Summer Theodicy Meme

Here are the questions. Post links to your blog posts - or post your responses - in the comment section. My response is in another post. Thanks to Donald and Fr E for sharing their responses as well!

1. if the nature of god is omnipotent, benevolent, and anthropomorphic (that god is a person, who sees suffering as wrong, and can change all of it), why does god not act to relieve all suffering, or at least the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest amount of people the greatest amount of time?

2. if you were god, and you were omnipotent and benevolent, how would you respond to suffering?

3. if this is not the nature of god, what is the nature of god, that allows suffering in the world?

4. if these are the wrong questions to ask, what are the right ones?

Trophy Bride

Ruth reports that the Roman Church thinks the West ‘held hostage’ by Islam. Apart from any political issues B16 and his ilk might have with people of a different faith (and don’t force it on the rest of us, thanks), there’s this sentence in Ruth’s article:

The Catholics and other Christian leaders are understandably concerned that Muslims expect equal treatment here while in some Islamic countries, Christians are not allowed to worship openly.

And there’s the link that I’ve not had. Translation: Ruth (and the Vatican) say, “Because some countries act like asses, we should act the same way in our countries.” They continue to tie the Church to the state. As if the state was at all part of what the Church was supposed to be.

More importantly they miss the reality. Christianity’s marriage to the Western State is coming to a slow, painful death. Why? Because the new power is Islam. The political union of Church and State only served the State. Now that the Church is weak - and Muslim nations control oil and populations with vast income - we should expect the western state to divorce the church and go looking for a decent trophy bride.

That betrayal comes because the Church should never have married the state in the first place: she already had a husband and she’s been playing the whore since Constantine - sucking up to power, cozying up to war, sleeping with soldiers and wining military victories so that she could say, “Look, I’m the state religion now…”

I love this line:

‘You really don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Here is a government minister endorsing the sidelining of the founding faith of her country by an aggressively colonising religion whose adherents are determined that it should supplant that founding faith – and boasting that she is giving it British taxpayers’ money to do so in the name of defeating religious extremism.

If you’ve read Geoffrey of Monmouth or Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, you know that’s exactly how Christianity got into place in England: various kings saying, “Oh, my wife is of this new faith, I’ll let her build a church here… the people will support me.” Note to the writer: the founding faith of England was not Anglicanism. It was either (according to whom you read) Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism or else Druidism.

Naturally the Muslims expect some concessions to Sharia. Why not? The Church managed to get her religion codified when she was the popular choice. Now that she’s in the minority, another religion should have a shot, no? And, given that the western states claim to function on democracy, I’m betting that there will be a lot more Muslim leaders elected in the West in the coming 50 years.

Granted: the state will just want to dilute Islam as well.

All and All Together

The slow online and IRL manifestation of FAITH HOUSE Manhattan is starting to get real interesting.

OUR MISSION: We want to start a new kind of community in which we can discover The Other (individuals or groups other than those we belong to), deepen our personal and corporate journeys, and together participate in repairing the world. In this endeavor we will honor and learn from teachings, practices, and suffering of people from religions, philosophies, and worldviews, different from our own. Instead of isolating ourselves into like-minded groups or melting together into a single-minded organization, we will learn to live together with our differences and in a way that contributes to the wellbeing, peace, joy, and justice in the world. In this endeavor we will always be a courageous, hospitable and learning community.

With all charity - I want to imagine these being Orthodox Jews, Observant Muslims and Pious Christians of some Liturgical Stripe. I can’t imagine it would be so, though. Progressives, outside of certain circles, seem to like lots of talking, not much praying and political (not theological) singing. It seems to fit best with Puritanism rather than Incarnationalism.

Faith House will seek to bring progressive Jews, Christians, Muslims, and spiritual seekers of no faith to become an interfaith community for the good of the world. We have one world and one God. Nothing is impossible. Who can stop God from teaching us how to live together in community?

We envision a vibrant urban faith community to which all are welcome to bring the treasures of their faith. We believe that in this respectful and disarming environment in which we are all learners as well as teachers, the depth, the beauty, and the truthfulness of faith in God will shine and capture the imagination not only of the cynics looking from the outside, but also the imagination of the cynic within each of us

While I’m really sure there is only one God. If he’s not the GOd that promised the Jews a special relationship through divine revelation, nothing on the Jewish side means anything at all. This is helpful to the Christian idea, and only vaguely supportive of the Muslim side - but it is exclusivst to the Jewish side. If he’s not a Trinity of persons, one in essence, one of whom became incarnate into this messy life, had dirty diapers, embarrassing adolescent hard-ons and a specific ethnicity, languages and ancestry, nothing on the Christian side make any sense at all. This is a scandal to the other two traditions. If he’s not the God that channelled the Quran through Mohammed, nothing on the Muslim side means anything at all and this downplays both the other two traditions.

Can God be behind all three traditions, using all of them to reach a majority of humans, each in ways that would be understood? That’s God’s business but he’s certainly got one sick sense of humour: like a parent whispering to each child at bedtime, “I love you better than your sister.” Can all three traditions be only human metaphors by which we reach out to God with no divine input? Sure. But then why bother? Can all three understandings (true or not) work together and lead to a drive to better humanity and the world in which we live? Yes - but not by making pious claims that all our differences are meaningless.

There are ways around this: undoing much of the credalism of Christianity, deconstruction much of the last 2000 years of Rabbinic decrees and incarnating the ultra-transcendent deity.

But will we be left with a recognisable Judaism, Christianity or Islam at the end?

Is that important?

Show me a Torah Scroll, and Iconostasis and a mihrab in the same room, and we can talk. Show me a worship space where prayers, shabbat and mass can all happen (with a minimum of furniture movement) in a community where 1/3 devoutly eats pork (but not during lent) 1/3 devoutly keeps kosher and 1/3 devoutly doesn’t drink. Show me a community that devoutly gives up Friday afternoon right through to Sunday Morning.

Then I’ll think we’re on to something.

Summer Theodicy Meme

And a reminder - the posting deadline is 15 June. We’ve two respondents, anyone else?
–

Now! Here’s a meme for you! I picked it up at Jspot. I’m not going to tag people because this isn’t the sort of thing we can respond to in a couple of easy blurbs.

Sign up here to respond by June 15th: post your name in the comments to this post. I will repost these questions on June 15th… and, hopefully, my own attempt at an answer. If you do not have a blog (Fr E, Donald!) and you want to respond to this meme - I will be happy to allow you a guest post on that day - or else you may post in the comment section on that day. There are some bloggers I’d like to hear from (Bp Alan, Elizabeth!), but I think this needs to be a voluntary thing.

I will repost this invitation every few days. June 15th is the day.

1. if the nature of god is omnipotent, benevolent, and anthropomorphic (that god is a person, who sees suffering as wrong, and can change all of it), why does god not act to relieve all suffering, or at least the greatest amount of suffering for the greatest amount of people the greatest amount of time?

2. if you were god, and you were omnipotent and benevolent, how would you respond to suffering?

3. if this is not the nature of god, what is the nature of god, that allows suffering in the world?

4. if these are the wrong questions to ask, what are the right ones?

Lares et Penates

I was watching Rome Iiii last night, entitled An Owl in a Thornbush, when I noticed for the first time the lararium in the house of Lucius Vorenus. Here’s the upper part,

And the lower part.

Since, at least for this episode, the household altar plays a very important role (several other events happen in shrines in the series) I got all religion-geeky and did some research.

More

The Unforgivable Sin

Just so you know, and to correct the 39 Articles (and several saints), the unworthiness of the minister does inhibit the effectiveness of the sacrament, at least in Rome.

Responding to Made-Up Stuff…

Rabbi Dennis responds to one of my favourite tricks, making something up and saying it’s “really” Jewish: in this case, a Dispensationalist trick called the “Prophetic Calendar”. The Rabbi’s research is a good way to avoid

allowing Christian exegetes to redivide the total number days into 490 artificially constructed 360-day years, allowing actual history to be forced into a Procrustean bed of Christocentric time.

Usually this trick works the best when the parties speaking (and listening) know *nothing* about Judaism.

The only problem is that most folks only find one version of Christianity out there, be that “one version” Dispensationlist, or Roman Catholic or whatever. So while I don’t want to accues Rabbi Dennis of being such…

Most (but not all) Jewish Writers on Christianity seem only to know about Post-Augustinian (but pre-Vatican II) Roman Catholicsm and a few sundry flavours of Protestant Fundamentalistm. They seem oblivious to the implications of a more liberal Christianity or one salted with Eastern (instead of Western) spices. And a few of them don’t even understand the one flavour they have. To play fair, most (but not all) Christian writers on Judaism seem only to know of a Judaism they made up in their head: basically, liberal Christianity minus Jesus (or with a hidden Jesus that, well, you know, we can see but they can’t).

God’s Vengeance on Bad Music

If God can destroy New Orleans, just think what he can do to your Church!

As the Globe and Mail reports, God has Spoken: only Gregorian chant, damnit! The floor opened right up and swallowed them. Just like in Numbers 16:30!

Other Side of Grumpy

A friend of mine laments relying on his clergy job for money to survive. I’d love to be in his position (even after all the horror stories he’s told me - and those that I’ve heard from others).

As I start to settle in to Buffalo - finding a permanent job, a place to live, a parish home (etc) I’m aware of how it *feels* this time. I’m aware of every choice I make giving up freedom - the freedom to do nothing, the freedom to do something else, etc. Had a long talk last night that included the line “yes, but we don’t own a home yet” and I realised that, unlike most of my friends, I’ve never ever once been more than 20K in debt - let alone 50K or 100K or more.

I wonder how much freedom loss that feels like.

I realise this goes back to my question about the car. I am, more and more, certain that a lot of folks are walking around with suppressed or sublimated fears for their amassed possessions. But I agree with the comment that indicated it was the attachment to them that caused the problem.

Give a listen to Lama Surya Das talk about American Materialism in the context of Buddhism. The first thing a Buddhist must do is renounce the world. But for most Americans, wanting religion without all the bother, most of us are happy with just learning how to sit silently for a while - and continue buying our cars and houses.

The first thing a Buddhist must do is renounce the world, so also with Christians. But most of us are happy to write off our ownership of “Stuff” as “just what you need to get along”… Most of us - owning multiple sets of clothes and shoes, too much petroleum for one planet and enough debt for an entire nation are unaware of how much all of this weighs on us.

And how much our souls cry out just to drop everything and walk away from it all.

Good Holiday!

A good holiday to those who celebrate the Quartodeciman Feast of the Resurrection tonight - and/or last night! Christ is Risen!