Particularly Present

*The following is an abridged version of a paper I will present at the ABC-USA Theologians’ Commission in San Juan, Puerto Rico on June 22, 2023.

Of the COVID-19 pandemic perhaps no item is more emblematic than the now world-famous face covering. In 2019, an estimated 12.5 billion face coverings were sold across the globe; in 2020, the number was 379 billion; in 2021, a staggering 402 billion. Google search analytics show that use of the phrase “face covering” on internet web pages increased by 2983% during the period of the pandemic. Even without sales figures and data analytics, however, anyone who set foot in a grocery store, doctor’s office, or classroom over the past three years has witnessed the silent tyranny of the face covering. While medical reasons for encouraging such coverings are plain, the question is still worth asking: what effect might it have on human beings to force them to hide their faces for so long?

One figure qualified to answer this question is Lithuanian-born French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas privileges ethics as the ‘first philosophy’ from which all others derive; and the foundation of ethics for Levinas happens to be: the face. The face is “the situation of discourse,” he writes; it “renders possible and begins all [human] discourse.” “The face... stands for and evokes “the extreme precariousness of the other.” “[The] face facing me... summons me, demands me, requires me: as if the invisible death faced by... the other... were ‘my business.’”

If the face is the site of vulnerability, subjectivity, and agency, then concealing ‘the face’ eliminates the grounds of ethical responsibility. To force human beings to hide their faces is thus to depersonalize human agents into masked objects, and subjects, of violence and control. Not only this but the relentless covering of the face has left human beings bereft of the vulnerability necessary for nurture and love.

As pastors, then, how can we minister in our post-viral moment in a way that responds to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic? Drawing from the insights of Agrarianism and Ecofeminism, and attending closely to our post-pandemic moment, Holy Presence for pastors means particularization.

Agrarianism is neither a movement, nor an idea, but a “set of understandings, commitments, and practices” which seeks the health of land and people together. Perhaps the most fundamental problem as agrarians see it is what Norman Wirzba calls “a refusal of creatureliness.” When human (cf., humus) beings began to dissociate their life and health from that of creation, this began an inexorable spiral toward domination and control. When the land is no longer viewed as the wellspring of life, whose health and fertility is ours to steward, human beings attempt to rise above the land, commodifying it for their own economic gain. Such treatment results from the reduction of distinct ecological neighborhoods into monolithic categories like “nature” or “the environment.” The despoliation of creation, then, is fueled, one could say, by the departicularization of place.

If a refusal of creatureliness and the commodification of land is the problem for agrarians, what do they put forth as a solution? The following statement provided by Wirzba, may be the most apt: “This world is not reducible to a stockpile of... resources or an endless supply of commodities... Things are finally gifts... because they grow out of a world that human beings did not make.” The fact that anything exists is evidence that God wanted it to be so. Viewing creation as a gift, the existence of which is deemed good by God the creator, leads creatures to cherish and honor such gifts as sacred and worthy of care.

Rather than reducing unique ‘things’ into “raw material” or “natural resources,” agrarians practice attunement to the particularity of their creaturely neighbors. This entails seeing things as they are, not as an economic system wants them to be, and entering into patient, enduring relations of creature-specific nurture and love.

The second discourse to consider is that of ecofeminism. Ecofeminism is a term some use to describe “the range of women’s efforts to save the Earth and the transformations of feminism... that have resulted from [a] new view of women and nature.” Rosemary Radford Ruether, a key theological witness in ecofeminist discourse, defines ecofeminism as the “interconnection between the domination of women and the domination of nature.” According to ecofeminists, “the marginalization and abuse of the earth is intrinsically connected to the marginalization and abuse of women.”

The fundamental problem according to most ecofeminists is the division between “the self and the other,” a mentality which alienates (from the self) what or whomever is perceived as “other.” It is this division which makes us perceive women and nature as “other,” leading far too often to a demonization of both. Related to this is what Ruether identifies as the “primal sin” of human civilization: “the effort to escape from mortality, finitude and vulnerability.” The move to dissociate “self” from “other” and the effort to escape our mortality, has led to an endless process of seeking power at the expense of other human beings and the earth.

If the dissociation of “self” from “other” and the refusal of creatureliness stand as core problems identified by ecofeminists, what solutions do they propose? Ruether, for one, suggests that “converting our minds to the earth cannot happen without converting our minds to each other.” Any society-wide solution, then, must begin with an epistemic transformation. Vandana Shiva similarly suggests that, “Life on earth can be preserved only if people... begin to perceive all life forms as sacred and respect them as such.” The marginalization of women, then, just like that of the land, can only be remedied by acknowledging the sanctity and subjectivity of women and committing to the work of healing justice in particular contexts.

Given our post-viral moment, when people of all backgrounds have experienced depersonalization and control, what might pastors do to bring healing to such wounded persons? How, in other words, can pastors minister in this post-pandemic moment in a way that responds to the manifold effects of COVID-19?

Eugene Peterson, in the preface to The Contemplative Pastor, writes: “I enjoy reading the poet-farmer Wendell Berry. He takes a small piece of land in Kentucky... respects it, cares for it, submits himself to it... as an artist submits himself to his materials. I read Berry, and every time he speaks of farm and land, I insert parish [or church].”

The theme of particularity recurs throughout Peterson’s work. As a pastor, he says, “I am responsible for paying attention to the word of God right here in this locale.” Speaking of another (similarly concerned) pastor he writes: “We need more pastors like him... pastors who want to be local, to take seriously a place...” Particularity resists the imposition of a pastor’s will upon the parishioner and instead enters “into sensitive responsiveness to the will of the other.” It entails taking people seriously “where they are in the ordinary and the everyday,” “staying close to the ground, to what is happening with all its down-to-earthness.”

Peterson is not the only exponent of such a vision. M. Craig Barnes, in his book, The Pastor as Minor Poet, encourages a similar mode of pastoral attention: “[The pastor] knows these people. He or she knows their unique struggles, confusions, or yearnings... They have invited the pastor into enough of the mystery of their lives, that it is now possible for him or her to see beyond the constructed identities of smiling faces and freshly pressed dresses that fill the church’s photo directories.” Pastors today, notes Barnes, “are [often] better at knowing the deep passions and pathos of dead people than the ones we have vowed to serve.” “Few new pastors,” in other words, “have been trained in the exegesis of a local culture, a particular congregation, or the human soul.”

In response to the commodification of pandemic-era human beings, what is needed then is “a felt, sympathetic, and practical connection with the liveliness of a place, a connection intimate enough that one becomes attuned to its vitality and possibilities but also its fragility and limits.” Pastors, in other words, in our unique, post-viral moment, can mediate the Holy Presence of God by exercising particularized, context-specific care and love.

“So much hangs,” Peterson writes, “on our taking each soul with a terrible and holy seriousness.” Treating human persons with particularity and dignity is at the heart of what pastoral ministry is all about. “Who else is there in the neighborhood [who] deals with the wounded, the crippled [sic], the children, the lower achievers, the majority of... people? The pastor, that’s who; treating them, not as the world treats them... but with the dignity of souls baptized.”

Treating human persons not as depersonalized objects, raw materials, or commodities, is the countercultural task of the pastor, especially right now. Pastors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, facing congregations shorn of particularity, dignity, and value, thus, have a vital choice to make. We can either continue to treat parishioners as a uniform mass of depersonalized “human resources,” or we can attend with Holy Presence to each unique, sacred soul we know. It’s up to us.

In this post-pandemic moment then, let us resist the logic of depersonalization and bring healing to our wounded congregations by staying put and being particularly present.

Jonah Bissell

Pastor

Who Are We?

As we look forward toward our future together, then, let us embrace who we are, and with God’s help, keep building the kingdom of Jesus here today.

After two and a half years of ministry, I have come to know First Baptist Church Freeport as a congregation, the greater Freeport area as a region, and the endeavors I feel called to pursue through this church in its immediate future. For the sake of clarity, the reflections to follow will be structured by three categories, and I will list them at the outset: (1) Our Post-Christian Moment; (2) Reflection & Relation; and (3) Midweek Mission.

First, our post-Christian moment. Fifty years ago, ‘going to church’ was a rather popular thing to do. Families in America, young and old, rich and poor, black and white, on Sunday mornings went to church. Church attendance was culturally encouraged and “worth trying” for most American families. The pews were generally quite full, the percentage of Christians quite high. Church was, you could say, popular in those days.

Since then, however, church has fallen on hard times. Our culture has become less and less Christian, such that we now live in a post-Christian America (not necessarily a bad thing; see below). Going to church is no longer considered popular; it has lost its widespread cultural appeal. Many do not think they’ll benefit from it; and, thus, church attendance has precipitously declined.

Despite such apparent decline, however, the number of sincere Christians in America likely hasn’t changed much (if anything, it’s grown).

Fifty years ago, 75% of the population might have attended church; 75% might have checked “Christian” on a survey. But among that large slice, a small minority were sincere, authentic believers. Today, perhaps 25% of the population attends church; perhaps 25% checks “Christian” on a survey. But what proportion of that much smaller slice represents authentic, devoted believers?

Today in America, we live in a post-Christian era in which the state does not (and should not) sanction Christian belief. When such a thing happened in antiquity, scores of monastic communities arose composed of the most ardent, sincere believers the world had ever seen. The church’s ranks were whittled down to its most devoted followers. We may be on the cusp of such a movement today.

Second, reflection and relation. Brandon O’Brien has written a marvelous little book entitled, The Strategically Small Church, in which he encourages small churches (those averaging 30-100 attendees) to embrace their smallness and resist conforming to mega-church models of ministry. O’Brien calls these small churches to ask two basic questions: (1) What are the needs of our community? (2) What are we as a church uniquely gifted to provide?

First, what are the needs of our community, both our church community and the greater Freeport region? Over the past few years, our church and our world has experienced a season of pronounced stress and transition: political changes, global pandemic, social unrest, violence and war. Constancy and stability, reintegration and connection, reflection and deep processing, all present as vital needs in our current moment. With political polarization on the rise, and often along generational lines, there’s need for social reintegration and open reflection, among persons of all ages and backgrounds.

Many in today’s day and age, thus long for a space in which to discuss cultural, political, even theological issues, without fear of aggression, polarization, and social rejection. Residents of the greater Freeport region are, like others, in need of such discourse and connection. We crave deep relationships that will endure despite differences of opinion, perspectives, and even values.

O’Brien’s second question is: what are we as a church uniquely gifted to provide? After the past two and half years, I’ve begun to perceive what I think is the ‘DNA’ of First Baptist Church of Freeport. Though small (50-60 attendees) according to some, this congregation is marked by its palpable culture of discipleship, it’s belief in the enduring power of one-on-one, emotionally sensitive connections. While many in our congregation may identify as introverted or socially reserved, there is deep relational potential in our community.

Another dimension I have noticed is a sincere interest in deep reflection. After two and half years in this body, I’ve been shocked by your appetite for Biblical, historical, and theological truth. Along with being a place of relation, then, this is a place of reflection: deep, honest, critical reflection on the difficult questions of culture and faith.

So, relation and reflection: that, I think, is what our world needs, and that is what we’re gifted to provide. Rather than segregating these dimensions, however –one into a classroom, the other into a living room– why can’t we combine them?

Why can’t deep, critical, honest reflection happen in the context of deep, sensitive, caring relationships? Why can’t engagement with the critical questions of life take place at the park, in the brewpub, in a living room; not necessarily ‘at church on Sunday morning’ but somewhere else, where people are?

This brings me to my third and final point: midweek mission. What we do on a Sunday morning, in my opinion, should not be the end-all-be-all, as it once was. Since we’re no longer attracting droves of people, drawn by cultural popularity, to attend our churches, we must de-center the Sunday morning service, seeing it for what it’s designed to be.

The Sunday morning service should not be the “basket into which we put all our eggs.” It is not the primary setting for the ‘real work’ of the Christian mission (i.e., loving the world and making disciples). The Sunday morning service is simply where some believers gather on a weekly basis to glorify God and stimulate each other for this mission.

The Sunday service is not primarily where we do the mission. It’s not primarily where we build the kingdom. It’s where the kingdom-builders come to huddle-up, be encouraged, and be inspired to love and serve our world between Sundays.

As we look to our unwritten future, then, I propose that we prioritize relation and reflection. We should be known for our in-between-Sundays book discussions and park-meet-ups, our dinner fellowships and living room chats, our Saturday morning hikes, brewpub hangouts, our sincere friendship and love for others.

Rather than channeling all our energy into an all-inclusive, one-size-fits-all Sunday service (a fiction), our in-between-Sundays-life should be our main thing. Small networks of Christians connecting, relating to, and serving the people they encounter every day; that should be what we’re all about.

Right now, fifty to sixty people attend our church on Sunday mornings. For those who once saw 150+ attend regularly, this might be alarming. For me, however, it’s the most exciting news in the world: it means that right now, in our post-Christian moment, in one of the most irreligious states in the country, fifty to sixty believers are gathering with faith together, waiting to unleash the love of Jesus upon the world.

As we look forward toward our future together, then, let us embrace who we are, and with God’s help, keep building the kingdom of Jesus here today. Godspeed.

Jonah Bissell

Pastor

No Other Stone

Only the living stone can be our cornerstone. No other stone will do.

Years ago, in an Apologetics course–apologetics being the art and science of defending the credibility of Christian belief– we were asked a provocative question that still lingers in my mind today:

“If tomorrow an article was published in the most credible journal in the world, showing without a doubt that archaeologists had made a discovery which completely contradicts the story of Jesus, would you still believe, would you still be a Christian?”

I remember the silence in the room after the professor had asked that question. You could hear a pin drop. “If such a discovery was made, and was true, reliable, and conclusive according to the standards of human intelligence: would you still believe, would you still be a Christian?

Little did I know at the time, he was moving us toward a critical question in the study of apologetics, which is: why do you believe what you believe?

Do you believe on the basis of external evidence? On the basis of philosophical proofs? Do you believe because of tradition, experience, or emotion?

All such reasons, he argued, if met with just one credible publication, just one negative experience, just one philosophical contradiction, would crumble, leaving you with no faith at all. If you believe because of the arguments of scholars and theologians, the minute you hear something different from someone smarter (his words), your faith will crumble.

I bring this up not because it’s theoretical, not because it could happen but hasn’t yet, but because far too many Christians base their faith on the wrong reasons. Far too many people build their faith on flimsy foundations, and at some point see their spiritual tower fall.

1 Peter 3:14-16, the Epistle reading for the sixth Sunday of Easter, is all about our reason for hope. Basing our belief, our hope, on the right thing, on the right stone (and there’s only one) is essential to maintaining an honest yet unshakable faith in this life.

The key verse to consider in this discussion is v. 15:

In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

This verse has been used by many to justify the discipline of Christian apologetics. In its original context, however, the verse is addressed to Christians being persecuted for their faith, who were feeling dejected and despondent, and who needed encouragement to endure with patience and grace.

What this verse does not encourage is the philosophical, theological, or evidential defense of Christian belief. Rather, it’s about not giving in to fear and hopelessness when persecuted on account of your faith. It’s about enduring persecution with grace, being ready to explain the reason for your composure when asked about it.

So, Christians, let me ask you: What is your reason for hope? Why do you continue to endure social ridicule and cultural disdain? In other words: why do you believe what you believe?

Far too many Christians, as mentioned above, base their hope (their foundational hope) on the wrong things. Let me just cite a few examples.

“I am a Christian, I endure, because Christianity just makes sense.”

The problem with this is that as years go by and you think more deeply, more honestly about Scripture, theology, and Christian identity, a host of things will not, cannot make sense: deep philosophical questions about the relation between God and evil; valid criticisms of the apparent incoherence of certain biblical passages or theological truths. If your hope is based on “Christianity making sense,” that stone, never meant to be a foundation, will crumble, it will fall.

“I am a Christian, I endure, because there is so much evidence that the Bible is true.”

If this is why you believe, why you endure, the minute you pick up a book by a solid, critical scholar who integrates archaeology, literary studies, and historical data into their work –unless you reject all their claims or ignore all their painstaking work– that stone too will crumble, it will fall.

“I am a Christian, I endure, because the church has been so good to me.”

This has been the basis of faith for so many I know. However, the moment the church disappoints you, the moment it hurts or mistreats you, this stone will crumble; and for many, it has.

What is the reason, the real reason, for the hope that is within you? On what grounds, on what foundation, on what stone, do you base your hope?

I’ve shared several conversations recently with people who were once Christians but are now either tottering on the edge of disbelief or have already crossed that line. Often in such conversations, it’ll come to this question (they ask me): “Why do you believe? Why should I believe?”

When I have these conversations what I never say is: “I believe because there is so much evidence that the Bible is true.” What I never say is: “I believe because Christianity makes sense.” What I never say is: “I believe because the church has been wonderful to me all along.”

What I say is: “I believe because of Jesus.”

This may sound overly simplistic to you, perhaps even evasively simplistic. But this is the only right reason, the only foundation you can trust, the only stone you can build upon. This is the only reason which no publication, no archaeological discovery, no mistreatment at the hands of others, could ever threaten or shake: Jesus is my reason for hope.

The very fact that Jesus is, and that he is for us, that is my reason for hope. The nature of Jesus, the work of Jesus, the experience of Jesus, that’s my reason for hope.

This Jesus is not a literary reconstruction. He’s not a philosophical necessity. He’s not an archaeological discovery. Jesus is God-with-us. He’s inconceivably but incontestably here-with-us. And that is my reason for hope.

So, why do you believe?

Do you find yourself believing because of evidence, logic, or experience, rather than because of Jesus himself? Maybe you do and it’s worked for you until now! However, I know far too many people for whom, at some point, it stopped working.

If you are intellectually honest, if your eyes are open, if you interact with the world to any degree, there will come a point when your faith –if it rests on the wrong foundation– will be shaken.

May your faith rest on the right foundation, not on empirical arguments, not on philosophical coherence, not on social experience, but on Jesus and Jesus alone.

May you be able to say in the midst of social ridicule and shame: My reason for hope is Jesus, and that’s it.

Only the living stone can be our cornerstone, no other stone will do. Others can be stacked upon the corner, sure. But as corners? They’ll never do.

Trust in the living stone, the only stone that can truly hold, and I promise, it will never crumble.

 Jonah Bissell

Pastor

*The above is an adaptation of my sermon, “The Right Reason” (1 Peter 3:14b-16), delivered at First Baptist Church of Freeport on Sunday, May 14th.

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday, when properly viewed, provides a theology that can speak to trauma. It presents a God who himself endures trauma and needs a witness (Spirit) to keep him tethered to life.

There are a handful of books which, for me, proved quite dangerous in the end; books which seemed tame at first blush, but which, looking back, have changed my life.

One such book which I recently completed is Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining, by Shelly Rambo. Hers is but one contribution to the growing field known as “Trauma Theology,” but the gravity of Rambo’s contribution cannot be overstated.

Trauma is ubiquitous among human beings. I would argue, even, that it is ingredient to what it means to be human. However, only in recent years has trauma received due attention in prominent academic disciplines.

Trauma is now a principal subject in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and others. Beyond the sciences, it has entered the humanities as well. Literary critics, historians, and theologians even, are examining trauma through the lens of their discipline(s).

“Trauma is a fact of life,” Bessel van der Kolk writes. “Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence.” In The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk shows how “trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising one’s capacity for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.”

While there appear to be slight “gaps” among van der Kolk’s figures, looking back at the bloodiest century in world history (20th), the attacks on the World Trade Center (2001), the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina (2005), the relentless surge of mass shootings in America (Columbine, 1999; Sandy Hook, 2012; Uvalde, 2022), the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022), and recent instances of race injustice and civic brutality– it’s fair to say that “trauma,” of some sort, has touched every person alive today.

Here, enters Holy Week.

How, you might ask, does Holy Week relate to wars, natural disasters, and gun violence? Holy Week is a week filled with trauma.

On Friday, April 8th, AD 30 (ca.), Jesus of Nazareth, long-expected Messiah (for some), Son of God incarnate (for others), desperately sought political liberator (for many)– died. Jesus of Nazareth truly died. Nailed naked to an instrument of torture for all to see, Jesus (and his followers) faced trauma.

“The nature of life following an event of overwhelming violence is fundamentally changed,” writes Shelly Rambo. Trauma can be defined, then, as: “suffering that remains.”

The overriding question of Rambo’s book, and the question which ought to haunt all Christians, is: Can theology speak to trauma? Can theology, in other words, witness to a “suffering that remains”?

Christian theology, especially this time of year, often “fails to attend to the ongoing realities of a death that does not go away” (= trauma). Churches may observe Good Friday, sometimes through sober Tenebrae services, and the like; but, knowing the end of the story, we often rush body-and-soul to Sunday, Resurrection day.

But what about… Saturday? Have we forgotten about Saturday?

Holy Saturday (or Easter Vigil) has been observed by Christians since the first few centuries AD. Such observance, however, especially among Protestants, has largely, I think, been lost.

On Holy Saturday, the Son of God is dead. His disciples are numb with despondency and despair. Holy Saturday is a day of trauma par excellence, a day of tragic suffering which remains.

Some traditions imagine Holy Saturday through “Christ’s harrowing of hell.” As they see it, the Son of God dies, then descends to “hell,” where he preaches victory to imprisoned souls, loosening their shackles in holy fervor. According to this narrative, Saturday is a day not of trauma, but of triumph.

This tradition woefully misses the mark.

Trauma survivors would never think to view Holy Saturday as such. To them it’s a day consonant with their post-traumatic state of existence. It’s a day on which Jesus and his disciples sink deep into the depths of trauma, without guaranteed hope for anything else.

In her book, Rambo talks about the “Middle Spirit,” a form the Holy Spirit takes on Holy Saturday. Augustine of Hippo once described the Holy Spirit as the “bond of love between Father and Son.” Rambo largely re-appropriates this image.

On Holy Saturday, the Son seems utterly forsaken by his Father. Having sunk into “hell,” he remains in a state (it seems) of total separation from God the Father. Over this “second chaos,” as it were, the Spirit broods or hovers (cf., Gen. 1), stretching itself as thin as thread between abandoned Son and bereaved Father.

The Spirit, in this reading, doesn’t triumph; it doesn’t conquer; it doesn’t vanquish; it lingers. It stretches itself (figuratively) as a sort of thread connecting the realm of death (“hell”; the Son) with the realm of life (“heaven”; the Father). The Spirit, recast by Rambo, is that which remains in the face of death.

Jesus, as we know, is raised by the Father on the day that would become (for us) Easter Sunday. However, the hope of Easter Sunday comes necessarily through the hell of Holy Saturday. If Friday is a day of death, and Sunday a day of life, Saturday is a day when both are held together.

The Spirit Jesus exhales upon his death on Good Friday is a Spirit of witness, a Spirit of the Middle. It’s a Spirit Jesus-followers would all receive, a Spirit tenuously suspended between death and life.

Holy Saturday, when properly viewed, provides a theology that can speak to trauma. It presents a God who himself endures death and needs the Spirit to keep him tethered to life.

The new life which Sunday brings then, is not a return to pre-Friday life. It is existence as it has never been known before, in which death and life are held together.

The central image of the Christian faith is the traumatization of the Son of God. The suffering Jesus experienced on the cross and thereafter, does not simply go away on Easter Sunday.

Jesus bears in body and soul the trauma of death, separation; yet he blends it through this Middle Spirit, with the hope of life, the hope of connection. The “life” of a Jesus-follower, then, is a life full of suffering, full of death. But through this Middle Spirit, such “death” commingles with “life.”

This Holy Weekend, I challenge you to re-think what happened on Holy Saturday. I urge you to witness the trauma of God, to feel his divine fragility (for you), and to look for his open wounds gushing forth with the juice of life, again on Easter Sunday.  

Jonah Bissell

Pastor

The Received Life

“We have been created to be receivers, not achievers... Every page of the Bible presents God as the achiever and us as the receivers of this sacred, good work.”

M. Craig Barnes, in The Pastor as Minor Poet (Eerdmans, 2009), reminds us of a truth which has tragically receded from our collective memory: Life is received, not achieved.

To illustrate, I must quote him at length, especially his preliminary discussion in, “The Myth of the Constructed Identity” (chapter 1; pp. 6-9), so please bear with me:

It should not be surprising that the clergy are struggling with identity issues, since nearly everyone else is these days. That’s because we now assume that identity is something we construct for ourselves.

Such a strange idea would never have occurred to previous generations, who accepted identity as an inheritance from the family. [In other words] it didn’t really matter if their kids wanted to be a cobbler, a mother, a serf, or even a king. If that’s what their parents did, it was their lot in life as well... They did that work because it was an expression of who they were. Doing always flowed out of being.

Somehow we managed to turn that around about fifty years ago [ca. 1960]. Now we assume that our identity, [our] being, is determined by what we do. And what we do is totally up to us to decide.

[The past three generations of human beings, in the West, at least, have been] “bombarded with more choices than any generation has ever faced in life... Decisions about Little League, dance, friends, camps, television, smoking, drinking, and whether [or not] to go to church...

No longer does a family spend the formative years of a child’s life inculcating a particular identity... Now the agenda is to raise children to become proficient at making good choices so that when they leave home, they can begin the process of assembling a good future for themselves. Somehow.

We spend an enormous amount of time rearranging life with choices about relationships, children, communities, churches, houses, and other possessions, thinking that we will eventually construct an identity we find fulfilling. I [however] have watched too many people use up most of their fleeting years making choices that really don’t matter. That’s because our ancestors had it right. You cannot determine who you are by what you do.

The biblical depiction of life begins with the words “In the beginning God...” And it ends with a magnificent future that is also created by God. Just about everything in between also testifies to the eternal truth that life is made, redeemed, and certainly blessed by God. It’s a gift to be received with humility and gratitude, not an achievement.

Life is made, redeemed, and blessed by God. It’s a gift to be received, not a goal to be achieved.

Barnes goes on to describe the entire biblical narrative “as the unfolding drama of what happens when humans do not accept [“receive”] their created identity as persons made in the image of God, [designed to be in] communion with their Creator.” Instead, human beings believe the poisonous lie “that their identity [can] be changed by reaching for something other than what they were given by the Creator.”

“All that reaching,” writes Barnes, “has left us with souls filled with nothingness,” the experience, almost, of being un-created. How timely and precious are these words.

To Little League, camps, and television, we can now add insurance plans, retirement funds, school districts, hobbies, political parties, etc.

It’s no wonder our species suffers from unprecedented levels of depression, anxiety, and suicide. It’s no wonder human beings lash out in verbal, emotional, and physical violence every day. It’s no wonder we’re seeing scores of post-apocalyptic novels, plays, and films, depicting a post-future world.

Human beings in the modern West are bombarded and bewildered by more choices than any generation in history.

Michael Schur’s recent series, The Good Place (2016-2020), illustrates this beautifully. In this hit NBC series, the afterlife experience of every human being is determined by a fixed accounting system which awards points –positive or negative– for each action undertaken on earth. As the show goes on, however, we learn (spoiler alert!), that it becomes more and more difficult to end up in “the Good Place” (i.e., to die with a positive point-total), because every human choice is fraught with an infinite number of unpredictable effects. This both results from the vast array of choices at play, and the increasing complexity of our (post-)modern world.

The series exposes the ‘complexity’ of our world and the unintended consequences of our choices more than it describes the plurality of choices themselves. However, there is a character, Chidi Anagonye, whose unfathomable indecisiveness (e.g., taking almost an hour to select between two different colored hats) provides comic testimony to this modern reality: human beings are expected to choose far too much and too often, leading to a collective sense of paralysis, uncertainty, and fear.

True life, to return to Barnes, is not chosen by us, but is received as the gift that it is. The more we try to construct our own lives, then, the emptier we will be.

As a former pastor, Barnes shares a “benediction” that he would frequently use to end services of worship. It went something like this:

Every day this week you have to decide if you want to achieve your life or receive it. If you make achieving your goal, your constant companion will be complaint, because you will never achieve enough. If you make receiving the goal, your constant companion will be gratitude for all that God is achieving in your life.

Let me close with this:

From the beginning we have been created to be receivers, not achievers... We have been raised [however] to set our goals high, work hard, and achieve our dreams. There is [some] merit to this work ethic, but [if taken too far] it seduces us into thinking that we are the creators of our own destinies... Every page of the Bible [however] presents God as the achiever and us as the receivers of this sacred, good work.

My hope for you all is that you would find profound rest today in the truth that life is not achieved but received.

Jonah Bissell

Pastor

Swimming in the Psalms

God is trying to communicate with us, and he has chosen literature as his language. I think we should at least humor him by learning enough of the language to get by.

During the Season of Epiphany, we as a church journeyed with Jesus through the Gospel of Matthew. For the Season of Lent (which begins this Wednesday), we will be wading through the Psalms until Palm Sunday and Holy Week. This marks a rather stark change in genre, moving from Greek prose narrative (Gospels) to classical Hebrew poetry (Psalms). To prepare us for this change, I would like to review a few items mentioned in my Psalms Course from Spring 2021:

The Bible, I think we can all agree, is God’s attempt to communicate with human beings. And the Bible, I know we can all agree, is anything but straightforward. In an effort to communicate with us, then, why did God choose such a complicated medium? In other words: why did God choose literature?

Most people, in my experience, seem to separate the Bible from literature, in their minds. ‘The one (Bible) is religious while the other (literature) just isn’t.’ But the Bible is literature; it contains some of the most influential writing in human history. If the Bible is literature, then, in a way similar to Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Steinbeck, doesn’t it make sense to read it, in at least a slightly similar way?

Imagine what you would miss, for instance, if you read The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) or The Wasteland (T.S. Eliot) as you would a text from your cousin, or a flyer from the pizza place next door. Imagine what you would miss, then, when you read the Bible as ‘a religious document’ as opposed to ‘a brilliant work of literary art.’ My point is: God is trying to communicate with us, and he has chosen literature as his language. I think we should at least humor him by learning enough of the language to get by (or else, we’ll miss much of what he is trying to say).

All of this is especially crucial for poetry. Why? Well, poetry functions differently than narrative, proverb, law, or other forms of Biblical literature. Poetry, for one, needs to be experienced or felt rather than simply understood. With poetry the form of the language has meaning. The length, the choice, and the order of words is itself crucial to the reading experience.

What we need to ask then, is: How does the language behave? How does it express meaning? With poetry, the question isn’t “what does it mean?” but, rather: “how does it mean?”

Now this, I warn you involves a totally different mode of reading. And to develop and strengthen this mode, we need tools, and we need practice.

So first, tools. Here are some things to look for when reading the Biblical Psalms.

First, we have parallelism, the foundational structure of Hebrew poetry. Parallelism is a way in which poetry means by placing poetic items (words, clauses, sentences, verse-lines) in symmetry with one other (which produces unpredictable and diverse effects). Parallelism manifests in a variety of different types, including word, number, positive/negative, noun/pronoun, internal, and so forth.

Word parallelism, for instance, occurs when the same (or a similar) word or root is repeated in a slightly different aspect or context (example below):

The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;

the LORD sits enthroned as king forever (Psalm 29:10).

The word “sits” occurs in both lines, but in slightly different contexts. “Sitting” enthroned as king is a rather straightforward, realistic image denoting God’s royal status. “Sitting” enthroned “over the flood,” is a bit more fantastical, and requires some imaginative work on our part. Such language suggests that God possesses a kind of royal authority over the elements of nature, i.e., the flood, which may stand for the raging river, lake, sea, etc. (cf., Matt. 8:23-27).

 Another example is what’s called fill-in-the-blank parallelism. This is a form of parallelism in which the second line lacks an element to correspond with the first but adds a new element so the lines match in length (example below).

 They shoot from ambush at the innocent;

they shoot suddenly, without fear (Psalm 64:4).

The second line repeats the phrase “they shoot” from line one, but adds the adverbial element, “suddenly, without fear,” which does not conceptually match “at the innocent” from line one. “At the innocent,” then (from line one) is enhanced after the fact by this new detail (“suddenly, without fear”). The length of line is parallel (i.e., parallelism) but the meaning is not parallel as in the example above (of word parallelism). As you can see, parallelism assumes a variety of forms.

The key, in all of this, is to look for correspondences between lines (and within lines) and to explore how they correspond and how this shapes the larger unit (line, stanza, poem, etc.).

The second thing to look for is figurative language or figures of speech. Common figures in Biblical poetry include apostrophe, ellipsis, hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, personification, synecdoche, etc. A few examples suffice to explain the importance of figurative language.

Apostrophe entails speech directed at someone who is not present as though they were present. A prime example comes in Psalm 137:8: “O daughter Babylon, you devastator!” Psalm 137 presents a bitter reflection upon Judah’s exile into the land of Babylon. However, “Babylon” as an actual entity (personified here as a human daughter; another figure of speech) was, of course, not present to hear this psalm! Addressing a poem to an absent figure produces the rich imaginative experience of picturing a kind of conversation between the psalmist (standing for Judah) and the Babylonian nation.

Hyperbole is another figure used in Biblical poetry. Hyperbole involves an overstatement which focuses attention on the phenomenon being expressed. One clear example comes in Prov. 23:1-2:

When you sit down to eat with a ruler,

                  observe carefully what is before you,

and put a knife to your throat

                  if you are given to appetite.

Gluttony is the vice being warned of here (“if you are given to appetite”), but the poet is certainly not suggesting literal suicide as a response to overeating. Such heightened figurative language does, however, express the danger of gluttony more vividly than would straightforward language (e.g., “Avoid overeating.”).

Finally, two of the most common figures of speech you will find in Biblical poetry are the figures of metonymy and synecdoche. Metonymy is present when a thing is denoted not by the thing itself but by something associated with it.

Psalm 73:9 is a great example: “They set their mouths against heaven.” There are two examples of metonymy in this short sentence: mouths and heaven. “Mouths,” of course, stands for spoken words, which (being “set against”) seem to be words of rebuke, rejection, and/or cursing. “Heaven” stands not for the atmosphere or sky but rather the dwelling place of God. It refers to God in his glory, in a way that wouldn’t be as acutely expressed through literal, straightforward language. The literal meaning, then, is “they were cursing, rejecting, or blaspheming God who possesses eternal glory.” However, “setting their mouths against heaven” produces a set of images which more visually communicates this theme.

Synecdoche occurs when a thing is denoted not by the thing itself but by a part of the thing, or a particular (thing) in place of a group. Psalm 93:2 reads: “Yahweh’s throne is established from of old.” The word “throne” here is not literal. The psalmist is not speaking of a physical chair that was stabilized in/on a floor “from of old.” The “throne,” rather, represents God’s royal dominion and rule. To say, then, that his throne “was established from of old,” is to say that God’s royal dominion and rule has been active “from of old,” which likely means “since eternity, forever.” To use the earthy image of a wooden (or iron) throne which is stabilized, however, more powerfully conveys the poet’s meaning.

God is trying to communicate with us, and he has chosen literature as his language. Poetry is a distinct form of literature, which conveys ‘experience’ rather than mere information. If we wish to receive the fullness of what God has given in such literature, we need to learn the language of poetry, at least enough of it to get by. 

My hope is that this Lenten season, we would swim in the Psalms together, letting their parallelism, figurative language, and evocative imagery, pull us wherever God wants us. Let us wade in these waters together, letting them fill our pores, so we can emerge refreshed on Easter morning.  

Jonah Bissell

Pastor

The Call of Christ

“Only the believers obey and only the obedient believe.”

So writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer is his devotional classic, The Cost of Discipleship. How does faith, we might ask, relate to obedience? And why is this question even important?

“Faith and obedience have to be distinguished,” writes Bonhoeffer. “But their division must never destroy their unity.” He goes on to write: “Faith exists only in obedience,” and, “Faith is only faith in deeds of obedience.”

Some of you may be shaking your heads at the cavalier, almost glib, nature of Bonhoeffer’s proposal. Theologians have argued about the relation between faith and obedience since the first century (C.E.)! Do you really expect to resolve such a tension over the span of three pages, Professor Bonhoeffer?

This historic dilemma can be witnessed by observing the following NT verses:

 “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).

 “A person is not justified by works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16).

So, which is it, many ask? To be fair: by studying the wider contexts and unique literary aims of each passage, one can see how such statements may coexist (without blatant contradiction). My aim, in this post, however, is to present what Dietrich Bonhoeffer proposes as a solution in chapter two of The Cost of Discipleship.

The core principle or uniting factor in Bonhoeffer’s proposal is the Word (or call) of Christ.

 “As Jesus was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him” (Mark 2:14).

Of this, and of other (similar) accounts, Bonhoeffer writes: “The call goes out, and without any further ado the obedient deed (of the one called) follows. The disciple’s answer is not a spoken confession of faith in Jesus. Instead, it is the obedient deed.”

Levi, here, is not left to his own devices, expected to conjure up enough faith to follow. Neither is Levi ‘taken over’ (forced to believe) such that he has no choice in the matter. Something comes first, which opens space in which to exercise faith. And that something is the call of Christ.

 “In the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them (his disciples), walking on the Sea of Galilee. Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So, Peter came to Jesus” (Matt. 14:25-9).

In a similar manner, Peter is not expected to generate the faith required to take the first step out of the boat. For this reason, he calls to Jesus, “Command me to come to you on the water.” Peter is not capable of self-generated faith, but he is capable of obeying a simple word from his master. The word of Christ, here, “Come,” thus, opens space in which Peter’s faith-filled response is made possible.

Bonhoeffer explains this as follows: “Peter knows that he cannot climb out of the boat by his own power. His first step would already be his downfall. Christ [thus] has to have called; the step can be taken only at his word. This call is his grace, which calls us out of death into the new life of obedience.”

Protestants sometimes shudder at such language. We have developed a kind of allergy to any emphasis on works or obedience. Yet the original movement of Jesus in 1st century (C.E.) Roman Palestine depended on the response to: “Follow me.” Jesus, in other words, was not interested in professions of faith or doctrinal orthodoxy. He was (and is) interested in followers.

To follow is to walk behind someone, to turn when they turn, stop when they stop, move when they move, and so forth. It is a deliberate, embodied activity, involving a total-life-response to the ‘followed.’

In contrast to this, I fear that a sort of belief-ism has plagued the modern church. The idea that our cognitive convictions or propositional beliefs alone result in God’s favor, has effected some truly disastrous results. Time and again in the NT Gospels, Jesus issues the command not: “Believe this,” but: “Follow me.”

Jesus gathers disciples, not so much believers. He wants people who may very well be conflicted internally with doubt and uncertainty, but who nevertheless obey and follow him.

In Matt. 5:1-12, the famous Beatitudes which introduce Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, we read:

“Favored are the ones who show mercy, who work towards shalōm, who are persecuted for seeking justice (equity), for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Jesus, friends, is building a kingdom, a new reality which will one day be all-that-there-is. He has started a movement and his question is not, “Do you believe?”, but rather: “Will you follow?”

“Only the believers obey and only the obedient believe,” but they can do neither apart from Christ’s word, his invitation. “Peter cannot convert himself,” writes Bonhoeffer, “but he can leave his nets.”

Please, stop trying to eliminate doubt. Stop trying to resist ‘good works.’ Listen to the call of Christ and respond with your life.

Jonah Bissell

Pastor

The Adequacy of Imperfect Trust

What matters is not the quality or pristine-ness of one’s trust, but the relationship such trust creates.

The Greek words pistis, pisteuein, and pistos, commonly translated “faith, to have faith [or believe], and faithful” (respectively), occur over 550 times in the Greek New Testament. Among the virtues classically associated with Christianity –i.e., love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control (cf., Gal. 5:22)– faith (or the concept of belief), surely enjoys pride of place.

Teresa Morgan, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Yale University, has recently published a volume, however, which complicates this understanding of faith. Following her 2015 volume, Roman Faith and Christian Faith (Oxford), Morgan has written the very first theology of trust in the New Testament. Based on her painstaking research in Roman Faith, she argues (convincingly) that pistis, pisteuein, and pistos, refer not primarily to faith and belief, but rather to trust, trustworthiness, and fidelity.

In her recent monograph, The New Testament and the Theology of Trust: ‘This Rich Trust’ (Oxford, 2022), Morgan argues for the “recovery of trust as a central theme in Christian theology.” When pist- words are understood as variations on the concept of trust (rather than “faith” or “belief”), the New Testament appears replete with trust-language. “Trust between God, Christ, and humanity is revealed as a risky, dynamic, life-changing partnership,” she writes. Christianity, rather than being founded upon cognitive ‘beliefs’ in propositional statements, is founded upon a relationship of trust between God, Christ, and human beings. “God entrusts Christ with winning the trust of humanity and bringing humanity to trust in God. God and Christ trust humanity to respond to God’s initiative through Christ, and entrust the faithful with forms of work for humanity and for creation.” Strikingly, she goes on, “Human understanding of God and Christ is limited, and trust and faithfulness often fail, but imperfect trust,” she says, “is not a deal-breaker.”

This last comment is what I’d like to ‘spotlight’ in this post anticipating the Christmas holiday. In the sixth chapter of her study, Morgan elaborates on this notion under the heading: “The Adequacy of Imperfect Trust.” She begins the section by stating, quite plainly, that: “None of the gospel writers... indicates that anyone, during Jesus’ earthly life, puts their trust in him in every aspect of his life and work. Many encounter the prophet, teacher, or healer, but we do not hear that all those who come to be healed... have heard Jesus teaching, while many of those who hear his teaching do not appear to seek physical healing,” and so on. She writes further: “There is no sign that this is problematic: it seems that one may be forgiven or brought to life by trusting in Jesus in any of his activities.”

To illustrate her point here, think about a trust-relationship you share with another human being. Whether it’s a friend, a colleague, a neighbor; on what knowledge is your trust based? Perhaps they helped you during a tough time (cf., “healing” in the Gospels). Perhaps they consistently speak reasonable or sane words (cf., “teaching” in the Gospels). Perhaps they have offered to do things for you and have never failed to fulfill their promise (cf., “reliability/trustworthiness”). Or perhaps they have sometimes failed, but less often than not. Only in the closest of all possible relationships –spouse, sibling, parent, etc.– does our trust span multiple spheres of knowledge: trust based on personality, reason, past action, and reliability, etc.

The same goes for the disciples’ trust-relationship with Jesus. In response to his healing activity, his teaching, or his general reliability (on several occasions), the earliest disciples took a relational risk and placed their trust in this person, Jesus of Nazareth. Even though they took this risk, and threw their lot in with this strange man, they did not appear to trust him unwaveringly or perfectly, not by a long shot!

Hence, Morgan writes: “No New Testament writing... insists that, to come to one’s... relationship with God, one must form a relationship with Jesus Christ in every aspect of his identity and work... To be able to put one’s trust in every aspect of Jesus’ identity and work is no more within human capacity than... to comprehend the full identity and work of God.” The risky trust that connects us (relationally) to the person of Jesus, is by no means complete, comprehensive, or airtight. I would even argue that human beings as such are incapable of exercising such unadulterated, in-finite trust at all. The partial, wavering, mixed-trust extended to Jesus in the Gospels is the same kind of human, imperfect, but genuine trust that joins us in relationship to others right now.

What is so refreshing about the Gospels (and other NT writings) is that they “do not indicate that this is a barrier... one may – perhaps [one] inevitably must –trust partially and imperfectly, and still be saved or come to eternal life.” In the disciples and the earliest followers of Jesus, then, we see a “roller-coaster of trust [and un-trust, which is]... undermined by fear, partially restored, seeks to test the strength of its relationship, is reassured, demonstrated, undermined again by fear, renewed in desperation, and reassured again,” and again and again. What matters, then, is not the quality or pristine-ness of one’s trust, but the relationship such trust creates.

The disciples constantly exhibit “lack of trust” or “little trust”: see the story of the storm on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:40), the disciples’ failure to expel a mute spirit (Mark 9:19), their surprise about the withered fig tree (Mark 11:22), and their doubts concerning Jesus’s resurrection (Mark 16:14). Far from being fueled by pristine, doubt-free trust, the early disciples’ relationship with Jesus “is a tapestry of light and shade: trust, confidence, fear, doubt, and skepticism” all coexist.

The only human being to exhibit complete, active trust in God is, of course, Jesus of Nazareth. On occasion, however, the Gospel writers even portray Jesus “as wavering in the attitude of trust (though he always acts in accordance with God’s will).” We can think of the scene in Gethsemane where Jesus “prays to God to take away his imminent suffering: ‘but not as I will, but as you will’” (Matt. 26:39). We see, then, that one’s attitude of trust can waver, while one’s actions of trust do not. What matters chiefly, is that Jesus did not renege on the task entrusted to him by God. Even though his attitude of trust strained under the weight of such uncertainty, he nonetheless carried forward with his ‘trust’ (“that which had been entrusted to him by God, his mission for humanity/creation”).

Morgan goes on to describe the riskiness of the trust which God and Christ place in us, trusting that we will respond to Christ’s life and work in trust, and take on the work God entrusts to us. All of these dynamics express the riskiness and dynamism of the trust-relationship. And again, it shows that “what saves” is not our trust or our faith, but rather: the relationship such trust creates.

We may know just one thing about Jesus, two or three if we’re lucky, but even such little knowledge can be enough to take the risk to trust. “Even trust that is muddied with fear, skepticism, or doubt can lead to salvation,” Morgan writes. “If one fails [at times] in the attitude of trust, it may be enough to act with trust, and vice versa.” What matters, I say it again, is not the quality of trust, but the relationship such trust creates.

This Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, I encourage you to reflect on this notion of trust. It does not take decades of church involvement, years of theological education, or even much Biblical knowledge, to know ‘enough’ to take the risk of trusting Christ.

Trusting relationally in the person of Jesus Christ, Morgan notes, does not necessarily entail adoption of an entire slate of ‘propositional beliefs.’ It is possible to trust ‘savingly’ in Christ, to trust enough to ‘throw your lot in with him,’ even if propositional belief plays but a small part.

The disciples encountered a human person, not a set of theological confessions or statements. They experienced the personality, reliability, and inviting nature of a real and authentic human being. And for a variety of reasons, some big, some small, they decided, in the end, to trust him.

This Christmas, ‘wherever you’re at’ with Jesus, whatever you know about him and his followers, I urge you: take the risk of trusting him. I can’t promise it will always be smooth, but I can promise it will change your life.

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

Entangled Existence

Human existence is entangled existence. Our very being is constituted by the relationships of nurture we bear with the earth, our neighborhoods, families, and churches.

Independence, personal autonomy, self-sufficiency. These were among the primary virtues I learned as a child. Now, that is not to say my family wasn’t connected. Rather, we (the kids) were encouraged, from an early age, to discover, learn, and venture out on our own. Such qualities continue to characterize my existence and living in “do-it-yourself” New England certainly plays a part.

My existence, therefore, has been uniformly perceived as an independent existence. Whether to do right or to do wrong was my choice. Where to attend college or graduate school? My choice. What habits, hobbies, or hijinks should I pursue? Again, my choice.

From an early age, I was left home alone, entrusted with the keys to my own car, allowed (and might I say enabled) to carve out a life for myself in the world. Such virtues have proven immensely helpful in my development: they helped get me through college and graduate school; they helped me find and marry my best friend; they helped me purchase our first home, move halfway across the country, and welcome and (begin to) raise three children.

Is it actually true, however, that all of this development owes itself to in-dependence, self-sufficiency, personal autonomy? Well here enters my old friend and professor from Duke Divinity School, the now-acclaimed theologian and ethicist Norman Wirzba.

Wirzba recently published two new books, both of which stand as material, bounded expressions of his fluid and invigorating teaching at Duke. In his book, Agrarian Spirit: Cultivating Faith, Community, and the Land (Notre Dame, 2022), Professor Wirzba writes of a reality I had known but had forgotten, a reality he calls: the meshwork.

Drawing from the work of social anthropologist Tim Ingold, Wirzba describes human beings not as “bounded, discrete entities, single, separable, self-standing things, or sovereign, self-enclosed, object-like subjects,” no. Human beings, and all creatures for that matter, exist, rather, in the way of a meshwork.

“Each organism and each thing,” he writes, “is what it is only as a result of its entanglement within and co-development with a bewildering array of fellow creatures.” “A life,” therefore, “is not a single, separable, self-standing thing. It is,” rather, “a knotting of lines that are constantly interlacing with multiple other lives and lines... together making a tapestry or meshwork.”

To explain this further, he writes, “each body depends on the nurture and support of countless seen and unseen others... Things, therefore, are their relations.”

Now, I had heard such talk three years ago in Professor Wirzba’s Creation and Theological Anthropology course (Spring 2019). However, such notions had receded into the background of my mind, leaving me shamefully reminded as I read his words today.

In his book Agrarian Spirit, Wirzba presents an incredible (in the truest sense of the term) illustration of such existence as it is manifested in the non-human creation. He writes:

Scientists have learned that a single rye plant will in the course of just four months grow fifteen million roots that have a combined length of roughly 380 miles. If one adds the many more millions of hairs that are attached to these roots, then the overall length of the plant’s engagement with its soil home extends to 7,000 miles. It is astonishing to think that the vitality of one rye plant requires such a bewildering array of paths of nurture.

The existence of a singular rye plant, therefore, depends upon and is constituted by, its interlacing, tactical, enmeshed association with its “soil home.” Soil, as scientists are discovering, “is not a simple container of organisms but a complex and hospitable home in which roots, fungi, worms, water, and untold numbers of microorganisms grow together to create conditions for fertility” and, thus, life.

Human beings are not rye plants, of course. We are, however, creatures, and every creature relates to creation, our world, in a similarly enmeshed sort of way. Just as there is no life for the rye plant apart from its “bewildering array of such paths of nurture,” so is there no life for human beings “apart from the countless threads that join human flesh to the flesh of the world.”

“Every human life,” Wirzba writes, “is necessarily a rooted life that through our flesh binds us to the earth and entangles us with other creatures.” “To be human,” he goes on, “is to be open to others like a seed that opens to its soil environment.”

Now, I grew up thinking of myself as a free-standing, self-contained subject, living “in” a world which exists apart from me, which I can observe and turn away from at my leisure. However, for a creature to even look at a world, Wirzba writes, “it must always already be eating, drinking, touching, and breathing” that world itself. While we may think of human skin as a protective shell, shielding us from pathogens and environmental organisms, our skin is really a medium, “a permeable and highly sensitive membrane that opens” people up to the nourishing world in (and from) which they live.

Such meshwork existence became clear to me as I sat on the floor of my living room with my three small children and dog. Lowering myself to their eye-line, my ten-month-old, constantly moving twins are climbing on me as though I were their own personal jungle gym. Meanwhile, our five-year-old Golden Retriever is persistently ensuring that I see his new blue nylon bone (closely!). At the same time, my almost-three-year-old son is blowing spit-garnished air in my direction while he performs a musical concert within inches of my face. So much for a free-standing, self-contained, independent human existence!

What I have begun to learn, then, from raising a family, from reading theologians like Wirzba, from planting roots in a place, and from congregational life as a church, is that creaturely life, human life, can never be described as independent. To live independently is to die. To exist apart from others is a contradiction.

Perhaps this is why we read so early in the Biblical narrative that “it is not good for human beings to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). The original “man” in Genesis is of course soon met with a “woman,” but the countless creatures who inhabit this earth, who were formed from the same humus as us, and the countless ecological “wombs” of our world, tell us: “Man is not alone. So stop fooling yourselves.”

“Bathed as we are in an overwhelming number of influences and interchanges, sometimes the most honest thing to do is to speak with restraint and as a witness to the unfathomable depths and intricacies of this life.” The key to all of this, writes Wirzba, is to understand ourselves not as “sovereign, self-enclosed, self-standing subjects... but as enmeshed, needy, dynamic vessels through which God’s life-creating love can freely move.”

“Each life,” each dependent, enmeshed, interlaced-with-others human life, is at its utter best, not when it self-reliantly trudges forth with ambition, determination, and singularity, but rather when it opens itself up, allowing the love of God the Creator to “flow in an unimpeded manner through the breadth and depth of relationships that constitute it.”

Human existence is entangled existence. Our very being is constituted by the relationships of nurture we bear with the earth, our neighborhoods, families, and churches. Let us humbly acknowledge such entanglement, opening our (already opened) lives to become conduits of God’s grace and love for all.

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

A Life-Giving Struggle

The Old Testament is qualitatively identical with the New; both sets of texts bear concerted witness to the miraculous love of God for his world.

As we approach the season of Advent with its catena of hope-filled rituals and texts, I was reminded of a book I’d been meaning to read for quite some time.

The prophet Isaiah features prominently in the Revised Common Lectionary’s slate of Advent readings. This year (Year A, 2022-23) we meet Isaiah in chapters 2, 11, 35, 7, and (of course) 9. These are passages which feature Jerusalem lifted up, peace reigning over death, the parched wilderness bursting into bloom. These are passages penned by a hope-filled, brimming-with-boldness prophet (Isaiah the son of Amoz), speaking truth to those in power (within Israel) and offering glimpses of God’s eternal reign.

The book of Isaiah is, of course, situated in what Christians call the Old Testament, the 39 books (for most Protestants) spanning from Genesis to Malachi which recount the story of God’s people Israel. For Jews this book is called the Hebrew Bible, the Tanak (T-N-K, the consonants in Hebrew, stand for Torah, Neviim, Ketuviim, meaning Law, Prophets, Writings). In this collection of texts, written at different times, by different authors, with different aims, and in different genres, we encounter the complex, dramatic, and breathtaking script (cf. Scripture) which narrates Israel’s history and hope.

For Christians, however, the Old Testament is often viewed as a problem, an obstacle, a bugaboo-hobgoblin hybrid! In what way is the Hebrew Bible –the Scriptural witness of a discrete and defined people (Israel)– Scripture for non-Israeli, “Gentile” Christians, such as you and me?

The apostle Paul tells Timothy –his half-gentile pastoral prodigy in Ephesus– to hold fast to the sacred writings he’s known since his youth; the Scriptures which are able to lead one to salvation, fill one with divine life, and equip one as pastor of God’s church (2 Tim. 3:14-17). Paul tells Timothy to rely wholeheartedly on Scripture for everything he needs, and guess what he meant by “Scripture”? The Hebrew Bible.

The New Testament was not recognized as a canonical collection of writings (“Scriptures”) until at least the late second century (AD), over one hundred years later than the writings of the apostle Paul. This means that “Scripture” for the earliest Christians, even for the figurehead of Christianity itself, Jesus, meant something different (in scope) than what we imagine today: it meant the Hebrew Bible.

Of course, through the process of canonization (the recognition of the divine authority and spiritual utility of the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible and the 27 of the New Testament), the Christian Bible came to include more than just the Scriptures of Israel. However, such texts in particular (i.e., the Hebrew Bible) are mentioned by the earliest Christians as being charged with divine life and capable of leading one to salvation. This means that Christians must reckon with the Old Testament, seeing it not as a bugaboo or an obstacle but as an illuminating, energizing, source of divine life, to the same degree that the New Testament is for us.

The book I’d been meaning to read for quite some time (to return to my opening sentence), is Brevard Childs’s, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Eerdmans, 2004). Let me just say: I have read many handfuls of books on various topics in the field of Biblical Studies (I am not bragging, I was forced to read such books for six years in college and graduate school!), but this work by Childs is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.

The title says it all: Christians throughout the centuries have struggled to understand the book of Isaiah as Christian Scripture. Childs’s book, then, takes the reader on a journey from the apostles (1st century), through the church fathers (2nd-4th centuries), the medieval and reformation periods (11th-16th centuries), all the way up through the post-Enlightenment, modern period, and post-modern setting in which we find ourselves today. Through sustained engagement with Christian interpreters of Isaiah throughout the centuries, Childs traces the manner in which Christians have struggled (valiantly) to interpret this document as a living testimony to Jesus Christ.

The book is well worth the read but may be difficult and a bit dense for non-specialists. My aim, then, is to summarize his conclusions. The questions he aims to answer are as follows: Are there any discernable threads which span from the 2nd century readings of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus all the way up to the post-Enlightenment readings of modernity? If so, what traits have characterized Christian interpretation of Isaiah throughout the history of the Christian church?

After three hundred pages of historical and theological analysis, Childs lists six enduring features which consistently emerge in the church’s struggle to read Isaiah as Christian Scripture: the authority of Scripture; its literal and spiritual senses; Scripture’s two testaments; its divine and human authorship; its Christological content; and the dialectical nature of history. In what follows, I will take each of these in turn.

The Authority of Scripture. Childs first writes, “A basic characteristic of Christian exegesis [throughout history] has been its acknowledgment of the authority of Scripture.” Inherent in the Christian reading of Isaiah has been an acknowledgment of the divine authority of the Hebrew Scriptures. Interpreters from early on believed that one couldn’t truly apprehend the Old Testament as Scripture if one did not acknowledge (in practice and belief) the normative utility and function of such texts for the church. Here lies the rub, however: the authority of Scripture, throughout centuries of sustained reflection, did not derive from any quality intrinsic to the texts themselves (i.e., the elegance of its rhetoric, its grammatical and historical accuracy, etc.), but rather from its designation by God as writings “for the life of the church.” In the words of Childs, “biblical authority was manifested, above all, in its usage in shaping the life of the congregation through preaching, liturgy, and catechesis [instruction].”

The Literal and Spiritual Senses of Scripture. Next, Childs concludes that “a basic characteristic of Christian exegesis has been its recognition of both a literal and a spiritual dimension of scripture.” Throughout the history of Christianity, Christian interpreters have taken pains to understand the historical, grammatical, philological meaning of the words, phrases, and references in the Scriptural text (the literal meaning). However, along with such pursuits, Christians throughout the ages have always dug deeper, discovering transcendent yet connected meaning, from the past, for the present. John Calvin and Martin Luther, famous figureheads of the Protestant Reformation, took pains to “extend their interpretation of the literal/historical sense to apply existentially to the needs of contemporary congregations.”

Scripture’s Two Testaments. “An essential component shaping family resemblance within the Christian tradition is the conviction that the Christian Bible consists of both and Old Testament and a New Testament.” While the exact nature of the relationship between the two has been debated for centuries, Christian interpreters from the very beginning have acknowledged the independent (yet connected) authority of each corpus in its own right. Against viewing the Old Testament as “Law” and the New Testament as “Gospel” (or “Letter” versus “Spirit”), Martin Luther, for example, “demonstrated how the Old Testament could function according to the Spirit as gospel, whereas the New Testament could be rendered as mere letter” at times. The spiritual posture and expectations of the reader are thus significant: both testaments comprise “Christian Scripture” and we can fall into reading either in an unhealthy, un-Christian way (as dead letter/Law as opposed to life-giving Word/Gospel).

The Divine and Human Authorship of Scripture. Throughout the centuries “the Christian church has always confessed that God was the author of scripture... Yet at the same time human beings were designated as authors communicating the teachings of God.” One conceptualization of this was offered by Thomas Aquinas (13th century), who suggests that “the literal sense is what the human authors intended in their writings, but because God comprehends everything all at once, a multiplicity of sense can also be derived from the one divine intention.” Somehow it was held in tension that the time, culture, and language-conditioned words of particular human beings were to be taken with the utmost seriousness, while at the same time those words constituted the very Word of God, capable of transcending time, culture, and language, to address his people in the ever-changing present.

The Christological Content of the Christian Bible. The questions asked and answered under this heading are: “Is there a determinate meaning within the biblical texts of the Christian Bible?” Or are the texts so capacious and capable of diverse meanings as to render the quest for a singular reference meaningless? Childs answers: “Traditional Christian exegesis took it for granted that the biblical witness was directed toward a specific reference.” And that reference? Jesus Christ. The parameters established to safeguard such a reference are comprised in what Childs calls the “rule of faith,” or the canon. While many think of divine inspiration (God breathing his life-giving Spirit into Scripture) as related only to the words of Scripture, Childs extends this to the editorial arrangement, collection, and coherence of the “canon” itself. The deliberate collection of the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New, the precise arrangement of the texts therein, and their “final form” for use by the church, has been shaped, influenced, and guided by God’s divine Spirit. The boundaries, limits, and scope of the canon itself, then, functions to steer readers towards its telos, its “determinate meaning,” and that is: the life of the Word, Jesus Christ.

The Dialectical Nature of History. Lastly (thanks for hanging on this long!), Childs writes, “An intense interest in the nature of history has been an enduring characteristic of the Christian interpretation of the Bible from its inception.” With the word dialectical Childs means that distinctions have been often expressed “between ordinary and divine events, between an inner and outer dimension, or between a confessional or secular perception.” Johannes Cocceius (17th century), for example, sought to emphasize the “radical eschatological nature of God’s action in history. This was not an extension of human events; it was qualitatively different.” He goes on to interpret the prophetic history in Isaiah “in apocalyptic terms as a discontinuity between the old and new ages.” With Martin Luther, Cocceius “sought to recover an existential quality of history,” not separating ordinary and divine, but not melding them either.

After this painstaking analysis, Childs concludes that there do exist some strands of continuity stretching from the earliest Christian interpreters to the present day. Such Christians have struggled to understand Isaiah and other portions of the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture, but their struggles have paid immense dividends.

As we enter the season of Advent, rife with passages from Isaiah, the Psalms, and elsewhere, I would encourage you to receive the Hebrew Bible as Scripture; to see in such texts the life-giving Gospel of Jesus, which, when read with the eyes of faith, can lead readers to salvation, healing, and completion. The Old Testament is qualitatively identical with the New; both sets of texts bear concerted witness to the miraculous love of God for his world.

This Advent season, in the words of Isaiah the prophet: “Come! Let us walk in the light of the LORD” (2:5).

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

"Come and See..."

This past week, I had the privilege of attending (virtually) the Center for Pastor Theologians’ annual conference themed Reconstructing Evangelicalism (2022). 

As has been clear over the past few years (perhaps decades for some), the transdenominational movement within American Christianity known as ‘Evangelicalism’ has become so enmeshed with and corrupted by certain American sociopolitical and economic ideologies, that many scholars, pastors, and leaders, are questioning the viability (i.e., salvageability) of the movement (and the label) moving forward.

Over the course of this conference, several participants and speakers noted a phenomenon with which I resonate, given my personal experience with the Evangelical movement. That theme consists of the excluding or silencing of marginal, off-center theological voices and writers. 

One participant courageously commented that when she attended an Evangelical seminary to pursue her Master of Divinity degree –usually a three year, 70+ credit-hour program– not once was she required to read a feminist, Womanist, or Black liberation theologian.

This is especially noteworthy, since in the mid to late 20th century, we have seen a proliferation of such ‘contextual’ theologies, including: Latin American and Black liberation theologies, Asian American and Queer/LGBTQIA theologies, theologies of disability and trauma, as well as ecotheologies, and many others.

Many of these voices, however, are silenced, prohibited, or (at least) seriously discouraged within Evangelical seminaries, not to mention within Evangelical churches.

In American Evangelical circles, when such an issue or topic is raised, be it LGBTQIA identity, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, environmentalism, etc., there is such anxiety over certainty, such a desire to control the parameters of truth, and to ward off notions of mystery, complexity, and diversity, that these perspectives which would otherwise invigorate, refine, and revitalize, are either muffled, misrepresented, or (at worst) quelled. 

This tragedy is something with which I can resonate, since during undergraduate study I was never required to read such marginal, contextual theologians. The theology, church history, and biblical scholarship I read, rather, came almost exclusively from a Western, male, protestant perspective. And whenever such ‘other views’ were discussed, it was always on the terms of, through the categories of, from the perspective of, the dominant White male Evangelical teacher.

Such marginal voices, then, were never actually heard. Rather, they were distorted, they were muffled, they were discouraged. And so, my understanding of theology, of church history, and of Scripture, was largely controlled and thus largely limited.

After this experience, however, I enrolled at a graduate school where such boundaries did not exist. The windows were opened and I entered into a spacious land of curiosity, inquiry, and exploration (which was not without its dangers!).

In this space, I engaged the writings of feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, the ecotheologies of Neo-Agrarians, and the Womanism of M. Shawn Copeland (and others). I have since engaged the work of Latin American and Black liberation theologians, theologians studying trauma and disability, and I look forward to exploring the rich perspectives of many others.

Mark Noll, in the Q&A session after a panel discussion of his book, the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (25th anniversary edition), noted the above phenomenon and asked: “Why do we not take a “come and see” approach, as opposed to a “let me tell you what I think approach””? 

In other words, when an issue is raised from the culture, be it Critical Race Theory, Darwinian evolution, Marxist economics, etc., rather than immediately interjecting with a prohibition of such ideas, or a reductionist muffling of such perspectives –i.e., with an authoritarian attempt to control the categories, terms, and purview of the discussion– what if we, like Jesus (John 1:46), adopted a “come and see” approach instead?

Critical Race Theory? “Come and see.” Latin American liberation theology? “Come and see.” Postcolonial, critical, and/or Queer theory? “Come and see.”

What if instead of preemptively silencing such voices, and thus continuing to domineer and control the conversation, what if we, rather, like Jesus, encouraged exploration, discovery, and curiosity What if we discussed these issues together, read these authors together, considered these viewpoints together, heeding Christ’s call to “come and see”?

It is my contention, based on personal experience and theological reflection, that while we may not agree with everything said by such voices, taking the time to attend to such views, such perspectives, such persons, will invigorate, flavor, and energize our lives as followers of Jesus today.

By welcoming such persons to the table, our voices will no longer control the discussion; theology will cease to be the domain of only one kind of theologian. Through such welcome, our blind spots could be exposed, our ability to connect repaired, and our witness to Christ rehabilitated.  

I, for one, plan to continue on in this truly life-giving journey, and I would love some company on the way. So, right now, at this critical point in history, I invite you to “come and see” with me.

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

A Spiritual Symphony

Poetry, painting, praise, engaged in the company of others, presents a spiritual symphony to our sin-darkened souls.

My appreciation for the arts has been long in the making. But such is often the case for those durable, irremediable ‘tastes’ we acquire in life.

Prose literature was where it began, but it has since blossomed into an appetite for forms musical, visual, and architectural as well. Art has a way of reaching past the ‘default processors’ which we normally use to access reality. It bypasses those conventional, straightforward tools of perception we employ on a daily basis.

Art trades less in information and more in experience; less in instruction and more in transformation; less in volition and more in invasion. Art evokes an experience often impeded by quotidian realities. It generates a form of consciousness often unreachable through standard modes of attention.

One of the most evocative descriptions of art, of its debilitating and galvanizing habit, comes from the scarcely mentioned 20th-century writer Willa Cather. In her third novel, The Song of the Lark (published in 1915), Cather traces the life of a budding, Colorado-born artist (musician), Thea Kronborg.

Miss Kronborg, throughout the novel, is portrayed as an austere, resolute Swedish child, whose soul plays host to a mysterious artistic talent. After moving to Chicago, the then musical Mecca of the United States, she exhausts every reason to avoid the symphony until she cannot any longer.

In the fifth section of Part 2 (entitled “the Song of the Lark”), Thea finally attends the symphony, and Cather recounts her experience:

The first theme had scarcely been given out when her mind became clear; instant composure fell upon her, and with it came the power of concentration... When the first movement ended, Thea’s hands and feet were cold as ice. She was too much excited to know anything except that she wanted something desperately, and when the English horns gave out the theme of the Largo, she knew what she wanted was exactly that...

After leaving the concert hall, in what seemed a trance, a February storm was raging in downtown Chicago:

The streets were full of cold, hurrying, angry people, running for street-cars and barking at each other... For almost the first time Thea was conscious of the city itself, of the congestion of life all about her, of the brutality and power of those streams that flowed in the street... People jostled her, ran into her, poked her aside with their elbows, uttering angry exclamations... She stood there dazed and shivering.... Why did these men torment her?

Cather goes on:

A cloud of dust blew in her face and blinded her. There was some power abroad in the world bent upon taking away from her that feeling with which she had come out of the concert hall... If one had that, the world became one’s enemy; people, buildings, wagons, cars, rushed at one to crush it under, to make one let go of it. Thea glared round her at the crowds, the ugly, sprawling streets, the long lines of lights... All these things and people were no longer remote and negligible; they had to be met, they were lined up against her, they were there to take something from her... They might trample her to death, but they should never have it. As long as she lived that ecstasy was going to be hers. She would live for it, work for it, die for it; but she was going to have it...

Willa Cather is no Karl Barth, but she’s more of a theologian than most give her credit for. The musical art delivered (in the midwiferal sense) through the Chicago Symphony Orchestra awakened an ethereal fire in Thea Kronborg which the world seemed hell-bent to quench.

With this image, so delicately traced through the pen of Cather, I can’t help but think of two famous passages of Christian Scripture:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:14-15).

We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies (2 Corinthians 4:7-10).

The ecstasy accessed by Thea Kronborg, awakened by the symphony’s art, is immediately threatened by the congested, harsh world to which the concert-hall doors rudely open. In the very same way, the ethereal light, the invaluable treasure, which is sheathed in the frail bodies of Christ’s followers, is bombarded from all directions by the forces of evil and darkness.

Jesus Christ awakens an energy which lay (almost) dormant in the recesses of our hearts, an energy which, when awakened, attracts the full and complete attention of this stormy, oppressive world.

As Thea spends the rest of her life protecting, cultivating, and unleashing this energy upon the world (in the form of musical art), so ought Christians to devote their lives to stewarding the ecstatic power which lies within us (i.e., the Holy Spirit).

While thoughtful intellection and dutiful instruction may help brighten this light, the medium of art is unparalleled in this holy task of stewardship.

Artistic media engages the senses, the emotions, the deep places where our “bushel-covered” flames are fueled. Poetry, painting, praise, engaged in the company of others, presents a spiritual symphony to our sin-darkened souls. By engaging art together, especially in the practice of Christian worship, followers of Jesus are thus awakened in truly unimaginable ways.

“She could hear the crash of the orchestra again... She would have it, what the trumpets were singing! She would have it, have it – it!” May we too have “it,” and may we never let it go.

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

The Holiness of the Particular

“Labour well the Minute Particulars: attend to the Little Ones / And those who are in misery cannot remain so long / If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth / He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.”

-William Blake, “The Holiness of Minute Particulars”

“No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity.”

–Wendell Berry, “The Body and the Earth”

Among the numerous ‘centering’ quotes plastered on the wall of my office is the above statement by Wendell Berry. I remember the feeling I had upon reading his words for the first time several years ago: refreshment, possibility, hope. Berry in 1965 left an illustrious position as professor of English at New York University, to return to his native Kentucky, where he and his family would tend a 117-acre Henry County homestead.

Berry’s essays, poems, and novels, speak as prophecy to me; prophecy not in a predictive sense, but in an apocalyptic (unveiling), truth-disclosing, existentially re-orienting sense. His sentiments emerge from a life that has become nearly indistinguishable from its place, from a human heart that beats as one with household, earth, and air.

Our world today is beset with a bewildering array of crises, from viral pandemic and nuclear war to rampant gun-violence and civil strife. It is tempting, at such a time, to deride figures like Berry as being escapist, separatist, or worse: passive. Yet Berry’s localized conscience, his sense of “particular responsibility,” may be the best cure for these problems which plague our world.

William Blake, one of Berry’s poetic ‘instructors’, writes: “He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars / General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer / For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars / And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power.”

Any attempt to generalize our conscience, to be concerned for “the world” at large, is a plea of the scoundrel, the hypocrite, the flatterer. It is an exercise in emptiness, futility, even folly.

“No matter how much one may love the world as a whole,” writes Berry, “one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it.” Walking the streets of New York City, this acclaimed literary critic was doubtless bombarded with grand visions, activist pleas, global proposals for progress, peace, and salvation.

Berry, however, returned home, to the earthy rural womb of Lane’s Landing, Kentucky. (He writes about this place with piercing tenderness in his famous essay, “A Native Hill.”) Berry, like his predecessor Blake, believes that effective, transformative living can only happen on a local scale. To love and serve “the world” then, is to love and serve one’s household, one’s neighborhood, one’s place.

Such particularized action is not passive; it’s neither separatist, escapist, nor inefficient. Such action is the only kind that is real, that can actually, concretely change the world.

“Labour well the Minute Particulars: attend to the Little Ones / And those who are in misery cannot remain so long.”

To ignore the “little ones,” to neglect the “minute particulars,” in favor of grand visions, global impact, and world change, is to truly do nothing at all. It’s to live somewhere other than here, to commit hypocrisy in the grossest sense of the term, and to fall ever more deeply into folly.

Berry and Blake thus provide hope to little ones in little places. They provide hope to the nameless, the ordinary, the small. They provide hope to those suffering other-than-newsworthy pain; hope to those serving communities unacknowledged, undistinguished. They provide hope to the myriad “little persons,” like you and me, whose efforts at times feel too small.

The specific, the small, the local, together is the world. These tiny worlds-within-worlds, households, neighborhoods, institutions, and the work we are doing therein is real, it’s constructive, it’s worth it.

As you go about your days and weeks, loving your families, helping your neighbors, serving your communities, know that you are changing the world. You are transforming and reconstructing the only world there really is, a world that is holy and particular.

To Blake and Berry then, I might add another, whose words have been fulfilled beyond our wildest dreams:

The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed that a person took and sowed in their field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds even make nests in its branches (Matthew 13:31-2).

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

Disciplined Empathy

“Being overly empathic is dangerous.”

My heart bleeds for the earth, the (human) world, and the church. Day after day I am struck by the issues, incidents, and ailments which characterize our bleeding world. As my custom is to fixate, obsess, and resolve, I pour my passion straight into these vessels and am surprised (somehow) to find myself emptier than before. I want to charge the issues straight-on, meet them face-to-face, deal with them directly and for good.

But “being overly empathic is dangerous,” writes clinical psychologist and spiritual theologian Robert Wicks. Pouring yourself into every vessel leaves you with nothing left to pour, and perhaps more importantly, nothing left to drink. My heart bleeds for many things, but if I don’t pay attention, I’ll bleed out.

Not that I am anywhere near the point of “bleeding out.” Rather, I am learning of the danger of empathy, too direct, too sustained.

Much of my empathy is for friends, family, and others who have been harmed, sometimes irrecoverably, by the church. Much of my bleeding is for those who’ve been sliced by Christianity, and who, for right reasons, don’t care to “come back.” I bleed for those who have become disillusioned with what the church, in many places, has become. I bleed for those who feel hoodwinked, bewitched, or exploited, who feel that whatever the church is, to them it just isn’t right.

There are so many things to bleed for that some days I worry I’ll bleed out.

Before accepting the call to pastor this wonderful New England church, I spent most of my time not in the present but rather in the past, the ancient past.

For some inexplicable reason, I became enamored with antiquity, Mediterranean antiquity at first, Egyptian antiquity at last. My academic interests concern not the mainstream urban élite Christians who lived in Alexandria (a bustling coastal metropolis in northern Egypt). I was less interested in the patriarchs, the bishops, the institutional “kingpins” in the city. Rather, I became enamored with the countless countryside Christians struggling to eke out a living in the unforgiving Egyptian wilderness. I became interested, in other words, in the monks.

Not all rural Christians in Roman Egypt (1st-5th century AD) were monks, of course, but many of the writings bequeathed to us from this region and period are from (or about) monastics, figures such as Antony (ca. 254-356), Pachomius (ca. 292-346), Amoun (ca. 290-347), Shenoute (ca. 348-465), and others.

These are likely names you’ve never heard, yet their legacies live on, influencing countless Christians across Africa, Asia, Europe, and beyond.

During the third and fourth centuries, Christianity in Egypt became increasingly institutional and politicized. Among the patriarchs and bishops in Alexandria especially, the history of Christianity largely becomes the history of Alexandrian politics, and the politics of the Roman Empire at large. Figures such as Athanasius of Alexandria began to wield considerable political power in the Empire as Constantine pronounced Christianity the official and state “religion” (ask me some other time why this word is in quotation marks) of the Empire.

As urban elite clergy gained political influence and Christianity was blended with statecraft, we see others far off in the hinterland embracing lives of profound discipline and peace. One such person was Antony, whose monastic life is artfully illuminated in the Life of St. Antony by (the aforementioned) Athanasius of Alexandria.

Antony is often viewed (whether rightfully or not) as the founder of Egyptian monasticism, setting the stage for the discipline that would define Christian existence across continents and across millennia. Antony’s life is nothing short of fantastical, includes bouts with demons, hyenas, and centaurs; days without food or water; letters from the Emperor himself; miraculous feats of healing and knowledge, and the like. The tale reads like the Odyssey, the Gospel of Mark, or the legends of Beowulf, King Arthur, and others.

As I reflect upon the myriad ailments which plague our world today, and as I try to bleed for them in a way that doesn’t drain me, I find solace and hope in St. Antony.

Joining the monks of the Egyptian countryside gives me the remoteness I need to reflect thoughtfully, carefully, and tenderly upon the countless issues which face our world. To join the monks is not to stop bleeding but to slow the bleeding, to clean the wound but not heal it, to discipline my empathic engagement with the world.

The monks present for us a truly alternative way of being in the world. By detaching themselves from the structures, systems, and webs of influence, which often hunt, capture, and devour our souls, they display a resilience and composure completely unparalleled in the world today. By standing outside the stream of social progress, political machination, economic locomotion, the monks of the Egyptian countryside find something true to say, something real to give.

Hear me: I am not advocating aloof detachment from the pressing social issues which face our world. Rather, I am claiming that unfettered, unabated, and unregulated empathy, may leave us empty and bewildered, left with nothing true to say, and nothing real to give.

Antony, on the other hand, through his life of discipline, detachment, dissent, lived himself to a place where others could only dream of being: a place of clarity, peace, a place of holiness.

Toward the end of his Life of St. Antony, Athanasius of Alexandria writes the following:

“It was as if a physician had been given by God to Egypt. For who in grief met Antony and did not return rejoicing? Who came mourning for his dead and did not put off his sorrow? Who came in anger and was not converted to friendship? Who when tempted by demons, came to him and did not find rest? And who came troubled with doubts and did not get quietness of mind?

For not from writings, nor from worldly wisdom, nor through any art, was Antony renowned, but solely from his piety towards God... For even if the monks work secretly, even if they wish to remain in obscurity, the Lord shows them as lamps to lighten all, that those who hear may know that the precepts of God are able to make men prosper and be zealous in the path of virtue.”

Let us bleed, then. Antony certainly did. But let us discipline our bleeding with quiet love, care, and devotion, letting God do something real through us.

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

Slanted Truth

Tell all the truth but tell it slant / Success in Circuit lies / Too bright for our infirm Delight / The Truth's superb surprise / As Lightning to the Children eased / With explanation kind / The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind. – Emily Dickinson*

I was first made aware of this poem through a sermon delivered by Debie Thomas (“Good News Too Soon: When Triumph Hurts”), minister at St. Mark’s Episcopal in Palo Alto, California (Thomas blogs regularly for the Christian webzine Journey with Jesus; I’d encourage you to check it out!).

Rev. Thomas begins her message as follows: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant, because the truth’s superb surprise is too bright for our eyes. Unless it’s offered to us gently, with kindness, patience, and wisdom, it won’t do us good. In fact, it might even do us harm.”

The poem she references, written by the great Massachusetts wordsmith Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), reflects upon the tenuous nature of truth-telling. The poem consists of four verse-couplets, the first line of which is in iambic tetrameter (four accented syllables), the second iambic trimeter (three accented syllables).

The first line, then, is to be read as follows (stressed syllables in bold):

Tell all | the truth | but tell | it slant

And the second: Success | in Cir | cuit lies

The first two lines (one couplet), then, should be read as one verbal mouthful:

Tell all | the truth | but tell | it slant | Success | in Cir | cuit lies.

If read correctly you would’ve heard the following rhythm: “da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM,” i.e., seven da-DUMs and then “breath!”

Now, try reading the rest of the poem with the above syllables stressed.  

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies (breath).

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise (breath).

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind (breath).

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind — (Wasn’t that fun!?)

Now, you may be asking me: why the poetry lesson? Why the syllable stress, the meter, the rhythm?

Well, poetry as a genre of literature operates differently than conversational discourse, prose narrative, or argumentative writing. With poetry it’s less about what it means –i.e., the information-content expressed by the words– and more about how it means –i.e., the formation, order, and sound of the words themselves.

Poetry, to begin with, needs to be experienced and felt rather than interpreted or understood. Toward that end, in poetry the very form of the language has meaning. This means that syllable stress, word order, sound, speed, even type-set, are all crucial factors in the formation of meaning.

To read a poem well then, we need to ask: How does the language behave? How does it express meaning? The question, then, is less “what does a poem mean?” than “how does a poem mean?”

What is so striking about Dickinson’s poem –which seems to be an example of ars poetica (Latin for “the art of poetry”; a poem which remarks upon the nature of poetry itself)– is that its form not only contributes to its meaning-content; it exemplifies its meaning-content!

Tell all the truth but tell it slant / Success in Circuit lies. Successful truth-telling, writes Dickinson, lies “in Circuit”: in a sort of circular, cyclical hovering rather than in a direct, straightforward exchange. The meaning-content of this line is that successful truth-telling depends on indirection, on orbit rather than collision, on a slanted, rather than flat/straight plane. The use of poetic verse with its indirect form thus mirrors the truth-content of these lines.

Too bright for our infirm Delight / The Truth’s superb surprise. The superb surprise of raw truth is too bright for our frail human minds to accept, comprehend, and enjoy (cf., “delight”). The brilliance of truth is such that it would overwhelm us if received directly. Our infirm nature as finite, limited human creatures prevents us from a direct, straightforward experience of Truth.

As Lightning to the Children eased / With explanation kind. Truth must be handled as lightning is handled among fearful children: adults, by kindly explaining what lightning is, melt away the children’s fears. The sheer brilliance of such heavenly energy is made palatable and acceptable through indirect and gentle explanation.

The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind. In plain(er) terms Dickinson concludes her poem: the brilliant splendor of truth must dazzle in a gradual, indirect, circuitous way, or else by it human beings will be made blind. Truth, therefore, compared to bright rays, bolts of lightning, and sparkling sheen, can only be effectively received in a gradual, orbital kind of way.

Rev. Thomas goes on in her message to describe Christians as “bearers of the gospel... of good news.” She says that “Christians affirm that the truth at the heart of reality is that of healing, hope, forgiveness, justice, and peace.” The truth of which Dickinson sings, then, is for Christians the truth of resurrection, a truth which must dazzle gradually or leave every person blind.

Christians then, as followers of Jesus, are in possession of news that is good, news that conveys the Truth of all reality. This news is resurrection, “the cosmic defeat of evil and death,” the fulfillment of God’s dream, namely: “the wiping away of all tears, the soothing of all terrors, the easing of all pain.”

“This dream,” Thomas proclaims, “this gorgeous, indescribable dream, will triumph over all others which attempt to dispel it.” The truth then, that Christians bear, is the news that with God comes resurrection, on a social, political, physical, spiritual, and even an ecological plane.

The truth to which Christians bear witness can be dazzling, illuminating, and healing. But if wielded too directly, head-on without gentleness and care, such truth will blind rather than bless.

Christians, then, I encourage you to practice slanting your truth; to take heed of Dickinson’s ultimate claim, that: “The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind – ”

 Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

*Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (#1129 in Complete Poems, edited by Thomas H. Johnson [London: Faber & Faber, 1976]).

**The image above (an early manuscript of “Tell All the Truth but Tell it Slant”) and others can be accessed online at the richly furnished Emily Dickinson Archive.

Healing Across the Divide

If the church is to be the church, it needs to embrace political diversity.

So, I’m breaking my own rules here since this post is not based directly on something I am reading. It is inspired, rather, by a number of conversations I have had as of late, and by an episode in The Pastor Theologians Podcast (link here).

In this post, I would like to address the now-quite-popular theme of political polarization. Such polarization, as many know, has reached a staggering high in American society today.

If you pay any attention whatsoever to the media (social media certainly included), you’ll see liberals and conservatives fiercely upbraiding their “opponents.” You’ll see vitriol, misrepresentation, and flagrant rebuke. In the process, left and right are moving further and further apart, as the American populace becomes ever and more polarized.

What Gerald Hiestand helpfully notes in this episode of the CPT podcast (see link above) is that Christian churches are being tempted to follow suit with this pattern of polarization.

Tragically, the process has already begun. Conservative churches have publicly condemned liberal ones; liberal pastors have blatantly chastised conservative ones (vice versa to both); and, even worse, conservatives and liberals in the same congregation are being pushed further and further apart.

Christians are talking to Christians the same way the far-left talks to the far-right (and vice versa). Polarization, it seems, has already entered the church.

To be the body of Christ, however, to truly shine as a lampstand of Jesus (cf. Rev. 2:1-7), we must resist such polarization.

While Christians share the same sacred texts, worship the same Triune God, and follow the same Lord Jesus (the) Christ, we exhibit a vast diversity of opinion on our civic and political responsibilities.

The line from theology to politics, in other words, is anything but straightforward. You and I may agree on numerous doctrinal propositions yet disagree (quite starkly!) about what forms of civic action should emerge from such positions.

Such diversity of opinion is, I think, what makes the church so interesting! And in the current of American society today, it presents to us a key opportunity: to model unity-in-diversity for a fragmented and polarized world. 

Toward this end, the church needs to plainly admit that there is no singular Christian party (political). To be a Christian, to be an Evangelical even, is not to be a conservative/Republican, nor to be a liberal/Democrat!

While in recent years, American Evangelicalism has been ‘popularly’ associated with conservative politics, statistical evidence shows that such an association may be changing (see chap. 1 of David Gushee’s, After Evangelicalism for precise figures and references). In 2014, for example, the Pew Research Center reported that 28% of evangelicals were left-leaning while 56% leaned right. 2014, however, was eight years ago, and antedates the watershed election of a certain American president.

Since then, based on trends I have seen, conversations I have had, and books I have studied, I would estimate that the percentage of Evangelicals who now lean left is much closer to the percentage who lean right.

The Evangelical church, if it is to survive, cannot afford to be aligned with a singular political party. In practice, what this means is that those Christians who lean left cannot afford to look down on those Christians who lean right. Conversely, it has to mean that those Christians who lean right cannot afford to look down on those Christians who lean left.

To be a Christian, friends, does not mean to be a Republican. Nor does it mean, however, to be a Democrat. Any suggestion that is does both compromises our witness to the gospel and impairs our ability to be Christ’s hands and feet.

If the church is to be the church, it needs to embrace political diversity. If we choose, on the other hand, to follow suit with American society by becoming singular, polarized, or divided, we will cease to be the church. Our lampstand will be removed (Rev. 2:5).  

In view of this, I for one, am excited for the future of the church. This excitement does depend, however, on a considerable degree of openness.

Our church, the First Baptist Church of Freeport, can be this place of openness: a place of diversity, inclusion, conversation; a place of genuine listening and love.

At this pivotal moment in our culture, friends, let us resist the vice of polarization. Let us as the body of Christ, be a place of healing across the divide.

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

The Traumatized God

“For the cross to truly cost God, wouldn’t it make him less-than-God afterward?”

“Wouldn’t it affect him in some irreversible way?”

These were some of the questions asked during the fifth session of our course Theology: the Basics (salvation being the topic of the hour). “What happened to Jesus on the cross,” one student asked: “how was it costly to God?”

To give you a little background, we’d been discussing theories of the atonement, such as St. Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory and the Medieval Ransom to Satan theory. Each theory is unique, but they gesture toward the same idea: the cross cost God something.

The inquisitive student queried further: “For the cross to truly cost God, wouldn’t it make him less-than-God afterward? I mean: for it to truly cost God something, wouldn’t it affect him in some irreversible way?”

This got me thinking.

First, it got me thinking of a book I’d read the year before: the Crucified God by Jürgen Moltmann. Therein Moltmann devotes unflinching attention to how the Cross is (or should be) foundational for all of Christian theology. The whole book is well worth a read, but one theme in particular stands out. At the cross, reasons Moltmann, God is paradoxically, unimaginably separated from Godself. Yes, I said it: separated.

As Jesus quotes the words of Psalm 22:1 (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), God the Son is abandoned by God the Father. At the very same ‘time’, it seems, God the Father is bereaved of his only Son (God the Word). In stupefying fashion then, on the cross, Moltmann argues: God is separated from God.

Thinking apart from the cross for a moment (if we can even do that!), Father, Son, and Spirit exist together in unbreakable union. From eternity past the Godhead has coexisted in interdependent mutuality and harmony. On the cross, however, it seems that this Trinity was effectively broken, ruptured, torn asunder (for a time; cf. 1 Cor. 15:1f).

As we were discussing this, flexing our flimsy intellects with varied success, I couldn’t help but hear one word in the quiet recesses of my (exhausted) mind: trauma... trauma. What God experienced on the cross was nothing less than trauma.

According to theologian Deanna Thompson (now in her fourth remission from cancer; see one of her recent books here), trauma is suffering that remains. To experience trauma, she says, is to experience something so cataclysmic, so category-shifting, so overwhelming, that afterwards one is never quite the same.

Theologians such as Thompson, Shelly Rambo, Nancy Eiesland, and others, have pioneered this new field of theology. They are sourcing their reflections on God from the traumatic, existential impact of the cross. God, such theologians claim, has experienced a sort of trauma. On the cross, God was so pierced, shaken, and distressed, that afterwards he was never quite the same.

About three years ago, I experienced an episode of trauma. It was much, much less serious than what God and countless others have experienced, but it was trauma all the same. I awoke in the wee hours of the night, heart racing, sweat streaming, and my perception of life was at once different. Little did I know, I was experiencing my very first panic attack, which led to a long season of counseling, psychological diagnoses, and prescription medications. Even after something so small, I’ve felt a little different ever since.

The student from before had asked if God was deficient or perhaps something-less after the cross. My mind, however, went somewhere else...

God is not, I think, anything less, nor has he fundamentally changed (in nature). What God is now (after-the-cross), is just a little more human.

The original human pair, Adam and Eve, it says, “became like God” (cf. Gen. 3:5) when they ate from the fruit of the tree in Eden (immediately “knowing good and evil”). God, it would seem then, “became like us” when he ‘ate’ from the fruit of the cross (=death/separation).

To die, in its ‘real’ sense, is to be separated, disconnected, cut-off from the life-giving womb of community. Such separation, fragmentation, disconnection... God experienced in Godself (for a time). The wounds of divine trauma, the holes in Christ’s hands, the cracks in God’s heart, will never fully go away. And that doesn’t make God less-than-God. It makes him like one of us.

God has experienced trauma and he has never been the same since. The God we know, therefore, is not a woundless or compassionless God. No. Rather, he is a traumatized God.

He is the God who was fragmented so that we could be made whole. He is the God who bears wounds, so that someday he could heal ours. He’s the God who knows what it’s like to be lost, abandoned, alone.

And he’s the God who beckons us all to “come home... come home... come home.”

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

*The artwork displayed above is a crucifixion scene from the Syriac Rabbula Gospels (dated 586 AD). This, therefore, is the earliest crucifixion scene we possess from any New Testament manuscript.

Forgetful Presence

“Where we live without counting / where we have forgotten time / and have forgotten ourselves where eternity has seized us / we are entirely present / entirely trusting, eternal.”

–Wendell Berry, Sabbath Poems, 2007.IV

So muses Wendell Berry, the philosopher-farmer-prophet, whose words present a potent elixir to our restless, fragmented souls. From 1979 to 2012, Berry would walk his Kentucky farmstead alone on the Sabbath day with nothing but pad and pencil in hand. This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems is a transcript of Berry’s strolls.

His fourth poem in 2007 concerns the consciousness of time: a disease which left unchecked, he writes, “dooms us to the past.” To concern oneself with time, which we moderns have clearly mastered, is to forfeit any chance of real, authentic presence.

We know this all too well, especially those of us with packed-to-bursting schedules: the more we attune our consciousness to time, the more, it seems, time eludes us. We are left with no place to live, constantly remembering but never residing.

We focus on tasks to be accomplished and the measurable slivers of time available for use. All the while, we float through our days constantly looking back, back, back– remembering but never truly residing.

The word abide has really pollinated our church in recent years (cf. John 15:1-17). What does it mean to abide in God? And what does it mean to abide with others? Wendell Berry, I believe, can help with both.

To abide somewhere or in the presence of someone is to exercise a kind of forgetful presence. In the words of Berry, it is to “live without counting,” to forget one’s own self, to be “seized by eternity’s” grasp. Likewise, to truly abide with others is to let go of the measuring rod of consciousness, to quit quantifying and calculating, and to be, just be.

To abide with one’s children is to forget time, task, and tally. It is to lower the mirror of awareness, to slam shut –you could say– the mind’s-eye, and to lose oneself blissfully in their presence, if it is but for a moment.

Such moments though, I would argue, feel nothing like moments at all. There is no measurable quantity to them. Such moments are states of existence in which eternity itself has seized us, letting us live, finally –maybe for the very first time, exactly where we are.

As you consider, today, how to abide in God and with others, I urge you to practice forgetful presence, a mode of creaturely existence in which you are “entirely present, entirely trusting... eternal.”

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

A Loveless Church?

“This I have against you: you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Rev. 2:4).

Toward the end of the first century (ca. 92-96 AD), a certain Jewish prophet named John wrote what came to be the most provocative text in the Christian Bible: Revelation. This document, appearing last in printed Bibles today, is of hybrid literary character: it is at once apocalypse, prophecy, and letter, and was intended to function as both a liturgical and political guidebook.

The work as a whole was sent to seven actual churches located in ancient Asia Minor (western Turkey today): Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. After John wrote the work’s main series of visions (chs. 4-22), he wrote seven brief letters to each of these churches (chs. 2-3).

The first of such letters is to the seasoned church of Ephesus, the largest and most significant city of those addressed in Rev. 2-3. The Ephesian church was nearly four decades old, not a new church by any means.

This is how John phrases the opening of his letter to the Ephesians (note that Jesus is the speaker here):

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil... I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake. But this I have against you: you have abandoned the love you had at first” (2:2-4, ESV).

The Ephesian church is commended for their tireless work and patient endurance, defined further as their refusal to tolerate “wrongdoers” (cf. “those who are evil”). These wrongdoers are immediately identified in v. 2b (not included above) as “those who call themselves apostles but are not, who are actually false.” The Ephesian church had “endured patiently,” safeguarding truth and orthodoxy for nearly 40 years, but Jesus has one thing against them: they have forsaken the love they had at first.

Now, for quite some time, I interpreted such love to be love of Jesus. But after consulting some technical commentaries, carefully studying the Greek, and considering the tenor of this (mini-)letter, I now prefer a different interpretation: the love the Ephesians abandoned seems not to be love of Jesus but rather love of each other, or more broadly: love of all people.

The Ephesian church, in other words, had prized, treasured, and safeguarded doctrinal accuracy and theological truth. However, along the way they abandoned love. They thus prioritized truth and accuracy over heartfelt care and concern.

This, friends, is no small matter. The apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. 13:1-3 says, “If I speak in the tongues of humans and angels... If I have prophetic power... If I have faith to move mountains... If I give away all I have, but I have not love... I gain nothing...” Eugene Peterson, long-time pastor, poet, and theologian, similarly writes “the church is not the church if it has not love.”

I struggle to remember a time in my life at which such a message was more relevant and necessary. Certain branches of Christianity, in North America especially, have become like the Ephesian church: they have prized doctrinal accuracy and theological truth at the expense of their love of others.

A church, however, with truth but not love, cannot be the church. It cannot accomplish its purpose, namely: to reflect the light and love of Jesus Christ.

In our present cultural and political moment, some churches, like that of Ephesus, need to hear this message. They need to own up to this sobering reality, and ask God for help and direction.

Luckily, Jesus doesn’t leave the Ephesians in the dark, but tells them exactly what they are to do:

“Remember therefore from where you’ve fallen; repent and do the works you did at first” (2:5).

The works they did at first were likely deeds of charity, sensitivity, generosity, patience, kindness, and goodness. They were works of humility, support, endurance, hope, and love, definitely love.

Churches that have privileged doctrinal accuracy at the expense of love of the other ought simply to heed the advice of Jesus: “return to the loving actions you did at first, and only then can my light shine through you.”

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor

The Pastor as Writer

Throughout Christian history, the most impactful pastors by and large have been writers.

There’s Paul of Tarsus, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Augustine of Hippo, to name a few ancients. There’s Anselm of Canterbury, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, for medievals and early moderns. Last but not least, there’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fleming Rutledge, and Eugene Peterson, for us today.

The fact is: some of the best theological writing has emerged from the gritty, life-on-life demands of full-time pastoral ministry.

Now, I do not claim to occupy a space even close to these giants! I do know, however, that writing, good writing, emerging from the soil of local church ministry, can profoundly nourish both congregation and pastor. Upon the recommendations of others, then, I have decided to include writing as part of my formal responsibilities as pastor.

To date, much of my writing has been to a specialized, academic audience. For example, I currently write short reviews for Wiley’s Religious Studies Review, offering summary-analyses of the latest theological scholarship. I am also usually working on a paper to present at the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual meeting(s), a guild which draws professors, researchers, and religious leaders alike.

As pastor of this congregation, I feel a burden to write, but especially to write for you.

What I plan to do at first, then, is write about what I am reading. Whether it’s Wendell Berry’s poetry, Athanasius’s treatise on the Incarnation, or John Steinbeck’s religious allegory in East of Eden, my aim is to connect these literary worlds with the concrete world(s) in which you live. The following posts, then, will serve not as mere flags of my own literary interests. My hope, rather, is that they will provide fresh insights from a variety of places so as to enrich you spiritually today.

I look forward to embarking on this journey together, and I hope my articulations serve you well. May they be a spark which ignites a conversation, an idea which provokes fresh insight, an image which charts a trajectory as you navigate Christian life today.

Jonah Bissell

Associate Pastor