The Matthew’s House Project | Religion

struck dumb

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:18:29 -0400

Silence can be chosen as spiritual discipline. Do you want to hear from God, then it logically follows that you should be quiet and listen. To get a more pure version of Christianity we often go backwards in church history to get closer in proximity to the ancient church. Folks then were closer to Jesus, we say, so they were more attuned to what Jesus was up to, chronological and cultural proximity and all that. Perhaps there is some truth to that. The tradition of the “desert fathers” has been romanticized in Christian literature—names like Anthony the Great, Pachomius, Shenouda the Archimandrite and Saint Pigol. They left the urban centers and fled to desert, to its solitude, because they sensed there were too many distractions to hear the voice of God. They believed you could ascend to God through periods of silence, self-denial, purgation that would lead to illumination and unity with the Divine.
But what if such a silence is not chosen but forced on you? Zechariah was struck dumb by an angel for doubting the plans of God. In this story about Zechariah we get a glimpse of the petulance of God, or at least Gabriel the angel. He seemed caught off-guard by what appears to me to be a fairly reasonable response. “Are you sure? I’m old and my wife is old.”
Do you know what an epiphany is? An appearing of something divine, a moment when the heavenly world and the earthly world meet one another. It is usually a very specific moment that has a sharp realization about it. You might call it a vision. Some call it a-ha moments. Epiphanies can be confusing, and a bit discombobulated--at least the goods ones are, right? And Zechariah screwed his up. Botched it. Because you disbelieved, the angel said, you will be struck dumb.
There is a text about doubt later on in the New Testament, in the book of James that illuminates this encounter between Zechariah and Gabriel. James wrote in his epistle (Chapter 1) that “If you need wisdom, you should ask a generous God, and he will give it to you and will not rebuke you for asking. But, when you ask, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such a person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided and they are unstable.”
For years I’ve been troubled by a noticeable divergence between the experiences I read about in the scripture. You know, hearing the audible voice of God, miraculous healings, the sighting of demons and their exorcism, with the set of experiences I have as a follower of Christ.
Now I’ve always chalked it up to the discrepancy of world views from the “Bible Times” to the 20th century or maybe in an even more sophisticated way speculate that God no longer works in such ways but now is more hidden and obtuse than thousands of years ago. But if I take this story seriously, and if I take the words of James seriously, then I have to consider the possibility that maybe the reason my experiences and that of stories like these don’t always match up is because I, like Zechariah, almost without fail, respond to God by saying, “Are you sure? Cause I’m old. Or I’m too young. Or I can’t work those people.” And God, like his surrogate Gabriel says, “You expect nothing, you’ll receive nothing.”
Now I’m guessing that I’ve just dumped a pretty big indictment on a whole lot of people in the room. And I don’t like it anymore than you do. It leaves us open to the abuses of the faith-seed thinking that is more popular in charismatic churches. You want your nephew to be healed of cancer? Just have faith and don’t waiver. So you exercise that mustard seed bit of faith, that small amount that Jesus promised us is all we need to move mountains, and then he dies anyway and you want to know if you’ve been played the fool by God. The secret to happiness in life is keeping your expectations low, right? At least that seemed to be Zechariah’s approach to things. And he was punished.
Some choose silence as a spiritual discipline. Some have it chosen for them.
Some years ago I took my first excursion to a monastery. I wanted to visit the abbey of Thomas Merton, a somewhat famous monk from the 1960’s, a poet and peace activist. He lived in a monastery called Gethsemane in a town called Trappist midway between Louisville and Lexington, KY. It is a silent monastery, which means they limit the talking that happens there to what is needed. They spend a portion of the day working, manufacturing, cheese, fruitcake, and bourbon fudge (It is Kentucky you know) to make a living, and the rest of the day praying the Psalms—outloud—and listening, quietly. They eat meals in silence. There is one hour a day scheduled after dinner for “quiet conversation.”
I was very excited about this personal retreat I was taking. It was to be three days of silence, prayer, reflection and rest. I had determined that I wasn’t going to load myself down with internal conversation either. I was going to limit myself to the reading Luke’s Gospel. Outside of that I would go for walks, take naps or sit quietly. I wanted to clear the register of my mind, empty it out and leave a greater possibility for hearing God’s voice. Or as I’ve said to people as one who talks way too much, let my soul catch up to my mouth.
When I arrived I was greeted by the monk at the visitor’s desk and told him who I was. He ran his finger down the ledger, found my name, gave me a visitor’s guide and a key. He told me the directions to the guest quarters, told me if I had any questions to come and ask. Then he smiled, said “In the name of Christ, we welcome you.” And that was it. I didn’t talk to anybody there again for three days!
I was ready, I was looking forward to this new and strange experiment. My job is one that carries a high expectation to fill up the empty air with words. Small talk, big talk, medium talk. Here I had permission to say nothing. Nothing. That night I gleefully ate dinner in a room full of strangers with no pressure to make a good impression, no need to say the clever thing or ask the right question. No chance to put my foot in my mouth. And believe me, the more your life’s vocation requires you to talk, the greater the possibility of saying really stupid things. Just ask any political candidate running for president. The odds are stacked against you.
But listening is hard. Have you even been in a conversation with someone who appears to be listening to you but is instead trying to formulate what they will say next? Have you ever been the one that does that? Maybe in some ways it’s beyond our control. We live in a culture of immediate solutions. We run possible outcomes, we rehearse dialogue, we worry and predict. How many of you practice giving speeches to people you are frustrated with in your car? Many of the thoughts in our inner dialogue are often angry, oppressive and self effacing. A good portion of our stress is self-inflicted and is based on our inability to slow down the inner-dialogue. How do you choose the kind of silence that clears the register and open the possibility of being filled with what we might call the Word of God?
So three days of silence at the monastery. I did not last one single day. Lunch, Walk on the grounds, Nap, Reading. Dinner. Lecture. Then I called home.
Later that night as I put down my journal (again, me talking). I snapped. I went back out into the parking lot, opened up the door of my rental car, and pulled out the two paperback copies of the Harry Potter books I had purchased in the airport. Went back up to my “cell” and read straight through them both. Facing the great abyss to hear the whispering of God turned into two years at Hogwarts School of Witch Craft and Wizardry. And I’ve got to tell you, a monastery isn’t such a bad place to read the Harry Potter books. It had the right ambiance.
Maybe there is some irony in Zechariah being struck dumb. Jesus cloistered himself before he started his ministry, 40 days in the desert. He repeatedly stole away in the morning to be alone, to pray, to listen. Was Gabriel’s curse part punishment, part gift? Silenced for doubting. Is there irony in that the child who would be born to Zechariah and Elizabeth sole purpose in life was to proclaim the coming of the Messiah?
I don’t doubt that were this to happen to you that it would be devastating to the rhythm of your life. What if Ray Vickrey had been struck dumb? The only pastoral duties he could have performed for a time were those of arriving quietly into your moments of crisis? Or presided over communion in silence? But what if you were robbed of your ability to speak because you doubted the possibility of an extra-ordinary movement of God? Unusual, I know. Unlikely, right?
Let me spiritualize this and say maybe it is a wonder that I stand here speaking to you at all for the times I’ve let my own cynicism win out over the possibility of a movement of God. Maybe too many of us have lost our voices, even the ability to speak the truth to each other?
Six months after Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and Elizabeth, he was sent to the village of Nazareth to tell a young woman named Mary that she would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit. It would be literary poetry to say to you that her response was the opposite of Zechariah’s. But it was the same. “How can this happen?” she said, “I am a virgin.”
The angel does not punish her for her hesitation. Elizabeth later tells Mary that she has been blessed because she believed what the Lord said he would do. But her doubt was no different than Zechariah’s. I suppose somewhere in the mystery of being human there is a quality to doubt that only God can know. Those who speak the language of belief may in fact inwardly be doubters. Those who speak the language of doubt may inwardly believe. Only God knows. Later in the story it says that Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. Silence truly is an unknown variable.
Silence that is imposed. Silence that is chosen. At different times in our life both may be needed. But in both there seems to be grace and good news, for in both God is willing (in some cases with divine petulance) to use us--the celebrated and the punished alike.

8 August 2008 | Based in Luke 1.5-21 | A homily given at Royal Lane Baptist Church, Dallas, TX on July 20, 2008 Read more from Tim Sean at www.timsean.com.

why did people invent war?

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:44:58 -0400

No wonder Jesus liked children. Their naivety allows questions that carry no inhibition.

I was telling our children the story about David finding Saul in a cave and he...

“Pulls out his big sword and slices his head off...” interrupted our seven-year-old.

“No, no,” I responded. “Do you know what happens?” I asked with no response. “Most of us would take advantage of the moment especially because Saul was chasing David so he could kill him. But David doesn’t do that. He only cuts off a piece of the king’s cloak and leaves him to his dreaming.”

We talked about Samuel and God’s anointing of Saul as well as David a little bit later. I mentioned too how Saul hopelessly died in the end by falling on his sword in war in battle. They seemed satisfied with this demise and modeled it with their light sabers.

Then I shifted to Jesus.

“If someone knocks your eye out or breaks a few teeth, Jesus says we should let the person have our other eye and a few more teeth.”

“No way,” said Micah.

“Yes,” I said. “Just like David cutting Saul’s robe and not his head.”

“Why?” Caleb asked.

I kept the why dangling. I sang some songs and scratched their backs as is our custom to attempt to charm them to sleep. All three share the same work so the charm usually doesn’t work right away.

I started to close the door. Most nights, that’s when our five-year-old has a question.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Caleb,” I said with a small amount of patience.

“Why did people invent war? All they do is kill each other. Is it so the bad guys don’t come to our house?”

Oh boy. This ranked with several of their other questions like, If God loves everyone - even the bad people - does that mean the bad people go to hell? and Why did Jesus have to die?

I thought about the story of the piece of rice that fell from the Great Khan’s plate. The insect tries to carry it off. A lizard eats the insect. A mouse eats the lizard. A cat eats the mouse. A dog chases the cat. The dog owner runs after his pet. The cat owner runs into the dog owner. There’s a tizzy between the two. Then their families get involved. Soon there’s a war between both clans and no one remembers the dog and cat.

The question of inventing war sounds childish. Perhaps no one invented war; it just happens because of a grain of rice or a lot of land or pieces of silver and gold. Khan-sized egos rub against like minds and kingdoms can’t contain both.

Why did people invent war? Maybe it’s a default because certainly the biblical narrative suggests love runs deeper. Could the Hebrews take possession of the land without fighting. The occurrences in the Egypt getaway made sure signs who holds the reigns of murderous consequences. And the tumbling seas of red mimic the crumbling walls of Jericho. No one lifted a hand, similar to the later episode with Gideon’s jars and torches (skipping over the violent stake-in-the-eye treachery.

Then Israel clamors for a king. And a king demands a kingdom and kingdoms need defenders and defenders need weapons and weapons need victims and victims need conquerors.

We invented war to nullify help from the divine. Sure, we want the Constantine cross to manipulate our victory and rightness as much as the Olympian gods bouncing down to defend their side in Grecian battles. But, when a deity says I own the land no matter the kingdom that sits on its top, then what? We are not satisfied to get milk and honey alone. We want blood. For, like Cain, we crave dominance in some falsely placed sacrificial way, turning inward the letting as our own reward.

We invented war to carry our wishes outside the bounds of love. It is built off the paranoia of the other. Perhaps the other will show up at my door, so it’s better to kill him on the battlefield and stage safety in the shire. Right? And then we can beat our chests, enter caves with shadows dancing by and pretend that there are no windows in the sky.

8 August 2008

11 unqualified provocations about congregational song

Sun, 25 May 2008 12:38:02 -0400

”It is not you [alone] that sings, it is the church that is singing, and you, as a member ... may share in its song. Thus all singing together that is right must serve to widen our spiritual horizon, make us see our little company as a member of the great Christian church on earth, and help us willingly and gladly to join our singing, be it feeble or good, to the song of the church. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together)  Author's Note: What follows are eleven loosely supported but nevertheless passionately believed provocations about the importance of congregational singing for Christians, especially, but not limited to, those in the United States (and even more specifically to mainline and evangelical Protestant churches). As someone who writes hymns, plans worship, leads singing, and teaches writing to Christian students at an historically evangelical college, these jagged notions grate at my conscience when I partake in such activities.  For a more careful, qualified argument about each of these ideas, you'll need to go read a more careful scholar someone who qualifies her arguments by both supporting them and guarding them. See the bibliography below to get some sense of where these notions might go.  1) Music carries too much power--theologically, historically, emotionally, relationally, culturally--not to be thought about and practiced with more care than it is in American churches. Instead, we sing by habit (which might be fine if the habits are good, but they often are not), by taste, by trend. We leave our heads in the car. Or we sing only with our heads, leaving our bodies elsewhere (perhaps to use later in some more exciting way). Or, worse, we don't really sing at all; we pay someone else to do it for us while we sit back and bathe in it. Or judge. Or tune out (interesting phrase, that).  2) Performance is not really worship, though how American Christians would know the difference is beyond me. Our entire sensibility about large gatherings where music is played and sung, or where a story is told, has been shaped by attending concerts, plays, films. We are there to be entertained. We know our role: to consume pleasure, fear, pathos, irony, or some other aesthetic commodity and, when the event is over, we offer critique. Many of us are good at doing this sort of thing.  Worship, on the other hand, requires us to participate as more than passive consumers. In genuine Christian worship, we give ourselves over to the true drama of God's action in human history and in our lives; we open ourselves to the presence and challenge of the Holy Spirit in our midst; and we align ourselves as a part of a community of other believers who are also giving themselves over. I'm not very good at this one; I need to get better.  3 and 4) A longish, two part provocation: Music in worship is always an encounter of two bodies. The first body is that of the individual worshipper who comes carrying within her a whole week's worth of pleasure and tension and energy and restlessness. Because music unites body, text, community, and the Spirit of God, worship can protect us from being either Gnostics or sensualists. The experience of worship is not an experience of either intellect or emotion but rather of a whole self--body, mind, spirit (or, more biblically, heart, soul, strength and mind)--being offered patterns of experience in language, ritual, and song that beckon us, draw us, invite us, call us (rather than coerce, manipulate, bully, or demand) toward God, leaving spaces for God's Spirit to arrive to our whole self. Music in worship offers just such a fully embodied experience, and thus, an opportunity to understand incarnation--sound, rhythm, silence, tone, percussiveness, touch, energy--these parts of our bodily experiences that resonate in particular people in particular and unique ways. Too often the only part of our bodies in touch with anything in worship is our bottom on a bench.  The second body is, of course, the Church, the Body of Christ. The bodies of believers live and move and have their being in the body of God's people as we collect ourselves in the presence of God and with one another. This way of being present in both bodies at once is something singing can perhaps teach us especially well, what poet Jean Janzen calls "the world's secret . . . to enter and be close, yet separate."  There is a dialogic relationship then between what the individual feels, thinks, and experiences and the more public, communal acts of speaking, listening, singing, and moving that make up worship. And this gathering is not just a gathering of present bodies but of PAST bodies, those who have been in these pews, in these choir robes before us. We summon old presences--the language of hymn writers, the prayers of dead folks, the deeds of other imperfect creatures like us--to join us in God's presence, because they know HOW to be there, even when we don't. I have worshipped with Bach, with Menno Simons, with Martin Luther King, Jr., with southern field hands and with ancient martyrs because of their presence through language in the BODY, which has thus entered into MY body,both bodies being present in song.  Oh, and the global body of Christ matters as well. American Christians need to learn and sing with joy music from other lands, peoples, ethnic and racial groups. We must also take care not to mine these traditions as mere sources of tunes, repeating the colonialisms of our past. Instead, we mush learn to sing them as those peoples would teach them to us. What differences might it make when our bodies (and our church bodies) house the same psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs as others who are different and yet equally valued and redeemed by God? How might a broader horizon of song help us, as Bonhoeffer says, to experience ourselves and "our little company as a member of the great Christian church on earth?”  5) If you can't hear others around you singing, you're probably not engaged in corporate worship. You might be at a concert. Even if you don't want to hear those around you singing, you should. I should.  6) Corporate worship requires others. We need to choose and write and sing those hymns and songs that make us require one another. We need to get less interested in Christian karaoke*, or trying to imitate the worship CD we play in the car. Four-part harmonies (or even two-part harmonies), call and response, canons (or rounds) cannot be sung alone. And simple, ancient melodies (like those of folk tunes) that teach us to ride a particular arc of pitch and rhythm (rather than the glitch and surprise of so much solo music) can bind us together as well. I want to write, sing, and lead such songs. This requires, often, more work, better, singing, deeper commitment.  7) I like to sing tunes that feel like the tunes that make me feel. That's a cool part of music, how strongly it stirs our feelings. May not be worship. Or it could be. Get the "like" and the "feel" out of the way and then we might be onto something. Worship leaders like to make us sing things that make them/us feel. That's often a manipulative, risky thing to do. I still don't know precisely where the line is between responding to the Holy Spirit and rousing people to a false emotional frenzy. I know, though, when I've crossed it. For that, I've often repented. Now, everyone, let's sing a repentance song.  8) Memorial reasons for singing or valuing music are often no better, equally self-centered and inadequate for helping us sort out how to sing together in worship. Everyone's grandma had a favorite hymn, you know? So even in a small church (say 120 people on Sundays), it could potentially take you two years (or more) to sing all the favorite grandma tunes (though there would likely be overlap in certain denominations where everyone's grandma used to hum "How Great Thou Art" or "Softly and Tenderly" or "Pass It On," or "Watched by the world's malignant eye"). The memory we need to cultivate is the long, difficult, necessary memory of God's story worked out in particular bodies of believers over time (see, again, Bonhoeffer).   9) All generations have a musical vernacular we think we deserve to hear/sing in worship. We must get over this. I was reared on the singer-songwriter generation of pop (and Christo-pop) music (Carole King, Billy Joel, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Harry Chapin, Dan Fogelberg , Keith Green, Michael Card, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett,). That's back (Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, Iron & Wine, etc.). In music for worship, the point is not what I like (or think I need to hear, though we certainly have to follow the example of those legendary Wesley boys who, I hear, used bar tunes from time to time), or about imposing one set of tastes over another. The point is what can be sung together with integrity--theological, communal, individual, and musical integrity.  10) We should be very careful what we put in other people's mouths. Because songs only exist when they enter and leave the bodies of others (either when they are sung or when they are heard), writers of hymns and leaders of singing need to be more careful than ever about the kind of textual relations we have within our bodies (see provocations three and four above). Too often we sing, over and over, lyrics that break under the weight of repetition. Precisely because music lodges in our senses, our memories of the texts with which music is joined will form some of our most powerful spiritual and theological experiences*  Thus, lyrics need to be biblically resonant and, at the same time, able to be sung by diverse congregations of men and women who bring diverse cultural and individual experiences. No single song or text can do this, but more of them should try. And we must sing a greater variety and range throughout a given service or season, so that each hymn or song gains in its relation to others. Also, writers of hymn texts, while exercising all the poetic gifts of evocative diction, meter, sound play, image, figures of speech, etc. are not free. As my colleague Leland Ryken is fond of quoting the British hymn writer Timothy Dudley Smith (who is quoting someone else in this comment): "To write hymns is to write poetry under vows of renunciation." Oh, and theologian and colleague Dan Treier would cry if I didn't mention this: Jesus is not your girlfriend.  11) Though I have not so far mentioned it, God is the given of all worship--music, preaching, prayer, liturgy, silence. This means that our tunes and texts need to be in tune with God as revealed in the scriptures and with God's desires for the body of Christ. Christian hymns, then, must embrace a Trinitarian God, one beyond our experience yet active in history. They must not be about abstract experiences but about the concrete, incarnate presence of Jesus Christ in daily human lives and cultures. Hymns must reckon, always and often, with the incarnation and the Holy Spirit's regenerative presence in our lives and communities. Hymns must comfort, but they must also challenge. Songs must praise, but they must also lament (we have almost no space for lament in much of our worship). They must speak for individuals, yet they must always reckon with us as members of a community. They must turn us toward God, toward one another, and toward a world beyond the ends of our tongues.   Useful Resources on Christianity and Congregational Song  Web Sites Calvin Institute on Christian Worship The Cyber Hymnal  Books/Key Voices Singing: A Mennonite Voice  Brian McLaren’s Open Letter to Songwriters Marva J. Dawn: Body Building: Worship that develops strong community Jeremy Begbie’s Theology Through the Arts Songwriter and PastroJohn Bell The Iona Community Wild Goose Publications  Endnotes *Learning to Sing in Parts from Piano in the Vineyard. Lancaster, PA: Good Books, 2004.</span> *I steal this line from the poet Scott Cairns. I don't know that he's ever written it down *As Scottish hymn writer John Bell puts it in The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2000), music is so powerful precisely because "[w]e are creatures of our past. We cannot be separated from it, and although we cannot always remember it, songs will unexpectedly summon portions of it into mind. If this is true of secular ballads, it is even more true of Christian songs and hymns, especially those which have been in currency since childhood. . . . What we learn in childhood we retain all our life and the images of God we receive from such songs will determine our faith and theology. That means that whenever anyone teaches a child a hymn or religious song, they may be preparing that child to meet his or her Maker. Does that seem too extreme?" 
8 June 2008

if a man has two wives...

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:25:40 -0400

As early as Lamech in Genesis 4 and making a sideline appearance in the law code with Deuteronomy 21:15’s “If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other”, the idea of “one man, one woman” seems suspicious. The heritage that we know with Jacob and his two women on through the kings of Israel makes this idea of monogamy at least something to be questioned.   Is it the cultural mores that suggest one over the other? Did it revolve an early need to procreate quickly as St. Augustine notes, a need that is no longer exceptional? Could it be reduced to an economic argument? Or perhaps it simply makes little sense romantically and we might be surprised that Paul knew this and espoused it - “husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:28). Maybe it’s a spiritual concern - “A deacon must be the husband of but one wife” (I Timothy 3:12).   But, as with other issues there is not an absolute clarity on a theological basis with regards to polygamy. Rather, we must get at our conclusion of monogamy by marrying together various traditional and spiritual overtones.  I asked David Petersen, professor of Old Testament at Emory University to answer a few questions.   MHP: The creation account of Genesis seems to order the universe. And, in so doing the idea of one man and one woman as a unit appears to be "the order." Is that reading to much into the account? Because discounting something supernatural or untold, procreation occurred in unspecified ways. Maybe? Is there a wide interpretation on these points?  David Petersen: The accounts of creation in Genesis accomplish many purposes. Among them are several depictions of what it means to be human. Diversity in gender is one hallmark of the priestly account (Gen 1:27) whereas the notion of “the man and his wife” feature in the non-priestly account (Gen 2:25). The latter text is surely an etiology for marriage, but not a legal text. The issue of procreation is mentioned in the priestly account, but the command “to be fruitful and multiply” is not explicitly linked to marriage (Gen 1:28).
MHP: Polygamy does not appear to be a directive from God nor one put down in the Levitical code (like Islam with the allowance of four if treated equally). So, if that's the case, was it an adoption of the wider culture? When did it happen. For example, it appears the Noah and his sons only had one wife each and Abraham had only Sarah by law. Law?  DP: Anthropologists have developed various terms to describe patterns of human marriage. Several of these terms work well for characterizing marriages in the book of Genesis. The family of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar represents polycoity, a family in which one male has sexual access to several females, only one of whom is the primary wife. The family of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel involves sororal polygyny, a marriage in which one male has several wives, all of whom are sisters. These two forms of marriage are consistent with the kinship structure present in Gen 12-36, namely, patrilineal endogamy.

MHP: Did God ever disdain the taking of multiple wives? Jacob had two in that sordid tale that looks like a likely "gotcha" story given his deceit. We know David had several, but the judgement is the immoral taking of Bathsheba. And Solomon, it seems, is more about the secular influence of kowtowing to their gods.

DP: Any number of texts in the Hebrew Bible attest to polygyny (one man with multiple wives), though none to polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands). Genesis includes the names of four women who were married to Esau (Gen 28:9; 36:2-3). Elkanah had two wives who apparently had, in principle, equal status (1 Sam 1:2). Several Judahite kings were remembered as having many wives. The reasons for this are probably multiple. The deuteronomistic history reports that one of Solomon’s marriages symbolized a treaty relationship (Pharoah’s daughter, 1 Kings 3:1). One of David’s wives clearly helped him achieve legitimacy in his dynastic struggle with the Saulides (Michal, 1 Sam 18:27-28). Solomon’s marriages received bad press, not because of the number of his wives, but because they led him to venerate deities other than Yahweh (1 Kings 11:1-8). No such comment is made about David and his wives. Finally, a law in the book of Deuteronomy clearly presupposes a case in which one man had two wives (Deut 21:15).

There does seem to be a move away from polygyny in the Persian and Greco-Roman periods. Economic factors were no doubt important. It is hard to imagine two wives of a sort described in Prov 31:10-31, a text that probably dates to the Persian period, in one household. Extra-biblical evidence for Jewish family practice, e.g., the texts from Elephantine, need to be integrated into this discussion.

MHP: So, is polygamy sinful?

DP: The Hebrew Bible does not condemn, i.e., construe as sin, the diverse patterns of family life attested in its pages.

8 May 2008 | Interview and opening comments by Zach Kincaid

pious nietzsche

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 18:50:34 -0400

Who would have thought that Friedrich Nietzsche could rightly be described as homo religiosus or a person of faith? If anything seems to be true, it is that his credentials as “secular thinker” are sterling. As a vehement critic of Christianity, Nietzsche seems the paradigmatic “atheist” and “nihilist.” Yet Nietzsche’s thought is much closer to religion than has been generally recognized. I contend that his thought is deeply religious from start to finish. Thus, rather than read Nietzsche as a nihilist and atheist, I read Nietzsche as desperately wanting to escape from nihilism. Moreover, rather than simply throw religion aside, I see Nietzsche as designing his own new religion with its own peculiar god. Nietzsche begins as a Pietist and ends as one: though the content of Nietzsche’s “new” Dionysian Pietism is different from the Lutheran Pietism of his childhood, the form remains virtually unchanged.  As a boy, “Fritz” was deeply pious and often called the “little pastor.” The particular brand of German Pietism he inherited from his mother focused on practice rather than doctrine. From that Pietistic perspective, Christianity is primarily a way of being, one characterized particularly by childlike trust in God. Consider the following prayer that closes his autobiography From my Life (1858), written at the tender age of thirteen.
I have firmly resolved within me to dedicate myself forever to His service. May the dear Lord give me strength and power to carry out my intention and protect me on life’s way. Like a child I trust in His grace . . . . All He gives I will joyfully accept: happiness and unhappiness, poverty and wealth, and boldly look even death in the face, which shall one day unite us all in eternal joy and bliss. . . . Amen!

Here we find an outpouring of a heart that completely trusts in God. Whatever happens, Fritz is content to say “amen” to all that comes his way.

Only a few years later, we find a boy growing into manhood and deeply unclear about his faith. In his poem “Fled are the Lovely Dreams” (1862) he writes “I do not know what I believe.” His poem of 1864 titled “To the Unknown God” expresses a deep longing for God but no clear idea who or what that God might be: “I lift up my hands to you in loneliness . . . to whom in the deepest depths of my heart/I have solemnly consecrated altars. On them glows, deeply inscribed/the word: To the unknown God. . . . I want to know you, even serve you.”

Nietzsche is well known for “the death of God.” But how God “dies” is key. For instance, in 1881 Nietzsche speaks of the “euthanasia” of Christianity in which it morphs into a “gentle moralism.” Nietzsche nowhere provides a sustained argument against belief in God or Christianity. The reason for that lack of argument is simple: Nietzsche thinks that one needs merely to explain how belief in God—and other religious entities—came into being, and thus one has explained it away. Although Nietzsche does not use such terminology here, “genealogy” effectively replaces refutation. By showing the distinctly human origins of belief in God, one shows that such belief is no longer plausible.

In marked contrast, in that (in)famous passage in The Gay Science (1882) the death of God is announced as a murder. The madman enters the city square and says: “I’ll tell you! We have killed him—you and I! We are all his murderers.” Of course, the death of God is not constituted by some actual mortal “event.” Nietzsche here clearly equates “God is dead” with the fact that (as he puts it) “the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable.” Nietzsche, then, is simply reflecting the German culture of his day, in which belief was slowly ebbing away.

But then who—or what—takes over the role of “God” for Nietzsche? It is not as if Nietzsche now leaves the “god question” behind; rather it remains with him throughout his life. As his contemporary Lou Salomé [more than just a friend, but that’s a long story . . . ] observes:

Only when we enter Nietzsche’s last phase of philosophy will it become completely clear to what extent the religious drive always dominated his being and his knowledge. His various philosophies are for him just so many surrogates for God . . . . His last years, then, are a confession that he was not able to do without this ideal. And precisely because of that, time and again we come upon his impassioned battle against religion, belief in God, and the need for salvation because he came precariously close to them.

In 1862, he had written to his childhood friends: “Christianity is essentially a matter of the heart” and “The ‘kingdom of heaven’ is a state of the heart—not something that is to come ‘above the earth’ or ‘after death’.” He also writes: “That God became man only shows that man should not seek his blessedness in eternity, but instead ground his heaven on earth.” Here we have a newly revised Pietism, one that provides the model for Nietzsche’s continually improvised Pietism that continues throughout his life. So, already by 1862, Nietzsche had come to think in terms of an earthly piety. Admittedly, Nietzsche’s conception of Christian Pietism is less than orthodox. Yet it is remarkable how true Nietzsche remains to the structure of Pietism. He writes—much later—in The Anti-Christ(ian) (1888): 
It is false to the point of nonsense to find the mark of the Christian in a ‘faith’, for instance, in the faith in redemption through Christ: only Christian practice, a life such as he lived who died on the cross, is Christian. . . . Not a faith, but a doing.

Such was the essence of true Christian faith for Nietzsche, this practice that is a state of being. For Nietzsche, the problem with Christianity is that it is against this world and only concerned with the world to come. Thus, he accuses Christianity of being “otherworldly.” In place of this denigration of the world, Nietzsche preaches the doctrine of what he calls amor fati [love of fate]—the idea of loving all that has happened, is happening, and will happen. “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary . . . but love it.” For Christianity, the assumption is that sin is wrong and so we need to be “redeemed” from sin. Conversely, “redemption” for Nietzsche means not thinking there is something wrong in first place. The logic of amor fati, then, is the antithesis of the logic of redemption.

On the one hand, making this change from the usual concept of redemption to amor fati would seem to be a truly gargantuan task. For, as Nietzsche fully admits, it requires both a thinking and feeling differently that would seem difficult to accomplish. On the other hand, amor fati is remarkably close to the sentiments of the Pietistic prayer of the young Fritz in which he joyfully accepts all that God will give.

Yet how might the death of God allow for the possibility of the creation of a new god? Nietzsche admits that—so far—“at bottom, it is only the moral god that has been overcome.” And then he goes on to ask: “Does it make sense to conceive a god ‘beyond good and evil’?” Such, I contend, is exactly what Nietzsche desires and toward which he strives. But, for Nietzsche, this new god is actually a very old one—the ancient Greek god Dionysus refigured by Nietzsche. Exactly who this refigured Dionysus is never becomes fully clear in Nietzsche. Yet, even in creating a new god, the extent to which Nietzsche remains connected to the logic—and perhaps even the substance—of Christianity is more significant than he realizes. In other words, he has not simply left it all behind.
When Nietzsche writes “I would believe only in a god who knew how to dance,” it seems as if Nietzsche has found his “god” in Dionysus. Dionysus turns out to be the “unknown God” to whom Nietzsche earlier had prayed. In effect, Nietzsche invents what he terms “a fundamentally opposed doctrine and counter-evaluation of life” that he says he “baptized,” “by the name of a Greek god: I called it Dionysiac.” Further, Nietzsche adopts what he sees as the Dionysian “tragic outlook” on life: although life is full of suffering, one ought to embrace it anyway. It is what Nietzsche calls a “pessimism of strength” that leads to “a total affirmation of the world.” Nietzsche styles himself as “the last disciple and initiate of the god Dionysus.” As a way of describing what a follower of Dionysus might be like, Nietzsche’s description provided by the poet Goethe is particularly enlightening. 
Goethe conceived of a human being who was strong, highly cultivated, skilled in everything bodily, with self-control and self-respect . . . . Such a spirit who has become free stands with a glad and trusting fatalism in the midst of the universe, with a faith that only the particular is to be rejected, that as a whole, everything redeems and affirms itself—such a spirit does not negate anymore . . . But such a faith is the highest of all possible faiths: I have baptized it with the name of Dionysus.

That one is able to accept all that happens is only possible on the basis of this Dionysian faith and clearly represents a religious move for Nietzsche. Indeed, he speaks of this as “the holy way.” It is a new sense of “holiness,” not a Christian but a Dionysian holiness.

Having laid down the “doctrines” of his Dionysian faith, how faithful a follower does Nietzsche prove to be? For, rather than merely postulating Dionysus and his Dionysian Piety, Nietzsche actually needs to become Dionysian. Such is a project to be accomplished, rather than something already completed. How does Nietzsche think that he can reach the Dionysian? Part of the answer lies in the very nature of Dionysus. Not only is Dionysus himself able to take on multiple appearances, those whom he inspires are likewise enabled to become “other.” The Rausch—frenzy or rapture—that one experiences when under the spell of Dionysus brings about an “ecstasy”—an ekstasis that removes one (even if only temporarily) beyond normal existence. The substitution, then, of Dionysus for the God of Christianity not only changes the identity of God for Nietzsche but also enables Nietzsche to change his own identity (from the follower of Christ to the follower of Dionysus). Of course, a major—perhaps the major—problem facing Nietzsche is that to accept all of life would mean accepting everything, and that “everything” would have to include Christ, the whole history of Christianity, and even the doctrine of redemption as interpreted by Christians. Can Nietzsche really accept all of this?

As it turns out, Jesus proves—in certain ways—an exemplar for Nietzsche, for Jesus actually lives out a sense of what Nietzsche terms “blessedness.” On Nietzsche’s (admittedly highly unorthodox) read, Jesus does not care about repentance or reconciliation, for there is no sin for which to feel guilty. Nietzsche says that the “glad tidings” finally “dispose” of the notion of “redemption through faith.” Instead, one can “feel oneself ‘in heaven’” simply by this “new way of life.” So Jesus’ life is a radical affirmation to life. Moreover, Jesus is also free from ressentiment [resentment] and seems to be able to say “Yes” to life in a way that Nietzsche does not seem free to do. In contrast, Nietzsche still seems mired in ressentiment—which would mean he is far from free. While Nietzsche hopes and prays to become a child, he portrays the evangel—at least in two crucial respects—as someone like the person he himself wishes to be—a child and a free spirit. Thus, the evangel is already a free spirit, rather than merely an aspiring one like Nietzsche.

Just how far, then, does Nietzsche’s go in becoming Dionysian? For the truly free spirit is able to embrace fate and all that life brings. Although Nietzsche himself seems not to be entirely clear about this, it would seem that only the one who has this “joyous/glad and trusting fatalism” can truly be a free spirit and thus freed from the logic of ressentiment. Yet, while Nietzsche speaks lovingly at times of life in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885), that love is too often eclipsed by ressentiment. This becomes even more problematic in his late texts. It is particularly telling that Nietzsche makes remarkably little headway on his last projected book titled Revaluation of All Values (which would be a potentially “positive” endeavor). He talks in the preface to that work of “new ears for new music” but we get little in the way of “new” music, just the vehemence of The Anti-Christ(ian). Moreover, to what extent is Nietzsche truly honest with himself? Consider the following “self-assessment” Nietzsche offers in Ecce Homo (1888):

Really religious difficulties, for example, I don’t know from experience . . . .‘God’, ‘the immortality of the soul’, ‘redemption’, ‘beyond’—without exception, concepts to which I have never devoted any attention, or time; not even as a child. Perhaps I have never been childlike enough for them.

At best, only part of this describes Nietzsche: true, he has not been concerned with immortality of the soul, redemption, and beyond. Yet he has been obsessed with God throughout his life. His problem is that he is not childlike enough, though in exactly the opposite sense he means here. If amor fati is “saying yes to life even in its most strange and intractable problems,” then Nietzsche seems unable to live up to that. In place of “Yes-saying,” he is all too full of denial.

Ultimately, the self that Nietzsche wishes to overcome is that of the pious young Fritz. But does Nietzsche really overcome this self? We have already seen that Nietzsche remains remarkably true to his pietistic roots in important ways. True, he moves from his old faith in the God of Christianity to a faith in Life, resulting in both a desire to serve life and a willingness to say “Yes and Amen” to life rather than God. But he has not left what Salomé terms the “mystical God-ideal” behind. And he seems quite unable to leave it behind. Further, even in his desire to serve Life he turns out to be unfaithful. Nietzsche admits in Zarathustra that he is not true to Life and he feels deep remorse for his infidelity. So he turns out to be a heretic in his own religion.

Yet there is a further problem that Nietzsche faces. Not only does he wish to be free from the God of Christianity, he also wishes to be free from the very hope of redemption. But—in the end—can Nietzsche make such a move? How can Nietzsche truly escape from escaping, overcome overcoming, redeem himself from redemption, or save himself from salvation? The most Nietzsche can do is make a religious move, saying that all this can only be accomplished by faith. But is Nietzsche’s faith strong enough? He hopes and prays to be a true follower of Dionysus. But he knows he is unfaithful. So Nietzsche’s last of multiple autobiographies, Ecce Homo, is an attempt to re-interpret his life as a faithful follower of Dionysus. It is a confession of faith and a confession of unfaithfulness. When Nietzsche claims that Ecce Homo is designed to tell us “who I am,” that claim is only partly right. For it is also designed to tell us whom Nietzsche wishes to be. “I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus,” writes Nietzsche. Such is both what Nietzsche is and what he also wants to be. In effect, Nietzsche says: “I believe; help thou my unbelief.” He is all too well aware of his failings to live up to his own teachings. He writes: “When I have looked into my Zarathustra, I walk up and down in my room for half an hour, unable to master an unbearable fit of sobbing.” Why does he sob? One could respond that these are tears of rapture. Yet it is in looking into himself that Nietzsche begins sobbing. And he goes on to describe himself as “an abyss.” Thus, Nietzsche’s tears are at once for the nothingness within him and the nothingness without. As the supposedly free spirit with “Dionysian faith” enabling him to say “Yes and Amen” to all that comes, he ought not to be sobbing. Instead, he should have the resolution of the young Fritz to say: “All Life gives I will joyfully accept: happiness and unhappiness, poverty and wealth, and boldly look even death in the face.” That would be the expression of the childlike trust after which Nietzsche so desperately seeks. In fact, if Nietzsche were actually to return to the mentality of the young Fritz, he might actually be better off in reaching true Dionysian Piety. For what Nietzsche calls “the free spirit par excellence” is able to dance “even beside abysses.” But, lacking that faith, Nietzsche prays to be rescued from himself. His tears are for his inability to make that a reality.

* * *

Perhaps it is only in his madness that Nietzsche finally reaches the Dionysian. It is not merely that he signs a number of letters “Dionysus” or even that he claims to have “become Dionysus.” Rather it is his signing of other letters as “The Crucified” and saying “I have also hung on the cross” that symbolizes the greatest change. For, if he can affirm even the Crucified, then he has truly reached the profoundest level of Yes-saying that characterizes the Dionysian. To be able to affirm even Christianity—against which he has railed so vehemently—is finally to become truly Dionysian—and to have left all ressentiment behind. But, of course, the price he has to pay to reach the Dionysian is not his soul but his sanity.

Bruce Ellis Benson is professor of philosophy at Wheaton College.

8 April 2008