Purpose, Meaning, Morality, and other Simple Issues

The classic statement of purpose and meaning for the Christian West is found in the first question of the Westminister Confession of Faith: 

Question:       What is the chief end of man?

Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

That needs some explanation, of course.  How does one “glorify” God?  By singing great choruses of praise?  By converting others to faith in God?  By living in such a way that we reflect the presence and essence of God into the world?

And how does one “enjoy” God . . . forever?  By being happy?  Talking to God, “communing” with God as pietists and mystics have urged us to do? 

For Christians (and other religionists) the meaning of life has something to do with God.  We take our purpose from the teachings of Jesus . . .  and in so far that we can walk in that way of love and grace and humility (at least that’s MY take on what he taught; others will differ, radically) we can feel that we are fulfilling our purpose.   Many of us find it helpful to believe that we are, by our living and by our worship of God, connected to Something Larger than ourselves;  that adds importance, I suppose, to what can seem boringly ordinary.

Epstein recognizes that human beings need to have a sense of purpose,  direction – meaning.  And his challenge is to provide that apart from any connection to a Higher Power.

Some random quotes and observations:

I was surprised that at one point he starts to sound like a preacher – and his view of humanity, especially for a Humanist, is not so great:

“I suspect that what drives most people in this world, what really might be the world’s largest religion, is one form or another of what we can call “striving.” Do you know any strivers? These would be people for whom the meaning of life, whether they admit it or not, is get, get, get as much as you can.”  (p. 72).

It’s interesting that Epstein, like religionists,  thinks that individual responsibility is vital.  “But like it or not, we are responsible for what we do about it all in this life.“  (p. 81)   The preaching of forgiveness of sins does not negate responsibility;  some would argue that the “reward and punishment” teachings about Heaven and Hell – if you can get around the imagery – is really a forceful and imaginative way of saying that what we do in life matters . . .  we are ultimately responsible for our choices.

For Epstein, the greatest good, that which gives us purpose, motivation, meaning, is “dignity.”

“If happiness, love, self-actualization, self-sacrifice, not to mention God, materialism, and antimaterialism won’t work as a purpose around which to build good lives without God, what’s left?”  (p. 87)

And “Sherwin Wine defined [Dignity] by describing its four qualities: “The first is high self-awareness, a heightened sense of personal identity and individual reality. The second is the willingness to assume responsibility for one’s own life and to avoid surrendering that responsibility to any other person or institution. The third is a refusal to find one’s identity in any possession. The fourth is the sense that one’s behavior is worthy of imitation by others.”Along with these four characteristics of dignity come three moral obligations for the person who values them: First, “I have a moral obligation to strive for greater mastery and control over my own life.” Second, “I have a moral obligation to be reliable and trustworthy.” And third, “I have a moral obligation to be generous.”  (p. 90)

And Epstein’s conclusion as to what we are to be about here:

“Seek the best in yourself and in others, and believe in your own ability to make a positive difference in the world. Pursue truth and honesty in all you do; and be wary of allowing power, status, or possessions to substitute for moral courage, dignity, and goodness.

“ (p. 121)

All of which is great stuff – values and priorities that any Christian surely would say “Amen!” to.   He or she might say that they derived those values from Jesus, the Bible, Christian culture.  And they might also say that a sense of God’s presence with them – as mystical as that is – and of God’s patient leading and mercy – as hard as that is to describe – helps them to live out the purpose, value, meaning they profess.  Few Christians I know would say that the promise of Heaven or threat of Hell has much if anything to do with how they live.  But they would insist that their faith gives them the ability to live in love – and that when they fall short of their ideals the grace of God allows them to forgive themselves.

Humanists can live with "dignity" too.  And while the Rick Warrens of the world don't think they can, the rest of us do.  We've seen it.  And we've seen "people of faith" act perfectly crazy.  

Can We Be Good Without a Belief in God?

Or with a belief, we might also ask, given the craziness that is conducted in God’s name every day, right here in Oshkosh.  (No, I don’t have any examples, but I’m sure there must be.  It wouldn’t be good of me, any way, to tell tales of bad behavior, would it?  Certainly not in writing.)   Epstein is more charitable than I in his book, arguing not so much that religious people can be bad – Sam Harris has shown that well enough, I’d say – as much as that non-religious people can be good.  Not many people apparently are willing to say that.   

“One out of every two Americans admits to being prejudiced against fellow citizens who don’t believe in God. No other minority group in this country is rejected by such large numbers.”  [Introduction]  Fundamentalists keep claiming that they are a persecuted minority.  (Pat Robertson, who, I am told is still alive, recently cited the very funny SNL skit that lampooned Tim Tebow’s religious behavior as the latest proof that Christians are the object of the world’s persecution.  If people would stop making the faith so easy to parody, “the world” might find someone else to poke fun at.)  I’m sure Epstein is right that non-believers suffer far more for their non-faith than most of us faith-folk do for faith.   Which reminds me of question from my evangelical days that applies to me in my liberal days:  if I were arrested for being a Christian, could anyone find enough evidence to convict me?   But I digress.

Epstein, to our shame, is I’m sure right: religious people behave badly toward atheists.   The question is Why?  I suppose it must have a lot to do with our human longing for conformity.  And the longing for certainty – a word our group has talked about a lot.  If ten of us in a room all profess the same belief (set aside here the possibility that some of us say we believe, but don’t really), it feels good.  And we won’t have to debate that item of belief, which is a time-saver!  But if one of us breaks rank, and questions . . . there enters some discomfort.  The belief is suddenly a bit less certain, all because of that one voice.  And two voices . . . three . . . 

The “good” behavior toward those dissenting voices, says my faith, is to respect, listen, learn from the minority, to wish them well, and to thereby love them – even to the point of death if need be.  Too many times, though, Christians fearful for their own beliefs, and angry at those who question them, have denied their own faith and in the name of saving society attack rather than love the dissenter.

Which, in my mind, doesn’t prove their faith wrong; only that they have not lived out their faith.

Greg Epstein's book, Good Without God? is very well written, and raises some excellent questions that should help us sharpen just what it is we believe, and what difference it makes in how we live.  

John Stuart Mill Yet Lives

We start afresh in the fall on Saturday, September 17th, discussing a classic in the field of ethics and religion, John Stuart Mill's 1854 essay, Utility of Religion.  It is but 53 pages long, but due largely to the writing style of that age, requires careful reading.


Mill is associated with a form of Utilitarianism, known as the "greatest-happiness principle" that holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all sentient beings, within reason. 


You can read the essay on your computer clicking here 

Pagitt -- We End Here

Chapter Twelve looks anew at the ancient -- really ancient -- story of "creation" in the opening pages of the Bible.   In contrast to a traditional reading of the story that points toward the complete "depravity" of humankind, Pagitt says that in "the fall" while our relationship with God and one another changed, our basic humanity did not.  Still created "good," we can still "join in to the good things God is doing in the world.  We are still capable of living as the children of God." (Page 136)

Thus, we are created "in the image of God to be God's partners in the world."  Humanity is "inherently godly, rather than inherently depraved."  As such, our purpose is to love, and to be loved. (Page 138)

Thus, he concludes, "the joy of this proper understanding [that we are godly, rather than depraved] is that we no longer have to feel ashamed of our humanity. It is not a sin to be alive." (Page 144)

Chapter Thirteen takes on the concept that God is our Judge.  Christianity has used the language of the legal system to describe how God works:  God give us laws, we break them and go before the Judge.  A price is to be paid -- a fine, perhaps our life -- and Jesus steps in to pay it in our place.  We walk out of the courtroom grateful to Jesus.  But, says Pagitt, this distorts who God is, and elevates "the Law" above even God.  God is subject to his own rules, so goes the argument.

Pagitt thinks that "sin" is real . . . and something to be death with  in one's faith.  But he calls for a faith that begins not with sin (as does the traditional, God-the-Judge theology of many forms of Christianity) but rather with God -- a merciful, loving, creative God who calls us to partner with God in renewing the world, in loving one another. (Page 156)

On sin:  "Jesus cared about the sin in people's lives because sin kept them from being fully invested in life with God. Sin mattered because it was less than what God wanted for humanity." (Page 158)  Sin is not breaking some code, the rules of God.  And we don't need to be told what it is --  wee know that abuse and hatred, for example, are wrong.   We know it is wrong because it brings disharmony into our relationships.

"Sin isn't a legal problem with God; it's a relationship problem with us." (Page 159)   Judgement, then, is about restoration, reconciliation, redemption, renewal -- NOT about punishment.

Chapter Fourteen carries the idea of "sin" farther, to include Hope. The legal model of sin offers no hope.  It is an unending cycle of sin, confession, forgiveness, and then sin again.  The world is indeed rife with sin -- actions and attitudes that divide, that demonize, that kill.  Christians don't pretend that all is well in the world.  We see it, identify it, and then choose life, and choose hope that sin will not win out.  That is the message of Jesus.

Why do we sin?  That is, why do we so often seem to choose disintegration rather than reconciliation?   Pagitt -- here wanting to incorporate the findings of science and medicine into faith -- says that sometimes there is a biological reason for our behaviors (Page 166) -- alcoholism is a good example.  I personally think that  fear motivates us to be less than we know we can be -- fear of ridicule, or losing something, of being seen as we are.  Fear of "the other" surely is part of the worldwide divisions of race and religion.

Pagitt invites us to a faith that says, despite all evidence to the contrary, healing is yet possible, for ourselves, and for our world.

Chapter Fifteen reminds us that Jesus was indeed Jewish.  And Chapter Sixteen continues to talk about Jesus in his Jewish context.  He notes that the common idea of the "Messiah" to come would be a military figure -- God's warrior to carry on the war between good and evil.  But Pagitt sees in the message of Jesus not violence, but peace.  "The way of Jesus not just to shift the war motif from one kind of war to another, but to see Jesus as the ender of war.  Period."  (Page 191)

Jesus came in the spirt not of Joshua conquering the land, but Isaiah announcing justice for the poor -- a re-integration of society.   To call people to be in partnership with God, to overcome evil not with more evil, but with good.  The hope of faith affirms that in the end the good will prevail, even as in the resurrection the seeming defeat of Jesus was reversed.

Chapter Seventeen -- more about Jesus, this time focusing on the issue of the mix of humanity and divinity in the man Jesus.  The paradox that is a great obstacle to faith for many -- How can a human being also be divine? -- is, says Pagitt, the fault of the Church's early adoption of the Greek view of reality.  That view puts humanity and divinity at odds -- never the twain shall meet.  But the Hebrew mind saw no such conflict.  And that is what Pagitt calls us to consider.  Using an image of St. Paul's, he wants us to see Jesus as the "second Adam."  As the first Adam started disintegration, the second Adam begins re-integration.

"Jesus isn't a superhero, and he isn't just a great example."  (Page 209)  He is both Son of God and Son of Humanity.   Jesus was saying to his followers, "This is what life with God looks like. This is it. And you can live this life too."  (Page 211)

Chapter Eighteen, and the Last, is appropriately about Heaven.  And it should come as no surprise that Pagitt takes issue with the usual, traditional idea that Jesus came to the world to save us, so that we can someday live in Paradise with him and all the other good people for eternity.  (Current right-wing Fundamentalism adds the fun, and diabolical, twist that we good people -- no, the people who believe the right doctrines -- get to RULE over the rest of the earth, with force if necessary.)

For Pagitt the message of Jesus was all about today -- and how we live faithfully today.  As Jesus famously said, "The kingdom of God is within you."  That is, here and now, and more scandalously inside human beings.  Pagitt: "Jesus was proclaiming a holistic reorganization of all that is and all that will be. He was bringing about a new kind of life that was meant to be lived out right away, right here, and forevermore."  (Page 220)

Pagitt echoes some of Crossan's views on the kingdom, namely, that when Christians proclaimed the kingdom of God, they were uttering treason against the kingdom of Caesar.  And when they said that "Jesus is Lord," they were also saying that "Caesar is NOT Lord."  And that got them into trouble.

His conclusion is that understanding the "kingdom of God" not as a place to go someday, but a present reality within -- the presence of God to teach us, comfort us, chide us, and above all else go with us -- has revolutionized his faith, and has made "A Christianity Worth Believing."

Pagitt: We continue

More of Pagitt . . .

In Chapter Seven Pagitt argues for “Holism” – the interchangeability of  spirit and matter – kind of like the same-ness of energy and matter that Mr. Einstein liked to talk about, or so I think.   In contrast to a sharp division between the reality of spirit and the reality of matter – and saying that only one of those realities is, well, real – Pagitt thinks that current worldviews tend to unite the two.  Chapter Eight takes that idea farther – that the needs of body and spirit are the same.  When one ministers to the body we minister to the soul and vice versa.  “Connection, interdependence, and integration are woven into the very fabric of creation.” (Page 89)

He returns to (and will carry this out in following chapters) the mistake that the Church made when it opted for the Greek view of body and soul, namely, the complete separation of the two.  The Hebrews, he argues, held them together; the Greeks drew a sharp distinction (and Gnostics added that spirit is good, matter always evil), and Christianity as most of us know it bought the Greek view.

Chapter Nine.   He returns to his conversion story, saying that what drew him to faith was a vision of God with us – sharing our lives, present with us, suffering with us, accepting us so deeply that God became one with us.   But Pagitt soon was schooled in evangelical (and Catholic too for that matter) theology that begins not with God involved with, even in love with humanity, but instead with God separated from humanity.  The rebellion of humanity – its “sin” of wanting to usurp God’s place – caused a great chasm, a gap that only Jesus – through the Church – could bridge. 

But Pagitt – and many of us would say this, I think – never felt separated from God. (Page 97)  And if there was a chasm between God and humanity, why was God unable to close it?   Traditional theology has put God way far away – “King of Kings!” we sing triumphantly in Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.   A God perfect, and removed, and feared – “a God I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.” (Page 99)  

Pagitt’s point is that the God that is worshiped in most churches is more like Zeus than Yahweh.  The Jewish God, he insists, is “creator, lover, leader, redeemer, judge, advocate, and mediator.”  (Page 101)

Chapter Ten.  Instead of a God that is “up and out,” Pagitt’s God is “down and in.”  He talks about the inadequacy of language – perhaps this is why we so easily go down the “up and out” path, using the language of “royalty, supremacy, hierarchy.”  (Page 108)   And he knows the fear  that if we abandon that sort of language we may “turn God into little more than a really great guy.”  (Page 108)   And surely language is a barrier – all language is metaphor, and all metaphor is unclear, and subject to misunderstanding.  But language is all we have.

And here he introduces the idea of “sin.”  A tough one for us mainline liberal people.  The conservatives talk about it a lot, and have it defined pretty closely, from swearing to adultery, from missing church to having an abortion.   They can be obsessed with their sinfulness – perhaps another way of being obsessed with one’s self, which in my book may be what “sin” is all about.   But surely God is more concerned about justice for the poor than my typing “WTF.” 

Pagitt understands “sin” to be disintegration.  (Page 112)  It is a “problem of integration,” rather than (the traditional view) “of distance” (from God). Disintegration means “people feeling at odds with themselves and others.”  (Page 112)   Sin is “living in a way that hurts the efforts of God.”

For my part, I empathize with those who espouse the Old Fashioned view of sinning – well-defined, understandable, confessable.  It’s easier to know when I’ve said “damn!” under my breath than it is to know when my apathy toward politics contributes to the misery of poor people.  BUT easier doesn’t mean it’s right.  And Pagitt’s idea of “sin” while harder to grasp intellectually rings true in my soul.  “I don’t want to follow a faith based in fear.  I find it far more compelling – and far more biblical – to live a life in which we are called to join with God, to be like God, to live the Jesus story.”  (Page 115)

Chapter Eleven challenges the classic doctrine of original sin and “the Fall.”  Franklin Graham – Billy’s boy – is quoted here:  “The human soul is  a putrid sore of greed, lust, and pride.”  (Page 124)  Now there’s something to inspire us!  Pagitt: “We need to tell a better story.”  Amen.

A Christianity Worth Believing, Part Two

Pagitt is all about contextualizing - understanding and articulating Christian faith – any faith – in contemporary culture.  We get into great trouble, he says, when we pull the cultural assumptions and values of the past (the distant past at that) into the present, confusing the eternal, living faith with cultural expressions of that faith.  As Jesus might say, putting new, living, fermenting wine into the stiff and decaying wineskins of the past will not come to a good end.  The wine will be lost, and the skins too.

Says Pagitt: “Every theology is grounded in a culture and a set of culturally based assumptions and concerns.  To hold to these theologies in the fifth century was to be faithful, for they were created as explanations for the understanding of the world at that time. But to hold to those same conclusions today, when the worldview that demanded them has expired, is simply foolish.”  (Page 48).  And “foolish” is a good word for a good deal of Christianity these days.

Chapter Six of the book takes on the foundation of Christian thought and experience – the Bible.  Pagitt wants us to know that it is not a weapon – anyone remember having “sword drills” with their Bible?  Can anyone think of a worse image for sacred writings?! 

Nor is the Bible a reference book, as many want us to think.  Got a question about anything?  Anything at all?  The answer must be in the Bible . . . somewhere.  It may be waiting yet to be discovered, but it’s there!  But of course that is NOT what the Bible is, that collection of diverse and conflicting writings created and re-created over centuries of time. 

“I just don’t think that the Bible is always the best starting point for faith.” (Page 64) Amen to that, especially if the reader is educated and inquisitive, not prone to simply take the word of the biblical authorities, most of whom disagree with one another.

The Bible does not make the claims for itself that its more ardent followers make for it.

Chapter Seven introduces Pagitt’s emphasis on “holism.”  A key concept that reminds me of what some of our previous writers , especially Haught, have been saying is this: “What we interact with in a normal day is not all there is; there’s more going on than we can see.”  (Page 76) Here is the divide we’ve seen before: between those who “believe” only what they can see, touch, measure – the scientific naturalist; and those who “believe” there is more . . . lots more.   Holism for Pagitt helps him understand how body and spirit are really the same . . . energy in different forms . . . Creator-cosmos congruency.  (Page 88)  “That’s just the way things are.”  (Page 78)

“The theology of holism is a theology of invitation, of welcome, of God saying, ‘Look what I’m doing.  Come and join me.’” (page 91)

A Christianity Worth Believing?

A Christianity Worth Believing . . .

That is quite a claim.  And that is the question our group has been asking, in one way or another, all year long.  What is the Christian faith, and can we buy into it?  There are of course lots of forms of this Christianity thing out there, and in the last twenty years we’ve been seeing – thanks to the multitudes of nutty people who do the most outrageous and immoral things in Jesus’ name, and to our media who likes to focus on the nutty in everything – we’ve come to think that Christianity is simply not to be believed.  One thinks of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority that was neither, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker’s excesses, Pat Robertson’s idiotic pronouncements, Jimmy Swaggart’s tearful confession, the egomaniac in Florida burning a Qu’ran.  That’s a short list.

Not to be outdone, the Roman Catholics just this month were stunned when their rockstar priest, Father John Caropi who for years has held massive campaigns around the country, and, until last March, was heard on Catholic radio daily preaching conservative Catholicism, was thrown out.  Seems he has been living in luxury, enjoying certain chemicals not legally obtained, and “co-habitating” a few women.

So we can look at what passes for Christianity and rightly decide it’s not worth the effort.  Lots better things to do with one’s Sunday morning.

Doug Pagitt represents what is becoming known as “emerging Christianity.”   And A Christianity Worth Believing in an introduction to that movement.  He’s practically a local boy – Minneapolis – and begins his book with, “I am a Christian, but I don’t believe in Christianity.”   A good starting point I’d say.  The book is “part memoir, part theological treatise.”   He is exploring “new ways of being Christian, of being spiritual, of following God.”  That, I think, is what our book group has been doing.

Pagitt grew up completely outside of “Christianity.”   His family was not part of any church.  But at age 16, invited to go with a friend to a “Passion Play” (and thinking that this had to do with the sort of passion that 16 year old boys are pretty well obsessed with), he to his great surprise had a spiritual experience – a conversion.  “This is what I longed for, what I needed to be true.  There was a God alongside the tortured and beaten Jesus.” (p 16) 

Thus he entered the world of evangelicalism.  And there he stayed for quite a while.  Not always comfortably, though.  Coming from outside, he looked at the faith as it was practiced around him (and urged upon him) with new eyes.  Some of it made sense;  other parts did not make any sense.  And he became what he calls “a Christian contrarian.”  His personal spiritual experience then combined with his education – in seminary, but also in other venues – and his own questions to start experimenting with new ways of being Christian – new ways of being with God in the world.

The book tells that story.  Along the way he will be interacting with “classic” Christian doctrines, such as the authority of the Bible, to understand them in new ways, in ways that make sense to contemporary culture.

Pagitt believes that we are in the midst of a massive change in culture.  This new culture is not simply tweaking the old.  It is becoming entirely new, in how we think, what we value, what we see as beauty, and the tools we use.  (These are the four markers of culture that he talks a lot about in another book, The Church in the Inventive Age.)  What the “emerging” church is trying to do is to articulate and live out Christian faith in our culture.   Other people we’ve read – Marcus Borg and John Crossan for sure, and folks who are in the Living the Questions DVD series we’re used at church and various places -- are in this same “camp” of folks who see a radical change in process.  

Pagitt is not a theoretian only.  His church, “Solomon’s Porch” is a living expression of this new kind of faith – A Christianity Worth Believing because it is intellectually sound, emotionally satisfying, and ethically grounded in justice.