a gift.

a long visit ends

the despondent man whispers

"it's good to be seen."

My Nuclear Genogram

on call.

there is a moment

that is unlike all moments

it preys upon a chaplain

like a lion in the grass

the moment does not meet you

or await your arrival to it

it swallows you in an unforeseen lapse of time

it may come in a hallway

or in a staircase

or in an empty office

but it is always the same.

when the moment

sinks in its teeth

you know:

you

are

everything.

the moment reveals what is true

about chaplaincy

about life

about being human.

you

are

everything.

A Working Statement of Christian Faith

PROLEGOMENA:

***My theology is always evolving. But, I have come to discover some truths that have impacted me so profoundly that I cannot, at this point, let them go. In fact, I have found that with some of these truths, the more I devote myself to them, the more I feel liberated and more connected to the cosmos, especially humankind. Nevertheless, I provide this statement to convey the evolutionary nature of my world view. I am open-minded.

Presupposition #1: My world view presupposes a Creator God. This presupposition stems from three reasons:

1. The beauty, grandeur and complexity of the created world (Isa. 40:26). My experience of the created world causes me to believe that the world is too good physically, biologically, aesthetically, and 'corporately' to deny something greater behind/within creation.

2. Humankind's general orientation toward something "greater" exemplified in: a) our ability to transcend ourselves (Ecc. 3:11); and b) our desire to worship (Jer. 2:5; Ex. 20:3-5) [e.g. Dostoyevskey's Grand Inquisitor...]

3. Much of humankind's orientation toward a Creator God. For me, the witness of many (not all) who presuppose a creator God is powerful "evidence." I should note that I struggle equally with the witness of those who endorse other views.

Presupposition #2: My world view presupposes the concept of a Meta-Narrative. Myths, stories, and communal narratives are as old as human existence. We live in the realm of narrative and I believe that, whether we like it or not, we live out our lives according to at least one (often more) narratives.

Presupposition #3: Creation is profoundly Future-Oriented. The concept of time is extremely complicated, but I do believe that we live toward or out of the future. This causes human beings to be oriented toward the future. And, for me, orientation toward future implies un-fulfillment of the present. It suggests that creation is not yet finished...

THE STORY OF CREATION: ONGOING & NOT YET "FULLY" FULFILLED

"In the beginning God created..." but did not finish creating! Creation is an ongoing process and we find ourselves in the middle of a cosmos being birthed; a process of self-discovery, purpose, and everlasting meaning.

1. A Process View of God - God is not omnipotent in the sense of being coercive, but rather God's power is the empowerment of other life. God therefore exists in intimate and dynamic relationship with the created world, participating in its very ebb and flow, intending to guide the cosmos toward the ultimate goal (telos) for which it has been created: that God will be "all in all "(1 Cor. 15:28 ) and "dwell with humankind" (Rev. 21:3). I interpret this as meaning that all of the cosmos and God will exist in loving relationship/community.

So HOW does God guide or empower creation in this process? I believe through revelation and action.

2. The Revelation of God - Anything that we can know about God is revealed to us by God (i.e. originates in God's Self-disclosure). For me, this concept alone suggests that God desires to be known and is more than a mere principle or metaphysical force; perhaps the subject of life who can and does relate to us. I believe that God's Self-disclosure occurs in two ways: A) General Revelation; and B) Specific Revelation.

A) General Revelation is the "imprint" that God leaves on the very nature of life: the created order, the beauty/aesthetic value, etc. This revelation is latent within creation, waiting to be dis-covered by us for our own good pleasure and strengthening of relationship with God.

B) Specific Revelation is a fuller kind of Self-disclosure in which God directly reveals God's Self to person(s). This may have occurred through a burning bush, a voice, an angel, a dream, a sign, or a feeling.

BOTH General and Specific Revelation, I believe, occur through God's Spirit (the "Holy Spirit" in much Christian terminology). The Spirit of God is moving/speaking all the time in my opinion; She reveals to us our purpose and our goal. However, there is one additional and unique revelation in my tradition.

C) The Scandal of Particularity: The Most Specific Revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth. In addition to the revelation of God both historic and current, I believe that the fullest revelation of the Creator God has come at a specific place and time in history in the person of Jesus.

Why do I believe that Jesus was God Incarnate (God-in-the-flesh)?

1) I believe that Jesus' words and actions (as recorded in the Canonical Gospels) provide cryptic revelations of his identity as God-in-the-flesh (e.g. his relationship with the Jerusalem Temple, his self-identification with certain Scripture/parables, his self-understanding in relation to God-YHWH, his prophetic teachings/actions that seem to fulfill "end-time" promises, etc.)

2) I trust the witness of the earliest followers. John's Gospel reads, "No one has ever seen God, the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made God known," (John 1:18). The entire New Testament refers to Jesus in ways characteristic of God. I wrestle with this witness and ultimately trust it.

3) Personal Relationship with this Jesus the Christ - as I have followed Jesus' way, I have encountered profound and ineffable (Divine?) truth. I have encountered this in Jesus' way of loving God-YHWH first, loving thy neighbor through non-violence, peace-making, compassion, and trying to live under the "Reign of God" (here the term denotes the way of being exampled by Jesus).

4) I find a non-Incarnational view lacking in beauty and truth. For me, the notion that the Creator of the Cosmos is so loving that S/He would become like humankind, model true humanness, and then suffer the extent of violence at the hands of humankind provides the best story I have ever encountered (i.e. I find this narrative most compelling).

Not only do I believe that Jesus is the fullest revelation of God, but Jesus is also the fulfillment of God's purpose for humanity - Jesus is the "True Adam." While "Adam" may represent the archetype of broken humanity, Jesus is the archetype of reconciled humanity, living as humanity was meant to live: under the loving reign of God in community with God and each other.

In much of Christian theology, including my own, this is called an "eschatological" truth: Jesus is considered the "End" (the telos) of creation. And Jesus' presence in the middle of history is as if the end/goal of creation has broken into the present to reveal the ending in medias res. One might imagine the end of a long scroll being folded back onto itself to place the ending into the middle. This, I believe, is truly how the earliest followers of Jesus made sense of their experience, and it is how I too see things.

(This has big implications for me: it affirms the goodness of creation and the body; it suggests that God is redeeming creation "from the inside out" and is [still] desiring to co-operate with humanity to guide creation toward its goal and transform a broken world).

Yet, I have also come to discover the limitations of my own attempts to follow Jesus and realize more and more that I am incapable of "saving" myself - I NEED A SAVIOR. And I believe that God's actions in Jesus were God's decisive saving actions of me and the entire cosmos.

My need for salvation is due to my tendency to resist God's guidance. I believe that we humans resist the purpose for which we have been created. This, in my tradition, has often been labeled "sin."

3. False Narratives -

I believe that this resistance from God's purpose is manifested in the following of false narratives (what could also be termed "worshipping false gods/idols"). As we know, stories take place all the time within and overtop one another. So it is quite complicated. But I believe that we can most easily discover what narrative(s) we are following by examining a) what frightens us or makes us uncomfortable, and b) what we worship with our time, energy, resources, etc. For me, "sin" is the turning from God's True Story toward false narratives that dehumanize us and disconnect creation. What is essential for me, therefore, is to stay "on track" with God's Story; to live into it and be an actor within it.

This demands that I remain connected to the Author, hence the importance of spiritual disciplines and connectivity. For me, my connection to the Story is founded upon the theological claim that the God revealed to creation through the biblical narrative, most fully in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, is the "Word," the Author of Life and Author of the Great Story.

[images taken from The History of Redemption]

Changed Is Not Victorious...

First, a parable:

A 12-yr-old girl had a golden retriever puppy name Jack. One day Jack was sniffing too close to the road and was hit by a car and killed instantly. The girl, who did not see the accident, was unaware that Jack had died, so the girl's father went and found the girl a new pit bull puppy. When the girl came home from school to play with Jack she was greeted by Bud, the pit bull. Despite the girl's confusion, the father was immovable: Bud was Jack. The father's lie escalated and he explained to the girl that Jack was hit by a car and killed but was then revived in the form of Bud the pit bull. The girl eventually acquiesced and rumors of Bud the resurrected dog began to spread...

This parable serves to demonstrate the flaw in one of the most common interpretations of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In this fallacious opinion, Jesus was put to death in the body but raised in a disembodied spiritual state of sorts. Again, this mistaken view supposes that, despite being crucified on a Roman cross and buried in a tomb, early followers of Jesus encountered a 'spiritual' Jesus of sorts.

The flaw is this: Jesus cannot have defeated the death of the human body if Jesus was merely changed.

The crux of New Testament theology is that human death, the consequence of sin, has been conquered. The crux is not that something incredible happened to a controversial Jewish man, which therefore made him special. The heart of it all is that death has been defeated.

To hold a view that Jesus was not raised in bodily form fails to take seriously any claim that Jesus was victorious. Changed is not victorious. The resolution has nothing to do with the problem. Bud the pit bull does not make up for the loss of Jack the golden retriever.

We all know that Bud the pit bull is not Jack the golden retriever. We all therefore know that the father is a liar.

The same applies to the historical claims of the early Jesus movement. Either we wrestle with their testimony and take seriously their claim that Jesus defeated death by being raised to new life in the resurrected human body. Or, we declare them all liars and quit pretending to be followers of a dead dude by making up allegorized versions of the gospel.

Mysterious Conversion: The Resurrection from James' Perspective

Scholars agree that Jesus had brothers (all younger we hope!). In the gospels of Matthew and Mark we find a list of Jesus’ brothers: James, Joseph, Simon and Jude (Matt. 13:55, Mark 6:3). None of these siblings, however, are cited as being followers of Jesus – before his crucifixion. The two James in the group of disciples were, of course, James son of Zebedee and James son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:2-4).

In fact, Mark gives the impression that most of Jesus’ family thought he was crazy: “Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind,’ (Mark 3:20-21; see also John 7:3-5).

Other than this, we have no indication of Jesus’ brother James being a follower of Jesus during his ministry. This argument from silence is strong because all four gospels refer to those closest to Jesus by name, including his family. So, we can be fairly certain the James the brother of Jesus was not a follower of Jesus during his ministry.

This is interesting. Why? Because after Jesus’ crucifixion, James became a follower of Jesus! The brother who did not follow the crazed messiah-wanna-be who was put to death later became a servant of Jesus. Indeed, very interesting.

Not only did he follow his brother, he became a leader in the early Jesus movement as bishop of the Jerusalem church: Late in the Second Century, Clement of Alexandria wrote, “Peter, James and John, after the Saviors ascension, though preeminently honored by the Lord, did not contend for glory, but made James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem.” That Clement refers to the James the disciple distinguishes James the Just (Jesus’ brother).

Scholars also believe that James the brother of Jesus authored the The Letter of James. In the beginning of this letter James refers to himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Further evidence is found in Acts 15 when the apostles gather in Jerusalem with the “elders” and James speaks. This could not be James the disciple since he was put to death earlier (Acts 12:2). Most probable is that it is indeed James the brother of Jesus, the bishop of Jerusalem (see Acts 21:18)!

Paul also witnesses to Jesus’ brother as an early apostle: “I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie,” (Gal. 1:18-20). That James was residing in Jerusalem fits the historical evidence.

So what happened? Why did a non-follower of Jesus become a leader of the early church and refer to himself as a “servant of the Lord Jesus Christ” (as opposed to a scoffer of his crazy brother!)?

Allow me to pause for a moment to gather the reader’s attention: something happened. We cannot be honest historians without surmising that something had to motivate James to become a leader of the early Jesus movement.

Can we speculate further? I believe we can. Evidence provides further clues.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes that Jesus appeared to James after he had risen from the dead (1 Cor. 15:7). This could not have been the James of the disciples because Paul mentions that Jesus appeared to the disciples first, then to James.

Now, let’s ask some logical questions.

(1) Would a non-follower of Jesus experience an illusory vision (for a man he likely did not grieve or miss)?

(2) Would a non-follower of Jesus discern some kind of ‘disembodied spiritual presence’ of the man who was crucified?

(3) Would a non-follower of Jesus suddenly associate himself with the followers of a crucified, would-be messiah? (“would-be” because he was proven to be false by crucifixion)

(4) Would a non-follower of Jesus attempt to experience some kind of spiritualized connection with the crucified Jesus?

(5) Would a non-follower of Jesus refer to the crucified Jesus as “Lord” and “Christ”?

These questions suffice, I believe, to point out how absurd it is to think that a devout Jewish man, who did not follow Jesus, would suddenly become part of a movement whose primary claim was that Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead (Lk 24:7; Jn 21:14; Acts 2:24; 4:1-2; 10:34-43; 13:30-41; Rom. 6:4-9; 1 Cor. 15).

The most logical and supportable explanation is that the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth appeared to his brother James in bodily form. Only this could counteract the fact of Jesus’ bodily death on the cross.

What would James have made of this? As the post below suggests, Judean Jews expected a resurrection of the dead in the new age. For James, then, Jesus' bodily resurrection likely confirmed both God's vindication of his Messiah (Acts 2:22-28) and the in-breaking of the new age.

Is there any evidence that James did, in fact, interpret the resurrection of Jesus in this way? Yes.

Following his Jewish worldview (and all of the surrounding evidence), James considered himself and others to be living in the new age because Jesus had been raised. In his letter James refers to followers of Jesus as "first fruits" (James 1:18; cf. 1 Cor. 15:23). James refers to his contemporary audience as "heirs of the kingdom," (2:5). He also exhorts his sisters and brothers to wait for the "coming of the Lord" (parousia, 5:7), the common expectation of Jesus' literal return. All of this evidence within James' letter suggest that he believed that Jesus was the One whom the Lord had anointed to be Israel's savior.

I began this post by noting that scholars agree that Jesus had brothers, James being one of them. Once this is accepted, however, one is forced to wrestle with a whole lot of strange happenings. Why did James the brother of Jesus decide to follow the man he previously thought to be a lunatic? Why the 180? Where does the evidence point?

Think James may have been an anomaly? Jesus' brother Jude also became a follower!