Happy Birthday, Paul Tillich

"God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

-Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology I

Ideas v. People: Sketch 3

To this editorial by Warren Buffet, a trusted friend suggested that Buffet is arguing for socially-justified armed robbery.

The ultra-rich only have that money because they exploit a cycle of poverty that allows them to underpay people like me, keeping us helpless and subservient and paralyzed. That’s at least as immoral as the government collecting taxes. I don’t have a choice in either situation, unless I want to rot in a cell (not paying taxes) or in a ditch (not laboring). So, if I have to choose between two kinds of robbery, one which hurts a tiny portion of the population (who, frankly, will still be getting fat and happy anyway), and one that hurts a huge percent of the population…

If the government isn’t going to assure a decent standard of living and at-least-somewhat-equitable opportunity for every American (something that will require armed robbery), then there shouldn’t be a government at all, we should give this land back to the people from whom we stole it, and go back to Europe or whatever sewer we crawled out of. The only possible way we can justify the continued existence of the United States government, and the “United States” as a concept, is to use the considerable resources and ingenuity at our disposal to alleviate the suffering of ourselves and our neighbors. The fact that we are unwilling to do that (gridlocking ourselves with demagoguery, apathy, avarice, masturbatory materialism and petty, partisan mine’s-bigger contests) makes a case for packing up and calling it a day, or at the very least changing our name to The United States of Fuckpoorpeople

Ideas v. People: Sketch 2 (St. Paul and Homosexuality)

Could Paul have conceived of healthy, homosexual monogamy? Are Paul's remarks moral proclamations for all time, or the understandably frustrated anti-Roman spite of a politicized first-century Jewish thinker? Does Paul see homosexuality as a symbol of vulgar Roman extravagance? Is there really a heteronormative agenda at work? What does Paul mean when he writes "In Christ there is no male or female"?

Does Paul see homosexuality itself as sin? Does Paul see anything as sin? Does he distinguish "sin" from morally-neutral behaviors? Or is "sin" (to Paul) everything and nothing? Isn't Paul also antagonistic to heterosexual behavior? Does Paul sympathetically characterize homosexuality as a malaise from which people must be saved?

Does the burden of proof fall on me, or on those who claim that homosexuality is sin? If these people appeal to the Levitical code, is their reading selective? What are the assumptions upon which their belief is based?

Don't we have to agree on a few sweeping assumptions before the conversation can move forward? How can I have this conversation with someone if I don't share their view that scripture is inerrant?

Doesn't Jesus himself stand up for the dignity of marginalized people against the moral presumption of the pious?

Can the Spirit of the law be separated from its letter? Are we bound by rules for which we are unprepared?

Ideas v. People: Sketch 1

If capitalism is your god, your god is dying. As they used to say in seminaries: “Any god that can be killed should be killed.”

Capitalism is failing because – as its adherents will tell you – “We didn’t do it like we’re supposed to.”

Remember, this is why Communism collapsed. No one ever did Socialism “like we’re supposed to.”

We also never did democracy, Christianity or the NFL draft “like we’re supposed to” but we need to accept compromise. If a system is so fragile that only it’s most pristine and flawless permutation can function, then that system is no good to us.

Ideas v. People

The energy of faith, hope, and love is the unheroic Passion of Christ crucified, the energy of his death and resurrection binding us to him. Passion is not willpower. Passion is the surrender of meaning and power, the emptying that is incorporation into Christ. Passion is the soul’s life.

Paul Hessert, Christ and the End of Meaning

I don’t believe there is a Hell in the afterlife, and this is probably why I am not evangelically-minded. If I did believe in something like that, I would be obligated to spend every waking moment saving (or trying to save) anyone I could from that fate. In light of infinite, endless suffering, nothing else could be worth doing.

I understand the impulse, however, to share profound experiences, and the impulse to defend and explore what we hold dear. The Christian experience compels us to invite (as fishermen, if you can excuse that imperfect metaphor) others to share in it.

When asked which commandment is greatest (see Mathew 22:36-40), Jesus answers “Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love him with all your soul, and love him with all your mind."

I believe this means to strive toward a connection to Ultimacy, to accept our relative smallness, and to cease rebellion against the laws of the physical universe (our rebellion against our own mortality, for example, as seen in the Transhumanist movement.)

Jesus adds a second commandment, one that is like the first: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Everything in the books of Law, everything from the prophets is about these two things.

Perhaps, then, all or most Christians can agree on these priorities:

1) God

2) Humanity

We may understand the finer points (like, what “God” refers to) differently, but let's use this as a starting point. The two commands are alike. There is no clear distinction between loving others and loving God. What we do to anyone we do to Christ. Christ. God. Meaning. This is why our selfishness and our callousness to the needs of others does not expose the truth that we are very-naughty-indeed, it exposes the truth that we are mired in an existential failure.

Notice that there is nothing on the list between God and people. Doctrine and dogma are not included. In fact, Jesus appears to be saying that doctrine and dogma exist only to promote these two priorities. (If we intend to include our doctrine in the category of “God” we are making a grave mistake.) The conclusion is that people are more valuable than ideas.

Christian churches talk about fundamentals, the things on which they will not budge. At the same time, they evangelize, inviting people to share in the experience while, at the same time, alienating those people with “fundamental” ideas about the role of women, homosexuality, marriage, economics, violence, and a host of other contentious issues. It seems wrong to bend one’s principles to appease potential “buyers” but a question lurks: Is this idea worth more than the people you will lose?

This is why I have so little patience for talk about politics in the US. People appear more concerned with the triumph of their ideology than they are with the needs of others. I can rant about this at length, but why bother?

Any person is more precious than any idea. Christ calls us away from the idols of ideology, away from our loyalty to Truth-claims, and into a wilderness of love.