Thanksgiving and Christmas

For Being

            Thanksgiving came late this year, on November 28, followed three days later by the first Sunday of Advent.  The “holiday season” has arrived in full force: black Friday, cyber Monday, and giving Tuesday.  I will delight to attend concerts, receptions, and parties—but before I plunge into Christmas, I want to reflect on Thanksgiving.

            Sarah and I hosted children, grandchildren and in-laws from both sides of our newly blended family.  It warmed my heart to see Rebekah and Rachel generously give time to their much younger cousins Jakobi and Tristan.  The family played games, took walks, watched Netflix, and sat with the dog.  Mostly we talked and ate (probably too much).

            Before our feast, of course, we gave thanks.  As host, I led the family in prayer.  I prayed our thanks for health and material blessings, but I also gave thanks for greater goods.  The first was being.

            In Acts 17, Paul told the Athenian philosophers that God should not be thought as an object of wood, stone or metal, made by some craftsman.  He quoted the Cretan poet Epimenides: “In him [God] we live and move and have our being.” 

            (Side note: Paul did not hesitate to quote pagan voices when he could use them to preach Christian doctrine.  A liberal education in literature, music, philosophy, and other arts is a good thing.)

            More than forty years ago, my college roommate Ron Mock said he was astonished and grateful for existence.  In contrast to fictional characters or hypothetical creatures, God had made a world in which he, Ron Mock, actually existed.  Over the decades since then, I have come to appreciate the deep insight of his remark.

            Consider fictional characters.  I’ve written some novels, so far two have even been published.  My plan for retirement, when it comes, is to produce more fiction.  As a result, my mental world is populated by made-up people: Eleanor Roosevelt Urquhart, Debbie Apple, Danys the Prince of the Sea, Marty Cedarborne, and many others.  On one hand, I invented them.  On another, I’ve sometimes had the sense that my characters were calling me: “Come back to the keyboard; finish our story”—as if they were independent agents.

            “As if”; that’s the point.  Fictional characters aren’t real, not even those we love best, not even if we model our lives on their courage, faith, or love.  In comparison with Beowulf or Frodo we may think our lives are pedestrian.  We don’t go on great quests, we don’t solve intricate mysteries, and we don’t wrestle with colossal temptations.          We don’t cross land and sea to prove our loves.

            But we are real.  The world we live in is not merely possible; it’s actual. 

(In modal logic philosophers often use the language of “possible worlds” to explicate concepts of necessity, impossibility, and contingency.  Necessary propositions are true in every possible world; impossible propositions are false in every possible world; and contingent propositions are true in some worlds and false in others.  We have no reason to think that any of the possible worlds are real, with one exception: our world.)

For all we know, God created other worlds than this one.  So it’s possible, in the mere sense that it is not self-contradictory, that Danys the Prince of the Sea exists in some world.  Of course, we who live in this world have no reason to think Danys is real.  Contrariwise, we know that we are real.

From a Christian perspective, what a privilege!  God, the uncreated eternal Being, has given being to us.  We are.

Jesus, the incarnate God, is the center of cosmic history.  He is the logos, the rational principle, the Word, the truth, the light.  His is the true story.  All the other stories must be judged in the light of his story.  And we get to be part of his story.  We are the persons he came to save, and if we are believers, he entrusts to us the proclamation of good news.

Therefore I also gave thanks, as our family waited to dig into the feast, for the story of Christ: for his birth, yes, but especially for his death and resurrection.  We give thanks for hope.

We all die.  Sarah and I have experienced death of our spouses.  Before we married, we acknowledged an unwelcome truth, that one or the other of us will go through it all over again.  One of us will have to live and grieve.  We know by experience that death is real.

Nevertheless, we hope.  We are part of Jesus’ story, and we look forward to Resurrection Day.  So on Thanksgiving, we thank God for Advent.

A False Hope

Armistice Day

            101 years ago today the Great War came to an end.  At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns went silent.  A peace treaty was yet to be worked out, though the terms of the armistice made it clear that the Allies would dictate the terms of the peace.  Many historians count the ensuing Versailles treaty as a failure; the harsh terms of peace imposed on Germany helped stoke German resentment and the rise of Hitler.  In the fall of 1939, twenty-one years after the Armistice, war engulfed Europe again; another world war, so terrible that men renamed the Great War.  Now it’s merely World War 1 in our history books.

            But though the Versailles treaty failed, the Armistice itself can be considered a success.  The killing stopped.  Armistice Day (also called Remembrance Day) was celebrated in America, throughout the British Empire, and in many other countries.

            Europeans woke up to a new age.  The Great War confirmed some important ideas of modernism.  For example, science and technology dramatically changed war fighting—machine guns, airplanes, poison gas, barbed wire, submarines, advanced artillery and other inventions made old military methods obsolete.  Millions of young French, German and British men died in the carnage of the Western Front.  The Russian, Ottoman, and Austrian-Hungarian Empires all collapsed, which seemed to confirm the modern confidence in democracy.  That’s how President Wilson interpreted Allied victory; the world had been made “safe for democracy.”

With the same stroke, however, the Great War undermined a crucial feature of the modern age.  Modernists believe in progress; not just scientific progress but social and moral progress. 

When I lecture on modernism to 21^st century students, it’s hard to get them to appreciate the confidence of the late 19^th century.  I urge them to read the novels of Jules Verne, which celebrated scientific progress, and J.S. Mill’s Utilitarianism, which exemplified the modernism belief in education and good will.  In France, the psychologist Émile Coué taught autosuggestion: “Every day, in every way, I am getting better.”

For many Europeans, the Great War shattered such modern confidence.  Yes, modern technology had produced amazingly powerful weapons, new means of killing.  But if humanity is not actually any wiser or more loving than our ancestors, perhaps we should fear our inventions.  Apparently, the best military minds of Britain, France, and Germany could think of no better response to the machine gun than sending millions of men into the fire.  America came late to the war, and when we went “over there,” we quickly made sure it was “over, over there.”  (Three full years of bloodletting had weakened Germany, and when the great German offensive of early 1918 failed, German hopes were crushed.  With the Americans arriving in huge numbers, Germany submitted.)  In many Americans, modern confidence rolled on, mostly untroubled by the Great War.  It took the horrors of World War 2—death camps and the terror of the A-bomb—to cure Americans of modern confidence.

From the start, there were two sides to Armistice Day.  As “Remembrance Day,” the holiday commemorated the soldiers, sailors and airmen who died in the Great War.  As “Armistice Day,” it celebrated the end of the fighting.  But World War 2 proved the world was not made safe for democracy, and the peace that came on Armistice Day lasted only twenty years.  The armistice side of the holiday faded from public consciousness.  In 1954, Congress changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day, a day to honor service men and women from World War 2 and the Korean War as well as veterans from the Great War.

            And so it remains.  On November 11 we are called to honor veterans from a long list of wars: Vietnam, the first Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflicts.  Officially, Veterans Day honors not just those injured or killed (Memorial Day does that), but every person who serves and achieves honorable discharge.

            Veterans Day is a fine thing, but we lose something in forgetting Armistice Day.  W have lost, I think, the ability to be shocked by war.  The Great War, with its insane strategies and millions of corpses, shocked Europe.  A generation found itself shorn of the confidence of the modern age.  Europeans did not know what to believe.  Nihilism called to some, radicalism to others.  But they could not return to blithe confidence.

            Armistice Day celebrated hope, a temporary hope, a hope that could not last.  It was Wilson’s hope, the belief that with this final great victory over tyranny, democracy would rule the world.  Interestingly, after the collapse of communism in Russia, a version of Wilsonian hope sprang up again.  Finally, some thinkers wrote, liberal capitalism and democracy have won.  The cold war, the war of ideology, is over.  For a moment we felt the relief of Armistice Day.

            Not quite twelve years after the fall of the Berlin Wall—9/11.  Oh, how we long for a new armistice day.

Following Jesus

The Victory of Christ

When and how does Jesus win?

We know the answer, of course.  Jesus died for our sins on the cross and rose to victory three days later.  Both parts, the sacrificial death of the “Lamb of God” and the resurrection of the “Lion of Judah” are essential theologically.  Regarding historical fact, no one doubts that Jesus died; whether or not Jesus really rose is the central question for anyone considering Christianity.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers, if Christ was not raised we are still in our sins, we are of all people to be pitied.

As I say, we know the answer.  Jesus won by dying and rising.  But we need to think carefully about the implications of our doctrine.  “When” and “how” can guide our reflection.

When does Jesus win?  Understandably, Christians are sometimes confused about this.  Jesus died a long time ago; the creed specifies: “. . . suffered under Pontius Pilate.”  And: “He rose the third day . . .” So Jesus won then, in the first century.   (We call it the “first” century precisely because he won then.  We count the years “of our Lord.”)  But Christians also believe Jesus will return.  Only then, when he returns in triumph, as Paul wrote to the Philippians, “every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.”  So it seems that Jesus will win in the future, that his victory is not yet complete.

Bible readers are familiar with this tension between “already” and “not yet.”  We can call this the tension of temporal discipleship.  The individual Christian and the Church as a whole live between the victory of Jesus already accomplished by his death and resurrection (affirmed by the Christian now) and the return of Jesus to reign (when everyone will acknowledge him).  We live in tension between what has been accomplished and what will be completed later.  The virtues appropriate for temporal tension are faith, hope, and love.  We believe in Jesus, we hope for his return, and we love as he loved.

How does Jesus win?  In the first century Jesus won by dying on the cross and rising from the dead.  Both his death and resurrection are required for this victory.  From the world’s point of view, Jesus lost by dying and won by rising, but Christian theology insists that death and resurrection go together.  There is no resurrection not preceded by suffering and death.  (Side note: this is why Christian spirituality has long valued suffering.  It is not that suffering is good in itself, but that suffering and death are necessary to resurrection.)

What about Jesus’ return?  Many Christians think that Jesus’ victory when he returns will be accomplished in a very different way.  Pointing to passages in the Revelation, they think Jesus will kill his enemies.  Jesus will ride on a horse, leading his troops into battle, slaughtering millions of unbelievers.  Then, having killed them, Jesus will judge them, condemning his enemies to the lake of fire.  Naturally, Christians disagree about details of prophecy; for instance, in the Revelation “sin” and “death” are also thrown into the “lake of fire.”  What does that mean?  Interpreters differ.

Whatever one thinks about the details of this reading of the Revelation (Does Jesus slaughter all unbelievers—billions of them—or only the armies marshaled against him—hundreds of millions?), the real problem is its denial of Jesus’ victory on the cross.

Notice: there is nothing self-contradictory in affirming that Jesus defeated sin and death in the first century and that he will complete that victory by raising his people sometime in the future.  The temporal tension of discipleship may be difficult for us in many ways, but it is not impossible or self-contradictory.   

In contrast, the violent Jesus interpretation of the Revelation directly contradicts the heart of the gospel.  In his death and resurrection, all Christians affirm, Jesus defeated his enemies, including the worst of them, sin and death.  According to Paul, Jesus took our sin and death on himself.  In baptism we know who we are: dead in his death and alive in his life.  Jesus accomplished this victory by letting us kill him and rising in triumph.  It is important to say that “we” killed Jesus.  No more nonsense of blaming the Romans or the Jews.  Theologically speaking, Jesus bore the sin and death of the whole world.  He died for me in the fact that I killed him.

Notice the contradiction.  Jesus defeated his enemies by dying and rising.  But on the “violent Jesus” reading of the Revelation, Jesus will defeat his enemies by killing them and preventing them from rising.

Here’s another aspect of the contradiction.  Given the temporal tension of discipleship, we noted that the appropriate virtues of Christian life are faith, hope, and love.  What are the “virtues” of Christian life when we eagerly anticipate the death and damnation of Jesus’ enemies?  Far too often in history, Christians have accepted the violent Jesus idea.  And that history shows us the “virtues” appropriate to that idea: suspicion, condemnation, and hate.  With torture Christians have interrogated those they suspected, with self-righteousness we have condemned our enemies, and with hate we have killed them.  At the least, these historical failures should cause us to think critically about the theology that motivated them.

A temporal tension means I must wait in faith, hope and love.  But a moral contradiction between a loving savior who wins by resurrection and a violent conqueror who wins by slaughter and condemnation leaves me confused and helpless.  I am tempted by vices of suspicion, condemnation, and hate.  Who should I follow, Jesus who loves or Jesus who kills?

Faith, hope and love are real virtues.  Therefore I affirm that Jesus wins by death and resurrection, not by killing and condemning.

With much sadness

What I Think About Guns

            In last weekend’s mass shooting, seven people were killed in Texas; more than twenty were injured.  Not long ago it was Ohio, a different Texas city and California before that.  But those are only the shootings that jump to mind.  In fact, in 2019 the United States is averaging more than one mass shooting per day—that’s defining a mass shooting as four or more persons shot excluding the shooter.

            Mass shootings get headlines, but more people die from handguns than the high capacity guns usually used by mass shooters.  “Ordinary” murders, one or two at a time, outnumber those killed in the mass cases.  And gun suicides outnumber all the murders put together.  Over 33,000 people were killed by shooters in 2017.  Quite likely, this year’s total will be higher.

            Interestingly, the shooting death rate was actually a little higher in the 1970s.  As the U.S. population grew and the baby boomers aged, the ratio of most violent crimes decreased greatly.  Recent increases in murder and suicide have not quite caught up with the heyday of shooting deaths in 1974.  Statistically speaking, all violent crimes are more likely to be committed by younger people.  Now that we are an older population we ought to have much lower violent crime rate.  And we do—fewer bank robberies, property crimes, and so forth have declined significantly.  Shooting deaths are the exception, a smaller decline that looks to be erased soon.

Of course, the U.S. shooting death rate is far higher than corresponding numbers from Canada, the U.K., Australia, France, Germany, and many other countries.  If it’s any consolation, our shooting death rate is lower than some countries: Columbia Venezuela, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.  It’s not surprising that refugees from these countries try to escape civil wars and gang wars (is there a difference?) by fleeing to the U.S.

Which would you rather be like, El Salvador or France?

Let’s not jump to conclusions.  Obviously there are many social factors that probably increase rates of violent crime.  But easy access to what I will call killer weapons has be a causal factor in shooting deaths.

By “killer” weapons I do not mean hunting rifles.  “Killer” weapons are those expressly designed to kill people.  Our military forces have a vast variety of such weapons, including explosives and chemicals and germ weapons.  (The military may dispute that sentence.  They might deny they stockpile germ weapons or certain kinds of nerve gases.  I wish I could believe them.)

Should private citizens have access to the variety of killer weapons that our armed forces have?  Almost no one would agree to that.  Timothy McVeigh had to build his bomb; if killers could buy bombs like handguns, the Boston Marathon bombers could have killed thousands rather than a handful.

The only killer weapons readily available to ordinary citizens are guns.  People can use knives or cars or fertilizer to commit murder or suicide, but they have to work at it.  Knives, cars, and fertilizer are not designed to be convenient killer weapons.  Guns are.  That’s why more than half of all suicides are gun suicides, because guns are so good at killing.  If hanging oneself, or using pills, or electrocuting oneself, or driving off a road, or any of the other methods of suicide were as “effective” as guns, the “successful” suicide rate would be far higher.

People believe deeply that having a gun makes them safer.  It’s not true.  And even if it were true (perhaps you think your gun will make you safer; like a teen driver you don’t think the statistics apply to you), it would only be true if the gun owner were willing to use it.  When you buy your gun for protection, it means you must be willing to use it.  You must be willing to kill.  So ask yourself: are you willing to kill to protect your stuff?  What is it you own that is more valuable than a human life?

No, no.  You say I misunderstand.  You would only use your gun to protect your life or the life of your child.  You would never use it to shoot an unarmed burglar.  Except, of course, that you never know if the burglar is unarmed.  So in reality you are willing to kill a stranger if he might be armed.  Really?  Are you ready to kill a stranger who may or may not be a danger to you?

The statistics are that the gun you buy will more likely be used in suicide or accidental death or stolen and used against you.  Nevertheless, people deeply believe that having a gun makes them safer.

Many people call for “common sense” gun laws.  I agree, but we need to be realistic.  The U.S. citizenry has about 300 million guns.  Some of them are rifles for hunting.  Some are used in sport shooting.  That leaves at least 250 million guns owned for the express purpose of shooting people.  (You can tell yourself your gun is for defense, but you have to be willing to use it.  It’s purpose is to shoot people.)  With that many guns in circulation, we should not expect any “common sense” gun law to have immediate effect on shooting deaths.  The most we can hope for is a slow decline in shooting deaths.

“Common sense”?  I think guns should be registered and insured.  Gun owners should be civilly liable if their weapons are used to commit crimes.  If your gun is stolen and used in a crime, your insurance should pay.  Naturally, if your insurance company knows you keep your gun under lock and key, your insurance rate will be lower.  I do NOT think such laws would stop shooting deaths, but I’m quite confident shooting deaths would decline.

May Your Kingdom Come

Deciding in Hope (II)

            How should the content of Christian hope affect Christian behavior? 

In September 2016 I wrote an essay, “Deciding in Hope,” in which I analyzed the core idea in any “ethics of hope.”  The idea is that moral decision-making should be “congruent” with the things we hope for.  By our actions we should promote, or at least not hinder, the objects of our hope.  Difficulties arise in forced-choice situations in which actions that promote the thing we hope for have the undesired effect of promoting evil.  An illustration from that essay:

Suppose I think candidate A is the best choice for the office, but I also believe that candidate B is more likely to win, and further, I believe candidate C, running neck-and-neck in the polls with B, is completely unfit for office.  In voting it seems I must act in accord with my hope that A win by voting for A, or act in accord with my fear that C will win by voting for B. 

Problematic forced-choice situations also arise in regard to Christian hope.  Hope is not the only factor in moral decision-making, even for Christians.  Before we can see how this is true, we need a description of Christian hope.  Here’s a list:

1.     Christians hope for resurrection from the dead.

2.     Christians look forward to a new heaven and new earth.

3.     Christians hope for eternal life with Jesus and all the saints.

4.     Christians look forward to the Kingdom of God fully accomplished.

These four elements are obviously rooted in the New Testament.  Probably someone will suggest other aspects of Christian hope.  That’s okay; I don’t argue the list is exhaustive.  But it gives enough detail to illustrate the difficulties of an ethics of hope.

What about peace?  In Romans 14:17 Paul says, “ . . . the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  In the context of that passage, the apostle is urging Christians to live peaceably together—now, in this life.  Surely all Christians will agree that when the Kingdom of God is fully accomplished we will live in peace with one another.  Without question, Christian hope looks forward to peace.  How can our decision-making now be congruent with this hope?

Pacifist Christians say we should live into our hope by not fighting wars.  Just War Christians say we need to be realistic; if we let our hope of peace control our decisions we will increase the evil in the world.  Peacemaking Christians argue mere avoidance of war isn’t enough; we should work to bring about the peaceful future we desire.  Holy War Christians say we will have peace only after all unbelievers have been destroyed, either by Jesus or us, his soldiers.  Variations on these positions abound.  Few Christians actually admit to believing Holy War theology.  The great majority affirm the Just War theory.  Historically, though, Christian “just” wars look like “holy” wars.  Christians have killed their enemies, including other Christians and non-combatants, with every weapon ever invented.

I suggest that if peace is an element of our hope, it ought to show up in our decisions.

What about money?  This question doesn’t show up explicitly in the four points listed.  What do we expect though?  In the new earth when Jesus reigns, what will be the economic relationship between believers?  Isn’t it obvious there will be no price gouging, slavery, exploitation, fraud, swindling? 

No doubt many Christians would object: there won’t be economic relationships in heaven.  Heaven is spiritual.  We won’t own things. 

Really?  If by “spiritual” you mean non-bodily, your position relies more on Platonic dualism than the New Testament.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul insists the resurrection will be bodily.  Paul also told the Corinthians we would “judge angels.”  I suggest that in heaven there will be work to do.  And if there will be work, there will be an “economy” of one sort or another.  It may be true that we won’t own things, perhaps because everything will belong to everyone.  (Socialism in the Kingdom?  Oh my!)

N.T. Wright, in Surprised by Hope, presses hard on the money question.  In the new age, when Jesus reigns, surely there will be no starvation, no shortage, and no injustice.  If that is our hope, Wright asks, how should we think about economic relationships between Christians now?  What should we do about international trade and debt?  Shouldn’t Christians in rich countries press their governments and international agencies like the IMF for debt forgiveness/restructuring?  We know that the indebtedness of poor countries helps hold hundreds of millions of people in poverty.  Some of the world’s poor are fellow Christians.  How should we act toward them?

What about slavery?  Paul explicitly teaches that in Christ there is no male or female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free.  We are all one in Christ!  Surely in heaven there will be no slaves, except in the sense that we are all “slaves” to Jesus.  If this is true of our hope, should it not be reflected in our politics now?

Does the example of slavery seem outdated?  It’s actually quite relevant, in more than one way.  First, slavery still exists; it did not end when Russia outlawed serfdom or America freed its slaves.  Christians should press their governments to stop forced labor and sex slavery.

Second, the slavery example reminds us of the dangers of “realism.”  Two hundred years ago, in both the United States and Russia, there were plenty of Christians who would acknowledge Christian hope (no slavery in the Kingdom) and yet hold that in a fallen world there was no alternative.  They could not imagine how such a powerful institution as serfdom, which had existed for hundreds of years, could be erased.  And there were other arguments, now regarded as fallacious, that slavery and serfdom were God’s will. 

We must guard against the temptation to split off our hope from our actions.  If we hope for the Kingdom of God, we should live into that hope.

Judging Angels

What is Heaven Like?

Do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world?  And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?  Do you not know that we will judge angels?  How much more the things of this life?

1 Cor 6:2-3

            Let’s be careful.  A basic rule of interpretation, of the Bible or any other text, is to pay attention to context.  In this part of his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, Paul takes on lawsuits among believers.  It’s unseemly and embarrassing, he says, for Christians to take their disputes to civil courts.  Rather than have one brother suing another before unbelievers, Paul says, it would be better to be cheated.  The main point is clear: settle disputes in the church.

            Having recognized the main point of the text, let’s speculate about a side topic.  Paul says Christians will judge the world and, even more mysteriously, they will judge angels.  Imagine for a moment how strange that would have sounded in the 1^st century.  The believers to whom Paul wrote were a tiny minority in the Roman Empire.  They were, as he wrote in another place, not drawn from the upper classes or those considered wise or powerful.  How will it be that Christians would judge the world?

            The answer is clear.  Paul refers to the future, after Jesus returns to earth.  The Christian worldview is based on the Hebrew idea that history will not always go on as it has; rather, the “Day of the Lord” will come when God will judge the nations.  The Christians modified this idea only slightly, in that Jesus is the Lord.  When Jesus returns, he comes to rule.  Apparently, we will rule with him.

            “Do you not know?”  Paul says.  It seems to be a rhetorical question, assuming they’ve already been taught about the coming age.  Latter day readers, though, might feel like objecting: “No.  We don’t know!  What are you talking about?”

            What will heaven be like?  Occasionally you meet someone who says heaven sounds boring—sitting around on clouds strumming harps—a silly caricature, based on comic books rather than Christian doctrine.  But the charge is sometimes developed philosophically.  A friend of mine once argued seriously that in an infinite span of time the activities of heaven must inevitably become repetitive and boring.  This argument errs because it applies infinity only to time, forgetting that God is an infinite being.  There will always be more to learn, worship, and love.

            So what will heaven be like?  Our answers must carry the caveat that God has much more in store for us than we can know now.  But the Bible gives tantalizing hints.

            First, we should think not of going to heaven, but of heaven coming to earth.  In Romans Paul says the whole creation longs for the Day to come.  In Revelation, John pictures the New Jerusalem on earth.  The biblical promise is of a “new heaven and new earth.”

            Second, there is worship now in heaven (Revelation 4), and there will be after the resurrection.  In the New Jerusalem there is no temple, because the presence of God fills the city.  Worship implies joy and praise, at least.

            Third, our bodies will be like Jesus’ body.  In the gospels, Jesus’ resurrection body was undoubtedly physical—able to eat fish, marked with scars of crucifixion—and yet able to appear in locked rooms and able to ascend into heaven.  Such snippets raise more questions than they answer.  What will resurrection bodies be able to do?  Jesus himself said there would be no marriage in the resurrection; what does that mean? 

            Fourth, there will be community.  Heaven is not just “Jesus and me.”  The Bride of Christ is the church, all of us together.  Each one of us will learn to rejoice as fervently for the goodness of God to others as we do for God’s goodness to us personally.  We will genuinely love others as much as we love ourselves.

            Fifth, we will be creative.  We are made in the image of God, the great creator.  Our creative activities now—cooking, gardening, writing, researching, building—will be remembered as dim precursors to our work as creators.  Notice the word “work.”  In heaven our labor will not be an oppressive curse, but there is no reason we should not have work to do.

            Sixth . . . the list could be extended.  It seems that part of our “work” will be judicial.  “We will judge the angels.”  Again, a mystery.  What does that mean?  What do the angels do?  Why should they need judges?  Why would God entrust such judgment to us?

            So much we do not know!  Should we not be eager to find out?  Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus.

Reflections on St. Petersburg

This Too Shall Pass

            I recently had opportunity to visit St. Petersburg, Russia, with students from George Fox University.  Many Americans would be surprised to learn that this great city, capitol of the Russian Empire for two hundred years, is newer than Boston or New York.

            Peter I ruled Russia 1682-1725.  He added significantly to Russia’s territory, producing an empire and making himself an emperor.  Russian history books call him Peter the Great.  Peter wanted to make Russia more European, to bring French and German culture to Russia.  To open a door to the West, and to provide access for the Russian navy to the Baltic Sea, 1703 Peter founded a new city on the banks of the Neva River where it flows into the Gulf of Finland, on land he had taken from Sweden.  He named his new city for his patron saint, and in 1712 St. Petersburg became capitol of the Russian Empire.

            The new city grew rapidly.  The Russian nobility built palaces and brought servants.  Shipbuilders, merchants and manufacturers gained fortunes and built mansions.  Later in the 1700s Empress Catherine the Great, whose policies also added to the Russian Empire (including Alaska), began the art collection that later became the famous Hermitage Museum.  At the beginning of the 20^th century, St. Petersburg was the seat of Czarist government, the most Westernized city in Russia.

            World War 1 brought defeat and the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.  Dedicated atheists, the communists changed the name of the city to Petrograd (“Peter’s City”), and after Lenin’s death it became Leningrad.  Marxist doctrine teaches the inevitability of a worker’s revolution, and the Russian Communist Party enthusiastically proclaimed itself the vanguard of humanity’s future.  Despite such confidence, the soviet era lasted less than 75 years.  In 1991 the people voted to restore the name St. Petersburg.

            Our study group toured St. Petersburg on foot and by boat on streets and canals that date to the 1700s.  We visited Catherine’s summer palace outside the city, the Winter Palace (which is now part of the Hermitage Museum), Russian Orthodox cathedrals and churches, and other tourist sites.  The visit impressed me with the transitory character of “great works.”

            Here’s an example.  In 1881, a revolutionary group wounded Emperor Alexander II with an explosive device; the emperor died soon afterward.  His son, Alexander III, began building a church in homage to his father.  The resulting Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is one of the main tourist sights in St. Petersburg.  Construction continued from 1883 to 1907.  The Church is lavishly adorned with beautiful mosaics, but it was actually used only as a place for memorials, not for public worship.  After the 1917 revolution it was used variously as a warehouse, a morgue (during World War 2), and a museum.  Today it belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church, but it has not been re-consecrated.  It is a tourist attraction; our students gathered for a group photo outside the church.

            St. Petersburg is a great city; more than six million people live there.  Perhaps it is, still, the cultural capitol of Russia.  Our boat tour guide said as much, voicing what is probably a common boast.  In that regard, we might say that Peter the Great and Catherine the Great’s ambitions are still bearing fruit.  But their empire is gone.  The palaces and mansions of the Russian nobility became state property in the communist era; now, those that are not museums belong to new owners, the new wealthy class.  The Soviets, assured by Marx and Lenin that their movement represented the future, have passed from history’s stage.  Today the city faces all the uncertainty of modern Russia; they have a President who rules much like one of the Czars.  Not even Mr. Putin will be President forever.  Who will succeed him?

            All our works, even the “greatest,” fade into history.  This is not a new insight, of course.  “This too shall pass,” is attributed to medieval Sufi poets.  But St. Petersburg pushed the thought into my mind.  Maybe the city speaks particularly to people of my generation.

            I grew up in the Cold War, a generation raised in the shadow of nuclear war.  We children were taught in grade school how our country (US) faced great danger from them (USSR).  Public libraries had bomb shelters in the basement.  We heard the grown-ups at church talk about the Berlin Wall, the missile crisis, Red China, and Khrushchev.  To a child raised in that world, the division of the world between “us” and “them” seemed permanent.  Or almost permanent; we knew the missiles could fly any time.

            Peter’s empire is gone.  The Soviet era passed.  The Cold War has been replaced by a “war on terror.”  (No president can declare victory in this war, since terrorists can renew their war at will.)  Nevertheless, this too will pass.

            I do not believe everything is transitory.  We pray for the kingdom of God to come, the kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit.  When the kingdom is fully come (it is now, as Jesus said, breaking in), it will transcend all the great works we have ever attempted.

           

           

On the road again

Five Days to Pack

            “So, where are you going?  Russia, right?  Moscow?”

            “Not Moscow.  We’ll go to St. Petersburg, the Baltics, then Germany, and finally Denmark.”

            “Sounds great.  Wish I could go.”

            I’ve had some variation of that exchange at least ten times in the last few days.  Dr. Javier Garcia and I are leading a Juniors Abroad group (15 students), leaving Portland a few days after spring semester ends.  My new wife, Sarah, a veteran international traveler, will accompany us.  Friends may think, and some of them tell me, that they envy me.  Maybe.  But they aren’t thinking of what has gone before.  In the past, when I taught Juniors Abroad, I was very much the “junior” professor; my colleague (Ron Mock in one case, Caitlin Corning two other times) did the hard work.

            I’ve been preparing for months.  I first proposed the trip in fall of 2017; after it was approved, students enrolled in spring 2018.  At that stage, Roger Newell was to be my faculty partner.  His book, Keine Gewalt! No Violence!, describing the German churches’ response to Nazism and Communism, provides much of the academic substance of the course.  But in summer 2018 Roger reluctantly decided, for health reasons, that he ought not to go on the trip.  We decided to ask Dr. Garcia to take his place, and Javier quickly agreed.

            In fall 2018 we prepared our budget, which meant planning the trip in greater detail.  I discovered a gold mine disguised as a human being: Viktorija Giedraitiene, who works at LCC University in Klaipeda, Lithuania.  Viktorija has managed US student group trips to various destinations in eastern Europe.  She planned the first half of our trip (Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), including museums, churches, historical sites, and more, even preferred restaurants!

            With spring semester 2019, preparations shifted to high.  Our class (GEED 365J) began meeting on Tuesday nights.  Students made class presentations on various aspects of Baltic or Russian culture (food, religion, music, even German beer).  They all read Keine Gewalt! and wrote papers on one of its chapters.  Sarah visited the class and gave packing advice.  We invented quizzes for review purposes—and for fun.  (Weinerbrod is not a hot dog.). For health reasons one of the students had to drop the class, but 15 are confirmed to go.

            In February we applied for Russian visas—NOT a user friendly process—which added cost to the trip.  The application required we send our passports to an office in Washington, DC.  Our actual passports!  In a FedEx truck!  You can’t leave the country without a passport.  After three weeks of mild anxiety, the visas and our passports arrived.  I began to think: “This is actually going to work.”

            Airfares have been paid, hostels and hotels reserved (paid in most cases), insurance forms filed, temporary cell phone upgrades made (don’t want to lose students), and foreign currency acquired.  I’m going to give each student 3000 rubles the very first day.  Don’t get excited; it takes a pile of rubles to buy a sandwich.

            Now we’ve come to final preparations.  Earlier this week we had the student bring packed suitcases to class so we could practice walking with luggage.  We’ll do a lot of that in airports, train stations, and hotels.  It’s important not to overload one’s suitcase.

            I suppose I’m about 95% ready.  I’m not Rick Steves, the famous travel guru.  Somewhere along the way I’ll wonder why I didn’t remember to bring something.  That’s part of the adventure.

            Of course, before we head for PDX, there’s the little business of grading . . .

           

Easter Time

Eucatastrophe

            We are two weeks from Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Day.  Jesus’ story is the great story, the back story to all our stories, and resurrection is its essential core.

            In “On Fairy Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien invented the term eucatastrophe for the happy ending that he thought was almost necessary for complete fairy tales.  Tragedy, he thought, is the true form, the highest function, of drama; but a happy ending is the true form of fairy stories, and in the best stories it is an almost-beyond-hope happy ending. 

            Readers of The Lord of the Rings (and in recent decades, viewers of Peter Jackson’s films) are familiar with Tolkien’s eucatastrophe: the armies of Mordor have surrounded the army of Gondor; Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas and their friends face defeat and death; but at the last possible moment certain defeat turns into victory, because the enemy’s ring of power is destroyed.  In a sense, of course, Frodo failed.  His long quest brought him, with Sam’s help, to Mount Doom, but at the last Frodo fell prey to the spiritual corruption of the ring.  He took the ring for himself, and the quest would have failed—except that Gollum, consumed by lust for the ring, bit off Frodo’s finger and fell into the fire with it.  The quest succeeded not by Frodo’s strength but by unexpected “grace.”

            It would be interesting to compare Tolkien’s eucatastrophe scene with the happy endings of contemporary fantasy stories.  Stan Lee’s Marvel comic books have blossomed into movie franchises, and it seems the public has an insatiable appetite for Spiderman, Captain America, the Green Lantern, and all the rest.  We notice a contrast immediately.  Frodo and Sam are hobbits, little folk, a humble and unspectacular race.  In the Marvel universe, the heroes are superheroes.  Their literary forbears are Odysseus and Beowulf, not Everyman.  The superhero suffers temporary defeats which leads her (some are female) to crisis, but in the end she triumphs by her power (or the help of her friends).

            It’s no surprise that Tolkien was a Christian.  The Lord of the Rings is not an allegory (Tolkien said he hated allegory), but it is full of Christian themes, including discipleship and grace. Discipleship to Christ takes different forms in different lives, but in the end discipleship always demands our whole being.  (Remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship.  Christ always calls us to “come and die.”). And even then, especially then—when we have given our all—success comes by God’s grace, not by our power.

            It’s fun to imagine having a super power.  People love role playing games, super hero movies, and Harry Potter.  I’ve had fun imagining characters like Debbie Apple (in Buying the Bangkok Girl) blessed with a “little” magic.  Because it’s fun, I predict a long successful market for superhero movies and fairy stories.  They won’t all succeed; even fairy stories can be badly written or badly screened.

            An effective eucatastrophe pulls a fairy story into parallel with the great story.  For creative purposes, we avoid direct copying (not too many resurrections in our stories, unless we are writing allegories, like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe).  Our happy endings are only symbolic of resurrection.  When it comes to the real thing, there’s only one.