eSalvation?

“Half-woken from a dream, I realized the church could start an electronic confessional service, or ePriest. All of your sins are already tracked online, so they already know what you did. After texting you penance instructions, and your pressing 'C' to confirm, you'd be e-mailed indulgence coupons that you can print or swipe from your mobile device to purchase more lapda, uh, sins later.

Jonathan Malone, what do you think?”

This was posted by a friend of mine on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. Because of the Christmas madness and the other pressing responsibilities (I really had to catch up on episodes of “Brooklyn 99”) I did not get to give a good answer….until now The Christmas madness is over, I have watched all the shows that I need to watch, and I’m enjoying the weekend with my in-laws. So now is a perfect time to sneak away and respond to this tongue-in-cheek theological curiosity.

First, let me say that I am glad that my 3+ years of Masters study and 10+ years of doctoral work qualify me for such an important question. I am sure there were many other people that my friend could have tagged via Facebook with such a quandary. Thanks for thinking of me. (The truth is that we were in High School together and I may be the only religious person he knows).

Second, the question is actually a good one that caused me to dust off more than one tome of theological import. Let’s start with the idea that all of our sins are tracked online. I wonder if such a notion would make the presence and purpose of such an app obsolete. If we knew that we were being tracked specifically to keep tally of all of the “bad” or taboo places we went to, things we posted, etc., would not that be enough of a deterrent? I think of Foucault’s Panopticon (via Bentham); the idea of a prison where everyone is watched, or at least believes that they are being watched all the time. Yet we already live in a world of surveillance and we still try to get away with things. We have cookies tracking our actions, browser history letting our spouses and parents know where we have been, and the NSA is no doubt documenting our every keystroke. I’m even told there is some fat man in the North Pole who sees me when I am sleeping and when I am awake. Even with all the surveillance that already exists the majority of the human race, when online, will still try to get away with, sneak, or do something suspect and act as if no one is the wiser. If you don’t believe me I then I have one word for you – porn.

It may be a sad statement on humanity that even the notion of an omnipresent, omniscient God who sees and knows even more than the fat man of the North Pole does not keep us from making bad decisions from time to time to time. So I think my friend is right that we need something for confession because we are going to “sin.”

Yet I wonder about an ePriest that already knows everything you did and just passes out the penance as if it were a tax. Part of the sacrament of the confession is the individual confessing, fessing up, admitting, and embracing the truth. If this is done with a priest or, in my tradition, directly with God via prayer, it is important for the individual to name what he or she believes he or she has done. Not everything we may consider to be a sin is actually sinful (free reign on eating chocolate!), and not everything we consider to be ok actually is (so back off the chocolate!). Add to this the notion of sin as a break in one’s relationship with God, i.e. not doing what God would like to do. The act of penance is to rebuild/regain your relationship with God. So if such an app were to exist it would need to be open ended where the user would have to speak or type in the sins that he or she feels moved to confess.

Third, the notion of indulgences is something that is a bit outside of my tradition. We focus on grace (as given by God) over works (as done by people), meaning you do not need to get a coupon to validate your various transgressions each time you commit them. You only need to accept the actions on the cross once and you are forgiven your sins for all time. That is a serious deal! Those in the more confessional tradition will agree with the grace but probably argue that you need the confession and the assurance of forgiveness (i.e. indulgence) for the sins you continue to commit as you grow in your faith. I agree with such a sentiment, only I would turn again and again to the universal grace of the cross as the indulgence. It is important to confess and to work to be better, but in the end we cannot mete out forgiveness on a mobile device.

In summary, the act of confession (in prayer or in the booth) is a good thing to do. The reminder of forgiveness is a good thing to have. We probably don’t need an ePriest to make it all happen (I haven’t even gotten into the importance of human interaction and real-time ritual).

All that said if my friend is considering creating such a device/application and is looking for the endorsement of said device from a clergy then I am sure there is a way we can make it work. Call me!

Finding God

Opening shot – close up of a bearded man, staring at a computer. Candles are lit around him. A bell rings:

Bearded Man: Where is God found, experienced, and seen in life?

He looks up and a tear falls from his eye onto the desk. Fade to black.

I have finally earned my right to wear a black turtleneck and beret – I have watched my first Ingmar Bergman film. Now I can join the ranks of the pretentious and speak in a faux accent when talking about the latest “film” that I watched in the “cinema” (versus movie/flick I saw in at the Cineplex).

The Bergman movie I watched was Through a Glass Darkly, the first of his three “God films.” The other two, Winter Light, and The Silence I intend on viewing in the somewhat near future. Probably the best thing about the movie is that it is only 89 minutes long! Almost anyone can sit through a black and white foreign film for 89 minutes. One more minute and I would have had to watch NASCAR to bring me back to balance.

Bergman’s film is beautiful in a dark, empty kind of way. The film centers around a family and the dynamics of the members of that family as well as the emptiness that each member of the family is wrestling with make the film powerful and evocative. The film holds its own without the aid of postulating pompous theories about what certain things may or may not symbolize.

In the movie is a serious searching; a searching on the part of the characters and on the part of viewer. With the characters we find a searching towards a relationship that is desired. Martin wants a certain kind of relationship with his wife Karin. Karin wants a relationship with God that involves a profound revelation and awakening. Minus, Karin’s brother, is looking for a deeper relationship with his father, David, and is tormented over his relationship with his sister. David is trying to connect with his children and find meaning in his work. This is just a surface overview of some of the relational tension; there is more than what I have just suggested. Everyone is trying to connect and everyone is failing. In this relational turmoil the viewer is led to consider where God might be found. The title of the movie, a thinly veiled reference to 1 Corinthians 13:12 – “For now we see in a mirror (glass) dimly…”

Here is where the searching continues because if God is present in the movie it is through the off-screen experience of one of the characters. David explains how before joining the rest of the family he attempted suicide but was stopped through the miracle of mechanical failure. This experience leads David to find a deep, mystical love for his children and son-in-law. It leads him to start to try to live differently. This is an experience that is central to David’s existence, it is a major moment in David’s life and we only hears about it as an anecdote shared by David. God is not directly in the movie. We do not see God act. We do not see God involved throughout the rest of the move. There is a moment when Karin mistakes a spider for God and imagines God in horrific, graphic ways, but it is a delusion. I would say that God is not present in this movie. What is present is a searching for God.

In this film we see a dark, marred reflection of the characters through their relationships with each other. For example we know who Martin is through his strained relationship with his wife. The same is with God. We do not see God in this film but we see the yearning for God in the characters. In this yearning we see a God who is with the lost man ready to end his life. We see God with the young man who is struggling with the harsh reality of life. We see God with the woman who is trying to stand between insanity and reality. We see God not controlling or contriving life but staying with the characters in life. In such a dark and beautiful film this is a comfort. The comfort is that God is not completely passive and is not completely controlling. God is present, perhaps guiding, wooing, and calling people out of their own sense of distress and despair.

In theological circles questions about the agency of God is something that causes folks to struggle. If God is all-powerful, all-mighty, and the greatest thing since and before sliced bread then God must have a role to play in our lives, controlling our choices, our decisions, and even our salvation. These are the predestination folks, Calvinists and the like who find some weird comfort in the notion that we are saved or condemned no matter what we do; it is out of our hands. There are others who like to hold to a notion of free will. These are folks who would say that we all have a choice how to live and how we may live with God. If we have free will then we should have control to make decisions, to make mistakes, to neglect and hurt others as well as ourselves. God is player in the process but does not control the process – agency is in our hands. The danger is taking so much power away from God that God becomes a silent presence that can do nothing, that cannot persuade or guide us or sometimes save us.

What if God gives us control over our lives, but can still intervene when it will sway us to make a decision that will be to our benefit? In this film David tells of a time when he tried to kill himself but was interrupted by the failure of a car to work; we are led to assume that this was the hand of God. If so, then God has agency, God can act and does. On the other hand Minus and Karin, brother and sister, cross a threshold that breaks and destroys the sibling relationship that they may have once had. They are not prohibited from such an action by God; God does not swoop in and stop them through some amazing act. Minus and Karin have agency and fall from grace.

God can be seen in Bergman’s film, but it is darkly. We see God reflected in the actions of David, after the failed suicide, but David’s actions still hold selfishness and fear as if he has not fully embraced his revelation of God. David shows a shrouded reflection of God. We see God reflected in the actions of Martin as he sacrifices again and again to take care of his wife, putting his needs aside. Yet he does so with a mechanic of “doing the right thing,” not being honest with Karin his own feelings and struggles. God is shrouded in the reflection of Martin. With Karin and Minus we see a struggle to love and care for each other as well as their father, but it occurs in a way that is broken; God is shrouded.

In the reality of life (outside of film-land) we struggle with a searching for God. Yes, God is found in relationships, but if that is the only place where we find God then we will again and gain find the reflection of God shrouded for in even the best relationships there is selfishness, control, anger, etc. Yes, God can be found in those moments of the miracle of our lives, but they are so often misunderstood, looked over, or just missed and God’s reflection is shrouded. If God is only found in relationships then God becomes powerless. If God is only found in miracles and moments of power over our lives then God is a cruel spider toying with our lives as if we were puppets.

We must look to balance both. Through our own, personal lives we can work on, strengthen our relationship with God via prayer, meditation, worship, and reading brilliant blogs. Through our public lives we can work to see God in the other and to show God in what we do. In all this we must again and again remember that we are only seeing God as if through a glass darkly. Now where is my beret?

A Hungry Morality

The Dinner, by Herman Koch, is a good read. There are some translation issues, but the pacing, the character development, and writing style holds through such difficulties. It is a book that is not subtle in its political/philosophical leanings.

If I were to recommend a movie to watch after reading The Dinner, I would suggest the 1982 cult classic Eating Raoul. 

It is a perfect combination. Both have moments of culinary delight and wrestle with similar moral questions. Eating Raoul offers an absurd look at similar questions of morality as The Dinner.

A question and quandary poised in The Dinner and in Eating Raoul is around the value of human life. I’m going to try to illuminate the question without giving away salient aspects of the plot. A strength in Koch’s book is the way in which he peppers the pages with hints of the story, adding layer upon layer, instead of offering it all in one course. The reader is compelled to continue through the pages in order to learn all of what has happened. Let the reader know that the story is not actually about a meal but instead what takes place before, during, and after.

It is a moral tale similar to Eating Raoul where the characters have to weigh the value of a human life against their own lives and struggles. The main characters in Eating Raoul are looking to start a restaurant. The main characters in The Dinner want to protect their children as well as their own ambitions. The lives that we are to consider are 1980s Hollywood swingers for Raoul and the dregs of society for The Dinner. Both works ask the question if such people have the same value when compared to people in your family, people you know and are invested in. Regrettably, only Raoul has a fantastic hot tub scene.

There are some ethicist who take an idealist approach and would argue that a life is a life and that one human life does not have any more or less value than any other life. They would argue that the sleazy swinger or corrupt lock-smith or drunken homeless individual has the same value as the politician’s child or the child of a middle-class family or a childless couple trying to get by in the world. This is an argument that is based on the notion that all people are born with worth and that worth must be protected and cherished. All life is sacred.

Both Eating Raoul and The Dinner challenge such a notion. In both we find a look at the potential worth rather than the actual worth of an individual when considering value. The life of someone who has made a series of bad decisions should not be held in the same light as one who has not yet had opportunities. In other words, the potential life of a child of a middle-class couple is worth more than the actual life of a homeless alcoholic.

Yet how do we decide who has more potential value? How do we decide if someone might have a greater value to society in the future? The middle-class child might end up the homeless alcoholic, or might end up curing cancer. The homeless alcoholic might sober up and become an agent of policy change, or might stay homeless and continue to be a drain on the resources of society. Who gets to decide which life has more value currently or potentially?

I do not like to deal with moral absolutes. In most cases ambiguity offers room for creativity and flexibility. When dealing with questions of ethics I believe that we need to have the morally gray in order to consider differing situations and contexts (with some guideposts and direction). A great cause of the strain in the abortion/choice debate is around moral absolutes (those against abortion with no equivocation) and moral flexibility (those who advocate a freedom of choice because of differing situations). Yet there are times when I wonder if a moral absolute would keep us honest. In the United States we have capital punishment – we practice the idea that some lives no longer have potential worth. If we advocate the equal value of human life then we would have to reconsider the practice of capital punishment. We would also have to consider the question of war, because in such an act we are again saying that some lives are indeed worth more than others. As someone who aspires to pacifism such moral absolutes seem valuable. Yet others, like a prohibition on drugs, seem to close options for people who may need them. Consider cancer patients, AIDS patients, and others who look to marijuana for ease of their suffering.

There is not an easy answer. Even when we consider the notion of human life there is not an easy answer. As a Christian I would like to turn to the absolutes. Faith allows for the idealistic and I aspire to live in such idealism. Yet as a Christian who tries to live in the world today I recognize that such ideals are not always possible. I would like to say that all human life has value and that we should never be in the position to decide if one is worth more than another. Yet reality will push me and I know I will have to contribute in one way or another with a decision that does place some over others. It is good to know that I can always turn to the 1980s classic Eating Raoul or Herman Koch’s more recent book The Dinner for some examples as to how to wrestle with such moral quandaries. Yum!

Good Sin / Bad Sin

I had to take a break from reading Freud – he was driving me crazy! (ha?) So I decided to turn to the easy read of Michel Foucault, specifically Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. I’m only two chapters into it so far so I can’t really offer a full response/reaction to Foucault’s work, but so far I am enjoying the book and I don’t think I’m crazy (I’ll have to go back to Freud to see if that is the case).

While reading Foucault’s work I am keeping in the back of my mind the notion of sin in Christianity and how the way sin has been and continues to be used in areas of discipline and punishment. I am curious to see if there are points of correlation or similarity between the discipline and punishment that Foucault outlines and practices of Christianity. I haven’t done any digging to see if anyone else has considered such an approach to sin, mostly because I don’t want to add more things to my reading list right and because I am lazy.

Such an approach to sin is important because Christians and churches have a wonderful history of manipulation and shame around theological terms and ideas. The Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is one of the many works of literature that look at shame in a faith-based society and there are a bevy of others (the 2009 German film The White Ribbon [Das Weisse Band] is another great example). Sin is a construct that has been used and continues to be used to control people, to silence people, to overpower people, and to take away people’s freedom. Various notions of sin continue to be used to demean, dehumanize, and destroy individuals. This is not good… maybe even sinful.

There are those who have excised the word (and notion?) “sin” from their general lexicon. Maybe you attend a softer, gentler church that offers a softer, gentler Christianity and would say that such practices around notions of sin are not a part of your faith experience. Perhaps. Maybe you go to a church/faith community where the notion of sin is never brought up. In your community it may be a sin to talk about sin or to even mention the word “sin.” So the whole question of how sin works in your faith community is moot, right? We don’t need to worry bout that idea and word any more.

Yet I bet ideas of shame and guilt and doing “bad things” are a part of your community. I bet your community comes out of a history that at one time or another did practice naming and dealing with notions of sin in a very public way and those practices may still be a part of who you are. I bet there are people in your softer, gentler community who struggle with shame and guilt and cannot discern where God and Jesus might fit in that picture. I would argue that the construct and concept of sin, whatever that may be, is still a part of your community even if you are tying to hide or ignore it. It is under the rug, but still very much present.

I think we need to keep the notion of “sin” and even the word “sin,” alive in our language, devotion, and practice (that’s right, we need to sin… or maybe I’m talking about acts of penance and cries for forgiveness that come out of an understanding of sin). There are times when we do sin (again, whatever that means). There are times when we fail as individuals or as a community or as a society. There are times when we need to name what we have done as a sin. We may say that we messed up, or that we didn’t do what we hoped to do, but will we say that our actions negatively effected our relationship with God as well as our relationships with others? Are we willing to say that we have sinned?

I think it is important to have a grasp of the word and concept of sin. I think it is important to be able to name brokenness, but we need to do it in a way that does not break or dehumanize the individual. If we are to continue to address sin in the lives of individuals as well as the actions of institutions we need to do it in a way that is humane and compassionate. Churches are human institutions and are prone to sin just as much as any other institution or human. So we need to be vigilant that our churches do not bully and beat people with manipulated ideas of perfection and piety all cloaked around the notion of sin.

If Foucault can’t help me with this, then who can?