Fragment -- #87

[February 1999 journal entry]
While reading again through Bonhoeffer’s prison correspondence and after reading Chalmer’s What Is This Thing Called Science? (re the rise and fall of scientific theories and paradigms), I have been thinking about the many events of broad/horrific tragedy (e.g., WWII holocaust, Cambodia, Soviet gulags, African famines, Guatemala-Honduras hurricane in 1998, . . .). I have seen little evidence that such events have caused for very many a Job-like or Bonhoeffer-like shaking and discrediting of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm deep enough for the paradigm itself to collapse. Why not?

Fragment -- #86

[February 1999 journal entry]
Re ‘pre-modern’, ‘modern’, ‘post-modern’ paradigms -- (1) I am convinced that human beings are naturally/instinctively oriented toward building on observation and on empirical thinking when attempting to interpret life experiences. Therefore, ‘modern’ as a historical phase/period did not introduce for the first time a ‘from below’ method. This period represents an attempt (1a) to shift weight (and responsibility) to this ‘from below’ method, (1b) to be disciplined and rigorous in this ‘from below’ method, (1c) to achieve the intellectual freedom necessary for this ‘from below’ method to be followed, (1d) to promote the egalitarian disposition necessary for this ‘from below’ method to be followed, (1e) to make possible the education necessary for this ‘from below’ method to be followed. (2) To be ‘post-modern’ is necessarily to have been and, in an essential sense, to still be ‘modern’. (3) I am not deterred by the common objection/criticism that ‘modern’ leads to no longer ‘needing God’ when ‘need’ in this objection/criticism reflects a childish self-image rather than an adult self-image. Instead, the ‘non-religious’ approach I am following is radically (i.e., to the root) separate from the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm’s language and thinking re ‘needing God’ in a childish manner. (4) I do not agree with those theologians who, based on the current ‘post-modern’ enthusiasm, feel free to walk away from and ignore ‘modern’ scholarship/questions/discussions.

Fragment -- #85

[February 1999 journal entry]
Re ‘experience’ as a criterion for concluding an idea is true/trustworthy -- (1) Only via indiscriminate experience can one come to the Job 42:7 approval of the thoughts/views the ‘scrap heap’ Job expressed to his three close friends. (2) If ‘God’ is ambiguous, then the function and importance of indiscriminate experience or judgment ‘from below’ increases. (3) The core hermeneutic task we face is to interpret our experience. (4) The ‘religious’ T/O paradigm reduces human experience to intention and eventually to divine intention (leaving no place for an experiential or statistical ‘from below’ interpretation). (5) ‘God’ is an inference drawn from and understood in light of the interpretation of experience. (6) What is analogous to the ‘null hypothesis’? Perhaps that there is no compelling meaning for the term ‘God’. (7) To disregard or remove from consideration all experiences that challenge the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm is analogous in statistics to imposing a bias on the study sample. (8) With little information, many inferences are possible; with increased information, many such inferences are weeded out.

Fragment -- #84

[February 1999 journal entry]
An ‘examined life’ entails (1) indiscriminate and radical (i.e., to the root) self-criticism and (2) the willingness, readiness, and courage to take risks in life.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #57

[March 1999 journal entry]
Note the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s experience does not appear to have any profound impact on/for those around him other than his wife. Note the explanations of the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s sufferings offered by his three close friends illustrate the explanations of human suffering that are generated and permitted by/within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm – e.g., ‘proportionality’ (i.e., ‘you prosper or suffer no more than you deserve’) or ‘it will be better in the future’ or ‘you reap what you sow’ or ‘you are not tested beyond what you can bear’ or ‘there must be some undisclosed sinfulness’ or ‘there must be some divine purpose beyond human comprehension’ or . . . . Note the caravan travelers mentioned in the story/play Job are located outside the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm circle. Their stories become the ‘scrapheap’ Job’s most significant resource. Their wisdom is more authentic and persuasive than is ‘religious’ wisdom. Note the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm fosters/promotes an ‘entitlement’ spirituality, ethic, and theology. Note that, for those not troubled by tragic human suffering in the theological way the ‘scrapheap’ Job was troubled due to his being within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, a spirituality becomes possible that is characterized by (1) humility, (2) empathy, (3) gratefulness, (4) self-discipline, (5) ability to be truly present with sufferers, (6) . . . .

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #56

[March 1999 journal entry]
Draw a circle representing the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm. Inside this circle, there can be no radical or enduring compulsion/drive to avoid, fight, correct, or minimize what appears tragic in human experience because to be inside the circle is to think such experiences reflect the intention/will of ‘God’. In/near the center of this circle are those who claim not to be troubled as was the ‘scrapheap’ Job by ‘innocent’ suffering. As the move is made from the center point outward to the perimeter, being troubled is increasingly experienced/expressed by those inside the circle. Now draw an outward winding/opening circle with its center point on the perimeter of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm circle. This outward winding/opening circle represents deepening regard for ‘innocent’ suffering. Consciousness of ‘innocent’ suffering deepens as exposure to the breadth/depth of ‘innocent’ suffering increases. The ‘scrapheap’ Job, as portrayed in his exchanges with his three close friends, should be located on/near the perimeter of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm circle and in the midst of the outward winding/opening ‘innocent’ suffering circle. Now, completely separate from the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm circle, draw another broken/fuzzy circle representing those outside the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm who are face to face with the harsh realities of human suffering, but who are not troubled in the theological way the ‘scrapheap’ Job was troubled by tragic human suffering because they do not respond to or interpret tragic human experiences as ‘the intention/will of God’.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #55

[March 1999 journal entry]
Premise: The ‘scrapheap’ Job is ‘troubled’ (beyond the sheer pain of his condition) because his expectations are rooted in the ‘religious’ Traditional/Orthodox (T/O) paradigm. He cannot say, “I’ve been dealt a bad hand”. He cannot refer to luck or misfortune or chance or randomness. Instead, he expects to be dealt a good hand and cannot (with integrity) avoid challenging/questioning the dealer. (Note both a personal factor – i.e., the dealer – and a random factor – i.e., the shuffle – limit this analogy for understanding the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm.)

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #54

[March 1999 journal entry]

In what way (if at all) is being ‘non-religious’ linked to being ‘modern’? Since the story/play Job, the Ecclesiastes essay, and ‘Jesus’ are subject to ‘non-religious’ interpretations, is the answer ‘not necessarily or essentially’? Perhaps the question should be amended – In what way (if at all) is being ‘non-religious’ today linked to being ‘modern’? For instance, ‘religion’ has taken certain views/forms in reaction to ‘modern’ developments. Also ‘non-religious’ alternatives are likely to be to some degree ‘modern’. Another question – What are common traits re being ‘non-religious’ in the story/play Job and the Ecclesiastes essay on the one hand and today on the other hand?

Seeing 'Jesus' From Below #23

[February 1999 journal entry]

While out on a practice drive with my daughter, we talked about her careful study of Charlotte Bronte’s novels/characters (as well as the character Anne in Anne of Green Gables and the character Jo in Little Women). I asked her if she thinks her sense of self has been and is enhanced by these novels/characters. I also asked if she finds herself trying to be the characters with whom she most identifies. I later related these two questions to what it means to ‘follow Jesus’. I proposed that to ‘follow Jesus’ in the latter sense of trying to ‘be Jesus’ diminishes one’s self, is artificial, and is not redemptive in an experiential sense. Instead, I proposed that to ‘follow Jesus’ in the former sense of having your sense of self enriched by carefully considering Jesus’ way of being is redemptive without diminishing one’s self.

Seeing 'Jesus' From Below #22

[January 1999 journal entry]

A close friend recently introduced me to the music of Rich Mullins. He gave me the last Rich Mullins CD (a two-disc set based on the demos he cut shortly before he died in a travel accident) and explained the nature, course, end of Mullins’ life. On the first of the two discs, Mullins plays/performs alone the demos for what turned out to be his last songs. On the second of the two discs, his band and various celebrated ‘Christian music artists’ (whose commercial interests and affluent lifestyles he did not share) present/interpret the demo songs in a more polished and commercially shaped form. I was drawn to Mullins alone; repelled by the ‘Christian music artists’. An analogy crossed my mind – i.e., that the teaching and life experiences of ‘Jesus’ behind/before Christian scripture are parallel to Mullins alone on disc one and the Christian scripture writers/ings are parallel to celebrated ‘Christian music artists’ on disc two.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #19

– reflections from journal entries

71 [February 1999 journal entry] I recently had a conversation about whether or not Bonhoeffer, had he survived the war, would have remained on the ‘non-religious’ path he had begun to describe/interpret in his prison correspondence. I think there is strength in this speculation. I developed three lines of reflection in the conversation. (1) The post-war draw/inclination was toward rebuilding (as much and as quickly as possible) the familiar or ‘norm’ (analogous to the ending of the story/play Job). Guardians of the ‘religious’ tradition/sphere -- especially the leaders of the ‘Confessing Church’ and those ‘religious’ leaders who took safer positions during the Nazi/Hitler years, but minus the Nazi-sympathizing ‘German Christians’ – were poised to do this rebuilding in the 'religious' sphere in post-war Germany. Bonhoeffer’s ‘religionless’ ideas were and would for some time after the war remain unknown apart from the Bethges and a few former students. The ‘Confessing Church’ leaders who had known Bonhoeffer before his imprisonment would have expected Bonhoeffer to return to being a pastor/theologian as in his pre-1939 Confessing Church years. (2) The focus/interest within the ‘religious’ sphere re Bonhoeffer continues to stop short of a radical (i.e., to the root) interpretation of or defining link with the possible directions Bonhoeffer’s emerging ‘religionless’ ideas in the prison correspondence could have taken him. (3) Bonhoeffer would have had to reposition himself outside the ‘religious’ sphere (including giving up pastoral or ‘religious’ academic appointments).

72 [February 1999 journal entry] Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge experienced and spoke of ‘friendship in the singular’ as distinct from the ‘mandates’ or ‘orders’ of traditional Lutheran theology (i.e., state, work, church, family). My definition/use of societal ‘spheres’ corresponds to some degree with the Lutheran definition/use of ‘mandates’ or ‘orders’. One difference is that I have more differentiated spheres in mind than represented in the Lutheran tradition – e.g., education, arts, medicine. Another difference would be the correspondence of my references to ‘spheres’ with existential references to ‘stages’ and to societal controls imposed on individuals. ‘Spheres’ constitute the infrastructure of a society. Such ‘spheres’ determine the rights, obligations, and prerequisites by/through which participants know who they are and how they should act. Bonhoeffer wondered if ‘freedom’ (with which he associated ‘friendship in the singular’) should be considered a ‘mandate’ or ‘order’. I wonder if ‘freedom’ (and, therefore, ‘friendship in the singular’) is possible only beyond ‘spheres’? I would propose that a societal ‘sphere’ can tolerate a limited/conditional ‘freedom’ (i.e., up to the point of threatening or challenging the ‘sphere’). I would also propose that the ‘freedom’ Bonhoeffer linked with ‘friendship in the singular’ (as well as with his ‘religionless Christianity’ and his last thoughts about ‘church’) is beyond, outside, and independent to all societal ‘spheres’.

73 [February 1999 journal entry] The ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following requires that I retain/protect my independence while participating in the medical sphere. Doing so means (1) that I must always be willing to surrender any sense of place/privilege (i.e., I must not be seduced by offers of security), (2) that I must never be more than a guest (i.e., I must not seduced by the possibility of tenure), (3) that I must resist a ‘uniform’ look or manner/disposition.

74 [February 1999 journal entry] The following reflections came after a conversation with Eberhard and Renate Bethge late into the night during a recent visit with them in their home outside Bonn. (1) Some search for or seek out the ‘freedom’ and the resulting identity that are not predetermined by societal ‘spheres’. Others are forced to do so without desire for or valuing the task/search. Is one group more likely than the other to re-root themselves in ‘freedom’ and, therefore, in radical liberty from societal ‘spheres’? (2) The deeper the experience in and loyalty to a ‘sphere’, the more diminished ‘freedom’ becomes. It is critical to retain sufficient strength to be able to overcome the gravitational pull inward/back to the sphere’s center. Otherwise, the defining experience and character associated with ‘freedom’ are lost. Perhaps a core purpose of my low profile and ‘arcane’ gatherings on the margins of ‘spheres’ – e.g., the ‘Who cares?’ gatherings in New Orleans or the Bonhoeffer reading group here or our family’s dinner table talks, or . . . – are as much to protect my ability to exit from societal ‘spheres’ as it is to create a strategy to leaven them.

75 [February 1999 journal entry] Bonhoeffer anticipated/predicted in his prison letters to Bethge the demise/marginalization of ‘religion’ after World War I in Germany and other European nations. This demise/marginalization did not happen completely in any of these countries (e.g., to varying degrees in Holland, Germany, France; less so in Italy, Spain). ‘Religion’ survived in England and thrived in the United States after World War I. The point here is (1) not that a ‘non-religious’ alternative direction is invalid, but (2) that becoming thoroughly ‘non-religious’ requires turning away from the available safety/familiarity of ‘religion’ and develops with an overlapping of language (e.g., ‘Jesus’, ‘faith’, ‘love’, ‘evil’, . . .).

One part of any writing (for me, at least) re a ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics has to be an explanation of how long, laborious, and complicated it is to become thoroughly ‘non-religious’. This process for me has stretched from the seed ideas in the mid-1970s to the departure by 1991 from any official place/role in the ‘religious’ sphere. And then from 1992 forward, this process has involved finalizing the break while raising children. Much of my thought since 1992 has focused on interpreting the experience of becoming and remaining truly/meaningfully ‘non-religious’.

To be ‘non-religious’ (both in reference to the ‘religious’ sphere and to the ‘religious’ character of every societal sphere) is to be awkward within any societal sphere, to be a visitor or guest within any societal sphere, to be discontent within any societal sphere.

How likely is it that very many will dare to or be compelled to seek a ‘non-religious’ path? Does it require (1) traumatic exposure to ‘innocent suffering’? (2) a spontaneous/non-structured personality type? (3) a greater than average intellectual ability? (4) a classical education (including history and historical methodology)? (5) an advanced theological education? (6) . . . ? In a recent conversation with a close physician friend, he answered that such traits and more are required in order to cut through layer after layer of insulation separating ‘religion’ and ‘world’.

A ‘non-religious’ experience of ‘community’ entails the gathering/interaction of individuals each one of whom has leadership traits (1) because each one has experienced an individual/solitary passage to a ‘non-religious’ path and (2) because each one can maintain his/her spiritual journey alone if necessary. Are there any ‘followers’ (with a hierarchy of ‘leaders’ analogous to the ‘religious’ sphere) in a ‘non-religious’ community? I do not think so among those already on this path. What are the implications for parenting in a ‘non-religious’ manner?

76 [March 1999 journal entry] Must one have previously been ‘religious’ in order to be(come) ‘non-religious’? Bonhoeffer was. And I was. Is there a parallel to the necessity of being ‘modern’ in order to be ‘post-modern’?

‘the ethical dimensions of patient care’ -- #28

[February1999 journal entry]

‘Dignity’ has become a fixed criterion in discussions re end-of-life decision making. (1) How are ‘dignify/ied’ and ‘humiliating/ed’ used in everyday discourse? (2) Can life/death be humiliating and yet experienced in a dignified manner? (3) What are societal/community responsibilities, in comparison to individual responsibilities, for an individual’s retaining ‘dignity’ in death?

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #53

[November 1998 journal entry]

Life experiences pushed the story/character of the ‘scrap heap’ Job (and also Ecclesiastes) forward into an independent, foundational, primary position for me. The approach to ethics and spirituality I am taking is rooted/anchored in the affirmation (42:7) of Job’s ‘scrap heap’ thoughts. Accordingly, my interpretations will be compatible and consistent with Job’s ‘scrap heap’ thoughts. Doing so means rethinking each writing in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture in light of Job’s ‘scrap heap’ thoughts. Doing so means interpreting Job’s ‘scrap heap’ thoughts without ‘religious’ or ‘orthodox’ restrictions (including perceptions of ‘Jesus’). Doing so means interpreting the ‘scrap heap’ Job directly and freely in relation to the breadth/depth of human suffering. I have a hermeneutic suspicion that ‘religious’ interpretations of the story/play Job are designed to endorse and reinforce ‘religious’ interests/institutions. Much of human suffering cannot be reduced to ‘religious’ explanations without violating the integrity of the sufferer/s.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #52

[November 1998 journal entry]
[November 2008 NOTE: A mutual acquaintance introduced me to a Hebrew and Jewish Wisdom Literature professor – Bob -- shortly after we had completed our move in November 1998 to Williamsburg, KY, where I began work with a nearby community health center. Bob and his family attended First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, a congregation with a sizable contingent sympathetic toward the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship opposition to the fundamentalist remaking of the Southern Baptist denomination engineered in the late1970s by Adrian Rodgers et al. Bob is a couple of years older than I. He was raised in Virginia and North Carolina. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1971 with a major in mathematics and worked for a few years as a computer programmer and systems analyst before entering Midwestern Baptist Seminary (1997 MDiv). Before beginning doctoral studies at Southern Seminary, he completed the ThM program at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. His principal professors at Southern were Drs. Owens, Tate, and Polhill. He completed his dissertation – The Dark Side of God: The Antagonistic God in the Mosaic Traditions -- in 1983 under Dr. Tate’s supervision. James Crenshaw was his external reader. That year he joined Cumberland College’s Religion and Philosophy Department (which he has chaired since 1990). At my suggestion, Bob and I began in November 1998 meeting twice most months for lunch discussions. I submitted a set of ideas in tutorial fashion, seeking Bob’s response as a specialist in Hebrew and in Jewish Wisdom Literature. Most of our discussions were textual, topical, and word studies rooted in the story/play Job and in Ecclesiastes. I made sure the question – “And shall we continue these discussions?” – remained open for Bob as we looked evermore deeply into my ‘non-religious’ journey. I did not want him to feel cornered/trapped. When I left the community health center ten years later to fill my present position with Barnes-Jewish Hospital, he had continued to answer “Yes” with an enthusiasm that matched mine.]

Bob gave me today his translation and related word study of Job 42:7. This material from Bob confirmed and deepened my intent to ‘do theology’ founded on and anchored by the 42:7 affirmation of Job’s ‘scrap heap’ thought/views. Doing so requires radical rethinking of every facet of ethics, and spirituality. This is what I have been attempting for at least the past twenty years. Note that Job – from the ‘scrap heap’ – is outside his ‘religious’ sphere, challenges his longstanding assumptions, refuses to conform to or endorse the ‘religious’ paradigm of his three close friends in order to retain or regain their support. The implications are profound for (1) how to pray, (2) what texts to treat as canonical, (3) hermeneutics, (4) understanding the thought of ‘Jesus’, (5) how to conceive of ‘God’, (6) the basis for ‘ethics’, (7) how to respond to human suffering, (8) liturgy, (9) . . . . I asked Bob if he wants to look down this path on which I have been walking for so many years. He said yes. I hope he continues. In order to stay on this path, it is necessary to be free – in thought, in covenants, in vocation – from ‘organized religion’. I think Bonhoeffer had reached the threshold of this freedom during his prison correspondence. Would he have crossed the threshold and not turned back?

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #51

[October 1998 journal entry]
Re the story/character of Job, I am convinced (1) that Job 42:7 is the dramatic/climactic point of the story/play, (2) that the most optimistic interpretation of the ‘scrap heap’ Job’s three close friends is to speculate that they eventually join him in an experience of and search for a new theological paradigm, (3) that my efforts for the past twenty-five years have been to think out spirituality and ethics based on an affirmation of Job’s ‘scrap heap’ thoughts as reliable and compelling.

Seeing 'Jesus' from Below #21

[October 1998 journal entry]
Relate the “We’ve Got Lots in Common” lyrics in Charlotte’s Web to the call to “love your enemies” (e.g., Matt. 5:38-48) – i.e., focus on the resolve that we all have “lot’s in common”. Our youngest daughter Morgan -- nine years old – watches repeatedly the film of E. B. White’s children’s classic. This song from the film about respect and integration illustrates the numerous conversations in our family sparked by Charlotte’s Web.

Seeing 'Jesus' from Below #20

[October 1998 journal entry]
The ‘Jesus’ portrayed in the four Gospels does not lead into ‘religion’ then or today.

Fragment -- #83

[January 1999 journal entry] [1/99]
There is a ‘what if’ list of events/choices that influenced the direction my story has taken – e.g., What if I had been physically and/or mentally disabled as a young boy when I lost control of my bicycle and skidded in front of a car on a highway that stopped with the front axle just inches from my head? What if I had pursued a professional baseball career past high school? What if I had returned to my home town in rural Western Kentucky to be a teacher and coach? What if I had gone to a college/university associated with the fundamentalist ‘religious’ tradition into which I was born rather than enroll in a state university? What if I had taken the MA-PhD track in speech and communications I had envisioned early in my undergraduate years? What if I had broken my neck or worse when in 1977 I fell backward more than twenty feet off a castle wall in Carcasonne, France? What if my first wife (d. 1987) had not had Multiple Sclerosis (especially in such a devastating form)? What if I had gone to Yale for doctoral work -- as Dr. Hinson suggested I consider doing -- rather than to enter the Southern Seminary program under his supervision? What if I had returned to Oxford after finishing my doctoral program at Southern Seminary to study with Maurice Wiles had agreed to guide my Oxford DPhil thesis (plans/arrangements for which were in place by 1979 to do so)? What if my twin daughters had not been born at such a strategic time in my life? What if I had not (yet) introduced the spirituality classics course in the evening schedule slot when Dr. Elkins was looking for evening classes to attend (as preparation for his beginning an academic career in Obstetrics and Gynecology) and from which our collaborative partnership re the ethical dimensions of medicine formed? What if . . . ?

Fragment -- #82

[November 1998 journal entry]
Proposition: That all pastors and theological teachers/writers be required to be formally trained and actively/meaningfully involved in a social work vocation (with direct involvement to the point of personal risk). This proposition should be applied also to medical ethicists.

Fragment -- #81

[November 1998 journal entry]
The ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am taking is a departure from Kierkegaard’s ‘religious’ sphere (as presented in Fear and Trembling, for instance) in that I contend Abraham should either protest or refuse the conclusion he adopts in the Genesis story. The approach I am taking would not view Abraham’s sacrificing his son as ‘faith’ or as ‘ethical’ or as theologically acceptable. Yes, this position extends to whether I can view the death of ‘Jesus’ as an intended/planned sacrifice. Where the Abraham story includes no protest, the Job story/play builds around protest and the implicit expectation that ‘God’ is accountable.

Fragment -- #80

[November 1998 journal entry]
In a professional formation session with a young physician, he asked how at this point in his life – given the limitations and narrowness of the education he received in his religiously conservative upbringing, at a religiously conservative college, and at medical school – he should seek to educate himself. I offered the following markers from my life/experience. (1) Seek/form a covenant relationship (solidarity) with individuals dismembered – by disability, by illness, by disadvantage, . . . -- from the ‘normal’ spheres of society. Doing so creates perspective and uncovers unexamined/untested assumptions. (2) Maintain a perspective outside one’s own culture. (3) ‘Education’ -- ex duco (‘to lead out of’) -- necessitates separating from those who would teach/form you in an authoritarian manner. ‘Education’ is associated with personal responsibility. (4) Have the courage to subject your ideas to the unrestricted criticism possible in the ‘marketplace’ as well as to the self-examination of the ‘wilderness’. I am hesitant to consider seriously the ideas/views of those who fall short of or lack either of these experiences in their life journeys. (5) I recommend Fischer’s Historians’ Fallacies as a tool to sharpen and refine your ability to think critically.

Fragment -- #79

[October 1998 journal entry]
I am confident that, by pushing myself toward complete and unrestricted openness to criticism of my thoughts/views, I will have fewer but more reliable thoughts/views. To do so is inseparable from being ‘with the world face to face’. To do less is to fall back into idolatries.

Fragment -- #78

[October 1998 journal entry]
In a recent breakfast meeting discussion with the small group of you physicians staffing a rural Appalachia community health center, I prompted them to reflect on the goal of making poor individuals feel welcome. We discussed how such efforts leave us feeling very self-conscious, impotent, out of place. Such experiences are intense. To make someone – especially someone who is poor – feel truly welcome is a difficult and at times threatening task that requires deep motivation.

Fragment -- #77

[October 1998 journal entry]
Animals (on a spectrum from more to less noticeable) and humans (with the same provision and at least from prenatal through early childhood phases) appear to share to some degree such qualities as honesty, trust, simplicity, pleasure over pain, sympathy, forgiveness. Humans gain sufficient reflective capacity to revise, redefine, question these traits. This capacity results in such varying traits as altruism, martyrdom, violence, materialism, prejudices, history/story, friendship, . . . All creatures would ideally be in settings that protect, encourage, facilitate full maturation.

Fragment -- #76

[October 1998 journal entry]
I feel as if I am entering a ‘house of cards’ when I enter a ‘religious’ gathering or when I am with someone who holds/follows a ‘religious’ paradigm (esp., pre-modern and evangelical-fundamentalist interpretations of events/experiences).

Fragment -- #75

Fragment -- #75

[October 1998 journal entry]
Either (1) generosity is a core character trait resulting in the impulse to be generous or (2) one does the minimal to ease the conscience in order to get on with what one really sees/values. The former requires a certain calculation re dealing with limits. The latter leads to a certain calculation in terms of surrendering as little as possible or giving in ways that bring self-reward or . . . .

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #18

Reflections from journal entries

69 [October 1998 journal entry]
What if Bonhoeffer had survived? Might he have sought and/or been drawn back to a place in the ‘religious’ sphere? Might he have turned away from the embryonic ‘non-religious’ ideas in his prison correspondence? Would he have withheld the prison correspondence from circulation/publication?

70 [November 1998 journal entry]
Thoughts in light of my recent American Society for Bioethics and Humanities presentation re physician-assisted death practiced in Holland –

1. ‘Religious’ opponents of physician-assisted death almost exclusively come from the fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum.
   
2. The fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum represents an extremely low view of the individual and of culture (e.g., ‘the fall’, original sin, premillenial end-time predictions of chaos and decay, . . .).
3. The fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum represents thought worlds that discourage adherents from ‘with the world face to face’ accountability or struggle and from serious/unrestricted criticism. Those in leadership positions promote thought worlds in which the ideal adherent does not think seriously or radically.
   
4. Those on the fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum do not seriously consider other views, since the ‘truth’ is so obvious and accessible (to them) that the only way to account for others who do not see as they see is to question their motives. This in turn fuels suspicion.
   
5. The fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum absorbs – to the point of draining the substance/vitality out of – all life experience into a single-factor paradigm in which appeal to ‘divine will’ dominates.
   
6. The fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum is aligned with hymnody that reflects a “It is well with my soul” disposition (a hymn that has the participants say, “whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well with my soul’”).
   
7. The fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum reduces individuals to sheep and goats or righteous and unrighteous categories, confident that they constitute the sheep/righteous (because of election, substitutionary atonement, ongoing grace, . . . – concepts that have little to do with actual ‘righteousness’) and that all others are corrupt.
   
8. The fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum permits no place for advocacy of autonomy (as such stands in opposition to theonomy) or for advocacy of democracy (as such stands in opposition to theocracy).
   
9. The fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum builds around the admonition and implication of “God will not tempt or test you beyond what you are able to bear” (thus discouraging any ‘unbearable’ assessment of suffering).
   
10. Those on the fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum are not bothered by charges of inconsistency in thought.
    
11. Those on the fundamentalist-to-evangelical end of the theological spectrum assume there is a ‘biblical view’ that predates modern experience/discussion and, therefore, separates ‘the truth’ from modern inquiry.

‘the ethical dimensions of patient care’ -- #27

[September 1998 journal entry]
I returned to Baltimore a few weeks after my close friend Tom Elkin’s death to assist his wife with the task of going through Tom’s material at home and at his Johns Hopkins office. Tom died suddenly at home on August 12 in the early morning hours. He was 49 years old. The Ob/Gyn Department chair had left Tom’s office untouched. After several minutes sitting silently together, Tom’s wife spoke quietly, “It feels like Tom will come rushing through the office door at any moment. How do we go on? What was it all about?” I said, “It was about reaching out to young physicians who had not yet lost their resolve to be humane and to exercise a resolute social conscience in the practice of medicine.” It was a moving experience to return to Tom’s office for the first time since his death. Tom’s wife asked if I had any perspectives on his death. As we sat together in Tom’s office, I shared the following reflections with her.

1. By trying to make sense of Tom’s life I find my way past/through the need to make sense of his death.
2. I see some parallels with Bonhoeffer’s death and M. L. King’s death in that Tom’s life ended while he was still ‘on the field’ and before he became too out of sync with his times.
   
3. It was natural for Tom to have seen signs of another journey and challenge at Johns Hopkins at the time of his death since he approached life was forward-looking.
   
4. f Tom had died while engage in medical relief work in Africa in 1975, it would have been too early to interpret his life, whereas by 1998 he had lived long enough to interpret his life.
   
5. Tom was old enough to remember an era/setting when academic medicine was distinctive (versus the present managed care and business setting, a paradigm shift that made his vision increasingly antiquated).
   
6. Tom’s sons have inherited a ‘good name’, but such can be difficult to manage given where Tom ‘set the bar’.
7. Tom and I worked so well together because we were both ‘out of the box’ re our peers.

‘the ethical dimensions of patient care’ -- #26

[September 1998 journal entry]
I recently met a faculty member with Johns Hopkins’ Obstetrics and Gynecology Department who held my recently deceased close friend and colleague Tom Elkins in high regard. She admitted, “I believe I have to learn to think again, beyond blind and mindless reacting, and this both pleases and frightens me.”

Seeing Jesus from Below #19

[August 1998 journal entry]

Thesis: The ‘gospel’ means to be genuinely present with the dismembered “for whom God’s heart aches”. ‘Dismembered’ is a broader category than ‘poor’ – e.g., victims of multiple sclerosis and other neurological illnesses or AIDS. Such individuals may or may not be ‘poor’. Vulnerable, yes.

Seeing Jesus from Below #18

[August 1998 journal entry]
The following thoughts stem from a breakfast discussion with a small group of young physicians re ‘freedom from affluence’.

1. ‘Affluence’ -- a Latin combination that means ‘to flow toward’ -- is a danger, a risk (e.g., false security, isolation/insulation, disrespect toward others, prejudice, exploitation).
2. Education, gender, ethnicity, intelligence, health, . . . weave into the formation and expression of affluence.
3. ‘Jesus’ claims to experience and to be pointing to what is authentic affluence (i.e., a way of being that is ‘blessed’).
4. How ‘free’ from affluence must I be to maintain my integrity? – e.g., sufficiently free to be grateful, to give indiscriminate attention to the human situation, and to accept accountability.
5. I continue to find value in Liberation Theologians’ ‘hermeneutic suspicion’ re the perspectives/interpretations of the affluent.
6. It is ironic that promoting education, work, and culture assigns value to being affluent.
7. At what level should one’s lifestyle, hopes, and goals be set beyond which unrestrained generosity is expressed and below which self-defense and survival dominate?
8. ‘Jesus’ -- in Sermon on the Mount type guidance -- calls for a way of being that leads to devaluing material possessions and reprioritizing values.
9. I intend to be free from a ‘high maintenance’ disposition toward and experience with material possessions.
10. I must overcome affluent habits that keep me from respecting a poor person.
11. To promote education is to promote at least some meanings of ‘affluence’.
12. Having long-range vision/goals is a privilege of the affluent.

Fragment #74

[September 1998 journal entry]
I recently began prompting a weekly Bonhoeffer reading group. I am guiding them through Bonhoeffer’s December 1942 essay – “After Ten Years”. The following thoughts stem from a discussion with the reading group about anti-Semitism:

My earliest experience with someone Jewish was my friendship with Joe a schoolmate and fellow football player in my small hometown in Western Kentucky.

I recall little or no discussion of anti-Semitism -- especially in relation to the beginnings/history of Christianity – in my youth. The religious language and perspective in which I was raised disenfranchised the Jewish community (e.g., “Old Testament” rather than ‘Jewish/Hebrew scripture’, Jews referenced harshly as “them”, comments that “they rejected/killed Christ”, . . .) and left anti-Semitic comments unaddressed or, if expressed, unchallenged.

My sensitivity re Jewish history/experience deepened/broadened when the methodology for my study of history began to be critical in a scholarly way during my final two undergraduate years at Murray State University and matured during my doctoral work. My ongoing study of Bonhoeffer since 1976 has ‘kept open the Jewish question’ (adapting one of his phrases). My special/centering relationship with my very close friend Shelly Korones, MD, (whose Jewish roots reach back to his grandparents’ flight to the United States from Czarist Russia) since 1985 is the defining experience for me.

‘Pharisees’ are presented in reductionist and biased ways in the Synoptic Gospels, as are ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel of John and in the Acts of the Apostles. Note how such writings (which, as canonical, enjoy authority within the ‘religious’ sphere), if considered uncritically and without attention to the wider historical context/resources, lead either to anti-Semitic attitudes/behavior or permit such to develop/occur unchecked.

Are there any individuals/groups it is theologically/ethically justified to isolate, segregate, attack, eliminate? Note that to answer this question a decision has to be made re the nature and use of Jewish scriptures and Christian scriptures. In other words, if one takes a ‘flat’ view, such violence will not be questioned. If one takes a more critical view, such violence will be questioned.

I would propose (1) to protect and assure every individual’s/group’s freedom of speech, but (2) to restrict, discipline, and prohibit discriminatory behavior (including verbal abuse and exploitation as well as violence) in the public/common domain. I would support doing so re economic and political as well as religious variations on fundamentalism. This proposal implies confidence in the outcome of open and free thought (which in turn implies cultivation of the ability to think).

Fragment #73

[December 2005 journal entry]
At the invitation of some friends, I attended the Christmas Eve service conducted by a large Presbyterian PCA church located in an affluent suburb of Memphis. This church is in many ways a typical mega-church – e.g., heavily orchestrated (both musically and otherwise), evangelical tilted toward fundamentalist theology, media savvy services, largely affluent membership, recreational facilities (with a full calendar of activities), police and security guard parking assistance, tension with surrounding neighborhood organizations over zoning restrictions, a coffee shop in the foyer, . . . . The church is in some ways not a typical mega-church – e.g., understated architecture/décor, casual dress, a mission not limited to itself, financially supportive of struggling churches.

As we returned to my friends’ house after the service, I anticipated I would be asked my thoughts about the service. The question came shortly after dinner was served. I expressed a few polite reflections I considered true but superficial. When questioned further, I explained – “The many references in the music led me to think about Bethlehem today as well as in the time of Jesus.” I then described the violence, the thirty-foot ‘security’ wall that now surrounds the town, the clashes between Palestinian residents and Israeli solders at checkpoints, the healthcare crises, and the despair I have seen/heard in Bethlehem during trips there the past two years. I went on to observe – “I reminded myself throughout the service that the Israeli and the United States governments most closely align with Rome in Jesus’ day, that Orange Mound or Binghampton in Memphis (very depressed/decayed sections of the city) most closely align with Bethlehem in Jesus’ day.” I chose not to comment on the parallels I see between a mega-church and the ‘religious’ establishment that was so antagonistic to ‘Jesus’. Nor did I express my doubt that more than a handful of those assembled for the Christmas Eve service ever venture into an Orange Mound or a Binghampton and, therefore, my doubt that more than a handful would have trekked to the ancient Bethlehem highlighted so prominently in the service.

I tried to use a soft/gentle tone. I would have remained silent if I had not been questioned. Once questioned further, I would have felt neither peaceful nor honest if I had stopped with the true though superficial responses. But did I go too far? I was not questioned again after the more pointed responses. I was not surprised. I dread such situations.

Fragment #72

[September 1998 journal entry] What is my ‘core’?

• There is a ‘more’ to being human (i.e., some reality/essence about being human that is beyond empirical verification) that requires a vocabulary, grammar, discourse.
• There is a reality beyond my/our perception/interpretation, thus mixing reality and my/our perception/interpretation.
• Human beings leave evidence supporting the thesis that they are the most oughtful, reflective, and imaginative of beings on earth.
• The category ‘human being’ includes variations in (1) intelligence, (2) cultural formation, (3) gender, (4) individual stages of existence (e.g., birth and death) – with the lower end of these variations found among human beings merging/overlapping with the higher end of the variations found among some other beings.
• ‘God’ as a reality transcends ideas of ‘God’ in human discourse due to cosmo-, socio-, and anthropomorphisms.
• Trust/conviction must include doubt.
• Integrity must be maintained.
• A political theory must affirm the individual as such and the individual as a social being.
• Ethics can be reduced to a single concept/vision – i.e., respect (i.e., re + specere).

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #17 – reflections from journal entries

67 [August 1998 journal entry]
‘Non-religious’ (as distinct from ‘religious’) means

1. looking in or listening to the ‘religious’ sphere from points outside – however far from or near to – the ‘religious’ sphere,
2. being conscious of the transcendent ‘from below’,
3. living with doubt,
   
4. moving from ethics to theology,
5. moving from existential death toward authentic being.

68 [September 1998 journal entry]
I continue to attempt to delineate as fully and specifically as possible that which I have rejected/surrendered re ‘religion’ as I have pursued a ‘with the world face to face’ way of being/living – e.g., I have rejected/surrendered

1. assumptions re Jewish scriptures and Christian scriptures (e.g., a set 66-document ‘canon’, ‘inerrancy’, ‘infallibility’, that there is ‘the biblical view’ on any subject),
2. an ethics/theology paradigm that reduces life experiences to a single factor – ‘the will of God’,
3. political/social structures and theories rooted in theocracy and/or monarchy,
4. slavery as an unchallenged social institution,
5. a demeaning/devalued view of women,
6. a pre-modern and pre-scientific cosmology,
7. demons,
8. ideas/views that would tolerate anti-Semitism,
9. a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11,
10. an idyllic view of the beginnings of human history,
11. exclusivity and sectarianism,
12. substitutionary interpretations of atonement,
13. christologies that minimize or render meaningless the humanity of ‘Jesus’,
14. a ‘be fruitful and multiply’ approach to reproduction,
15. certainty,
16. . . . .

Fragment -- #71

[19 October 2008]
My wife, youngest daughter, and I were privileged to be among the 100,000+ who gathered yesterday at the St. Louis arch as a demonstration of Obama's integrating vision. I have included a Wall Street Journal photograph from that memorable experience, to which I have inserted an arrow to point to our approximate location. I have also included a few photographs I took from amidst the crowd. Obama would be an even stronger candidate/president with a few more years’ experience, but I cannot imagine he could have a more credible/seasoned community of counselors/advisors. I sadly admit the past twenty years have demonstrated that my generation – the Vietnam War generation – is too torn/scared by that war/era to produce leaders capable of drawing together a commanding majority or of stimulating a working consensus.


[25 October 2008]
It is very energizing to now be living in a swing state and in a city/neighborhood that is so decidedly supportive of the new directions represented by the Obama/Biden ticket. Soon after moving into our St. Louis home in late August, Barbara and I placed a campaign poster in our front yard. Barbara has been volunteering at a nearby Obama campaign office. Here are a few examples (in no particular order) of numerous reflections/concerns this election and the larger national/global context –

1. Critically thoughtful and politically responsible Congressional Republicans – they seem to be disappearing as the Republican Party increasingly has during this campaign season identified with the social/religious ‘far right’. Where are Senators Hagel, Snow, Collins, et al? Where and with whom will they stand now?
2. I am ‘liberal’ in the classic sense of championing freedom of critical thought and responsible action. And I am ‘liberal’ in being aligned with so many changes that are now rooted in our society due to the tireless/courageous efforts of ‘liberals’ in the past – e.g., the abolition of slavery, the abolition of abusive child labor, the liberty of women to vote, desegregation, civil and human rights for minorities, reproductive freedom/choice for women, environmental protections, . . . . Without ‘liberals’ none of these battles would have been won.
3. Restudying the text and the origins of the Constitution over the past several months has deepened my criticism of and opposition to a ‘strict constructionist’ approach to the Constitution.
4. I checked the etymology/meaning of ‘maverick’ which turns out to be an ‘Old West’ term coined when a Texas cattle rancher Samuel Maverick (d. 1870) persisted in refusing to brand his calves. Thus the metaphorical image of a ‘maverick’ as unclassified, independent, nonconformist, dissenting. Erratic, illogical, inconsistent – i.e., the way the McCain/Palin campaign have looked to me -- have nothing to do with the ‘maverick’ metaphor.
5. I definitely agree changes are needed at the national level. I find it very odd that McCain and – even more blatantly – Palin have undermined every incumbent Republican Representative and Senator as they have attempted to dissociate from and criticize the Bush/Cheney administration. I watched in vain for McCain or Palin to specify the changes they would pursue if in office – more executive secrecy? more power to the executive branch (including VP)? more Guantanamo Bays? more torture of prisoners? more surveillance? more tax cuts? new preemptive invasions? more deregulation? larger national debt? more manipulation of scientific data? more ‘fundamentalism’ in the White House? . . . ? If not, then what? Confronting/reducing greed would be helpful (if attainable), but hardly sufficient.
6. My deepest objection to ‘fundamentalism’ is to ‘fundamentalism’ as a mindset – whether expressed religiously, socially, or politically. When truth ceases to be sought (even after years of searching) and honesty ceases to be valued, a fundamentalist mindset begins.

[30 October 2008]
Re the United States presidential election -- I continue to be hopeful and cautiously confident that Barack Obama will be elected next Tuesday. My wife and I are very active supporters. Our youngest daughter -- 19 years old -- is having her political awakening at this very important time. I am pleased the Obama campaign has conducted a very honorable and impressively sophisticated campaign. The McCain campaign has instead opted for the very dark path taken by the past two Bush campaigns, seeking to capitalize on fear and prejudices. The reality I find disheartening and embarrassing is that 30-35% of the United States voting public lives and thinks in a very anti-modern/anti-scientific worldview. Add another 10% of the United States voting public that is uncertain and inexperienced in finding an alternative worldview and the cultural divide in the United States becomes evident. A massive landslide is needed as a statement to the 30-35% + 10% in our society that we are closing the proverbial book on being defined, constrained, or intimidated by a fundamentalist mindset/worldview that is antithetical to democracy, individual freedom/accountability, respect, science, . . . . I have experienced the struggle and sacrifice required to escape from this black hole. A fundamentalist mindset/worldview only has capacity for controlling all or retreating with no control. Having committed for more than 30 years to grasping for full control, the fundamentalist mindset/worldview to which McCain sold his soul in his attempt to win the presidency will not retreat without a desperate last gasp. A massive landslide will be a crucial step forward.

[5 November 2008]
It is truly a ‘new day’! Barack Obama’s decisive margins of victory -- popular vote and electoral college vote -- are similar to Bill Clinton’s margins of victory (in stark contrast to the razor-thin differences in 2000 and 2004). I sense the potential in Obama’s election in the enthusiasm and renewed joy/hope that has risen as a steady crescendo among a marvelously diverse majority of the United States voting public over the past several months. I certainly shared with many others a deep sigh of relief when Obama’s election was confirmed with results that could not be contested in court by the cadre of lawyers the McCain campaign had assembled. I view this election as the first of many necessary steps toward the United States accepting accountability for and working to repair the profound damage inflicted by the Bush/Cheney/et al administration on our country, on the international community, and on the natural environment we all share. I am thinking of this election as analogous to a very difficulty pregnancy. Now the parenting of these freshly born ideas and encompassing vision begins!

Image #21

St. Louis . . . 2008 . . . Obama presidential campaign rally . . . remembering segregation . . . imaging integration . . .

Image #20

St. Louis . . . 2008 . . . Obama presidential campaign rally . . . what does the future hold? . . .

Image #19

St. Louis . . . 2008 . . . Obama presidential campaign rally . . . walking to The Arch . . . a child ponders hope . . .

Image #18

St. Louis . . . 2008 . . . Obama presidential campaign rally . . . 100,000+ . . . hands expressing joy . . .

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #17

[July 1998 journal entry]
If I were to be asked for a short list of anchoring texts for me in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture, I would list – Job, Ecclesiastes, Philemon, the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (both in Matthew and in Luke), Habakkuk, Psalm 46, Psalm 73, the Good Samaritan parable, Matthew 25:31-46, Mark 6 re ‘marketplace’, Micah 6:6-8 (and similar statements in the prophets).

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #16

July 1998 journal entry]

My starting point re ‘church’ and ‘organized religion’ is that ‘church’ and ‘organized religion’ today are analogous to the Sanhedrin, (chief) priests, scribes, rabbis, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, synagogues, temple, . . . in Jesus’ day. Re ‘church’ and ‘organized religion’, I have in mind denominations, clergy, seminaries, ‘Christian’ businesses (e.g., music, books, tours, supplies, radio stations, television networks, . . .), church staffs, evangelistic agencies, political lobbying groups, . . . .

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #15

[July 1998 journal entry]

Christian scripture covers a short period of time when compared to Jewish scripture. This point should alter the interpretation of the exclusive language in Christian scripture. In Jewish thought and scripture,

1. there is a tension between exclusive and inclusive interpretations of ‘God’ in relation to the ‘nations’, and
2. there are challenges (such as Ecclesiastes and the story of Job) to Deuteronomic theology.

Neither of these traits is found in Christian scripture.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #14

[May 1998 journal entry]

Once I began to consider ‘Jesus’ as an ‘outsider’ or ‘guest’ to the ‘religious’ sphere of his day, I began to notice --

1. the diminished place he assigned ritual and tradition,
2. how he saw others (especially those dismembered by the ‘religious’ sphere),
3. the way he was misunderstood and how he was viewed as a threat,
4. his ‘non-religious’ interpretations of the Jewish Torah and related writings.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #13

[January 1998 journal entry]

A ‘non-religious’ experience of communion has to do with a time to see/hear ‘Jesus’ by recovering/reinforcing his language, thinking, decisions. Implicit in this approach is the realization that communion can be an experience of seeing life events and neighbors/strangers through the vocabulary (prism) inherent in the way ‘Jesus’ saw his life events and neighbors/strangers.

Fragment -- #70

[August 1998 journal entry]

At a recent breakfast gathering of young physicians, I was asked what has a ‘reviving’ effect on me. My response – stillness, silence, music, glass of wine, being with individuals such as the K-Bar-B ranch kids. [Today I would give special attention to photography. When I wrote this journal entry, I had earlier in the summer started to meet regularly with a local landscape photographer whose mentoring would, over the next several years, significantly expand for me the artistic and spiritual experiences possible through photography.]

Fragment -- #69

[July 1998 journal entry]

I have been thinking about the metaphor in how one’s skin is sunburned before the skin surface indicates such.

Fragment -- #68

[July 1998 journal entry]

I am finding value in the ‘angle of repose’ metaphor drawn from the arrangement of rocks that enables them to be settled and dependable (cf., Stegner’s Angle of Repose).

Fragment -- #67

[July 1998 journal entry]

The following thoughts are reflections on the approach a well-educated couple – one a physician -- took to their newborn’s devastating chromosomal abnormality plus serious heart malformation (i.e., they began and then withdrew prednisone, they brought the baby home in anticipation of death, they interpreted the situation down to the finest details as designed by ‘God’ even to the point of concluding that the baby’s being born now explains why they are in their present location).

1. I have noticed how some religiously fundamentalist-leaning Christian physicians – as with this physician -- struggle and are awkward with references to ‘chance’ or ‘randomness’.
2. The couple’s perspective seems to be analogous to a ‘house of cards’, comes across as very self-centered, leads them to interpret others’ experiences in the same way as they interpret their newborn’s tragedy.

Fragment -- #66

[July 1998 journal entry]

I was asked recently how I would respond/react if one of our children told me she is homosexual in sexual orientation. My initial thoughts were the following.

1. I hope I would listen with respect, seeking to understand what she is telling me and how she is interpreting her sense of self.
2. Her age would make a difference.
3. Since most individuals are heterosexual, I would give particular attention to indications that environmental factors might at least partially account for her self-understanding. I see no evidence of such environmental factors to date in our children’s experience. Therefore, I would anticipate a genetics explanation to be most compelling.
4. Neither a ‘nature’ paradigm nor a ‘nurture’ paradigm was considered in the times when Jewish scripture and Christian scripture were being written.
5. I find references to homosexuality in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture to be restricted in meaning to selfish, exploiting, and reckless behavior (not uniquely found among individuals with a homosexual orientation).
   

My first serious experience face to face with questions about sexual orientation occurred a number of years ago when a very capable and sensitive female graduate student for whom I was an academic advisor and who had taken several of my courses disclosed to me her confusion since adolescence about her sexuality. Many hours of conversation with her followed. Several years later, I learned firsthand about babies born with ambiguous genitalia when I worked as an ethics consultant for a lawyer who represented a medical school in lawsuits filed by parents of such babies against faculty physicians involved in the disputed decisions made and actions taken at birth. At one of the medical schools where I have collaborated with various academic physicians, I worked closely with a very compassionate and highly respected female physician who eventually trusted our friendship enough to disclose her homosexual orientation.

These examples illustrate experiences over the past twenty-five years that have discredited the condemnations, the jokes, the stereotypes, the prejudices, the violence tolerated/sanctioned in the culture and the ‘religious’ milieu of my youth.

Fragment -- #65

[July 1998 journal entry]

I have often wondered how an advocate of the views that “faith is a gift/work of God” and that “grace is prevenient” (from the later Augustine to Luther and Calvin to Barth et al) comes to have these views – by/from birth? chosen among varying theological options? How can these views be inherited or chosen without violating the idea itself?

Fragment -- #64

[July 1998 journal entry] I was asked during a breakfast meeting with a group of young physicians what happens for me in the exercise of silence. I commented on:

1. ‘centering down’ (inner simplification),
2. reflection,
3. a widening range of vision,
4. humility/modesty,
5. recovered balance between action and contemplation,
6. sharpened ability/capacity to listen (which relates so directly to effectiveness in being truly present with others).

Fragment -- #63

[July 1998 journal entry]
‘Post-modern’ does not (should not) exempt traditional/orthodox (T/O) interpretations of (Christian) faith from ‘modern’ questions or critiques. ‘Religious’ T/O paradigm views and interpretations are not more compelling in a ‘post-modern’ than in a ‘modern’ setting unless ‘modern’ is totally disregarded.

Fragment -- #62

[July 1998 journal entry]
In a recent professional formation meeting with a young physician, we discussed an essay he is writing. I prompted him to consider the following points:

1. Speak/write out to but not beyond your ability to explain, defend, and pursue your ideas when open to unrestricted questioning and criticism.
2. Editors, publishers, and program planners often push toward broader thinking in order to increase readership/audience.
3. Speak/write in a way that retains the liberty to retract later what you have said/written and the liberty to continue as a student of the subject about which you have spoken/written.
   
4. Speak/write in a manner that protects your credibility (as a seeker of truth, insight, reality) when you speak/write again.
   
5. When rigorously self-critical, one’s autobiography is a place where each one can speak/write. Then widen the perspective/subject in a timely manner.
   
6. In an optimal tutorial experience, you can presume (a) the tutor is more often in the lead, (b) the tutor’s perspective is not necessarily the ‘trump’, (c) the tutor is able to acknowledge when s/he gains insight from a student’s essay.

Fragment -- #61

[May 1998 journal entry]
Perhaps the most difficult consequence associated with repositioning one’s self as an ‘outsider’ or ‘guest’ re previous memberships/places in societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere) is the diminishment of relationships that had been, as an ‘insider’, central and cherished. The motive for becoming an ‘outsider’ must be critical to one’s integrity in order to pay this heavy price. For this reason, I have disciplined myself against admonishing others to move ‘outside’ their societal spheres. I am willing to counsel and learn from individuals who take the initiative to move ‘outside’ or who, for reasons they did not encourage but cannot deny/avoid, have been forced ‘outside’.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #16

Reflections from journal entries

Now for another set of reflections. These reflections have been selected/adapted from journal entries written during the years we lived and worked as a family in rural East Tennessee Appalachia (November 1997-July 1999).

64 [April 1998 journal entry] My transition from ‘insider’ to ‘outsider’ re the ‘religious’ sphere (in which I was born and raised) involved at least the following factors:

1. attending public schools,
2. attending a state university,
3. choosing history as my field of study for graduate/doctoral education,
   
4. being existentially near to my first wife (d. 1987) as she fought multiple sclerosis,
   
5. entering the medical education sphere as a prompter/interpreter,
   
6. focusing on society’s marginalized and dismembered.
   

At least for me, once fully ‘outside’ there is no way back to membership in the ‘religious’ sphere with integrity. I saw too much. I learned too much. Yet this ‘outside’ experience is daunting (e.g., the patience necessary as ‘religious’ language and experience die, as familiar places and relationships diminish, as the number of previous acquaintances with whom to talk shrinks, as what lies ahead remains uncertain).

The ‘outsider’ approach to ethics, spirituality, theology I am following

1. requires a critical/historical approach to Jewish scripture and Christian scripture,
   
2. has the ‘scrap heap’ Job and Ecclesiastes’ Koheleth as the entry/exit points for studying the life of ‘Jesus’,
3. regards organized ‘religion’ today to be equivalent to the organized ‘religion’ in Jesus’ day,
   
4. exercises an existential honesty and a face-to-face posture toward being human in concrete situations, with the focus on the most vulnerable,
   
5. measures ideas/convictions from the perspective of those in greatest vulnerability,
   
6. thinks and makes decisions ‘from below’.

65 [July 1998 journal entry] What would a ‘non-religious’ reading/interpretation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer be?

1. Note the ‘non-religious’ to ‘religious’ to ‘non-religious’ movements in his life story. The ‘non-religious’ perspective at the beginning of his life was not equivalent to the ‘non-religious’ thoughts expressed in the prison correspondence.
   
2. Note interpreters of his prison correspondence who hold positions within the ‘religious’ sphere predictably offer a ‘religious’ reading/interpretation of Dietrich.
   
3. Note Eberhard Bethge’s pointing in more than one of our conversations to the significance of Dietrich’s older brother Karl-Friedrich for the formation of Dietrich’s later ‘non-religious’ ideas.

66 [July 1998 journal entry] Further thoughts about be(com)ing ‘non-religious’:

1. Is the phrase ‘beyond religion’ better than the word ‘non-religious’? or ‘outside religion’?
   
2. Moving from denomination to denomination within the ‘religious’ sphere is not be(com)ing ‘non-religious’.
3. Critiquing ‘religion’ from another sphere is not be(com)ing ‘non-religious’.
   
4. ‘Non-religious’ reflects a set of experiences and/or a decision to see, listen, think, act with unqualified integrity (i.e., not compromised by institutionalized spheres).

‘the ethical dimensions of patient care’ -- #25

[December 2005 journal entry]

Safe and stable medical practices and hospitals expect their physicians to be fluent (in the full/rich sense of vocabulary and syntax so deeply imbedded, instinctive, readily at hand that the speaker/writer can focus completely on the subject and the one addressed) in three professional languages – i.e., clinical/scientific language, legal language, and business language. Fluency in these three languages remains fresh due to daily use with patients, with support staff members, and in peer-to-peer exchanges.

It has been my experience/observation that medical practices rarely expect their physicians to be fluent in a fourth professional language – i.e., what I call the language of caring (e.g., language for reflection on being gentle, minimizing harm, making an appreciated difference, facing failures, respecting self-determination, seeking fairness, acknowledging/resolving conflicts of interest, . . . ).

Perhaps the reason is the time and energy required to maintain fluency in the language of caring. Learning/using the language of caring must not diminish fluency in the other three professional languages. In fact, fluency in the three required professional languages must be exceptional in order for seeking/maintaining fluency in the language of caring not to be criticized.

Perhaps the reason is the depth/quality of caring to which a medical practice is actually committed. Where in most medical practices does the language of caring appear to be (thought in fact is not) a priority? The marketing and public relations departments. Medical practices striving for profit and/or for their physicians’ lifestyle interests do not encourage or give incentives for meaningful discourse using the language of caring.

Perhaps the reason is the self-examination – e.g., transparency, vulnerability, disappointment, accountability, vision, passion, . . . . Meaningful discourse using the language of caring probes/stimulates one’s sensitivities – e.g., “What is the link between caring deeply and becoming jaded/cynical?” “Can I end up giving less by trying to give more?” “Dare I admit times when my capacity to care is fatigued?” “Can I practice very good medicine without caring for the patient?” “When my capacity to care is low, who around me bear/s the consequences?” “What would cause my spouse and children to think I care more for my patients than I care for them?” “What conclusions about my professional character would be drawn by observing how I handle my most difficult patients?” “How do I protect myself without sacrificing why I became a physician?” “When does scaled back care cease to be care?” “How do I recover my capacity to care?”

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #50

[5/1998] “__________ has such a wonderful attitude.” It is common to hear such said about individuals within the ‘religious’ sphere who, in reaction to devastating circumstances, raise no hard or persistent questions toward or about ‘God’ as understood within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm. By not challenging/threatening the assumptions and expectations of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, such individuals are recognized/honored within the ‘religious’ sphere as exemplary. This approval in turn reinforces their attempt to see devastating experiences as interpreted by/within the ‘religious’ sphere.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #49

[4/1998] The ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following necessitates sorting out and relentlessly critiquing the various meanings proposed for the word ‘God’. ‘Relentlessly’ (L., unwilling to melt or to soften in temper/resolve or to become less severe) is an aggressive but not overstated description of the necessary critique.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #48

[6/1996] The story/play Job (specifically the dialogue sections and 42:7) and the essay of Ecclesiastes (minus the last paragraph) have become, for me, the windows into Jewish scripture and Christian scripture.

[Note: Without the series of exchanges between the prologue and epilogue, the 42:7 statement has no logical place in the story/play Job. So the statement is not part of the epilogue that -- together with the prologue -- forms the ‘happily ever after’ short version of the story/play Job. I think the composer surprises the audience with the implied task of searching back through the extended story asking, “What did Job say about ‘God’ that the composer thinks is right?”]

[Note: I started giving Ecclesiastes careful attention during my Louisville years (1976-79) when I saw the similarities with modern existential writings. I remember concluding that Ecclesiastes stands alone in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture in requiring so little commentary to be accessible. When I began offering a systematic theology graduate seminar (1981), the format I chose was to imagine a series of conversations between ‘Jesus’ and the author of Ecclesiastes. For many years, I read Ecclesiastes as the personal statement of Koheleth (the speaker in the text). More recently, I have come to regard Koheleth as a literary device created by the essay’s anonymous author. I see Koheleth as similar to a court fool – i.e., giving rather blunt analyses that those threatened can easily dismiss. Another analogy is Shostakovich’s precarious position before Stalin. Distinguishing Koheleth from the author aligns well with the tenuous place of the essay in the canon of Jewish scripture and accounts for the outlandish, even clownish, statements attributed to Koheleth in the essay (e.g., Koheleth’s excessive claims to know more than anyone else before him and to be the best student by far there had ever been).]

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #47

[9/2005] The senior physician and CEO for the Appalachia community health center where I work and I have volunteered to be deployed by the federal government’s Health and Human Services Department to assist with the recovery efforts in and around New Orleans. My physician friend’s broad training and experience in the practice of comprehensive primary care with a concentration on poor patients would make him a very valuable asset. The volunteer category nearest to how I might assist is ‘chaplain’. My physician friend feels that my special usefulness would be as a ‘chaplain’ to the medical professionals and other rescue personnel as they bear/process truly awful experiences. We both are anxious to help.

Looking closely at human experience -- without sifting or filtering out any events however severe -- makes me aware that my privileges (e.g., health, education, travel, economic liberties, . . . ) separate me from the vast majority of individuals in human history. Gazing at the devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina has intensified this awareness.

‘Catastrophe’ . . . ‘disaster’ . . . ‘tsunami’ . . . ‘edge of the abyss’ . . . ‘nightmare’ . . . ‘tragedy’ . . . .

Where do you go in Jewish Scripture to find such raw expressions of trauma, agony, desperation? Several of the prophets lamented, groaned. Habakkuk ventured a protest. But they eventually returned to ‘God’ language within a theological paradigm that implicitly if not explicitly attributed devastating events directly or indirectly to “the Lord’s hands”. Only Ecclesiastes and the extended story/play Job – hardly weight bearing texts within the ‘religious’ sphere – persisted in questioning the intent/character behind “the Lord’s hands” and the underlying theological paradigm.

Where do you go in Christian Scripture for such raw expressions of trauma, agony, desperation? A slave army’s fight for freedom had been crushed. Rome had burned to the ground. Herculaneum and Pompeii had been buried. Jerusalem had been destroyed. What does it mean for there to be no trace of such events in Christian Scripture? no lament, groaning, protest? The theologians – Jewish or Christian – to whom one seeking a ‘face to face with the world’ spirituality and ethics can turn are the few for whom such raw expressions of trauma, agony, desperation keep the ‘God’ question open.

I am very hesitant about the ‘God’ language used -- especially toward the evangelical and fundamentalist end of the theological spectrum -- in reacting to or interpreting utter disasters. I wonder, “Is such ‘God’ language used to relieve the one/s speaking? to capitalize on the survivors’ plight? to defend or ‘clean up’ after ‘God’?”

The attempt to exclude events of immeasurable suffering (e.g., in modern times the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, American slavery, the carnage of World War I, the Nazi Holocaust, Hiroshima, Cambodia, the 2004 Tsunami, . . . Hurricane Katrina) from the reality within which each day is lived can seem worth the effort/cost to those experientially detached from such events. A ‘face to face with the world’ approach to spirituality and ethics fights against this temptation, determined instead to seek deeper consciousness of such events. The liberty (even instruction) in the ‘religious’ sphere -- especially toward the evangelical and fundamentalist end of the theological spectrum -- to keep faith/theology disconnected from and untested by events of immeasurable suffering results in such clashing statements as “The Lord had his reasons” (for permitting/causing Hurricane Katrina) and “We are caring for the evacuees because God expects us to”. A ‘face to face with the world’ approach to spirituality and ethics disagrees with this insulating method, being anchored instead by the resolve to hold only to ideas that are not overwhelmed by such events. The noble and generous expressions of compassion toward survivors when immeasurable suffering is compressed into specific events tend in time to wane as the initial burden of the harmed/displaced is met and as attention returns to less disturbing matters. A ‘face to face with the world’ approach to spirituality and ethics finds in such acute events of immeasurable suffering a reminder that similarly immeasurable suffering is encountered in all directions (diffused throughout) every day.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #46

[7/1995] I want to live consistently with a human-affirming vision that does not require ultimate loyalty to any particular sphere (i.e., the missing character in the story/play Job). Freedom from all spheres (including ‘religion’) is necessary to be this sort of person.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #45

[1994] The Congregational Church in Norwich, VT, where we lived invited me to guide a discussion about ‘remembering’. I prepared the following thoughts based on the story/play Job –

Prior to a devastating series of tragedies, Job held an exemplary and defining position within his various ‘communities’ (i.e., religious, family, economic, political, social). The meta-narrative within his ‘communities’ presumed that upright (merciful, fair, respectful) living resulted in blessed circumstances and that sinful (callused, manipulative, selfish, base) living resulted in cursed circumstances. Gathering with and around Job increased their sense of security. After a devastating series of tragedies, Job lost his exemplary and defining position within his ‘communities’. To them he was obviously cursed. He no longer confirmed the meta-narrative. To remain in ‘community’ with him would have threatened confidence in the meta-narrative. Those with shallow and quite conditional loyalty to Job ridiculed him, ignored him, gawked at him, spit on him, expected him to ‘repent’. Those more invested in Job – his wife, his family, and his closest friends – eventually failed him. ‘Communities’ must cross a critical and radical threshold in order to remain in community with a ‘scrapheap’ Job. That threshold entails the ability and courage to permit presumptions about the meta-narrative to be challenged. The ‘scrapheap’ Job refused to take this pressure off his ‘communities’. He maintained his innocence . . . and his integrity. When his closest friends began to speak, they knew only the language and responses characteristic of the meta-narrative. They did not know how to be with their friend. The story/play Job is so composed in its canonical form that the ‘communities’ receiving the story can remember without rethinking what it would mean to remain in community with a ‘scrapheap’ Job. The story ends with Job’s ‘communities’ gathering again around him. No doubt they had heard report that he had said, “I repent”. The socio-economic indicators of favor had returned to him. They interpreted this reversal to mean that the meta-narrative had been proven true and dependable. They are not forced to see that, for ‘communities’ to be able to risk remaining with a ‘scrapheap’ Job (and, thereby, to remember him with humility and gratitude), they must be modest in their presumptions about life’s meaning, grasp the place doubt, be penitent, be gathered by a cause/identity that makes holding together as ‘communities’ a significant but secondary goal, appreciate the art of silence.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #44

[1994] What did Job have left – his integrity. And his closest friends were pressuring him to compromise his integrity.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #43

[1994] Does the Job 6:14 vision of friendship relate to every relationship? to one relationship? to what number of relationships?

[Note: Translators/commentators have debated the proper translation of Job 6:14. My work with this text with the guidance of a Hebrew language and Wisdom Literature specialist has led to this translation – “A despairing man should have the devotion of his friend even if he (i.e., the despairing man) forsakes the fear of the almighty”.]

Fragment -- #60

[2/98] Rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep are difficult aims to achieve with full integrity. Envy, jealousy, . . . inhibit rejoicing. Insecurity, fear, shock, . . . inhibit weeping.

Fragment -- #59

[2/98] Words without power (i.e., substance or significance) are without power due to their source and their center. Therein is one reason for my attention to a Quaker-like emphasis on silence. Meaningful and powerful words emerge from an ‘engaged silence’ approach to life. Therefore, what happens in ‘silence’ is critical. One only speaks out of what is experienced in silence.

Fragment -- #58

[2/98] A key difference between C. S. Lewis and me (not to speak of numerous obvious differences!) is that I went through the trauma (spiritually and theologically) of a spouse’s chronic/degrading illness/death before and then simultaneous with my graduate education and subsequent thought formation whereas Lewis developed his thought and became ‘larger than life’ via his writings before his experience with his cancer-inflicted wife revealed to him the ‘house of cards’ weakness of his by then internationally acclaimed thought. (The writings that had made Lewis an anchor for faith for so many around the world – e.g., Mere Christianity, Miracles, The Problem of Pain, . . . – were written before Lewis married Joy Gresham in 1956. Her health was failing when they married. She died of cancer four years later. Lewis died in 1963.) His A Grief Observed – in which he admitted the hollowness of the views he brought to the experience of his wife’s illness/death -- is, for me, his most helpful writing. He had little to say after his wife died. (Question -- What effect did his World War I experiences as a soldier have on him?) I continue very intentionally to add to the initial experience with tragedy in my first wife’s illness/death (e.g., Down syndrome victims as with Ginny Elkins, Charity Hospital patients, abused children at K-Bar-B, cancer patients, University of Miami/Overtown cocaine-abusing women, Appalachia poverty, . . .). One consequence is my hesitancy to share with others my thoughts/views.

Fragment -- #57

[2/98] Are certain individuals innately gifted with the ability to handle confrontation? Perhaps to a degree, in that some personality types (e.g., more introverted or more structured) have additional anxieties about confrontation. However, everyone will be confrontational about what matters most to them. Otherwise, the subject does not matter so much after all. Variables that work against taking a stand are fatigue and loss of vision.

Fragment -- #56

[1/98] What is ‘after modern’? ‘Post-modern’ implies some meaning for and involvement with ‘modern’. At issue is paradigm decay. All paradigms – being human constructs -- must be subject to questions and criticism in order to avoid idolatry. The erosion of a paradigm does not in and of itself undermine the paradigm until a certain threshold of decay is recognized. ‘Post-modern’ points to deficiencies in the understandings of ‘modern’, but does not yet provide direction re what is beyond ‘modern’.

[Note: As several journal entries re ‘post-modern’ indicate, I struggle with the term – both ‘post’ and ‘modern’. ‘Post’ strikes me as too detached, too categorical, too dismissive. Otherwise, how could ‘pre-modern’ fundamentalists be emboldened by ‘post-modern’ postures against ‘modern’? Otherwise, how could political operatives such as those who have been driving the Bush administration be so unrestrained by facts and true debate, choosing instead to ‘create reality’? And is not every dominant paradigm ‘modern’ in its time/place? Perhaps ‘Imperial/Colonial’ or ‘Scientific’ or ‘Cartesian’ or ‘Capitalist’ or ‘Holocaust’ or . . . would be more to the point re the ‘modern’ in ‘post-modern’. Some innovations in method and interpretation since the eleventh century in Western Europe continue to be revised and used; others have been tested and discarded. And since the end of World War II, a monopoly on political voice/power has steadily slipped away from the presumptive Western nations. I would argue that the future of humankind depends on an unconditional commitment to critical reasoning. Would ‘post-modern’ proponents agree?]

Fragment -- #55

[12/97] It seems to me there is a size beyond which cities cease to be ‘human’ or ‘natural’ (as self-interest, lack of accountability, anonymity dominate actions and encounters). Is ‘community’ (as I am coming to understand such from a ‘non-religious’ perspective) inherently in tension with a large-city social structure?

Fragment -- #54

[4/1997 journal entry] The approach to ‘spirituality’ I am seeking has to do with what energizes a person, with what gives orientation, with that without which one begins to shut down existentially and ethically.

Fragment -- #53

Fragment -- #53
[3/1997 journal entry] Most individuals still seem to be unaware of (or, in other words, take for granted) the paradigm within which they interpret life experiences. The paradigm is thus not subject to questioning. Once aware of one’s own paradigm (and, therefore, aware that others also interpret life experiences within some paradigm), most individuals continue to use a paradigm as long as the paradigm permits them to feel sufficient balance (1) through the greatest number of life experiences or (2) through the most difficult life experiences.

Fragment -- #52

[10/1996 journal entry] A reality that transcends the human is essentially without or beyond language, forms, institutions. I would argue that symbols (1) must serve to awaken a spiritual experience (past or present) and (2) should arise from within the experience of those sharing in that to which the symbol points and which the symbol opens. Corollaries are (1) that such language, forms, and institutions should be permitted to fade/die as well as be born and (2) that no competitiveness should occur about such symbols. As examples of such symbols, see Bonhoeffer’s reference to the gift of Barth’s cigar and his references to ‘the parcel’ in the prison correspondence

Fragment -- #51

[9/1996 journal entry] Why am I drawn toward silence as a centering spiritual exercise? (1) A Berdyaev-type analysis of ‘God’ language. (2) An Otto-type approach to ‘the sacred’. (3) A Habakkuk-type experience of being painfully/disturbingly conscious of the tragic, offensive, violent, hopeless, . . . .

[Note: The reference here is to Nicolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) – a controversial Russian philosopher and theologian who lived as an exile in Paris from 1922 to his death. He wrote prolifically. He stood with the French resistance against the Nazi occupation. He is usually classified as an existentialist, though he called himself a ‘personalist’. I first encountered Berdyaev’s thought (especially through The Philosophy of Freedom and Truth and Revelation) in the late 1970s as I prepared to teach a course on trends in current theology. He insisted that ‘spirit’ is that which is impossible to define, that which is situated beyond the limits of thought. He extended my critical analysis of ‘God’ language by sensitizing me to the sociomorphic and cosmomorphic (in addition to the more familiar anthropomorphic) critiques/limitations of ‘God’ language.]

[Note: The reference here is to Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) – an influential German Lutheran theologian and political activist who advocated liberal strategies for international peace and justice and who worked tirelessly for a renewal of Protestant liturgy. I included Otto’s 1917 Das Heilige (published in English as The Idea of the Holy) in the readings for a classics in spirituality literature course I taught. I especially appreciate his description of ‘the sacred’ as, beyond ideas of goodness, a ‘mysterium tremendum’ – ‘mysterium’ leading to silence and ‘tremendum’ leading to awe.]