Avdat

Church growth

Running past the lovely Metropolitan Community Church of Richmond the other day, a question occurred to me: Now that the Presbyterians have joined the Lutherans, Episcopalians and UCCs in ordaining gay and lesbian people, is there any need for the MCC anymore?

Andrew Sullivan has been documenting the death of gay culture for years now, beginning with this 2005 piece in The New Republic. Is the MCC, like the music of Queen or the flamboyance of Elton John, an artifact of a time in which gays and lesbians had to form a subculture of resistance?

If so, we Presbyterians need to jump on this opportunity. I'm talking mergers and acquisitions, baby! A friendly takeover of one irrelevant denomination by another irrelevant denomination.

You're dubious; I can tell. But isn't this how other institutions grow? Two guys cook up some cool new software in their garage. They start making a little money. And then the Redmond mafia show up with an offer they can't refuse. Next thing you know, that hot little app or innovation is folded seamlessly into the latest version of Windows, and one of those two guys is on Househunters International, trying to decide which condo in Dubai to purchase.

The question is, What's the offer that the MCC can't refuse? Well, there's Montreat, of course. And we have lay elders in the PC(USA) and no high and mighty bishops. That's gotta give us a leg up over the Episcopalians.

But I think that our best selling point is the Board of Pensions. A beyond fully-funded, defined benefit plan and medical coverage that's second to none. We have hit them up hard over the years--two open heart surgeries, a renal surgery, and God-awful expensive ABA therapy--and they pay out, right as rain. If you want to know what the Presbyterian bureaucracy does really well, it's taking care of the clergy.

So we pitch the BOP to the MCC clergy, and get them to bring along their laity with the awesome accessory of Ruling Elder.

Now the MCC only has 44,000 members, and we lose that many members each year. But you gotta start small. This is how pidly a Charlotte-based bank named NCNB became Bank of America. They gobbled up all the little fish in the Old North State; then they swallowed C&S/Sovran, and then unhinged their jaws to consume BankAmerica.

If the MCC acquisition goes well, we can set our sights on the Reformed Church of America, and then the Disciples of Christ. After that, we can either acquire the UCC or bypass them, letting them die on the vine while we land the Big Kahuna: the Southern Baptist Convention. And I know we can offer them: guilt free trips to the liquor store!

You may point out that conservatives will object to a transfusion of tens of thousands of homosexuals and their straight allies into the PC(USA). But here's the thing: the MCC is a theologically traditional denomination. Read their statement of faith. It's as clear and lucid a description of Bible-believing Nicene-Chalcedonian orthodoxy as you'll find out there.

Not only that, it's easy to find! All you have to do is click on the "Who We Are" tab on their home page, and a link to "Our beliefs" pops up. I can't find anything like that on the PCUSA homepage. Either because Presbyterians don't know what they think, or because the PC(USA) website is created by bureaucrats for bureaucrats. But the home page link to the Board of Pensions is nice!

Conservatives in the PC(USA) often conflate theological and social radicalism. But the MCC is living proof that the two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. So here's an opportunity for a grand bargain: buy out the MCC, and move the denomination to the right theologically and to the left socially. It's like revenues and spending cuts! Two great tastes that taste great together!

I anticipate one last objection: Marvin, you're talking about sheep-stealing here! This isn't evangelism! This isn't legitimate church growth.

Look. Conversion is off the table for now. The public face of Christianity these days is Fred Phelps and Michelle Bachmann. When the unchurched think "Christianity," they think that's the North American branch of the Taliban. Who wants to convert to that?

So, until we rebrand the Christian label, let's concentrate on increasing our share of the shrinking slice of the U.S. pie that self-identifies as Christian.

Plus, I'd just love to get my hands on that church in the Fan! What a handsome building!

Ordination standards

A parishioner in a congregation I used to serve emailed me about the recent change in ordination standards in the Presbyterian Church (USA). The old language read:

Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

The new language reads:

Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000). The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G.14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003). Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.

The practical effect of this change is to allow congregations and presbyteries, if they so choose, to ordain non-celibate gays and lesbians to the offices of elder and minister, respectively.

My former parishioner asked me about this change, especially regarding whether or not the biblical passages that condemn homosexuality are speaking to the same kind of same-sex behavior we're debating in contemporary society.

Greco-Roman women were betrothed in their teens to Greco-Roman men in their late 20s. Men who were old enough to have a sex drive but not old enough to marry usually found sexual outlets in one of two places. Either they took a concubine, or they took a teenage boy under their wing, mentored him and also used him for sexual gratification. So the argument is that when Paul condemns homosexuality in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6, that's the kind of homosexuality he was condemning because that was practically the only type of homosexuality with which he was familiar.

There's some merit to that argument, although it's by no means a slam dunk. If you could put Paul in a time machine and transport him to the United States in the 21st century, I think you'd be hard-pressed to get him to acknowledge the justice and righteousness of same-sex marriage. On the other hand, I imagine you'd be hard-pressed to get anything out of him. I believe that the sight of a moving car and a working TV set would reduce him to a fetal tuck. Just as we'd would be if we were hurled into the year 4011.

My point is that we cannot live in the first century AD. We can only live in the present and make ethical decisions as best we know how. Of course as Christians our conscience is captive to the Word of God, but Christian living happens when ancient texts intersect with the contemporary situation, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, faith, hope and love abound. The Westminster Confession puts it this way:

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the word; and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed.

This society knows a few things about human sexuality that previous societies didn't, namely: a small number of people are attracted to persons of the same sex due to some mysterious mixture of nature and nurture. This orientation is set fairly early in life and cannot be changed without doing psychological damage. Further, it appears that very few people of same sex orientation have a vocation for celibacy, just like heterosexuals.

If we require gays and lesbians to live celibate lives on the basis of Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6, then we'll be making liars and hypocrites out of people. We know this because of the church's long and ultimately failed experiment with requiring clerical celibacy.

And this in fact has been the case with homosexuals. Gay men and lesbians have coped by marrying people of the opposite sex, which often doesn't work very well. Or they cope with anonymous sex in rest area restrooms. Or they develop a love affair with the bottle--as is the case with many Roman Catholic priests.

It seems to me that the prudent and humane thing to do is to regularize same-sex relationships in marriages or civil unions. If one wants a proof text for this opinion, I would offer 1 Corinthians 7:9: It's better to marry than to burn. People whose relationships have been formalized in that way, who are also Presbyterians and who are called to serve as elders or ministers then should be allowed to do so, with the consent of the respective governing body.

Now Camille Paglia famously argued that homosexuals don't have anonymous sex in rest rooms because they are oppressed but because they like it! OK, fine. The institution of heterosexual marriage hasn't eliminated one-night stands, and I doubt that gay marriage will eliminate homosexual promiscuity.

But that's not the point. The point is that de-coupling sexual intimacy from the hard-won emotional intimacy that grows as two people pledge themselves to each other in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health is not good. That's the message the church should be sending to the world.

I'm more convinced than ever that gays and lesbians ought to be able to marry, and if called, to serve the church as elders and ministers. But I'm also more sympathetic than ever to the concerns of people who disagree with me.

Mind you, I'm not sympathetic with homophobia--with the name-calling and physical violence against gays that's still typical of teenage and young adult men. I'm thinking more about people who have seen a lot of changes in the past 40 years, not all of them good: divorce, out-of-wedlock births, elective abortions, and so forth. I think that for some people, gay ordination is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I share those concerns. But I don't think that gay marriage or gay ordination means blessing any of those trends. Gay marriage actually pays marriage and its virtues a compliment. Gays and lesbians are saying, "Marriage is good. Deal us in, please."

This post will not convince anyone, I think. Nobody changes their mind on something like this all at once. And many people may never change their minds. What I say to those of you who disagree with me and are Presbyterian is, Please remain Presbyterian. We can agree to disagree on this. Sexual ethics are important, but it's not the article on which the Church stands or falls.

Besides, the practical importance of this change is that some congregation somewhere will ordain someone your congregation wouldn't. But isn't that already the case with regard to a whole lot of issue (theology, temperament, leadership style, etc.)?

Liberals Presbyterians need conservatives (and not just their per capita dollars!). Liberals have little passion for evangelism. We need your passion. And liberals, despite going with the culture on this issue, tend to be culturally flat-footed. We need conseratives' creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.

I imagine conservatives need liberals too, although that's up to you to decide.

Hard times for single pastors

Halden Doerge has flagged a New York Times article about the discrimination that single pastors face in seeking a call to conservative, Evangelical congregations. Halden calls out Albert Mohler in particular for making an idol of the family. The reporter quotes Mohler saying, "Both the logic of Scripture and the centrality of marriage in society (justify) the strong inclination of congregations to hire a man who is not only married but faithfully married."

It's a minimalist "logic of scripture" that would look askance at single clergy. I think where it comes from is limiting one's thinking on the matter to 1 Corinthians 7:9 and 1 Thessalonians 4:4 (AV). Those two texts in isolation yield a sexual ethic that begins and ends with finding a suitable receptacle for semen.

Within these parameters single clergy, especially single male clergy, are hopelessly compromised. Why? Because men ejaculate periodically. Our bodies churn out sperm and seminal fluid; there's no helping it, and sooner or later, they'll find their way out in one of three ways: intercourse, masturbation or nocturnal emissions. The first is fornication for the single, while the second and the third inevitably involve some kind of lust (erotic dreams accompanying the sadly involuntary third exit). And if we expand our proof texts for sexual ethics to include Matthew 5:28, then by definition, single men are implicated in sexual sin and thus are unfit for ordained ministry.

Thus the only solution, as Mohler sees it, is to get thee to the church on time, or else you won't be preaching in any church anytime. I guess that Mohler's not going to want to get into any kind of casuistic analysis of when masturbation might be a permissible concession to what biology and providence have wrought concerning the lack of an available and suitable "vessel."

Boy, I'd hate to be a pastor's wife in Mohler's worldview. Your role in life is to be a sperm bank for your godly head of household and maybe the piano player and/or CE director. How depressing.

In a sense, the church puts single clergy in the same bind as it does gay and lesbian clergy. Biology fates both groups to sin and disapprobation because when the Church isn't thinking beyond a few proof texts, it's simply refusing to incorporate what we've learned about the human body and human sexuality.

This is not a Barmen Declaration moment. This is not the Church standing courageously against the onslaught of decadent neo-paganism. This is the Church requiring not faith but what Tillich calls "intellectual good works" as the price of salvation and belonging. Not that I think that Tillich's own sexual ethics should be any guide to clergy ethics. But seriously, can't we get beyond any of this?

Slippery slopes and same sex marriage

Here's a gem from John Piper's blog I stumbled over the other day:

A 1951 laughable thought: In 60 years the President of the United States will refuse to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

A 2011 laughable thought: In 60 years the President of the United States will refuse to exclude from marriage a man and a chimp.

Are you laughing?

You know what else was a laughable thought in 1951? That in 60 years the offspring of a mixed race marriage would be the President.

What if some lawyer in 1951 had defended  miscegenation laws because if you let Negros and whites marry, before you know it, a mulatto President will let boys marry boys and girls marry girls. Would that have been a valid argument?

It's no different than Piper's argument, except that we're evaluating it from the bottom, not the top of the slope. I assume Piper is not a racist, and perhaps has officiated at mixed-race weddings, but doesn't his fretting over this camel's nose under the tent oddly endorse other arguments he would have to find odious?

Koppelman's observation holds here as well: the problem is treating a slippery slope argument as a logical argument when in fact it is an empirical argument.

But in this case, even the logic is screwed up. There is a libertarian streak to some arguments for same sex marriage that says the government shouldn't bar some consenting individuals from entering into legal contracts that are available to most. Just how is a chimp supposed to consent to marrying a human being? You'd need an entirely new set of arguments to normalize bestiality in this society, arguments that have nothing to do with same sex marriage, and arguments that frankly, I don't see on the horizon, nor does anyone else.

Should I stay or should I go?

It's not just Mubarak who's asking the question these days. 45 big steeple Presbyterian pastors recently signed their names to a proposal for a "radical (transformation)" of the denomination which could pave the way for a schism.

There is much in this letter that I welcome. I agree with the signatories that, "We need new processes that identify and support the next generation of leadership differently than the current model, which unintentionally weeds out the entrepreneurial persons we so desperately need in our congregations." I am weary of bloated bureaucracies that cannot re-tool themselves for the emerging missionary field, and bureaucrats who sulk when recalcitrant congregations force the next best thing, retrenchment, by withholding mission dollars.

And I do agree that there are theological problems with our denomination. Liberation theology has yanked the blinders of race, gender and class off of our interpretations of scripture and tradition. It's an indispensable corrective to theology as usual, but it is not a stand-alone project.

Unfortunately, that seems to be what has come to pass in mainline Christianity. I agree with a colleague and mentor of mine who believes that mainline Christians have stopped asking first order questions such as, "Is there a God? Is this God my friend or my enemy?" (Or Gauguin's question, "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?") and we have settled for second order questions.

But there is more to the gospel than peace, justice and identity politics. Not less, to be sure. But more. When Paul writes to a mutinous congregation in Corinth, he doesn't appeal to them to be reconciled to himself, but rather to God. Who is this God to whom we need to be reconciled? And by what means? Mainliners kind of mumble about these questions.

All that said, I do support same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay and lesbian Presbyterians. And so I am out of luck.

Same sex marriage and foot in mouth disease

Bruce Reyes-Chow, former moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), showed up at a Prop 8 rally last week and made this short speech:

According to his blog he's taken a lot of heat for it, so he's soliciting feedback at his site and elsewhere.

I think the problem here is that there is a whole range of people between enthusiastic supporters of same sex marriage and, say, the Westboro Baptist Church, but the speech doesn't really acknowledge that reality. So it might come as a surprise, and an offensive one at that, to opponents of same sex marriage who watch this speech and hear that they are oppressors and literalists.

Inertia, more than flat-out hate, is the biggest impediment to same sex marriage. I doubt that these comments will get the ball rolling in the right direction.

I'm also scratching my head about Reyes-Chow's authority to confess on behalf of the Christian Church for words and deeds which have incited violence. The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers means that we can all hear one another's confessions and assure one another of pardon in Christ, but I'm not so sure that it authorizes us to confess on behalf one another. Certainly the Church has incited violence, and acknowledging that historical truth is a no-brainer. But confessing for the Church would seem to imply that he's been authorized by someone or some group to do that. It's as if he hasn't fully stepped out of his role as Moderator, and overstepped that role at the same time. Moderators are not popes or ecumenical councils. And when you combine that with a sharply worded and un-nuanced attack on homophobia, well then, small wonder the fecal matter has collided with the atmospheric distribution mechanism.

I say that as a former minister who has stuck his foot in his mouth more times than I care to count, so, No Biggee, Rev. Reyes-Chow.

Aubrey and Maturin on gay rights

At a meeting of the Admiralty, Maturin's cover as a British intelligence agent was inadvertently blown. Later, Maturin and Sir Joseph discuss whether Maturin can continue on his mission:

"This is the only name here I am afraid of"--pointing to the list (of those present at the meeting)--"He is, as you know, a paederast. Not that I have anything against paederasty myself--each man must decide for himself where beauty lies and surely the more affection in the world the better--but it is common knowledge that some paederasts are subject to pressures that do not apply to other men. If this gentleman's meetings with Monsieur de La Tapetterie could be discreetly watched, and above all if La Tapetterie could be neutralized for a week, I should have no hesitation in carrying on with our former arrangement."

(H.M.S. Surprise. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1973.)

Love the sinner; only don't grant him security clearance. That's pretty enlightened thinking for the early 19th century. In fact, that was the CIA's own policy until as recently as 1995.

Dissertation topic here just for the askin'

OK, so I think a title like "Queer Eye for the Ascetic Guy: Homoeroticism, Children and the Making of Monks" is too clever by half for a referred journal. But there it is, in my June issue of JAAR.

So, I read it. I mean, I am going to do a dissertation on monasticism, so I have a, ahem, professional obligation to immerse myself in the full range of scholarly literature on the topic. And the author argues, and I quote, "Monastic texts prohibiting sex nonetheless authorize and normalize a voyeuristic gaze on the part of monks. They cultivate a decidedly queer eye for the ascetic guy." Get it? Get it? Just because I can read Coptic doesn't mean I don't watch TV!

If you don't get it, the author provides a few examples. One is of a father and son who went out to the desert to live as monks, but the other monks were gossiping about something sexually illicit afoot, until the son put a stop to it by disfiguring his body in chemicals used to embalm mummies. Our geeky, culturally relevant academic asks the naughty questions, "Did you flinch when reading of Zacharias entering the natron? Did you take pleasure in the flinch?"

Speaking only for myself, the answers are Yes, and, um, NO, respectively.

But I'm not a naughty little monk trying to subdue my passions.

We knew this, didn't we? It's a variation on a theme that goes back at least to Romans 7 in which Paul observes the irony that law can actually incite the behavior it prohibits. Pity the poor monk who didn't know what lust was until he read some lurid cautionary tale about sodomy in an Egyptian cave. Now he's a quivering mass of homoeroticism.

If this can get published in a peer-reviewed journal, then I swear that there's a dissertation out there waiting to be written about Deadspin. Because it does the same thing. The site's wall-to-wall coverage of Michael David Barrett, peeping tom to ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, is a case in point. Deadspin writers and commenters rightly skewer Barrett for the pathetic loser that he and any peeping tom is, but even as the reader enjoys Barrett getting his just desserts, he's thinking about what Barrett got to see--Erin Andrews--Naked!!! See, stern and witty disapproval of voyeurism makes us all... voyeurs.

The rest of the site does the same thing. There's skin there, but also text that mocks the surgical enhancements, the obvious promiscuity of the coed, and the crass media pandering to idiot guys for whom watching sports and oggling girls are two great tastes that taste great together. But Deadspin still incites you to lust, even as it exhorts you not to be "that guy." See what I mean?

When you turn this into a dissertation and then a monograph, I don't ask that you dedicate it to me, only that you mention me among all the other little people who helped you write it...

On "natural disasters"

Every once in a while, somebody shoots their mouth off about the bad things that happen in our world. There were Robertson and Falwell opining that 9/11 was God's judgment on the gays, and John Hagee's statement that God willed the Holocaust in order to establish the State of Israel (which I blogged about here). Now we have John Piper declaring that God sent a tornado to Minneapolis to punish the Lutherans meeting there for ordaining gays (HT). Always the gays!

In one sense I don't have much to say about Piper that I didn't say about Hagee. Piper knows a bit too much about God's will; he collapses the distinction between providence and history, and reduces the hermeneutical circle to a point. Piper's statement is entirely consistent with a theology in which God ordains evil in order to be glorified through its punishment, and lucky for Piper that he's on God's side! He need not fear but only take grim satisfaction in all manner of "natural disasters" and "strange coincidences."
But between the Hagee post and today I took a seminar on Augustine, and my final paper was on Augustine's doctrine of evil. I focused on book seven of the Confessions, and then branched out from there to survey Augustine on "natural evil," and the origins of evil (God? The Free Will? Fallen Angels?) I'm going to re-post the last third of that paper here because, while Piper's statement is offensive, it doesn't come out of the blue, as you'll see if you have the patience to slog through it!

Last point before the paper--which I also left in the comment thread at Inhabitatio Dei. We would all do well to do less theorizing about the origin and meaning of evil, and do more practical work ameliorating its effects.

            In sum, Augustine’s conviction that evil is internal and insubstantial is the corollary of his confession that God is good, omnipotent and immaterial. These twin beliefs represent a marked departure from his earlier Manichean beliefs, that good and evil are materialistic, dualistic principles whose warfare precipitated the world and its mixture of good and evil. Both Nebridius and the Neo-Platonists helped free Augustine’s theology from materialism, the former by undermining his faith in astrology and a mutable God, and the latter by giving him an argument for evil as insubstantial and a way to experience God as immaterial.  Ultimately, the journey was one of spiritual maturation, not just intellectual enlightenment.  Augustine attributes his arrival at the Truth and perseverance in it to the One who is Truth incarnate, Jesus Christ, whom the pagans do not worship, the philosophers will not consent to learn from, and whom the Manicheans have deeply misunderstood.  The one who humbled himself humbled the proud Augustine, rendering him teachable and able to both see the light and abide in it.

            While this paper has traced the development of Augustine’s theodicy, some unanswered questions remain, and the implications of his theodicy have yet to be fleshed out.  To these concerns this paper now turns. 

            All things, to the extent that they exist, are good. On this maxim Augustine’s doctrine of insubstantial evil depends. All things? Even, say, a locust plague?  And what of the goodness of good things, such as the moon, for is it not of dubious character when compared to the surpassing greatness of the sun? Perhaps God erred in denying to the moon the greatness of the sun, and perhaps God erred in creating such wretched creatures as voracious grasshoppers.

            Augustine briefly responds to this problem in Confessions VII:  “In some parts of it certain things are regarded as evil because they do not suit certain others; but these same things do fit in elsewhere, and they are good there, and good in themselves” (Conf. VII.13.19). The problem then, is not with the creature itself, but with an imbalance in the relationship between creatures. Locusts are good, but too many of them in one place may harm a wheat field. So in locating evil in the state of balance between the creatures, rather than in the creatures themselves, Augustine has yet again demonstrated evil’s insubstantial nature.

             In On Free Will, Augustine explains what it means that things in themselves are good, and collectively, very good.  Rather than faulting the glory of Thing X or God its Creator for not living up to the glory of Thing Y, one should appreciate the role that Thing X plays in the glory of Thing Y by offering itself to Thing Y by way of contrast:

For the earth contains land of all kinds, passing by gradual stages from the most fruitful and pleasant to the most deceitful and infertile tracts, so that you can only find fault with one kind of land by comparing it with a better kind.  So you ascend through all the grades of land with their varying praiseworthy qualities, and when you find the very best land you are glad that there are other kinds as well (On Free Will III.v.13).

 

            Thus in order to think of evil properly, it is important to “keep the totality in view” (Conf. VII.13.19). Fallen humans tend to evaluate good and evil from an ad nostrum point of view; that is, “If it is good for us, it is good, and if it is bad for us, it is evil” (Brachtendorf 88-9, cf. City of God XI.22). But when one adopts a God’s eye view of creation, one sees that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and even the lowliest part is not without value for the contribution it makes to the glory of what ranks ahead of it.

            Augustine assumes a hierarchical universe in which things that manifest a more complex unity are greater than things that manifest a simpler unity.  For instance, mice, which are a living unity of body and mind, are greater than bread, which is an inanimate object.  Ad nostrum, we would greatly prefer bread in our cupboard to mice, but “a more wholesome judgment” (Conf. VII.14.20) would assign the greater glory to mice (Brachtendorf 88-9).

            Thus there is a strong aesthetic dimension to Augustine’s theodicy.  Just as the color black, in the hands of a skilled artist can contribute to a masterpiece, those things which humans experience as evil are, in fact, subordinated to the greater glory of the whole according to the creative will of God.

            In his essay “Insubstantial Evil,” Rowan Williams argues that Augustine does not present an aesthetic of evil. The statement, “For you evil has no being at all” (Conf. VII.13.19) does not imply a point of view, writes Williams, but only that “unlike us, God is not tempted to short-circuit the argument and ascribe to evil a substantive life it does not and cannot have” (Williams 107). Yet Augustine’s own words about “keeping the totality in view,” his accusation in City of God XI.22 that an ad nostrum point of view leads directly to the Manichean heresy, and his treatise On Order belie Williams’ assertion that Augustine’s theodicy does not contain an aesthetic element. In the latter, Augustine’s conversation partner Trygetius acquits Divine Providence of responsibility for evil, but faults the human inability to survey the totality of creation (Sohn 49).

            One last issue remains, the origin of this vitiation of the good and imbalance in the created order called evil.  Augustine, one will recall, locates evil internally, in the free choice of the human will to turn from the good.  Because evil is insubstantial, the human will is not evil by nature, but defective.  What was left unanswered was what accounted for this turning away.  In City of God XII Augustine picks up the trail and follows it back in salvation history as far as he can. Before God created human beings God created the angels.  Angels are rational, spiritual beings with a will, and theirs’ has to be a good will because all created things, to the extent that they exist, are good.  But some of these angels, of their own free will, turned away from God and in on themselves in haughty self-regard. These wicked angels, in turn, tempted the first humans to sin, and Adam and Eve, of their own free will, gave into temptation. Since “all sinned in Adam,” there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as natural evil. There are only evils that rebuke sinners and teach the elect to hope in a better world to come.

            What caused the will to choose such a thing?  This is a useless question (Maker 156):

Augustine.—Since will is the cause of sin, you now ask what is the cause of the will. If I could find one, are you not going to ask for the cause of the cause I have found? What limit will there be to your quest, what end to inquiry and explanation? You ought not to push your inquiry deeper… An evil will, therefore, is the cause of all evils” (On Free Will III.xv.48).

 

            Another way Augustine puts it is that there is no efficient cause of the will’s turning from God, only a deficient cause (City of God XII.7). The buck stops with the will. Now there may be some inherent instability in the will. Though created good, it is created ex nihilo, and prone to return to nothingness through the privation of falling away from the good (City of God XIV.13). Nonetheless, we are left with something of a mystery as to that first turning of the will away from God. Or are we? In contrasting the good and evil angels Augustine writes,

Those other angels were created good but have become evil by their own bad will; and this bad will did not originate from their nature, which was good. It came through a voluntary falling away from good, so that evil is caused not by good, but by falling away from good. Either they received less grace of the divine love than did the others, who continued in that grace; or, if both were created equally good, the one sort fell through their own evil will, while the others had greater help to enable them to attain to the fullness of bliss with the complete assurance that they will never fall away (City of God XII.9)

 

            The consensus in the seminar was that Augustine raised the first option, only to dismiss it in favor of the second, and that the phrase “while others had greater help…” refers to the gift of perseverance given to the good angels as a reward for their obedience. But Babcock reads it differently:

In the end, then, Augustine does propose—perhaps as a bulwark against the intimation that the fall of the evil angels was a matter or sheer chance?—a differentiation between the two groups of angels, the evil and the good… The critical point of distinction between the two groups of angels turns out ultimately to rest in an external factor, something that God has given to the one but not to the other… To the inexplicable conundrum of the good will’s unprompted turn from God to self, then, Augustine has added the inexplicable mystery of a God who, for no apparent reason, gives aid to some and withholds aid from other angels… [I]t is in relation to the angelic fall that Augustine explicitly addresses the question of the origin of the evil will, and here, despite his best efforts, his analysis swivels between a position that, in effect, reduces evil to a random outcome… and a position that... makes the first evil will a function of God’s withholding aid

(106-7).

 

            Babcock’s analysis points the way toward a darker theodicy that can be argued for based on Augustine’s theology. Perhaps God willed the angelic fall and consequent human fall in order that a fallen creation would result. Indeed, Augustine pronounces this present miserable creation “perfect” (On Free Will III.ix.26), not only from the point of view of a God who can see in an instant how the inferior creatures glorify the superior, and not only in light of the future glory awaiting the suffering saints, but also in light of the present miseries for sinners justly punished. A pre-lapsarian world could not have manifested the good of the punishment of sin.

            In the Supralapsarian belief that God damns some for God’s own glory, and in all theodicies, both amateur and professional, that appeal to God’s sovereign will to pre-empt hard questions about the goodness of God and the reality of evil, Augustine’s immaterial Creator becomes something of a mad artist who is enthralled with his project to the point of indifference to the pain and suffering of the creatures on the canvas. Perhaps for this reason Williams wants to deny, despite much evidence to the contrary, the aesthetic dimension of Augustine’s doctrine of evil.

            Yet Augustine denies that sins or misery are necessary to the perfection of the universe (On Free Will III.ix.26).  There is neither aesthetic necessity nor moral necessity of evil in the beautiful chain of being (Sohn 52). There is a God who makes all things work together for good for those who love him (Romans 8:28), who judged it better to bring good out of evil, than to not permit evil to exist (Sohn 52).

Works Cited

Augustine.  City of God XII.  London:  Penguin Books, 1972.

                        .  The Confessions. Hyde Park NY: New City Press, 1997. 

                        . “On Free Will.” Augustine: Earlier Writings. John H.S. Burleigh, ed.

            Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953.

                        . Teaching Christianity. Hyde Park NY: New City Press, 1996. 

Babcock, William S.  “Augustine on Sin and Moral Agency.” The Ethics of St. Augustine.

            Atlanta: Scholars Press. 87-113.

Brachtendorf, Johannes. “The Goodness of Creation and the Reality of Evil:  Suffering As a

            Problem in Augustine’s Theodicy.” Augustinian Studies 31.1 (2000) 79-92.

Coyle, John Kevin. “God’s Place in Augustine’s Anti-Manichaean Polemic.”  Augustinian

            Studies 38.1 (2007). 87-102.

Cress, D.A. “Augustine’s Privation Account of Evil: A Defense.” Augustinian Studies 20

            (1989). 109-128.

Maker, William. “Augustine on evil:  the dilemma of the philosophers.” International Journal

            for Philosophy of Religion 15.3 (1984). 149-160.

Plotinus.  The Enneads. New York: Pantheon Books, 1969.

Sohn, Hohyun. “The Beauty of Hell? Augustine’s Aesthetic Theodicy and Its Critics.” 

            Theology Today 64. 47-57. 

Williams, Rowan. “Insubstantial Evil.” Augustine and His Critics. Dodaro & Lawless, eds. 

            London: Routledge. 105-123.

Paganisms

Michael Novak on Obama's first week:

The Obama presidency is only one week old, but it has already limned its main moral outlines:

On January 20, President Obama called for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. He also declared his intention to give multiple rights and privileges to homosexual couples. 

 [snip]

From these announcements we learn that President Obama recognizes no difference between the Jewish-Christian covenant between a woman and a man (a covenant that they will have and nurture children, if they are so blessed), and a civil contract between two persons of any sex, in order to set up a household of affection and sexual favors.

This is a relapse into paganism. The point of monogamous family networks is to treat male and female with complementary and mutually cooperative dignity and to tie the power of sexuality (male, especially) to self-sacrificing communities of love.

Perhaps Novak means "hedonism" rather than "paganism," although bringing homosexual relations under the regime of rights and responsibilities that the estate of marriage entails doesn't sound awfully hedonistic to me. And civil marriage is not by necessity a  "community of self-sacrificing love." That would be the Church, in which case the proper concern would be that gays got married in a Church surrounded by Christians who will support them and hold them accountable, rather than tying the knot at the magistrate's office.

More to the point, Paganism in many of its Indo-European manifestations, is a religion whose chief end is to propitiate god/the gods in order to maximize this-worldly success: health, economic well-being, security, and so forth.

To the extent that American government, technology and economic theory are attuned to economic growth, longevity, and maintaining a balance of power among competing interest groups, our society's ethos is pagan, although we don't look to transcendent power, either good or malign, to account for health and wealth and security. Studying proximate causes, rather than ultimate causes, is enough. Novak himself, to the extent that he's a cheerleader for the American way, is more thoroughly paganized than he surely realizes.

The question is, what do you do about this? A-ha! Time for a lesson from history!

A lot changed as Roman power declined in the West. Christianity went from being a persecuted sect to a state religion. The practice of religion began to focus on shrines that held the relics of saints. Christians learned to bless the rough and tumble techniques of statecraft, so long as the sword was deployed against non-Christians (Jews, Arians, pagans, etc.)

Russell's book, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, argues that Christianity is essentially a world-denying religion focused on sin, forgiveness and eschatological judgment, but it had to give a bit when it came up against a world-affirming and robust paganism in the Germanic tribes rampaging through the Western Roman Empire. What was a temporary concession to the pagan worldview became a syncretistic religion. Old pagan shrines are re-dedicated to the Christian deity. Old pagan remedies for illness are replaced by the healing power of saints' relics. And Christian morality gets boiled down to Germanic notions of honor. So you get the Crusades. Medieval Christianity, Russell argues, ain't much different than Voodoo.

Now one might ask how world-denying a religion is whose founder raised the dead, healed the sick, fed the poor, feasted with sinners, and so forth. Russell's book is not without its critics in the scholarly community, and here is a review that seems to reflect both the praise and blame that scholars have afforded it.

More to the point, to what extent does the Church acknowledge this worldly concerns as legitimate, while reorienting people to other-worldly concerns, the meaning of one's life in light of the certainty of death, the dependence on a new creation in light of the failure of all man-made utopias and the scientific judgment that one day this whole universe is just going to fizzle out?