“What I’m willing to do, which the mainstream church is not, is to denounce the Christian right as Christian heretics.” Chris Hedges
These days — so much of the time and for so many reasons — I want to agree with Chris Hedges. To shake the dust off my sandals. To say “You have no part in me.” To announce boldly and officially, “We have nothing in common. You and I are of different religions. If you’re not full-fledged heretics — although you probably are! — you’re definitely heterodox.”
It isn’t really the garden variety funda-gelical Christian nationalists, MAGA pastors that bring this out in me. I’ve known them, and have pretty much mastered how to avoid them. They irritate me, but usually don’t infuriate me.
It’s the real crazies that I want to call heretics and disassociate from — the kind at the beginning of Kristin Kobes DuMez’s recent short film, For Our Daughters. They’re the sort that advocate stoning as a punishment for adultery, see gun ownership as a Christian imperative, or say that women shouldn’t be able to vote. As I try to do with our soon-to-be president, I want to dismiss these fulminations as sheer bluster, aiming to stir up internet frenzy. But a bigger part of me is afraid that they all are far too serious.
Still, my better angel won’t quite let me wash my hands of these dangerous and demented Christians. And this is why.
I believe that the statement “Jesus is Lord” is so monumental and incisive I’m unwilling to qualify it or belittle it or divide it. Others who also confess Christ may understand things quite differently than I. I may find them dangerous, evil, embarrassing, and so thoroughly wrong. Nonetheless, I also want to affirm some deep, grounding unity.
Honestly, I also know that what is partially and painfully at work in me is knowing that most of them have gladly lopped me off the Christian tree or found it intolerable to be in the broader church with me or the congregation that I pastored. I don’t want to be like them. Cut me off. Leave me, if you must. I don’t want to repay you in kind.
The young Karl Barth famously used analogies from geometry. He compared a tangent touching the edge of a circle to God’s interaction with creation. The circle has no real part of the tangent. They meet an infinitesimal point. For Barth, this analogy expresses the otherness of God, and probably also the uniqueness of that one point of contact.
I don’t know if I’m the circle or the tangent, but for me Barth’s analogy is helpful as I think about the connection of the above zealous Christian nationalists and me. There is a point of contact, but it is more like grazing against each other in the most minimal of fashion. Lot’s of “otherness” yet still an undeniable point of contact. I realize it may seem at odds to be claiming “absolute minimal contact” and the “monumental, indivisible nature of the statement ‘Jesus is Lord.’” But it’s the best I can do.
And from Barth’s geometric analogy, I swerve into Venn diagrams — overlapping circles. I don’t remember enough geometry to know if they are connected in any formal way. Maybe it’s just because Venn diagrams seem very “in” as of late. Most of the time I see them used humorously. I’ll post some as distractions/illustrations below. They’re really tangential to my point, but may bring you a brief moment of levity.
I’m not sure I really like what I see when I think about myself, Venn diagrams, the church, and the world.
In a conversation with my doctoral supervisor I said that when considering an ethical issue or topic, my first inclination is to look for the uniquely Christian contribution, how do we speak distinctively about the topic. She smiled and said, “My first thoughts are about who I might find to be my allies.” Hmmm.
I wonder if both theological method as well as personality are at work here. She’s a Roman Catholic. Catholic ≈ Universal. She’s on the lookout for overlapping circles. The more commonality the better. I’m more inclined to consider what’s in my circle before looking to lay it over another. I’m prone to be more concerned about compromising than cooperating (not necessarily a good thing, but I know myself.)
A while back here on the blog someone pushed back a bit about my strong support for infant baptism, suggesting that I sounded surprisingly doctrinaire. Am I not as conciliatory as I think I am? I have no problem saying that Baptists and my circle overlap completely in the Venn diagram of “Christianity.” If the circle was labeled, “Reformed”? Hmmm. I know that “Reformed Baptists” exist, but so do duckbill platypuses.
As long as I’m exposing my warts and foibles, I’ll admit I often feel a bit suspicious, maybe resentful of groups like Better Together or the Colossian Forum. As you may know, they’re both groups trying to work and show that the Venn diagram for non-LGBTQ-affirming Christians and LGBTQ-affirming Christians can have a lot of overlap.
On a theoretical level, I’m on board. I admire and am grateful for those Christians who will stay connected with me, who look for how much our circles overlap, even if they disagree with me about the place of LGBTQ persons in the church. But I also know I have enough baggage and history around welcoming and affirming LGBTQ people in the church that these efforts to find and highlight the overlap can feel like a sell-out, backpedaling. It feels a bit silly, possibly presumptuous, to compare it to Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” where he called out the moderate, white Christians who counseled patience and finding middle ground. Nonetheless, it comes to mind.
Conversely, I was challenged-unto-chastised by Jennifer Holberg’s blog a few months ago, a review of the film Leap of Faith, a documentary largely about the work of the Colossian Forum. These words from Jennifer’s blog still stay with me, “how do we exhibit integrity around our beliefs and exhibit the self-emptying love of Christ with each other?”
Is that similar to asking how can we find more overlap in our Venn diagrams without losing our integrity, without having to make concessions you do not want to make?
Just the task of writing this blog has caused me to see that there is a part of my faith and theology not especially fond of being an overlapping circle. I’m a little surprised. I knew, but I am reminded again. And yet, I like to think of myself as a cooperative sort, a unifier, a bridge builder. Hmmm.
And possibly my own exploration of tangents and Venn diagrams can cause you to do some similar exploration. Think of some Venn diagrams in your life, and especially your faith. Are you eager to overlap, or not so much? A bit like me, you might be surprised by what you discover.
At least, you might enjoy some of the funny diagrams below.
And then there is war, perhaps the pinnacle of violent and inherent injustice that spills over onto the innocent. Why? Because ideological or religious zealotry makes good people justify horrible things, including retribution. Refusal to engage does lead to escalation. “We have seen the enemy and it is______.”
One of Jesus’ favorite zealots/projects was told, “Get behind me, Satan.” It seems like churches divide more often over zealotry, not virtue.
For(ward)giveness is so difficult and you have made me very uncomfortable this morning!
I don’t think it’s enough to say “Jesus is Lord.” Yes, we have to say that, but history is real, history happens, thought-developments have power, heresies have developed, and so we have to say the two Creeds. I won’t kill anyone for not saying the Nicene Creed, nor even excommunicate him, but our church will say it, and must say it. How might we think about your guitar 🎸 solo here if we put a little more “church” into it?
I think you strum a helpful chord here, Daniel. “Heresy” is never a declaration an individual can make — although we do it all the time. That might be Hedges first mistake. As for two creeds compared to “Jesus is Lord,” yes creeds are more comprehensive. Would the creeds better address the Christian Nationalists? I would guess most of them would affirm the creeds, except for those who might be “no creed but Christ” free church types. I think my larger point is to be slow to use the accusation of heresy. It’s such an unfortunate mirror of our quick-to-divide culture.
Very thought provoking Steve. And thank you for your honest reflection.
For some reason the chorus “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all else is sinking sand” came to my mind. What I find difficult is discerning what is Christ’s rock and what is mine. When my daughter came “out of the closet” so to speak late in her life it shook the rock I stood on. I have come 180 degrees. I now see and love her as a child of God created in His image. I wonder if the circles you mention above have to intersect instead of overlap.
I like diagrams. My current favorite is the bicycle wheel, with God at the center, and the many spokes connecting the hub and rim being the various pathways by which people have experienced God, sometimes called the peace that passes all understanding, grace, the sense of wonder, or, my current favorite, “ecstasy without adrenaline” (Terry Tempest William’s words.). Zealots are people who have only traveled one spoke, and those folks spend their time on the rim, preaching their truth. I have been blessed to have traveled many spokes (Nature, religious ritual, music, coincidences), and I celebrate the varieties of religious experience (and yes, I have read William James’ book with that title a couple of times.) One nifty thing I’ve found is that, as I work my way toward the center, I feel close to all other folks who are, like me, seeking that blessed experience of God. My hope for the next life is that the joy lasts more than a couple of seconds…..
Thank you for that helpful analogy!
Steve,
Biblical scholars like myself do not generally warm to Barth and his analogy of the tangent. We fear that this analogy and he to some extent have contributed to the disenchantment of the world. Is is true that there is just one very small infinitesimal point of contact between God and the world? That image will never help us unlock the deeper meanings of biblical affirmations like: the world is full of the glory of God and the world is full of the steadfast love of God. That image can only lead to viewing the Lord’s Supper as a memorial service.
I realize that you are using the image to understand how we might have some small point in common with Christian nationalists, so I am a little off-point here. But the disenchantment of the world is a major issue in our Reformed circle, and it has led to our people leaving church, longing for intimacy, and allying with theological hucksters. They are susceptible to Christian nationalism which is a form of re-enchantment–viewing our so-to-be-president as God-appointed, a messiah and viewing the USA as the new Israel. We may have one small point of connection with the Christian nationalist in our midst, Lordship, but we need to contest how they see Lordship manifesting itself. As a friend once said to me: We do not take advantage; we give advantage. The ultimate power is sacrificial love.
Thanks Tom. The tangent model struck my theologically-naive imagination that way too. Re: disenchantment.
As you note Tom, I’m not necessarily endorsing Barth’s particular use of a tangent, but using tangent as a point of contact while also emphasizing great distinction. I’ll let the Barth historians evaluate “young Barth” vs. mature, etc. I believe it’s fair to say he later qualified his claims without withdrawing them completely. The blog isn’t really about Barth, and I have no desire to defend him 100%, but I think his tangent claim or his critique of Belgic Article 2 aren’t as misguided, sterile, narrow, or even disenchanting as often believed. I think where his claims about God and creation and my own wonderings about Christian Nationalists and me might be similar is that the point of contact is often assumed to be small and insignificant, when it is actually monumental.
Thank you, everyone. I’m gratified about the different directions Venn diagrams and tangents sent us. As you can tell, I didn’t have some clear thesis I was pushing, but was trying to explore many things. And maybe diagrams and geometry can be more helpful analogies than we often consider.