Fragment -- #111

[December 1999 journal entry]

Reflections on ‘lying’ after guiding a discussion for a Presbyterian USA adult group (which the senior pastor invited me to do) --

1. It is critical to differentiate ‘categorical’ and ‘prima facie’ approaches to ethics.
   
2. Can a lie be noble? harmless? selfish? redemptive? harmful? loving?
3. Views of ‘truth’ bear on the individual observer’s perspective.
4. Harm can be done by not bearing truthful witness.
5. How close to the deepest relationships can one reach without having confidence in the other?
6. In what way is a lie denial? secretive? manipulative?
7. Can one defend being ‘categorical’ on some matters and ‘prima facie’ on other matters?
   
8. We construct reality by how we handle ‘truth-telling’.
9. What is the relationship between ‘truth telling’ and ‘covenant’?

Fragment -- #110

[December 1999 journal entry]

I eventually came to the conclusion/resolution that I would not remain formally associated with organizations (esp., ‘religious’ organizations) that have reputations for being self-righteous, for being intolerant, for restraining open inquiry, for being intellectually lazy, . . . .

Fragment -- #109

[November 1999 journal entry]

It seems to me that, as those ‘right of center’ gained momentum in the 1970s, those ‘left of center’ became increasingly vulnerable to polemic and stereotypical attacks from those ‘right of center’ for attempting to be more intellectually honest and for attempting to truly engage the world in concrete ways. How many of those ‘left of center’ concluded they had too much at stake to follow through thoroughly? radically (i.e., to the root)?

Fragment -- #108

[November 1999 journal entry]

As a ‘from below’ experience/perspective steadily became rooted/defining for me, my attention to the sine qua non assumptions/expectations of the ‘religious’ sphere evaporated, became peripheral, gave way.

Fragment -- #107

[November 1999 journal entry]

Perhaps a statistical model can be related to lifestyle decisions (i.e., standard deviations from the mean). If the goal is to maximize the range of individuals who feel truly welcome in one’s home, then should someone with lifestyle options attempt to live daily one standard deviation below the mean? Does living two or more standard deviations below the mean necessitate/need the motivation/justification of a special reason for one’s lifestyle to form in the direction of being impoverished? Does living one standard deviation above the mean significantly increase the risk of being damaged by materialism? Note that the mean varies from culture to culture and from time to time within a culture. Should one’s point of reference be local? regional? national? international? Must the mean rise in order to improve the circumstances of the impoverished?

Fragment -- #106

[November 1999 journal entry]

At least two distinctions define/shape what I think and write – i.e., (1) a ‘from below’ perspective, having experienced chronic illness during my 20s as the spouse of a victim when my ideas and life views were being radically revised and (2) doctoral training/expertise in history and theology that led first through conventional ‘religious’ roles as a pastor and a seminary professor, but eventually led beyond such conventional ‘religious’ roles into ‘non-religious’ secular roles.

Fragment -- #105

[November 1999 journal entry]

I have again been reflecting on how defining my first wife’s experience with multiple sclerosis was personally and symbolically for me. This experience was existentially intensified by our being newly married and in our 20s facing a chronic illness during my university and then graduate education. This experience was symbolic for me in that being with her as truly/genuinely as possible opened my eyes to so many other ‘untouchables’ who are dismembered from societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere).

Fragment -- #104

[October 1999 journal entry]

The canon of Jewish scripture and the canon of Christian scripture have remained open and debatable since my first serious introduction to the ‘canon question’ at the beginning of my graduate studies (1974). Since then what I think and what I write re spirituality and ethics have been altered by the implications of the irresolvable status of the ‘canon question’. My angle for considering the collections of Jewish scripture and Christian scripture as ‘open’ is a ‘from below’ angle (e.g., the story/play about the ‘scrapheap’ Job and the Ecclesiastes essay as my entering/exiting points). I see several competing theologies in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture.

Fragment -- #103

[October 1999 journal entry]

Something distinctive about the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm is revealed when expressions of this paradigm – increasingly so toward the evangelical/fundamentalist end of the theological spectrum -- treat dissimilar fragments in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture as a unified collection of writings. For example, the J/E/P/D nuances for ‘God’ are made to read/function as a single flattened theology in the Torah and throughout the rest of Jewish scripture and Christian scripture. The story/play about the ‘scrapheap’ Job and the Ecclesiastes essay are forced into conformity with the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm. Tensions within the first Christian writings are molded into a closed collection and treated as the reflection of a single theology.

Fragment -- #102

[October 1999 journal entry]
A ‘from below’ perspective/method links (1) a scientific approach to interpreting human experience/events and (2) the position/perspective of innocent suffering/ers.

Proposition: The latter leads to or requires the former; the former does not necessarily lead to or require the latter.

What are the implications of the latter leading to or requiring the former and, therefore, of moving away from the scientifically incredible thinking/assumptions found in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture?

Fragment -- #101

[October 1999 journal entry] How is “knowing God” (and related/similar ‘religious’ phrases/claims) an experience? Is not this language anthro-, socio-, and/or cosmomorphic?

Fragment -- #100

[October 1999 journal entry]

Proposition: That ‘community’ is experienced to some degree through a self-understanding (e.g., friendship, neighbor, family, business, . . .) that centers on accountability and on distributive justice concerns. This proposition can be tested in concrete/immediate ‘community’ experiences and in broader networks of ‘community’ experience. Re the latter, the consequences are less evident if one takes from the ‘common good’ without regard either for other individuals or for the ability of the ‘community’ as a whole to recover/survive/thrive. This point should be applied to end-of-life decisions in health care.

Fragment -- #99

[October 1999 journal entry]

If the rejection of a flat, fundamentalist, pre-modern approach to Jewish scripture and Christian scripture is to be consistently followed, then the subject of homosexuality should be considered ‘from below’ for reasons similar to the reconsideration of such subjects/issues as slavery, monarchy, demons, short age and soon end of the world, literal reading of Genesis 1-11, male superiority, . . . .

My present thoughts about homosexuality include –

1. I oppose any simple stereotyping/demonizing.
   
2. I first look for an individual’s integrity in being authentically present with the disadvantaged and vulnerable.
3. I suspect that a homosexual orientation is for some more genetic, for others more environment, for others more choice.
4. The bias, prejudice, abuse, . . . those with a homosexual orientation have experienced and still experience must be taken seriously.

Fragment -- #98

October 1999 journal entry]

Spectrum: from inquiry for inquiry’s sake (in which academic types ask/critique ideas without existential criteria/pressure to make decisions) to cultish retreat from rigorous and indiscriminate thinking/inquiry. I oppose only thinking in terms of where one finds oneself on this spectrum. Instead, I hold to a ‘from below’ existential critique/perspective (off of and separate from the above spectrum) when studying and testing ideas/claims. The core, central, simple question is – “How do I become and remain the sort of person who is genuinely/authentically present with victims of tragic/innocent suffering?” Two observations -- (1) I have seen too much to think I am invulnerable from innocent suffering or from being the victim of discrimination. (2) Affirming the human spirit as the ‘more’ about being human for which empirical analysis alone cannot account at least keeps open serious consideration of a suprahuman ‘more’.

Fragment -- #97

[August 1999 journal entry]

A close friend recently confessed, “Something deep inside me is cracking.” He had in mind the pain associated with being on the fringe of and moving past/beyond the ‘religious’ sphere/thought world. He referenced specifically the implications and consequences from the fact that “scripture is no longer an unquestioned cornerstone to/for my thought”. I encouraged him to examine carefully this ‘cracking’. The roots must be enduring and existentially ultimate. I encouraged him to interpret/clarify why this ‘cracking’ is happening – e.g., what is the source of the pressure? does he want the ‘cracking’ to stop? is it possible at this point to stop the ‘cracking’? what will be the cost if he tries to stop the ‘cracking’? what will be the cost if he does not try to stop the ‘cracking’? As for my experience, I answered these questions and related the ‘cracking’ metaphor to my (1) committing unconditionally to an open, non-discriminating, ongoing inquiry/education and (2) resolving to be aligned with those who are sifted out, discredited, disrespected, marginalized, dismembered, outcast.

Fragment -- #96

[July 1999 journal entry]

Proposition: All ‘God’ language is anthropo-, socio-, cosmomorphic (a Berdyaev-type analysis). Is there an idea or comment about ‘God’ that is not? that escapes these limits? But would not such an idea or comment then be incomprehensible to a human being? If there is no such idea or comment that is comprehensible, then two conclusions follow. (1) All comments and claimed experience regarding “knowing God” or “having a personal relationship with Jesus” or . . . are anthropo-, socio-, cosmomorphic statements. Is disregard for this limitation on ‘God’ language another form of ‘religious’ idolatry? (2) An alternative is to be iconoclastic toward all such language, a form of ‘negative’ or ‘negating’ theology. A divine/infinite subject, to be such, must remain beyond comprehension. The result is a ‘before God as if without God’ spirituality/theology.

Fragment -- #95

[June 1999 journal entry]

A physician with whom I work closely asked me a few days ago about being an ‘outlier’ -- what this description means, from what I am an ‘outlier’, what drives this process. I shared with him the following reflections on being considered/called an ‘outlier’ – e.g.,

1. that ‘outlier’ means to lie/be outside some defined boundary,
   
2. that parallels to ‘outlier’ might be ‘stranger’ or ‘loner’ or ‘guest’ or ‘visitor’,
   
3. that statistically the term ‘outlier’ has to do with being an anomaly to a normal distribution of data re standard deviations from the mean,
4. that inherent to being an ‘insider’ is living some variation on the defining/normative theme.

I see myself as an ‘outlier’ in relation to my immediate family, my extended family, the ‘religious’ sphere, medical ethicists, . . . . I do not view myself as an ‘outlier’ in the same way as those who are dismembered for various reasons from societal spheres. I looked back to two points in my first wife’s experience with multiple sclerosis in the 1970s that were thresholds – i.e., (1) her decision in 1977/78 to use a wheelchair (recalling the dilemma of using a wheelchair to continue to have ‘normal’ experiences versus not using a wheelchair because doing would marginalize us in the eyes of the ‘normal’) and (2) the message in 1978 from the neurological clinic in West Germany advising that, due to how far her disease had advanced, we not return (noting that this advice, while delivered respectfully and gently, had a marginalizing impact in that she and I heard that we were seen to be ‘abnormal’ among others with neurological illnesses and, therefore, even more so elsewhere). There were inward and outward dimensions to feeling/being marginalized. Also, there were more and more matters taken for granted by those around us (e.g., walking up stairs) that we could no longer take for granted. And our sensitivities were heightened re how we were strangers or threatening reminders when we were in ‘normal’ spheres (e.g., conversations, plans, activities, prayers, hymns, . . .). Interwoven with all these experiences were my completing graduate education and beginning graduate teaching.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #94

[December 1999 journal entry]

Reflections on the ‘sheep’ and ‘shepherd’ metaphors after a sermon by and subsequent conversation with a senior Presbyterian USA pastor – The pastor accented (1) a shepherd’s gentleness, patience, sensitivity and (2) differences between cattle being driven and sheep being led. He did not attribute the existence of ‘wolves’ to ‘God’. He also avoided suggestions of invulnerability to ‘wolves’ in his comments about the ‘sheep’ and ‘shepherd’ metaphors.

I have reservations about retaining/redeeming these metaphors as insightful for a ‘non-religious’ ethics and spirituality. The ‘sheep’ metaphor tends to sanction/assume (idealize?) weakness, passivity, naiveté, fear, timidity, innocence, ‘easy prey’. A sheep has no chance against a wolf. Within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, these traits are encouraged and reinforced by the ‘sheep’ metaphor, with the promise of insulation/protection for the adherent if s/he stays safely/deeply within the ‘fold’ that is guarded by the clergy.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #93

[December 1999 journal entry]

Moving from ‘religious’ to ‘non-religious’ is analogous

1. to moving from childhood to adulthood re ‘Santa Claus’ language/ideas,
2. to Toto pulling the curtain back on the truth about the wizard in The Wizard of Oz,
3. to the small child saying what the adults dared not say in The Emperor’s New Clothes story.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #92

[December 1999 journal entry]

If I had concentrated on restructuring my thought re spirituality and ethics before working thoroughly and radically (i.e., to the root) into methodological matters, it is most likely that no more than variations on ‘religious’ T/O paradigm themes would have resulted. Perhaps another way to put this point would be that rethinking must always include methodological matters, with the consequence that – until methodological matters are exhausted (and I now realize that such a time will not come) – revisions in thought will result in new themes as/more often as variations on existing/previous themes. I am reviewing/analyzing my unwavering commitment since the 1970s to the necessity to fully and intentionally incorporate into my views/judgments the results of ongoing attention to methodological issues – e.g., historiography, archaeology, physics, textual criticism, . . . . I do not think I could have done so had maintaining/protecting a place in the ‘religious’ sphere been a higher goal/value. Or at most, inquiry into methodological issues could only have been conducted in a partial/restricted way. Ideas (oral and written) within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm revert to(ward) un(der)examined/pre-modern assumptions and language (as evident in sermons, hymns, prayers, . . . ).

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #91

[November 1999 journal entry]

During a Monday afternoon discussion with a senior Presbyterian USA pastor, he indicated he stays “in a love-hate association with the institutional church because the church I criticize gave me my way of seeing the world”. I countered that my experience in/with ‘the world’ (i.e., seen ‘face to face’ rather than through the prism/filter of ‘religion’) has reshaped and continues to reshape how I see and determines what filters through to me from ‘religion’. The anchors or roots of my ‘non-religious’ approach to living and thinking are outside the ‘religious’ sphere.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #90

[October 1999 journal entry]

Re my existential/spiritual association with the Letters and Papers Bonhoeffer’s experience and ideas (as I have discussed often with Eberhard and Renate Bethge):

1974-82: During these years, I was catching up with the Letters and Papers Bonhoeffer. He clearly stood out among the seminal thinkers in the history of Christian thought I had studied carefully through my graduate work and during my initial years as a graduate professor.

1982-91/92: During these years, I was moving – in thought, decisions, and experience -- in ways analogous to or alongside the Letters and Papers Bonhoeffer.

1992-present: During these years, I began (and continue) to move – in thought, decisions, and experience -- beyond the Letters and Papers Bonhoeffer (not away from him but further into a ‘non-religious’ experience of ethics and spirituality than he reached due to the abrupt/premature end of his life). 1991-92 was a decisive passage for me in completing the process of stepping out of/away from the ‘religious’ sphere.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #89

[October 1999 journal entry]

As I have continued the long and tedious move from ‘religious’ to ‘non-religious’, no one (whether immediate family member or close friend) has been in a position to or could say, “Keep going. You’re not finished. . . .” There has been no ‘path finder’ ahead of me once I passed Bonhoeffer’s experience/insight, the full maturity of which was denied him by his April 1945 execution. No one has been pushing me toward a thorough/radical handling of the situation or the ideas. I could have stopped at any point without criticism.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #88

[October 1999 journal entry]

Note: As did Bonhoeffer, I faced decisions re being ‘with the world face to face’ before and without having worked completely through the radical shift from ‘religious’ to ‘non-religious’.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #87

[October 1999 journal entry]

A key trait of a ‘religionless’ approach to ethics and spirituality is thinking/being ‘from below’ in entering/exiting Jewish scripture and Christian scripture via the story/play Job and the Ecclesiastes essay, putting all else at risk (i.e., what/whoever fails to make it through this grid is not credible).

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #86

[August 1999 journal entry]

I recently read Chalmers’ What Is This Thing Called Science? He commented at length about how scientists who fall out of (call into question) their received scientific paradigm go to (or create) another paradigm. Re the ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following – I have come to realize that there will be no fixed (settled) alternative paradigm to ‘religious’ paradigms. ‘Fixed’ is a trait of ‘religion’. Instead, each day I have to configure a context within which to live/act. The configuration may correspond closely with the previous day’s context within which I lived and made decisions. But it is nonetheless in essential ways a fresh configuration.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #85

[August 1999 journal entry]

In place of a ‘religious’ claim that “a miracle occurred”, a ‘non-religious’ interpretation of the same phenomenon sees a statistical anomaly/exception.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #84

[January 2006 journal entry]

To Love Someone More Dearly is one of the very few hymns I can sing and experience consistent with my ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics. The words to the first two verses are –

To love someone more dearly every day, To help a wondering child to find his way, To ponder o’er a noble thought and pray, And smile when evening falls: This is my task.

To follow truth as blind men long for light, To do my best from dawn of day till night, To keep my heart fit for His holy sight, And answer when He calls: This is my task.