Resurrection of the Body?

This Easter has got me thinking, again, about what exactly our 'hope' in Christ is and what we expect to happen when we die. This came to a bit of a mini-crisis while I was studying at Regent College. One of my classmates spoke boldly in one morning tutorial session to say that "Christianity does not promise the immortality of the soul! That is platonism. Christianity promises something completely different - the Resurrection of the Body!"

Now, I was born and raised in the Church, and thought myself fairly astute when it came to basic understandings of the Bible and Christian theology. Yet this took me aback. I went searching for memory verses. (Soul... Soul... Soul... Immortality... hmm...) After some discussion I left even more unsettled. Well, what is the soul after all? I mean whatever it is Jesus must have it. Yet still, the risen Jesus - the Gospels emphatically make clear - was not a disembodied soul but an EMBODIED person. Hmm...

And whatever promise we may claim in terms of 'everlasting life' (which seems to be the Biblical name for 'immortality' - perhaps platonism is tempting after all) this promise is ultimately based in the Risen Christ. That same man Jesus, mistaken for the gardener and found frying fish on the beach, was three days previous carrying a cross through the streets of Jerusalem. The resurrection body bore the scars of the crucifixion body. And he, according the New Testament, is the 'foretaste' and 'archetype' of the New Creation. Whatever shall ultimately happen to us after death is going to happen according to the model set by Jesus! The 'seed' that was 'sown' in death gets a new body fit for eternal life, at least this seems to be the metaphor chosen in 1 Corinthians 15. The 'physical body' gets a new 'spiritual body' - but that 'spiritual body' goes on being a 'physical body' too! And the hope really is that what God did in and for Jesus he will one day do for the whole creation. That 'all things' (see Colossians 1:15-20) as created by God 'will be' and in fact 'already are' redeemed by God and brought into the Kingdom of God which is the New Creation. This is a hope I can hope in!

This is most beautifully and provocatively laid forth in a poem by John Updike called 'Seven Stanzas at Easter.' I first read this years ago and stumbled upon it again recently. May it move us all closer to the mystery of Christ whose Body was raised, and the hope of the New Creation.

'Seven Stanzas at Easter'

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

the same valved heart

that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then

regathered out of enduring Might

new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

not a stone in a story,

but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,

make it a real angel,

weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle,

and crushed by remonstrance.

Save the World? Part One.

This begins a short series on 'saving the world'. There is lots to explore here and I welcome feedback and interaction with these ideas along the way!


In taking a few days off and catching up on some reading I came across this quote from E.B. White:

"If the world were merely seductive," he noted, "that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

These are insightful words. And I believe they point out two acute dangers for us and our generation. What I want to do is explore these dangers and ask what a theological account of 'saving' and 'savoring' the world might do to reorient these desires. In this post I will explore the desire to 'save' the world as i have encountered it and begin to sketch a theological response.

First, the desire to improve (or save) the world. Lazybones notwithstanding, I see this being drilled into my generation in a myriad of ways. In my work with A Rocha, most encounters with younger students (ages 16-25 say) make clear that there is little patience among these folk for sustained argument or theological depth. They know the earth is in trouble - and they want to FIX it. Show me how to SOLVE the PROBLEM! The Biblical stuff is nice, important, yes. But I want to jump ahead - how to apply this in my life and how to scale that up so that the whole world can be saved.

As I said, I wrestle with whether this is a good thing. I believe the desire to improve the world is a Holy Desire. Yet the framework for said improvement is often utilitarian - and thus consequentialist - and divorced from the sort of tempered life experience that is so needed. Consequentialism (for those who have been spared the joys of an ethics course) judges what is 'right' in terms of the consequence it produces. So if my desired outcome or consequence is to change the world, actions are right which contribute to that change and are wrong when they fail to contribute towards that end.

The problem, of course, is that we simply cannot ever know what the outcome of our actions will be. This is extremely evident when applied to environmental problems. Will legislation for increased biofuels reduce our carbon footprint? Well, Yes, it might reduce our consumption of fossil fuel. But, No, because it leads to rapid deforestation to make way for biofuel plantations. (And as my dad has pointed out, the carburetor business has skyrocketed - turns out 10% ethanol destroys the carburetors of most small engines.) The point is we never know the result of our actions, so predicating the 'rightness' of these actions on forecasted consequences is dangerous business.

Of course, as Alasdair MacIntyre so aptly pointed out, "I can only answer the question, 'what am I to do?' if I can answer the prior question, 'of what story or stories to I find myself a part.'" For people of faith, the outcome of our action may well look like a cross. And so it should. But the cross is hardly the sort of outcome a consequentialist wants. Success? Achievement? Improving the world? Or hanging dead as a political dissident. How do we make that choice?

So how to proceed? Is there another option? Well I believe we must continually anchor our desires to Save the world in the Story of God's own desire to Save and to Savor the world. We must learn to see our work and action on behalf of the world as wholly subsidiary to God's work in Christ. We will not 'save' the world! But the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated in Christ and the world will ultimately be saved! Knowing this, we work to 'save' and to 'preserve' the life of Creation - with its diverse creatures and peoples - in ways that are in keeping with this Kingdom. The weight of the world, rather than driving us to a brash consequentialist ethic, moves us towards God in worship and dependence, and to offer ourselves to the work of God in the world.

In offering this short account of how the Resurrection shapes our desires to 'save' the world I have carefully sidestepped a few issues. What does Salvation mean? Is the whole world going to be saved? Or just human souls? And isn't it dangerous to believe we can 'participate' in anything like 'salvation'? This will be the subject of the next post.


*After reading this I went to look for the source. Turns out it has been misquoted and reprinted thousands of times. After lots of sifting, it traces back to a New York Times interview with White, click this link to see the actual interview with White.

Reading Hopkins "the Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air we Breathe"

((I had several comments to make on this poem, but feel it best to let Hopkins words stand up on their own. If you are particularly struck by words or phrases I invite your reflections.))

The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe – Gerard Manley Hopkins

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.

If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.

Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.

So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.

Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Bill McKibben on Democracy Now

"It’s as if they’re saying—I mean, literally as if they’re saying, "We’re going to stick our fingers in our ears, and the problem will go away. We’ll never have another hearing on it, so therefore it won’t be happening." I’m afraid that’s about as unlikely a proposition—I mean, more power to them if you could make global warming disappear by simply not talking about it. It would be a hell of a good strategy. But my guess is that physics and chemistry will be remarkably unimpressed by this position, you know? I mean, Congress—the sort of delusions of grandeur within the Beltway are enormous. They think because they can change the tax code, they can change the laws of nature. But that’s not possible." Bill McKibben

Some fascinating news out these days from Wikileaks concerning the role of the US government in intimidating, stalling, and buying votes from opposition nations in the recent Copenhagen climate talks. Bill McKibben is a longstanding author and activist who has attended decades of these talks and offers some great insight into the contentious nature of international agreements and into the urgency of action on these issues. His critique of American power politics and global climate change is telling. For all Washington is able to do in getting their agenda on the table, says McKibben, "Physics and Chemistry will be remarkably unimpressed." That Washington continues the program of intimidation towards other nations (even the poorest ones who are already most affected by climate change) is no surprise, says McKibben. What is a surprise is the audacity to assume we can continue to avoid this problem forever, or simply vote it off of our agenda.

The real question, to my mind, is how can we advocate for a politics that takes physics and chemistry as a baseline for action? How do we seek some form of common good in the face of power and manipulation by those claiming to represent us in government? And how might we embody in practice ways of life that take physics and chemistry seriously as well? I feel a real tension between thinking of small local forms of action and the challenge of global governance and climate talks. McKibben is bold in promoting both forms of action and calling governments to act. My more cynical side wonders where even to begin. Perhaps physics and chemistry aren't bad places to start.

New book from N.T. Wright

The hard-working Bishop of Durham is at it again.

This third (and likely last) book in the latest trilogy extends the Bishops insightful argument into ethics.

In a recent interview, he laid out a few of the basic ideas (ideals?) behind the book:

The book’s main target is not the other major moral theories of deontology and consequentialism, but the ideas of “spontaneity” and “authenticity” which have a grain of truth (Christians really should act “from the heart”), but which screen out the reality of moral formation, of chosen and worked-at habit-forming prayer and moral reflection and action, which gradually over time form the Christian character in which “authentic” behavior is also truly Christian behavior, not simply “me living out my prejudices and random desires”.

The point about “virtue”, then, is that it flags up something which is central in the New Testament but marginal in much western Christian reflection, namely the fact that

1. Behaviour is habit-forming,
2. Christian behavior is supposed to be habit-forming and hence character-forming,
3. There is a long and wise tradition of reflection on all this which most modern Protestants in particular simply don’t know,
4. It isn’t, as has often been thought, a danger to the gospel of God’s free grace and love,
5. It is therefore time for the whole notion of virtue, as the habit-forming strength of character, to be “reborn”,
6. and that all this is what you need to grasp “after you believe”, to answer the big question of “what now”?


Over the last couple years I've found myself deeply shaped by the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, and others (all through the help of a certain Jonathan R. Wilson) who revive the language of virtue and character to help lead us back to faithful Christian witness. I've had my suspicions that Wright makes similar use of the Aristotelian scheme (especially since Surprised By Hope, but now the jury has returned.

As I read through this list I find myself nodding in excited agreement. The one big problem, it seems, is #4, which the sort of hyper-Protestant mind always seems to fear. "Virtue... Character... Works?... This smells of works-righteousness." But does it, for crying out loud?

This instant knee-jerk response has come up so many times now in my conversations that it is exasperating. The idea that the Gospel might require anything of us is continually granted with one hand and ripped away with the other. The distance between cheap grace and painful legalism is often more determined by our mood of the day than by any sustained theological reflection. It is into this conundrum that the language and practice of virtue gives real purchase.

Rather than viewing our sin as isolated incidents or actions, virtue ethics hones in on the character or heart of the sinner and the accompanying patterns of action. Rather than hit the believe over the head with guilt and a waving finger "Now that you know Jesus died, don't go on doing this little Johnny!", the virtue approach asks the deeper and more vital questions about which habits or practices promote certain actions and deter others. Sensitivity to the Spirit can also render grace continually as the believer finds the strength to walk a new walk and talk a new talk comes not from pulling up one's spiritual bootstraps but rather from leaning ever more on the God of grace - and, I dare say, accepting some forms of discipline as a part of spiritual growth. Rather than viewing accountability partners with shame and suspicion, an ethic of character welcomes the openness, honesty, and transparency which is an essential part to the training of our faculties.

This point strikes very deeply to the laissez faire morality of our day, which Christians have largely adopted with some half-hearted biblical gloss about 'love' and 'grace'. But the formation of character requires something, and it requires something of US. The Bishop makes this point beautifully,

"First, the point about “vice”, the opposite of “virtue”, is that, whereas virtue requires moral effort, all that has to happen for vice to take hold is for people to coast along in neutral: moral laziness leads directly to moral deformation (hence the insidious power of TV which constantly encourages effortless going-with-the-flow). The thing about virtue is that it requires Thought and Effort . . ."

That might strike those of us raised on cheap grace as outrageous, but it is more our laziness (undoubtedly bred by the insidious TV which Wright mentions) that betrays us than our half-hearted desires to seek after Christ. But the point about Virtue, says Wright is that "to become part of God’s people is to become a genuinely human being." Being formed in the likeness of Christ renews the image of God in us. Our efforts to shape our behaviors and dispositions after His is an essential part to our transformation, even when it is difficult and costly.

Methinks we have much to learn from Bonhoeffer on this point as well, but that must wait for a future post.

The full interview with Bishop Wright can be found here.

Sabbath Poems: I

Life has been full of changes.

One is a deep desire to write again. After being thoroughly inspired by Berry's A Timbered Choir, I decided to take time to practice my writing on the Sabbath each week.

This comes out of my own deep anguish over changes and loss in life. Roxy and I are facing many changes in the next months, and have faced many in the past months. I'll let the poem speak for itself.

How can human life, in living time remain
in endless flux, changeless change the only
straighened roundabout? Yet we must walk, and obtain
our way. But now, how not to be lonely?

A child's little childhood, passing, yet barely born
to an endless progression, its awaiting disparate fate;
and the warmth of friendship, dispersed, adorned
only now with memory - so we hold, groan, and wait.

Now.
We in this turbulent world long to, must reach out, grasp
signposts of another, His life given for ours -
and returned: all fleeting put to flight in one flash
the promise borne anew sprouts, shoots, flowers

and though goes to seed, stays ever the same
to be held in love, grateful. The signs
which accompany us - as I-thou we become - though in pain,
hopeful, planted, watered. In seeking do we find.

On Cow farts and Fasting

Some time ago I posted about the rather ingenious (if not sometimes ridiculous) measures being taken to tackle bovine emissions. There is a very informative article with heaps of links here at Grist News. I can't help but quote one short section,

According to an EPA FAQ about methane and livestock in the U.S. alone, cattle emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year into the atmosphere—20 percent of U.S. methane emissions. And there 1.5 billion belching cattle here on earth, a number that is expected to grow rapidly as earth’s meat-hungry population expands.

It’s perhaps not surprising that scientists all over the world are trying to figure out how we can have our meat and eat it, too. Their attempts to make cattle emit less methane include alterations in diet, breeding, and even a vaccine.

What was surprising (at least to me) is that grazing, grass-fed cattle—those happy cows we all like to celebrate, and some of us (hi, Ed) like to eat—will, according to Eshel, emit four to five more methane than corn-fed cattle.

But wait—that doesn’t mean that you should reach for a CAFO burger.

The answer, upon reflection, is NO. But I think that this question emerges as a natural one ought to reveal the sort of scientific reductionism which massively limits our imaginations and binds us to certain ways of thinking. If we try to graph the equation it might look something like this:

(emissions of 1.5 billion cattle) x (CAFO Corn-fed diet) > (emissions of 1.5 billion cattle) x (grass-fed beef)
= CAFO cattle are more 'environmentally friendly'/ produce less emissions, etc.

What this logic fails to discern (and is arguably unable to discern), is the actual possibility of consuming less beef in the first place. Of course we need to consider how diet might effect the cows emissions, but what this implicitly blinds us to is accepting the current levels of consumption. And if you have an ear for it, you will find this sort of logic everywhere. It pervades most all of the discussions around the 'green' movement, "how can we save the planet and ensure that the economy continues on a path of exponential growth?" The (il)logic of this economic wrangling was a discussion point in my earlier post and has been wonderfully noted here:

Just because corn-fed cows emit less methane does not make them better, says Eshel, and the idea that we can convert cows into low-methane systems by feeding them corn is like asking a giraffe to graze on grass. “It’s evolutionary advantage is lost,” he says. He contends methane is a normal end-product (actually, a product of both ends) of healthy, grazing cows. Re-plumbing cows to emit less methane is, he says, absurd. “Maybe what we need to do is consider the scope of our reliance on those animals, rather than trying to re-evolve them into something that is advantageous to us,” he suggests.

What this logic simply cannot account for, but what is desperately needed, is serious personal and collective discipline. And yet this falls squarely outside the bounds of business. Just think of what would happen if the beef industry advertised a plan to reduce emissions that included fasting from meat one day a week. Imagine if the CAFO's lobbied the government to pass a law prohibiting the sale of beef on Sundays. Possible? Hardly. What sort of business would go for such things? Yet, these same businesses are now funding studies to shove tubes up the rear ends of cows to 'collect' their emissions for processing. Hmmm.

If we honestly look at the harmful effects our consumption has on our bodies, minds, and souls, I believe fasting is one important act of personal repentance. It is also one of the greatest resources which our tradition has to offer our out-of-control world of consumption, a world which I find myself continually caught up in. We simply cannot continue to "have our cake (or in this case, cow) and eat it too". Not with 6 billion people. Not with 1.5 billion cows.

The UN and WHO report there are currently over 900 million people living without the necessary nutrients to sustain life. That number is only surpassed by the 1.5 billion among us who are overweight and an additional 400 million who are obese. Yes, on this planet, 1 billion have too little to survive, while 2 billion have more than their bodies can process.

What do we do as people of faith, in light of these facts?

Could fasting be one action that we consider?

Over the last few months Roxy and I have adopted a diet that is 90% Vegan. For us, this means that meat and dairy products (yes, cheese and eggs too) make up less than 10% of our weekly diets, and we have reserved eating meat for special 'feast days' on the weekend. I have found this incredibly challenging, but also deeply rewarding. We are (re)learning to cook with real, whole foods. Since the majority of processed foods in the grocery stores include some form of milk products, our meals no longer include them. We are finding vegetables and legumes which we never knew existed now comprise much our daily diet. What is more, there is a certain solidarity that we feel with those who cannot afford the luxuries of meat as we voluntarily eat less.

Before you write us off as freaks, consider again the facts. 1 billion undernourished, 2 billion overweight/obese. To my mind, this is not a mere matter of food production or even of distribution. It is about the cultural myths which lie deeply in our minds that somehow we do not have enough, that we need more, when in actual fact, we have enough right here, right now. It is the myth of scarcity in a creation of plenty, and I believe it is a serious call to action and reflection.