Death does not defile, neither does water purify.

            This morning I attended a wonderful virtual talk hosted by Hadar and given by one of my favorite former classmates, Dena Weiss. She spoke about this week’s Torah portion Hukkat, through the lens of commentary from the Pesikta derav Kahana 36a (to learn more about this book, ask someone else please!). One line from the commentary has stuck with me all day and, well, I’m enjoying a wild insight I’m having about it.

            First, about the parsha and the commentary: In Hukkat, we read the law of the red heifer, an animal which is sacrificed, burned to ashes, and then those ashes are used to purify those who have been made ritually impure by contact with the dead. It’s a famously bizarre law, and in the commentary, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai is asked about it. First he gives an answer that normalizes the ritual but when pressed further by his students he says:

            “Death does not defile, nor does water purify, but it is the decree of the Holy One, blessed be He, who declared, ‘I have issued an ordinance and enacted a decree, and you are not permitted to question my decree.” 

Death does not defile nor does water purify.

            What a line! I’m obsessed with this line! It’s been in my head all day. So here are some levels of significance I find in it (with my advance apologies both to Dena Weiss and Rabbi Yochanan, as I am sure that my own thoughts will be spiraling further and further away from the intentions and meanings of Rabbinic thought).

Ok, here we go:

1) On the intended level, I believe (and Dena explained to us this morning) Rabbi Yochanan is saying that ritual purity is an arbitrary thing, something that exists by decree rather than in any natural sense. Ritual purity and impurity are symbolic at best, and so if it doesn’t make sense, don’t worry, it wasn’t logical in the first place.

2) Now then, let’s approach this text more loosely. When I read “defile,” I think “ruins.” And in that sense, yeah, death defiles! It totally defiles. Closeness with death leaves an impact on us. It can certainly kill a mood, or an appetite. In a physical-experiential sense, contact with death defiles, and can leave us seeking some way to remove that feeling. And similarly, water totally purifies! In a literal sense, it cleanses, but again in a physical-experiential sense, it refreshes. I take a shower, and I feel new. So, even without “God’s” proclamations about ritual purity and impurity, I think there’s an instinctive human sense that death does defile, and water does purify. 

3) Follow me as I really co-opt this text for my own purposes. Now that we’ve established that death does defile and water does purify, what would it mean to insist that they don’t? Here’s where I go all atheist-misanthropic on you-- death doesn’t ruin life; it’s f**king built into life! Death ruins life the way that dish-washing ruins a good meal-- it’s like, sure, it ruins you if you’re spoiled. Gonna bring this rant up a notch-- death is a big deal because we make it a big deal, because, well, we are meaning-making animals, so making things into big deals is what we do. But, in terms of life as a whole, death’s a piece of it, and it doesn’t defile. The same goes for water-- it only has meaning in a human world; otherwise, it’s just another element that does its thing, and sometimes does its things with other things. Tl;dr: Death doesn’t defile because defilement is a human construct; water doesn’t purify because purity is a human construct. 

4) And now let’s return to these practices around ritual purity and impurity. If death doesn’t defile and water doesn’t purify, then why do them? If everything is meaningless, then why do meaningful acts? Well, I’ll refer you to #2 above-- whether or not there’s meaning in the universe, we seem to see/carry it anyhow! Death doesn’t defile, but it sure feels like it does. Water doesn’t purify, etc. And that’s why “God” decrees all of this.

5) Ok, one last step-- there is no God, just like there is no ultimate meaning. In that case, “God” represents our passionate attempt/insistence that life has meaning, because that’s how we work; it’s how we get by. The decrees of “God” (our projections of meaning) matter because we need meaning, whether it’s “out there” or not (it isn’t). We can navigate life better when we have narratives of defilement and purification (or your choice of two more updated terms related to downfall and redemption, etc). 

Death defiles -- death does not defile -- death defiles.

Water purifies -- water does not purify -- water purifies.

Or to put it another way: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

Against Monotheism

I recently found this lost in my emails. 

I wrote it in 2009, during my last semester at divinity school, about a year before I realized I was a nonbeliever.

They tell me that God is One.  But I keep wondering, whether,

God being One,

He might also be many other numbers.

If "this and this are the words of the living Torah," then the one God is also Two.

If God is the dilemma and the resolution, then the two God is also Three.

And so on, right?

If God is One with those who suffer, then isn't God also Six Million?  Twelve Million?

Isn't God 12 children every minute?

If God rests where "two gather in His name" at the same time as "three gather in His name" somewhere else, while I "sit alone in meditative stillness," and you and a few others sit at "the table before God," then God is any number between One and I'm-not-sure.

And they tell me that God is One, but not in the same way that one is one.  Not the same way that I am one, or that the world is one.  The One that stands above all numbers.  Is that number still really one?  Can a number lie on and above the number line?  Perhaps that number is actually None, or just some number we haven't invented yet.

They tell me that God is One.  But I keep wondering, who,

who made One so goddamn important?  Since when was there ever really

One Truth?  Since when did all of this make sense and add up to One?

I've seen fragments, I've seen composites, but I've never seen or thought an Absolute Whole.

Is this ridiculous?  I'm not saying that there's no unity; I'm just saying that not everything fits into a perfect unity. 

Yes- we live in one "world.'

Yes- we are all interconnected, interdependent, interpenetrating.

Yes- we may indeed all have one source.

But that is different than "God is One." 

God is One, to me, means one purpose.  God is One, to me, means one truth.

God is One, to me, means one that is the best, over all others which are less-than.

God is One means my One, and perhaps your One but an indirect way, and his and her One is just way off.

God is One, to me, means the subsuming of particulars in the One, a higher unity

that cancels far more regularly than it keeps.

I'm just trying to say that Oneness is just our trip, our obsession.  The world might have other plans. 

An Atheist Theological Perspective

I was recently invited/honored to contribute to a project collecting Jewish perspectives on God. Each section below (after the disclaimer) is based on a prompt from the organizer of the project.

Disclaimer on Sources

It seemed simpler to write something myself rather than cobble together a sheet of primary sources from more public (and scholarly) atheists, but my thoughts are definitely not original. Here are my major intellectual influences on this subject, in chronological order: Pseudo-Dionysius, Maimonides, Meister Eckhart, Rabbi Sherwin Wine, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Rabbi Adam Chalom, Rabbi Greg Epstein, and John Figdor, MDiv.

How do you understand God?

Some answers that atheists give:

• As an anachronism of pre-scientific society
• As a projection of childish fantasy on the universe
• As a human concept that people use for dubious moral purposes
• As a human concept that people use because they need meaning to be absolute, and they need the universe to have a Face
• I don’t know and I don’t care (“apatheism”)
• God cannot be understood; all attempts to understand God are idolatrous (“atheology”)

What is the nature of your relationship with God?

Some answers...:

• Similar to my relationship with unicorns and other fictional things
• No relationship with God; angry at believers for their intellectual/moral failings
• I don’t really think about it
• I used to believe in God but now I don’t; it’s been a major loss in my life, but that’s no reason to return to belief

Why isn't God a part of your Jewish experience?

Answers...:

• My relationship with Judaism is focused on the Jewish people, history, culture
• My relationship with Judaism is my relationship to the Jewish state, etc.
• I care about Jewish values of social justice and activism; God part is unnecessary
• Because I don’t believe in God and, fortunately, Judaism can be engaged meaningfully from SO many other points of contact. To take one example: for Shavuot, I stay up all night learning, socializing, eating cheesecake, and then I leave before services.

If I were to ask you about God, what would you talk about instead?

Let’s talk about what we really want to talk about when we talk about God. Instead of talking about “Our Father” let’s talk about family. Instead of talking about “the true Judge,” let’s talk about justice. Instead of saying “God is love,” let’s talk about love. Instead of “Messiah” let’s talk about a better world; instead of “heaven”, death and legacy. Instead of assuming that only God can provide a sense of good and/or meaning, let’s take the risk of seeking/making those things for ourselves, and braving the fragility and fallibility of their human origins.

Transtheism

            While reading Paul Tillich’s “The Courage to Be,” and doing some follow-up reading on the internet, I learned a new word: Transtheism.  I don’t think I will adopt it for myself just yet (“atheist” is more generally understood, and more accurate at the moment), but I want to share what it means to me.

Transtheism refers to a state which is neither theistic nor atheistic. This appeals to me because it attempts to avoid some of the limitations of either position. In Tillich’s philosophy, transtheism is described in various terms, like “the God beyond the God of theism” and “Being-Itself.” For my own purposes, I interpret Tillich as wanting to establish a relationship with something transcendent, something infinite, something that surrounds and includes him, without reducing it to the supernatural/ mythological/ all-too-human character “God.” So, it’s not theistic (since he’s going beyond God) and not exactly atheistic (too worshipful for that, I think). “Being-Itself” is no God, but it’s more than no-God.

            Of course, Tillich’s transtheism has its limitations. I think he wants “Being-Itself” to serve some godly functions, but it can’t, given its lack of agency and personality. And despite his book, I have trouble understanding how “Being-Itself” can provide an individual with courage (or morality, for that matter).

            But I share Tillich’s inclination towards the infinite, and his sensitivity towards Being-as-a-whole. While I am a non-believer, I want to continue to have a relationship (of some sort) with the Whole and the Transcendent, even if none of those will be god. I also recently finished reading Mitchell Silver’s very excellent book A Plausible God: Secular Reflections on Liberal Jewish Theology*, in which Silver considers the relative strengths and weaknesses of the naturalistic God-concepts of Mordecai Kaplan, Michael Lerner, and Art Green. Overall, Silver expresses skepticism at the usefulness of such a God-concept, until he discusses it alongside the limits of (certain conceptions of) humanism:

The theism is justified not by its humanism, but rather by its suggestion that humanism may not be all there is to value and meaning. Although God is immanent and most found in humans, God's separate name allows us to avoid a too quick identification between the divine and the human. We need God to avoid humanism. (94)

This is what I’ve meant by the empty throne. Humanistic values are utterly important, but humanism itself can run the risk of forgetting the relative smallness of humanity and its abilities. Perhaps something like a transtheism is necessary, just to remind us of our relativity.

            Of course, transtheism does just feel like a variation on atheism. I doubt a transtheist would pray, or religious texts (beyond negative theology) that speak to their faith. But it retains a love of the Whole and the Transcendent, which are not necessarily retained by either atheism or humanism.

*I swear that I had neither read Silver’s 2006 book nor even heard of him when I was forming my concepts of God1 and God2 and arguing Why God2 should not be called God. But WOW was this book ever written for me!

Theonomatology

"That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget." -- Jean-Paul Sartre 
 
These days, in my experience, there is no being called God,

But I have a yearning with that name—God!

It’s strange because I usually don’t name my cravings

—my appetite is no Andy, my sexuality not Sandy—

So is it appropriate to appropriate a proper noun

To this mystical desire for divinity?

A God by any other name would tell a tale incomplete:

If I called out for Truth, would I also find Love?

If I called out for Love, would I also find Strength?

If I called out for Strength, would I also find Hope?

Of course, when my yearning yells “God!” I find nothing and no one,

But the name rings a bell—

It re-members me to a time when He and I

Were together, when unity was simple, when “to be” was to be with this One.

But like that ringing, the name echoes and then dissipates,

And my call is simply a call, my yearning named, that’s all.

What if…

Well, how about…

What if God were not the name of a being, but instead…

An ideal place?

As in “Let’s find our way to the Land of God,

Where we will all be free and peaceful and creative!”

Or a band name?

As in “I play keyboard with the People of God,

Our tunes are soulful, and our harmonies divine.”

Or a dance craze?

As in “Let’s all do the God, oh baby,” “Let’s God again like we did last summer,”

“Teach me how to God, teach me teach me how to God.”

Or maybe not.

There is a state of being I’m desiring, a way that I want to be

In the world, in solitude, in communion.

And I want it so badly, and I want you there with me,

And, for me, the cry of “God!” expresses both the aim and intensity of that desire.

But there is no being called God, and a yearning cannot respond to my call.

So when that word escapes my heart, I realize that it’s because my heart is outdated,

And then the challenge is to develop this name into a fuller description,

And then I can explain it to myself and explain it to you,

And then it can become the name of a plan, a shared plan,

And then I can develop this yearning into reality.

God as Everything or Nothing

**Wrote this recently in response to a student's final assignment at Prozdor:


"Ein Sof," which literally means "without end" is used differently in different Jewish contexts. 


In Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), Ein Sof signifies God's utter infinitude, but within this infinitiude is the more traditional (Creator, Revealer, Redeemer) image of God in Judaism. 


In Richard Rubinstein "death-of-God" theology, he uses Ein Sof somewhat in the way you describe-- that we live in an infinite space/void that provides the stage for all reality, while not participating or directing the course of anything.

So, for some Ein Sof means "God is everything, and then some" and for others Ein Sof means "God is the void."  

Do you believe in God1 or God2?

This entry was originally posted on State of Formation in June 2011.

Some people who don’t believe in God still want to believe in “God.” The result is a modified type of God-idea. Call the new kinds God2.

God1s are characterized by “classic” God attributes, most notably will and power, or put more simply, agency. Without agency, there is no God1—no Creator, no Judge, no Redeemer, etc. The advance of the scientific, naturalistic world-view has driven God1s back into the far-reaching “gaps” in our knowledge. In the ancient near east a God1 could send or withhold rain, and even cause localized earthquakes (Num. 16:30-33). With modern meteorology and plate tectonic theory, those who attribute natural disasters to an angry God1 are challenged to explain at what point in the natural chain of cause-and-effect God1 intervened.

Before we move on to God2s, let’s first take into account options for modifying a God1 belief in the modern world.

1)      A deistic approach forces God1 into the gaps at the extreme edges; for example, when someone claims that God is responsible for the Big Bang. God1’s agency is here limited to the ultimate first action—quite the honor, but also a far-cry from the natural and historical interventions previously allowed.

2)     While not a modern move, one also can witness a profound limitation placed on God1 in the move from Deuteronomic to Christian theology, that is, the move from this-worldly to next-worldly reward and punishment. A God1 whose justice reigns over heaven and hell is powerful, but certainly nothing like the God1 whose justice reigns on Earth. However, the mystery of life-after-death still keeps a large, inviting space open for belief in God1.

3)     The God1 of limited theism (found in books like Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People) has greater agency than a Deistic God1, but is still severely limited. Frankly, I find the limited God1’s agency very confusing. What does it mean if God1 can’t put out a fire, but can inspire courage in the heart of a firefighter? (Kushner 139-142) How does that work? What exactly are the dynamics and boundaries of God1’s psycho-emotional powers, and do they move atoms at all?

Regardless, these modified God1 beliefs express the desire to harmonize an agential God with a mostly-naturalistic world-view.

God2 is any “God” that lacks agency, that is, will and power. Here are some kinds:

1) Mordecai Kaplan’s God2 is a power without will—a force. Also known as “the power that makes for salvation,” adherents of Kaplan’s theology relate to this God2 by identifying in nature and history the developments that foster human flourishing. Kaplan’s God2 is not just a symbol—in calling his God2 “God” he is attempting to point out the existence of an objective force in the world—but his God2 clearly lacks the distinct agency of a God1.

2) The God2 of pantheism is identical with the world. Being all things, pantheistic God2 doesn’t choose sides or make a plan, so It doesn’t have much of a will. Being all things, this God2 is powerful, but only in the sense of being like Tillich’s “power of being” (aka ground of being aka being-itself). This is not the kind of power that God1 seekers care about. A siddur will not get you far if you are looking to pray to the God-that-is-all-things. Anyhow, it’s an awkward God to worship. Sure there’s probably a lot of good poetry about God2 (Rumi?), but the popular praise-request-thank model of prayer doesn’t seem to fit with such an amorphous God.

3) Another God2 borders on the symbolic—the God2 of definitive metaphors like “God is love” or Gordon’s Kaufman’s “God is serendipitous creativity.” As an out atheist, it’s hard for me not to read those phrases as anything other than closeted atheism. That’s “God” used as an exclamation point, not as a proposition. All of the meaningful content is in the second half of the sentence; all “God” does to the idea is give it a name, and affirm its utmost importance.

What all of these God2 share is that they are descendants, once-removed, of God1. In order to read God2 into any part of the western religious canon, a lot of ironic reading (aka allegorical interpretation) is necessary. A God2 is likely to be factored into a scenario of salvation, but one can never say literally that “God2 saves,” as if God2 were a specific agent that could identify problems, have motivation to act on them, and act on them. In all of these God2 examples, God2 will save you, but only at the pace and power of human progress. And a God stripped of supernatural power loses a lot of appeal for most people. Think of all the images of “God” that are dependent on the God1 model: Creator. Father. King. Judge, Shepherd, Friend. Redeemer. Savior. Can the word “God” be cleansed of all these personalistic images? Please—“God” is a name! It’s a proper noun—that’s instinctually (because grammatically) personalizing. And so to say that God2 “speaks,” “wants,” or “loves,” is to speak very equivocally.

Indeed, the phenomenon of belief in God2 is founded on a desire to equivocate. The term “God” gathers a variety of significations, and many people want to hold on to some while letting go of others. Insofar as “God” functions to tie together rhetoric about ultimate meaning, cosmic explanation, and ethical direction, it is an unacceptable loss for some people to lose “God” when they begin to doubt the existence and power of a God1. They still desire an ultimate point of reference, on account of the orientation and instruction such a point of reference provides. The need for sense and order backs the desire for monotheism, and so “God” simply holds a central place in the individual and communal psyche. And so, modern-minded folks still seek out a one-principle to hang their hope on, to call “God.”

But should God2 be called “God”? What is a God without will and power? Yes, the word “God” carries many significations—but are certain significations essential? Does God2’s lack of agency disqualify it from deserving the label “God”? Think of what the mass of people right now, and throughout history, mean and meant by “God.” To them, God is a conscious over-being with the power to save and the right to judge and kill. That’s God1 aka God. What can you do with a God2?

(**An addended love-note to God2 lovers: Sorry! Also here’s where we agree—(1) the world is interconnected; (2) self-conscious life is the closest thing there is to “the Universe contemplating itself”; (3) transcendence is still available even without the supernatural; (4) people are indeed capable of great good.)

"Judaism: Religion of Reason" One book, Two book-reviews

I wrote 2 reviews of www.mesora.org founder's new book "Judaism: Religion of Reason."

Here is a link to my review of the book on JewishBoston.

And here is a link to a different review I wrote for Jewschool.

Enjoy!

Trading "God" for "Good"? Part 5 (Final) -- Some notes on Good

One word that seems weighty, but spared of total synonymy with religion, is “good,” aka “the good.” To me, it’s a bit of a bland term. It reminds me of all that Greek philosophy I failed to read. I want to say that it feels too general to be a gathering term, but then again all of my central terms so far have had that generic touch that makes them hubs for meaning.

The thing is, I can define my other terms. “Spirit” defines the human person (and human collective) as the meeting of subject and object. “Sacred” is a label we apply to those things which we hold most dear as a matter of our ethical existence. (Aha—my interest in sacred is really an interest in the ethical—forcing me to confront this word “Good.”)

The most daunting aspect of confronting the word “Good” is that I am entering some of the most well-worn territory in philosophical history. I understand that ethics is the ‘first philosophy’ in the post-metaphysical landscape, and so of course I have to take it on now. But—it’s a huge topic. For now, I’ll pick at it:

-         Good – first and foremost, is a spoken label. To paraphrase Hamlet, nothing is good or bad but speaking makes it so. So, in analyzing the word “good” I always want to analyze the speaker, to understand what provoked them to use that word. “Good” as a label, is always used relative to its speaker. Insofar as a person takes their own existence/self as good, I will guess that anything they term as “good” is also “good for” them.

-         The neutrality (relativism) of this term means that it can be used by anyone, which immediately gets us into trouble. Exterminating the Jews was “good for” Hitler. I feel a desire to rid the term of its neutrality, to make Hitler’s use of it somehow unfit. The neutrality also makes it less evocative—the words “God” and “sacred” have certain weight and connotation that makes it easier to identify false meanings.

-         There are a set of words that I relate closely to “good.” While good might be the central gathering term, it is these words that actually express goodness for me. A lot of these words can be found on Maslow’s pyramid: health, safety, belonging, love, flourishing. Two other heavy-hitters I would include are: compassion, justice.

-         There is still so much to unpack from “good”!

            Ethical good = good between people

            Personal good = good for the individual person  

            Practical good = gets the job done well    

            Aesthetic good = beautiful, entertaining, captivating

            Other kinds?

-         The principle riddle involved in determining goodness is that of prioritizing. Given that we include so many human values in goodness, these are bound to conflict—and then which good do we pick? There are trade-offs, conflicts, and sacrifices—between values, between immediate and long-term goals, between proximal and distant subjects. And so on.

Trading in God for Good, part 4 - Can Soul, Spirit, and Sacred be used in secular contexts?

            The above terms are used to indicate human engagement with transcendence. “Transcendence” seems to be a key term in the art of meaning-making. In my classes, I define transcendence as “beyond-ness,” and I believe our ability to reach/push beyond whatever are our apparent limitations signifies our ability to transcend. My family, my partner, the need for justice for the oppressed—these are things outside of myself that make demands upon me to which I have a deep response. They pull me outside of myself towards my ethical duties, and so I think of them as sacred.

When I use the word “Spirit,” to refer to myself, I am pointing out my human capacity for depth and growth—because I can evaluate and change my thoughts, because I can evaluate and change my actions, I am more than simply the person I am at this moment. Growing individuals repeatedly transcend their former selves. For these reasons, I find it easy to use “sacred” and “spirit” to indicate transcendent aspects of human life, without invoking the supernatural.

“Soul” is a trickier word, which I hope to dispense with in this paragraph. Since “sacred” is an adjective, and I really use “spirit” to describe an activity of self (or at least as a synonym for self), I find myself able to contextualize my use of them in ways that do not appear to endorse some kind of thing beyond the physical world. But let’s be honest—a soul is a metaphysical object. Sure, I can use it metaphorically, but I will constantly mislead a lot of my audience. I can try to say that “I feel it in my soul,” is just like “I feel it in my gut,” but the first statement is far more metaphorical than the second. No—“soul,” to me, is far too charged with supernaturalism. It smacks of immortality, of divine judgment, of supernatural transcendence—the soul is the part of me that is utterly separate from everything I know and think about myself—and I can’t imagine what that could mean in a secular context (Freud’s subconscious??). So I reject “soul” as an available word for discussing secular spirituality.

But am I fooling myself about this word “spirituality”? Am I being unrealistic about how language is used when I present myself as a seeker/finder of “secular spirituality”? Probably. Do people who say they are “spiritual but not religious” mean they have secular spirituality? I’m guessing no—I think they mean that they have notions about the spiritual (=supernatural) world that they are uninterested in forming into a system.

           And what would I replace the word “spirituality” with? My inspiration for using the word “spirit” comes from G.W.F Hegel’s book “The Phenomenology of Spirit”—just as often translated as “The Phenomenology of Mind.” Perhaps instead of secular “spirituality,” I mean: secular “amateur psychology of human flourishing as individuals and collectives.” That may be a more accurate expression, but it’s terrible branding.

            And is the phrase “secular sacred” also a misuse of common language? Microsoft Word quickly informs me that “secular” is an antonym for “sacred.” Clearly “sacred” smacks of religion, through and through. But what word will I use instead of “sacred”?

            As an atheist, what word(s) can I use to enter/center conversations on what matters in life, on what is worthy of human care? What word(s) can I use to succinctly evoke various ultimate facts about human existence/ethics? (Are there no ‘ultimate facts’ on these topics?) How do I talk about the greatness of the human spirit without “spirit”? How do I relate what is of utmost importance without “sacred”?

Trading in God for Good? Part 3 -- Soul, Spirit, and Sacred in Secular Contexts

In this post, I will provide examples of some secular uses of the above terms. I present these examples as the beginning of an argument towards reclaiming them outside of their traditional religious contexts. Obviously, in my next post, I will need to struggle with whether one or all of these words are too tainted by their connection with religion to be used as atheistic indicators of human existence and meaning.

SOUL – “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7) “Living being”—in Hebrew nefesh chaya, or “a living soul.” There are multiple terms in Hebrew that can be translated as soul (nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah, etc). In this verse, the word “soul” reflects the new man’s vitality—not his ability to survive death in any form. Thus, the Bible itself presents us with a use of the word “soul” uncoupled from any notion of immortality. To be a soul means to be a living being—no more, no less.

Apart from religious contexts, “soul” can also be used rhetorically to point towards the metaphorical center of a person. This center is often irrational and highly personal. Thus I can “know it in my soul” in a similar way that I might “know it in my gut.”

In the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame online entry for Otis Redding, we are told: “His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying.” For more on how “soul music,” reclaimed religious items for the secular, look for the scene in the movie “Ray” in which Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx) writes the song “I Got a Woman.”

SPIRIT – I’ve already written a lot about this in a previous blog post and also this pamphlet. But a few examples of the secular use of “spirit” just to remind you:

The power of the human spirit discussed in this article on the Disable Veterans of America Winter Sports clinic.

We got spirit, yes we do! (Pretty sure this is secular-- or are our cheerleaders indoctrinating us?)

That’s the spirit!

SACRED --  I’ll start with a scene from The Simpsons:

(Lisa and Janey are in Lisa's bedroom reading the "Baby-Sitter Twins" books)

Janey: I can't get enough of "The Baby Sitter Twins." They arrested the counterfeiters, rescued the President, and made 4 dollars.

Lisa: I love everything about the world of babysitting. The responsibility, the obligations, the pressure...

Janey: And full refrigerator privileges!

Lisa: That's a trust, Janey. A sacred trust.

Janey: Geez. Lighten up, Lisa.

Here are some other quotes that use the word “sacred” pretty secularly:

“No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my own constitution; the only wrong what is against it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson*

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” – Thomas Jefferson

“National defense is the sacred duty of the young and all other people.” –Kim Jong Il

Also, thanks to Jeff Lowe for pointing out this fantastic example from the classic comedy "Back to School." (Example in the first minute. For the faint of heart, don't watch further than that!)

Help me out here! Know any other good, secular uses of SOUL, SPIRIT, or SACRED?

The Serendipitous Creativity of Gordon Kaufman, R.I.P

I had an independent study in Constructive Theology with Gordon Kaufman in Fall 2008 during my last year at Harvard Divinity School. He died the other day, and I thought it would be fitting to say a little about my time with him and his influence on me as a theologian/atheist.

Kaufman died at 86, meaning that he was 84 when we worked together. For a gentleman that old, he had an impressive amount of fight in him. I'm not sure if he remembered me fondly, as most of my time with him was spent in heated debate over the meaning of the term "God." Regardless of his opinion of our meetings, I treasured all of them, as he was someone who had spent his entire academic career establishing a firm outpost on the edges of theology, an area I was (unbeknownst to me) traveling across at that time.

Before proposing an independent study with him I wanted to impress him, so I read a few books of his I found in the Div school library. Two of his most recent books "In the beginning... Creativity" and "Jesus and Creativity," were on display in the lobby of the library, and I also found a slim volume called "Essay on Theological Method" in the stacks. The first two books were fairly recent, and developed his newfound definition of God: “serendipitous Creativity.” While I found these inspiring though very reconstructionist, his “Essay” really captivated me—in it he sets out his formal understanding of “God” as a limiting term (it always indicates an aspect of our reality that defines/circumscribes reality; it does not refer to an actual ‘thing’) and the ultimate point of reference (whatever the meaning of “God” is, all aspects of reality are relevant to it). As my own theology at the time was spiraling into abstraction, these bare-minimum yet-fundamental definitions appealed to me. And of course a lot of his theology focused on God as mystery: one of his early collections of essays is called “God the Problem” and his theological opus is titled “In Face of Mystery.”

So we met, and he was impressed that I had found and read his “Essay” and we agreed to work together in the Fall. Our meetings were contentious mostly because I was in love with his earlier work, in which he gave very little content to the concept of God beside that of mystery. In the last two decades he had become enamored with his idea of God as Creativity—for him, it gave God a role in the creation of the world and of humans (and thus of human values), and gave humans a positive orientation towards future progress. I insisted that he was not doing justice to God’s mystery (even if Creativity itself is mysterious—in the Spring of that year he taught a class with Stuart Kauffman, combining his theology of Creativity with Kauffman’s evolutionary biology on emergence). I also argued that Creativity was an ambiguous basis for ethics, as much evil could be justified in the name of progress. Clearly, I did not fully understand, because he remained pretty convinced.

In the end I focused my final paper on his early work, writing “God and the Problems of Speaking, Discerning, and Relating to the Ultimate,” a piece I intended as my groundwork for a truly agnostic theology. He gave it an A-/B+, and our final meeting was in his home on Mt. Auburn Ave. We talked for two hours, yelling at each other about the problems of reification.

I’m sure I was among the last of many students in his career. If he did remember me, it might’ve been with a fair amount of disregard—at one point, I attacked monotheism itself, saying that an ‘ultimate point of reference’ did not do justice to the apparent chaos and disunity of the world. He told me this was insanity since, without the hope of monotheism, there was no chance of making sense ever—this from a man who defined God as Serendipitous Creativity. We were two very radical theologians having it out. I will always treasure my time with him.

P.S. In my recent wedding ceremony, I sought to re-translate the traditional seven blessings in order to reflect my atheism. In two, I replaced “God” with serendipitous creativity. See #3 and #4 here.

Trading in God for Good, part 2 -- Replacing "God" with "Sacred"

           I began to let go of “God,” during my last year at Harvard Divinity School during Tamsin Jones’ class on Modern and Post-Modern Responses to Religion. Jones introduced me to Richard Kearney’s (then-unpublished) Anatheism. The book is an exploration of possibilities for understanding and relating to God after the ‘death of God.’ To me, the basic idea behind post-death-of-God theologies is that a God that can be totally conceptualized is not worthy of the name “God.” If God is the linchpin to your metaphysical theory, then clearly you are treating God as a linchpin, and not as an infinite Other that transcends even the very notion of “being.” The question “Does God exist?” simply makes God an additional item amongst the set of existing things. If God is related to infinitude, then even the word “God” is doing this reality a disservice—it is at the very least grammatically limiting.

Kearney draws on the Abrahamic faiths and post-onto-theological thinkers to propose a surplus/Stranger approach to “God.” The surplus/stranger is that which is outside of our understanding, our sense of the world, our sense of what’s expected. To free God from the limits of our philosophical systems is to allow God to be mysterious, alien, unpredictable, unexpected. By posing God as “the unexpected,” “the extra,” and especially, “the other,” Kearney is committed to seeking/finding God outside of the institutions (and words) in which He is normally encountered. If God is Stranger, then God can (and should) manifest in ways that are not normally labeled “God.”

            Throughout his book, Kearney regularly uses the phrase “the sacred” instead of the word “God.” For me, this was an eye-opening, life-changing piece of rhetoric. “The sacred,” as a term that expresses ‘godliness’ outside of the grammar of a proper noun, is an important step towards freeing God from the tyranny of the word/concept “God.” While Kearney’s anatheism returns again and again to God (“anatheism” literally means “again-theism”), he inspired me to find in “the sacred” my first atheistic substitution for “God.” In “the sacred” I found a powerful new synonym for “what matters” that did not rely on the word “God.” I like to use the word “sacred” in the context of “I hold this as sacred,” or “This is sacred to me,” (read more on my notion of the sacred here). It provides me with the vocabulary to express my ethical orientation towards my experience of the world. It is my new “password”—through unpacking the word “sacred” I discover what I believe matters in life, what I believe is worthy of human care (attention, time, money, energy).

           

Of course, “sacred” has two notable flaws, which I will work through in the next few posts.

1)      It’s a word primarily associated with religion. Many people will tell me that the very term “sacred secular” is an oxymoron. Can it be separated from its primarily religious context?

2)     Like the word “God,” (and also the word “Good”), “Sacred” is just a sign used by a speaker to point at whatever meaning they invest in it.  The content of “sacred” is entirely up for grabs.

Stay tuned…

Trading in "God" for "Good"? Part 1 -- Losing Faith in "God"

I          Faith in “God”

            Since I came out as an atheist a year ago, I have been searching for a word, or words, to place at the center of my ethical/existential thought. In these posts, I will trace my steps from “God” to “Sacred,” and subsequently give an account of my current struggles with the word “Good,” as a candidate for central term. My interest in all of this is examining what word(s) might serve best as a common way to enter/center conversations on what matters in life, what is worthy of human care.

            I lost my faith in God years before I lost my faith in “God.” I probably stopped praying regularly around 2004, and yet graduated from Harvard Divinity School five years later with a higher degree in Theology. Why did I continue to pursue theology (talking about God) after my relationship with God had crumbled? I often like to use the metaphor of a mobile (like the kind that would hang above a crib). A mobile hangs from the ceiling, and holds a variety of items in dynamic balance. The crucial part of this balance is the single ring from which all the items ultimately hang. (A pic or two to help you visualize) For me, “God” was that ring. If I wanted to have a conversation that activated an individual’s sense of intense care for their existence, human life, human relationships, and other matters of ultimate meaning, “God” was the word from which to hang the conversation. As a teacher, I found that “God” was the short-cut through which otherwise unreflective students would feel motivated to make grand statements about human existence and ethics—thus the appeal of “God” for me as an educator.

            Personally, I stayed faithful to “God” because I needed a central term that represented my encounter with life and reality as a whole. These were my “reconstructionist” years, in which I believed in God, but defined God as anything but “a supernatural personality with power.” Instead I dabbled in pantheism (God is all), panentheism (God is all, and then some), and Mordecai Kaplan’s original Reconstructionist theology (God is the natural force that makes for salvation). All of these theologies staved off atheism, but did little for my relationship with the Jewish religion. They afforded me the ability to continue to talk about God meaningfully, but never to relate to God actively. None of them brought me back to prayer or dialogue with God, which to me are the lifeblood of religious activity.

            These theologies failed to revive my religiosity because they treat God as a password, rather than as a living being. If “God” means a lot, but it doesn’t mean “a supernatural personality with power” then the word has clearly been degraded— as Rabbi Adam Chalom of Congregation Kol Hadash of Chicago likes to challenge, “If by ‘God’ you mean ‘love,’ then use it in a sentence—‘I God You?’” (For more on my disappointment with an impersonal God (Aka God2), see my series on State of Formation, part 1 and part 2). Joking aside, it is generally harder (and rarer) to use these altered meanings of "God" in everyday life and language (besides in the sentence "God is..."). 

The problem of a God Who shares all your values

While I am not on board with every detail in Paula Kirby's article Atheism is the true embrace of reality, there is a section in the middle that I highly recommend. Scroll down until you see every paragraph start with the phrase "Some of us knew..." This section casts suspicion on subjective experience as a source for knowledge about God, and really drives home how theology is most often anthropology/psychology (that is, it says more about us than about God).