Art, and specifically poetry, has the wideness to allow us to experience God more fully.

The other response come from my good friend Rocky Supinger. His article “Theology as Art,” looks at the question of what is required of theologians if theology is to be understood as art.

From his article:

By “artists” I don’t simply mean those recognized as “artistic” for their superior technical skill or for their temperament or for their acute sensitivity. I do mean them, maybe even primarily them, but I also and completely mean everyone else. I mean each adherent of the Christian faith as a theologian and therefore an artist.

If anybody should indeed care about an art-theology, then they must be made to care about art-theologians. We need to more and more situate the believing subject squarely in the center of whatever theological discourse is emerging. Claiming theology as art in a meaningful way probably means celebrating individual theologians’ experiential, limited, contextual, grasp of theology’s object, God, and not perpetuating anymore the modern preference for objective, dispassionate, propositional, wrapped-in-printed-text, discourse as more theologically reliable.

I am so grateful for these two taking the time to reflect with me on the art from that is theology. If you have reflections, I would love to see them as well.

Download Theology Is Art for FREE

Theology has come under attack.

Having lost their way, many would-be theologians have resigned themselves to pursuing two other projects:

  • Dogma – a life of trying to prove the unprovable through propositional statements of faith
  • Piety – a shunning of Christian ideas and images in favor of simply trying to “live the Christian faith.”

Although many have tried and tried, neither course has shown the capacity to bring together the Body of Christ.

In this digital monograph, Theology Is Art, I contend that for theology to fulfill its true purpose and potential it must be understood as an art form. Not law. Not science. Art.

Law wants to limit and lock down. Science wants to define and demarcate. Art wants to suggest and set free.

Synthesizing the contributions of the great philosopher of art, Susanne Langer, and the “father of modern theology”, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Theology Is Art asserts that theology is best understood as humanity’s “creation of forms symbolic of human feelings which result from an encounter with God.”

As of today, I am making this ebook free for you to own and pass along.

If you want, please pass your copy along to an artist who has explored the things of God as a way to tell them “Thank you.”

Thank you for showing us worlds we had never seen before.

Thank you for reminding us of things we didn’t know we had forgotten.

Thank you for helping us get out of our own little isolated worlds and connect with others.

Thank you.

You can download your free copy below. However, if you don’t like reading long form writing on your computer screen, or don’t want to bother transferring a copy to your Kindle or Nook yourself, you can get a copy directly from Amazon or B&N for only $0.99 (Amazon Kindle store, B&N.com).

Download free PDF ebook

Download free Kindle ebook

Download free Nook ebook

Good theology, Bad theology

Within the first 18 months of arriving at the church I previously served, 12 different people decided to leave. When the average attendance of a congregation is around 100, 12 people is a lot of people. Some of them quickly slipped out the door while others drug out the process of their departure, but every single person made it clear that the major (if not only) reason they were leaving was because I believed “that everyone was going to go to heaven.”*

To a person, they could not get it through their heads why I would preach about God’s grace the way I did – a way that (to their minds) absolved individuals of making a decision to be and behave in a way that was different from how they had previously lived. As one gentleman told me, “Let’s face facts – God loves us all, but some people are sinners and are going to Hell.”

Obviously, that man wasn’t jiving with my theology. Well, that’s an understatement. That man thought I had my theology all wrong. I know as much. He told me. 🙂

From where I sit, I believe that it is of utmost importance to take into account the ways in which a particular theology calls us to live. Some theological expressions are more tightly constructed than others. Some make use of narrative as their primary thread, while others make use of propositional statements. But no matter what they look like, there is good theology and there is bad theology. The difference between them is their ethics. In other words, you can tell whether your theology is Christlike or not by how well it equips you to love your neighbor.

This whole “Love your neighbor” thing constantly trips me up. Every Maundy Thursday I am made aware – again – that the New Commandment is to “love one another as I have loved you.” Of course, my mind naturally goes to Jesus setting the benchmark that “they will know you are my disciples because of how you love one another.” And, then, there is that pesky “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Deconstructive critiques aside, the text is pretty clear that, in the end, we are to love our neighbor.

And so this, for me, is where I think we can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is “The Postmodern Problem of the Fundamentalist.” If I am going to claim that my understanding of the work of God in Christ is better than a fundamentalist’s, this is how I am going to know if my claim holds weight or not. Which of us holds a theological viewpoint that allows us to better love our neighbors?

Actually, that’s a silly question. I’m sure Fred Phelps loves his family just as much as I love mine. It would be ridiculous for me to assume otherwise.

No, I think the real question is not one of “how” but of “who.” It’s not a matter of knowing how to love, it’s a matter of knowing who to love. I think the real question is the one posed by the Parable of the Good Samaritan: “Who is my neighbor?”

 

*I actually don’t believe all people “are going to Heaven.” As these folks used it, “Heaven” is a decidedly Judeo-Christian belief, which other religious traditions do not subscribe to. To be clear, I do not consider myself a Univeralist (the belief that Jesus Christ’s work is effective for all people, everywhere regardless of their decision or opportunity to enter a relationship through him), but, rather a Pluralist (the belief that God calls people into relationship through various religious traditions). However, when someone is on their way out the door, that distinction seems a little silly to insist on, right?

Mama’s Boy (reflections on a “masculine Christianity”)

One of my favorite insults ever is “Mama’s Boy.”

I find those who throw it around to be delightfully ignorant of a whole host of facts, realities, and relationships. They accuse these boys of not being able to function on their own. They mock these boys for choosing to be within protective distance of their mothers (physically or emotionally).

Sure, I’ll grant you that developing a level of independence and autonomy is a great thing, but when I think about those who tried to insult me with this phrase as a young boy, well… Let’s just say I’m much more well adjusted than they are.

Recently, (thanks to Rachel Held Evans) I became aware that Calvinist preacher John Piper decided to say that God likes boy images a lot better than girl ones because, well, God has not only revealed “himself” as a boy, but has lifted up the boy ideal over and over in the Bible. I think that’s kind of silly.

One of the most powerful images of God I know of comes from Psalm 131:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

The Psalmist has so many images at his disposal to use, but, when it comes time to describe (again) his relationship to God, what image does he call upon? A little boy and his mama.  A little boy who loves his mama so much that all he wants to do is be near her.

Developmental Psychologist James Fowler taught us that the earliest understandings we have of God come from the way we are in relationship with our parents, specifically our mothers. Think about that: We know who God is because of the ways we were loved and nurtured by our mothers as babies.

I’m afraid John Piper might be a little jealous of that. I know I am. I am a good father, I think, but when I look at the ways my boys revere their mom, I get kinda frustrated. When the five year old acts like he would crawl back into his mother’s womb if given half the chance, I feel that twinge of jealousy.

But that’s the way I feel about God. I love God so much that all I can think about is being surrounded by that Divine Love.

In the end, I like God as Mother because it reminds me that I’m just a Mama’s Boy, that I can’t really do this on my own. Sometime, I’m just too scared to do this on my own, and I just need to crawl up in my Mama’s lap and let her hold me and tell me everything is gonna be all right.

Here’s a tune I wrote about being a “Mama’s Boy” (you can have it for free if you want it):

Pooh Bear Jesus

As I was trolling Facebook recently I ran across a quote by Anne Lamotte:

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

My mentor refers to this kind of tendency as having a relationship with “Pooh Bear Jesus.” We’ve all had a relationship with Pooh Bear Jesus.

Pooh Bear Jesus is lovey and cuddly. Pooh Bear Jesus makes us feel good when things are bad. Pooh Bear Jesus never judges us, never makes us uncomfortable, never asks us to do anything other than what we are currently doing. We are in control of Pooh Bear Jesus, and, so, Pooh Bear Jesus just smiles at us as he sits on the pillows on our bed. We dictate who Pooh Bear Jesus is and what Pooh Bear Jesus does.

This is not the Jesus of classical Christianity.

In the classical expressions of our faith, we are not allowed to make Jesus be just any old thing we want him to be. In my tradition, one of our confessions offers a lengthy litany of the work of Jesus Christ (loving, healing, teaching, raising, etc.), and then names that he was killed for these things and that God raised “this Jesus” from the dead.

This Jesus. Not some other Jesus. Not some Jesus we drummed up in our heads. This Jesus – the one who came to serve and not be served. This Jesus – the one who gave his life as a ransom for many. This Jesus – the one who chose the outcasts and least of these.

It’s okay to have a teddy bear when you are young to help you feel safe, but it’s not okay to have a Pooh Bear Jesus.