Up Close and Personal
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.1 John 4:18 NASB
No fear– “Christian love is so lacking its emotional polarity that the Devil had to be invented to focus natural human hatred and hostility.”[1] Is Paglia correct? Did we have to invent the Devil in order to explain our natural combative hostility? Aren’t we really the source of our own evil?
It doesn’t take much research to discover that “Satan” isn’t really a person in the Tanakh. Ha-satan is a divine office, a role played by an angel whose job it is to act as the prosecutor. Oh, and the Hebrew word is sometimes ascribed to humans as well. Our concept of Satan (Lucifer, the Devil) owes more to Dante than Scripture. But, as Paglia notes, in some sense the Devil is necessary. Why? Because we need someone else to blame.
So allow me, if you will, to write about my present journey without blaming anyone else. Here’s the “up close and personal” me:
After a half-century of philosophical and theological investigations, I feel even more alone than I did when I was a naive child in a safe Christian church. The underpinnings of my religious world have slowly been demolished as I study the culture, text and time of the biblical authors. Today the Bible is less sacred. That doesn’t mean it is less powerful for me. It means that I see the long story of generational and cultural trauma written in the lives of these men and women as they seek God, and as He seeks them. And typically, it isn’t a pretty, sanitized picture. It’s a mess—just like me. I find some comfort in this fact, but it doesn’t bring relief. If anything, it drives me toward isolating behaviors where I feel some emotional protection, even as I know it is only a facade. I long for His touch—and I am scared to death to feel it. I am pretty sure that who I am will need to be completely undone in the process, and I am afraid that I can’t survive it.
I no longer believe in theology. It seems to me that theology diverts us from the real story of God, His creation and trauma. Theology is the human attempt to categorize, analyze and sterilize the living God by confining Him to doctrine, proof texts and philosophical constructs. He resists this, breaking out in all sorts of ways that leave our religious strait-jackets empty. But if I give up theology, so comforting in its promise to give me certainty, I am left with the shifting sands of emotional relationship—and that is so scary to me that I feel completely out of my depth. I simply do not know what to do to make things better, and because I don’t know what to do, I do nothing, and the result of doing nothing is that I feel worse. I related to David, a man after God’s own heart with a sword dipped in blood. My life with God is combat. He wins in the end, I know, but I’m scared to surrender because I don’t know (for certain—there it is again) that He will hold on to me. I see characters in the biblical account, characters that I identify with, who were left orphans, emotionally, despite promises, because God had other plans. I’m afraid to be alone, and, at the same time, it is the only place I feel safe. Perhaps I am an emotional schizophrenic. What’s clear to me is that I don’t really understand myself. Romans 7 comes to mind. In fact, a lot of verses come to mind, and none are really very comforting. Confrontation and combat seem to be written into the very nature of divine-human relationship.
But there’s no point in stopping, is there? I often think these days that I should just stop. Just set it all aside and enjoy pasta and a good glass of wine. But my soul won’t let me. Even if I try to escape into a world of serene fantasy, God hunts me down. He finds the cracks in the wall and squeezes through. And there we are, the two of us, facing each other once more.
This much I know for certain. I’m tired.
“No fear” is the Greek expression phobos ouk. You’ll probably recognize phobos. It’s the root of English “phobia.” Fear of ________________. Fill in the blank. But don’t forget the one fear no one wants to admit. Fear of God. Isaac knew this phobia to the depths of his being. Maybe you do too, and like me, you’ve spent a lot of time running away. Not just from the combat with Him, but also with the combat with myself—and all those ghosts that haunt me. Perhaps it’s comforting to read ouk with phobos. Ouk is the strongest of the Greek negatives. It means absolutely not, no way-no how, never. I’m looking forward to that day, even if I have to wait until the end.
Topical Index: phobos ouk, no fear, 1 John 4:18
[1]Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickenson, p. 38.
Skip, I feel your pain. I too was comfortable in my Christianity. You have brought light to areas where I didn’t and don’t want the light. Nobody wants to admit they are wrong. That what they believe is based on molded/modified stories to reflect that day’s thinking. I too seek the God of the Bible and when I really do find HIm, most often He scares me and I feel like I’m going to be destroyed either now or later. But then I remember hope. I have hope.
If we are all honest with ourselves and others, we are all hypocrites in one way or another. I’m a greater hypocrite in that I continue to attend a Christian church with my many changed views and understandings. Romans 7 looms over me when I stop to reflect. I too am in the process of moving from Theology to Relationship but find myself wanting to cling to Theology because I’ve spent so much of my life there. I’m a self proclaimed “nerd”. And when I let go of Theo more, I’m afraid of what’s left. Me and My Creator. And I fail Him regularly and constantly. And the wages of sin it death. Cha-ching. When will that final payment be made to me? Yet He still loves me. Or does He? Which part of me does He love? There’s not much that’s lovable on His scale. I bounce from Romans 7 to Ephesians 1. And I can’t seem to find comfort in either.
Hang in there….The journey is my reward and my sharing with others draws me closer to Him. Shalom…..when you can find it.
My brother, thanks for the transperancy and truth shared here. My walk with YeHoVaH is so very different from yours. Yet I am confident we seek after and are sought out by the same God. Yeshua said (And I paraphrase )” Let the little children come to me” or perhaps better yet “let them come to me as little children”. I surely did. When abandoned by my mother at 4 I grabed onto God like a flag pole in a hurricane. He has never left me or forsaken me. Surley my understand of who he is in contrast to who I thought or was taught to think of Him to be has changed. It is our ideas about Yehovah that are changed as we confront the realities of life and himself in the midst of it. Your work has been most helpfull in unpacking much that has been misrepresented in Christian theology. I am glad I think that you have come to the end of theological idea trains. Time to get of that train into the light of the reality of Yehovah. Let me remind you brother that last year you suggested you where going to focus on the Spirit. God is a spirit not an idea…He is the Spirit of Truth and that in grace. Yet he is also love, and that is an encouraging thought. Trust the God of love to walk you into all truth through his grace, mercy and kindness. Scripture reminds us there is only one judgment that has entered the world and it is that God sent the light into the world but men preferred darkness because their deeds where evil. You my brother prefer to expose yourself to the light and therfore will remain in it no matter how udone it might make you feel at the time. That is just who you are and you are not alone your standing naked in the light blinking at it . That blinding light is also a person who loves you more profoundly than you can comprehend and does not judge you for your nakedness but prefers you that way.
“God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him” (Rom. 8:29 The Message).
Been meditation on my response (as it was fresh manna to me as well) and came back to review a few other comments. I think we can be blinded by light such that it seems to be darkness to us. And I would add that because of the propitiation of Messiah we can stand naked and unafraid and un-ashamed before a God “who so loved the world that he sent his only son….”as the mediator between us and to make our broken debouched selves acceptable and able to stand again in the light and presence of our creator without shame or fear.
I love the openness, finally your breaking out with something I have suspected of you for quite a while now. Hurray. Because of you I have been “ enjoying “ the very same struggle and it is a blessed experience. For several years now the Bible has not been the Holy book it once was, what a struggle, what do I do with that so for years now I have been telling my wife it’s the best book of all that we have for guidance, support and strength , So it’s of primary importance to me just not so Holy. I relate to the authors and their God is my God. Their is a frightful new freedom I’m experiencing in my new and evolving belief system that forces me to the frightful full knowledge of my dire desperate need of God more than ever in my life. You have opened up something that their is no going back from. We are very alone and desperately need community that we will never realize until Yeshua returns. Bless you Skip! Hang on for dear life cause now the ride really gets rough. Intensely praying for you and for all that are involved with TW. So glad you have come out of the closet. I am not alone.
Not alone, but separate. That seems to be the state of wandering we all experience. I appreciate Jacob more and more.
You are on my heart and in my prayers brother. Wanted to share from “The Prophets” by A. J. Heschel. Not an altogether inappropriate comparison for one, like yourself, who stands on the outside of normative theology and religious experiance or perspective. It is hard my brother to take a firm stand outside the camp. But you do not stand alone,. The prophets and sages of old have all gone before you..Our friend Heschel reminds us both… ” We will have to look for prohetic coherence, not in what the prophet says but of Whom he speakes. Indeed, not even the word of God is the ultimate object and theme of his consciousness. The ultimate object and theme of his consciousness is God, of Whom the prophet knows that above His Judgment and above His anger stands His mercy.” Pg. 23
“And there we are, the two of us, facing each other once more.” Somehow, may THAT be enough of a gift for you, for each of us, from the One who seeks a whole heart who seeks for Him. You manage to wrap your words around a condition i’ve found myself in, and oddly enough that gives me hope, for which i am genuinely thankful.
Thank you. Your words were a balm this morning.