The Song of Creation

by on January 9, 2012

In today’s excerpt from The Way of Jesus Christ we hop into a discussion Moltmann is having about creation, and specifically Genesis 1:2 (“The Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters”):

The Hebrew word rahaph is generally translated ‘hover’ or ‘brood’. But according to Deut. 32:11 and Jer. 23:9 it has rather the meaning of vibrating, quivering, moving and exciting. If this is correct, then we should not think only of the image of a fluttering or brooding dove. We should think of the fundamental resonances of music out of which sounds and rhythms emerge. In thinking about ‘creation through the Word’, we should not therefore think primarily in metaphors of command and obedience. A better image is the song of creation. The Word names, differentiates and appraises. But the breath is the same in all the words, and binds the words together. So the Creator differentiates his creatures through his creative Word and joins them through his Spirit, who is the sustainer of all his words. In the quickening breath and through the form-giving word, the Creator sings out his creatures in the sounds and rhythms in which he has his joy and his good pleasure. That is why there is something like a cosmic liturgy and music of the spheres.

Sleeps a song in every thing

That is dreaming still unheard.

And the world begins to sing

If you find the magic word.*

I recently finished reading Out of the Silent Planet, the first in C.S. Lewis’ science fiction trilogy, in which the main character, Ransom, meets otherworldly creatures who are described as having not vocal chords and lungs but resonances. This may be why Moltmann’s description of the Spirit seems particularly poignant to me this week, but I do find it to be a lovely and true-feeling image. I confess I never did envisage creation as a dove flitting about; I picture it more like a whirl, or a big rumble from the deep. Whatever the case, if there is to be a sound connected with it, (and what is a good story without an equally good soundtrack?) I’m quite happy with the idea of resonance and vibration. I suppose that’s because in my estimation the story of creation is to be for us something like a good opening chapter in which we find ourselves captivated by the story. It’s to be a song that beckons us to keep listening. It’s a story in which some magic word that holds all of reality and being and goodness together is hiding, sleeping even, waiting to be discovered.

I confess I will never quite understand why so many people have made Genesis about facts and charts and arguments. Why one would choose to do that rather than to be taken away with the song of creation, the cosmic liturgy, the music of the spheres, is beyond me. As Moltmann said, this isn’t a story of God barking out commands. I imagine you could make a good chart out of that. It’s a story of the Word breathing out a resonance that is God’s joy and good pleasure. It’s not something to prove. It’s something to experience.

*poem by Joseph Von Eichendorff

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The new EV Blog is up!

by on December 13, 2011

I’m so excited that the new Emergent Village blog is up and running over at Patheos! It is called the Emergent Village Voice, and there is a fantastically diverse list of contributors. I’ll be posting there every other week. My first post went up today, so go give it a read!  And go add it to your RSS feed. There are already a ton of really great posts up.

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The Immanence of the Transcendent God

by on December 12, 2011

Happy third week of Advent! This morning’s Moltmann Monday quote comes from Sun of Righteousness, Arise!. This is a great book for people new to Moltmann, and it’s written in a more conversational style than some of his other more theological works. The quote below comes at the beginning of a section on the Shekinah of God, which is one of Moltmann’s favorite concepts:

I should like to talk about both these things: about the Merciful One who shares our suffering, and about the Holy One who goes ahead of us and leads us to the eternal home of identity. But the presupposition for both these experiences of God is the descent and self-lowering of the Eternal One into our earthly and transitory world–the immanence of the transcendent God. Or in the words of the prophet Isaiah (57:15): ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a humble and contrite spirit.’ It is not just for us that it is important to experience the nearness of God in what happens to us. It is important for God, too, for God wants to live among us and on this earth for ever and ever.”

 

Here’s something I love about Professor Moltmann- he doesn’t forget about God. That may sound strange to say, but I get the sense that many theologians get to talking so much about God-the-concept or God-the-idea or, heaven forbid, me-the-smart-theologian-talking-about-the-complexity-of-God-the-idea, that GOD actually gets lost in the shuffle. Moltmann has made great contributions to theology because he doesn’t forget to ask the question, “What does this mean for GOD?”

In Advent, we spend most of our time talking about what it means for us that God became human and lived among us. And that is right and good, because it is mind-boggling and beautiful and the biggest and strangest gift we could imagine. As we enter these last two weeks of Advent, I wonder if we could also remember to consider what this means for God. I like to think that God becoming immanent even in God’s transcendence is something God has anticipated eagerly because it brings to fruition something intrinsic about who God IS. And at Christmas, this immanence of God becomes known to us in a way that it wasn’t before. That’s good news for us–but let’s not forget it’s good news for God, too.

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EVTC Reading List

by on December 6, 2011

In case you missed it, the reading list for the upcoming Emergent Village Theological Conversation has been posted!  We’ve also added some more conversation partners to the mix including Monica Coleman.  As you know, space is limited for this event each year, so don’t delay in getting registered!

Find out all the information and a link to registration here.

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Hope Keeps History Moving

by on December 5, 2011

View of dark alley with people in the distance

We’re immersed in Advent as we enter the mid-point of the season and the light of our hope slowly grows brighter. Some words from Moltmann this morning from Theology of Hope p.164-165:

God is not somewhere in the Beyond, but he is coming and as the coming One he is present. He promises a new world of all-embracing life, of righteousness and truth, and with this promise he constantly calls this world into question- not because to the eye of hope it is as nothing, but because to the eye of hope it is not yet what it has the prospect of being. When the world and the human nature bound up with it are called in question in this way, then they become ‘historic’, for they are staked upon, and submitted to the crisis of, the promised future. Where the new begins, the old becomes manifest. Where the new is promised, the old becomes transient and surpassable. Where the new is hoped for and expected, the old can be left behind. Thus ‘history’ arises in the light of its end, in the things which happen because of, and become perceptible through, the promise that lights up the way ahead. Eschatology does not disappear in the quicksands of history, but it keeps history moving by its criticism and hope; it is itself something like a sort of quicksand of history from afar.

 

Such beautiful imagery in here- the picture of the world being “staked upon” the coming promised future of God,  the perception of movement in the form of quicksand, and the most lovely Advent image of  the “promise that lights up the way ahead.” I’ll not comment further and just let the picture stand.

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CT quote

by on December 2, 2011

The new December issues of Christianity Today is out, and this month’s question in the “Under Discussion” column is “Should churches copyright their name?” I give my two cents in a few brief sentences. Go grab one and see what you think!

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The Promise of the Messianic Child

by on November 28, 2011

Hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving! Moltmann Monday is back with an excerpt from a Theology Today article on children, childhood and hope. Here’s a snippet:

The child, whose birth and whose future reign of peace devoid of violence and war Isaiah announced (chapters 9,11), is the “Son of David.” He is a descendant of David, endowed with the dignity of the chosen King David. Just as David conquered Jerusalem, making it the capital of Israel, the future “Son of David” will redeem Israel (from the Babylonian exile) and will rebuild Jerusalem. Most important, the coming “Son of David” will fulfill the prophet Nathan’s ancient promise to David: “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom forever.” (2 Sam 7:12-13)  The promised “Son of David” is the messianic king for which Israel is hoping.

The hopes placed upon him do, however, explode all (historical) limits: “he will raise up the poor of the land,” he will “bring justice to the peoples,” and he will sow peace between humans and animals: “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fading together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isa 11:1-11). While this messianic hope exceeded all of life’s experiential limits, it was conceived during the time of the Babylonian exile, at Israel’s “ground zero.” From the very beginning, it was part of Israel’s traditions of hope.  [Abraham and Sarah's] promise brought into history an orientation towards the future, replacing the eternal return of the same in nature religions. Children were no longer merely included in the powers of origin through the veneration of the ancestors, but the generations were now aligned towards children as the carriers of hope and as signs of the steadfastness of the God of promise.

 

The hopes placed on the messianic child explode all limits. I love the imagery that conjures in my head, like an electric wire exploding from too much energy and making a fireworks show that lights up the night. I also appreciate that these hopes are beyond rational, really. They are not something most people walk around and assume. To have Advent hopes means to be willing to explode our limits of what is possible. Through this one promise, this one vulnerable human child, the whole world carries a new kind of hope for the future.

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Moltmann on Seminaries, Privatization, and Marketing

by on November 14, 2011

In honor of Patheos’ ongoing conversation of posts on the future of seminary education, today’s Moltmann Monday excerpt comes from God for a Secular Society in his chapter “Theology in the Modern University.” He’s been describing how theological faculties began as central and primary to the university when there was a religion of the state, but since the Reformation there has been an uneasy separation that has grown in isolation over the years until now we find ourselves in a multifaith society where only “religion departments” preside in universities and theology is relegated to privatized spheres of faith in seminaries. What that says for theology’s scope is rather grim. Here’s where he gets good and soapbox-y:

The privatization of religion has as its presupposition its de-politicization and as a consequence its marketing. What is called modern multifaith and multicultural society is nothing other than the total market society. Religions and cultures are on display in this market in just the same way as political options, commodities and services. Religions become the spiritual services on offer in the religious supermarket of the modern world. Individual religious liberty is certainly a powerful protection for every person’s own human dignity, but because of the typical Western concept of the consumer’s freedom to choose or dispose, that same freedom has turned religion into a commodity, where the customer is allegedly always right. Marketed religions take on the characterisitcs of goods on sale…

In the multifaith consumer society, peace reigns between the religious communities. That is a fact. But this religious peace is achieved through the political shut-down on religion, its privatization and marketing- not through recognition and esteem, but by reducing religion to insignificance. One does not have to be a fundamentalist to see this as practiced atheism.

 

This quote isn’t in reference to any particular post in that Patheos conversation, but I believe it’s an important discussion for those considering the future of the seminary. If the C/church is currently becoming locked down and even pigeonholed into a market-based enterprise in a multifaith world, what does that mean for how we prepare students and pastors? Where is the prophetic voice inside those competing forces and what is it saying? If a church doesn’t want to live as isolated as its seminaries, nor as marketed as the mall nearby, what kind of creative space must it find? How can we differentiate between the “peace” of insignificance and the peace of shared life?

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