The Human Animal and Other Animals in God's Creation

This summer I am again teaching a course on the Christian doctrine of creation. Early in the semester we wrestle with the place of human beings in creation and with the idea of "human exceptionalism," the notion that human beings are qualitatively different and separate from/above all other animals. Among those most critical of this idea has been Benjamin Hale, who writes for Harpers magazine. Last summer, in honor of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, he contributed an essay on Psalm 8 that attacked "the anthropocentric ordering of the Judeo-Christian universe," a view that "enrages" him "more than anything else in the Bible." He thinks it "has fostered an attitude dominant in our culture that uncompromisingly divides 'man' from 'beast.' Christian theology requires the assumption of human exceptionalism, since the Christian heaven is a human one. It requires us to assume that we alone have a culture and the capacity for morality; that only by the light of our 'unnatural' (whether this means supernatural or contradictory to survival of the fittest) human morality can we overcome the amoral, purely self-interested State of Nature. The dichotomy that pits humanity and morality against 'nature' does not align with observations of moral, social, and altruistic behavior in primates or in many other mammals--dogs, elephants, bats--something that suggests that both the good and the bad in us have precedent in other species" (Benjamin Hale, "Lower Than the Angels," Harpers Magazine [June 2011], 38.. In the August 2012 issue of the same magazine, he has written a film review that also makes reference to his critique of "human exceptionalism.")

I recently asked my students to respond to Hale's portrayal of "the Judeo-Christian universe" and its supposed assumption of "human exceptionalism." Many defended the idea that human beings, at least as understood within the main religious traditions, are indeed different from all other animals because they can use their reason and freedom to go against "natural" impulses and instincts that serve the self (and often do harm to others). While acknowledging the biological-evolutionary connection that human beings have to all other life forms on the planet, other students argued that human beings are uniquely qualified and positioned to act differently from other animals. This is both a challenge and a threat, since human actions can both help and harm other creatures and creation itself. 

At least a couple of students questioned Hale's assumption that "Christian theology requires the assumption of human exceptionalism, since the Christian heaven is a human one." For starters, these students noted that other creatures beyond humans will populate heaven. What about angels, for example? But students also noted that the difference between human beings and other animals does not necessarily mean that humans can mistreat animals. "The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel" (Prov. 12:10). 

Still other students asked, "Is it not also possible that other animals will be brought into God's future?" What about the vision of Isaiah of God's "new heavens and new earth" (Isaiah 65:17-19; cf. Rev. 21:1), which does not merely include renewed human beings but also renewed animals? "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain" (Is. 65:25; NRSV). This new age is further described in 11:6ff: "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them..."

The question of "human exceptionalism," supposedly premised on an animal-less heaven, is not merely an academic issue. It is also a pastoral one. Last week our 2.5-year-old "Schnoodle," Skipper, was killed by a fast-moving car on the county road behind our house. My wife had taken him for a walk in our quiet sub-division, but upon coming home he saw a wild rabbit and got away from my wife. His instincts told him to chase that critter, and so he did--and his chasing took him right out into the road. 

I wasn't present for the accident, but shortly thereafter my neighbor and crying wife appeared at our front door. Skipper was a mess. It was clear he had suffered severe head trauma and was bleeding internally. He was unconscious but still breathing. My son, Jacob, who has had only this one pet (other than a little hamster), immediately starting screaming and crying. We all quickly jumped in the car and tried to get Skipper to a pet hospital, but he died in my wife's and son's arms in the back seat. It didn't help that all the local vet offices were closed, with it being Sunday, and the closest pet hospital was forty minutes away.

It all happened so fast. I even remember pinching myself, "Is this really happening." And then to hear as I was driving the car, "I think he's gone."

But where did he go? Did he have a "spirit" or a "soul," like the Scriptures say human beings do? Skipper certainly had "life" and "breath" in him, and we've been around enough other pets to know that he had had a distinct "personality."

Skipper's death has been like losing a child. My 13-yr-old son laments, "I have lost a brother." For the past several days, as we wander through the house, we'll see things that remind us of him, spots he used to go to (and spots he has left behind!), items he's chewed, toys he's played with. We buried him in our backyard that Monday morning and put a grave marker over the spot, just like you would for a deceased human being. Certainly, anyone who has had a beloved pet knows what I'm talking about. They really become a part of your family. You have a deeper relationship to them than you realize, until they're gone. Skipper brought us a lot of joy and laughter. He could be so goofy at times. Our lives were made fuller because of him.

Do all dogs go to heaven? Just the good ones, the loved ones? Do not the visions of Second- and Third Isaiah, and John, indicate that non-human animals, too, will be brought through death into God's new creation. I find it difficult to believe that God would create all these varied creatures, just to have them die rather senselessly, if they too were not an aspect of God's eternal plan. Why couldn't the Creator of all these animals not make a provision for them in that future world? The actions and words of St. Francis to bless animals would also suggest this possibility.

As word of Skipper's death reached other family members and friends, one of them told me that when he had been a student of Jaroslav Pelikan at Concordia Seminary, Pelikan had told them about his own pet's death and how it had affected his family. His son, too, asked him, "Will there be pets in heaven?" Dr. Pelikan responded by saying that if that was important for his son's happiness in heaven, then his son's pet would surely be there. This is what I have told my son, too.

Coincidentally, today's "Sightings" article by Carol J. Adams, "Five Religious Approaches to Thinking about Meat Eating," raises the same issue about the relation of "human beings" to "animals" in God's creation. Adams, who participated in the first-ever panel on "Animals and Religion" at the American Academy of Religion in 1994, has identified at least five approaches "for addressing the issue of the consumption of animals" that arise when one studies religion: 

1) Most religious traditions postulate a vegan beginning. In the religions that hold the Book of Genesis as a part of their scriptures, a vegan diet is pronounced as the appropriate food for human beings (Genesis 1:29); the much-contested “dominion” granted in Genesis 1:26 is dominion within a vegan world. Christopher Chapple suggests the possibility that one can trace religious ideas of the practice of nonviolence to an ancient renouncer tradition that later gave birth to Jainism and Buddhism and influenced aspects of Hinduism, including the classical yoga school. This is one of the reasons Rynn Berry calls Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism the “four ahimsa-based 'vegetarian’ religions.” What do those beginnings suggest about our relationships with other created beings?

  

2) As mentioned above, some find it helpful to invoke what Jesus, the Buddha, or Mohammed ate. Recently, the question has shifted to “if they were alive in our time, what would they eat now? If they learned about the way animals live and die within factory farms, what would they do?” Would they agree with the winner of the recent New York Times competition that “most present-day meat production is an ecologically foolish and ethically wrong endeavor”?

 

3) What is the nature of creation and what is our place in it? Some religious traditions are seen as reinforcing human-centeredness because they appear to suggest that humans are the teleological fulfillment of creation. Are we removed from creation or embedded within it? If our relationship with creation is a religious issue, and since animals are a part of creation, is not our relationship with animals also a religious issue? Karen Davis suggests in response to Aldo Leopold that before she could think like a mountain, she wanted to know if that would include thinking like a chicken. In other words, we should not lose sight of the individuals within creation.

 

4) What are the effects of anthropormorphizing God? Does an anthropormophic God cause us to see animals as excluded from God’s love or concern? Moreover, what is the effect of seeing humans as in God’s image? Why is being in God’s image often interpreted in view of power and manipulation and hegemony instead of compassion and mercy and emptying unconditional love? Do we anthropomorphize God out of properties that we are most likely to be using against others? We are most likely to assert the image of God when we are lording over others, and using our power. Acts of unconditional love, suspensions of judgment, mercy for the weak, kindness to animals, get associated with a picture of wishy washy ineffectualness and weakness—qualities often seen as undesirable.

5) How do we show compassion and who are our neighbors? Do animals fall within a religious call to be compassionate? Are animals our neighbors? While most religions might have what some call a “miminal treatment” ethics regarding how animals should be treated, recent writings argue for expanding that. In their Religious Vegetarianism, Kerry Walter and Lisa Portmess suggest, “Whatever the sacred and the holy are thought to be, the human slaughter of animals questions it, renders it paradoxical, demands reflection.” In my own work, I have found the writings of Simone Weil illuminating. Weil writes that all our neighbor requires of us is to ask “What are you going through?” and to be willing to listen to the answer.

  

What are you going through, chicken, cow, pig, lamb, fish? This may be a more profound and urgent question in the twenty-first century than ever before. 

("Sightings" comes each Monday from the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School.) 

References

Berry, Rynn. Food for the Gods: Vegetarianism and the World’s Religions. New York and Los Angeles: Pythagorean Publishers, 1998.

Chapple, Christoper Key. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Davis, Karen, “Thinking Like a Chicken,” in Carol J. Adams, and Josephine Donovan, eds. Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.

Walters, Kerry S. and Lisa Portmess, ed. Religious Vegetarianism from the Hesiod to the Dalai Lama. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2001.

Weil, Simone. “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to The Love of God,” in Waiting on God. London: Fontana Books, 1971. 

Carol J. Adams is the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, Woman-Battering (in Fortress Press’s Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series), Prayers for Animals, and a four-book children’s series of prayers for animals. In addition, she has edited and co-edited five anthologies, including Ecofeminism and the Sacred. She is working on a book on theology and animals. Her website can be found at www.caroljadams.com.

A Couple of Questions from an LCMS Vicar

Every now and then I get an email from someone who has read my online essay, "The Scandal of the LCMS Mind" (The Daystar Journal [Summer 2005 issue]), and desires some clarification. Last week an LCMS vicar contacted me for just this purpose. He's given me permission to share his email here:

Dear Dr. Becker,

...I have always struggled with the tension that exists, more generally in the larger Christian community and more specifically in the LCMS, between theology and science. This issue is nowhere more present for me than in the debate over evolution. I recently read your article "The Scandal of the LCMS Mind," and appreciated your insight on the issue. I especially liked your distinction between "primary" and "secondary causes," how theology seeks to understand the triune God, and science seeks to understand the secondary causes (in this case the genesis of the cosmos). I also appreciate your critique of those who reject a Copernican view of the cosmos in favor of a literalistic reading of the scriptures. (Ironically, they reject evolution on these same grounds.)

That said, I am still wrestling with several concepts in your paper, and humbly ask for clarification. (I understand you are a busy man, wearing many hats.)

1. You state:

For example, scientific data about the reality of physical death in the animal and plant kingdoms prior to origin of human beings (e.g., fossils of animals that lived long before the origin of human beings) must lead those who interpret the Bible in light of scientific knowledge to restate the nature of God’s good creation prior to the advent of human sin (e.g., such a good creation must have included the reality of death prior to the existence of human beings) and the character of the historical origin of sin (e.g., the advent of sin is to be traced to the first hominids who disobeyed God’s will but not necessarily to their having eaten from a tree in an actual place called the Garden of Eden several thousand years ago).

The seminary and many theologians sight death before the fall as their primary concern with evolution. In your paper, you do not seem to hold the same concern. I am wondering how you reconcile this issue, especially in light of Romans 6:23? It seems like you are creating a disjunction between sin and death. How does one do this in light of the gospel, namely that Jesus conquered death and, thus, sin?

2. Earlier, you state:

   But “reason” has its limits, according to Luther.  Reason is given to human beings for use within the earthly or natural domain.  Here, reason has its proper role and function.  As noted above, Luther is even prepared to acknowledge that the powers of human reason remain largely uncorrupted by sin.  For Luther, it was simply a matter of making proper distinctions, especially between “the things of nature” and “the things of the Spirit.”  Only when transferred from the natural domain into matters of the Spirit, does “reason” become a “whore,” according to Luther. Before God (coram deo), reason is unreliable and of no use to human beings; but within the world (coram mundo), reason is reliable and of great use to human beings.

Before God, reason is unreliable, because human reason is corrupt and cannot comprehend the hidden God. Before the world, is human reason any less corrupt? I understand that we use human reason to interpret the scriptures, but it seems like you are suggesting that we let our interpretation of creation guide our interpretation of the scriptures. Does this place reason on par with or above the scriptures?

Again, thank you for your response. I understand you have come under criticism for discussing such things, and I by no means desire to criticize you in this email. I am simply curious about your reflections on these issues.

Sincerely,

(LCMS Vicar--name withheld)

Here's my edited response to him:

Dear Vicar-------,

Thank you for taking time to read my essay and to ask your two questions.

With regard to your first question: I need to state clearly that the human experience of death is revealed in the Scriptures to be a judgment from God for human sin. The Scriptures clearly teach that sin and the death of human beings are related, as your reference to Rom. 6:20-23 indicates. However, Paul is not talking here about biological death among animals (and this would include human beings insofar as they are animals, too), but about the death that is experienced as God's judgment by human sinners. Paul's teaching only make sense in reference to actual human beings who live "on this side of Eden." In our present situation, the biological death of human beings is now revealed to be a judgment from God. Death now "exercises dominion over" human beings, "even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam" (Rom. 5:14).

The Scriptures do not speak of "sin" in reference to animals, nor do we understand their biological endings as a judgment of God (unless you understand Rom. 8:20-21 in this way, but even there the reference seems to be to the suffering and decay of human beings in the old creation who are awaiting their revelation as the children of God, not to the biological death of all creatures). The Scriptures speak of sin and "the dominion of death" only in reference to human beings. The fact that animals have died for millions of years before the appearance of the first human beings is only problematic for those who insist on reading Gen. 2-3 as an actual literal-historical account of a time of "innocence" and "immortality" prior to an actual, literal "fall into sin," after which human beings became mortal. It is also problematic if one thinks the Scriptures teach that the death of all creatures is the divine judgment for the sin of the first human beings. As far as I can tell, the Scriptures do not teach this. Gen. 3 should not be read as an historical account of an actual event, but as a profound narrative that reveals what human beings are before God: anxious, tempted, finite sinners who have come under the judgment of God.

A theological reading of these early chapters of Genesis discloses to oneself and to other human beings our own incapacity for good, our sense of common guilt with all other human beings, and our need for redemption. We are aware of ourselves as creatures of God, created in the image and likeness of God for relationship with God and for freedom and creativity in the world (and in this sense, every human being has a sense of an "original perfection" before God, to use Schleiermacher's phrase, a time of innocence/perfection that has been lost to them), but we also are aware that we are now estranged from God, enslaved to sin, adrift in the world, disconnected from God's will, mortally judged, and in need of Christ's salvation. The revelation of God's law clarifies and intensifies this estrangement and divine judgment.

One need not interpret the stories in Gen. 1-3 as reports about two actual events in the past, "creation and fall," or hold to the (non-biblical) notion that all biological death is the result of the actual sin of two human beings in the past, to arrive at a true theological understanding of human beings as fallen creatures, as theologians from Schleiermacher to Tillich have also correctly underscored.

My reading of Rom. 6:20ff. is that every human being, from birth, is a slave to sin. We can only talk about human beings as sinful creatures. We know of no human being who is not a sinner, save One, Jesus. To the extent that human beings are biological animals, their lives are conditioned by the same conditions that affect all other creatures. They are finite and mortal. But unlike other creatures, human beings have been created for freedom and creativity within creation and we continue to reflect the image and likeness of God (albeit in a distorted manner because of our sinful condition), and we are also aware of our estrangement from God, that we are "slaves to sin," and incapable of saving ourselves.

There is no escaping the fact that our deaths are closely connected to our experience of God's judgment against our lives, that our lives do not go on forever, that they come to an ending, and that they are put into the divine balance, so to speak. But Christ, the new human being, has freed those who are enslaved to sin from the judgment of God, has united them in himself through baptism into his death and resurrection, and has invited them to trust that so united they will be brought through death into eternal life. (As to the ultimate future of God's other creatures, I am agnostic.)

With regard to your second question: human reason and our senses are preserved by God and they give us reliable knowledge of God's creation, as Luther's explanation to the First Article indicates. Despite Luther's criticism of the wrongful use of "reason" in theological matters, he freely acknowledged its rigorous use in natural philosophy (what we today would call "the natural sciences"). Melanchthon had an even more positive view of reason in these areas than did his elder colleague. To deny the power of reason to uncover accurate knowledge in nature is to deny God's preservation of our reason and senses vis-a-vis the things of this world. When the Scriptures refer to matters of this world that are also investigated by people using their God-given and God-preserved reason and senses, then the latter investigations are helpful for identifying false interpretations of those same Scriptural passages. That is why I have criticized those who reject the Copernican theory in favor of a literalistic reading of all those biblical passages that refer to the immovability of the earth, to the earth resting on pillars, to the four corners of the earth, to the sun moving around the earth, and so on. A basic hermeneutical principle is that one should read a passage literally unless there are good reasons for adopting a figurative or symbolic reading. In the case of the above cosmological passages, extra-biblical knowledge has provided solid reasons for adopting figurative readings of those passages. If we did not allow the natural sciences to inform our reading of the cosmological passages in the Scripture, then we would have to insist with Dr. Pieper that indeed the Copernican theory is wrong because a literal, straight-forward reading of the Bible indicates that the earth does not move, that it is resting on a foundation (or on pillars), and that the sun does move around the earth (Josh. 10; Ps. 19; etc.). Thankfully, the Augustinian-Lutheran-Melanchthonian approach to biblical interpretation allows the natural knowledge of nature, gained through the use of God's reliable gifts of reason and the senses, to shed light on how we are to interpret biblical passages that also refer to the cosmos. Such knowledge now assists us in eliminating false readings of the narratives in the early chapters of Genesis and to minimize the tensions to which you referred regarding the interpretation of the Bible in light of scientific knowledge of the natural history of the earth.

Hope this helps to clarify.

Warm regards,

Matt Becker

deus absconditus

The other night, shortly before the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, I happened to watch the 1958 film, A Night to Remember. It was hard to miss, given the amount of media attention to the anniversary and all the documentaries that flooded cable t.v. Not as technologically innovative as the blockbuster by Cameron, and lacking the strong romantic sub-plot, the earlier film nevertheless is surprisingly good. It focuses more on what happened--and didn't happen-- that fateful night in 1912, and it stresses the common humanity of all involved (on the actual ship, in the film, on the couch watching the film). In my opinion, some scenes are better than any in the later film.

One such scene that I think is particularly memorable is the first glimpse one gets of the iceberg that will eventually sink the "unsinkable." All of a sudden, it's just there, a kind of unexpected white mountain, mysterious, yet majestic, fascinating, and yet terrifying. It is the kind of image that Otto might have used to describe "the mysterium tremendum" in Das Heilige (The Holy), published in 1917 (and translated six years later as The Idea of the Holy by John W. Harvey [Oxford University Press]). A kind of shudder came over me at that moment, even though I've seen the film many times. I suppose it is not unlike the first time one witnesses "the white whale" in Moby Dick, a figure that many readers of Melville's novel have likened to God. We, the reader or film viewer, know that the mysterious object, whether iceberg or whale, is going to doom people, to bring them under the cold water. Are we not overcome by awe and wonder and fear?

           

The Scriptures also point to this experience when they make reference to the almighty and holy God, whose ways are mysterious and "hidden" from the reasoning and control of human beings. Martin Luther thus spoke of the deus absconditus, "the God who is hidden," whose majesty and unfathomable power are concealed to all of creation. This is the God who creates "weal and woe" and who causes fear to arise in human hearts, who fills them with wonder and perhaps dread in the face of the Wholly Other, who suddenly comes upon human beings when they least expect. This is God in wrath and judgment, whose jealousy is absolute, whose ways are not our ways. Humans experience "the hidden God" both as God's numinous, tremendous presence that confronts the sinner (how God is a consuming, devouring, raging fire that makes of us dust and ashes) and as God's absence (how God seems distant, cold, uncaring, mixed up with irrational "fate"). Luther thought that in such situations God and Devil seem to be one and the same: "For God deals with us and brings us to ruin with power, smites and hammers us and pays no heed to us... In his majesty He is a consuming fire... From whom no one can escape: if he thinks on God aright, his heart in his body is struck with terror... Yes, as soon as he hears God named, he is filled with trepidation and fear" (Sermon on Exodus 20). This is why Luther interprets the First Commandment to mean, "We should fear, love, and trust God above all things."

God "who dwells in unapproachable light" is nevertheless approachable through the promising word of mercy, the Word that became incarnate in Jesus. Here, in Christ, the Holy One is pure goodness and compassion. Here, in Jesus, God's infinite majesty has condescended to us in love, has become familiar, intimate and, more to the point, merciful and forgiving. Here, in Jesus Christ, is God's great "nevertheless," God's promise of forgiveness for the ungodly, God's promise of eternal life for mortal sinners, God's promise of salvation for the condemned and the doomed.

This good news is always a "counter-factual promise" because the one so forgiven still experiences sin and senses mortality in this life. The one so loved still lives in a world of "fate," of evil and injustice, in a world marked seemingly more by the absence of God and the realities of sin and the universality of death than by God's gracious and uncanny presence. Thus, the gospel is always and only a gracious promise of divine mercy and forgiveness for the sake of the crucified and risen Christ, with no apparent, visible support in the world of sense experience, save the preaching and announcing of that promise, which is also attached to Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

The intended aim of the promise is "faith," since faith alone can receive the promise. We live by faith "against appearances" (Werner Elert), not by sight, since there is much that contradicts the message of the gospel in the world of appearances. Against appearances and doubts and, yes, even against the deus absconditus, one trusts the divine promise, that it will be fulfilled eschatologically, in the end. So we live and wait in hope.

Both "fear" and "trust" mark the Christian life, mixed up with "love," but ultimately it is the summons to trust that overcomes our fears, even our fear of almighty God, whose judgments remain an ultimate mystery, but less so in view of Christ. In that faithful view, the summons to love as Christ has loved is also again possible to heed and to follow. Thus the Christian of today joins St. Paul in confessing: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ  who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

Pericope for the Week: Vaclav Havel+

Earlier this month The Economist's "Lexington" warned readers "to be sceptical when politicians speechify on religion" (March 3, 2012, p. 44). Given the low level of public discourse on religion, it is rather easy to agree with this advice. The article, "One Nation under gods," provides some historical-critical exegesis of a 1960 campaign speech by John F. Kennedy, in which the Democratic Catholic (or Catholic Democrat) explained his understanding of the separation between "state and church" to a group of Protestants who, it is safe to say, were rather skeptical about Catholic politicians. In that speech Candidate Kennedy argued that the state should never favor one religion over another: "I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

While the article does not refer to how those words, particularly the second to the last clause, might have been understood by those religious groups and individuals who were protesting unjust civil laws in America and who were working toward the creation of better civil rights legislation (one thinks immediately of MLK Jr.), the article does refer to the two principal, conflicting philosophical traditions on the place of "religion" in American public life that have been present since the republic's founding: (1) the Enlightenment "secular," "rational" tradition that tends to personalize/privatize/de-value "religion"; and (2) the Puritan "Christian" tradition that seeks to subsume all "publics" under the Sovereignty of God.

The immediate references for Lexington's reflections were, of course, the flap over contraception and insurance in Catholic institutions in relation to a health policy of the current U.S. President and "the noisy religiosity" of one of the Republican presidential hopefuls who has attacked Kennedy's speech and Mr. Obama's attempt to reconcile the above traditions.

All of this got me to thinking about another politician, one who didn't really want to become one but who was nonetheless thrust into that calling by circumstance in his native country: Vaclav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic, two of whose books have been beside my bed for the past week. The first, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala, trans. Paul Wilson (Random House, 1990) is a set of extended interviews that Havel gave in the 1980s. The other, The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice, trans. Paul Wilson et al (Fromm International, 1994), is a collection of speeches. Both books reveal that, in his own way, Havel also wrestled with the tensions and contradictions between that same Enlightenment tradition and the broader, western Christian tradition. As a poet and dramatist and philosopher, Havel, who died on December 18 last year, lived in the wake of the Enlightenment's critique of "religion," metaphysics, and the transcendent, and yet, as one who suffered political oppression because of how that same tradition had contributed to the formation of an officially-atheistic state that he and so many others saw as inhumane and stifling, he came to appreciate the critical and creative spirit of those who saw beyond this world to "something" that gave them realistic, creative hope. Unlike the kind of "noisy religiosity" that pervades contemporary American public life, Havel's was a quieter, more nuanced, cautious, even "surprised-by-grace" public piety. But piety it was.

This week's pericope comes from the first book:

Question to Havel: Do you see a grain of hope anywhere in the 1980s?

Havel: I should probably say first that the kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. I don't think you can explain it as a mere derivative of something here, of some movement, or of some favorable signs in the world. I feel its deepest roots are in the transcendental, just as the roots of human responsibility are, though of course I can't--unlike Christians, for instance--say anything concrete about the transcendental. An individual may affirm or deny that his hope is so rooted, but this does nothing to change my conviction (which is more than just a conviction; it's an inner experience). The most convinced materialist and atheist may have more of this genuine, transcendentally rooted inner hope (this is my view, not his) than ten meta-physicians together.

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed... In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from "elsewhere." It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now. (Disturbing the Peace, 181-82).

Summer 2012 Valpo Germany Tour

Thomaskirche Altar

I have been asked to serve as the faculty leader for a tour to Germany this summer that is being organized by Valparaiso University. The tour will intersect with our university choir, which will also be touring at the time.

Apparently there are still a few openings, if you or someone you know would like to join us. Right now, there are 17 registered to go, but we could take as many as 25.

After an overnight flight to Berlin, we will spend two full days in the German capital. Then it is on to Leipzig, where we will spend three nights. There we will hear Valpo's Chorale at the famous Thomaskirche (at both the Sat. motet service and the Sunday main service), tour the Nicolaikirche (where the 1989 freedom demonstrations had their start in the Monday evening prayer services), and visit other interesting sites connected with J. S. Bach and the city's history.

We will then travel to Wittenberg (one night; touring the small town and its places connected with Martin Luther and his associates) and then to Eisenach (one night; visiting the Bachhaus museum and the Wartburg Castle, where Luther translated the NT). The next day we will travel to Weimar, to see the cultural capital of Germany and also the Buchenwald concentration camp, and then on to Dresden. There we will again connect up with Valpo's choir (at Meissen), but also visit the restored Frauenkirche, a museum devoted to the allied bombing of the city in 1945, and other cultural sites (Zwinger museum, Semperoper, etc.).

Participants will have plenty of free time, too, to shop and do sight-seeing on their own in Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden.

The Zwinger in Dresden

For nearly twenty years I have taught university courses in the history of Christianity, focusing especially on the history of Lutheran theology. I lived and taught in Germany for two years, when I served as the director of Valpo's study-abroad center in Reutlingen. This is also where I developed a course on Martin Luther and J. S. Bach, which I continue to teach regularly.

On this tour I have been asked to provide historical, cultural, and theological insight into the various places we will visit. I hope also to stimulate discussions about the abiding significance of Luther and Bach and how their ideas and actions have shaped the contemporary world and church. Along the way we'll get to hear some great music from Valpo Univ's choir, led by Christopher Cock. Valpo's president, Mark Heckler, will also be with us.

The dates are Tues, May 29, 2012 (depart for Berlin) through Sat, June 9, 2012 (depart for the USA from Dresden). The cost is $2300 (for a twin, double-occupancy) or $2525 (for a single). This price does not include airfare, but it does include 10 nights hotel accommodations in 3-star tourist hotels, continental breakfasts, several lunches and dinners, touring on the coach bus, the Valpo concerts, whatever insights you might glean from yours truly and our professional tour guides, museum entrance fees, and all hotel and service taxes.

If you are interested in learning more, please contact The Global Gurus, at 888-850-6831.

Please feel free to forward this post to friends and family and to share the basic info in your church's bulletin or on a bulletin board.