Big questions in faith and science

Keith Ward, an Anglican priest and Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, Emeritus, argues, convincingly I believe, that western thinking about God has progressed through several stages. First, Aquinas’ proofs for God's existence relied upon an Aristotelian scientific worldview. When the Aristotelian worldview of Aquinas became unsustainable during the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant reframed the argument for God in terms compatible with Newtonian science, i.e., that God is not necessary for theoretical reason (Newtonian physics) but for practical demand (the absolute demands of morality). Now twenty-first century science, especially quantum physics challenges us to rethink religious belief. Ward’s book, The Big Questions in Faith and Science, provides a useful starting point in this process.

Ward insightfully contends that scientific reductionism of the type propounded by Rickard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett is nonsensical. Science presumes that everything in space-time is measurable, subject to mathematical analysis; science also presumes that nothing exists outside the spatio-temporal matrix. Neither of those presumptions is, itself, admissible of quantification, i.e., science operates based on unscientific premises.

Conversely, Ward insists that religion must correct its ideas and concepts when in conflict with the results of knowledge produced by scientific study. For example, this happened belatedly after Galileo and others demonstrated that the universe is not geocentric. Today, religion needs to continue adjusting its teachings, incorporating pertinent advances in science that include abandoning literal readings of scripture, defining miracles in terms of supernatural intervention (if God created the cosmos, then surely the construction of the cosmos allows God's actions without the suspension of natural laws), etc.

Process philosophy and inter-religious studies seem especially promising to Ward. Whitehead, the originator of process philosophy, was especially concerned to develop a philosophical system compatible with quantum physics. If there is an ultimate spiritual reality, then that presence seems most likely manifest throughout creation, not confined to a particular religious tradition.

Uncivil discourse

Two recent news items caught my attention because they focus on uncivil public discourse. First, opponents of the current Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, DC, and bishop of Arlington, VA, have used remarks made by the head of the Vatican’s supreme court as a cudgel with which to bash the two clerics. Archbishop Raymond Burke, formerly head of the St. Louis diocese and now at the Vatican, said that American clergy should refuse to give Holy Communion to politicians who support abortion. The archbishop obviously expects, perhaps wishfully, for politicians to take the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church more seriously than voter preference. Voters repeatedly have expressed support for a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion, a perspective that I find consonant with Christianity. (I reject the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that God gives a fertilized egg a soul at the instant of fertilization.)

To outsiders, the Roman Catholic Church can easily appear monolithic. In truth, the Roman Church, like every human institution constitutes a plurality of views and opinions. Cudgeling those with whom one disagrees, even verbally, very rarely if ever causes the other to change her or his thinking or behavior. Nor are such tactics likely to inspire widespread interest or support among the undecided or searching.

Incidentally, Archbishop Burke made his comments in an interview with Randall Terry, the organizer of Operation Rescue, a group involved in bombing abortion clinics. Regardless of one’s views about the morality of abortion, bombing abortion clinics is immoral and illegal; some of the attacks have injured clinic staff. Burke granting an interview to Terry was at best ill-advised and at worst implies tacit support for the actions of Terry and Operation Rescue. (Jacqueline L. Salmon, “Bishop Apologizes for Use of Abortion Remarks to Attack D.C. Archbishop,” Washington Post, March 27, 2009)

Second, a church in Topeka, KS, announced that it will picket Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD, because the school bears the name of a man who may have been gay. Apparently, this congregation frequently announces such protests but often fails to show. The tactic garners the congregation publicity at the cost of causing concern among students, parents, and school employees. (Daniel de Vise, “Kansas Church Says It Will Protest at Whitman High in MoCo,” Washington Post, March 27, 2009)

I decline to play that game and refuse to allow that deeply misguided church to manipulate me into furthering their uncivil discourse. Hence, I intentionally do not name that congregation in this blog. People and organizations certainly have the right to hold and disseminate any opinion, as long as their dissemination does not violate the law. One of the reasons I proudly served a career in the U.S. military was to defend the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.

However, people and organizations, especially those who identify themselves as Christian, have a moral responsibility to exercise their right to free speech in a civil manner. The name of a high school, for example, is ultimately the choice of voters in a school district. Persons residing in other districts who object to a school’s name should voice their protest in a way likely to be heard (utilitarianism) but more importantly in a way that respects the dignity, worth, and rights of others. Picketing a school, for example, does not target the relevant voters, school board members, or school authorities but seems intended primarily to benefit the protesters by attracting media attention. Doing so on the basis of Whitman’s uncertain sexual preferences amounts to character assassination, the church compounding its wrong-headed prejudice against gays with a lack of solid information about Whitman’s sexual orientation.

The polarization of national politics, the inability of groups on different sides of many contentious issues to engage their opponents in meaningful dialogue (abortion, gay rights, etc.), and the disengagement of many people from public discourse are all, at least in significant part, a reflection of our widespread inability to engage in civil discourse. Civil public discourse is fundamental to community and to democratic government. Civil discourse is also a basic expression of respect for others, a foundational virtue common to all of the world’s great religions.

Prison is not the answer

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) wrote the article featured on the cover of March 29th’s Parade magazine, “What’s Wrong With Our Prisons?” I usually ignore Parade, but having met Webb some years ago when I was stationed at the Naval Academy, I read the excerpt of his article emblazoned across the bottom of the cover: “America imprisons 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the world’s average. About one in every 31 adults in this country is in jail or on supervised release. Either we are the most evil people on earth or we are doing something very wrong.”

In fact, the United States, among all nations, imprisons the highest percentage of its residents. The US, according to Webb, also incarcerates a quarter of all reported prisoners in the world.

Does the United States have the most evil population or is the U.S. criminal justice system broken?

The first option, the U.S. has the most evil population, seems unlikely. In my travels, people, in spite of tremendous cultural differences, seem remarkably similar around the world. The common genome that humans share without components that are unique to particular nationalities, supports rejecting the first option.

Fixing the criminal justice system should begin with a comprehensive reassessment of what we want to define as criminal behavior. Senator Webb addresses this, raising the question of whether incarcerating those convicted of marijuana related offenses (about 1 out of 7 of those now in prison) conveys sufficient social benefit to outweigh the human and fiscal costs this imposes on U.S. society.

Next, fixing the criminal justice system should entail a review of the purpose and types of available punishment. Punishment can serve one or more of three functions: vengeance (making the criminal suffer for his or her misdeed), rehabilitation (changing the individual so that he or she will not commit future offenses), and deterrence (influencing others not to commit a similar offense). Vengeance belongs to God.

Collectively, the social sciences, medicine, and other relevant disciplines know little about effective rehabilitation. We probably have more knowledge about what does not work; unfortunately, the U.S. penal system incorporates few of these lessons. In the absence of effective rehabilitation, long-term incarceration of those who pose a physical threat to others may be the best option.

Deterrence of others, to be effective, requires that punishment must be swift, certain, and fair. Those objectives are elusive in spite of the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial by one’s peers.

Setting the agenda for public discourse – what should constitute a crime, what constitutes ethical punishment – is far easier than finding answers. I suspect the path to good answers lies in experimenting with a variety of approaches (one advantage of the federal system in which each state has its own criminal justice system) and in public discourse.

Webb is right. The system is broken. The moral imperative is clear: now is the time to engage in serious public discourse about criminal justice, committing to decades of work to arrive at a more just, more humane system of which the U.S. can rightly be proud.

Teaching evolution in the public schools

The Texas State School Board recently voted, with a tie vote, to continue the teaching of evolution in Texas pubic schools as mainstream science. (Michael Brick, Defeat and Some Success for Texas Evolution Foes, New York Times, March 28, 2009)

Christian conservatives have led the charge against teaching evolution.

That charge sadly moves in the wrong direction.

Christianity, by definition, teaches religion not science. Science is far from infallible, e.g., quantum physics corrected the errors of Newtonian physics. However, Christianity has no mechanism for measuring the truth or accuracy of science. Science progresses by positing a hypothesis, then using measurable, verifiable, and repeatable experimentation to determine the accuracy or truth of the hypothesis. That method is completely foreign to religion.

Religion progresses through consensus contingent upon individual experience. Religion is not alone in representing a form of knowledge apart from science. Art, music, and literature, for example, all convey truth, knowledge, and insight independent of the scientific method.

Evolution represents the best available theory about the process by which life developed on earth. Evolution has as much, if not more, accumulated evidence that supports the theory than any other scientific theory. Supercilious denunciations of evolution by well-meaning but ill-informed religious believers contribute nothing to human knowledge or to improving the quality of life.

Instead, Christians should focus on that which they can contribute, e.g., the belief that God created (leave the how to science!) and that creation is good. Those ideas point to the importance of humans exercising stewardship rather than an exploitative dominance over creation.

The nexus of evolution and theology appears to be over the dynamics of genetic change. Gene mutations, from a twenty-first century human perspective, seem to happen randomly. If that perspective is correct, then perhaps God influences evolution through the structure of the “laws” by which the cosmos functions. Contemporary science lacks the capacity to prove or disprove this suggestion, often known as the anthropic principle. Remembering that science advances by belated identification of incorrect views upon which it has heretofore relied, genetic mutations may not in fact be random. For example, God might influence the process at the sub-atomic level in a manner not yet discernible by science. Alternatively, God’s role in creation may occur in an entirely different manner.

Theologians cannot prove God's existence, even to one another. Arguments about God's hypothetical role in creation are even less susceptible to proof and therefore have no place in the teaching of science. People of faith must have the integrity to recognize that religious belief represents a form of knowledge or wisdom radically different from that produced by science. People of faith who live in pluralistic societies, like the United Sates, must also develop genuine respect for people who hold other beliefs, e.g., those who reject belief in God as an unnecessary hypothesis. Publicly funded programs, such as the public schools, should teach subjects about which we as a society find agreement (science, math, reading, writing, logic, etc.). Those subjects provide the tools that permit meaningful discourse about subjects over which society deeply divides, e.g., religion.

Traffic cameras

Municipalities increasingly employ traffic cameras, with over 3000 deployed, a 20% increase during the last year. Reasons for placing the cameras include improving driver compliance with traffic laws and enhancing safety. Critics allege that the real reason is that municipalities want the revenue the cameras generate. At least one study has shown direct correlation between the numbers of traffic tickets written and economic conditions.

Vehicle drivers sometimes rage against the cameras, exacting vengeance with a pick ax or other tool. Other drives try evasive tactics such as spraying their vehicle’s license plate with a substance designed to obscure the numbers and letters when photographed by a traffic camera. Drives seem especially outraged because municipalities typically contract a private corporation to operate the cameras. This leads to the allegation that the municipality has entrusted law enforcement in the hands of private enterprise. (For more details on the use of traffic cameras, cf. William M. Bulkeley, “Get the Feeling You're Being Watched? If You're Driving, You Just Might Be,” Wall Street Journal, March 27, 2009.)

I find an argument against private companies operating traffic cameras persuasive. Law enforcement is a basic governmental function that government, not private entities, should perform. This same principle applies to operating prisons, providing security for diplomats, etc. In the extreme, only government agents should have the authorization to employ lethal force. More generally, good governments attempt to minimize the latitude of their employees to allow personal prejudices or agendas influence their functioning as government agents. Private enterprise, by definition, exists to make a profit.

The other arguments against traffic cameras leave me unmoved. Better driving reduces injuries and property damage, e.g., not running red lights, stopping before turning right on red, observing speed limits, etc. Americans are generally in too much of a rush, a generality reflected in bad driving habits. I suspect that slowing down will also improve the quality of life for many by reducing stress. If a traffic law does not make sense, the morally correct approach is to observe the law while working to change the law. Disregard for some aspects of the law, such as elements of the traffic code with which an individual may disagree, easily breeds contempt for other aspects of the law, placing each individual in the position of being his or her own final arbiter of the law. While that may appeal to libertarians, that approach leads to the chaos of anarchy.

Trouble brewing in Iraq

Two recent events point to trouble developing in Iraq.

First, the United States is preparing to release as many as ten thousand additional Iraqi detainees now held in Iraq, part of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq that includes closing the large Camp Bucca prison that now holds those detainees. The release of the first sixteen thousand from the massive prison has already increased violence perpetrated by Shiite and Sunni militias. (“In Iraq, Chaos Feared as U.S. Closes Prison,” Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, March 22, 2009, p. A01)

The U.S. cannot justify morally, legally, or economically the indefinite detention of tens of thousands of Iraqis. Yet those thousands of detainees are among the reasons for diminished violence in Iraq.

Second, the United States this week marked a milestone: 84,000 of 94,000 Sunni militiamen in the Sons of Iraq (SOI) movement are now under Iraqi Army control. That looks like good news. However, anything more than a superficial glance reveals underlying problems. The Iraqi Army pays few of the SOI; only 5% of the SOI have received permanent jobs with the Iraqi security forces; many of the SOI are losing patience with the process and preparing to unleash another round of violence. (Rod Norland and Alissa J. Rubin, “Sunni Militiamen Say Iraq Didn’t Keep Promises of Jobs,” New York Times, March 24, 2009.) In sum, Iraq remains deeply fractured internally.

The only viable long-term solution in Iraq is for the Iraqis to take full responsibility for their lives and communities. Some indicators (e.g., improved approval ratings for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki following his strong exercise of authority to force acceptance of his policies) suggest that a considerable number of yearn to return to a dictatorship that will provide some assurance of stability and security.

Iraq’s massive petroleum reserves give it a substantial economic resource. Although falling oil prices have substantially reduced the Iraqi government’s oil revenues, Iraq remains modestly affluent in comparison to the world’s poor countries. The heavily armed Iraqis must simply decide whether they prefer peace to violence, the rule of law to corruption and chaos. If they choose peace and the rule of law, they must decide whether to remain a single nation (probably under some form of dictatorship) or to divide into three separate nations.

Foreigners, no matter how well intentioned or concerned, cannot make these decisions for the Iraqis, as six years of occupation during which the U.S. and its allies sought to tutor the Iraqis have proven. That tutelage has failed. Iraqi security forces, although improving, are still inadequate. Those who argue for more training should ask, where else do the police or military receive six years of training? The answer, of course, is nowhere. The training in Iraq fails because the Iraqi trainees and their leaders have not bought into the vision of Iraq as a unified, independent nation.

Designer humans?

University of London physicians have announced the world’s first publicized designer baby, one free of the gene linked to breast cancer (David Frost, “If Genetic Selection Can Prevent Certain Diseases, Shouldn't it be Mandatory?” Parr Center blog, Ethics in the News, March 23, 2009).

Undeniably, eliminating breast cancer would represent a wonderful improvement in the quality of life for millions of women and those who love them. However, at what cost is this advance justifiable? The world rightly denounced Nazi efforts at genetic engineering. What is the difference?

Slippery slope arguments about genetic engineering (i.e., any genetic engineering will lead to great evil) will not long prevail. The potential good from eliminating harmful or mutant genes linked to a wide variety of human afflictions (e.g., cancer, birth defects, etc.) holds too much promise of benefit to ignore. As knowledge of the human genome increases, pressure will inevitably build to move forward with genetic engineering.

Now is the time for widespread public discourse about genetic engineering in general and human genetic engineering in general. Critics who denounce all forms of genetic engineering as harmful or immoral, such as those who decry genetically modified foods, represent one extreme. Healthy and full public discourse quickly and rightly will marginalize such views. Humans have a unique opportunity to affect both the future and evolution through genetic engineering. The potential benefits of such changes are staggering, whether in terms of human health or the planet’s capacity to sustain life.

Conversely, genetic engineering proponents who advocate moving full speed ahead with all experiments and minimal or no external controls represent an equally extreme and dangerous view. The truth is that nobody knows the full consequences of genetic engineered changes until multiple generations have lived with those changes. Eliminating the gene linked to breast cancer, for example, may cause unintended, unforeseen, adverse consequences in the second, third, or latter generation. At its worst, genetic engineering in the hands of the unscrupulous and malevolent has the potential to harm humans and the planets in the ways the most strident critics love to fictionalize.

The pressing ethical and political question, then, is how to chart a middle path, to promote genetic engineering that offers the promise of improved life and sustainability while precluding those endeavors that seem likely to result in harm.

Right-wing religious extremism

The violent destructive deeds performed by right-wing Islamicists from the Middle East (Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere) in the name of their religion frequently receive media attention. The hateful words and acts of their counterparts in other religions sadly receive less attention. Recent media reports have provided a notable exception to that generalization with respect to Israel, in which right-wing Jewish ideologues plague the Israeli Defense Forces.

For example, the current chief Rabbi of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Brigadier General Avichai Rontzki, has said that the primary reason for medical professionals to violate the Sabbath by treating a non-Jew is to avoid exposing Disapora Jews to hatred. Some Israeli military recruits report receiving, from unofficial channels, booklets that contain messages like this one: “We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war.” The Israeli Defense Ministry has also had to reprimand a rabbi for distributing a booklet against showing mercy. (Ethan Bronner, “A Religious War in Israel’s Army,” New York Times, March 21, 2009)

Thankfully, the effect of right-wing Christian evangelicals in the U.S. military has to date been less detrimental, although it seems to be growing in influence. (For more on the problem of evangelical Christians trying to foist their beliefs on others in the U.S. military see this NPR story and this blog.)

In an institution like the military that gives people authorization to use lethal force and higher ranked individuals can exercise considerable control over subordinates the abuse of religion is especially egregious. The United Nations has accused the IDF of human rights abuses during the recent forays in the Gaza strip (“UN accuses Israeli troops of Gaza human rights abuses,” Times Online, March 24, 2009). In other words, religion and religious language matter – the danger of abuse by right-wing religious ideologues and ideology is not merely hypothetical.

True religion respects the dignity and worth of every human being, regardless of a person’s religion, nationality, ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc. True religion promotes compassion toward all people, with no exceptions. Those who seek to practice true religion, whatever their theological formulations and liturgical practices, will join in protesting against those who seek to bigotry and discrimination in the name of God or the language of religion.

Celibacy revisited

My previous post, Is celibacy the preferred Christian option?, has prompted considerable a column in response at the Daily Episcopalian. In rejoinder to that column, I wrote:

Derek, I appreciate your lengthy response and substantive rejoinder to my article.

First, you and I disagree on whether a “real Christianity” existed during Christianity’s first three plus centuries. The version that became authoritative, post council of Nicea, represents, in my estimation a formulation of Christianity that suited that era, not necessarily the “real Christianity.” To the extent that Christianity points to God or seeks to describe how the disciples experienced God in Jesus, Christianity can be no more than a set of metaphors or symbols. Finite human language cannot communicate propositional truth of a transcendent nature. You are correct: I do no believe that early historical evidence is normative in wrestling with substantive theological issues.

Second, I apologize for my lack of clarity. I did not presume that you or anyone else who left a comment in response to my column on marriage implied that celibacy was for all. However, I strongly disagree that a Christian analysis of sexuality must begin with celibacy. Christian analysis of sexuality, it seems to me, must begin with biology. After establishing a clear biological understanding of human sexuality, then one can proceed to theological and ethical issues. I think that the history of Christianity speaks relatively unambiguously: the Church has tended to preference celibacy over the alternatives. From my reading, the Christian tradition seems to regard celibacy and monogamous partnerships as equally preferential; neither is normative.

Let me comment on some of your specific points:
1) One can only understand canon, creeds, and the historic episcopate as historical conditioned and contextualized realities. Christianity, in my estimation, is a living religion, i.e., dynamic. Drawing from all of its roots and expressions best prepares the way for its next expression. The continuity of Christianity lies in its progressive development rather than holding constant to ideas or practices.
2) Because the gospels may not record Jesus’ actual words, arguing from the content and especially exact verbiage of the gospels (or any part of scripture) is therefore problematic. My comments were neither a definitive nor an exhaustive exegesis, but intended only to suggest the possibility of a divergent view, i.e., Jesus did not favor celibacy. Drawing a conclusion in the absence of data is notoriously risky. Perhaps Dan Brown’s fiction is true: Jesus partnered with Mary Magdalene?
3) I agree that gender, sexual orientation, and celibate/non-celibate represent three distinct, non-mutually exclusive gifts. Everybody, celibate or not, acts upon his or her sexuality. Humans express and experience their sexuality in multiple ways: physical intimacy, looks, comments, feelings, etc. Acting creatively and lovingly in accordance with one’s sexuality and gifts enhances life; failing to do so diminishes one’s quality of life, regardless of one’s gender, sexual orientation, or (non-)celibacy.

I strongly agree that we need to “break out of our culturally conditioned modes of thought regarding marriage, family, and sexuality.” However, I do not find focusing on celibacy as a helpful approach to making that break. The way I have found most useful in challenging culturally conditioned modes of thinking is to tackle specific issues individually.

Afghanistan resupply

Resupply for U.S. forces in Afghanistan is now dependent upon air transport. Trucking in supplies has become too hazardous because of depredations by various groups (insurgents, bandits, al Qaeda). (Walter Pincus, “General Urges Confidence in Ability to Supply Troops in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, March 22, 2009, p. A12)

Does the United States really have the airlift capacity to sustain this operation for the duration, especially as force levels increase? Aircraft procurement has tended to short airlift in favor of fighters and bombers. The U.S., for example, is currently spending hundreds of millions on the F-22, a plane irrelevant to operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against terrorism elsewhere. Spending money on wasteful or unnecessary defense procurement is immoral because it benefits only the suppliers and their employees. Spending those funds on other public projects such as infrastructure renewal benefits not only the contractors and their employees but also the public at large.

The ability of various groups to interdict ground transport graphically illustrates their power and freedom to operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as how eight years of occupation have failed to bring any semblance of peace or security to the region. President Obama committed to increasing the number of U.S. forces before completing a strategic review of the situation. That commitment makes no sense, an evaluation the logistic problems highlight.

Is celibacy the preferred Christian option?

Elaine Pagels in her book, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, insightfully observed that people who study Christianity’s origins are usually searching for the “real Christianity” (p. 151). Instead, she noted, these searchers discover multiple early Christianities. Then unable to identify the one “real Christianity,” an individual must chart her or his own spiritual path.

Sexuality is integral to human identity and therefore an inescapable element of spirituality. Many of the debates about whether celibacy or marriage is the preferred Christian option illustrate Pagels’ observation, both sides claiming their arguments rest upon Scripture interpreted through the lens of primitive Christian practices. Based on such flawed analyses, Christians have too often accepted celibacy as normative sexual behavior for Christians as illustrated by some of the comments on my Thoughts on Marriage: Part I and Part II posted here in January. According to this view, only people unable to remain celibate should marry.

Human sexuality has acquired sufficient importance for contemporary ecclesial and moral controversies that reexamining the issues pertinent to the celibacy versus marriage debate may yield some clarity by highlighting differences and agreements. To keep this essay to a reasonable length, I intentionally ignore other questions about sexuality and sexual behavior that Christianity faces. These unaddressed questions include: identifying a heuristic for determining which sexual behaviors are appropriate within and without monogamous bonds; articulating the theological purpose(s) of sexual behavior; and assessing the import, if any, of in vitro fertilization and other non-traditional reproduction methods on sexual intimacy and moral standards.

Humans are inherently sexual beings, both from a biological and a biblical perspective. Humans, like most other animals, have a sexualized reproductive drive. The urge to reproduce, evolutionary biologists contend, drives all other behavior in a living organism. Freud correctly saw sex permeating every nook and cranny of human existence. From a biological perspective, intercourse, not celibacy, characterizes life. Concomitantly, humans’ long gestation and extended childhood help to explain the human tendency toward monogamy.

The strength of the human sexual drive is a constant theme in scripture, often negative but occasionally positive. David famously lusts after Bathsheba, for example. Conversely, the positive approach to sexuality generally receives less attention but is rooted in the creation myth in which God concludes that man being alone is not good and thus creates woman as man’s companion. The Song of Solomon celebrates physical love between a man and a woman, perhaps using that relationship as a metaphor to describe God's love for humans.

The totality of the scriptural witness is similarly conflicted about whether celibacy or marriage is the preferred option for Christians. A brief and incomplete look at sex in the New Testament can clarify the conflict. First, one can read the gospel record of Jesus either way. On the one hand, Jesus graces a wedding with his presence and first miracle, deprecates divorce (or bans it, depending upon one’s interpretation), and affirms the goodness of the body through his enjoyment of food and drink as well as his healing ministry. On the other hand, Jesus teaches that in the resurrection humans do not marry, implying that perhaps sexuality may end with death or find a new form of expression in the resurrection. Jesus also exhorts his disciples to value loyalty to God's kingdom more than family, from which some Christians infer that celibacy is better than marriage (Luke 20:34-36). Gregory of Nyssa echoed this theme, writing that a Christian should abandon marriage for God's kingdom.

Incidentally, Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalene has intrigued generations of artists and authors, most recently receiving tremendous attention thanks to Dan Brown’s blockbuster, The Da Vinci Code. Was the relationship sexual or platonic? Before answering that question, remember that sexuality touches many aspects of human existence and behavior, a concept far broader than Bill Clinton’s facile, self-serving, and narrow definition of sex as intercourse. Did the fully human Jesus experience electrifying moments of attraction and pleasure in Mary’s presence? Did Mary find herself strangely warmed by Jesus? If so, how far toward intercourse did their relationship progress?

Second, reading I Corinthians and I Timothy in support of a preferential option for celibacy seems as misguided as interpreting the New Testament in support of an exclusively male priesthood. The mixed advice offered women differs from the advice given to men: 1 Timothy 5:14 advises that young widows are to remarry, 1 Corinthians 7:9 limits that to widows aflame with passion, and neither letter says anything about widowers remarrying. These conflicting, misogynistic passages lack the clarity of Paul’s declaration that in Christ there is neither male nor female, on which we base arguments for equal treatment of men and women.

The underlying assumption of these passages is that the flesh exists in tension with the spirit, a theme some exegetes contend runs throughout Paul’s writings. That theme contradicts modern biology’s understanding of humans as physical beings, the ancient Hebrew belief that humans are physical beings, and the Anglican emphasis on incarnation that underscores the fundamental unity of a human. Dichotomizing spirit and flesh may function as a useful metaphor but not as an accurate description of a human being. A human is his or her body; the body is the human.

Third, in 1 Corinthians 7:28 Paul advises people not to marry because he would spare them the suffering he associated with marriage. That view has also led many Christians to perceive celibacy as the preferred option. However, not all married persons experience substantial suffering in their marriage. Many find the companionship of married life far more valuable and enduring than any transitory suffering associated with their marriage (cf. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).

Fourth, 1 Corinthians 7:7 implies that celibacy is a gift from God. Being male is a gift from God. Being female is a gift from God. Being straight is a gift from God. Being gay is a gift from God. None of those gifts is superior to any of the others – they are all simply gifts from God. So it is with celibacy, a gift from God. Many find the complexities of relationships that Paul wishes for us to avoid the most rewarding aspect of life.

Paul’s apparent antagonism to close relationships, whether the relationship is sexual or platonic and regardless of the gender orientations involved, seems more indicative of Paul’s personal issues than revelatory of the God who is love, the God whose love our relationships model and reveal. For example, Bishop Spong in Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism suggested that the Apostle Paul’s mysterious thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7) was Paul knowing he was gay. If so, then we must interpret Paul’s views about sexuality against the backdrop of his internal conflict between his gender orientation and the Christianity of his day. Thankfully, Christians have begun to discover that sexual orientation is God's gift, whether one is gay or straight, a gift that the Church should celebrate rather than deny or punish. Many persons receive gifts of both monogamy and celibacy, each in different seasons of his or her life.

The historic priority Christians have given to celibacy over marriage has partially contributed to sad distortions of the goodness of sex and life. For many years, the Roman Catholic Church taught that sex was evil, even with one’s spouse; the only moral excuse for intercourse was procreation. The Church viewed physical desire for or enjoyment of one’s spouse as sinful lust. The Christian rejection of sex is a component of a broader Christian rejection of the present world in favor of heaven, something for which Marx rightly criticized Christianity. Today, some Christians ironically (hypocritically?) level the same criticism at Islamicist suicide bombers who prefer paradise to earthly existence.

Theological and ecclesial conversations about sex and sexuality would do well to stop presuming that celibacy is the preferential Christian option and instead view both celibacy and monogamous relationships as equal good gifts from the one God, who created us as sexual beings and said, “That is good.”

Resurrection

While in Atlanta recently, I visited the King Tutankhamun exhibit. Sponsored by Emory University and on loan from Egypt, the exhibit featured artifacts recovered from King Tut’s tomb in 1922. Among the thirty-three hundred year old artifacts were boats, statues of servants, and other items useful in the afterlife – all in miniature. The ancient Egyptians believed that when the Pharaoh passed into the next life these miniatures would become full size, function properly, and ensure that the Pharaoh (male or female) enjoyed a quality of life commensurate with the Pharaoh’s divine status. The Egyptians preserved Pharaoh’s viscera (heart, liver, stomach, etc.) separately to avoid destroying them in the embalming process because the Pharaoh would need them in the next life.

Today, hardly anyone holds the ancient Egyptian perspective on life after death. Few people, except highly specialized scholars, read the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Only true literati appreciate crossing the river Styx or meeting Anubis as metaphors about death and another life. Christian teachings that one cannot transmit wealth or quality of life from this life to the next thoroughly shape our perspective.

My visit prompted me to ponder the question, appropriate to Lenten preparations for Easter, how can Christians best understand resurrection?

I have always found the idea of physical resurrection, an idea premised on an empty tomb, unsatisfying. The New Testament witness does not uniformly point to physical resurrection, e.g., Paul writes that people in the resurrection shall receive a new body, a spiritual body. Physical resurrection also seemed morally and theologically problematic: what did this portend if the resurrection body was the physical body, a body the elements, war, disease, age, or birth had destroyed or corrupted? In the extreme, a person with a different brain seems unlikely to be the same person.

For me, science has nailed the coffin shut on all ideas of physical resurrection. Every human now alive incorporates substantial numbers of molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles previously used in the physical bodies of other humans. At the resurrection, to whom will those physical building blocks belong? Giving new or other physical components to those who do not receive the original molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles will mean that those people are no longer the same person as before, an acute difficulty in the case of a person formed primarily from recycled elements. From a scientific perspective, the notion of a physical resurrection in which the body that dies is the body raised is a modern analogue to the ancient Egyptian beliefs.

Consequently, I have sought alternative understandings of resurrection, beginning with the spiritualization of resurrection. Although problematic with respect to the empty tomb narratives, this alternative harmonizes well with other resurrection stories in scripture, e.g., the risen Christ appearing to the disciples in a locked room or the account of the transfiguration.

However, this answer seems unsatisfactory when viewed against the larger scriptural narrative. Spiritualizing the resurrection presumes that people have an eternal soul, a notion introduced to Jewish and Christian thought through Greek and Persian influences. (Remember the generations of children who learned to differentiate between the Sadducees and Pharisees because the “sad you see” did not believe in life after death.) The Roman Catholic Church officially teaches the doctrine of ensoulment, God inserting a soul into human eggs at fertilization. This idea, for which no scientific evidence exists, is the basis of their adamant opposition to abortion, artificial birth control, stem cell research, etc.

The Hebrew belief that a person is her or his body makes more sense to me. If humans have a soul (a notoriously ill-defined term), the soul is an emergent property of the physical body and entirely contingent upon the physical body for existence.

Process theology helped me to integrate theology and other disciplines, especially science. Marjorie Suchocki in her book, God, Christ, Church, suggests that the resurrection life is eternal life in the mind of God, avoiding difficulties inherent in either a spiritual or physical interpretation of resurrection. Her suggestion is evocative of Anglican Bishop George Berkeley’s idealism, while not denying the reality of the physical world.

Describing resurrection as an imponderable mystery provides an alternative to both the physical and various spiritual interpretations of resurrection. That is, resurrection may point to the spirit of Jesus living on in his disciples (as Marcus Borg has suggested), to a life that is radically and qualitatively different than this life, or to something else about which I cannot even speculate.

I find this approach the most and least satisfying. Obviously, Jesus’ immediate followers experienced something in him – during his life, at his death, or afterwards – that dramatically altered their lives. Otherwise, the Christian Church would not exist today. Few if any other humans (perhaps Gautama or Lao Tzu) have left such an impressive legacy. All of my efforts to understand resurrection seem grossly inadequate and the paucity of historical data seems to make the quest for real understanding futile.

Conversely, acknowledging the absolute mystery of resurrection provides no clues about the answer to important questions such as what happens when a person dies, any parousia, etc. Yet honesty seems to admit no other answer.

Quietly rethinking worship

The etymology of the word “worship” links its meaning to praise or adoration, especially of the deity. That understanding of worship still shapes the liturgy in Christian churches with traditional liturgy, such as the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, and Episcopal Churches. However, the reality of what happens during public worship services seems to be something other than praise and adoration.

From my conversations with congregants in those Churches, people attend for a variety of reasons and often several reasons. Commonly identified reasons include: a quiet time away from a hectic, stressful life; a restful pause in which to reflect about life’s meaning and purpose; aesthetic enjoyment of the music, art, and architecture; and the supportive experience of belonging to a caring community. Of course, people also enumerate other reasons such as youth programming and developing new contacts.

Conversely, many people today recognize that the idea of God expecting or desiring human worship implies a God in the image of humans who has unhealthy ego needs. Spontaneous adoration and praise notwithstanding, regular worship service attendees in traditional congregations probably engage in little actual worship on Sunday mornings.

This refocusing of congregant expectations of what happens in worship services seems very healthy to me. A God who needs human adoration and praise seems incompatible with the God of love revealed in Jesus. We cannot schedule encounters with the divine to coincide with the appointed hours of public worship. Indeed, a healthy skepticism about whether an experience is genuinely an encounter with the divine helps to avoid idolatry.

Scientific advances that have explained without reference to God phenomena previously attributed to the deity have made purported experiences of the divine much less common than in previous centuries. In those infrequent moments, sometimes very infrequent moments, when the divine seems overwhelmingly present, humans tend to respond naturally and spontaneously with heartfelt worship.

One unfortunate consequence of this shift in what happens in traditional public worship has been the emergence of worship styles that attempt to induce attendees to worship through the use of music, physical participation (clapping, uplifting of hands and arms, etc.), and group psychology. These congregations recognize the lack of worship in traditional services and strive to correct that deficiency. For example, many of these congregations label the first part of the service, which may last for an hour, the praise and worship time. The aim is to evoke an emotional high, subtly manipulating people into feeling as if they are worshipping.

Some people seem to thrive on a weekly dose of high emotional energy provided in God's name. Some people have no interest that type of experience. For the majority of people somewhere between those two extremes, the emotional power tends to fade over time and they recognize that emotionalism and divine encounters are not synonymous. That insight emphasizes the fundamental problem with trying to design a weekly experience – of any style or format – in which most people present will encounter the divine. Doing so presumes that God always acts in predictable ways that justify manipulating people to bring them to the appointed physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual readiness the encounter requires.

The message for more traditional Churches is not to recast their liturgies to emulate those who constantly chase emotional highs. Instead, traditional Churches need to refine the design of the whole worship experience – setting, ritual, music, ideational content, emotional content, etc. – in ways that will enhance peace, reflection, beauty, love, and self-awareness. The purpose in these refinements is not to manipulate attendees, something both unhealthy and unethical. Instead, the purpose is to provide people an appropriate context, time, and community in which to develop their spirituality and to reflect on their journey. Too often today, the hour on Sunday morning represents half (or more) of the time the person’s spiritual endeavors for the week.

Justice and capital punishment

“Justice is the foundation for all criminal sanctions in the U.S.,” Dudley Sharp wrote in a comment posted in this blog. What is justice?

If justice is vengeance (or punishment), then Scripture reminds Christians that vengeance belongs to God and not to humans. Similarly, from a Kantian philosophical perspective, vengeance has no place in a definition of justice because one can easily think of exceptions to the lex talionis.

Tellingly, the Jews, whose Scriptures in some places teach the precept of lex talionis, now understand those passages as imposing limits on vengeance and punishment, limits further restricted by other Jewish teachings, e.g., the Levitical injunction to love one another.

Justice, one of the most difficult ethical terms to define, thus seems to preclude humans attempting to “even the score.” Nor can a definition of justice find a moral basis in the concept of deterrence. To punish one individual as a means of deterring other people from committing the same or similar crimes reduces the one punished to a means to an end, futilely attempting to deny the inherent and inerasable humanity of the one punished. Reducing a human being to a means to an end violates the Kantian categorical imperative as well as the basic Christian concept that each and every person is God’s child, worthy of dignity and respect.

The third dimension of punishment, reforming or changing the one punished so that he or she not repeat the same offense in the future, sadly lies beyond our present level of competence and knowledge. No social scientist or physician – of any discipline – can ensure that a violent criminal who successfully completes a specified treatment program – will never again commit a violent crime.

Thus, life in prison without parole represents the closest approximation of justice achievable given the current level of human knowledge. Under no circumstances is capital punishment ever morally justifiable.

Legal innocence is equally important with actual innocence because the concept of legal innocence protects the rest of us by holding the criminal justice system accountable for following the rule of law. Debates about capital punishment too often have narrowed the scope of the argument to focus exclusively on the case involved. Requiring all elements of the criminal justice system to function in accordance with the rule of law benefits everybody by actively discouraging unauthorized searches, questioning without adequate legal representation, etc. The justice this achieves far exceeds any possible harm from acquitting a relative handful of the actually guilty.

Double effect and noncombatant immunity

In a couple of previous columns, I have opposed the use of what I term “excessive force” in fights against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Traditional Christian and western views of Just War Theory justify my position.

Just War Theory relies upon its jus ad bellum criteria for deciding whether to wage a war is just. Just War Theory’s jus in bello two criteria, noncombatant immunity and proportionality, provide guidance for waging war justly. Noncombatant immunity means that warfighters should target only other combatants; excessive force extends that criterion to limit destruction of enemy personnel and property that serves little or no useful purpose.

Christian ethicist Paul Ramsey in War and the Christian Conscience argued that a Christian killing another person in self-defense was wrong. The Christian, emulating Jesus, should take every possible action in self-defense, short of killing his or her attacker (pp. 40-41). However, killing to defend another is permissible – as long as those killed are the ones who pose the threat.

An important assumption underlying Ramsey’s argument that Michael Walzer explicitly states in his classic philosophical presentation of Just War Theory, Just War, is that combatants are morally equally because all of the combatants place their lives at risk. That moral equality justifies, in part, the act of killing in war.

Today, the United States often sends its military into combat with doctrine that implicitly devalues noncombatants because of the excessive value placed on U.S. combatant lives. A building contains sixteen people, three of whom are terrorists. The others, who may sympathize with the terrorist cause and even provide noncombat support such as food and shelter, are noncombatants, i.e., not legitimate targets of military action. (cf. U.S. Says 13 Civilians Killed in Afghan Operation, Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2009.) Using tactics such as an airstrike or shoulder launched weapon to destroy the building will probably kill the terrorists. In 2008, for example, U.S. and NATO airstrikes killed an estimated five hundred fifty two noncombatants in Afghanistan alone (Jason Straziuso, “UN: Afghan civilian deaths a record high in 2008,” Washington Post, February 17, 2009). Those tactics also have a high probability of killing everyone else in the building, a morally unjustifiable act. These types of tactics have created tremendous animosity toward the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The attacks provide terrorists and insurgents with propaganda victories and aid their recruiting.

Some will reply that terrorists are not combatants. If one accepts that proposition, then law enforcement tactics rather than military tactics are morally appropriate. A police department that wiped out a building in which there were fifteen noncombatants would face heavy criticism and extensive legal problems. This is directly analogous to the Philadelphia police department attacks on three buildings occupied by MOVE in 1985 (cf. Philadelphia MOVE Bombing Still Haunts Survivors : NPR). Good cops are not bullies.

Regardless of whether one considers terrorists combatants or lawbreakers, a variety of tactics are available, including:
(1) Limiting airstrikes and missiles launched from unmanned aerial vehicles to occasions with a high probability of not killing or severely injuring any noncombatants;
(2) Employing siege tactics (any noncombatants Muslims whom the terrorists kill are their moral responsibility, a serious problem if the terrorists publicly identify themselves with an Islamicist movement);
(3) Emphasizing apprehension with an intent to bring to trial rather than killing terrorists;
(4) Search and secure tactics that place U.S. forces at greater risk but that substantially decrease the odds of noncombatant fatalities (e.g., not clearing a room by tossing in several grenades, knocking down the door, and spraying the room with automatic weapons fire to kill anyone still alive).

These tactics require good intelligence, patience, and a strong commitment to justice. If adopted, these tactics offer the possibility of building respect among local populations where U.S. military forces operate, something impossible with the current tactics.

These tactics also recognize that the “battlefield” against terrorism is not a traditional battlefield in which almost everyone present was a combatant. Chaplains, medical personnel, a few civilians from groups like the Red Cross and Red Crescent were generally the only exceptions to that generalization, all of whom understood the risks accepted by being present on a battlefield. Utilizing traditional warfighting tactics with their inherent presumption about those present has resulted in an unacceptably large number of noncombatant fatalities and in the longer term will prove self-defeating. Traditional tactics employed in the wrong setting unintentionally expand rather than reduce the number of terrorists.

Finally, the type of tactics that I propose by shifting the risk away from noncombatants toward combatants emphasize the importance of evaluating the potential gain from any military action rather than employing the military as the foreign policy instrument of first resort.

No set of tactics will completely ensure the safety of all noncombatants. Ethicists, especially Christian ethicists, rely upon the doctrine of double effect first articulated by Thomas Aquinas, for assistance in determining when and how many noncombatant casualties are morally acceptable. First, one must not intend any noncombatant casualties. Second, the noncombatant casualties must be unavoidable. Third, attackers must strive to minimize noncombatant casualties. In no case may the harm done exceed the good accomplished. Many of the combat actions in which the U.S. has killed noncombatants in the Middle East since 2001 obviously and tragically have failed to meet those standards. For example, airstrikes or other heavy weapons employed against targets in which the U.S. forces know noncombatants are present will usually fail to satisfy the doctrine of double effect criteria.

As a retired chaplain, I greatly value the lives of people in uniform. As a Christian, I equally value the lives of civilians and non-U.S. combatants as well as the prospects for building peace in a broken world. The time has come for the U.S. military and its allies to adopt tactics built on solid moral foundations. Consistently employing tactics to minimize the number of noncombatant casualties will give the U.S. and its allies the moral high ground and associated propaganda victories needed to win the hearts and minds of the local population.

Iraq update - Sons of Iraq

The U.S. Department of Defense announced that on March 12, 2009, the United States made the last payment for the Sons of Iraq program; future funding is the responsibility of the government of Iraq.

The U.S. military attributes much of the recently diminished levels of violence in Iraq to the Sons of Iraq program in which the U.S. paid Iraqis to stop fighting and to support the stabilization of Iraq. Iraqi members of Parliament and some government officials have criticized the program because the Sons of Iraq operated apart from government control, sometimes in ways that conflicted with Iraqi army or police goals and operations. The Sons of Iraq program successfully enlisted Sunnis in ending popular support for al Qaeda within Iraq.

Most of the members of the Sons of Iraq are Sunnis. Sunnis have supported the Sons of Iraq program because they dominate this armed force, whereas the Iraqi army and police forces operating under Shiite control have not welcomed many Sunnis. Shiites have feared that the armed Sons of Iraq posed a threat to peace and to stability after the U.S. withdrew, wondering if perhaps the Sons of Iraq represented a continuation of Shiite oppression. Some Shiites have proposed disarming the Sons of Iraq or even disbanding the program.

The future of the Sons of Iraq program is far from certain. Without a continuation of this program or some other means of pacifying Sunnis threatened by Shiite rule, prospects for peace in Iraq dim. Continuation of the program, without strong oversight from the central government, may signal a move toward the eventual partition of Iraq, as the Sons of Iraq constitute an armed militia not under direct government control.

Rethinking capital punishment

Proponents of the death penalty are rethinking their support for capital punishment during the economic downturn. The cost of a death sentence in Maryland, for example, averages about three million dollars. Savings from each case in which the death penalty is not sought, including allowances for the cost of life imprisonment, is perhaps five hundred thousand dollars. (“Saving lives and money,” The Economist, March 12, 2009) In this era of limited resources, this cost savings provides opponents of the death penalty another reason to add to their long list of reasons for abolishing capital punishment.

Theological paradigms: Part IV

Kuhn’s analysis of scientific paradigms continues with two more observations important for theology. First, Kuhn contends that scientific paradigms shift only when the weight of quantitative data makes the present paradigm untenable. The inertia inherent in that assessment resonates well with my knowledge of human behavior. People generally prefer the status quo to change and change only when left with little or no option to remain in stasis. This behavioral pattern coheres with human’s physical nature. Brain studies show that humans function in terms of pattern recognition; patterns persist over time and seem to change when existing patterns fail to explain new data in a sufficiently helpful matter.

Unfortunately, theology has no quantitative data. Nobody knows how to measure or test the veracity of most theological claims. The absence of quantitative data suggests that theological paradigms may endure much longer than scientific paradigms (have more inertia) and may therefore require far more dramatic breaks with the past than do scientific paradigms in order for a new paradigm to gain traction. If so, this would at least partially explain the almost three hundred-year period since the emergence of biblical higher criticism during which no new paradigm has gained wide acceptance.

Second, Kuhn noted that many scientists are unaware of previous paradigms, having learned their science from textbooks and teachers steeped in the new paradigm, a pedagogy that emphasizes only elements of previous paradigms that fit into the new paradigm. Similarly, most religious believers are steeped only in their religious tradition; knowledge of alternative or previous paradigms limited to historical studies that generally identify the other paradigms as heresies.

For example, only toward the end of the twentieth century did non-canonical Christian writings from before the fourth century begin to receive any significant amount of attention from Christians and students of religion. Several possible factors explain this: the timing of archaeological discoveries; an increase in the number of religious scholars and an associated proliferation in the subject and volume of their writings; the easy availability of the non-copyrighted non-canonical writings on the Internet. Yet the timing was also correct.

The Christological paradigm of a Jesus who is fully divine and fully human no longer explains the data reasonably well. Textual studies by Bart Ehrman and others demonstrate that scriptural attributions of Jesus’ divinity resulted from theological biases among the scribes copying manuscripts than from what the historical Jesus might have said. Biblical studies by Marcus Borg and others paint a picture of Jesus as a Jewish peasant, mystic, wisdom teacher, healer, and prophet sharply at odds with traditional Christology. Theological studies popularized by Bishop John Spong and others reach similar conclusions based on scientific data and philosophical insights rather than biblical analysis.

Recognizing that the Church existed for centuries before it had articulated an authoritative Christology underscores that no one Christology is inherent in the Christian tradition. Instead, Christology represents the attempt to describe in a formal manner the charisma, the presence of the divine, which people, in his day and since, have experienced in Jesus. From that perspective, early Christians borrowed ideas from Greek and Roman mythology of a God co-habiting with a mortal woman and from the “mystery” religions of vicariously participating in the death and resurrection of a God through drinking the God's blood as paradigms for conceptualizing Jesus’ charisma. The worldview from which those paradigms was derived is now obviously antiquated. Hence, the Church needs new paradigms with which to conceptualize Jesus’ charisma. This represents not a break with the historic Jesus and the Christian tradition but an important updating of that tradition to explain more fully and intelligibly Jesus’ charisma.

Theological paradigms: Part III

“Rather than being, an interpreter, the scientist who embraces a new paradigm is like the man wearing inverted lenses. Confronting the same constellation of objects as before and knowing that he does so, he nevertheless finds them transformed through and through in many of their details.”
- Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 122.

Although the break with the past may seem sharp and irreconcilable, the new paradigm emerged out of its predecessor, not ex nihilo. Furthermore, the past paradigm communicated certain truths about reality and represented a significant step forward from its predecessor. By way of illustration, Newtonian physics allowed the scientific enterprise to take substantial steps forward from Aristotelian physics. Even now, Newtonian physics provide helpful approximations of the relations between mass and force for civil engineers, architects, and others. Yet quantum physics, incorporating Einstein’s theory of relativity, more accurately account for the relation of mass and force, and have enabled major scientific progress, e.g., in atomic energy.

Calling for a new theological paradigm does not deny that previous paradigms have proven helpful, transformative, in the lives of many. Nor does a new theological paradigm necessitate rejecting all of what one heretofore believed about life and God. Instead, a new theological paradigm, using Kuhn’s metaphor of lenses, invites us to take a fresh look at the pieces and to assemble those pieces in a new way. The new lens casts the pieces – our experiences and those of others – in fresh perspective. Pieces that were important may now have only a decorative function; pieces previously sidelined may now acquire central roles. This reevaluation may be so complete as to redefine what one considers a religious experience.

Episcopal Bishop John Spong has made articulating a new paradigm the focus of his life’s work (cf. his website, A New Christianity for a New World). As Kuhn noted with respect to advocates for new scientific paradigm, Spong has not only sparked great controversy but also become both deeply appreciated and vilified for his work. Spong’s search has generally led him in a different direction than process theology.

Another website through which one can identify several contemporary Christians attempting to construct a new theological paradigm is The Center for Progressive Christianity.

More broadly, scholars such as Houston Smith and Ninian Smart, both of whose books are widely available, have sought to define the common ground that links the world’s great religions.

The intellectual ferment is exciting as these various efforts compete with one another. To date, none seems to have achieved sufficient explanatory and interpretative power to garner wide support. I predict that whatever paradigm does gain traction will employ attractive metaphors, have deep roots in multiple faith traditions, and broadly engage multiple disciplines including science.

Theological paradigms: Part II

Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions also writes that although paradigm procedures and applications are necessary to science, they inevitably “restrict the phenomenological field accessible for scientific investigation at any given time.” (pp. 60-61) Awareness of anomalies – things that do not fit the existing paradigm – leads to the development of new paradigms, a process always accompanied by considerable turmoil and conflict.

Applying Kuhn’s insights to religion, the turmoil and conflict that characterize contemporary Christianity may presage the emergence of a new paradigm. At least two sets of anomalies are readily apparent. First, as observed in Part I of these remarks, scientific advances increasingly pose anomalous problems for traditional religious views that the historic paradigms cannot resolve. In addition to problems linked to the concept of God (or ultimate reality), the possibility of miracles, the apparent randomness of life produced by evolution, and the future of the cosmos are all points at which scientific advances seem directly to conflict with the teachings of many religious traditions.

Second, attempting to claim that the Christian Scriptures are uniquely authoritative lacks a solid foundation, apart from parochialism. Scriptures from several religious traditions claim to speak the truth. These include the Koran and the Bhagavad-Gita.

Inspiration of any scripture relies upon the experience of the person receiving the revelation, however that revelation occurred (as an amanuensis, a charismatic moment, through literary redaction, etc.). Religious experience, described in diverse ways contingent upon one’s religious tradition, seems to have several commonalities that hold across traditions. William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience), W.T. Stace (Mysticism and Philosophy), and others have sought to articulate those commonalities. Importantly, an additional commonality is emphasis on the experience as life giving or life transforming, an experience that calls for responding with justice and compassion toward others.

If common experience and common truth underlie religious tradition, why accept a particular set of religious claims as definitive? No longer do many live in blissful ignorance of religious pluralism. Instead, globalization and its associated awareness of conflicting religious truth claims lead some to reject all religion. Others flounder between faiths. And still others create idiosyncratic new forms of religion, sometimes ex nihilo and sometimes weaving elements of existing faiths into new patterns. The anomalies facing the existing religious paradigms have become so numerous and pervasive that the old paradigms no longer suffice.

The present theological turbulence is thus a hopeful sign of an impending fresh recognition of a power greater than ourselves that portends helpfully updating and broadening the narratives used to describe a non-reductionist worldview. Such a narrative (or narratives) can bridge cultural differences, bringing us closer to a global community committed to the well-being of all life.

Was this not Abraham’s dream, one he couched in terms of his extended family?

Was this not the dream of Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed, one each couched in terms of his followers?

Should this not be our dream? Where there is no dream, the people perish.

Theological paradigms: Part I

Thomas S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions identifies two characteristics of a scientific paradigm. First, a paradigm must produce sufficiently new achievements to cause a group of scientists to switch from competing modes of scientific activity. Second, a paradigm must leave problems for new practitioners to solve. (p. 10) Kuhn contends that the most important elements of scientific history are the revolutions associated with paradigm shifts, e.g., when quantum physics supplemented and partially superseded Newtonian physics.

In sharp contrast to Kuhn’s definition of scientific paradigms, systematic theologians attempt to articulate a comprehensive understanding of their subject. Some theologians broadly conceive their system to encompass the totality of all that exists while other theologians more narrowly focus on a particular topic such as redemption. The expectation is that a theological system will answer the vital questions, presuming a static rather than dynamic understanding. Theological revolutions, like the Reformation, return theology to its roots rather than move theology forward.

Jerry Coyne’s review in The New Republic, “Seeing and Believing” of two new books that try to reconcile evangelical Christianity with science highlights the easy lampooning of faith that invariably results from clinging to an antiquated concept of God. Coyne justifies his engagement with evangelical Christianity by pointing to survey data that show a majority of Americans subscribe to a similar view of God. Yet few serious scholars will contend that popular opinion should ever define truth.

Coyne’s article does emphasize that until believers are willing to take their faith seriously in the twenty-first century and do the hard intellectual work of updating anachronistic theological concepts framed and undergirded by long-abandoned worldviews, getting non-believers to take religion seriously represents a steep uphill slog.

In other words, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, theology needs to adopt both Kuhn’s understanding of paradigms and revolutions. A God reducible to finite concepts expressed in finite language is no longer other but human. Good theology thus necessarily helps to frame questions rather than provide definitive answers. The systematic theologies associated with Roman Catholicism and Protestant evangelicalism, of which the two books that Coyne reviews are but examples, have reached the end of their “shelf lives,” i.e., they fail to help people with a modern worldview to find meaning in life, suffering, and death.

Good theology must seek to incorporate the insights about the nature of life and the cosmos produced by other disciplines, especially scientific disciplines. Process theology represents an early twentieth century move in this direction. However, process theology failed to gain widespread traction. Its metaphors do not excite the passion and its concepts sometimes are an awkward fit with our modern worldview.

What form will the next theological paradigm take?

Time to invade another country?

Yemen has apparently directed the release of some one hundred seventy persons held as members or affiliates of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda groups in Yemen and Saudi Arabia have united and now plan to launch a new wave of attacks against western interests in the Arabian Peninsula. (“Al Qaeda haven?” Economist, February 13, 2009).

The U.S. previously held some of those slated for release at Guantánamo Bay. The world is now reaping what the U.S. sowed at Guantánamo: indefinite, animal-like detention hardens animosities into hatred and further radicalizes detainees. A recent al Qaeda video includes pictures of an al Qaeda training camp located on the Arabian Peninsula.

Approximately another one hundred Guantánamo detainees will soon return to Yemen, exacerbating that problematical situation. Yemen’s government has constructed a camp to house those released, with the returnees’ families, while the returnees undergo a re-indoctrination and rehabilitation program. Sadly, such programs are of dubious efficacy.

The good news is that the Yemeni and Saudi governments are cooperatively taking action against al Qaeda. For decades, the U.S. has encouraged and supported Saudi Arabian purchase of military hardware and equipment. The presence of the militants in Yemen under the banner of an Arabian Peninsula al Qaeda is a problem those Arab nations own. Host nations have the responsibility of protecting foreign interests.

Preventive strikes against Yemen seem very ill advised. The United States has overstretched its military with concurrent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Inserting additional forces on the Arabian Peninsula will further inflame Islamicist militants igniting a new wave of terror.

As morally and legally appropriate, the U.S. should provide information (e.g., satellite photos) to Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Abandoning the moral low ground of the prideful presumptuousness that only the U.S. can stop terrorists and relying upon other countries to fulfill their moral, legal, and political obligations will begin to shift U.S. internationalism away from paternalism and toward a healthy mutual interdependence.

Guantánamo Bay

Rajiv Chandrasekaran in “From Captive To Suicide Bomber” (Washington Post, February 22, 2009, p. A01) suggests that Abdallah Saleh al-Ajmi’s captivity at Guantánamo Bay for four years as a low level Taliban fighter radicalized him into a suicide bomber. If Chandrasekaran’s research and analysis are correct, that provides experiential evidence in support of my previous comments about this subject (Treatment of Detainees and Moral principles: Essential but sometimes costly).