A Conversation Between an Atheist and a Christian
by J. M. Beach & B. Patrick Williams (2003)
by J. M. Beach & B. Patrick Williams (2003)
Introduction
As it turns out the author’s of this book grew up in the same small town of Roseburg, Oregon and attended the
same high school, although Williams was several years older than Beach and their paths never crossed. They both
made their ways to Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, albeit through different directions: Williams joined
the Marine Corps and went off to the first Gulf War while Beach went straight to college. As undergraduates,
Williams and Beach had crossed paths at OSU’s Dixon Recreation Center several times, but remained no more than
mere acquaintances.
During their studies at OSU both Williams and Beach attended lectures and classes by the Philosophy and Religion
professor Marcus J. Borg. Both were highly taken by Borg’s pristine prose, clear and scholarly lecture style, and his
generous and deeply spiritual attitude towards life. Williams completed a B.A. with a double major in Philosophy
and History, and then went on to an M.A.I.S. in English and Philosophy. Beach had completed a B.A. in English with
a minor in History, an M.A. in English and then went on to an M.A.I.S. in English, History, and Philosophy. In 2000,
unbeknownst to the two graduate students, Borg had signed on to both Williams’ and Beach’s M.A.I.S. committee
and Williams and Beach were also both graduate teaching assistants in the English department.
It was not until Spring Term 2002 that Williams and Beach first met and began to talk of their similar preoccupation
with religion and society. Beach was originally working on a highly critical and creative work on the historical Jesus
and the evolution of Christianity (later, Beach had to change his focus because of his committee). Williams’ thesis
The Way In was a collection of interviews with evangelical Christians. As it turns out, Williams’ father in Roseburg
had converted to Evangelical Christianity. He began attending the fundamentalist church of Beach’s youth (Beach
and his family had attended the church from its very beginnings - for over a decade - and both of Beach’s parents
had held leaderships roles in that church). Also, Williams had interviewed Beach’s former Evangelical Christian
Pastor, who appears in Williams’ thesis.
After first meeting, Williams and Beach had a few conversations, but became friends in Fall 2002 when they were
both awarded a 1-year Instructor position in the OSU English department and shared an office in Moreland Hall.
Here Williams and Beach began a series of long discussions, which spilled over into e-mail. Beach impressed upon
Williams the need to be informed and up to date about current affairs and Williams began subscribing to The Nation
and The Economist, whereby, these two young and eager intellectuals began a protracted, but entirely sympathetic
debate – drawn together by common interests and a shared commitment to critical inquiry. In the Fall of 2003
Beach suggested that they tease out their debate into a more formal, argument/response book. Williams accepted
and recommended a personable, conversation-style. This is the fruit of their labor.
What ideology animates your life and how did you come to this ideology?
Essay 1 - J. M. Beach: "The Atheist"
My parents were raised in the typical non-practicing, but professing Christian home, however, they were both fairly
liberal children of the 60s and they were married just a few months before I was born. They became evangelical
Christians when I was about 6 years old. I remember because not long after I was “invited” to a Vacation Bible
School at a neighbor's house where I was introduced to Jesus through a color-coded book (red=blood,
black=death/sin, white=life). I don’t remember too much more except that after “accepting Jesus into our heart” we
were given candy. I do distinctly remember the candy.
Well my parents proceeded to become involved with the Calvary Chapel Church, a fundamentalist, non-
denominational Christian sect. Every Sunday and Wednesday our pastor read through the Bible, chapter by
chapter, and I was taught to have a “relationship” with Jesus who was my “personal” savior. All I had to do was
accept him into my heart, make him “Lord of my life,” read the Bible, pray and go to church. Simple. Of course the
byline was, as my eager and perhaps over-zealous father would instruct me, that everyone who did not “accept”
these simple premises would burn in hell for eternity. Stray just a bit from the straight and narrow and you would
burn in hell. Thus, for me Christianity was a dualistic mix of unconditional love and a relationship with my “personal
savior” combined with a nagging fear of burning in hell for eternity if I ever strayed from the narrow path.
Well, I was never one for narrow paths, what can I say? Not that I was some demon child or aggressively wicked,
but I was interested in all the things the world had to offer (and of course “worldly” interests, I was instructed,
meant the exact opposite of the “heavenly”). I was interested in movies, books, music, friends, parties, drinking,
drugs, history, girls and sex. Of course all this was off limits. In fact my father would regularly destroy (break,
throw away, burn) any “non-Christian” items in my position and in doing so he was preventing Satan’s inroads into
his house (or so I was told).
I was a decent kid, don’t get me wrong, but after getting sent to the principle’s office in 6th grade for talking about
sex and Dr. Ruth, my parents began to get concerned. I made it a month or two into 7th grade when they decided I
would be home schooled for my own good. My parents knew I was a respectable kid and they were concerned
about the pernicious influences that I would encounter: a course in Greek mythology (covert for liberal “devil
worship”) or the inevitable question, “can I go to a Halloween party at a friends house” (a parents-are-away-
drinking-and-mingling-with-girls party) to which I was informed, in case I had forgotten, that Halloween was the
“devil’s holiday” and that those people at the party would be going to hell because…. Well, because of my parent’s
fears and my proclivity for worldly snares, I was home schooled. I hated it.
For two and a half years I read the Bible (all told I’ve read that book cover to cover at least 3 or 4 times), took
courses in “Bible study”, took general subjects like math and English, and during this time I had no social life except
for church functions. Then before I knew it I was off to high school. But this trajectory was not inevitable. The day
my parents dropped the news that I was to be home schooled I promptly informed them I hated the idea. But after
realizing I could not avoid this sentence I made an angry ultimatum: eventually I would go to high school or I would
run away. It never came to this, my parents graciously prepared me for public schools again, and sure enough I
made it to high school. I was your average kid, once I started to have a social life again, and I slowly began to
move away from the church and become more interested in friends, girls, sports, parties and alcohol. By my senior
year I was not going to church every Sunday, but I was partying at least 2 nights a week.
After graduation I spent a year at the local community college on a scholarship, partying a lot and pulling in mostly C
and B grades. My sophmore year I made it north to Oregon State University. I spent my first year away from home
with some high-school pals as roommates. I loved the freedom of being on my own and I lived it up partying at
least 3 nights a week (indulging in all sorts of debauchery and wildness) and sometimes we partied all week.
Needless to say school was not my focus and I got my first F winter term – academic probation. Spring term was a
watershed period. I took some English classes to get my grade point up so I wouldn’t get kicked out of school. I
found I loved my classes and I actually wanted to learn. So I switched majors, my third in two years, and my life
began to change.
I moved into my own place junior year and I became a dedicated student. I partied only a couple nights a week
(the weekend) and spent my week studying and working part-time. The summer after my junior year, taking a
summer-school course in French, I met a naturalized Brit named Ben (a practicing alcoholic and semi-practicing
Buddhist) and Garon (a black football player and struggling Christian who would soon convert to Islam). I was a
former party-animal turned serious student who hadn’t rejected Christianity, but hadn’t really given it much though
either. The three of us had intense conversations over that summer continuing through our senior year. We
discussed politics, religion, morality, philosophy, history – you name it. Ben the Buddhist soon tired of talking and
went off to Thailand to study Buddhism and work at a school for handicapped orphans. Garon joined the Peace
Core and went to Africa. I turned to graduate school. Our conversation stopped, but I was still burning for
knowledge.
Turning away from both consumer American society and Evangelical Christianity, I embarked on a passionate
journey into the meaning of life. I wanted to know all about history, religion, philosophy, literature, psychology, and
politics. I new as sure as anything that I was not a Christian anymore and I new Christianity was not the “one and
true religion,” however, I didn’t know if God still existed and what to make of other religions so I decided to find
out. I read insatiably. I studied anything that I could get my hands on. Working toward my MA, I was an almost
straight A student and hungry for knowledge. I also had my first semi-mystical experience when studying William
Blake: a feeling of total bliss and one-ness with the world came over me as I took Blake’s line “everything that lives
is holy” to heart. This would be the first of many epiphanies, arcane glimpses into the nature of life and being, and
would become a cornerstone in my evolving life philosophy.
During grad school I became involved with some very radical students, I began to be very politically aware, and I
started a subscription to The Nation so that I wouldn’t be ignorant about the world any longer. Soon thereafter I
had finished reading many of the works by Blake, Albert Camus, Shelley, Emerson, Chomsky, Zinn, Ginsberg,
Whitman and, light of all lights for me at that time, Nietzsche. God did not exist, religion was sham, I was an atheist
and I knew why. I had read and thought so much that I was now able to piece together my own developed life-
philosophy. Part Nietzsche, part Marx, part Camus, part psychology, part poetry: I was a humanist who believed
that all ideas and all ways of life were constructs created by human beings in fumbling attempts at greater self-
consciousness and greater socio-political efficiency mixed with extreme bouts of vanity, selfishness, laziness and
greed. The meaning of life was to discover your “self” and create your own meaning, live a passionate and full life in
relation to both community and nature, and then die. Simple.
Of course when I told my father that I was an atheist he told me I “worshiped Satan,” I was a “crazy liberal,” and
that I was “going to hell.” Thanks dad. Combine this incident with news of conservative, fundamentalist Christians
killing abortion doctors, beating and berating gays, browbeating anyone who did not profess to “believing in Jesus”
fused together with my growing knowledge of the history of intolerant and blood-stained Christianity, and I became
one angry atheist. But I new my anger was a liability and wouldn’t solve anything so worked on a more conciliatory
tone. I could of course acknowledge that no one can “prove” that God doesn’t exist (and I can take an agnostic
stance with gracious company for good conversation), but the burden of proof is on the person who professes belief
and not on the doubter. Bigfoot, aliens, and a living Elvis might all be true, but I’m not buying it until the evidence is
in. About this time I wrote a poem called “The Atheist Saints.” It pretty much summed up my life philosophy and
attitude at the time: part spirituality, all materialism, tied together with a deep reverence for life and a
preoccupation with addressing and treating the human condition.
I am an atheist saint and not ashamed to doubt God face to face,
For divine I AM, most holy my flesh and blood intertwined
To form the nebulous soul, which is no soul but my own
Identity tried and worn until it fits, and I know it.
The sacred I step in and out every day on my way through Life,
To see into the deep of things and say, "it is good." Come feel
The wounds in my hands of hard work building paradise, and
Come feel my side pierced by ignorance and human frailty.
Nirvana is my porch overlooking the starry expanse where I rest
Gazing out the whole, Eden is my garden grown wild and
Bearing untamed fruit not out of reach for those who dare,
Atman is my centered frame of mind knowing perfect parts in Unity.
I spend hours of devotion in the Vedas no less than the Kabbalah and
The Bible rests against the Koran in peaceful order. The prophet
Mohammed and Isaiah are no more prophets than I am a prophet,
And what they had to say I have to say in a new tongue for new ears.
Come my friends and rest on my lap and I will tell you tales
Of God's birth and death, of human arrogance and hatred,
Of bloody coups and usurped thrones and the faded outward
Glory of cowards and tyrants crowned, of all that's past and future borne.
Touch my flesh and know your flesh the same, taste my knowledge
And my love to leave or take as your inclination leads,
Speak divinity with conviction and a god you will become to walk
Your Way through this illusionary world with grace and humility.
Saints and sinners we stand bearing our own redemption in our hands
To wash away all hints of impurity through the fires of trial and triumph.
Walk boldly, do not look back upon the burning cities of the fearful.
Walk boldly and lead by example your inner divinity.
As to the animating “ideas” in my life, I would have to say that I have been on a quest to know what it means to be
a human being. Along the way I have discovered that inequality, ignorance, hatred, greed and superstition keep
millions and millions of people from ever discovering their own humanity and that a privileged minority would like to
keep things this way because they profit off the status quo. Thus I have dedicated my life to teaching people
“humane” being by understanding human history and studying in human needs and potential. Through this process
I would like to make people more aware of the fragility of humanity in the face of corrupt conservative politics,
inequality, injustice, war, nuclear weapons, pollution and the destruction of the environment. I have come to
mistrust and fear the human being: the savageness of humanity as real as the human capacity to love. I fear for
the future. Nuclear holocaust, American Imperial wars and environmental catastrophe are all possible outcomes of a
species that often falls to “burning the future to keep warm.” The fate of the human species rests on the decisions
of our generation. I for one have not shirked my responsibility and thus everyday is a quest for new knowledge,
new understanding, and an open and honest perspective to “see” the world and meet the needs of my time in
history.
Conversation
Williams: I enjoyed this. It’s no wonder that you would be alienated from Christianity given your father’s hostility
to your interests and personal space. It strikes me that your father embodied a religion of controlling judgment and
not the self-transcending love central to authentic Christianity. Also, I celebrate your desire to learn so as to better
yourself and humanity in general. Proposing this dialogue is certainly evidence of that.
On pages 3-4, you declare you realized “I was not a Christian anymore,” and that you realized that Christianity is
not the “’one and true religion.’” On page 5, you relate that you “became one angry atheist.” What are the reasons
for your departure from Christianity and your subsequent embracing of atheism? In the former case, you relate the
study of “history, religion, philosophy, and politics” as a precursor to your having abandoned Christianity. Regarding
the latter, you cite “news” of atrocities perpetrated in the name of Christianity – “fundamentalist Christians killing
abortion doctors, beating and berating gays,” etc. Thus, it sounds like you were influenced by the negative actions
of a small number claiming to be Christians who are not real Christians at all. Christians are those who perceive
Christ as Lord/Savior; as such, they aspire to follow the teachings and example of Christ. The examples you cite are
not of true Christians, but extremists committing atrocities in the name of Christianity. How has this small group of
violent extremists caused you to reject the reality of God in general and your prior Christian faith in particular?
Beach: The point you raise is an interesting one and I think I would disagree with your assertion about who “true
Christians” are. To be honest I have my own opinion on this matter, which is quite different from yours and we
could argue between who holds the “true” understanding of Christianity. The notion of identity and subjectivity is a
tricky one and I would argue “authenticity” is a hard item to hold on to. I am reminded of the Post-Modern relativist
Stanley Fish who has argued quite successfully in literary and legal circles that “interpretive communities” see what
they want to see when it comes to relating to reality and interpreting texts. I would disagree that this is inevitable,
but I would argue that people who ascribe to religious creeds are a prime example of this phenomenon.
I would argue that Jesus never thought he was “God” or a “savior” and that his early followers, primarily I’m
thinking of Paul, “misinterpreted” Jesus’ life and message to suite their own purposes. Thus the four divergent
“Christ” centered gospels, which authors like Crossan have argued are clearly late additions to the oral tradition
surrounding Jesus. This set the precedent for a long line of “see what you want to see” interpretations of
Christianity, but the fact is that this particular ideology became a state religion (Rome, Europe, England, and the U.
S.) and thus by extension is guilty of intolerance and bloodshed. Christianity has sanctioned slavery and racist
propaganda just as much as it has sanctioned peace and love.
In America we have had a similar phenomenon to the German Reformation. Just like you, Luther wanted to believe
that he had found the “true” interpretation of Christianity, but in fact for the next several hundred years all Luther
managed to do was create a war of words over who had the exact handle on the “truth,” when in reality there is no
way any one organization can establish an orthodoxy without some measure of force. Thus the more radical
protestant sects left the old world for the new only to bring their intolerant “we have the true and only
interpretation” with them. These protestant sects were especially hard on the Native Americans.
Regardless, The Bible can be interpreted in many ways. Yes, I would agree with you that Jesus teaches “love your
neighbor” and “do not judge,” but Paul teaches “judge your neighbor” and his own brand of exclusive Christology.
Likewise, I would argue that the Old Testament God is a genocidal monstrosity, which only adds to the viciousness
of the current struggle in Palestine: The Bible clearly teaches the elect to exterminate the “heathen” and “conquer”
the promise land by force. We still feel the reverberations of this dangerous credo. Likewise, there is a clear
mandate that homosexuals are an “aberration” to God. Absolute dogmatic nonsense. After studying history I
refused to belong to any institution guilty of genocide. Clearly, Christianity has its hands stained in blood. Yes,
there are many enlightened Christians who practice a benevolent and tolerant faith, but their sacred book The Bible
also justifies the bigots like Pat Buchanan and Jerry Farwell.
Williams: You write of Christianity “that this particular ideology became a state religion (Rome, Europe, England,
and the U.S.) and thus by extension is guilty of intolerance and bloodshed. Christianity has sanctioned slavery and
racist propaganda just as much as it has sanctioned peace and love.” How do you define Christianity? Prior to the
above quoted passage, you assert that you and I would disagree in our definitions, but you do not follow this with
an explicit definition.
Beach: Yes, a clarification is in order. Like I said, I don’t think Jesus thought he was “God,” I think this is a later
insertion of the oral tradition surrounding Jesus after his death. The same thing happened to Buddha and has
happened to just about every saint or holy person: nostalgia raises the human to divine levels. Utter nonsense.
Anyway, Paul powerfully inserted “Christ” into the message and life of Jesus, which produced “Christ”ianity.
Christianity was at first a small, community oriented religion, which was persecuted by the Roman authorities and
then became as State religion. It has been a State religion ever since and, thus, for “authentic” or “true” definitions
of Christianity you must seek to know how the religion exists in relation to the specific socio-political-economic
circumstances of whatever secular state it operates in, and the definition alters through historical evolution. In
terms of the contemporary U.S. we see a radical, evangelical organization that overwhelmingly supports Republican
politics, thus, Christianity in the U.S. is closely aligned with Republican issues and in some cases the Republican
party is but a mouthpiece for conservative Christian issues: school prayer, i.e. Christian prayer; government support
of religious institutions, specifically Christian (education & social work); the ten commandments as a moral and legal
code; evolution as heresy and Christian “creationism” as science; homosexuality as abhorrent, immoral and un-
human; abortion as immoral in all circumstances; premarital sex as immoral, thus, teaching abstinence in schools;
and the most pernicious policies have been issues relating to immigration (specifically with Mexico);
globalization/foreign trade policies, which reflect an implicit racism (i.e. its o.k. to shamelessly exploit non-white,
third world countries in the false name of “development.”); and finally foreign policy where U.S. policy makers have
turned 9-11 and the war on terrorism into a “class of the civilizations” and a “war on Islam,” and also the religious
right’s sweetheart, one-sided dealing with Israel in their aggressive war on Palestine. Thus, my definition of
Christianity in contemporary America is what I have just laid out. It is very close to the hypocrisy of Republican
politics. I know you would disagree with me here, but I would say that the tolerant and politically critical
“Christianity” that you as an individual practice is a minority sect within the geo-political landscape. There is a
reason why the “Christian Right” is a powerful political entity. In my opinion, the “true” nature of Christianity in the
U.S. lies there.
Williams: O.K. but I want to go back to your first argument. I discern both a positive and negative element to your
discussion of a “bloody” Christianity. First, the “positive” element – you raise the important concern of Christianity’s
affiliation with certain atrocities over the years (I’m thinking of the crusades and the inquisition). You do not name
the atrocities, but I think we all (Christians and non-Christians) need to own up to times when certain institutions
have been involved with evil activity. As a Christian, I feel this very strongly, and I think even as I would understand
atrocities like the crusades to be perpetrated by those not acting as true Christians, I think Christians must be
aware of such terrible activities given they were carried out in the name of Christianity. But also the “negative”
element - you are extremely general while making severe charges. You have not clearly identified what you
understand Christianity to be, and then you have impugned it without being specific as to how Christianity is
responsible for the wrongs you allege. Further, you have answered my earlier question about the role of violent
extremists in your loss of faith by switching subjects and focusing on a completely different matter (over a thousand
years of history containing numerous complex social, political, and historical events). Please be specific in your
definition of Christianity and how/why you see Christianity as guilty of “intolerance and bloodshed” and having
“sanctioned slavery and racist propaganda.” How is Christianity responsible for these wrongs? Finally, you have
identified both loving and hateful actions as being carried out by those affiliated with Christianity. I return to my
original question: “How has this group of violent extremists caused you to reject the reality of God in general and
your Christian faith in particular?” You assert: “After studying history I refused to belong to any institution guilty of
genocide. Clearly, Christianity has its hands stained in blood.” Whose hands are stained in blood? I am a practicing
Christian, and I do not know of anyone who attends my church who is guilty of genocide. I myself am not guilty of
genocide. Please explain specifically how “Christianity” is guilty of genocide, and how that guilt relates to Christians
today.
Beach: First let me say that the German Protestants said the same thing during Hitler’s reign, but Dietrich
Bonhoeffer realized that where the Christian church did not stand up to murder and oppression they where guilt
also. Thus pastor Bonhoeffer felt compelled to take the drastic step of trying to assasiante Hitler. Likewise, the U.S.
military made the decision to fire-bomb German cities and kill hundreds of thousands of German civilians and Truman
made the decision to drop the H-bomb on Japan and kill hundreds of thousands. We Americans all share the guilt of
these actions. Also, the U.S. military has been responsible for aggressive wars and exploitative global economic
policies for 150 years and you better believe that a great many people on this planet hate Americans and see the
general U.S. population as guilty of the crimes committed in their interest and in their name: thus Sept 11, 2001 was
a warning to the American people about the crimes of U.S. foreign policy. One final example: Sweatshops and the
global exploitation of corporate America. All Americans benefit from goods produced in intolerable circumstances and
a large sector of agricultural and factory work within our borders are done by laboring slaves who, because they are
mostly illegal aliens, are treated with dehumanized work and wages. It’s called “systemic injustice.” If you are part
and benefit from the “system” then you share in the guilt, even if your hands are not “bloody.” I would refer you to
Richard A. Horsley’s book Jesus and the Spiral of Violence (1987) for reference on how Jesus dealt with systemic
injustice.
My answer is complicated and theory driven, and it is something that I have devoted a great deal of length to in my
books Studies in Ideology, but let me attempt a brief summary. Institutions are social structures that have a specific
“party-line” (dogma) and a rigid definition of “identity” usually based on an exclusionary language of “us/them.” But
within institutions there are individuals who have the ability to shape orthodoxy through challenging or revising the
“party line,” and there is the inevitable “outside” influence where the institution changes through time due to the
evolutionary course of history. Christianity is an institution with a basic party line, but the Protestant dogma of “a
personal faith” has really challenged the authority of an orthodox and unified Christian Institution (thus the
Catholic/Protestant wars for hundreds of years in Europe). The fallacy of the non-denominational, Evangelical
Christianity of present day American is that somehow it represents the “one-true” essence of Christianity and that it
is an almost “timeless” tradition based on nostalgic premises of a “personal relationship” with “Jesus” and “God,”
when in fact this belief, this dogma, is just another “sect” vying for social power in a socio-political landscape.
When the word “Christianity” is invoked one must bear and accept the full historical weight of that institution and
not just pick and choose what they think “Christianity means to me” which is the Evangelical-Fundamentalist fallacy.
My opinion is that Institutions have historical baggage that cannot be ignored or explained away. The past
intimately effects the present however much our generation is ignorant of that past. Thus, Christianity in my
definition means, the “conservative Right,” the Republican party, the “moral majority,” or whatever term is taken to
explain the political consequences of Christianity in terms of concrete historical policy and actions (as I mentioned
earlier in the above response).
Personally Patrick, I think that you have an admirable definition of Christianity in light of your progressive political
opinions. I also think that Marcus Borg has an admirable definition of Christianity, which is different from yours, but
which also has progressive and equitable political consequences. However, I subscribe to the radical opinion that
the world needs to clear away the “old” clutter of established ideas, institutions, and blood-stained history
(Christianity included) to re-forge a new definition of human being and, thereby, create new institutions that are
free of the tyranny of history, that set up a new foundation based on the progressive ideals that you, I, Marcus Borg
and many others share, but which we cloth in different shades of ideological terminology – terms, which are based
upon our past, individual experiences and our associations with the established institutional party-lines.
Williams: On page 4, you cite a “semi-mystical experience” you had prior to attending graduate school. Can you
write more about what that experience was like in particular? What is the source of this mystical experience? Where
were you when it happened? How long did it last? What did you see? Feel? Taste? What specifically changed about
the way you saw the world after this experience? What did you learn from it? Do you really believe that “’everything
that lives is holy’”?
Beach: The first time I had a mystical experience it was after a long study of William Blake, the great Christian
radical and mystic poet. I had also been studying indigenous traditions and Native American Philosophy as well as
Evolutionary Biology. I came to the realization that yes “everything that lives is holy” by which I mean, everything is
part of the great web of life feeding into the unified biosphere – an ecological perspective of the plant Earth. I think
I agree with “Gaiya hypothesis” that the Earth is one living organism, each part somewhat autonomous but feeding
and nourishing the whole. Human beings have the capacity to be stewards over this living organism, but we have
rejected our “connection” with the Earth, other species, and even with other human peoples. We are an animal
that has a strong capacity to dominate and destroy and given our technology an intolerant, exploitive attitudes we
have the capacity to destroy all life on this planet.
Anyway, I had a mental visualization of this great web of life and myself as part of that web. It was a feeling of
oneness and connection with all that lives. I lost my ego and felt no real barrier between the world outside the
doors of my perception and my conscious body. For a long time I thought this notion of oneness meant I could not
kill or use other organisms (I was a vegetarian for several years), I should do no harm, but after reading indigenous
philosophies I agreed that killing is a natural part of existence, but we should not kill or use more than we need and
that we should live simple, community/earth centered lives where humans are not more important that other
species and, thus, have no right to exploit the earth or other species for profit. My mystical experience was
exceptionally human and I affirmed my humanity by agreeing to work for the common good of the planet.
Williams: Thank you for elaborating on your mystical experience reading Blake. It sounds fascinating and powerful.
And yet, what really strikes me is that you conclude: “My mystical experience was exceptionally human and I
affirmed my humanity by agreeing to work for the common good of the planet.” While I certainly don’t want to take
anything away from your motivation to work for the well-being of the planet, I’m struck by the fact that your
experience does not sound “exceptionally human” at all. Quite the contrary, your experience sounds very much
trans-human. Based on your description, it appears that the boundaries between what separate you from the rest
of the earth fell away to leave you closely interconnected with all beings and things. This “web of life” you describe,
if real, suggests a different level of reality, a non-material level, that is real yet imperceptible according to our normal
5 senses. How do you understand this?
Beach: I would disagree and say that what I affirmed was material reality in its fullest sense. So much of what we
take for “human” life on this planet is really ideologically driven nonsense, which obscures our ability to see life. Our
linguistic and cultural constructions create blinders and what I affirmed in my mystical experience (and reconfirmed
after reading Nietzsche) was the throwing off as best I could of those established, institutional linguistic and cultural
constructions so that I could see and experience the raw reality of existence. Doubtless this sounds contrived and
constructed in its own sense, but my experience was a getting under and over human experience in the
Nietzschiean sense. Humans get caught in their humanly constructed webs of social structures, institutions,
religions, economic modes of production, etc. My mystical experience was one where I felt released from human
entrapment, to see the bonds of being human, but also to see the material reality underlying the human condition
so as to understand the human condition in a greater, material context, by which I mean the contextual “non-
human” elements that surround human society.
Williams: You showcase your concern with “conservative, fundamentalist Christians” and “conservative politics.”
Thus, your focus seems a very selective one, locating evil in a fundamentalist form of extremist Christianity and in
conservative politics (both American). There are many other evils in the world in addition to those perpetrated by
these two groups. For instance, terrorism connected to Islamic extremists is a much more frequent and violent
phenomena than the incidences of abortion doctors killed by fundamentalist Christian extremists (c.f. Algeria,
Indonesia, Sudan, Israel). And, while conservatives in the USA may be reprehensible, their evils pale compare to the
routine police state jailing and torture that appear in China or North Korea. Why have you chosen to focus on
fundamentalist Christian extremists and conservative politics?
Beach: For one, because they are examples I see every day. They exist in my backyard, as it were, and thus my
challenge is not to change the world, but my own life and my own backyard. I do not believe in the concept of evil.
I believe in the empirically proven concept of cause and effect, of actions and consequences, a non-dogmatic form of
Karma if you will. Fundamentalism takes many forms, but the most destructive forms have been Imperial
fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism, which often go hand in hand. The Imperial ideologies of Europe and
America have the blood of billions of people and the destruction of the environment as their legacy. Bomb throwing
Muslims are a product of indiscriminate oppression and murder. Why is it that the news covers mostly the
indiscriminant retaliatory crimes of Islamic fundamentalists? Israeli bulldozers have torn down innocent Palestinian
houses often killing those who cannot or will not get out of the way, Israeli snipers have killed Palestinian children,
Israel settlers take land that they do not own and build fortified compounds. This does not justify Palestinian
suicide bombers, but it sure as hell causes individual Palestinians to strap on bombs and retaliate. Likewise with 9-
11. Does the average American have a clue about the millions of innocent civilians our proud military has killed in
the last century? We killed some 500,000 Iraqi children just through a decade of sanctions. Nothing justifies that
horrendous cruelty. George Bush Sr. made a calculated decision to leave Sadam Hussein in power after the first gulf
war, but no one blames him for Sadam’s supposed “urgent” threat to humanity. I have written extensively on many
types of fundamentalism, but my main focus will always be America because that is where I live and if I hope to
change the world it will be here, attacking the bigots in my backyard.
Williams: You write: “ I do not believe in the concept of evil. I believe in the empirically proven concept of cause and
effect, of actions and consequences, a non-dogmatic form of Karma if you will.” What do you mean by this? Why don’
t you believe in the concept of evil? I understand evil to be the self-interested harming of others for self-benefit.
One of the things I like and respect about you is your concern for others and your desire to help others. This is
apparent in your opposition to what you perceive to be harmful and dangerous such as Bush administration policies
that oppress others. Don’t you accept that there can be harmful and self-interested actions that merit the label
“evil” (as opposed to using neutral terms like “cause and effect”)? What about acts like the cannibal murders of
Jeffrey Dahmer? What about the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, the 35 million killed in Stalin’s purges, the 25
million killed in Mao’s cultural revolution? I find it hard to describe such activities without the concept of evil.
Beach: I think we must choose to disagree here. Personally, I think the word and idea of “evil” is a remnant of
religious thinking which needs to be left behind. Specifically, look how political opportunists like George W. Bush use
the concept to declare world war (i.e. “axis of evil.”). The notion of “evil” is a theological construct which inevitably
means the opposite of “God’s goodness,” which I wholeheartedly reject because 1) I reject the existence of God, 2)
I reject the objective existence of some moral virtue called “goodness” and 3) I think “evil” and “good” are
everywhere contextually defined in relation to the socio-economic mores of dominant political groups. Thus good is
invariably associated with the goodness of those in power, thus, America is “good” in the fight against the “evil”
terrorists. Utter simplistic nonsense! And look specifically how the war against the “evil” terrorists has turned to
tide of the Israel/Palestinian War where Israel is literally crushing the homes and hopes of innocent Palestinians,
literally walling them into a corner as Israel illegally takes by force more and more Palestinian land. But the concept
of evil needs to go, especially in light of reconciliation projects after horrendous tragedies, such as the holocaust,
South African Apartied, or the Chilean “disappeared.” It is hard to reconcile with human beings if you can only see
the face of “evil” instead of the frail face of selfish and intolerant inhuman beings.
Williams: One page 5, you indicate “Bigfoot, aliens, and a living Elvis might all be true, but I’m not buying it until the
evidence is in.” What sort of evidence do you require to establish something as real?
Beach: I’m a firm believer in the scientific method, via John Dewey especially: empirical observation, hypothesis,
experiment and a critical community. There is always a danger of reductionism with the notion of Science, in terms
of lowest common denominators, but it is a method that works and it has produced all the vital knowledge that
defines our lives. We need not live by myths alone, however necessary stories might be, we do have access to
reality.
Williams: When I asked, “What sort of evidence do you require to establish something as true,” you responded, “I’
m a firm believer in the scientific method….it is a method that works and it has produced all the vital knowledge that
defines our lives.” What do you mean? How do you verify something as true or real? Do you really believe that the
only things which are “true” are empirically verifiable and experimentally testable facts?
Beach: To reiterate, the scientific method is exactly as I stated: empirical observation, hypothesis, experiment and a
critical community. I personally would like to leave behind idealistic constructs like “truth.” I think the notion of
“truth” or “falsity” is invariably subjective and based upon practical considerations, which is not to say that I reject
the notion of “objective” reality. I simply mean that for us to come to a notion of “objective” reality we must have
multiple human perspectives observing empirical reality with which to create some kind of consensus – thus the
scientific reliance on reproducing evidence through a continual re-examination of reality until some level of
“certainty” emerges based on the accumulated evidence.
Williams: On page 4, you write that you’ve reached the conclusion that “all ideas and all ways of life were
constructs created by human beings in fumbling attempts at greater self-consciousness and greater socio-political
efficiency.” This is a huge claim. You’ve reduced all that exists to the material and the psychological while rejecting
the possibility of any greater spiritual and/or nonmaterial reality existing beyond what you might understand. How
can you be so sure of such a reduction? What do you base it on?
Beach: I know what I see and I have gleaned an understanding of the world based upon the critical investigation of
learned communities and individual experiences. The scientific method is really the humanism of our time. Dewey
was right to put faith in the ability of human beings to rationally and critically come to an understanding of their
world, share that understanding with other people, and come to an agreement about reality and what we should
do to live our lives. I’m sure if a God exists, a being or force that got the whole universe going, “it” would not be
offended by Occam’s razor. We worship and work with what we see, what we come into contact with, and what we
can influence through our ideas and actions. Evolution is a fact of life as far as I’m concerned. The evidence is in
and there is no denying it. We are biological beings shaped by our environment and we have the ability to
understand enough of how our world works to create just, equitable and sustainable societies. Myths, fables and
metaphysical speculation are fine and really add flavor to life, but it’s all fantasy like kids playing in a backyard
visualizing fantastic adventures. It is time for the human race to grow up, leave our fantasies behind and take a
look at our backyard and the work we have to do to build a home.
Williams: Do you realize how reductionistic, simplistic, and even arrogant that sounds? You seem to be implying
(without support) that spiritual beliefs are analogous to kids acting out their childish and simplistic “fantasies” in a
backyard. Hence, fantasy here seems to have a negative connotation that implies wishful thinking, like kids
pretending to be soldiers or knights. Nothing has been established, only asserted. If you assume that only the
empirically verifiable is possible, then all you find is possible is what is empirically verifiable. However, you seem to
assert (via your mystical experience) that there is more than just the empirically verifiable that is possible. As a
poet, I would think you would concede that there are ways the human heart is moved and touched that are beyond
what we can empirically verify. In the same way, music, art, and literature can touch us and change us, if we let it.
You seem to be taking a hardened ego-centered position that rejects anything it cannot understand, including that
there is anything it cannot understand. To do so is to artificially limit yourself. A legitimate point of view doesn’t have
to be a simplistic opposition between fairy tale/fantasy/imagination and what is empirically verifiable. There is room
for both.
Beach: Ah, good response, but I think you are getting the wrong impression. First, I am not using the word
“fantasy” in a negative way nor am I using it without concrete scientific evidence based on child psychology and my
own extensive work with and observation of children. I firmly believe that more can be learned about human being
from watching a child then from talking to a college professor. I think the notion of “fantasy” and “play” that
children partake in unselfconsciously is the perfect description of the human condition where we intertwine our
fantastic ideologies within our socio-material circumstances, which I think is a natural and fundamental part of what
human beings must do to survive. The problem comes when we cross the line and start believing that our fantasies
are “real.” That is called psychosis and I would argue that fundamentalist and religious thinking is a form of
psychosis, i.e. mistaking fantasy for reality. I know we will probably never agree on this point, but I will make it one
of my primary duties in this life to collect enough evidence to prove this assertion. And here I will refer you to my
books Studies in Ideology for the first installments.
I would like to end with a short discussion of “possibility” in relation to reality. Some fantasies are simply wishful
thinking that could never, ever come “true.” Then there is the “what if” variety of the idealistic human brain, which
operates out of material reality to ask what is possible: Humans treating disease and living longer lives? Humans
flying in the air? Humans landing on the moon? Humans living peaceful, sustainable and equitable lives? These all
represented the possible in the brains of human beings and most of these things emerged into the actual. The poet
in me is absolutely mystified by the complexity and beauty of reality and I often sit in dumb awe at the wonder of it
all, and I dream about what is possible. There is the poetic “kid” inside me that wonders “what if” and teases out
the possibilities of peace, justice, and equality all of which are “fantastic” human dreams, but which have yet to
become concrete socio-political realities.
My assurance and directness can be mistaken for arrogant “egoism,” but I think you know that I am not an
egotistical person. I lost my ego long ago and my fantasies of peace, justice and equality do not end with a heaven
where a God well pleased with my work will reward me. I labor under no such selfish delusions. In fact, based
upon my experiences thus far, I expect a lifetime of incomprehension, rejection, and misunderstanding and a
peaceful slumber in death will be my reward. I do not think that our limited notions of empirical reality are all that is
possible, but it is the strongest tool we have to work with in our quest for knowledge and understanding, and I will
not apologize for what I consider to be the overwhelming evidence against the “divine.” However, and I have told
you before, I can accede an agnostic point of view and say there are limits to human understanding and there may
be transcendent “truths” out there waiting for us after death. If so, I’ll worry about those when I die. Right now I’
m concerned with living and all the challenges, hope, and despair that this process entails.
Essay 2 - B. Patrick Williams: "The Christian"
At the end of spring term 2002, I left Professor Chris Anderson’s CS Lewis literature class with the sense that both
Lewis and Tolkien had rehabilitated Christianity for me. In Lewis’s Surprised by Joy and Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy
Stories,” each author articulates a vision of the spiritual life that struck me as authentic – a life grounded in
experiences of joy and loss of self-consciousness to encounter what is real. By the end of the term, I had the feeling
that both authors had called me to the edge of a cliff. To step off the ledge was to acknowledge that full life – the
life I was meant to live – meant accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior. This seemed an intellectual insight – as
though it was something that was “true,” but I didn’t go beyond that.
For my master’s thesis, I interviewed evangelical protestant Christians about how their faith is integrated into their
lives. As the summer wore on, I grew tremendously impressed with the majority of my thesis interview subjects’
efforts to surrender to God as known in Christ. For all of their failings and areas where I felt they may not have
thought their beliefs through far enough, I was quite taken by their determined focus on God – the effort to put God
first in their lives. Even as I respected this, I maintained some critical distance from it. But, I couldn’t help but be
impressed.
Also during the summer, I found myself curious about NW Hills Baptist church. I asked my friend Jenn (a Starbucks co-
worker), what was it like? Jenn and I spoke briefly, but it wasn’t long before I dismissed the idea of attending. In
the meantime, I felt dissatisfied with the Roman Catholic Church where I had been going off and on. The liturgy did
not “do it” for me – I felt disconnected there. I’ve recently realized that one of my big draws to Catholicism had been
Chris Anderson, who taught and spoke with me deeply about the spiritual life. However, when I stepped away from
Chris and other Catholic friends, I found myself left hollow with the liturgy, mass, and Catholicism. At any rate, a bit
later in the summer, I felt an urge to go to NW Hills – almost a compulsion, really. So, I went, and while my reaction
was mixed, I liked it overall. The worship songs were simpler and more direct than I’d heard before, yet I really
appreciated that directness and the way we sung to God, not just about God. I was also taken by the pastor’s
sermon. While I could tell the belief system was underpinned by biblical inerrancy and exclusive salvation (two
things I resisted), I liked the message about living one’s full life for Christ - that the point of life is to be a disciple of
Jesus Christ, who is the source of authentic existence. I began to attend NW Hills regularly and by the fourth or fifth
Sunday, I felt something I’d never experienced in any church before – a feeling of being “at home.”
Another important event was reading Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. I was quite taken by Tozer, an evangelical mystic.
Wow. I didn’t know there was such a thing. Moreover, there was a ring of authenticity about Tozer that just blew
me away. Tozer wrote that the Bible by itself was just a book, but illuminated by the Spirit it was the Word of God.
He indicated that we ought to make Christ the center of our lives; the relationship with God must take precedence
over everything else. Tozer’s treatment of pride also deeply affected me. He explained how painfully destructive the
sins of selfishness and self-absorption can be in isolating us from God and each other. Tozer’s words were
electrifying to me. I was blown away.
Another piece in Tozer really connected with me. Roughly 2/3 or more into the book, Tozer refers to how “intellectual
difficulties” can become a “smokescreen.” I don’t recall the actual context, but somehow those words spoke to me
about my own relation to the Bible. Generally speaking, I see two approaches to the Bible – the “historical” and the
“spiritual.” The historical is governed by naturalistic presuppositions about what is possible (like any history) and
does not traffic in the supernatural. The spiritual deals with the things of God and is not subject to the same
constraints. Well, even though the spiritual is not subject to the same constraints, I still constrained it with what I
thought was possible. Thus, when I read the Bible in a spiritual light, I really subjected it to a rigorous historical
scrutiny. Instead of surrendering to God through the Bible’s words, I was too busy deciding what I did and did not
want to believe. In doing so, I kept God at arm’s length.
Over the next few days after reading Tozer, I began to rethink the way I’d been viewing the Bible. Instead of a
literal-factual approach (where the text means exactly what it says) or a metaphorical approach (where the text
does not mean what it literally says but speaks meaning through its imagery), I began to think of “more than literal”
as a way of seeing the Bible. Thus, my new orientation became one of not trying to ascertain exactly what
happened at all, but to trust that the will of God was somehow in, and able to work through, the pages of scripture.
Hence, my job was to open myself to, and surrender to, the God that spoke through the Bible. I was not to analyze,
but to listen. I had been blocked by intellectual defenses that kept me closed.
During the same time period, one day at Starbucks while talking to my friend Megan Brown, it just hit me – God is
real, God is right here, I can pray to God, God is listening. I felt a conviction in my guts that this was true as well as
a fire in my guts that it was true – both of these were mixed in with a peace and confidence. Suddenly, I seemed to
have “got it.” Now I knew what evangelicals meant when they advocated a “personal relationship with God in
Christ.” No longer did I even care about the historical or all the efforts I’d put into ascertaining the truth or falsity
present in the Bible. Instead, I found myself wanting to turn to God – to focus on God, as best I could. Also, I
realized that Jesus really is my Savior – that I need Jesus to be who I am truly supposed to be. Even more, I saw
that I’m not supposed to follow my own ego or my own lights, but to do my best to follow God as known in Christ;
thus, Christ is also my Lord.
Suddenly, I began to see things differently. The passage in Ephesians (5:22-33) that indicates wives are to submit
to their husbands and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church – a passage that I used to see
as sexist nonsense - struck me differently. The passage is different because I now see the God-factor – that it’s the
husband and wife first submitting to God, and then to each other. It’s like, suddenly, I’m taking seriously this idea of
God as not an idea anymore, but as a present reality – as a factor integrated into life that should be taken seriously.
Professor Gary Ferngren loaned me an amazing book titled The Future of Evangelical Christianity by Donald G.
Bloesch. First, Bloesch provided words for what I’d thought but was not sure if anyone else had articulated – and
Bloesch articulated himself more thoroughly than I could. For instance, Bloesch spoke of how the Bible itself is not
inerrant, but inerrancy comes from the presence of Christ as mediated to the believer through the text. This leads to
the Bible’s accurate communication of truths about God and life as well as the Spirit’s speaking directly into the
context of a believer’s life.
Bloesch also cited Karl Barth’s reference to the “superhistorical,” which appears to be the functional equivalent of
my term “more than literal,” in describing Genesis. Bloesch’s point (using Barth) is that it’s not merely literal or
merely mythical – but more than either. Bloesch also talks about how the church must stand as a check on culture –
when the dominant culture and politics swing left, the church should swing right, and vice versa. Reading Bloesch, I
was reminded of Professor Marcus Borg’s view of Jesus’ compassion as originating in experiences of the Spirit of
God, a transcultural Spirit who calls people to compassion beyond themselves. As I look out upon the world, I’m
struck with the sense that people need this life-giving Spirit more than ever.
All of this has really spoken to me. The events I’ve mentioned are the key ones, but there have been others –
namely a lot of seeming coincidences when various evangelical Christians have come into my life at the right time –
supporting and encouraging me or simply showing me what they are about. While I’m not convinced that those who
are not saved in Christ are damned, and I only see the Bible as inerrant in the qualified way I mention above, I do
see the evangelical emphasis on the authority of Scripture and salvation through Christ in a new light. I’ve needed
this focused evangelical orientation through which to break through the bonds of my ego so as to surrender to the
Spirit. And, even then, I don’t think this is ultimately something I’ve done at all. That day in Starbucks when I felt
Christ was real as my Savior and Lord – when that evangelical language suddenly made sense to me – it wasn’t
about me, but about grace, a positive occurrence occurring outside of my sphere of control. While I’m sometimes still
a little baffled by all of this, I have to say that becoming an evangelical Christian and disciple of Jesus Christ is
probably the most important thing that’s ever happened to me.
Conversation
Beach: I want to ask some very involved questions concerning why you turned to Christianity and also I want to
tease out the motivating logic behind your decisions and the statements you made.
We have had discussions before about Christian exceptionalism, especially the narrow view of many evangelical
Christians who believe that Jesus as “Christ” is the only way to “salvation” and that the Christian tradition and the
Bible are the only “way” to God. You mention that “full life” is to be found in Jesus Christ who “is the source of
authentic existence [emphasis added]” and that your conversion experience, if I may call it that, came when you
“realized” that “Jesus really is my Savior.” In light of your personal background, which is Christian; the country and
region you live in, which is predominantly Christian and perhaps most visible evangelical Christian; and in light of the
fact that all of the outside documents you turned to for spiritual direction mentioned in this essay are Christian -
how intellectually or culturally rigorous was your search for “God” and the source of “authentic existence;” do you
deny other cultural tradition as viable “ways” to “God;” and finally was your conversion to Christianity a conversion
of convenience or did you make an enlightened decision?
Williams: Thank you for your passionate honesty. You’ve raised good points and questions, and I’ll try to deal with
what is most central. You mention “many evangelical Christians” “believe” “Jesus…is the only way to ‘salvation’ and
that the Christian tradition and the Bible are the only ‘way’ to God.” First, I see salvation as being a personal
relationship with God as known in Jesus Christ. Thus, full life is found in surrendering to that leadership and realizing
that one’s ego is not the ultimate authority – God is. However, God can be known in many different forms of
experience and mediums: music, art, literature, nature, other religious traditions – just about any form of encounter
can be a conduit for the experience of God. Evangelicals speak of special revelation and general revelation. The
former connotes the communication of what is necessary to salvation – such as the central narratives and teachings
in the scriptures. General revelation connotes God’s truths as found in experiences of music, other religious
traditions, the beauty of a spring day, the sound of the ocean, the pain of loss, the joy of unselfconscious freedom.
So, God can be found in other religious traditions, but what is most necessarily true about God for salvation - what
is most necessary to be saved from the state of ego elevation and separation from God – is located in Christianity
via the relationship with God in Christ. A relationship with Christ is the fullest connection to God available, and it’s
how we are most rightly meant to live. Other religions are inevitably partial in their understanding of God’s truth; full
understanding is found in Christianity through giving one’s life to the one who walked the earth as both God and
man, Jesus Christ.
You ask “how intellectually or culturally rigorous was your search for ‘God’ and the source of ‘authentic existence’”? I
see life as a process of learning and growth that continues until death. After graduating from high school, I served
for six years in the US Marine Corps, to include the first gulf war. In addition to having an MA in Interdisciplinary
Studies (essentially religious studies and writing), I’ve taught writing at Oregon State University, been married and
divorced, lost my mother to cancer, and graduated magna cum laude with a joint B.S. in history and philosophy. I’ve
taken 5 courses (to include The Historical Jesus, Philosophy and Religion, and World Views/Values and the Bible)
with Professor Marcus Borg plus I’ve completed roughly six months of independent study on psychology and religion
with Dr. Borg. Further, I’ve had numerous conversations with Tibetan Buddhist Scholar Jim Blumenthal (who is a
practicing Tibetan Buddhist) in addition to taking Dr. Blumenthal’s course on The Buddha and Buddhist Philosophy. I’
ve also taken a course in world religions and another course treating modern religions in Japan and China. Lastly, I
practiced Zen Buddhist meditation for over two years, having been on three Zen Sesshins (silent meditation retreats
– 4 days, 7 days, and 7 days respectively) and several day-long periods of silent meditation. All in all, I’d say my
search for truth has been very intellectually, culturally, and experientially rigorous. I will continue searching for truth
and insight until I die.
In all of these areas, I’ve continued to seek the truth as honestly and incisively as possible. You ask if my
“conversion to Christianity” is “a conversion of convenience or did you make an enlightened decision?” I’m not
familiar with the term “conversion of convenience,” but it seems to have a negative connotation, as though
suggesting that I embraced Christianity because it was convenient for me to do so, as though perhaps my new faith
helped me to fit in better socially or to feel better about life. Let me be clear – my search has always been for what
is real, what is true. I didn’t expect to become an evangelical Christian – it is something that happened to me in the
midst of my search. Prior to my conversion, I didn’t believe in evangelical theology or the evangelical approach to the
Bible. Indeed, I was quite critical of both, and I adamantly argued against them.
I used to disagree with the idea that Jesus was the primary way to God, and I did not believe the Bible was
authoritative. Moreover, I believed that passages in the Bible had to be seen metaphorically so as to be plausible
and meaningful because they could not be taken literally (an example is the Emmaus Road story in Luke 24).
However, since my conversion, I’ve realized that in the past, I had been projecting my own views upon the biblical
text, limiting what was possible. Regarding the Emmaus Road story, I thought it would be silly if taken literally, Jesus
appearing unrecognized to his two disciples, later vanishing from sight when they recognize him. To me, that
seemed absurd. Another example: I didn’t believe dead people could be brought back to life, so I disregarded any
passage that indicated otherwise. Thus, I limited my openness to the possibilities inherent in reality. Below that
desire to limit reality, I’ve since realized that the real underlying issues have been my anger at God over my mother’
s death from cancer coupled with my resistance to surrendering to God as my authority. I had located authority in
my ego judgments about what was possible or seemed plausible, not in an openness to what is real and the God
who speaks through it all.
Now, I realize that our place is to stand with Job at the whirlwind and accept that the point is not what we can
figure out, but an acceptance of what is. Further, we are to surrender to God’s will, setting aside our own in favor of
His. Instead of getting wrapped up in what we think we can figure out, we should instead surrender to the Lord of
all.
Beach: You can forgive me if I cannot see past your Christian exceptionalism, which I find hard to palate given the
greater intolerance of Christian fundamentalism. You say that other religions and art share a “general revelation,”
but only Christians have access to the “specific revelation” found in Christ. If I didn’t know you personally Patrick I
would say you were no different than the common Christian exceptionalist, but because I do know you I have to
ask, don’t you find it hard to take this position given that only a minority of the world’s population professes
Christianity? And what about the majority of the world’s population who are Hindu’s, Buddhists, Muslims, and
Secularists and their inferior “general” revelation? Are they cosigned to a “general” less blissful heaven, or maybe
to a purgatorial state after death, or maybe as a great many Christian exceptionalists believe the majority of the
world will burn in hell for eternity because they could not come to accept the exalted “specific” way revealed in the
Christian religion? This seems shaky ground my friend. And further, on what grounds do you base your
supposition, besides your personal, pro-Christian belief that the Bible is the one and only handbook for salvation?
Doesn’t every ignorant religious exceptionalist say ‘my way is the only way’? How are you different?
Williams: Well Josh, as usual, you’re asking important questions, and for that, I’m grateful. The passion in your
words suggests that these subjects strike close to your heart, however you may think about them. And, while I am
not familiar with the term “Christian exceptionalism,” I expect you are referring to something analogous to
“exclusivism” – the privileging of the Christian revelation over all other means of obtaining the truth. In any case, I
will certainly forgive you for taking issue with me, even celebrating our disagreement as I think being real (even in
opposition) is definitely preferable to a restraint that comprises what is truly felt and thought. Now, onto your
questions and my responses:
No, I don’t find it “hard to take” that I privilege the Christianity over all other religions even though there are
various different religions around the world proposing different things that they claim to be true. In fact, I think the
current academic fixation with relativistic thinking has damaged the ability to critically reason. There is no real
relativism; it’s a fantasy that inevitably privileges one point of view over another/others while claiming not to do so.
If one is really a committed Buddhist or Hindu, he or she will privilege that faith position over all others. The
Christian is no different. A Buddhist may believe that folks will be reincarnated infinitely until they are freed from the
suffering of the samsara wheel and the Christian will see those who fail to accept Christ’s lordship as going to hell
after they die and the Muslim will see heaven as a place of paradise filled with virgins and an atheist rejects the
possibility of any of it while the agnostic is uncertain.
We should all do the best to live fully and be who we are – to follow the truth where it leads. Doing this does not
involve a wishy-washy relativistic compromise, but digging in and being real about what one thinks and feels. That’s
part of the reason I enjoy our dialogue so much Josh – because we’re inviting each other to be real, and we’re
really to be friends even as we might agree to disagree. I think the model of this discussion is the model for how to
live with each other when we’re a variety of people coming from complex environmental and genetic backgrounds.
As to whether non-Christians will go to hell when they die – that’s not for me to decide. I think one must have Jesus
Christ to be in a right relationship with God. Period. But, as C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: “But the truth is
God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved
except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him” (62). Hence, I’m
not qualified to judge who will or won’t be sent to hell; but, given that I believe salvation is through Jesus Christ, it’s
in everyone’s best interest to submit to Him for salvation. Most pertinent here is the relation to this world – those
who have Christ are fundamentally on the right ground and those who don’t have Christ are not. We were created
to be in intimate relationship with God, and that intimate relationship is most fully realized by a connection to God
through Jesus Christ.
In addition to what the Bible and Christian tradition teach, I base this conclusion on my personal conversion
experience. When I encountered Christ in a personal way, I was persuaded experientially of a different reality – the
reality that God is real, He’s all around, and He’s known in Christ. As my relationship with God through Christ has
deepened, I’ve grown in ways that were previously unknown to me. I’m more confident, more assured, more
settled, more grounded. Sure, I make mistakes and have a lifetime of learning ahead, but now I’ve crossed a
fundamental bridge into a new, previously unrealized life. Now, there’s a connectedness to my actions and my
thoughts and my feelings that didn’t exist before – a sense of feeling right about who I am and what I’m about.
When I reflect on how confused and unconfident I was before relative to my role in the larger scheme of life (though
ironically I thought I knew a lot definitively), and then I compare that with what has been given to me now, it is
clear to me that life in Christ is life as it’s meant to be. The longer I live and grow in Him, the more convinced I am.
Even more, as I look around and see all the pain and suffering and fracture and loss and misdirection that runs
rampant in the world, I realize, Christ is the answer. The culture we live in is guilty for the way it validates the
building of the ego and the hardening of self-absorption. Stuck in ourselves, we are lost. As such, we turn to all
manner of false gods to relieve our pain: new age religions, eastern mysticism, sports, philosophy, drugs. We were
created to be with God in deep relationship, yet we refuse to surrender our egos, so we seek fulfillment in false
sources of spirituality. I see it all around – the pain, the confusion, the lost.
I am only different from those in other religions insofar as I believe that Christianity offers the best explanation for
the realities of the world. All religions and ways of knowing contain some truth, but the fullest truth is found in
Christianity. I have tested and weighed Christianity, and I will continue to do so as I continue to immerse myself in
my own life and the Christian faith. I am a Christian because I believe it best provides an understanding of what is
true and real.
Beach: I want to follow up on the last question. All religious traditions have been grounded in concrete, historical
cultures and regions. By way of provincialism, chauvinism, or the undisputable process of cultural assimilation people
all across the globe are socialized (or indoctrinated) into particular social, political and religious traditions. The
Christian tradition is no exception. Evangelical Christianity is founded on several, highly subjective, culturally limited
assumptions (I will name only a few): the existence of a personal God that acts in history, the notion that Jesus was
“Christ” and the “son of God,” the superiority of human beings over all other forms of life, the superiority of males
over women, a belief in the total destruction and “end” of this world, and the belief in a dualistic afterlife where the
elect are rewarded and the evil are punished. These assumptions are themselves grounded in the Bible, which is
assumed by most Christians to be the “inerrant” “Word of God, to some Christians to be “literally” factual, i.e. many
contemporary evangelical Christians believe the end of the world is coming. Should all Christian’s simply disregard
“intellectual difficulties” as “smokescreens” in order to concentrate on their own highly subjective and, what seems
to me, highly anti-social search for a personal relationship with Christ instead of critically understanding the
evolution of their religious tradition and the way Christianity has historically and is currently manipulated by
conservative political agendas? Specifically, is the “spiritual” approach to the Bible in its uncritical subjectivity a
socially responsible program, especially in light of the precarious foreign and domestic policies of George W. Bush
who claims to be a practicing evangelical Christian? What of “historical” Bible scholars like Crossan and Borg who
have argued that one cannot responsibly approach the Bible without historical perspective? Can you admit some
inherent dangers in the “spiritual” position in light of contemporary American politics?
Williams: Well, once again you’ve raised excellent points and asked penetrating questions. In fact, here you’ve
challenged me the most of all. I’ll do my best to provide an adequate response.
I agree that “All religious traditions have been grounded in concrete, historical cultures and regions.” Of course they
have. However, I won’t reduce those traditions to their cultural/social conditioning alone. Instead, I believe that God’
s revelation – his divine will and concomitant truths – is an additional factor that has penetrated the mix of societies,
cultures, regions.
I disagree with your claim about evangelicals and men/women. Evangelical Christianity is not founded on “the
superiority of males over women.” Rather, evangelicals see women and men as having different roles; hence, one is
not superior to the other. I do believe the end of the world will come about by God’s judgment (unless we humans
destroy the world first), but I don’t know when that will be.
You ask: “Should all Christians simply disregard ‘intellectual difficulties’ as ‘smokescreens’ in order to concentrate on
their own highly subjective and, what seems to me, highly anti-social search for a personal relationship with Christ
instead of critically understanding the evolution of their religious tradition and the way Christianity has historically
and is currently manipulated by conservative political agendas?” First, you have set up a false opposition between
seeking a relationship with God in Christ and thinking critically about the ways in which one’s religious tradition
interacts with its society/culture/political systems. This opposition is not necessary, and uncritical thought does not
follow logically from a relationship with Christ (though the two can certainly exist together). Regarding “intellectual
difficulties” and “smokescreens,” these refer to concerns around the veracity of the Bible and the relationship with
God. Previously, I thought everything had to make sense to me intellectually – I had to understand it, or it was not
valid. However, I’ve since learned that such a view is untenable regarding God. When we set ourselves up as sole
authorities, those intellectual difficulties can block us from the real issue – surrendering to God in Jesus Christ, the
one in whom we were created to obey and follow. Given that we naturally resist such a surrender, we use various
means to distance ourselves from God, and in my case, it was intellectual difficulties. An example: prior to becoming
a Christian I’d say to myself, I’ve never seen a dead person raised, so therefore the Gospel of John can’t be true nor
can its claims have any bearing on me. Those sorts of ego judgments kept me trapped in myself and unable to
relate to God (who speaks through the Bible); those judgments kept me closed.
I totally agree that we should study the evolution of our traditions, to include whether they have become tools for
oppression. None of what I assert above contradicts the importance of critical study (hence the false opposition).
You raise an excellent concern regarding George W. Bush and his policies. After all, Bush claims to be an evangelical
Christian, yet one can legitimately argue that many of Bush’s policies are detrimental and potentially dangerous to
individuals in the US as well as to the world as a whole. In my view, we must always remember that the church
should be separated from the kingdoms of this world. Indeed, Donald Bloesch has asserted that the church must act
as a check on political oppression carried out by such kingdoms; the church should never align itself too closely with
political institutions for fear of being co-opted. I agree. When opposing immoral segregation laws, Martin Luther King
Jr. was a Baptist minister acting deeply out of his Christian convictions and faith.
While George W. Bush can espouse Christianity all he wants, the evidence of his faith will be found in his actions. It’
s up to the individual believer to sort out whether Bush’s Christianity is in fact credible. Further, your concern is of
huge importance regarding those who might take Bush at face value, saying to themselves, well, he says he’s a
Christian, so he must be and thus, I’ll vote for him. To be so simplistic about such matters can be dangerous, yet it’s
likely a real potential problem. Finally, Borg and Crossan are right about the need for historical perspective. I concur
that if people are uncritical of their society/culture/political systems, this can create real problems in trying to
determine what is true and right both for themselves and others.
Beach: Christianity seems to me to be a very anti-human religion denying human beings rational capacity,
community motivated ideals, and the capacity for progressive self-direction (with the exception of a “savior” figure).
You mention several times that you had to give up your ability to analyze, your critical thought, your ego, your “own
lights” in order to accept Jesus as your “Lord,” and that you are not “truly” who you are “supposed to be” without
Jesus as your “savior.” This seems to really denigrate the human being and imply an inherent deficiency within
human nature, which I completely disagree with. The Christian language you use is derivative of older forms of
monarchical assumptions, wherein, the unenlightened masses where always in need of direction and protection
from “above.” Why must we have “Saviors,” “Lords,” and “Kings of Kings”? Why cannot we learn to understand our
own human nature, use our brains, and collectively learn to live together somewhat peacefully and productively?
Why must we “submit” to God?
Williams: You raise important questions and concerns. In short, we must submit to God because that is how we are
created to live fully. Thus, we are not supposed to be egos on our own, but rather, we are to cooperate with God,
who leads us. I know this is hard to take, and in part, this is why I didn’t become a Christian for so long. Our egos
want to rule – the judging, analyzing, rationalizing side of ourselves that attempts to seize and control. Our
empirically oriented culture tells us that what is real must be objectively measurable and what most matters is
wealth and what is most important is our own self-aggrandizement. However, life as it is meant to be comes
through transcending that ego and finding our meaning in God and serving others, not in elevating ourselves or
gaining material possessions or rejecting what we don’t understand. Further, the ego judging side of us is only one
side – our bodies and minds are much more holistic, and God fills the deep need we all have.
The danger of a position that emphasizes human attributes alone is that authority is located falsely within the ego.
It’s an illusion that we can control our destinies, yet we try to through our reasoning and judging so as to find some
measure of comfort. However, peace will not come until we find right relation with the God who transcends our
egos. Those in other spiritual traditions realize the importance of ego-transcendence, they just prescribe a different
solution for the problem. Such ego-transcendence can be found in music, poetry, art – they free us from self-
preoccupation to be more fully present to our lives and circumstances. Ego-transcendence through art, music,
poetry, and other spiritual traditions is a partial solution while following Christ is the complete solution. Christianity
is not “anti-human” nor does it deny “human beings rational capacity;” instead, Christianity offers a life that
validates the whole person and not just his/her intellect.
Beach: I take exception to your comment on Ephesians. As I mentioned in my last question, the idea of “submitting”
to the greater power in order to find and experience one’s “true” self seems insulting to human beings, especially in
this case to women – and of course you failed to comment on the later passage in Ephesians (6:5) where Paul says,
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.” Both passages have been invoked by those in power
to deny women equal rights and to deny slaves and workers livable and just working conditions. You assume the
“God-factor” and thus your idealized interpretation of this passage disregards the world we live in where Christian
Promise Keepers deny their wives autonomy; where American women still earn less then men for equal work; where
South East Asian, Eastern European and Russian women are sold into slavery as “wives;” where Islamic
fundamentalists beat down woman for not being covered head to foot or for simply wanting to go to school. I would
call into question your highly subjective presupposition that “God is watching and keeping score” thus we as
humans need do nothing but submit to his will and wait for justice. This was the attitude of monarchists, slave-
holders, monopolists, and those professing Christians who told Martin Luther King Jr. to bide his time and wait for
the “Lord” to right the African American’s wrongs. Please comment.
Williams: By asserting, “of course you failed to comment on the later passage in Ephesians (6:5) where Paul says,
‘Slaves…,” you seem to be suggesting that I deliberately avoided commenting here. If so, you are incorrect. I don’t
doubt that passages from Ephesians have been used to oppress women and slaves; however, to do so is a mistake
and a distortion. As the saying goes, “even the devil quotes scripture.” Anyone can quote from the Bible and believe
whatever they want about what it means, but that doesn’t make such an interpretation accurate. Paul is not
seeking to advance oppression with these passages. Regarding male/female relations, he is establishing distinct
roles in which both men and women subordinate themselves to God (as I’ve explained previously re: Ephesians 5:
22-33). As for slaves, this should be understood in its historical context. Paul was writing to particular slaves and
advising them to obey their masters. Hence, Paul thought that not doing so in this case would be problematic; Paul
is not talking about all enslaved peoples for all times.
You assert that I “assume the ‘God-factor’” and that my “idealized interpretation of this passage disregards the
world we live in…” I believe God is as real as anything else; a fact of existence. That is my belief, and you are free to
disagree with it, just as I disagree with the counter-belief/counter-assumption that a personal God does not exist.
My view is not idealized, and I believe that husbands should not try to control their wives, slavery is wrong, and
Islamic fundamentalists are wrong to beat women for seeking education.
You write, “I would call into question your highly subjective presupposition that ‘God is watching and keeping score’
thus we as humans need do nothing but submit to his will and wait for justice.” First, I ask that you refrain from
attributing quotes to me that are not my own. I’m not sure whom you’re quoting here, but it’s not me. Second, this
statement is inaccurate on its face. I have not said that we should “do nothing but submit to [God’s] will and wait
for justice.” In fact, if my life is any indication, I have continued to seek knowledge and live my life as fully as
possible, both before and after my conversation. My post-conversion insight is that we are to cooperate with God in
our activities while placing him rightfully in authority over our lives.
Beach: You mention above that Paul was writing in a specific historical situation and that he was not writing to all
people at all times, and the logical extension of that statement infers that all of the language of the Bible is
historically conditioned, thus one should not use the Bible to justify intolerance, hatred, murder, slavery, dominating
women, killing disobedient children, stoning witches, and killing homosexuals all of which are sanctioned in various
parts of the Bible. Thus, as Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan argue, the Bible is a “historical” document, which one
can use to access “God” through tradition, but it should not be used as the basis or sole authority for living in the
21st century. You seem to be walking a slippery line between the fundamentalist’s belief in the sole and
fundamental authority of the Bible as the guide for living (no matter which century it was written in) and the more
sophisticated and socio-politically aware Christianity of the Borg/Crossan-school of historical criticism. Please
comment.
Williams: You’re on the right track in your understanding of what’s at stake here Josh, but you must be careful so
as not to oversimplify. The Bible is a very complex work written by multiple authors over thousands of years across a
multitude of historical/social/political/economic conditions. It is into those complex conditions that I see the stream of
God’s revelation inserting itself. Before I will accept your terms, you must establish them. Thus, I will not accept your
list above relative to the Bible until you make a case for your particular interpretative point of view. These are
complex matters that require complex treatment. Right now, you have asserted a number of elements you believe
are “sanctioned” by the Bible without providing any context or argument for why this is so. Next time, do so and I’ll
be happy to deal with any example you provide.
Your perception of what is at stake is accurate insofar as you raise the question of authority. I think that issue is
central. Thus, do we follow the guidance of our own egos, or do we follow God’s will, or do we follow some mix of
the two – what do we look to as a fundamental guide for our lives? In my view, we are to see God as our ultimate
authority – as the defining source of authority for our lives. The liberal theological position is to say that the Bible
itself is not grounded in divine authority but is just a record of experience. The problem with liberal Christianity and
atheism is that they minimize or eliminate God’s role while maximizing the role of the ego. Ego idolatry is the source
of sin and the very thing we need to get away from in order to be free to find life as it is meant.
My position (and the broader evangelical position) is to accept that the Bible is conditioned by different
times/places/events even as it contains the revelation of God’s truths. Parts of that revelation are only applicable to
the time in which they were given, and other parts are applicable for all times. The key to sorting this out is the
problem of interpretation. Thus, I (and evangelicalism more broadly) combine a belief in the authority of the Bible
with the importance of being socially and politically aware.
Are We Living in the 'End Times'?
Essay 3 - J. M. Beach: "Apocalyptic Eschatology"
Evangelical Christianity in its preoccupation with Jesus as “Christ” and the more modern obsession of literal
interpretation of the Bible has passionately given birth to a host of millennial schemes, whereby, the “end of the
world” becomes immanent. This eschatological urge seems to be ingrained in the very origins of the early
“Christian” communities whose devotion and love of Jesus not only exalted him into a messiah figure as the
“Christ,” but also transfigured the violent and unjust death of the revered teacher in creative tales and
compensating myths, whereby, Jesus as the “Christ” would return sword in hand, to cleanse the world of all evil
doers, banish the hordes of Satan into a fiery pit, and end human history in order to inaugurate a 1,000 year
triumphal reign of God before leaving the earth with the elect for an eternity in Heaven. The grandeur of this
delusion does not diminish the powerfully immanent emotional attachment that Christians have for centuries
attached to their desire for the divine to finally and for all descend and bring about the lost paradise of “God’s”
supposedly “original vision.”
The apostle John especially added theatrical flare to the mythological pretense underpinning his more fictional than
factual accounts of Jesus’ life. The metaphysical introduction of John’s Gospel is truly awe-inspiring and a testament
to the Greek influence on the early Christian communities. The divine, rational order of “Logos” comes down from
the heavenly realm of the ethereal firmament to become “flesh” and “live among us.” This is just one of the
wonderful metaphors that John invokes to mythically inflate the majesty of Jesus. John proves himself the most
literate of the four canonical authors, as he is steeped in the ancient traditions of Greece and Judea, and like Paul,
John pilfers the Jewish Old Testament for obscure passages to put forth as prophetic revelations of the “Son of
God.” One is told time and again in John’s Gospel that Jesus was not “of this world” and, thus, his significance lies
in a more perfect, heavenly realm outside the boundaries of earthly existence to which sinfully mortal humans must
aspire.
One is also confronted with another aspect of Jesus that is significantly lacking in the other Gospels and that is
“judgment.” In John 9:39 Jesus says, “I came into this world for judgment,” which while playing into the established
prophetic school of thought found in the Old Testament becomes, in relation to John’s otherworldly portraiture of
Jesus, a frightful glimpse of the angry tyranny let loose by Jehovah in days of old. In John’s Gospel it seems more a
threat than anything else. To use a vulgar paraphrase: “God going to cleanse this putrescent hell-hole of a planet
and you better be on the right side or else!” Thus, when John’s Jesus tries to back track a bit in John 12:47 by
saying, “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but
to save the world” it seems shallow and insincere, especially since Jesus, just one verse later, says, “on the last day
the word that I have spoken will serve as judge” (12:48). Jesus’ real message, John has made perfectly clear, is
that “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25), I am “God:” over and over Jesus says “I am he,” which is code for
accept me or else face judgment and eternal damnation.
During the trial of Jesus, John has Pilate rhetorically ask, “What is truth” (18:38)? Of course any close reader of
John’s gospel knows the answer, which is the very bedrock assertion of the Christian faith and the line perhaps
most quoted by modern Christian fundamentalists: Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me” (14:6). John metaphorically uses “truth” more than any other Gospel (1:
17, 4:23, 8:32, 14:6, 14:17) and explicitly sets up the chauvinistic and exclusive dogma that Christianity is the only
“true” faith and way to “God.” Thus, in an early fundamentalist fiat, it should come as no surprise when John
passes off his entirely fantastic and otherworldly Gospel at literally “true” (21:24).
It is in this same distortion of the notion of “truth” that John pens an even more perverse and outlandish tale of
“revelation,” “final judgment” and the “end of the world.” In The Birth of Christianity (1998) chapters 17 and 18,
John Dominic Crossan has persuasively argued that a “nonapocalyptic eschatology” existed within the early
communities of Jesus’ followers and that only later did a revisionist “apocalyptic eschatology” arise over fifty to one
hundred years after Jesus’ death, embodied in such documents as the Gospel of John and in John’s “Revelation.”
John’s Revelation deserves a place amongst the Greco-Roman pagan myths as a prototypical visionary drama of
contamination, ritual cleansing, and rebirth. But certainly anyone who would dare assert that what John described
is actually going to come to pass in the near future is completely bereft of sanity or tolerance. Thus, the whole
enduring notion of the “end of the world” and the modern Christian fundamentalist’s dogmatic expression and
adherence to this lunacy is one of the strongest and most obvious demonstrations of the deep psychopathology of
the Christian religion.
John, over two thousand years ago, thought “the time is near” (Revelation 1:3) and thus urged the underground
communities of Christians to bide their time and endure repression because the triumphal Christ would be coming
soon for revenge (1:7, 9). The first part of John’s “Revelation” seems no revelation at all, but merely a bunch of
violently dictatorial threats thinly veiled in the voice of Jesus as vengeful “God.” Over and over John’s “voice of God”
says, “repent” or be destroyed. John’s “God” decrees a totalitarian nightmare more horrible than any Christian
crusade to date: “I will give authority over / the nations; / to rule them with an iron rod, / as when clay pots are /
shattered” (2:26-27). Then the book deteriorates into a vengeful bloodbath of “trials” and “tribulations” because
“the Lamb that was slaughtered” (5:12) has come back to judge the earth and “reign” triumphal, and, incidentally,
to reward the chosen servants of “God:” For you have taken your / great power and begun to reign. / The nations
raged, but your wrath has come, / and the time for judging / the dead” (11:17-18).
The climax of John’s “Revelation” comes when an “angel of the Lord” decrees that the “beast” of Satan and his
hordes will be defeated and these demons and the whole earth will be judged in blood:
So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and he threw it into the great
wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine
press, as high as a horse’s bridle, for a distance of about two hundred miles. (14:19-20).
And this is the pacific Christianity of love and forgiveness? No rational person with a shred of decency could
condone this violent and genocidal program of extermination. John advocating a systematic destruction of the
“damned” seems no different than Hitler’s program of Holocaust or Neo-Nazi visions of racial cleansing (for example,
The Turner Diaries). John’s apocalyptic vision is a truly sickening and despicable instance of bloodthirsty intolerance,
but resonant with a host of historical geo-political campaigns of Christian tyranny, most recently the wars of
aggression by George W. Bush. Bush’s professed belief that he is a “servant of God” and his declaration of war
against the vague, spiritual enemies like “terrorists” and the “axis of evil” seem eerily reminiscent of John’s bloody
revelation. It would seem fitting if George W. Bush just came out and quoted scripture in Revelation as his ultimate
justification for war and American consolidation of power:
In righteousness he judges and makes war…He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God…From
his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine
press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “Kings of kings and Lord
of Lords” (19:11-16)
I do not think there is any better description of the Imperial motivations of George W. Bush than this, nor do I think
there is any other conclusion in the minds of fanatic, right-wing evangelical Christian fundamentalists than this
despicable bloodbath.
The human race must leave behind all primitive notions of catastrophic and violent destruction of “evil” if any rational
and just consensus is to govern the world. I think the time for uncritically celebrating the historically conditioned
apocalyptic visions of the past is over. Are we living in the end times? If George W. Bush and his administration
have their way the world will be engulfed in wars; America will turn into a police state with no government services
and poor education (unless your rich!); Christianity will be promoted as the one, “true” way to “God;” and the
environment will be rapped of resources and polluted beyond recognition to the point of catastrophic species
extermination and the untold consequences of Global warming. To the question, “are we living in the end times?” I
would reply, perhaps, perhaps. But I would add, it has nothing to do with “God.”
Conversation
Williams: Well, my friend, I sympathize with your concerns relative to the violent judgment of God as understood by
many evangelicals to be “coming soon.” The end of his world has been portrayed as a violent, cataclysmic event
that results in horrific destruction as a result of God’s judgment of those who have rebelled against him. I think
there are many ways in which you and I can clarify some important issues around this material.
I understand your worries regarding Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the destruction of the environment, and
America becoming a “police state” comprised of the poorly educated who lack “government services.” Do you think it’
s possible for evangelicals to hold to a belief in an end times judgment by God while still caring for the environment,
desiring to prevent war, advocating for government services and solid education?
Beach: Frankly, Patrick, I do not. For centuries one of the bedrock assertions of Christianity has been its dualistic
withdrawal from the actual, material-political world. The Neo-Hegelian critique of Christianity unearthed a great
insight into the aggressions and exterminations perpetuated in Jesus’ name. Basically, Feuerbach, Marx, and others
criticized Christianity as an “individualistic” religion that preached personal salvation and renunciation of the
material/political world because this world was “corrupt” and damned by God. You know the story. Christianity has
always been about “personal salvation,” and when evangelical, about “saving souls.” Mainline Christianity in terms
of the message communicated to the lay-people, as we both know, has never been concerned with the real politick
matters of this world. In almost every single historical example that I can call to mind, the call to reform the existing
world as a “mandate from God” has been met with resistance from mainstream Christianity and condemned as
heresy, which is ironic as the down-and-dirty, minister-to-the-poor, fuck-the-authorities-and-status-quo attitude of
most heretic reformers and revolutionaries is closer to the original mandate of Jesus. I think mainstream Christianity
from its very origins in the early church is a perversion of Jesus’ material message of “The Kingdom of God” is of this
world, in this world, embodied in real people. This has always been a revolutionary message. It got Jesus killed.
Its gotten a lot of other people killed as well (Martin Luther King Jr. & Oscar Romero are two very popularized,
contemporary examples).
Personally, Patrick, I feel you have an overly idealized and naïve view of what Christianity means and how it is
practiced, especially in the U.S. You might try to defend your “Christianity” with “band-aid” programs of prison
ministries, soup kitchens, missions trips, youth outreach, etc, but each of these programs are ultimately self-serving,
thinly veiled attempts to “save souls” and are not all that concerned with alleviating the socio-economic pain and
suffering of the body and exploited communities. And one of the most time-tested truisms of what I’m saying, ala
Bertrand Russell, has been the perverse and detestable stance of Christianity on sex. In the world we live in, it is
absolutely immoral and obscene to deny birth control and family planning, yet the church continues to do so.
Williams: Well, frankly my friend, I’m disappointed that you don’t think an end times believing evangelical can also
value the environment, seek to prevent war, and advocate for government services and education. I was hoping
that you would offer a thoughtful perspective as to how an evangelical might channel some of his/her energy into
“this-worldly” concerns; instead, you’ve taken a position governed by intellectual, theoretical considerations that
distorts your perceptions. Of course, an evangelical who believes in the end-times can support taking care of the
environment, seek to prevent war, advocate for government services and education. I am one.
I’m afraid that your bias against Christianity is compromising your ability to think critically. You offer valuable points
of view but then you over simplify them and reduce them into one sided, dogmatic positions. These issues are multi-
faceted and more complex than you’re allowing. For instance, of course there are Christians who have fled from the
practical realities of the world, but there are many Christians who embrace the problems of the world. Martin Luther
King Jr. was an ordained Baptist minister.
And what of this false opposition that you’ve set up between the Kingdom of God as being otherworldly versus the
Kingdom of God being “of this world, embodied in real people”? Of course it is. You assert that I “might try to defend
my ‘Christianity’ with ‘band-aid’ programs of prison ministries, soup kitchens, missions trips, youth outreach, etc, but
each of these programs are ultimately self-serving, thinly veiled attempts to ‘save souls’ and are not at all that
concerned with alleviating the socio-economic pain and suffering of the body and exploited communities.” On what
do you base this?
What you’ve offered is a sweeping generalization and oversimplification that outruns what you should claim in good
conscience. Your exhortation that people’s suffering and pain should be relieved is valid, but how can you reduce
the only concern to that of saving souls? I’m not an expert on Christian missions, but my understanding is that
missionaries work to achieve the holistic well being of those they minister to. Your one-sided assertion that all
Christians care about is saving souls and that they don’t care about other needs is utter nonsense. Your list
(“prison ministries, soup kitchens” etc.) makes my point. These are activities that meet peoples’ real needs where
they are, in the world. It’s not either/or. If you care about someone, you want to help the whole person. Of course,
if you believe that someone’s soul is in jeopardy, you want to share the gospel. But, if you love that person, you
also want to relieve their suffering. There are all sorts of Christian ministries all around the world that work for the
this-worldly good of others.
Beach: You are right, to some extent, about my over-generalizing and in places losing a grasp on the complicated
motives that go into any human action, but my general criticism about “Christian” motivations stands, and you didn’t
even try to address it. The militant atheist Christopher Hitchens, whom I respect in some matters and disagree with
him on many others, wrote a very good book on Mother Teresa (who is soon becoming a saint) exposing her work
with the poor as a self-serving mission to save souls for God and that alone. Mother Teresa admitted as much in an
interview with Hitchens. The Vatican Council, during their trial to evaluate the “saintliness” of Mother Teresa even
called Hitchens in as the “Devil’s Advocate” to criticize Mother Teresa and make a case against her life (of course his
council did not win the day). Here is a “holy” woman, a “saint,” by the most general of Christian standards and she
devoted her life to working with the poor, but what did she really do? Did she actually raise any individuals or
families or villages or societies out of socio-economic poverty? No. Did she try to alleviate the suffering of the poor
she came into contact with by constructing hospitals, family planning centers, job-training centers, modern schools?
No. What did she do? She mythologized the idea of being “poor” and told the poor that they were truly blessed
and would be rewarded in the next life, in the coming “kingdom of God.” All she did was save souls, and whatever
material comfort she might have given the various individuals that came into contact with her was a secondary
concern. Thus, I do make a generalization, yes, but based upon the creed-driven religion that you follow, the
primary mission of Christianity is to “save souls for Christ” and ministering to the socio-economic needs comes a
distant second – at best! And your uncritical and shallow invocation of Martin Luther King Jr. is a great case in
point. Martin Luther King Jr. was not initially interested in the civil rights movement. He was a Christian minister, as
you point out, primarily interested in being a minister and saving souls. For the first part of his career, King tried to
address racism and inequality through Christianity and the Southern Baptist Church, but he could do little and his
white superiors and fellow clergyman disapproved of his more radical opinions and his growing conviction in
organized protest. The official line of Christianity at the mid-point of last century was that every human soul (not
body) was equal before God and that reform, if it should come, should come eventually in “God’s time.” Martin
Luther King Jr. had to go against his church and join forces with the secular NAACP and other non-religious
affiliations (like the central role played by the radical, homosexual Bayard Rustin in the civil rights movement who
has been marginalized for several decades).
So, to return to my original criticism, but rephrasing: yes “there are all sorts of Christian ministries” that do “work for
the this-worldly good of others” as you say, but they do so primarily in order to “save souls for Christ,” which you
cannot deny. I have seen first hand or been told by people with first hand experience what goes on during mission
trips, prison ministries, aiding the poor via homeless shelters and missions, working with street kids, volunteering at
Job Corps, and various other “Christian ministries.” While the primary stance of “saving souls for Christ” does not
necessarily prevent or preclude addressing the socio-economic circumstances of the world’s “oppressed,” based
upon the tract record of Christianity, I think there is clear evidence for arguing that Christians more often then not
address and meet the needs of the “spiritual” first, and socio-economic problems second, if at all. And further, when
Christians do address the socio-economic realm, it tends to be through the value system of Christianity, thus when I
was a part of a missions-trip in my youth we went to Mexico not to built a school, but to build a mission and hold
“revival meetings.” Now at the mission, there was an orphanage for the handicapped, which meet the needs of say
10 or so children, but the institution was a mission built for training missionaries and serving the needs of the
church, not primarily for helping Mexican orphans. This is the predicament and what I consider to be the moral
pathology of Christian “ministries:” the “salvation” of the “soul” seems to be the primary concern, while ministering
to the needs of the body and addressing systematic injustice are not always addressed.
Williams: You write: “John advocating a systematic destruction of the ‘damned’ seems no different than Hitler’s
program of Holocaust or Neo-Nazi visions of racial cleansing.” Then, you move to connect such violent extermination
with the “wars of aggression” by President George W. Bush, asserting that both G.W. Bush and “fanatic, right-wing
evangelical Christians” desire to cause a “despicable Imperial bloodbath.”
First, however much you may dislike Bush, it seems a real stretch to try to compare the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
to the mass murder of the Jews by the Nazis. Second, I certainly don’t know of any evangelical Christians who
would advocate wholesale killing of the unsaved; thus, your comparison between the Nazis and the Bush
administration and “fanatic…evangelical Christians” doesn’t hold much water. Of course, there are a few mentally ill,
unbalanced people who claim to be Christians yet shoot abortion doctors and might advocate such violence; but, to
my knowledge, there are not many of them. Third, John’s Revelation is very different from Hitler’s Holocaust. John’s
Revelation is descriptive of an anticipated future event; the Holocaust was a proactive murder campaign that
actually occurred. Revelation used highly metaphorical, non-literal language; the Holocaust was replete with ultra-
literal, concrete language about who was to live or die based on purportedly racial characteristics. Finally, John’s
Revelation originated out of a persecuted, oppressed community seeking deliverance from their suffering; the
Holocaust was a murderous assault by a powerful imperial nation (Germany) upon their (and their neighbor’s)
minority Jewish populations. Thus, John’s Revelation and the atrocities of the Holocaust are in fact very different.
Beach: Ah, Patrick, now your logic and historical knowledge seem to be compromised. First, I do not compare the
Holocaust with Bush’s Imperial wars, but I do compare both back to John’s intolerant vision, which celebrates the
exclusion and execution of a categorically stereotypical group, the “damned.” You are right to say that John’s vision
is an “anticipated future event,” which is tantamount to saying a distopic plan of future genocide, and as such, it
has inspired and continues to inspire fantastic visions, which can very easily deteriorate into some nut-case’s
delusional rampage to actually enact a genocidal campaign. I’m not saying that most people who read Revelation or
the Bible and go out to kill people, but it has happened and continues to happen. Perhaps one of the most potent
historical examples was the militant arm of the U.S. abolition movement and John Brown in particular. Also, if you
read Revelation and the Neo-Nazi propaganda, race war inciting novel The Turner Diaries the similarities are
frightfully manifest. And people DO go out and act on The Turner Diaries, Timothy McVey (the Oklahoma City
Bomber) is perhaps the best well known. So what I’m saying is that Revelation fits within a “genocidal genre” and it
is, thereby, little different from Hitler’s plan for the Holocaust. I also think George W. Bush’s murkily defined foreign
policy of “axis of evil,” “preemptive strike,” and “war on terrorism” are also well within the genocidal genre and Bush’
s Imperial plan is a world catastrophe waiting to happen.
Your historical generalization of Nazi Germany is completely inaccurate, ironically enabling you to misread the
similarities between the Nazis party and the early church. The Germany of the Nazis was not a “powerful imperial
nation” as you describe, but more akin to the early church who you described as “a persecuted, oppressed
community seeking deliverance from their suffering,” albeit the nature of the persecution surrounding post WWI
Germany was quite different from the early church. I don’t want to go into a long historical lesson here, but as I
think you well know, Germany was one of the weakest Imperial powers to begin with, but lost its Imperial domain
after WWI, whereby, the drastically one-sided Treaty of Versailles put Germany into an economic straight-jacket,
which, combined with the U.S. stock market crash in 1929 felt the world over, handicapped the social democratic
Weimar Republic, which was never able to get off the ground, and this lead to very deep seated socio-economic
animosity percolating within the majority of Germans, which, combined with the virulent anti-Semitism using Jews as
a scapegoat for all of Germany’s ills (anti-Semitism already incubating in Europe for a thousand years due almost
exclusively to Christianity, see the great book by Jacob Katz From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-
1933) enabled a popularly elected Nazi party to push through the fascist Third Reich and Hitler’s reign of terror.
Similarities? The young disgruntled Hitler and his early Brown Shirt followers where a bunch plotting malcontents
who felt persecuted by a “Jewish/liberal conspiracy.” The Christians became a scapegoat for all of Rome’s ills and
were a persecuted minority. Hitler composed his epic Mein Kampf in jail. John composed Revelation while exiled on
island of Patmos. Both the Nazis and Early Christians composed fantastical, cataclysmic apocalypses that served to
exercise personal feelings of persecution, exclusion, and socio-political unrest. The Nazis, to the human race’s
infamy, enacted their despicable genocide. Elements of the Christian church are eagerly awaiting their opportunity
to do the same.
Williams: You write: “now your logic and historical knowledge seem to be compromised.” No my friend. You are right
to clarify that you were comparing the Holocaust and “Bush’s Imperial wars” with “John’s intolerant vision” and not
with one another. However, keep in mind that if A=B and B=C, it’s reasonable to infer that A=C. Your imprecision is
more at issue here, not my logic or knowledge of history. Ironically, you go on to assert that all three (Revelation,
the Holocaust, and Bush’s wars) fit into a “genocidal genre;” hence, you validate my earlier point about your
comparison between the Nazi mass murders and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I suggest you sharpen your own
understanding and your own explication of what you are trying to assert.
You write: “Your historical generalization of Nazi Germany is completely inaccurate.” My friend, you would do well to
embrace some humility. I’ve read Katz’s book, and your brief historical lesson is accurate, but beside the point. What
you fail to see is that when Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany (1933-1945), he was very much an imperial ruler
over an imperial power who nearly conquered much of the world. The similarities between Hitler’s supporters and
the early Christians are superficial at best when compared with the similarities between the Hitler’s Nazi Germany
and the Roman Empire. While a generalization indeed, the comparison between Hitler’s Germany and the Roman
Empire is historically obvious. I encourage you to focus more on the issues at hand my friend; I suggest you spend
less time criticizing my perspectives and more time examining and evaluating your own positions.
What “elements of the Christian church” are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to commit genocide in a way
analogous to the Nazis?
Beach: Yes, the mature Third Reich did have ambitions to be an Imperial power and conquer the world, you are right
on this point, but I stand by the coherence of my associations, which are not black and white equations (=), they
are simply comparisons. But by the very nature of your last question you seemed to have missed my point
completely: the coming “genocide” is the supposed “end-times” prophecy found in St. James’ “Revelation.” Now of
course this genocide will never happen because the “end-times” prophesied by St. James is only a myth – it will
never happen. But there are a significant number of Christians out there who do think the “end times” will happen
and when it does, the majority of the world will supposedly be cast out into the fiery pit of hell to burn for eternity.
That is my point. The illusion of St. John has been uncritically turned into powerful dogma, which too many people
take literally. This greatly concerns me because implicitly or explicitly the Bible advocates genocide and I don’t think
that is a value that we should be teaching our young.
Williams: I was fortunate to attend an excellent lecture by John Dominic Crossan on the subject of Revelation.
Crossan asked us to imagine what it would be like to have our children or friends or family members on a bus that
was blown up by a terrorist bomb. What would we want to do to the perpetrator? A few people tried to offer
sanctimonious and/or idealized answers, but Crossan pressed them – how would you feel, if your mother, brother,
sister, son, daughter was killed? What would you want to do? Examine your hearts, Crossan said. Many of you, he
continued after a pause, would want vengeance. Now, he transitioned, imagine that you are part of a persecuted
community, being oppressed by the Roman government. Your people are tortured and killed. Would you want
vengeance? Many of you would, he answered for us. Now, whether that’s right or wrong, that’s the motivation
behind the Apocalypse of Revelation. Whether we agreed or not with the bloody vision of Revelation, Crossan
wanted us to be sympathetic to the suffering that brought that book about.
Now, for Crossan, that’s all Revelation is – a historically conditioned book in which a persecuted minority wished
vengeance upon its Roman oppressors in symbolic language. From Crossan’s point of view, one might extrapolate
that the Christians who produced Revelation are more closely analogous to the Jews who were massacred by the
Germans than their Imperial Roman oppressors. Evangelicals would see Revelation more prophetically; that is,
evangelicals would see Revelation as being both about the past as well as the future. Part of what is so interesting
about Revelation is that the language is very much non-literal. I recall Marcus Borg talking in class and at my master’
s thesis defense about how fundamentalist evangelicals like Hal Lindsey interpret attack helicopters out of
passages that describe insect type monsters. In my own view, Revelation is derived from a vision of the future that
also spoke to the past, but I don’t think you can correlate current events with the details of Revelation.
Josh, you are an intelligent, thoughtful person who I both like and respect. What I don’t understand is how you
seem to have over-connected such different ideas together as if they are fundamentally the same? Granted, there is
violence and violent language that is common to all three of these scenarios; but beyond that, these are very
different historical occurrences. Why have you closely connected disparate ideas such as the Nazi extermination
campaign, Bush’s wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, and the Book of Revelation?
Beach: Because in my mind they are connected. Religious intolerance is closely connected with social and political
intolerance, which leads to discrimination, persecution, pogroms, death camps, and genocide. You mentioned the
episode with Crossan, which is a good illustration and allows one to sympathize with the psychology of the early
church, but it does not justify the book of Revelation or make it any less perverted. John’s Revelation is the product
of a violently delusional mind. I do not think there is any other way to evaluate the message of that book, whether
you believe it to be historically conditioned or allegorical, it still unequivocally sanctions genocide.
Such “visions” are dangerous, whether we sympathize with the delusional dreamer or not. History overwhelmingly
corroborates my argument. Let me take one current example as a point in fact. Over a half century ago the
Holocaust was happening and no “civilized” country cared to help the Jews, not even the U.S. Nothing was done by
the Allies to help the Jews and no country wanted a large influx of Jewish refugees. The only place remotely open
to a mass immigration was Palestine, which many Jews under the banner of Zion had been trying to fashion into
Israel. But, despite the Jewish myths to the contrary, Palestine already had an established community of
Palestinians and a minority Jewish population ruled by the Imperial English who were protecting their oil-rich cash
crop economies in the Middle East and the strategically important Suez Canal.
Religious luminary Martin Buber wanted a cooperative Jewish and Palestinian State, with an open immigration policy
to help save European Jews. Nobody was listening. British interests kept Jewish immigration to a trickle, thus the
large portion of immigrants who made it to the “Promised Land” were illegal, and the Palestinians where hostile
because the Zionist interests did not want cohabitation; they wanted a Jewish State and the Palestinians out. This,
as you know, has created the tragic situation, whereby, the oppressed Jewish community became in their turn
oppressors. Israel with implicit U.S. support launched a preemptive war in 1968, another preemptive war into
Lebanon in 1982 (where former Prime Minister Barak committed “death-squad activities” (NLR Sept/Oct 2003: 136)),
and a continual encroachment of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem via an aggressive and zealous settler
movement implicitly backed by the Israeli government, which has now lead to a large, concrete wall being built on
Palestinian land to protect Israeli interests. The state of Israel has become an aggressive entity, stealing large
amounts of land illegally and relentlessly persecuting the Palestinian population, often killing innocent civilians while
bulldozing the economic lively hood of an entire people.
While I agree that individual Palestinians have perpetuated numerous horrors via suicide bombers, the Palestinian
people and Islam are not the root causes of the violence in Palestine. Even pro-Israel sources like The New York
Times and Newsweek have recently acknowledged this fact. The pro-Bush Interventionist Fareed Zakaria titled his
Aug 25, 2003 Newsweek column, “Suicide Bombers Can Be Stopped.” In the article he wrote: “we treat suicide
bombers as delusional figures, brainwashed by imams. But they are also products of political realities.” Zakaria,
unlike most other pro-Israel media analysts asked, “What had made this conflict one that moves people not merely
to kill but to die?” And here I want to end this historical lesson with the proposition that “ends must justify means”
and “means must justify ends.” The bloodthirsty revenge fantasies of bloody discrimination and elimination of whole
populations found in the babblings of St. John, John Brown, Hitler, or William Pierce open the way for delusional
fanatics to incite violence and to kill. Look at the political realities of Israel where an oppressed community
metamorphosed into a violent State oppressor and the perverted “ends” of a greater Israel tantamount to the
“political genocide” of the Palestinian cause. Projected socio-political-religious ends must reflect positive human
values, thus, no more revenge fantasies, no more apocalyptic Revelations, no more final judgments, no more
“damned.”
Williams: You write regarding Revelation: “But certainly anyone who would dare assert that what John described is
actually going to come to pass in the near future is completely bereft of sanity or tolerance.” And, you write (the
quote from Revelation 14:19-20): “No rational person with a shred of decency could condone this violent and
genocidal program of extermination.” One of the lessons of my master’s thesis (in which I interviewed 19 evangelical
Protestant Christians) was not to take evangelicals “too literally” (an expression of my friend Chris Anderson); thus,
I must recognize that a disconnect existed between stated beliefs and actions. In other words, I found that
evangelicals who believed things I found objectionable (i.e. that unless one believes in Jesus as their savior, he/she
will be eternally damned; that God through Jesus will come and judge the world in the end-times) were some of the
most kind, loving, honest, humble, and real people I’d ever met. Hence, there was a huge disconnect between the
beliefs I found to be problematic and the actions I found worthy of admiration. As a result of this, I couldn’t help but
realize that evangelical Christians and evangelical Christianity are much more nuanced and complex than I’d
previously thought. Do you accept this disconnect between beliefs and actions? How do you understand it?
Beach: Yes, you are certainly right on the mark, but the “disconnect” does not necessarily translate into
benevolence. My father was a fundamentalist Christian and, while on the whole a loving man and a good father, he
could be an intolerant bigot and authoritarian brute. While he never had the power to inflict his intolerance or
authoritarianism outside his family, I certainly felt the brunt of his tirades and was told more than once as a thinly
veiled threat that “sinners where going straight to hell.” Like I mentioned in Chapter one, I was also later
condemned by my father and told I was going to hell because of my vow of atheism. All atheists, as any good
Christian fundamentalist will tell you, go straight to hell. It is basic Christian dogma. I have also been confronted by
many other Christian friends, family, students, and strangers with the same sentiment. So, while many people have
told me that a fiery lake awaits me when I die, I am aware of the impotent “disconnect” of these intolerant head-
cases and I have been able to deflect the message from the intent of its author and not take the threat of hell
seriously. But this does not justify the root intolerance and violence at the root of many people’s understanding of
Christianity. Condemning someone to hell is a form of psychological violence; it is a type of ideological fascism. But,
yes, in the U.S. there is a “disconnect,” all things considered, however, think about fundamentalists with the same
type of intolerance and violent religiosity in Pakistan, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt to name a few hot spots.
Given a certain type of socio-political atmosphere that “disconnect” can easily disappear. So while I will agree that
there is a certain “disconnect” between ideology and action in most mainstream Christians and fundamentalist
Christians, I still think the intolerant and implicitly violent strains of thought within the Bible and Christian discourse
are a lurking psychosis and a potential threat to anyone critical of Christianity.
Williams: You write that belief in the end-times “is one of the strongest and most obvious demonstrations of the
deep psychopathology of the Christian religion.” What is the essence of this deep psychopathology?
Beach: First and foremost is the attitude of “world denial” that most Christians display. Christianity has always
been about putting faith and hope in another world and waiting for that world to come, which of course, ironically, is
directly opposite of Jesus’ original message. It has taken Christianity 2000 years to acknowledge this world and the
human body as real certainties and not tainted, transient vessels, but even so most Christians still place the
emphasis of their lives outside this world and outside of the human body. I think that is a psychological sickness
and it is a root cause of a lot of the social and environmental problems we are faced with. Particularly psychotic is
the “end times syndrome” that allows a lot of Christians to passively accept social-political ills as fated and
ultimately up to God to deal with, specifically George W. Bush’s opportunistic, short sided, and damaging
environmental policies are a great example of an unbalanced mind. Either Bush is a completely cynical opportunist
and liar or he actually thinks this world will soon perish when Christ returns in triumph. Either way, destructive
nonsense!
Williams: You write of John’s Gospel: “One is also confronted with another aspect of Jesus that is significantly
lacking in the other Gospels and that is ‘judgment.” You have taken a richly nuanced and complex text - spiritually,
theologically, and literarily insightful - and radically oversimplified it. John’s gospel contains many, many elements,
but I would argue that it argues more for the importance of love than anything else. Real, authentic existence is
found in Christ; without that one will suffer dislocation as a result of being separated from true life. This is
descriptive of reality, not an enthusiastic condemnation. John’s gospel is about the value of following God in Christ –
what that looked like in Jesus life and how it can play out in all of our lives. There is the element of conflict between
the early Christian movement and the Jews; it is out of this conflict that John is writing, so I concede there is forceful
“judgment” language that you find objectionable; however, that is only a part of this rich gospel. John is telling the
story of the incarnate Son of God through the rich narratives and theological truths that come with his insights as an
apostle and original disciple of Jesus Christ. Each gospel writer brings his own unique perspective to bear as he tells
this most important of stories. To assert that the essence of John’s Gospel is judgment seem to me an
overstatement and a misrepresentation; John’s gospel is most centrally about love and how to be in right
relationship with God in order to live a life of freedom as one was created to do. Here are some examples from John’
s Gospel to illustrate that it is most centrally about love and the life-giving relationship with God through Jesus
Christ.
Jesus offers assurance to his followers because He and God are with them: 1) “Before long, the world will not see
me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will realize that I am in my
Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and
show myself to him.” John 14:19-21 (NIV); 2) “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you
as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14: 27 (NIV); 3) “Do not let your
hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14:1 (NIV) Thus, Jesus is telling his followers how they
might live calmly and authentically through relationship with Himself and God. Here Jesus emphasizes the
importance of love: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one
another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 (NIV)
Hence, Jesus commands that his disciples must love according not just to feelings but also to actions. To follow Him
as Lord means one must Love; it’s a command, not an option.
In John 10:10b, Jesus explains his central purpose: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
This is the essence of the Gospel of John and the essence of the Christian faith as known through a relationship
with God in Christ. As Jesus asserts: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 31b-32) and “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever
believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37b-38). The
relationship with Jesus then as now is about authentic existence and freedom.
One of my favorite passages in all of Scripture occurs in John’s Gospel Chapter Eight: the story of the woman caught
in adultery. Jesus challenges the crowd ready to murder her: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to
throw a stone at her.” [Gradually, all her accusers and would-be murderers depart, and Jesus asks,] “Woman,
where are they? Has no one condemned you?” [She responds in the negative.] “Then neither do I condemn you,”
Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:7b-11). I could go on and on, but suffice to say that the
Gospel of John is clearly about much more than judgment. Further, there are such rich concrete details and points of
spiritual truth that, agree or disagree, I don’t see how you can dismiss this work as “fantastic and otherworldly”
unless there is something else being brought to bear. Quite frankly, my hunch is that you must be operating from an
assessment colored not by the actual text of John, but rather, from the painful place of wounded-ness resulting from
your experience of judgmental and narrow-minded Christianity as evidenced by your father and others close to you.
How do you understand your reduction of John to being centrally about judgment and not about love and “full” life
as found in Christ?
Beach: First, you have misread my criticism. When I criticize the Gospel of John I do so in larger context than you
seem to be able to admit, i.e. in relation to his other book Revelation, and thus I am addressing his corpus as a
whole. I agree that John, who often refers to himself in his Gospel as the disciple whom Christ “loved,” makes the
issue of love an important theme. But I would argue that his Gospel is overshadowed by the theme of “judgment”
as no other Gospel is, especially when one considers the message of Revelation – and yes, my own preoccupation
with this aspect of John’s message has been influence by my own negative experiences with Christianity. However,
I find your argument for “love” naively superficial, which is indicative of most Christians who intellectually hide from
the implications of Revelation. The same author penned these two books, thus, you cannot read one without being
cognizant of the other. I find your preoccupation on “love” to be representative of your own interpretation of
Christianity in general: you select and focus on what you want to, you do not engage the larger literary or historical
context, and you ignore those passages and texts which run counter to your argument or have socio-political
interpretations outside your own. I will admit that my readings of Christianity in this chapter have been one-sided,
but one-sided for a point: there is an explicitly intolerant and exceptional attitude in the Gospel of John which leads
up to a genocidal furry in Revelation. Yes, this is not the whole story of this writer, but it is an important part. And
my emphasis has been to draw attention to the disgusting and dangerous objectives within the texts of John and
Christianity as a whole. Sure there is a “disconnect” as we discussed earlier, but in my mind the Bible promotes a
pathological and violent sub-text, which with certain frames of mind or in certain socio-political contexts can be a
bomb waiting to go off.
And the Bible and Christianity should not bear the exclusive brunt of this criticism. I think fundamentalism in general
is a pathological state of mind: explicitly dangerous and implicitly violent because there is embedded intolerance and
violence in every major religious tradition’s texts and theology. Look to India, Pakistan, and the Middle East and
you will find countless examples of violent fundamentalism. Look at the U.S. and you will also see a violent Imperial
fundamentalism at work as well. Are all Americans violent Imperialists who want to conquer the world? Absolutely
not. In fact, most Americans seem to deny that the U.S. is involved with any Imperial ventures at all. But every
American implicitly reaps the benefits of living in the richest country in the world, which is dependent upon
aggressive Imperial foreign policies, and most Americans have a strong patriotic identification with U.S. aims and
objectives in the world, although they remain blissfully ignorant of U.S. violence perpetuated around the globe.
Thus, one cannot blame the black-and-white minded fundamentalists who condemn all Americans as Imperialist
aggressors, or conversely, the black-and-white minded fundamentalists who sincerely believe that the whole world
wants to be just like (“us”) the U.S. In both cases you have pathological attachment to a “fixed idea,” which has
little to no corroboration with the actual state of the “real” world and this fanatical attachment to religious or
political dogma becomes the colored blinders used to “see” the world in one, and only one, way – the “right” way.
Thus, this moral attitude readily encourages intolerance, and given the violence lurking in human nature, it can
explode into discriminatory campaigns that can in turn lead to more drastic and despicable measures. Take Ann
Coulter’s lunacy for example. Not only does she proclaim that only one political party has the right to exist in the U.
S., but she has flatly stated, “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals,
by making them realize that they can be killed too” - this in a speech before the Conservative Political Action
Conference in 2002. Now we both know that Ann Coulter is an obscene opportunist and mentally off balance, and
we can both admit that there is “disconnect” in the majority of dogmatically Republican head-cases, but Coulter is
threatening to kill liberals simply because they are liberals. That scares me. I don’t like to think of myself as a
marked man, but according to both the dominant political dogma of Conservative Republicanism and mainline
Christianity I’m doubly “damned.” How is this supposed to make me feel? What if someone came up and told you,
Patrick, because you are a Christian and politically conservative you deserve to not only die, but also burn in hell for
eternity? How would that make you feel? Safe? Secure? Consider my predicament as a politically radical atheist
and tell me I’m misreading the situation.
Williams: You write: “…you have misread my criticism. When I criticize the Gospel of John I do so in larger context
than you seem able to admit.” My friend, I suggest you watch the arrogant and condescending language you are
directing toward me. It doesn’t bode well for your arguments or for you as a person. Plus, it seems disrespectful and
obnoxious. So let us return to your original criticism: You write: “I agree that John, who continually refers to himself
in his Gospel as the disciple whom Christ ‘loved,’ makes the issue of love an important theme. But I would argue
that his Gospel is overshadowed by the theme of ‘judgment’ as no other Gospel is, especially when considers the
message of Revelation.”
First, before we consider Revelation, let’s make sure that we understand the Gospel of John. John and Revelation
are two different texts with different themes and purposes. I’m happy to deal with context relative to John and
Revelation, but I’m not going to accept your oversimplifying one text into the other unless you make a much
stronger case. Right now, your analysis of both texts leaves something to be desired. I’m glad that you recognize
the importance of the role of love as a theme. However, I think your point about judgment in John’s Gospel is an
oversimplification and even a distortion of that Gospel, which seems to rely almost totally on your interpretation of
Revelation; it’s unpersuasive.
Your charge that John’s Gospel is “overshadowed by the theme of ‘judgment’ as no other Gospel is” is simply
inaccurate. To test your claim, I grabbed my NIV Study Bible and flipped it open to the Gospel of Luke. Starting with
Luke Chapter 4, I flipped through Luke’s Gospel looking for Jesus giving references to judgment/negative
consequences, stopping at Chapter 14. Here are a few of the passages that I found:
• “I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.” Luke 10:12.
• “But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you
be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths.” Luke 10:14-15.
• “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw
you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Luke 12:5
• “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Luke 13:3.
• “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Issac and Jacob and all the
prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.” Luke 13:28.
See also Luke 6:45-49, Luke 8:9-15, Luke 8:16-18, Luke 10:16, Luke 12:8-10, and Luke 12:47-48.
Based on this, I don’t see how the Gospel of John is any more judgmental than the Gospel of Luke; thus, your claim
is incorrect. My original intent was to go through all the gospels, but such a move seemed unnecessary after
reading through the Gospel of Luke. I suggest you pay more attention to the charges you make and the evidence
you use to support them.
You write: “I will admit that my readings of Christianity in this chapter have been one-sided, but one-sided for a
point: there is an explicitly intolerant and exceptional attitude in the Gospel of John which leads up to a genocidal
fury in Revelation.” What are you basing this on? I sympathize with your concerns re: fundamentalism and
Americans being unconcerned with US foreign policies. Plus, I don’t know if Ann Coulter is mentally off-balance, but I’
d say she’s obnoxious, arrogant, and unsophisticated in her thinking.
I’ve been told I’m going to hell before, and I don’t like it. So, I suspect it doesn’t make you feel very good either. For
my part, I wouldn’t pretend to be sure about who is going to hell and who isn’t. It’s not for me to decide. One of the
dangers of making such judgments is that it inevitably locates a person’s focus on another and away from
himself/herself; that’s nearly always problematic because our own faults are the hardest to see.
There is wisdom in your words my friend, no doubt, and I’m learning from our engagement. And, I’m valuing our
dialogue greatly. But, the wisdom in your words is mixed with sloppy and incoherent thinking that does not do
justice to your very valid and real concerns. Perhaps you should take more time in processing and synthesizing your
arguments. I encourage you to embrace some humility lest your prejudices against Christianity blind you like the
prejudices of the fundamentalists you argue so vehemently against.
Beach: Good stuff, here Patrick. But let me make a few clarifications, which you seem to be dancing around, but I
do not see how I have been refuted by your responses: yes, you are right in saying that “judgment” does play a
role in all the gospels to some extent, however, Mark, Matthew and Luke did not go on to pen the disquieting
teleological fantasy found in “Revelation.” Also, and I know you know this, there is considerable evidence that Mark
was written first (some 50-75 years after Jesus’ death) and that Mathew and Luke where based off of Mark’s
original text, but John’s text, which is the latest Gospel narrative included in the Bible – written some 100 years
after Jesus’ death – seems to have been written independently from the other three gospels. John’s gospel is the
most “mythological” and factually suspect, or another way of stating this would be to say that John’s gospel is the
most “creative” and it really stresses the point that Jesus was “God” (hence the repetition of “I AM”). Your point
about Luke does nothing to disprove my argument that “judgment” is an important theme in John. It seems to only
strengthen my case that an exclusivist emphasis on judgment is central to Christian dogma. We will let that
argument stand for another day. My point has been that “judgment” is an important part of the gospel narrative of
John and John carries that theme of judgment to a disgusting conclusion in “Revelation.” Now while this does not
encourage Christians to practice genocide, it does leave an implicit “narrative of genocide” at the core of Christian
exceptionalism, which I find to be both disconcerting and potentially dangerous – and we both know that while the
majority of Christians do not aggressively seek to send the “damned” to hell, there have been small and large
campaigns to this effect throughout history. That’s my point. I don’t see how my argument is problematic, however,
I will admit that I have been personally discriminated against and condemned by Christians for my views in the past
and this has lent a certain passion and rhetorical arrogance to my position for which I apologize if it has gotten out
of hand. As I have said before in our conversations outside of this book, based upon my personal experiences with
intolerant individuals (especially American Christians) I tend to be very intolerant of “intolerant attitudes or
positions.” While you have been entirely just and kind in our friendship, I do carry a certain apprehension with
regards to your deepening commitment to evangelical Christianity, and I have found your uncritical attitudes
towards several important issues to be very disconcerting.
Essay 4 - B. Patrick Williams: "Maybe"
We might be living in the “end times;” however, what is important is that we first seek to love God and then one
another. Jesus says that God’s most important commandment is to: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31 NIV). Our end-times beliefs must be
evaluated according to this standard of love. Humility and seeing with open eyes are called for, not a simplistic and
egocentric correlation between current events and God’s final judgment.
By “end-times,” I mean the prelude to judgment by God that will result in the destruction and transformation of the
world, as we know it. There are two broad evangelical positions relative to the end-times: dispensationalist and
reformed. According to dispensationalists, God will “rapture” the saved church off the earth and then bring a
powerful and violent judgment to bear upon all those who remain. Eventually, the earth will be destroyed and Christ
will come back to judge and reign as king. Ethnic Israel will play out a special role in the advancing of God’s
judgment (c.f. Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology pp. 859-861). Today, dispensationalist-evangelical Christians
anxiously watch current events as anticipatory signals to the end times.
In 1998, I attended a presentation by a prophecy speaker named David Hocking who spoke at a Calvary Chapel in
Corvallis, Oregon. For me, the presentation was (and is) quite shocking. Hocking used contemporary (1998) clashes
in Israel to explain how signs of God’s judgment were unfolding in the Holy Land. Within less than a year, said
Hocking, there would be a massive jihad against Israel, a holy war the likes of which had not yet been seen (which
never materialized). Further, Hocking suggested that there was an unholy alliance between the Roman Catholic
Church and Yasser Arafat. The Vatican had given Arafat permission to yell from the roof of the church of the nativity
that Jesus Christ was not really a Jew. Hocking proudly boasted that when an environmentalist asked his feelings
on the environment, he (Hocking) answered that his Bible told him that God was going to blow up the world, so he
wasn’t much concerned about the environment. My impression of Hocking’s presentation was: bizarre, simplistic,
and arrogant. Yet, there must have been something powerful, as I recognized intelligent people from college classes
who sat mesmerized as Hocking eagerly railed against Muslims and Catholics while celebrating the coming
destruction. I still cannot see how this could advance the cause of love for God and one another.
We must be honest about the fact that people have been expecting an end-times judgment by God for 2000 years.
For instance, during the Black Plague that occurred in the middle 14th century, many suffering Europeans believed
that given the deaths of “25 to 50 percent of the population” and resulting “economic, social, political and cultural
upheaval” (Jackson Spielvogel Western Civilization pp. 367-368), God must be in the process of executing His final
judgment. According to Jackson Spielvogel’s Western Civilization, “World War I shattered the liberal, rational society
of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. The incredible destruction and the death of almost 10 million
people undermined the whole idea of progress” (928). Some saw this carnage as the beginning of God’s end for the
rest of humankind and the world. Whenever there is unfathomably cataclysmic, life-altering destruction, some
assume that the final judgment of God may be near. However, we must realize in all humility that God’s timing is not
our timing.
The danger of obsession with the end is that it can distract us from focusing on what’s important in the here and
now. If we’re obsessed with what might possibly occur, we might become implicitly or explicitly world-denying,
focusing our attention and energy upon what we anticipate will happen when God brings judgment instead of what
we can do to love God and our neighbor most effectively right now. No matter how enthused David Hocking may
have been (and probably still is), correlating current events and the “end times” has failed for 2000 years. God’s
judgment of the world is not up to us; but we can make the world a better place through loving God and each other.
Given Israel’s role in carrying out God’s plans for the end, there is a danger that dispensationalists will support
aggressively pro-Israeli policies regardless of merit. While there is no doubt that the situation in and around Israel
is a difficult and complex one, I don’t think the USA should sanction Israeli activity in a knee-jerk fashion. In light of
Israeli aggression against the USS Liberty in 1967 and near aggression against US Marines in Lebanon 1982-1984,
we must remember that Israel looks out for itself first, sometimes even at direct US expense. Thus, the US must be
free to act according to the good of peace in the region; this may well not be in harmony with Israel’s political aims
and ambitions.
According Wayne Grudem’s explication of reformed theology in his Systematic Theology, apocalyptic language (like
that found in Revelation or Daniel) is not clear enough to establish a one to one correspondence between current
events and God’s bringing about of the final end. Instead, Grudem recommends humility in light of the ambiguity of
these unclear textual references, suggesting “it is wise to have some tentativeness in our conclusions on these
matters” (860-861). He asserts that in the reformed view, there is not an unfolding role for Israel in the end times;
rather, Grudem suggests that the old role appropriated to Israel has been shifted to the church (861-864). Moving
from this to my own view, I believe Christ will come to judge and radically transform the world, but we have no idea
when that will be or exactly what form it will take so we’d best be about the business of loving God and one
another until He comes.
In taking a reformed position that is uncertain about the exact time or nature of Jesus’ second coming, we can set
aside the question of “when is the end” and use current events to turn our hearts back to God and one another.
For example, the current president of the United States seems to some to be a systematic liar (“Bush’s Other Lies”
by David Corn, The Nation, Oct 13, 2003). George W. Bush claims to be an evangelical Christian yet leads us rushing
headlong into a war to seize weapons of mass destruction, only these weapons were never found. People have
died (and continue to die) fighting in Iraq, yet it seems clear that the biggest beneficiaries have been corporations
who stood to make money on the war. Further, the US appears to be fighting an urban guerrilla war with too few
troops who are too poorly trained to accomplish their mission. Given the number of attacks, why not add 150,000
troops to the occupation force in Iraq while replacing the National Guard forces with well-trained US Army and
Marine Corps infantrymen?
Across the America, there is a widespread and harmful “idolization” of the individual self through various forms of
“excess” – drugs, alcohol, sexual and physical abuse to name a few. Instead of making taking a “world-denying”
position by overly focusing on the end of the world, which can distract us from the present or make us politically
dysfunctional (supporting Israel and US Policy regardless of justice or merit), Christian faith can draw believers to
look at our current cultural, political, historical situation and reflect upon how a just God would see it. Would God
value the ways in which Americans seem to be racing to make money at the expense of others, taking drugs to
escape from reality, killing and damaging one another with violence and neglect, making idols of selfishness and the
acquisition of material possessions? Perhaps we as Americans especially can set aside end times worries so as to
focus upon current events that lead us to a greater awareness of the importance of loving God and each other.
Conversation
Beach: Patrick, first of all I agree with all of your critiques of the “end-times” movement within evangelical circles. I
remember as a kid growing up in a fundamentalist Christian church that our pastor would every year around
Christmas give his “end-times-prophesy” update. It really captured my imagination and my father was really gung-
ho about it. His library was filled with people just like Hocking. I know we have both read some great articles on
this phenomenon and that we share similar concerns. However, you stated, “I still cannot see how this could
advance the cause of love for God and one another” in relation to the presentation of Hocking. As I have mentioned
before, you seem to have an idealized interpretation of Christianity based on “love,” which while admirable (and a
interpretation that I largely agree with ethically) I don’t think that it is representative of mainstream Christianity nor
does it mesh with the social and political attitudes and opinions of most Americans. Given the overwhelming
popularity in America of Hocking’s simplistic, arrogant, and morally ambiguous at best “end-times” racket (espoused
by many different voices and in many different mediums – movies, novels, essays, speeches), how would you
evaluate mainline Christianity’s obsessions with this topic? Do you think it’s more prevalent in fundamentalist
and/or evangelical circles? And if you do not consider yourself sympathetic to this ideological position, how do you
deal with it, criticize it, and work to counter its – to my mind – morally bankrupt and potentially dangerous
implications, especially within the Christian community that you operate within?
Williams: Excellent questions Josh. There is no question that the focus on the end-times is more prevalent in
fundamentalist and evangelical Christian circles. I am sympathetic to following God’s will and believing that Christ
will come again; I am unsympathetic to those who think they can accurately correlate current events with the arrival
of God’s judgment.
To me, the danger is in becoming sidetracked from the real suffering and pain in the world so as to fixate upon some
futurist fantasy expectation of the end-times. To an extent, such a focus is harmless and can even be motivating –
such as, in a similar way, a powerful story like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings can be the source of individual motivation.
Moreover, the Christian can draw hope from the expected return of God who will bring healing and peace to this
troubled world. However, if such a focus pulls a person unhealthily away from the day-to-day concerns of life, then
there is a problem. If one forgoes attending to work and the needs of one’s family because he/she is obsessed with
the end-times, then an unhealthy escapism has resulted. Also, I’m leery of political decisions being based upon
abstruse texts of scripture. For example, blindly supporting Israel at all costs because of religious convictions is a
mistake: support for Israel should be based upon justice and need, not preconceived religious affinity grounded
upon unclear texts for support.
When faced with the end-times, I want people to think more complexly about it. I want them to see that just
because they might think that certain current events correlate with scripture, this does not mean that the end is
upon us. Humility, as in some many areas of life, is required. Evangelicals should see that there is a multiplicity of
perspectives on the end and the coming judgment of God.
Beach: My question for you is “how?” How would you, or do you, as an individual who professes evangelical
Christianity, but who also professes a critical rationality and who has a good understanding of history, how would
you direct the attention of fellow Christians to “think more complexly about” the end times narrative, the idea of
judgment, and the exclusive tendencies that these issues bring about?
Williams: Excellent questions. I would (and do) try to get Christians to see that what is here, now, and present is
more important than wondering specifically how the end-times will unfold for three reasons: the greatest
commandments are to love God and others; we really have no idea as to when the end will come so it’s useless to
speculate; correlating current political events with end times prophecies is questionable at best. To focus on the
end-times is problematic because it diverts us from loving God and each other in the present unless it is connected
to God’s bringing a just conclusion to the pain and suffering in this world. So, my aim is to get Christians to love God
and each other now while realizing that basing speculative beliefs on what may happen is a diversion from what
God actually calls them to do.
God calls us through Jesus to love our neighbors and God most of all. On the importance of loving each other,
Brennan Manning writes beautifully (p.136 in The Ragamuffin Gospel):
The way we are with each other is the truest test of our faith. How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-
scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal
confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the anti-abortion sticker on the bumper of my
car.
We are not pro-life simply because we are warding off death. We are pro-life to the extent that we are men and
women for others, all others; to the extent that no human flesh is a stranger to us; to the extent that we can touch
the hand of another in love; to the extent that for us there are no “others.”
Thus for the Christian, loving God and loving others goes hand in hand.
If we spend our time focusing on how the end will unfold and when, we are distracted from love, our primary
mission and duty. As a result of catastrophic events (Holocaust, WWII, Black Plagues), people have been expecting
the end-times for 2000 years; as such, it’s foolish to put a lot of energy into anticipating “when” and “how” it will
occur. Scripture indicates the day of Christ’s return will occur unexpectedly (Luke 12:40, Mark 13:33), and I see
nothing indicative to the contrary. To attempt to specifically connect current political events to the end-times is a
waste of time. Instead, one should focus on trusting God to take care of the future while working to follow God’s will
for today by loving Him and others.
Beach: You mention an end-times “obsession” and state that, “we must realize in all humility that God’s timing is
not our timing.” This seems to imply that while you do not go looking for Jesus’ return under every stone as it were,
you do believe that historical events will at some point come to produce the end of the world and herald Jesus’
return. You stated, “I believe Christ will come to judge and radically transform the world, but we have no idea when
that will be or exactly what form it will take so we’d best be about the business of loving God and one another until
He comes.” Now while this position focuses on an admirable worldly attitude of “loving your neighbor” it also seems
to reflect an ostrich with its head in the ground, trying to hide from stark social and political realities and denying the
frightfully negative implications of the evangelical belief in an end of the world scenario. I don’t see you really
addressing in a critical spirit the morally ambiguous at best “revelation” surrounding the end of the world and that
disturbs me. Specially, it seems to me that you believe that I’m going to be judged by a vengeful God when the
world ends (or when I die), and that most likely I’ll burn in Hell for eternity – baring, as my parents never forget to
tell me, my later return to the Christian fold once I realize my apostasy and reject my hateful atheism, which I
always tell them will never happen. Personally I think you’re crazy and delusional (for while I can concede the
existence of “God,” this end-times business is too much) and I’m concerned about how your delusions might effect
both your commitment to rational criticism and ethical living. Please comment.
Williams: I don’t find anything frightening about a belief in the second coming of Christ and final judgment of God;
such occurrences are not up to me, so all I must do is follow God’s will as best as I can determine it. If I am loving
both God and my neighbor then I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I have no plans to hide or avoid the
concrete, practical events of life in today’s world.
Thanks again for this dialogue Josh. I really admire your honesty and your willingness to carry on in conversation
with me like this. As you know, when I first read your charge of me being “crazy and delusional,” I took it personally,
and felt disrespected. However, after your thoughtful email response in which you explained you didn’t mean
disrespect but were only being honest, I feel much better. It really is an amazing thing, this honest dialogue
between us. You’re right – some knees may get skinned in the process, but better we be honest.
Plus, reading your shock and dismay at my end times belief reminded me of the time (before I was a Christian) when
History Professor Gary Ferngren told me he believed in the inerrancy of scripture; I had taken a big drink of water,
and I almost spit it up all over him, I was so amazed, probably not unlike you are with my end times beliefs. So, it’s
with a smile that I can accept your assessment that I’m “crazy and delusional.”
Beach: Good. I’m glad I did not offend you. I was only trying to be honest and some positions really tax my
credulity. And let me remind you that its my personal opinion that we all, myself included, operate on a daily basis
under the influence of illusionary ideological schemas, but it is my own opinion that it is dangerous to take ones’
illusions too seriously, which can lead to a state of delusion where illusion is mistaken for reality. With that said, I
don’t feel that you have fully addressed the central concerns that I’ve raised in this and the last chapter, so let me
restate them: 1) can you appreciate how the apocalyptic vision in “Revelation” can be disconcerting and ethically
questionable from my perspective? 2) Can you appreciate my concerns about how certain ethically questionable
themes in “Revelation” can be potentially dangerous if read literally or read by a deranged mind? 3) Can you tell me
how your personal belief and faith in “God’s love” can ethically challenge and disarm the exclusivist and intolerant
Christian position that “one must accept Christ or burn in hell for eternity?” 4) The last question is the most
important to me at this stage and I ask that you take it seriously and answer me directly: based upon your
understanding of Christianity and the Bible and based upon your own convictions, do you believe that as an atheist
that I will be condemned to hell (your answer could have two parts if your own convictions differ somewhat from
mainline Christian dogma)?
Williams: Josh, I really value you and the honesty of our dialogue. I’m glad you’re willing to slug it out with me and
keep doing this despite the difficulty of these issues. Such dialogue is meaningful and powerful, even in
disagreement.
Thanks for bringing me back on point here.
Regarding question #1 above: yes, I can see how the vision in Revelation “can be disconcerting and ethically
questionable” to you. I used to find it so myself.
Regarding #2: yes, I can see how Revelation might be dangerous if “read literally or read by a deranged mind.”
Regarding #3: Separation from God is hell. If one is without a close relationship with Christ, one is missing what is
most central. That said, it’s not up to me or any Christian to decide who will be saved or damned eternally. The
Christian is to love, first God and then all others. Loving God and loving others is inextricably bound together. This
can be accomplished whatever one believes about the eternal destiny of a person. So, faith in God and belief that
God will save some for heaven and damn others to hell does not contradict the command to love others. God’s
business is the business of saving and damning; our job as Christians is to love.
Question #4 asks: Will you, Josh, be “condemned to hell” when you die because you’re an atheist? My answer: I
don’t know. Your salvation is God’s business and yours, not mine. Hell is separation from God; if you continue to
reject Him, I’m not sure how He can view that as anything but rejection. However, God’s ways are not mine. He is
beyond our understanding, and I believe when He judges you, He’ll take into consideration every aspect of your life.
Those things will be weighed as will the state of your heart; how He does that, I cannot comprehend, but it will be
just.
You are a bright man, Josh, and you care about others’ intellectual and material needs. I believe God values that in
you. You know, I would love to see you become a Christian because your gritty focus on real suffering and need
would shake up complacent Christians in good ways. However, right now, your systematic interpretation of reality
through an empirical, psychological, and rational lens while barring anything supernatural limits your growth and
shuts out the God who seeks to know you intimately and redeem you from all your hurts and longings and
sufferings and fractures, physical and emotional.
My advice is that you open yourself to truth, all truth. If you do that, God will draw you to Himself and transform you
and your life; he’ll heal you and give you new purpose. C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity (p. 65): “But the truth
is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are [non-Christians]. We do know that no
man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through
Him.” Salvation is not something humans can claim to fully understand. While you appear to me to be out of right
relationship with God both now (and as a result) after death, my prayer is that God will draw you to Himself. In the
end, whether you are saved or damned lies with him and none other.
On page 83, you raise my “idealized” treatment of Christianity and love; in doing so, you’re onto something
important. I’ve been arguing for the ideal Christian and the ideal Christianity. However, I must be clear that in
reality, Christians and Christianity are often anything but ideal (to include myself). While many Christians are great
people, many are selfish and judgmental; most are some mixture of the good and the bad. The world is indeed
fallen. Sin, pain, and suffering exist everywhere.
The Christians who are so judgmental in your experience – those who are arrogantly sure who is going to hell or
heaven, or claim they know exactly what God’s will is for a given situation while displaying no humility – they
embody a distortion of the true, most real Christianity that I’ve been arguing for. True Christians acknowledge their
errors and mistakes, seeking to be humble before God and others. Nobody does it perfectly; we all fail, but some of
us try our best to die to our selfish selves while living for God and others. We are all works in progress; God isn’t
done with us yet.
Someone close to me recently left, with much hurt and pain, a church that has been “home” for several years. I was
told that more hurt had been caused by Christians in this person’s life than non-Christians. For me, as a Christian,
this grieves my heart. It’s sad and pathetic that those who claim to follow Jesus could be such bad representatives
of Him and His love. It’s no wonder that you and others would react so negatively to Christians and Christianity. My
hope is that you and others will experience a love and an authenticity through myself and others who, flawed
though we are, still seek to demonstrate the blessings of His Kingdom.
Who or What is 'God'?
Essay 5 - J. M. Beach: "The Idea of God"
I would like to open my discussion of “God” with a quote from the mystically oriented “depth psychologist” C. G.
Jung (who, it can be argued, evolved into an explicit Christian apologist). Late in life the religiously sympathetic
psychologist Jung began a dialogue with the Jewish theologian and mystic Martin Buber. Buber had criticized Jung
and other Western philosophers, most notably in The Eclipse of God (1952), for denying the ultimate reality of the
“absolute essence,” which Buber called “God.” One of Jung’s replies to Buber is as follows:
It should not be overlooked that I deal with those psychic phenomena which prove empirically to be the bases of metaphysical
concepts, and that when I say, for example, “God,” I can refer to nothing other than demonstrable psychic patterns which are
indeed shockingly real…It is certainly not the task of an empirical science to determine the extent to which such psychic contents
are influenced and determined by the presence of a metaphysical God-head…I do not doubt his [Buber’s] conviction of his living
relationships to a divine Thou, but I am, as always, of the opinion that this relationship first of all goes to an autonomous psychic
content which is defined one way by him [Buber] and otherwise by the Pope [emphasis added].
Jung, in all his sympathy with the religious object of communing with “God,” found it possible to talk about and
assert only what could be empirically verified. Thus Jung always emphasized the human “soul” seen through the
depths of the human mind as the only empirical verification of “God’s” existence – but every psychic consciousness
experiences “God” differently, and all the world’s religions have always been at variance due to the very nature of
subjective human experience. Jung believed in “God” and was most assuredly a “spiritual” person, but he could not
discount an important dilemma: the historical question surrounding both the existence of “God” and the supposed
reality behind all of the various explanations of “God” hinge on the notion of human consciousness and subjectivity:
for the human being, “God” can be experienced and known only through human experience.
Let us go back in time and selectively explore the root issue involved in Jung and Buber’s dispute. In 1807 the
German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel published his experimental Phenomenology of Spirit. It was Hegel’s early (and
most radical) attempt to formulate his idealist philosophy, which was to become a systematic attempt to explain the
eternal “spirit” (“God”) as it manifested itself in history, specifically in individual human beings through
consciousness. Early in the book Hegel writes, “the word ‘God’ [by] itself is a meaningless sound, a mere name; it is
only the predicate that says what God is, gives Him content and meaning.” Thus, Hegel went on to argue, if one
wants to “know” the metaphysical reality or being behind the empty word “God” then one must empirically examine
the physical manifestations of “God” through the linguistic predicates defining the particular characteristic or action
of “God.” This basically means that if one wants to say “God is self-consciousness,” as Hegel believed, then one
would define “self-consciousness” and trace its physical embodiments and, thereby, come to an empirically verifiable
knowledge of what God is like through a knowledge and experience of self-consciousness: the metaphysical idea of
“God” gets meaning through the physical instances of self-conscious being.
Hegel wanted to move away from purely metaphysical speculation in order to empirically verify the existence of
“God” through a systematic exploration of how “God” (Hegel used the term “Spirit”) actually existed in the physical
world through history and human consciousness. Hegel believed this would give theology a concrete, human
meaning. Hegel considered himself deeply spiritual and an advocate of Christianity, and he wanted a simplified,
rational, and material conception for the basis of his faith. Hegel knew that all notions of “God,” especially the
Judeo-Christian concept of a “Personal God,” were highly subjective, rationally hard to explain, and ultimately
beyond conscious human experience and, by extension, human language. One couldn’t really ever “know” or
“express” the all-encompassing totality of ultimate and eternal being, which is the basic conception of “God.” To
theorize “God” as human consciousness, Hegel thought he was simplifying theology so as to give “God” a concrete,
physical presence in people’s lives and, thereby, a new significance.
And in effect he was. But Hegel also opened up several avenues that could be exploited in unforeseen ways, as the
radical group of Young Hegelians exemplified in their religious and political criticisms. First, by acknowledging that
“God” was but an empty word signifying the grand totality and ultimate reality of being that was completely beyond
human comprehension, Hegel seemed to be saying that humans can never really know “God,” and thereby, never
prove “God’s” existence, which in effect could be used to defend agnosticism or atheism. Second, if the ultimate
reality of “God” is beyond human comprehension then all religious expressions of “God” would seem to be only
approximate and humanly fallible, thus, all religions would be human approximations of the reality of “God” and
would be, thereby, equally imperfect and inadequate: “God” is beyond any human conception so no one religion can
accurately convey the reality of “God.” Third, an agnostic stance recognizes that “God” cannot be proven to exist
and thus, one can elect for faith, seeking confirmation of “God” through select, personal experiences taken to be
manifestations of the holy. But conversely, what if one denied the existence of “God,” denied faith, as Karl Marx had
done, and focused exclusively on the material ground and phenomenal value of experience? Then, the empty idea
of “God” could be rejected in favor of the predicates of actual experience - the ideas that can be confirmed through
life, like consciousness, love or justice, because these ideas are full of practical value and power for human beings
trying to live human lives. And while the concepts of love, truth, justice, and equality have all been articulated as
metaphysical absolutes, they can also be apprehended and worked towards as psychological “Ideals” that can be
realized in particular applications. Thus, in exchanging the unknowable “God” for comprehensible “Ideals,” human
beings could begin to glean a sense of freedom and power with which to actualize the idealized predicates of “God”
into actions that could make ideas come to life in concrete material purposes. “God,” radically defined as “human
potential,” becomes a possible, but not necessarily probable reality that can inspire human agency and action.
One of the most convincing and original exponents of this philosophy was Benedict de Spinoza who in the 17th
century wrote, “The only end I strive to attain is to be able to taste union with God, produce true ideas in myself,
and make all these things known to my fellow men.” Spinoza argued quite convincingly, although for his time
heretically, that “men judge things according to the disposition of their brain, and imagine, rather than understand
them.” The power of religious iconography in theology, art, and philosophy are all human products of “vivid
imagination,” thus, Spinoza argued, so called “divine” revelations, the basis of most religions and religious
experiences, are nothing more than products of the powerful faculty of human “imagination.” Spinoza went on to
write, when humans disagree over differing religions or religious experiences they are not arguing about “God” or
“the Holy Spirit,” they are just arguing about the products of “human invention,” which “they shield under the false
name of divine zeal and passionate enthusiasm” in order to “propagate the most bitter hatred.” The point, Spinoza
argued, was that every human being would have a different interpretation of God actualized differently in individual
lives and, thus, tolerance should be the prime moral directive governing religious experience, as no one individual or
group had the exclusive, infallible interpretation of “God.” Judging, censoring, and killing in the name of “God”
seemed to Spinoza the height of human impiety and stupidity.
I would like to stop at this point and combine my brief introduction to Hegel, the radical critiques of Hegel, and my
short discussion of Spinoza into a single theological position, which will serve as my basic theological world-view.
Let us call this theory the Agnostic-Humanistic Theological Position: 1) “God” is the utterly unknowable all-
encompassing totality of ultimate and eternal being; 2) human beings try to explain “God” based on human
experience and through language; 3) these linguistic explanations are derivative of the human brain and are,
therefore, not “divine” revelations, but products of human reason and imagination; 4) all religions and religious
experiences are highly subjective and purely human interpretations of the unknowable “divine;” 5) Because “God” is
unknowable and can only be experienced through subjective human experience then all religions and religious
experiences are equally valid as personal experience, but have no claim to authentic knowledge or proof of the
“divine” and, thus, no one religion or religious experience is THE exceptional description or way to “God;” 6) human
beings exist on a material earth and live in earth-bound societies and are, thereby, constrained by the natural laws
of science and the human laws of particular societies, which means all value and meaning bear direct relation to the
material conditions of existence; 7) human beings create all “value” and “meaning” - these very concepts are only
applicable to the social environment of human beings on the planet earth - and, thus, humans have the ability to
destroy, revise, or create new values, meanings, and social structures, the process of which is empirically
documented through the annals of history.
This theological position has been more or less articulated in many diverse forms throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries and it opened the way for the first “psychologists” like William James, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung and later
psychologists like Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow, and Eric Fromm to scientifically explain the religious impulse
primarily as a highly subjective, mental experience. Both Nietzsche and Freud thought the religious impulse to be an
“escape” from reality, thereby, an illusion that masks empirical reality, which can become a “delusion” denying
reality altogether. James thought the religious impulse a more positive expression of human nature then Nietzsche
or Freud could admit, but James still considered religion to be a highly subjective, “human” experience based on
“passion,” “wants,” “susceptibilities,” and “capacities.” James called religion an “enchantment.”
In 1957, the cultural anthropologist Mircea Eliade surpassed James and argued for an even more sympathetic
explanation of religion. Eliade described religion as a human “construction,” a “mental universe,” an “orientation,”
that created a “sacred” understanding of the multifarious material universe into an ordered “cosmos” (“the universe
that man constructs for himself”), which serves as the basis for understanding reality and as a guide for living.
Eliade described religion as an affirming, willful, and creative act, although hints of Freud’s original pronouncement of
“world denying” are still traceable: “religious man wishes to be other than he is on the place of his profane
experience. Religious man is not given; he makes himself.”
Gordon Allport discussed religion in terms of “sentiment” or personal “interest-systems” by which he meant an
individual’s ideology and, thus, Allport argued that religious experiences are as numerous as individuals. Allport
argued that a religious orientation (ideology) integrates experience and provides meaning and motives, and further,
the imaginative illusions of the human mind generate the energy required for humans to become “agents” and,
thereby, allow for successful action and creation in the midst of a determining environment: “beliefs” generate
“energy,” and “faith” becomes simply a belief based on “probability.” Likewise, Abraham Maslow defined “God” as
human possibility known through “peak experiences” that create ideals or goals, which people aspire to. These
ideals or goals create meaning and value, which motivate people to act, develop their full potential, and create a full
life: in Maslow’s words, “full humanness” is the actualization of “the spiritual life” within “our biological life.” Finally,
Eric Fromm, in a purely secular and humanistic manner, reached the same conclusions. Fromm believed there is “no
spiritual realm outside of man” and that the religious impulse is about human beings actualizing their “inherent
potentialities,” attaining freedom and consciousness. “God,” Fromm argued, is but a symbol of human capability, an
expression of idealized human potential, which provides a “powerful source of energy:” “God is I, inasmuch as I an
human.”
William James and the philosopher John Dewey were careful to separate between the “personal” and the
“institutional” aspects of religion, which later psychologists like Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow and Eric Fromm
theorized in more detail. Basically, as Eric Fromm relates via Karl Marx and Freud, individual humans create their
own religious universe, which becomes an objective reality transcending its human origins and, thereby, it begins to
have a life of its own. Thus, subjective, personal ideas of “God,” which are fluid and imaginative become fixed,
canonized idols worshiped as reality, enshrined in dogmatic rituals and texts, and these give rise to powerful
institutions that often limit human freedom in the name of sublimated motives determined by doctrinal or
ecclesiastical authority. The personal religious experiences of truly exceptional human beings like Socrates, the
Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad all become transformed into institutionalized dogma (often in open defiance of the
teacher’s original message) and become vehicles of thought control, indoctrination, and mass disillusion - almost
always towards the end of a consolidated secular political power. In every case, institutionalized religion detaches
itself from the ever-changing material world and solidifies a rigid, conservative world-view with which to interpret
reality (and it is these highly partisan and rigid ideological platforms that have given rise to various criticisms of
religion as “delusion” or “detachment from reality”).
To end this discussion of “God” I would like to turn to one more philosopher: Immanuel Kant. In the 18th century
amidst rising doubts, Kant wanted to affirm religion, but he made an important distinction in his skeptically rational
philosophy. He knew that no one could ever prove the existence of “God,” thus, there never would be any
justification for claiming one religion as the only way to experience “God.” So Kant separated the physical and the
metaphysical realms. For metaphysical questions, Kant argued for “faith” in “God:” humans must act as if “God”
existed. For physical questions, Kant argued for “faith” in reason: humans must act as if they were free to rationally
determine their own life. Kant took this position of “faith” because he believed that both “God” and the absolute
ideal of “freedom” must exist for morality and progress to exist. In The Varieties of Religious Experience William
James noted Kant’s position and wrote that even though words and theories about “God” are really empty
approximations based on subjective human experience, religiously motivated humans act as if “God” existed and,
thereby, order their lives according to this presupposition in positive ways. James was puzzled, but decided to give
religion the benefit of his doubt: religion could be an illusion, but the overwhelming majority of human beings
seemed to have some religious position. Could all these people be deluded, James asked? Likewise, James
pressed, human reason and science could answer a lot of human questions and did conclusively debunk a lot of
religious fantasy. What place does reason have in religion?
In these questions James set the tone for a century of religiously sympathetic, scientifically literate scholars who
asked: Mustn’t there be some ultimate truth, some ultimate reality behind all these religious experiences and world
religions? Science can explain much, but it cannot explain everything and science can also be short sided or overly
reductionist, so isn’t it possible that the deeper, more complicated recesses of reality lay beyond science’s reach?
These scholars posit a basic presupposition that says, “yes, ‘God’ must exist” (for varied reasons) and then they
theorize and act as if “God” in fact existed. Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s
Religions (1976) is a classic example of this line of thought and it is a commendable book.
But to return to my position: where am I, the agnostic or “atheist,” in all of this? Well I’ll balk in discussions of “God”
and in different company take different stances because I believe “God” to be only an idea, the reality of which (if
there is a reality behind this concept) is completely beyond the human faculty to understand. The intellectually
honest position is to say, no one can (or perhaps ever will be able to) prove beyond a doubt that “God” exists or
does not exist. I can admit that and I am pleased when others do too. Personally, I have chosen against all
theological forms or explanations of “God” and this has lead me to the Agnostic-Humanistic Theological Position, as
noted above, which is infused with psychological explanations of “God” directed towards human ends.
Based on the evidence that I have collected and on my own personal experience, I have decided to take the flip
side of the Pascalian/Kantian wager and live as if “God” did not exist. This makes me, under strict definitions, an
“atheist” – one whose life is not centered on a “God.” I am more concerned with the profane world then with the
sacred. I have devoted my life to teaching and guiding students through this life, facing very real and terrible
worldly problems, and trying to make a positive difference on this troubled earth. Am I wrong or deluded in my
atheistic position? Only “God” knows.
Conversation
Williams: Josh, I’ve got to say, I’ve enjoyed this essay the most by far. You present interesting material and raise
interesting points. There is cohesion to your thought that is very clear, especially your theological position. Through
our dialogue, I’m getting a better sense of who you are and why you think as you do. Finally, I really enjoyed the
section on Spinoza. He is an able thinker with a keen mind.
I’m glad to see that you concede the subjectivity of your own view around God. Frankly, I don’t see how your
perspective is anything but purely subjective and even a bit narrow minded contrary to the evidence. In deciding
that God doesn’t exist and then operating as if He doesn’t, you are systematically shielding yourself from any
evidence to the contrary. In part, you do this by privileging your empirical and psychological bias, ruling anything
deeper and more complex that can’t be clearly explained. Sure, God may be subtler and more complex than you
might like, but that doesn’t mean He’s illusory. Please comment.
Beach: I can concede that my position is “subjective” if you will concede that your position (as well as any other
position a human might take) is “subjective” as well. I have volumes of argumentative, empirical, and speculative
thinkers to back my position up as well as what I consider to be a good argument against the existence of a
personal “God.” And what do you have? What is the “evidence” that you refer too? Yes, you too could refer to
myriad sources of argumentative and speculative thinkers, but your whole ideological position rests on an
experience and an “ultimate” ground of being that is completely unverifiable or knowable outside your own
subjective experience. Your “faith” rests on a “revelation” of “God” that you have personally “experienced” and
even though millions of people might say, “I believe in God” those same millions might also say, “ I believe in free-
markets,” or “I believe that America is the best country on earth,” or “black people are just inferior to whites” or
“the federal government is run by Jews” or “aliens exist.” There is a fine line between corroborated experience and
a mass delusion, and that fine line must be secured by reasoned analysis, empirical evidence, and a healthy
debate. Sure, I can accept that millions of people believe in “God” and I cannot argue away your personal faith or
experience. But you cannot claim that your experience is “real” in any type of concrete or transcendental sense
outside your own subjectivity because there is no concrete evidence outside subjective experience for “God,” nor
can you claim that your “revelation” revealed through the Evangelical Christian religion is the “only” way to “God” or
the “only” religious experience, and here those millions who believe in “God” will find out just how different their
personal conceptions are.
I will never exclude any “evidence” that I deem authentic and I have not cut myself off from contrary positions or
“evidence” as you claim. Our vary dialogue is a case in point. What you seem to be forgetting is that I was an
Evangelical Christian far longer than you have been and I am thoroughly familiar with the Evangelical Christian
worldview. I have encountered enough empirical and argumentative evidence to conclude that not only is
Evangelical Christianity personally unpalatable as a religious doctrine, it is also extremely narrow minded,
exclusivist, and aggressive in its tendency to “convert” others to its doctrines. I am very much “open” to religious
experience and various religious orientations, and even though I cannot admit to being an adherent to any one
systematic faith, there are traditions like Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen that I find very appealing – as
well as mystical traditions like Kabbalah and Sufism. I am open to deeper, complex truths that might be un-
quantifiable or hard to comprehend through our reasoning faculties, but any and all “truths” or otherwise need to
have an empirically and logically founded basis in reality established through a critical and learned community of
committed and open-minded researchers. Aliens might exist, but until I see some evidence and concrete
arguments, I’m not going to give it much thought as I go about the business of living my life.
Williams: You speak of Jung referring to conclusions and modes of inquiry like psychology, which can be “empirically
verifiable.” What do you mean by that? Granted, I’m a layman in this, but Jung’s views have always struck me as
fascinating as well as highly subjective – certainly many (the collective unconscious for one) are not even close to
empirically verifiable. In fact, I think one can argue that psychology has been largely theoretical and speculative up
until about the last 20 years. Sure, psychological theories by Freud and Jung have explained data, but behavioral
psychologists like Ellis and cognitive psychologists like Beck have been the first to reach actual empirical conclusions.
Please explain how Jung is empirical in a way that bears on your theological position?
Beach: First of all, I did not say that Jung’s psychology is empirically verifiable. What I did say was that Jung
wanted to empirically study and verify religious experience. And I agree, Jung was highly subjective and I must
admit that I reject almost all of his psychology as metaphysical babble. However, both he and Freud (and I disavow
most of Freud’s theories as well) through psychoanalysis were seeking to empirically research and verify the inner
recesses of the human mind to try and know (and separate) subjective perception from objective phenomenon. You
are right to be critical of early psychologists for the field began as an offshoot of philosophy branching off into
empirical medicine. The German doctor Wilhelm Wundt wrote the first textbook Principles of Physiological Psychology
in 1873-74, which thereby influenced many first generation of American psychologist/philosophers like Granville
Stanley Hall, William James, Charles Pierce, and John Dewey who tried to separate the concepts of 1) “mind” or
“consciousness” from 2) the biological “brain.” Psychology in many ways was an amalgamation (especially with the
birth of psychoanalysis and then depth psychology) of philosophical speculation and empirical research well up to
the 1970s when the biological “brain” field really started to define psychological studies. I mentioned mostly
philosophical critiques of religion and religious experience in my essay because we are having a philosophical
argument and I presented arguments and counter theories to explain divergent, secular conceptions of “God.” I
hope this distinction is clear.
Williams: I enjoyed reading your theological statement of belief. However, I’m curious as to what has made you
conclude that God is totally unknowable? You seem to be assuming this and not establishing it. Then, you move
from your assumption to conclude without offering any criteria that “all religions and religious experiences are
equally valid.” Do you really think so? Are child sacrifices just as valid as Buddhist meditation? Is the Jonestown cult
on a par with Native American Religion?
Beach: The idea that “God” is utterly unknowable is a bedrock concept in almost every major world religious
tradition, especially Judaism and Kabbalah (“God” did not even have a name in the Old Testament). I defined “God”
and said that if a material being of that description exists then we could never know it, or at least we could not
verify it conclusively. Let me phrase this in a way intimately related to your own personal religious experience. I too
had that conversion experience to Evangelical Christianity that you had. I too accepted Jesus into my heart and
made him my “savior.” I had visions of Jesus, God, and heaven. I “felt” what I considered to be “God’s” presence
and I felt the “love of Christ” as you no doubt refer to. I was baptized by water and I was baptized into the Holy
Spirit. The later experience was supposed to give me a “gift” and I had “felt” that perhaps my gift was prophecy,
not so much as in telling the future, but in teaching others. Of course with each of these experiences I was aware
of my own mental projections and I was never fully satisfied with my “spiritual” walk with Jesus, nor with many
ethical and political connotations of American Christianity. I came to know myself responsible for my religious
“feelings.” I found my many personal “revelations” and “intimations” to be nothing more than my active imagination
and my own will to believe. It eventually all wrung completely false and I rejected the whole pretense as subjective
inspiration directed by a manipulative, yet caring and devotional communal structure. And as I have come to believe
now, the actually subjective essence of religious experience is not necessarily false (as it seems personally “real”),
but that the kind of religious experience promoted by Evangelical Christianity was personally distasteful because it
was uncritical, narrow-minded, exceptionalist, arrogant, intolerant, and dangerously manipulated by cynical political
forces (i.e. Republican politics). If I had wanted to retain my belief in “God” I could have transferred my allegiance to
another religious tradition, but after studying all the major (and many minor) religious traditions, religion in general,
and many other related issues, I decided to leave religion behind for a secular world view.
When I say that all “religious experiences” are equally valid, I am talking about the subjective, life-affirming,
personal experiences that are the basis of most world religious traditions. I am not talking about rituals,
institutions, or dogmas. Once we cross this line, then you will find my stance much more critical. Morality exists
independently of “God,” it always has and always will. Morality, simply put, is the ground rules, the “laws” of a
people. It is my personal opinion that morality should be democratically criticized, evaluated, and agreed upon, and
that it should also be revised.
Williams: I did an independent study with Marcus Borg on the subject of psychology and religion. In our study, we
read Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections and most of James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience. As I recall from
conversations with Dr. Borg, both men conceded that there was something authentic in religious experience and
suggested that God operates/communicates through the subconscious (James) and the collective unconscious
(Jung). Of course, any personal experience is subjective to a degree, but here are two men, James and Jung,
inferring based on their study of human behavior and experience that there is something more than the human
psyche at work. How does this square with your theological position?
Beach: You are right. Both men where deeply religious (or rather deeply “spiritual” and really anti-traditionalist),
not in a small part because both had deeply religious fathers and family and they both were raised in deeply
religious/spiritual societies. And I would agree that there is something un-quantifiable at the core of not only
human existence, but at the center of life, as it exists in its multiplicity on this planet. We as humans are only just
beginning to understand the relational ecology that guides all life on this planet. I think we’ve come along way from
the superstitious and doctrinally rigid 19th century, and I don’t think we need to invoke worn spiritual or religious
metaphors. Yes life is complex, and yes scientific materialism is but one way to apprehend the complex beauty of
life. Yes, we do need other ways to see and understand life, religious vantage points included. But, as James
would formulate in his great philosophical platitude, “Pragmatism,” we must always and forever shy away from
arrogantly assured, single-minded, dogmatically conceived, exceptionalist views of reality. James argued, and I
agree, let us have a “Pluralism” of views. Let us embrace the complexity and grandeur of life and not reduce it
entirely to some metaphysical speculation or to some dogmatic creed.
Williams: Several times, you refer to religious belief as delusion. I find this very interesting especially given that I’m
well rooted in reality as near as I can determine. What most strongly causes you to see religious belief as delusion?
Beach: Good point, although it is my personal opinion that you are quite an exceptional case of the American
Evangelical Christian. You are perhaps one of the most “rooted in reality” Christians that I have met, but this does
not mean that we see eye to eye on what “reality” means. I would refer you to a section in a book that I just
finished last year, but which remains unpublished, Towards a Philosophy of Poetry: Essays on Culture, Subjectivity,
and Ideology. Basically I argue that the human mind through imagination (and I refer you to the section on Spinoza
in this essay) creatively interacts with reality, i.e. consider children at “play.” For me this is a defining experience for
all of humanity, as I would argue we never leave that state of “play” as adults. We continually invoke our
imagination creatively interacting with reality all our lives. The problem comes when we take our imaginative “play”
too seriously, forget the that our images are self or communally created, thereby, reifying them, and thus we can
become a victim of a delusion and mistake our imaginative “play” for reality – sometimes with disastrous
consequences, sometimes with no negative effect at all (and here I would refer you to the story of Don Quixote,
which I devote some time to in the book Towards a Philosophy of Poetry).
Williams: You oversimplify about Socrates, the Buddha etc. having followers who take original teachings and turn
them into “vehicles of thought control, indoctrination, and mass disillusion – always towards the end of a
consolidated secular power.” Can you be more specific and move away from this universal, over-generalizing
language that assumes too much and states too little.
Beach: I don’t think that I am over-generalizing at all. Buddha told his followers specifically, I’m not a deity and you
must find your own path to Nirvana. What happens, a great part of the Buddhist tradition deifies the Buddha and
doctrinates his path. We could go into each specific context and more, for they all have the same outcome, but we
really don’t have the time in this conversation. I will simply say that I will address the specifics of my interpretation
of Jesus in an upcoming chapter of our project, which I’m sure we will discuss more in depth.
Williams: You are your most sympathetic to religion after discussing the possibility that “science can also be short
sided or overly reductionist”; hence, you indicate some scholars suggest that perhaps there is a “deeper, more
complicated…reality…beyond science’s reach?” Then, you mention Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth, and conclude, “it
is a commendable book.” I was glad to see this. Why is Smith’s Forgotten Truth commendable? How do you
understand Smith’s contention that there is more? How does this square with your theological position?
Beach: Specifically I commend Smith’s criticism of “Scientism,” which I agree is a potent, yet misguided ideology. Of
course this has nothing to due with “science,” as “Scientism” is really a perversion of the scientific method.
Scientism is overstepping the bounds of human reason and declaring our way of seeing is the only way of seeing
the world. As you know I do not favor this type of epistemological arrogance. I respect much of Smith’s project, but
I disagree with many of his conclusions, especially his pessimistic and fatalistic conclusion that humans are
powerless to control their “progress” and thus implying that we are at the hands of some absolutely powerful
“God.” Rubbish! And I find that this type of attitude really prevents a lot of people from realizing that our material-
historical position in life is the doing solely of human beings and that if we want better, then we must create that
better- there is no fate, we are in control of our own destiny!
Essay 6 - B. Patrick Williams: "The Source of Life"
There is not enough time or space to treat the subject of God in an essay such as this. However, I’ll take a few
moments to present three theological perspectives related to God: two from liberal (non-orthodox) theologians plus
a more comprehensive, orthodox summation by an evangelical theologian. The first two treat the nature of God and
how we speak about God; the last focuses more precisely on who God is. All three point to a God both intimately
knowable and beyond our capacity to fully understand.
In his Systematic Theology Volume One, Paul Tillich writes that God is humanity’s “ultimate concern” which “must
transcend every preliminary finite and concrete concern. It must transcend the whole realm of finitude in order to
the answer to the question implied in finitude” (211). According to Tillich, God is beyond what we can fully articulate
because He is in fact the foundation of reality:
Thus the question of the existence of God can be neither asked nor answered. If asked, it is a question about that which by its
very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer – whether negative or affirmative – implicitly denies the nature of God. It
is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as to deny it. God is being-itself, not a being….As the power of being, God transcends
every being and also the totality of beings – the world. Being itself is beyond finitude and infinity; otherwise it would be conditioned
by something other than itself, and the real power of being would lie beyond both it and that which conditioned it. Being- itself
infinitely transcends every finite being. (237)
For Tillich, God is not understood as a person in the orthodox or evangelical sense, though God is still seen has
having personal qualities. According to Tillich:
A personal God: this indicates the concreteness of man’s ultimate concern…. “Personal God” does not mean that God is a person.
It means that God is the ground of everything personal and that he carries within himself the ontological power of personality….God
participates in everything that is; he has community with it. He shares its destiny. (223, 245)
God deeply connected to all things even as He transcends them. Tillich’s perspective takes seriously the vastness,
depth, and complexity of God.
Given that God is both the foundation of reality and beyond what we can fully apprehend, we must speak about
God symbolically. Tillich writes: “There can be no doubt that any concrete assertion about God must be symbolic, for
a concrete assertion is one which uses a segment of finite experience in order to say something about him. It
transcends the content of this segment, although it also includes it” (239). He expands further:
Religious symbols are double-edged. They are directed toward the infinite which they symbolize and toward the finite through which
they symbolize it. They force the infinite down to finitude and the finite up to infinity. They open the divine for the human and the
human for the divine. For instance, if God is symbolized as “Father,” he is brought down to the human relationship of father and
child. But at the same time this relationship is consecrated into a pattern of the divine-human relationship. (240)
Tillich concludes that often there is a confusion that results in the mistaken conclusion that symbols are not real.
This occurs “due to the identification of reality with empirical reality” that so often occurs today (241). However,
Tillich counters that symbols convey to “God and to all his relations to man more reality and power” (241). To
confuse what is real only with what is empirically verifiable is a mistake, especially when done so with God, who for
Tillich is most fully communicated via symbol.
In The God We Never Knew, Marcus Borg amplifies a symbolic understanding of God. Borg writes:
The large number of biblical images for God [king, judge, lover, mother, father, friend, rock, cloud etc.] has an immediate
implication: multiplicity points to metaphoricity. That is, it implies the use of metaphor. Obviously, God cannot be literally all of
these. Nor is it the case that God is literally one of these (for example, king or father) and metaphorically the rest….The reason
lies in the ineffability of God: language about God must be metaphorical….Metaphors are evocative. Suggestive of more than one
meaning, they are resonant; they have multiple associations and cannot be translated into a single equivalent literal statement.
(58-59)
Thus, God cannot be reduced to the finite as categorized literally in our language; God is more than we can speak
about save through metaphor.
Metaphors of God suggest the closeness between God and His creation. “Importantly,” Borg notes, “many of these
metaphors are relational, imagining not only God but ourselves in relationship to God.” (60). He goes on to explain
how “God as Mother” indicates one of God’s central qualities: compassion. “Not only is compassion a female image
suggesting source of life and nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for
us as a mother feels for the children of her womb. Spirit feels the suffering of the world and participates in it” (73).
For Borg, “God as Intimate Father” connotes a God “who is close at hand and who may be trusted to give good gifts
to his children” (73). “God as Journey Companion” points to “God as a companion who travels with us. It includes
the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day that led the Israelites through the wilderness….In the Emmaus Road
story, the risen Christ journeys with his disciples even though they do not recognize him” (75). In a variety of ways,
God relates with us deeply, intimately, and personally.
In Christian Theology, evangelical theologian Millard Erickson asserts that God can be understood according to God’s
“greatness” (“natural attributes”), God’s “goodness” (“moral attributes”), God’s “Immanence and Transcendence,”
and God’s Trinitarian nature. For Erickson, God’s greatness is comprised of “spirituality, personality…infinity” (289-
293). Given that “God is spirit…he is not composed of matter and does not possess a physical nature….he is not
limited to a particular geographical or spatial location” (294). God has personality: “He is an individual being , with
self-consciousness and will, capable of feeling, choosing, and having a reciprocal relationship with other personal
and social beings” (295). As such, “He is not merely one of whom we hear, but one whom we meet and know”
(296). God is “infinite” and thus, “omnipresent,” thereby having “access to the whole of creation at all times.”
Further, God is “not restricted by the dimension of time” and He is “aware of what is happening, has happened, and
will happen at each point in time” (300-301). God knows us even better than we know ourselves. “We are all
completely transparent before God. He sees and knows us totally….[knowing] all things” (301). Finally, God is
omnipotent. There is nothing He cannot do, whether it be activating the “plagues in Egypt” or the “nature miracles
of Jesus, such a stilling the storm…and walking on water” to changing “human nature” to causing the elderly Sarah,
wife of Abraham, to become pregnant well “past the age” for childbearing. God can do anything; He is not limited.
The second section of Erickson’s treatment of God centers on God’s goodness - “moral qualities of God” such as
“moral purity,” “integrity,” and “love.” In the first place, God is morally pure because God is holy. God’s holiness
means God is unique – “totally separate from all of creation” - and absolutely pure and good; as such, God “can be
trusted and loved,” and He should be held in reverential awe (310-311). Given this absolute goodness, God is
righteous in His activities and just in His treatment of others, requiring a that our actions be morally upright (312-
314). The second of God’s moral attributes is His integrity. Having integrity means that God will be truthful in His
communication to us and He will be faithful in doing “what he has said he will do” (316-317). God’s third moral
attribute is “love,” which can be understood as His “eternal giving or sharing of himself.” It contains God’s
“benevolence” – “God’s concern for the welfare of those he loves,” and He loves us all. Sending Jesus Christ the
Son of God to die for all humankind is an example of God’s “self-giving” love. Also included in God’s love is God’s
grace which “means that God supplies us with undeserved favors.” Thus, “God deals with his people not on the
basis of their merit or worthiness, what they deserve, but simply according to their need.” God is also merciful, full of
“tenderhearted, loving compassion.” And, God is persistent in His love. No matter how far away His followers stray
or how much they fail Him, He still welcomes them back when they seek him (e.g. “Moses” and “David”) (318-323).
God is both within all things and completely beyond them. According to Erickson, “God is both immanent and
transcendent. God is present and active within his creation, but superior to and independent of anything he has
created.” Thus, “God’s spirit originates and/or sustains all things; everything is dependent on him….God is present
everywhere….Disjunctions are not to be sharply drawn between either God and humans or God and the world” (327-
330). When speaking about God, we enter the realm of that which is not empirically verifiable.
Erickson highlights several implications of God’s immanence and transcendence. Given God’s immanence, He can
work through all elements of reality, such as through an M.D. in treating a patient or a non-Christian
country/organization/person. Further, given that God is “present and active within” nature means that people
“ought not exploit it for their own pleasure or out of greed.” Two final implications of immanence: “We can learn
something about God from his creation,” and “ he is present and active within humans who have not made a
personal commitment of their lives to him” (337-338). God is everywhere available and present to us.
God’s transcendence also has important implications. In the first place, Erickson writes that God’s transcendence
means that there “is something higher than humans. Humanity is not the highest good in the universe or the
highest measure of truth and value. Good, truth, and value are not determined by the shifting flux of this world and
human opinion.” Thus, there is an objective standard outside the judgment of our limited, selfish, shifting egos.
Second, “God can never be completely captured in human concepts.” Third, our “salvation is not our achievement”
but rather, it is God’s “gift to us.” Fourth, God and humans “will always be” different morally, spiritually, and
metaphysically; He will always be more than we are. Fifth, we should always have “a sense of awe and wonder”
before God; such reverence “is appropriate in our relationship with God” (343-344). Finally, we must anticipate and
take seriously God’s activity beyond what we can naturally expect or fathom. Erickson writes:
Thus we will not expect only those things that can be accomplished by natural means. While we will use every available technique
of modern learning to accomplish God’s ends, we will never cease to be dependent on his working. We will not neglect prayer for
his guidance or special intervention. Thus, for example, Christian counseling will not differ from other types of counseling
(naturalistic or humanistic) only in being preceded by brief prayer. There will be the anticipation that God, in response to faith and
prayer, will work in ways not humanly predictable or achievable. (345).
We must seek God’s will and trust God in all that we do. We should acknowledge that our lives are dependent on
Him, following Him always.
Last and in some ways most significantly, Erickson treats the subject of the Trinity – God “is one and yet there are
three who are God” (347). The doctrine of the Trinity states that in essence God the Father, God the Son (Jesus
Christ), and God the Holy Spirit are all equally God (350, 352). Observing that it’s much easier to accept the deity of
God the Father but not so the deity Jesus Christ, Erickson then writes: “For Paul, an orthodox Jew trained in the
rabbinic teaching of strict Judaism, verse 6 [Philippians Ch 2:6 refers to Jesus as the “very nature God”] is indeed
an astonishing statement. Reflecting the faith of the early church, it suggests a deep commitment to the full deity of
Christ” (350). Erickson concludes: “In the final analysis, the Trinity is incomprehensible. We cannot fully understand
the mystery of the Trinity.” It is a paradox.
There is a great deal to be drawn here from the perspectives of Tillich, Borg, and Erickson. All three contend that
God is real and closely involved with humans and the rest of creation. In the first place, Tillich is quite right to see
God as the ground of all being. We are in God and God is in us. To find our place and purpose in life, we must follow
God’s lead. Tillich’s understanding of symbols elucidates how God can be known according to His personal and
transpersonal nature. The symbols both convey concrete meaning and point to meaning beyond themselves. Tillich
is also quite correct that God is beyond what we can fully apprehend. Tillich’s observation that many confuse
empirical reality with all reality is quite apt. Of course, if one systematically brackets out the possibility of reality
beyond the empirical reality one accepts, then one will have no room for God.
Borg and Tillich both emphasize that God is know through concrete particulars that point beyond themselves. Borg
explicates how metaphors illuminate the reality of God because they point beyond themselves in their concrete
particularity. Even so, Tillich is more accurate regarding symbols and God. As Tillich observes, the meaning of the
symbol “transcends” its “content” “although it also includes it.” Thus, the various God-metaphors that Borg so
adeptly cites [king, judge, mother, etc.] are actually included as part of who God is even as God transcends what
these symbols/metaphors say about him. Borg is not wrong, but Tillich is more right. God isn’t a mother as Borg
explains, but God fundamentally has the qualities of a mother as well as all the other metaphorical associations
contained in the Bible. One must not lose the concrete meanings of the God metaphors in favor of emphasizing God’
s ineffability.
Tillich and Borg also emphasize that God is deeply interrelated with His creation. Where Borg surpasses Tillich is by
observing that is available to relate with us personally in deep, intimate ways. Where Tillich’s ground of being seems
impersonal and transpersonal, Borg’s emphasis on God as an “Intimate Father” and “Journey Companion” illustrates
that God is indeed available for close personal relationship with us.
Erickson’s orthodox explication of Christian belief helps to explain why all this matters. If God is really a God who we
can know and who is both the foundation of reality (Tillich) and available for relationship (Borg), then what does this
mean for us? Erickson bridges the gap by explaining more specifically who God is based upon the biblical record. God
is the authority of our lives. He is just and righteous, holy and merciful, immanent and transcendent; we are wise to
reckon with His reality. This means recognizing that we are not the author of our lives and our destinies, but He is.
This means recognizing that what is essential – significance, purpose, meaning - is not found on our own but
through communion with him. Reckoning with the reality of God also means that we don’t reject Him because we
don’t like what we hear about Him or because He’s not obvious or overwhelming or appealing in the ways we would
like. Intimate relation with an all-powerful God is the basis for authentic existence. He is truly the source of our lives.
If we are wise and prudent, we will heed the words of Brennan Manning in his Ragamuffin Gospel: “Let go of
impoverished, circumscribed, and finite perceptions of God. The love of Christ is beyond all knowledge, beyond
anything we can intellectualize or imagine. It is not a mild benevolence but a consuming fire.”
The End of the Conversation (Final Comments by Beach)
Beach: While I respect and am sympathetic with much of Tillich’s metaphysical speculation, I still cannot help but
emphasize that it is nothing but metaphysical speculation: it is all groundless generalization and verbal sophistry
that represents no concrete reality, for as far as human beings are concerned, we can only have very limited and
Earth-specific conceptions of reality. The infinite grandeur and “ultimate” reality of the universe, whatever that may
be, is complete beyond our capacity to know and when humans speak of this realm they are simply speculating,
which as far as it goes can serve useful psychological and cultural purposes, but not for a moment should we
deceive ourselves that we could actually know or name the “ultimate” ground of all being. I think it is human
arrogance and folly to even argue over this issue for no one could have anything remotely conclusive to say.
Beach: Tillich’s concept of “double-edged” symbols is nothing but a verbal sophistry based upon a gross
generalization reducing his own “symbolic” rambling, in the face of no concrete reference point, to a blunt
instrument that conveys nothing but his own subjective speculation. Symbols are not only inherently unstable as
bearers of human meaning, but symbols are notoriously unreliable because of subjective interpretation and also
because of changing contexts (and this is all rudimentary literary theory as you well know). So while symbols can
reach to some intended meaning or reference point, they are reduced to the actual concreteness of the linguistic act
as it unfolds between two or more people struggling for “communication.” Thus, “metaphors” are devices that we
use to name A in terms of B so that the unknown A can be understood in terms of the known B. Now if we are
actually talking about concrete realities, say I want to introduce the profound reality of racial prejudice to a young
white American boy who thinks that there is no racial prejudice in American, then I will try to describe the unfamiliar
concept of “racial prejudice” in terms of something more familiar like merit-based prejudice, sexual discrimination, or
educational discrimination. Through a conversation I can invoke metaphors to describe one reality in terms of
another reality so that both realities can be acknowledged and, thereby, we could then focus more particularity on
the merits of the hereby-unacknowledged reality of racial prejudice so that a fuller understanding could arise. But
this situation is infinitely more complicated (and in my estimation, entirely futile) when one person is talking about
something that is not a concrete reality, like “God,” and therefore language can never leave the metaphorical and
speculative, reducing the perhaps unfounded speculation of one party completely enveloped in abstract and general
words, nothing but words. I completely disagree with your statement, “Metaphors of God suggest the closeness
between God and His creation.” I think “metaphors of God” suggest nothing more than the subjective experience of
an individual. There is no concrete application outside the personal subjectivity of the individual, and therefore, no
point of reference besides the subjective needs, wants, and culturally predisposed habits of the individual.
Beach: I am continually struck, as I got down to Erickson, that you never made a case for the existence of “God.”
You simply started your essay from the point of view that “God” is a given reality, “God” is presupposed without any
argument or evidence and you bring in three theologians to “talk about God” as if there metaphysical constructions
of pure verbal conjecture had any validity except to reinforce, for you, what you already believe. All I see is
groundless talk and empty metaphors describing a presupposed “ultimate” reality that I find completely speculative
and therefore, I find absolutely no substance in any of this theological matter. It seems but empty rhetoric to my
ears.
And while I can admit that Erickson presents an elegant “theory” about a highly speculative concept of “God,” it is
completely groundless and devoid of concrete meaning. Thus, I as an atheist well versed in Christian theology and
the Bible, I could present an equally elegant “theory” about the Christian “God” that highlights God’s jealously,
prejudice, violent nature, capriciousness, cruelty, and lack of justice. My theory would be just as valid as Erickson’s
because there is no concrete, actually existing reference point with which to evaluate whose conception is more
closely grounded in reality. All we have to go back to in humanly constructed narratives (i.e. the Bible and
surrounding commentary), which are just more words representing historically conditioned subjective experiences of
a particular group of individuals who held a particular view of the world. There is no “ultimate,” transcendent
authority. There is no evidence that you could muster to prove your presupposed assertion that an “objective
standard” exists “outside the judgment of our limited, selfish, shifting egos.” You are not even making an argument
in this essay. You are simply taking your presupposition that “God exists,” who you believe to be the “ultimate
ground of authority” and who you believe exists “outside” the realm of human history, and you describe this
presupposition of “God” as if your description of it, which in my mind is a grand fiction, somehow proves that fiction’s
validity. It seems a sloppy and arrogant position to take. I would have been more impressed had you invoked Kant’
s position (which I referred to in my essay Ch 5) and said “God” is beyond concrete proof or concrete human
experience thus we must take the wager and say I will act as if God existed and thus base my life off of this act of
faith, and not try to somehow prove that an act of faith could ever be more than a subjectively determined leap of
faith. You have every right to say, “Tillich is quite right to see God as the ground of all being. We are in God and
God is in us. To find our place and purpose in life, we must follow God’s lead.” But I have every right to reject this
as nothing more than a mere leap of faith on your part. I completely disagree that “the symbols” of “God”
discussed in your essay “both convey concrete meaning and point to meaning beyond themselves,” as you have not
argued a case where your symbols are anything more than speculative fancy. I will go even farther than Brennan
Manning, for I say, “let go of all conceptions of ‘God,’ and if you must have what you consider to be “perceptions of
God” then keep them to yourself, or if you must share, be humble and don’t for a minute claim that your perception,
your conception, or your ‘God’ is in anyway the ultimate or the only.”
Conclusion: Final Words
Williams: Well Josh, my friend, it’s been a good road. I’m grateful for your honesty and candor. This dialogue has
been important to me. Through it, I’ve thought more deeply about my faith and about my life. And, it’s been valuable
for me to “hear” you through it: you are one who has suffered at the hands of Christians and yet you still maintain
an authentic search for truth, even to the point of asking a Christian like me to participate in a dialogue like this.
That’s commendable. You really care about people Josh; that is commendable, too.
You know, I don’t think people listen enough to each other. We’re all so filled with our own perspectives that we
don’t have time for anyone else’s. I’m as guilty as anyone. Even so, our aim in this project was to really listen and
engage, really communicate, no matter how strong our disagreements. It wasn’t always easy, but we listened
anyway. In the end, that’s what matters: getting along respectfully and thoughtfully, even in disagreement.
Our disagreements are strong. I think the most important thing in this world is to have a close, intimate relationship
with Jesus Christ, the uniquely divine Son of God. To not acknowledge and submit to His Lordship is to be
fundamentally lost and out of synch with transcendent reality. Nothing is more important. However, you don’t
believe that there is a God, much less that Jesus was God. At best, my point of view is for you, a useful fiction. So be
it. Let’s agree to disagree, but let’s be real about it. God will honor that. I certainly do.
I have learned from you Josh. As I wrote you earlier via email: “Your perspective is especially important because
you’ve been on the inside of evangelical Christianity, and you’ve been wounded by it. Not only that, but you are
very thoughtful about the filters that we all use to perceive reality. Your honesty, sincerity, and concern for both the
truth and well-being of others makes you worth listening to.” I still hold this to be true, and I even believe it now
more than when we started. My secret hope is that this project can serve as an educational model for students
illustrating how to think deeply while agreeing to disagree, being honest and real about what matters most: the
truth and caring for others. If we’re going to alleviate suffering in the world and encourage others (and ourselves)
to be aware of, and to think outside of, our limited preconceptions, we have to work together and get along with
each other, listening even when it’s hard. In doing so, we’ll participate in the making of a better world.
Thanks Josh. God bless you my friend.
Beach: Patrick, I’m glad we had the chance to have this conversation and I know it has profoundly impacted our
relationship and also our individual world-views. It is good to come into contact and have real dialogue with people,
especially people that differ in age, culture, gender, or world-view. I think it is essential for our capacity to grow as
human beings to stretch our boundaries and to encounter as much of life as we can. I am grateful to you for
accepting this project and giving me the opportunity to converse with you and getting honest and heartfelt replies
to my often pointed and difficult questions. It was never my aim to attack or damage your faith in any way. My
motivations, beyond the confines of our conversation, were simply to open you to my own world-view, ask you to
understand my radical point of view, and finally to urge you to think critically about your own faith and the religious
tenets that you hold. It is not important for people to always be in agreement about metaphysical questions nor is
it important for people to completely understand another’s point of view, but it is important to respect and
communicate with all people regardless of differences in order to encourage and foster a sense of community and a
shared sense of human being. I hope that we have both grown just a little bit through our conversation and that
we have a new respect for each other, our point of views, and our commitments to the endeavor of human justice,
equality, and love. May this project and our friendship stand as a testament to the capacity of human cooperation
and friendship in the midst of deep personal and spiritual differences. May you find a measure of peace and
happiness in this life.
As it turns out the author’s of this book grew up in the same small town of Roseburg, Oregon and attended the
same high school, although Williams was several years older than Beach and their paths never crossed. They both
made their ways to Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, albeit through different directions: Williams joined
the Marine Corps and went off to the first Gulf War while Beach went straight to college. As undergraduates,
Williams and Beach had crossed paths at OSU’s Dixon Recreation Center several times, but remained no more than
mere acquaintances.
During their studies at OSU both Williams and Beach attended lectures and classes by the Philosophy and Religion
professor Marcus J. Borg. Both were highly taken by Borg’s pristine prose, clear and scholarly lecture style, and his
generous and deeply spiritual attitude towards life. Williams completed a B.A. with a double major in Philosophy
and History, and then went on to an M.A.I.S. in English and Philosophy. Beach had completed a B.A. in English with
a minor in History, an M.A. in English and then went on to an M.A.I.S. in English, History, and Philosophy. In 2000,
unbeknownst to the two graduate students, Borg had signed on to both Williams’ and Beach’s M.A.I.S. committee
and Williams and Beach were also both graduate teaching assistants in the English department.
It was not until Spring Term 2002 that Williams and Beach first met and began to talk of their similar preoccupation
with religion and society. Beach was originally working on a highly critical and creative work on the historical Jesus
and the evolution of Christianity (later, Beach had to change his focus because of his committee). Williams’ thesis
The Way In was a collection of interviews with evangelical Christians. As it turns out, Williams’ father in Roseburg
had converted to Evangelical Christianity. He began attending the fundamentalist church of Beach’s youth (Beach
and his family had attended the church from its very beginnings - for over a decade - and both of Beach’s parents
had held leaderships roles in that church). Also, Williams had interviewed Beach’s former Evangelical Christian
Pastor, who appears in Williams’ thesis.
After first meeting, Williams and Beach had a few conversations, but became friends in Fall 2002 when they were
both awarded a 1-year Instructor position in the OSU English department and shared an office in Moreland Hall.
Here Williams and Beach began a series of long discussions, which spilled over into e-mail. Beach impressed upon
Williams the need to be informed and up to date about current affairs and Williams began subscribing to The Nation
and The Economist, whereby, these two young and eager intellectuals began a protracted, but entirely sympathetic
debate – drawn together by common interests and a shared commitment to critical inquiry. In the Fall of 2003
Beach suggested that they tease out their debate into a more formal, argument/response book. Williams accepted
and recommended a personable, conversation-style. This is the fruit of their labor.
What ideology animates your life and how did you come to this ideology?
Essay 1 - J. M. Beach: "The Atheist"
My parents were raised in the typical non-practicing, but professing Christian home, however, they were both fairly
liberal children of the 60s and they were married just a few months before I was born. They became evangelical
Christians when I was about 6 years old. I remember because not long after I was “invited” to a Vacation Bible
School at a neighbor's house where I was introduced to Jesus through a color-coded book (red=blood,
black=death/sin, white=life). I don’t remember too much more except that after “accepting Jesus into our heart” we
were given candy. I do distinctly remember the candy.
Well my parents proceeded to become involved with the Calvary Chapel Church, a fundamentalist, non-
denominational Christian sect. Every Sunday and Wednesday our pastor read through the Bible, chapter by
chapter, and I was taught to have a “relationship” with Jesus who was my “personal” savior. All I had to do was
accept him into my heart, make him “Lord of my life,” read the Bible, pray and go to church. Simple. Of course the
byline was, as my eager and perhaps over-zealous father would instruct me, that everyone who did not “accept”
these simple premises would burn in hell for eternity. Stray just a bit from the straight and narrow and you would
burn in hell. Thus, for me Christianity was a dualistic mix of unconditional love and a relationship with my “personal
savior” combined with a nagging fear of burning in hell for eternity if I ever strayed from the narrow path.
Well, I was never one for narrow paths, what can I say? Not that I was some demon child or aggressively wicked,
but I was interested in all the things the world had to offer (and of course “worldly” interests, I was instructed,
meant the exact opposite of the “heavenly”). I was interested in movies, books, music, friends, parties, drinking,
drugs, history, girls and sex. Of course all this was off limits. In fact my father would regularly destroy (break,
throw away, burn) any “non-Christian” items in my position and in doing so he was preventing Satan’s inroads into
his house (or so I was told).
I was a decent kid, don’t get me wrong, but after getting sent to the principle’s office in 6th grade for talking about
sex and Dr. Ruth, my parents began to get concerned. I made it a month or two into 7th grade when they decided I
would be home schooled for my own good. My parents knew I was a respectable kid and they were concerned
about the pernicious influences that I would encounter: a course in Greek mythology (covert for liberal “devil
worship”) or the inevitable question, “can I go to a Halloween party at a friends house” (a parents-are-away-
drinking-and-mingling-with-girls party) to which I was informed, in case I had forgotten, that Halloween was the
“devil’s holiday” and that those people at the party would be going to hell because…. Well, because of my parent’s
fears and my proclivity for worldly snares, I was home schooled. I hated it.
For two and a half years I read the Bible (all told I’ve read that book cover to cover at least 3 or 4 times), took
courses in “Bible study”, took general subjects like math and English, and during this time I had no social life except
for church functions. Then before I knew it I was off to high school. But this trajectory was not inevitable. The day
my parents dropped the news that I was to be home schooled I promptly informed them I hated the idea. But after
realizing I could not avoid this sentence I made an angry ultimatum: eventually I would go to high school or I would
run away. It never came to this, my parents graciously prepared me for public schools again, and sure enough I
made it to high school. I was your average kid, once I started to have a social life again, and I slowly began to
move away from the church and become more interested in friends, girls, sports, parties and alcohol. By my senior
year I was not going to church every Sunday, but I was partying at least 2 nights a week.
After graduation I spent a year at the local community college on a scholarship, partying a lot and pulling in mostly C
and B grades. My sophmore year I made it north to Oregon State University. I spent my first year away from home
with some high-school pals as roommates. I loved the freedom of being on my own and I lived it up partying at
least 3 nights a week (indulging in all sorts of debauchery and wildness) and sometimes we partied all week.
Needless to say school was not my focus and I got my first F winter term – academic probation. Spring term was a
watershed period. I took some English classes to get my grade point up so I wouldn’t get kicked out of school. I
found I loved my classes and I actually wanted to learn. So I switched majors, my third in two years, and my life
began to change.
I moved into my own place junior year and I became a dedicated student. I partied only a couple nights a week
(the weekend) and spent my week studying and working part-time. The summer after my junior year, taking a
summer-school course in French, I met a naturalized Brit named Ben (a practicing alcoholic and semi-practicing
Buddhist) and Garon (a black football player and struggling Christian who would soon convert to Islam). I was a
former party-animal turned serious student who hadn’t rejected Christianity, but hadn’t really given it much though
either. The three of us had intense conversations over that summer continuing through our senior year. We
discussed politics, religion, morality, philosophy, history – you name it. Ben the Buddhist soon tired of talking and
went off to Thailand to study Buddhism and work at a school for handicapped orphans. Garon joined the Peace
Core and went to Africa. I turned to graduate school. Our conversation stopped, but I was still burning for
knowledge.
Turning away from both consumer American society and Evangelical Christianity, I embarked on a passionate
journey into the meaning of life. I wanted to know all about history, religion, philosophy, literature, psychology, and
politics. I new as sure as anything that I was not a Christian anymore and I new Christianity was not the “one and
true religion,” however, I didn’t know if God still existed and what to make of other religions so I decided to find
out. I read insatiably. I studied anything that I could get my hands on. Working toward my MA, I was an almost
straight A student and hungry for knowledge. I also had my first semi-mystical experience when studying William
Blake: a feeling of total bliss and one-ness with the world came over me as I took Blake’s line “everything that lives
is holy” to heart. This would be the first of many epiphanies, arcane glimpses into the nature of life and being, and
would become a cornerstone in my evolving life philosophy.
During grad school I became involved with some very radical students, I began to be very politically aware, and I
started a subscription to The Nation so that I wouldn’t be ignorant about the world any longer. Soon thereafter I
had finished reading many of the works by Blake, Albert Camus, Shelley, Emerson, Chomsky, Zinn, Ginsberg,
Whitman and, light of all lights for me at that time, Nietzsche. God did not exist, religion was sham, I was an atheist
and I knew why. I had read and thought so much that I was now able to piece together my own developed life-
philosophy. Part Nietzsche, part Marx, part Camus, part psychology, part poetry: I was a humanist who believed
that all ideas and all ways of life were constructs created by human beings in fumbling attempts at greater self-
consciousness and greater socio-political efficiency mixed with extreme bouts of vanity, selfishness, laziness and
greed. The meaning of life was to discover your “self” and create your own meaning, live a passionate and full life in
relation to both community and nature, and then die. Simple.
Of course when I told my father that I was an atheist he told me I “worshiped Satan,” I was a “crazy liberal,” and
that I was “going to hell.” Thanks dad. Combine this incident with news of conservative, fundamentalist Christians
killing abortion doctors, beating and berating gays, browbeating anyone who did not profess to “believing in Jesus”
fused together with my growing knowledge of the history of intolerant and blood-stained Christianity, and I became
one angry atheist. But I new my anger was a liability and wouldn’t solve anything so worked on a more conciliatory
tone. I could of course acknowledge that no one can “prove” that God doesn’t exist (and I can take an agnostic
stance with gracious company for good conversation), but the burden of proof is on the person who professes belief
and not on the doubter. Bigfoot, aliens, and a living Elvis might all be true, but I’m not buying it until the evidence is
in. About this time I wrote a poem called “The Atheist Saints.” It pretty much summed up my life philosophy and
attitude at the time: part spirituality, all materialism, tied together with a deep reverence for life and a
preoccupation with addressing and treating the human condition.
I am an atheist saint and not ashamed to doubt God face to face,
For divine I AM, most holy my flesh and blood intertwined
To form the nebulous soul, which is no soul but my own
Identity tried and worn until it fits, and I know it.
The sacred I step in and out every day on my way through Life,
To see into the deep of things and say, "it is good." Come feel
The wounds in my hands of hard work building paradise, and
Come feel my side pierced by ignorance and human frailty.
Nirvana is my porch overlooking the starry expanse where I rest
Gazing out the whole, Eden is my garden grown wild and
Bearing untamed fruit not out of reach for those who dare,
Atman is my centered frame of mind knowing perfect parts in Unity.
I spend hours of devotion in the Vedas no less than the Kabbalah and
The Bible rests against the Koran in peaceful order. The prophet
Mohammed and Isaiah are no more prophets than I am a prophet,
And what they had to say I have to say in a new tongue for new ears.
Come my friends and rest on my lap and I will tell you tales
Of God's birth and death, of human arrogance and hatred,
Of bloody coups and usurped thrones and the faded outward
Glory of cowards and tyrants crowned, of all that's past and future borne.
Touch my flesh and know your flesh the same, taste my knowledge
And my love to leave or take as your inclination leads,
Speak divinity with conviction and a god you will become to walk
Your Way through this illusionary world with grace and humility.
Saints and sinners we stand bearing our own redemption in our hands
To wash away all hints of impurity through the fires of trial and triumph.
Walk boldly, do not look back upon the burning cities of the fearful.
Walk boldly and lead by example your inner divinity.
As to the animating “ideas” in my life, I would have to say that I have been on a quest to know what it means to be
a human being. Along the way I have discovered that inequality, ignorance, hatred, greed and superstition keep
millions and millions of people from ever discovering their own humanity and that a privileged minority would like to
keep things this way because they profit off the status quo. Thus I have dedicated my life to teaching people
“humane” being by understanding human history and studying in human needs and potential. Through this process
I would like to make people more aware of the fragility of humanity in the face of corrupt conservative politics,
inequality, injustice, war, nuclear weapons, pollution and the destruction of the environment. I have come to
mistrust and fear the human being: the savageness of humanity as real as the human capacity to love. I fear for
the future. Nuclear holocaust, American Imperial wars and environmental catastrophe are all possible outcomes of a
species that often falls to “burning the future to keep warm.” The fate of the human species rests on the decisions
of our generation. I for one have not shirked my responsibility and thus everyday is a quest for new knowledge,
new understanding, and an open and honest perspective to “see” the world and meet the needs of my time in
history.
Conversation
Williams: I enjoyed this. It’s no wonder that you would be alienated from Christianity given your father’s hostility
to your interests and personal space. It strikes me that your father embodied a religion of controlling judgment and
not the self-transcending love central to authentic Christianity. Also, I celebrate your desire to learn so as to better
yourself and humanity in general. Proposing this dialogue is certainly evidence of that.
On pages 3-4, you declare you realized “I was not a Christian anymore,” and that you realized that Christianity is
not the “’one and true religion.’” On page 5, you relate that you “became one angry atheist.” What are the reasons
for your departure from Christianity and your subsequent embracing of atheism? In the former case, you relate the
study of “history, religion, philosophy, and politics” as a precursor to your having abandoned Christianity. Regarding
the latter, you cite “news” of atrocities perpetrated in the name of Christianity – “fundamentalist Christians killing
abortion doctors, beating and berating gays,” etc. Thus, it sounds like you were influenced by the negative actions
of a small number claiming to be Christians who are not real Christians at all. Christians are those who perceive
Christ as Lord/Savior; as such, they aspire to follow the teachings and example of Christ. The examples you cite are
not of true Christians, but extremists committing atrocities in the name of Christianity. How has this small group of
violent extremists caused you to reject the reality of God in general and your prior Christian faith in particular?
Beach: The point you raise is an interesting one and I think I would disagree with your assertion about who “true
Christians” are. To be honest I have my own opinion on this matter, which is quite different from yours and we
could argue between who holds the “true” understanding of Christianity. The notion of identity and subjectivity is a
tricky one and I would argue “authenticity” is a hard item to hold on to. I am reminded of the Post-Modern relativist
Stanley Fish who has argued quite successfully in literary and legal circles that “interpretive communities” see what
they want to see when it comes to relating to reality and interpreting texts. I would disagree that this is inevitable,
but I would argue that people who ascribe to religious creeds are a prime example of this phenomenon.
I would argue that Jesus never thought he was “God” or a “savior” and that his early followers, primarily I’m
thinking of Paul, “misinterpreted” Jesus’ life and message to suite their own purposes. Thus the four divergent
“Christ” centered gospels, which authors like Crossan have argued are clearly late additions to the oral tradition
surrounding Jesus. This set the precedent for a long line of “see what you want to see” interpretations of
Christianity, but the fact is that this particular ideology became a state religion (Rome, Europe, England, and the U.
S.) and thus by extension is guilty of intolerance and bloodshed. Christianity has sanctioned slavery and racist
propaganda just as much as it has sanctioned peace and love.
In America we have had a similar phenomenon to the German Reformation. Just like you, Luther wanted to believe
that he had found the “true” interpretation of Christianity, but in fact for the next several hundred years all Luther
managed to do was create a war of words over who had the exact handle on the “truth,” when in reality there is no
way any one organization can establish an orthodoxy without some measure of force. Thus the more radical
protestant sects left the old world for the new only to bring their intolerant “we have the true and only
interpretation” with them. These protestant sects were especially hard on the Native Americans.
Regardless, The Bible can be interpreted in many ways. Yes, I would agree with you that Jesus teaches “love your
neighbor” and “do not judge,” but Paul teaches “judge your neighbor” and his own brand of exclusive Christology.
Likewise, I would argue that the Old Testament God is a genocidal monstrosity, which only adds to the viciousness
of the current struggle in Palestine: The Bible clearly teaches the elect to exterminate the “heathen” and “conquer”
the promise land by force. We still feel the reverberations of this dangerous credo. Likewise, there is a clear
mandate that homosexuals are an “aberration” to God. Absolute dogmatic nonsense. After studying history I
refused to belong to any institution guilty of genocide. Clearly, Christianity has its hands stained in blood. Yes,
there are many enlightened Christians who practice a benevolent and tolerant faith, but their sacred book The Bible
also justifies the bigots like Pat Buchanan and Jerry Farwell.
Williams: You write of Christianity “that this particular ideology became a state religion (Rome, Europe, England,
and the U.S.) and thus by extension is guilty of intolerance and bloodshed. Christianity has sanctioned slavery and
racist propaganda just as much as it has sanctioned peace and love.” How do you define Christianity? Prior to the
above quoted passage, you assert that you and I would disagree in our definitions, but you do not follow this with
an explicit definition.
Beach: Yes, a clarification is in order. Like I said, I don’t think Jesus thought he was “God,” I think this is a later
insertion of the oral tradition surrounding Jesus after his death. The same thing happened to Buddha and has
happened to just about every saint or holy person: nostalgia raises the human to divine levels. Utter nonsense.
Anyway, Paul powerfully inserted “Christ” into the message and life of Jesus, which produced “Christ”ianity.
Christianity was at first a small, community oriented religion, which was persecuted by the Roman authorities and
then became as State religion. It has been a State religion ever since and, thus, for “authentic” or “true” definitions
of Christianity you must seek to know how the religion exists in relation to the specific socio-political-economic
circumstances of whatever secular state it operates in, and the definition alters through historical evolution. In
terms of the contemporary U.S. we see a radical, evangelical organization that overwhelmingly supports Republican
politics, thus, Christianity in the U.S. is closely aligned with Republican issues and in some cases the Republican
party is but a mouthpiece for conservative Christian issues: school prayer, i.e. Christian prayer; government support
of religious institutions, specifically Christian (education & social work); the ten commandments as a moral and legal
code; evolution as heresy and Christian “creationism” as science; homosexuality as abhorrent, immoral and un-
human; abortion as immoral in all circumstances; premarital sex as immoral, thus, teaching abstinence in schools;
and the most pernicious policies have been issues relating to immigration (specifically with Mexico);
globalization/foreign trade policies, which reflect an implicit racism (i.e. its o.k. to shamelessly exploit non-white,
third world countries in the false name of “development.”); and finally foreign policy where U.S. policy makers have
turned 9-11 and the war on terrorism into a “class of the civilizations” and a “war on Islam,” and also the religious
right’s sweetheart, one-sided dealing with Israel in their aggressive war on Palestine. Thus, my definition of
Christianity in contemporary America is what I have just laid out. It is very close to the hypocrisy of Republican
politics. I know you would disagree with me here, but I would say that the tolerant and politically critical
“Christianity” that you as an individual practice is a minority sect within the geo-political landscape. There is a
reason why the “Christian Right” is a powerful political entity. In my opinion, the “true” nature of Christianity in the
U.S. lies there.
Williams: O.K. but I want to go back to your first argument. I discern both a positive and negative element to your
discussion of a “bloody” Christianity. First, the “positive” element – you raise the important concern of Christianity’s
affiliation with certain atrocities over the years (I’m thinking of the crusades and the inquisition). You do not name
the atrocities, but I think we all (Christians and non-Christians) need to own up to times when certain institutions
have been involved with evil activity. As a Christian, I feel this very strongly, and I think even as I would understand
atrocities like the crusades to be perpetrated by those not acting as true Christians, I think Christians must be
aware of such terrible activities given they were carried out in the name of Christianity. But also the “negative”
element - you are extremely general while making severe charges. You have not clearly identified what you
understand Christianity to be, and then you have impugned it without being specific as to how Christianity is
responsible for the wrongs you allege. Further, you have answered my earlier question about the role of violent
extremists in your loss of faith by switching subjects and focusing on a completely different matter (over a thousand
years of history containing numerous complex social, political, and historical events). Please be specific in your
definition of Christianity and how/why you see Christianity as guilty of “intolerance and bloodshed” and having
“sanctioned slavery and racist propaganda.” How is Christianity responsible for these wrongs? Finally, you have
identified both loving and hateful actions as being carried out by those affiliated with Christianity. I return to my
original question: “How has this group of violent extremists caused you to reject the reality of God in general and
your Christian faith in particular?” You assert: “After studying history I refused to belong to any institution guilty of
genocide. Clearly, Christianity has its hands stained in blood.” Whose hands are stained in blood? I am a practicing
Christian, and I do not know of anyone who attends my church who is guilty of genocide. I myself am not guilty of
genocide. Please explain specifically how “Christianity” is guilty of genocide, and how that guilt relates to Christians
today.
Beach: First let me say that the German Protestants said the same thing during Hitler’s reign, but Dietrich
Bonhoeffer realized that where the Christian church did not stand up to murder and oppression they where guilt
also. Thus pastor Bonhoeffer felt compelled to take the drastic step of trying to assasiante Hitler. Likewise, the U.S.
military made the decision to fire-bomb German cities and kill hundreds of thousands of German civilians and Truman
made the decision to drop the H-bomb on Japan and kill hundreds of thousands. We Americans all share the guilt of
these actions. Also, the U.S. military has been responsible for aggressive wars and exploitative global economic
policies for 150 years and you better believe that a great many people on this planet hate Americans and see the
general U.S. population as guilty of the crimes committed in their interest and in their name: thus Sept 11, 2001 was
a warning to the American people about the crimes of U.S. foreign policy. One final example: Sweatshops and the
global exploitation of corporate America. All Americans benefit from goods produced in intolerable circumstances and
a large sector of agricultural and factory work within our borders are done by laboring slaves who, because they are
mostly illegal aliens, are treated with dehumanized work and wages. It’s called “systemic injustice.” If you are part
and benefit from the “system” then you share in the guilt, even if your hands are not “bloody.” I would refer you to
Richard A. Horsley’s book Jesus and the Spiral of Violence (1987) for reference on how Jesus dealt with systemic
injustice.
My answer is complicated and theory driven, and it is something that I have devoted a great deal of length to in my
books Studies in Ideology, but let me attempt a brief summary. Institutions are social structures that have a specific
“party-line” (dogma) and a rigid definition of “identity” usually based on an exclusionary language of “us/them.” But
within institutions there are individuals who have the ability to shape orthodoxy through challenging or revising the
“party line,” and there is the inevitable “outside” influence where the institution changes through time due to the
evolutionary course of history. Christianity is an institution with a basic party line, but the Protestant dogma of “a
personal faith” has really challenged the authority of an orthodox and unified Christian Institution (thus the
Catholic/Protestant wars for hundreds of years in Europe). The fallacy of the non-denominational, Evangelical
Christianity of present day American is that somehow it represents the “one-true” essence of Christianity and that it
is an almost “timeless” tradition based on nostalgic premises of a “personal relationship” with “Jesus” and “God,”
when in fact this belief, this dogma, is just another “sect” vying for social power in a socio-political landscape.
When the word “Christianity” is invoked one must bear and accept the full historical weight of that institution and
not just pick and choose what they think “Christianity means to me” which is the Evangelical-Fundamentalist fallacy.
My opinion is that Institutions have historical baggage that cannot be ignored or explained away. The past
intimately effects the present however much our generation is ignorant of that past. Thus, Christianity in my
definition means, the “conservative Right,” the Republican party, the “moral majority,” or whatever term is taken to
explain the political consequences of Christianity in terms of concrete historical policy and actions (as I mentioned
earlier in the above response).
Personally Patrick, I think that you have an admirable definition of Christianity in light of your progressive political
opinions. I also think that Marcus Borg has an admirable definition of Christianity, which is different from yours, but
which also has progressive and equitable political consequences. However, I subscribe to the radical opinion that
the world needs to clear away the “old” clutter of established ideas, institutions, and blood-stained history
(Christianity included) to re-forge a new definition of human being and, thereby, create new institutions that are
free of the tyranny of history, that set up a new foundation based on the progressive ideals that you, I, Marcus Borg
and many others share, but which we cloth in different shades of ideological terminology – terms, which are based
upon our past, individual experiences and our associations with the established institutional party-lines.
Williams: On page 4, you cite a “semi-mystical experience” you had prior to attending graduate school. Can you
write more about what that experience was like in particular? What is the source of this mystical experience? Where
were you when it happened? How long did it last? What did you see? Feel? Taste? What specifically changed about
the way you saw the world after this experience? What did you learn from it? Do you really believe that “’everything
that lives is holy’”?
Beach: The first time I had a mystical experience it was after a long study of William Blake, the great Christian
radical and mystic poet. I had also been studying indigenous traditions and Native American Philosophy as well as
Evolutionary Biology. I came to the realization that yes “everything that lives is holy” by which I mean, everything is
part of the great web of life feeding into the unified biosphere – an ecological perspective of the plant Earth. I think
I agree with “Gaiya hypothesis” that the Earth is one living organism, each part somewhat autonomous but feeding
and nourishing the whole. Human beings have the capacity to be stewards over this living organism, but we have
rejected our “connection” with the Earth, other species, and even with other human peoples. We are an animal
that has a strong capacity to dominate and destroy and given our technology an intolerant, exploitive attitudes we
have the capacity to destroy all life on this planet.
Anyway, I had a mental visualization of this great web of life and myself as part of that web. It was a feeling of
oneness and connection with all that lives. I lost my ego and felt no real barrier between the world outside the
doors of my perception and my conscious body. For a long time I thought this notion of oneness meant I could not
kill or use other organisms (I was a vegetarian for several years), I should do no harm, but after reading indigenous
philosophies I agreed that killing is a natural part of existence, but we should not kill or use more than we need and
that we should live simple, community/earth centered lives where humans are not more important that other
species and, thus, have no right to exploit the earth or other species for profit. My mystical experience was
exceptionally human and I affirmed my humanity by agreeing to work for the common good of the planet.
Williams: Thank you for elaborating on your mystical experience reading Blake. It sounds fascinating and powerful.
And yet, what really strikes me is that you conclude: “My mystical experience was exceptionally human and I
affirmed my humanity by agreeing to work for the common good of the planet.” While I certainly don’t want to take
anything away from your motivation to work for the well-being of the planet, I’m struck by the fact that your
experience does not sound “exceptionally human” at all. Quite the contrary, your experience sounds very much
trans-human. Based on your description, it appears that the boundaries between what separate you from the rest
of the earth fell away to leave you closely interconnected with all beings and things. This “web of life” you describe,
if real, suggests a different level of reality, a non-material level, that is real yet imperceptible according to our normal
5 senses. How do you understand this?
Beach: I would disagree and say that what I affirmed was material reality in its fullest sense. So much of what we
take for “human” life on this planet is really ideologically driven nonsense, which obscures our ability to see life. Our
linguistic and cultural constructions create blinders and what I affirmed in my mystical experience (and reconfirmed
after reading Nietzsche) was the throwing off as best I could of those established, institutional linguistic and cultural
constructions so that I could see and experience the raw reality of existence. Doubtless this sounds contrived and
constructed in its own sense, but my experience was a getting under and over human experience in the
Nietzschiean sense. Humans get caught in their humanly constructed webs of social structures, institutions,
religions, economic modes of production, etc. My mystical experience was one where I felt released from human
entrapment, to see the bonds of being human, but also to see the material reality underlying the human condition
so as to understand the human condition in a greater, material context, by which I mean the contextual “non-
human” elements that surround human society.
Williams: You showcase your concern with “conservative, fundamentalist Christians” and “conservative politics.”
Thus, your focus seems a very selective one, locating evil in a fundamentalist form of extremist Christianity and in
conservative politics (both American). There are many other evils in the world in addition to those perpetrated by
these two groups. For instance, terrorism connected to Islamic extremists is a much more frequent and violent
phenomena than the incidences of abortion doctors killed by fundamentalist Christian extremists (c.f. Algeria,
Indonesia, Sudan, Israel). And, while conservatives in the USA may be reprehensible, their evils pale compare to the
routine police state jailing and torture that appear in China or North Korea. Why have you chosen to focus on
fundamentalist Christian extremists and conservative politics?
Beach: For one, because they are examples I see every day. They exist in my backyard, as it were, and thus my
challenge is not to change the world, but my own life and my own backyard. I do not believe in the concept of evil.
I believe in the empirically proven concept of cause and effect, of actions and consequences, a non-dogmatic form of
Karma if you will. Fundamentalism takes many forms, but the most destructive forms have been Imperial
fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism, which often go hand in hand. The Imperial ideologies of Europe and
America have the blood of billions of people and the destruction of the environment as their legacy. Bomb throwing
Muslims are a product of indiscriminate oppression and murder. Why is it that the news covers mostly the
indiscriminant retaliatory crimes of Islamic fundamentalists? Israeli bulldozers have torn down innocent Palestinian
houses often killing those who cannot or will not get out of the way, Israeli snipers have killed Palestinian children,
Israel settlers take land that they do not own and build fortified compounds. This does not justify Palestinian
suicide bombers, but it sure as hell causes individual Palestinians to strap on bombs and retaliate. Likewise with 9-
11. Does the average American have a clue about the millions of innocent civilians our proud military has killed in
the last century? We killed some 500,000 Iraqi children just through a decade of sanctions. Nothing justifies that
horrendous cruelty. George Bush Sr. made a calculated decision to leave Sadam Hussein in power after the first gulf
war, but no one blames him for Sadam’s supposed “urgent” threat to humanity. I have written extensively on many
types of fundamentalism, but my main focus will always be America because that is where I live and if I hope to
change the world it will be here, attacking the bigots in my backyard.
Williams: You write: “ I do not believe in the concept of evil. I believe in the empirically proven concept of cause and
effect, of actions and consequences, a non-dogmatic form of Karma if you will.” What do you mean by this? Why don’
t you believe in the concept of evil? I understand evil to be the self-interested harming of others for self-benefit.
One of the things I like and respect about you is your concern for others and your desire to help others. This is
apparent in your opposition to what you perceive to be harmful and dangerous such as Bush administration policies
that oppress others. Don’t you accept that there can be harmful and self-interested actions that merit the label
“evil” (as opposed to using neutral terms like “cause and effect”)? What about acts like the cannibal murders of
Jeffrey Dahmer? What about the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, the 35 million killed in Stalin’s purges, the 25
million killed in Mao’s cultural revolution? I find it hard to describe such activities without the concept of evil.
Beach: I think we must choose to disagree here. Personally, I think the word and idea of “evil” is a remnant of
religious thinking which needs to be left behind. Specifically, look how political opportunists like George W. Bush use
the concept to declare world war (i.e. “axis of evil.”). The notion of “evil” is a theological construct which inevitably
means the opposite of “God’s goodness,” which I wholeheartedly reject because 1) I reject the existence of God, 2)
I reject the objective existence of some moral virtue called “goodness” and 3) I think “evil” and “good” are
everywhere contextually defined in relation to the socio-economic mores of dominant political groups. Thus good is
invariably associated with the goodness of those in power, thus, America is “good” in the fight against the “evil”
terrorists. Utter simplistic nonsense! And look specifically how the war against the “evil” terrorists has turned to
tide of the Israel/Palestinian War where Israel is literally crushing the homes and hopes of innocent Palestinians,
literally walling them into a corner as Israel illegally takes by force more and more Palestinian land. But the concept
of evil needs to go, especially in light of reconciliation projects after horrendous tragedies, such as the holocaust,
South African Apartied, or the Chilean “disappeared.” It is hard to reconcile with human beings if you can only see
the face of “evil” instead of the frail face of selfish and intolerant inhuman beings.
Williams: One page 5, you indicate “Bigfoot, aliens, and a living Elvis might all be true, but I’m not buying it until the
evidence is in.” What sort of evidence do you require to establish something as real?
Beach: I’m a firm believer in the scientific method, via John Dewey especially: empirical observation, hypothesis,
experiment and a critical community. There is always a danger of reductionism with the notion of Science, in terms
of lowest common denominators, but it is a method that works and it has produced all the vital knowledge that
defines our lives. We need not live by myths alone, however necessary stories might be, we do have access to
reality.
Williams: When I asked, “What sort of evidence do you require to establish something as true,” you responded, “I’
m a firm believer in the scientific method….it is a method that works and it has produced all the vital knowledge that
defines our lives.” What do you mean? How do you verify something as true or real? Do you really believe that the
only things which are “true” are empirically verifiable and experimentally testable facts?
Beach: To reiterate, the scientific method is exactly as I stated: empirical observation, hypothesis, experiment and a
critical community. I personally would like to leave behind idealistic constructs like “truth.” I think the notion of
“truth” or “falsity” is invariably subjective and based upon practical considerations, which is not to say that I reject
the notion of “objective” reality. I simply mean that for us to come to a notion of “objective” reality we must have
multiple human perspectives observing empirical reality with which to create some kind of consensus – thus the
scientific reliance on reproducing evidence through a continual re-examination of reality until some level of
“certainty” emerges based on the accumulated evidence.
Williams: On page 4, you write that you’ve reached the conclusion that “all ideas and all ways of life were
constructs created by human beings in fumbling attempts at greater self-consciousness and greater socio-political
efficiency.” This is a huge claim. You’ve reduced all that exists to the material and the psychological while rejecting
the possibility of any greater spiritual and/or nonmaterial reality existing beyond what you might understand. How
can you be so sure of such a reduction? What do you base it on?
Beach: I know what I see and I have gleaned an understanding of the world based upon the critical investigation of
learned communities and individual experiences. The scientific method is really the humanism of our time. Dewey
was right to put faith in the ability of human beings to rationally and critically come to an understanding of their
world, share that understanding with other people, and come to an agreement about reality and what we should
do to live our lives. I’m sure if a God exists, a being or force that got the whole universe going, “it” would not be
offended by Occam’s razor. We worship and work with what we see, what we come into contact with, and what we
can influence through our ideas and actions. Evolution is a fact of life as far as I’m concerned. The evidence is in
and there is no denying it. We are biological beings shaped by our environment and we have the ability to
understand enough of how our world works to create just, equitable and sustainable societies. Myths, fables and
metaphysical speculation are fine and really add flavor to life, but it’s all fantasy like kids playing in a backyard
visualizing fantastic adventures. It is time for the human race to grow up, leave our fantasies behind and take a
look at our backyard and the work we have to do to build a home.
Williams: Do you realize how reductionistic, simplistic, and even arrogant that sounds? You seem to be implying
(without support) that spiritual beliefs are analogous to kids acting out their childish and simplistic “fantasies” in a
backyard. Hence, fantasy here seems to have a negative connotation that implies wishful thinking, like kids
pretending to be soldiers or knights. Nothing has been established, only asserted. If you assume that only the
empirically verifiable is possible, then all you find is possible is what is empirically verifiable. However, you seem to
assert (via your mystical experience) that there is more than just the empirically verifiable that is possible. As a
poet, I would think you would concede that there are ways the human heart is moved and touched that are beyond
what we can empirically verify. In the same way, music, art, and literature can touch us and change us, if we let it.
You seem to be taking a hardened ego-centered position that rejects anything it cannot understand, including that
there is anything it cannot understand. To do so is to artificially limit yourself. A legitimate point of view doesn’t have
to be a simplistic opposition between fairy tale/fantasy/imagination and what is empirically verifiable. There is room
for both.
Beach: Ah, good response, but I think you are getting the wrong impression. First, I am not using the word
“fantasy” in a negative way nor am I using it without concrete scientific evidence based on child psychology and my
own extensive work with and observation of children. I firmly believe that more can be learned about human being
from watching a child then from talking to a college professor. I think the notion of “fantasy” and “play” that
children partake in unselfconsciously is the perfect description of the human condition where we intertwine our
fantastic ideologies within our socio-material circumstances, which I think is a natural and fundamental part of what
human beings must do to survive. The problem comes when we cross the line and start believing that our fantasies
are “real.” That is called psychosis and I would argue that fundamentalist and religious thinking is a form of
psychosis, i.e. mistaking fantasy for reality. I know we will probably never agree on this point, but I will make it one
of my primary duties in this life to collect enough evidence to prove this assertion. And here I will refer you to my
books Studies in Ideology for the first installments.
I would like to end with a short discussion of “possibility” in relation to reality. Some fantasies are simply wishful
thinking that could never, ever come “true.” Then there is the “what if” variety of the idealistic human brain, which
operates out of material reality to ask what is possible: Humans treating disease and living longer lives? Humans
flying in the air? Humans landing on the moon? Humans living peaceful, sustainable and equitable lives? These all
represented the possible in the brains of human beings and most of these things emerged into the actual. The poet
in me is absolutely mystified by the complexity and beauty of reality and I often sit in dumb awe at the wonder of it
all, and I dream about what is possible. There is the poetic “kid” inside me that wonders “what if” and teases out
the possibilities of peace, justice, and equality all of which are “fantastic” human dreams, but which have yet to
become concrete socio-political realities.
My assurance and directness can be mistaken for arrogant “egoism,” but I think you know that I am not an
egotistical person. I lost my ego long ago and my fantasies of peace, justice and equality do not end with a heaven
where a God well pleased with my work will reward me. I labor under no such selfish delusions. In fact, based
upon my experiences thus far, I expect a lifetime of incomprehension, rejection, and misunderstanding and a
peaceful slumber in death will be my reward. I do not think that our limited notions of empirical reality are all that is
possible, but it is the strongest tool we have to work with in our quest for knowledge and understanding, and I will
not apologize for what I consider to be the overwhelming evidence against the “divine.” However, and I have told
you before, I can accede an agnostic point of view and say there are limits to human understanding and there may
be transcendent “truths” out there waiting for us after death. If so, I’ll worry about those when I die. Right now I’
m concerned with living and all the challenges, hope, and despair that this process entails.
Essay 2 - B. Patrick Williams: "The Christian"
At the end of spring term 2002, I left Professor Chris Anderson’s CS Lewis literature class with the sense that both
Lewis and Tolkien had rehabilitated Christianity for me. In Lewis’s Surprised by Joy and Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy
Stories,” each author articulates a vision of the spiritual life that struck me as authentic – a life grounded in
experiences of joy and loss of self-consciousness to encounter what is real. By the end of the term, I had the feeling
that both authors had called me to the edge of a cliff. To step off the ledge was to acknowledge that full life – the
life I was meant to live – meant accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior. This seemed an intellectual insight – as
though it was something that was “true,” but I didn’t go beyond that.
For my master’s thesis, I interviewed evangelical protestant Christians about how their faith is integrated into their
lives. As the summer wore on, I grew tremendously impressed with the majority of my thesis interview subjects’
efforts to surrender to God as known in Christ. For all of their failings and areas where I felt they may not have
thought their beliefs through far enough, I was quite taken by their determined focus on God – the effort to put God
first in their lives. Even as I respected this, I maintained some critical distance from it. But, I couldn’t help but be
impressed.
Also during the summer, I found myself curious about NW Hills Baptist church. I asked my friend Jenn (a Starbucks co-
worker), what was it like? Jenn and I spoke briefly, but it wasn’t long before I dismissed the idea of attending. In
the meantime, I felt dissatisfied with the Roman Catholic Church where I had been going off and on. The liturgy did
not “do it” for me – I felt disconnected there. I’ve recently realized that one of my big draws to Catholicism had been
Chris Anderson, who taught and spoke with me deeply about the spiritual life. However, when I stepped away from
Chris and other Catholic friends, I found myself left hollow with the liturgy, mass, and Catholicism. At any rate, a bit
later in the summer, I felt an urge to go to NW Hills – almost a compulsion, really. So, I went, and while my reaction
was mixed, I liked it overall. The worship songs were simpler and more direct than I’d heard before, yet I really
appreciated that directness and the way we sung to God, not just about God. I was also taken by the pastor’s
sermon. While I could tell the belief system was underpinned by biblical inerrancy and exclusive salvation (two
things I resisted), I liked the message about living one’s full life for Christ - that the point of life is to be a disciple of
Jesus Christ, who is the source of authentic existence. I began to attend NW Hills regularly and by the fourth or fifth
Sunday, I felt something I’d never experienced in any church before – a feeling of being “at home.”
Another important event was reading Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. I was quite taken by Tozer, an evangelical mystic.
Wow. I didn’t know there was such a thing. Moreover, there was a ring of authenticity about Tozer that just blew
me away. Tozer wrote that the Bible by itself was just a book, but illuminated by the Spirit it was the Word of God.
He indicated that we ought to make Christ the center of our lives; the relationship with God must take precedence
over everything else. Tozer’s treatment of pride also deeply affected me. He explained how painfully destructive the
sins of selfishness and self-absorption can be in isolating us from God and each other. Tozer’s words were
electrifying to me. I was blown away.
Another piece in Tozer really connected with me. Roughly 2/3 or more into the book, Tozer refers to how “intellectual
difficulties” can become a “smokescreen.” I don’t recall the actual context, but somehow those words spoke to me
about my own relation to the Bible. Generally speaking, I see two approaches to the Bible – the “historical” and the
“spiritual.” The historical is governed by naturalistic presuppositions about what is possible (like any history) and
does not traffic in the supernatural. The spiritual deals with the things of God and is not subject to the same
constraints. Well, even though the spiritual is not subject to the same constraints, I still constrained it with what I
thought was possible. Thus, when I read the Bible in a spiritual light, I really subjected it to a rigorous historical
scrutiny. Instead of surrendering to God through the Bible’s words, I was too busy deciding what I did and did not
want to believe. In doing so, I kept God at arm’s length.
Over the next few days after reading Tozer, I began to rethink the way I’d been viewing the Bible. Instead of a
literal-factual approach (where the text means exactly what it says) or a metaphorical approach (where the text
does not mean what it literally says but speaks meaning through its imagery), I began to think of “more than literal”
as a way of seeing the Bible. Thus, my new orientation became one of not trying to ascertain exactly what
happened at all, but to trust that the will of God was somehow in, and able to work through, the pages of scripture.
Hence, my job was to open myself to, and surrender to, the God that spoke through the Bible. I was not to analyze,
but to listen. I had been blocked by intellectual defenses that kept me closed.
During the same time period, one day at Starbucks while talking to my friend Megan Brown, it just hit me – God is
real, God is right here, I can pray to God, God is listening. I felt a conviction in my guts that this was true as well as
a fire in my guts that it was true – both of these were mixed in with a peace and confidence. Suddenly, I seemed to
have “got it.” Now I knew what evangelicals meant when they advocated a “personal relationship with God in
Christ.” No longer did I even care about the historical or all the efforts I’d put into ascertaining the truth or falsity
present in the Bible. Instead, I found myself wanting to turn to God – to focus on God, as best I could. Also, I
realized that Jesus really is my Savior – that I need Jesus to be who I am truly supposed to be. Even more, I saw
that I’m not supposed to follow my own ego or my own lights, but to do my best to follow God as known in Christ;
thus, Christ is also my Lord.
Suddenly, I began to see things differently. The passage in Ephesians (5:22-33) that indicates wives are to submit
to their husbands and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church – a passage that I used to see
as sexist nonsense - struck me differently. The passage is different because I now see the God-factor – that it’s the
husband and wife first submitting to God, and then to each other. It’s like, suddenly, I’m taking seriously this idea of
God as not an idea anymore, but as a present reality – as a factor integrated into life that should be taken seriously.
Professor Gary Ferngren loaned me an amazing book titled The Future of Evangelical Christianity by Donald G.
Bloesch. First, Bloesch provided words for what I’d thought but was not sure if anyone else had articulated – and
Bloesch articulated himself more thoroughly than I could. For instance, Bloesch spoke of how the Bible itself is not
inerrant, but inerrancy comes from the presence of Christ as mediated to the believer through the text. This leads to
the Bible’s accurate communication of truths about God and life as well as the Spirit’s speaking directly into the
context of a believer’s life.
Bloesch also cited Karl Barth’s reference to the “superhistorical,” which appears to be the functional equivalent of
my term “more than literal,” in describing Genesis. Bloesch’s point (using Barth) is that it’s not merely literal or
merely mythical – but more than either. Bloesch also talks about how the church must stand as a check on culture –
when the dominant culture and politics swing left, the church should swing right, and vice versa. Reading Bloesch, I
was reminded of Professor Marcus Borg’s view of Jesus’ compassion as originating in experiences of the Spirit of
God, a transcultural Spirit who calls people to compassion beyond themselves. As I look out upon the world, I’m
struck with the sense that people need this life-giving Spirit more than ever.
All of this has really spoken to me. The events I’ve mentioned are the key ones, but there have been others –
namely a lot of seeming coincidences when various evangelical Christians have come into my life at the right time –
supporting and encouraging me or simply showing me what they are about. While I’m not convinced that those who
are not saved in Christ are damned, and I only see the Bible as inerrant in the qualified way I mention above, I do
see the evangelical emphasis on the authority of Scripture and salvation through Christ in a new light. I’ve needed
this focused evangelical orientation through which to break through the bonds of my ego so as to surrender to the
Spirit. And, even then, I don’t think this is ultimately something I’ve done at all. That day in Starbucks when I felt
Christ was real as my Savior and Lord – when that evangelical language suddenly made sense to me – it wasn’t
about me, but about grace, a positive occurrence occurring outside of my sphere of control. While I’m sometimes still
a little baffled by all of this, I have to say that becoming an evangelical Christian and disciple of Jesus Christ is
probably the most important thing that’s ever happened to me.
Conversation
Beach: I want to ask some very involved questions concerning why you turned to Christianity and also I want to
tease out the motivating logic behind your decisions and the statements you made.
We have had discussions before about Christian exceptionalism, especially the narrow view of many evangelical
Christians who believe that Jesus as “Christ” is the only way to “salvation” and that the Christian tradition and the
Bible are the only “way” to God. You mention that “full life” is to be found in Jesus Christ who “is the source of
authentic existence [emphasis added]” and that your conversion experience, if I may call it that, came when you
“realized” that “Jesus really is my Savior.” In light of your personal background, which is Christian; the country and
region you live in, which is predominantly Christian and perhaps most visible evangelical Christian; and in light of the
fact that all of the outside documents you turned to for spiritual direction mentioned in this essay are Christian -
how intellectually or culturally rigorous was your search for “God” and the source of “authentic existence;” do you
deny other cultural tradition as viable “ways” to “God;” and finally was your conversion to Christianity a conversion
of convenience or did you make an enlightened decision?
Williams: Thank you for your passionate honesty. You’ve raised good points and questions, and I’ll try to deal with
what is most central. You mention “many evangelical Christians” “believe” “Jesus…is the only way to ‘salvation’ and
that the Christian tradition and the Bible are the only ‘way’ to God.” First, I see salvation as being a personal
relationship with God as known in Jesus Christ. Thus, full life is found in surrendering to that leadership and realizing
that one’s ego is not the ultimate authority – God is. However, God can be known in many different forms of
experience and mediums: music, art, literature, nature, other religious traditions – just about any form of encounter
can be a conduit for the experience of God. Evangelicals speak of special revelation and general revelation. The
former connotes the communication of what is necessary to salvation – such as the central narratives and teachings
in the scriptures. General revelation connotes God’s truths as found in experiences of music, other religious
traditions, the beauty of a spring day, the sound of the ocean, the pain of loss, the joy of unselfconscious freedom.
So, God can be found in other religious traditions, but what is most necessarily true about God for salvation - what
is most necessary to be saved from the state of ego elevation and separation from God – is located in Christianity
via the relationship with God in Christ. A relationship with Christ is the fullest connection to God available, and it’s
how we are most rightly meant to live. Other religions are inevitably partial in their understanding of God’s truth; full
understanding is found in Christianity through giving one’s life to the one who walked the earth as both God and
man, Jesus Christ.
You ask “how intellectually or culturally rigorous was your search for ‘God’ and the source of ‘authentic existence’”? I
see life as a process of learning and growth that continues until death. After graduating from high school, I served
for six years in the US Marine Corps, to include the first gulf war. In addition to having an MA in Interdisciplinary
Studies (essentially religious studies and writing), I’ve taught writing at Oregon State University, been married and
divorced, lost my mother to cancer, and graduated magna cum laude with a joint B.S. in history and philosophy. I’ve
taken 5 courses (to include The Historical Jesus, Philosophy and Religion, and World Views/Values and the Bible)
with Professor Marcus Borg plus I’ve completed roughly six months of independent study on psychology and religion
with Dr. Borg. Further, I’ve had numerous conversations with Tibetan Buddhist Scholar Jim Blumenthal (who is a
practicing Tibetan Buddhist) in addition to taking Dr. Blumenthal’s course on The Buddha and Buddhist Philosophy. I’
ve also taken a course in world religions and another course treating modern religions in Japan and China. Lastly, I
practiced Zen Buddhist meditation for over two years, having been on three Zen Sesshins (silent meditation retreats
– 4 days, 7 days, and 7 days respectively) and several day-long periods of silent meditation. All in all, I’d say my
search for truth has been very intellectually, culturally, and experientially rigorous. I will continue searching for truth
and insight until I die.
In all of these areas, I’ve continued to seek the truth as honestly and incisively as possible. You ask if my
“conversion to Christianity” is “a conversion of convenience or did you make an enlightened decision?” I’m not
familiar with the term “conversion of convenience,” but it seems to have a negative connotation, as though
suggesting that I embraced Christianity because it was convenient for me to do so, as though perhaps my new faith
helped me to fit in better socially or to feel better about life. Let me be clear – my search has always been for what
is real, what is true. I didn’t expect to become an evangelical Christian – it is something that happened to me in the
midst of my search. Prior to my conversion, I didn’t believe in evangelical theology or the evangelical approach to the
Bible. Indeed, I was quite critical of both, and I adamantly argued against them.
I used to disagree with the idea that Jesus was the primary way to God, and I did not believe the Bible was
authoritative. Moreover, I believed that passages in the Bible had to be seen metaphorically so as to be plausible
and meaningful because they could not be taken literally (an example is the Emmaus Road story in Luke 24).
However, since my conversion, I’ve realized that in the past, I had been projecting my own views upon the biblical
text, limiting what was possible. Regarding the Emmaus Road story, I thought it would be silly if taken literally, Jesus
appearing unrecognized to his two disciples, later vanishing from sight when they recognize him. To me, that
seemed absurd. Another example: I didn’t believe dead people could be brought back to life, so I disregarded any
passage that indicated otherwise. Thus, I limited my openness to the possibilities inherent in reality. Below that
desire to limit reality, I’ve since realized that the real underlying issues have been my anger at God over my mother’
s death from cancer coupled with my resistance to surrendering to God as my authority. I had located authority in
my ego judgments about what was possible or seemed plausible, not in an openness to what is real and the God
who speaks through it all.
Now, I realize that our place is to stand with Job at the whirlwind and accept that the point is not what we can
figure out, but an acceptance of what is. Further, we are to surrender to God’s will, setting aside our own in favor of
His. Instead of getting wrapped up in what we think we can figure out, we should instead surrender to the Lord of
all.
Beach: You can forgive me if I cannot see past your Christian exceptionalism, which I find hard to palate given the
greater intolerance of Christian fundamentalism. You say that other religions and art share a “general revelation,”
but only Christians have access to the “specific revelation” found in Christ. If I didn’t know you personally Patrick I
would say you were no different than the common Christian exceptionalist, but because I do know you I have to
ask, don’t you find it hard to take this position given that only a minority of the world’s population professes
Christianity? And what about the majority of the world’s population who are Hindu’s, Buddhists, Muslims, and
Secularists and their inferior “general” revelation? Are they cosigned to a “general” less blissful heaven, or maybe
to a purgatorial state after death, or maybe as a great many Christian exceptionalists believe the majority of the
world will burn in hell for eternity because they could not come to accept the exalted “specific” way revealed in the
Christian religion? This seems shaky ground my friend. And further, on what grounds do you base your
supposition, besides your personal, pro-Christian belief that the Bible is the one and only handbook for salvation?
Doesn’t every ignorant religious exceptionalist say ‘my way is the only way’? How are you different?
Williams: Well Josh, as usual, you’re asking important questions, and for that, I’m grateful. The passion in your
words suggests that these subjects strike close to your heart, however you may think about them. And, while I am
not familiar with the term “Christian exceptionalism,” I expect you are referring to something analogous to
“exclusivism” – the privileging of the Christian revelation over all other means of obtaining the truth. In any case, I
will certainly forgive you for taking issue with me, even celebrating our disagreement as I think being real (even in
opposition) is definitely preferable to a restraint that comprises what is truly felt and thought. Now, onto your
questions and my responses:
No, I don’t find it “hard to take” that I privilege the Christianity over all other religions even though there are
various different religions around the world proposing different things that they claim to be true. In fact, I think the
current academic fixation with relativistic thinking has damaged the ability to critically reason. There is no real
relativism; it’s a fantasy that inevitably privileges one point of view over another/others while claiming not to do so.
If one is really a committed Buddhist or Hindu, he or she will privilege that faith position over all others. The
Christian is no different. A Buddhist may believe that folks will be reincarnated infinitely until they are freed from the
suffering of the samsara wheel and the Christian will see those who fail to accept Christ’s lordship as going to hell
after they die and the Muslim will see heaven as a place of paradise filled with virgins and an atheist rejects the
possibility of any of it while the agnostic is uncertain.
We should all do the best to live fully and be who we are – to follow the truth where it leads. Doing this does not
involve a wishy-washy relativistic compromise, but digging in and being real about what one thinks and feels. That’s
part of the reason I enjoy our dialogue so much Josh – because we’re inviting each other to be real, and we’re
really to be friends even as we might agree to disagree. I think the model of this discussion is the model for how to
live with each other when we’re a variety of people coming from complex environmental and genetic backgrounds.
As to whether non-Christians will go to hell when they die – that’s not for me to decide. I think one must have Jesus
Christ to be in a right relationship with God. Period. But, as C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: “But the truth is
God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved
except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him” (62). Hence, I’m
not qualified to judge who will or won’t be sent to hell; but, given that I believe salvation is through Jesus Christ, it’s
in everyone’s best interest to submit to Him for salvation. Most pertinent here is the relation to this world – those
who have Christ are fundamentally on the right ground and those who don’t have Christ are not. We were created
to be in intimate relationship with God, and that intimate relationship is most fully realized by a connection to God
through Jesus Christ.
In addition to what the Bible and Christian tradition teach, I base this conclusion on my personal conversion
experience. When I encountered Christ in a personal way, I was persuaded experientially of a different reality – the
reality that God is real, He’s all around, and He’s known in Christ. As my relationship with God through Christ has
deepened, I’ve grown in ways that were previously unknown to me. I’m more confident, more assured, more
settled, more grounded. Sure, I make mistakes and have a lifetime of learning ahead, but now I’ve crossed a
fundamental bridge into a new, previously unrealized life. Now, there’s a connectedness to my actions and my
thoughts and my feelings that didn’t exist before – a sense of feeling right about who I am and what I’m about.
When I reflect on how confused and unconfident I was before relative to my role in the larger scheme of life (though
ironically I thought I knew a lot definitively), and then I compare that with what has been given to me now, it is
clear to me that life in Christ is life as it’s meant to be. The longer I live and grow in Him, the more convinced I am.
Even more, as I look around and see all the pain and suffering and fracture and loss and misdirection that runs
rampant in the world, I realize, Christ is the answer. The culture we live in is guilty for the way it validates the
building of the ego and the hardening of self-absorption. Stuck in ourselves, we are lost. As such, we turn to all
manner of false gods to relieve our pain: new age religions, eastern mysticism, sports, philosophy, drugs. We were
created to be with God in deep relationship, yet we refuse to surrender our egos, so we seek fulfillment in false
sources of spirituality. I see it all around – the pain, the confusion, the lost.
I am only different from those in other religions insofar as I believe that Christianity offers the best explanation for
the realities of the world. All religions and ways of knowing contain some truth, but the fullest truth is found in
Christianity. I have tested and weighed Christianity, and I will continue to do so as I continue to immerse myself in
my own life and the Christian faith. I am a Christian because I believe it best provides an understanding of what is
true and real.
Beach: I want to follow up on the last question. All religious traditions have been grounded in concrete, historical
cultures and regions. By way of provincialism, chauvinism, or the undisputable process of cultural assimilation people
all across the globe are socialized (or indoctrinated) into particular social, political and religious traditions. The
Christian tradition is no exception. Evangelical Christianity is founded on several, highly subjective, culturally limited
assumptions (I will name only a few): the existence of a personal God that acts in history, the notion that Jesus was
“Christ” and the “son of God,” the superiority of human beings over all other forms of life, the superiority of males
over women, a belief in the total destruction and “end” of this world, and the belief in a dualistic afterlife where the
elect are rewarded and the evil are punished. These assumptions are themselves grounded in the Bible, which is
assumed by most Christians to be the “inerrant” “Word of God, to some Christians to be “literally” factual, i.e. many
contemporary evangelical Christians believe the end of the world is coming. Should all Christian’s simply disregard
“intellectual difficulties” as “smokescreens” in order to concentrate on their own highly subjective and, what seems
to me, highly anti-social search for a personal relationship with Christ instead of critically understanding the
evolution of their religious tradition and the way Christianity has historically and is currently manipulated by
conservative political agendas? Specifically, is the “spiritual” approach to the Bible in its uncritical subjectivity a
socially responsible program, especially in light of the precarious foreign and domestic policies of George W. Bush
who claims to be a practicing evangelical Christian? What of “historical” Bible scholars like Crossan and Borg who
have argued that one cannot responsibly approach the Bible without historical perspective? Can you admit some
inherent dangers in the “spiritual” position in light of contemporary American politics?
Williams: Well, once again you’ve raised excellent points and asked penetrating questions. In fact, here you’ve
challenged me the most of all. I’ll do my best to provide an adequate response.
I agree that “All religious traditions have been grounded in concrete, historical cultures and regions.” Of course they
have. However, I won’t reduce those traditions to their cultural/social conditioning alone. Instead, I believe that God’
s revelation – his divine will and concomitant truths – is an additional factor that has penetrated the mix of societies,
cultures, regions.
I disagree with your claim about evangelicals and men/women. Evangelical Christianity is not founded on “the
superiority of males over women.” Rather, evangelicals see women and men as having different roles; hence, one is
not superior to the other. I do believe the end of the world will come about by God’s judgment (unless we humans
destroy the world first), but I don’t know when that will be.
You ask: “Should all Christians simply disregard ‘intellectual difficulties’ as ‘smokescreens’ in order to concentrate on
their own highly subjective and, what seems to me, highly anti-social search for a personal relationship with Christ
instead of critically understanding the evolution of their religious tradition and the way Christianity has historically
and is currently manipulated by conservative political agendas?” First, you have set up a false opposition between
seeking a relationship with God in Christ and thinking critically about the ways in which one’s religious tradition
interacts with its society/culture/political systems. This opposition is not necessary, and uncritical thought does not
follow logically from a relationship with Christ (though the two can certainly exist together). Regarding “intellectual
difficulties” and “smokescreens,” these refer to concerns around the veracity of the Bible and the relationship with
God. Previously, I thought everything had to make sense to me intellectually – I had to understand it, or it was not
valid. However, I’ve since learned that such a view is untenable regarding God. When we set ourselves up as sole
authorities, those intellectual difficulties can block us from the real issue – surrendering to God in Jesus Christ, the
one in whom we were created to obey and follow. Given that we naturally resist such a surrender, we use various
means to distance ourselves from God, and in my case, it was intellectual difficulties. An example: prior to becoming
a Christian I’d say to myself, I’ve never seen a dead person raised, so therefore the Gospel of John can’t be true nor
can its claims have any bearing on me. Those sorts of ego judgments kept me trapped in myself and unable to
relate to God (who speaks through the Bible); those judgments kept me closed.
I totally agree that we should study the evolution of our traditions, to include whether they have become tools for
oppression. None of what I assert above contradicts the importance of critical study (hence the false opposition).
You raise an excellent concern regarding George W. Bush and his policies. After all, Bush claims to be an evangelical
Christian, yet one can legitimately argue that many of Bush’s policies are detrimental and potentially dangerous to
individuals in the US as well as to the world as a whole. In my view, we must always remember that the church
should be separated from the kingdoms of this world. Indeed, Donald Bloesch has asserted that the church must act
as a check on political oppression carried out by such kingdoms; the church should never align itself too closely with
political institutions for fear of being co-opted. I agree. When opposing immoral segregation laws, Martin Luther King
Jr. was a Baptist minister acting deeply out of his Christian convictions and faith.
While George W. Bush can espouse Christianity all he wants, the evidence of his faith will be found in his actions. It’
s up to the individual believer to sort out whether Bush’s Christianity is in fact credible. Further, your concern is of
huge importance regarding those who might take Bush at face value, saying to themselves, well, he says he’s a
Christian, so he must be and thus, I’ll vote for him. To be so simplistic about such matters can be dangerous, yet it’s
likely a real potential problem. Finally, Borg and Crossan are right about the need for historical perspective. I concur
that if people are uncritical of their society/culture/political systems, this can create real problems in trying to
determine what is true and right both for themselves and others.
Beach: Christianity seems to me to be a very anti-human religion denying human beings rational capacity,
community motivated ideals, and the capacity for progressive self-direction (with the exception of a “savior” figure).
You mention several times that you had to give up your ability to analyze, your critical thought, your ego, your “own
lights” in order to accept Jesus as your “Lord,” and that you are not “truly” who you are “supposed to be” without
Jesus as your “savior.” This seems to really denigrate the human being and imply an inherent deficiency within
human nature, which I completely disagree with. The Christian language you use is derivative of older forms of
monarchical assumptions, wherein, the unenlightened masses where always in need of direction and protection
from “above.” Why must we have “Saviors,” “Lords,” and “Kings of Kings”? Why cannot we learn to understand our
own human nature, use our brains, and collectively learn to live together somewhat peacefully and productively?
Why must we “submit” to God?
Williams: You raise important questions and concerns. In short, we must submit to God because that is how we are
created to live fully. Thus, we are not supposed to be egos on our own, but rather, we are to cooperate with God,
who leads us. I know this is hard to take, and in part, this is why I didn’t become a Christian for so long. Our egos
want to rule – the judging, analyzing, rationalizing side of ourselves that attempts to seize and control. Our
empirically oriented culture tells us that what is real must be objectively measurable and what most matters is
wealth and what is most important is our own self-aggrandizement. However, life as it is meant to be comes
through transcending that ego and finding our meaning in God and serving others, not in elevating ourselves or
gaining material possessions or rejecting what we don’t understand. Further, the ego judging side of us is only one
side – our bodies and minds are much more holistic, and God fills the deep need we all have.
The danger of a position that emphasizes human attributes alone is that authority is located falsely within the ego.
It’s an illusion that we can control our destinies, yet we try to through our reasoning and judging so as to find some
measure of comfort. However, peace will not come until we find right relation with the God who transcends our
egos. Those in other spiritual traditions realize the importance of ego-transcendence, they just prescribe a different
solution for the problem. Such ego-transcendence can be found in music, poetry, art – they free us from self-
preoccupation to be more fully present to our lives and circumstances. Ego-transcendence through art, music,
poetry, and other spiritual traditions is a partial solution while following Christ is the complete solution. Christianity
is not “anti-human” nor does it deny “human beings rational capacity;” instead, Christianity offers a life that
validates the whole person and not just his/her intellect.
Beach: I take exception to your comment on Ephesians. As I mentioned in my last question, the idea of “submitting”
to the greater power in order to find and experience one’s “true” self seems insulting to human beings, especially in
this case to women – and of course you failed to comment on the later passage in Ephesians (6:5) where Paul says,
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.” Both passages have been invoked by those in power
to deny women equal rights and to deny slaves and workers livable and just working conditions. You assume the
“God-factor” and thus your idealized interpretation of this passage disregards the world we live in where Christian
Promise Keepers deny their wives autonomy; where American women still earn less then men for equal work; where
South East Asian, Eastern European and Russian women are sold into slavery as “wives;” where Islamic
fundamentalists beat down woman for not being covered head to foot or for simply wanting to go to school. I would
call into question your highly subjective presupposition that “God is watching and keeping score” thus we as
humans need do nothing but submit to his will and wait for justice. This was the attitude of monarchists, slave-
holders, monopolists, and those professing Christians who told Martin Luther King Jr. to bide his time and wait for
the “Lord” to right the African American’s wrongs. Please comment.
Williams: By asserting, “of course you failed to comment on the later passage in Ephesians (6:5) where Paul says,
‘Slaves…,” you seem to be suggesting that I deliberately avoided commenting here. If so, you are incorrect. I don’t
doubt that passages from Ephesians have been used to oppress women and slaves; however, to do so is a mistake
and a distortion. As the saying goes, “even the devil quotes scripture.” Anyone can quote from the Bible and believe
whatever they want about what it means, but that doesn’t make such an interpretation accurate. Paul is not
seeking to advance oppression with these passages. Regarding male/female relations, he is establishing distinct
roles in which both men and women subordinate themselves to God (as I’ve explained previously re: Ephesians 5:
22-33). As for slaves, this should be understood in its historical context. Paul was writing to particular slaves and
advising them to obey their masters. Hence, Paul thought that not doing so in this case would be problematic; Paul
is not talking about all enslaved peoples for all times.
You assert that I “assume the ‘God-factor’” and that my “idealized interpretation of this passage disregards the
world we live in…” I believe God is as real as anything else; a fact of existence. That is my belief, and you are free to
disagree with it, just as I disagree with the counter-belief/counter-assumption that a personal God does not exist.
My view is not idealized, and I believe that husbands should not try to control their wives, slavery is wrong, and
Islamic fundamentalists are wrong to beat women for seeking education.
You write, “I would call into question your highly subjective presupposition that ‘God is watching and keeping score’
thus we as humans need do nothing but submit to his will and wait for justice.” First, I ask that you refrain from
attributing quotes to me that are not my own. I’m not sure whom you’re quoting here, but it’s not me. Second, this
statement is inaccurate on its face. I have not said that we should “do nothing but submit to [God’s] will and wait
for justice.” In fact, if my life is any indication, I have continued to seek knowledge and live my life as fully as
possible, both before and after my conversation. My post-conversion insight is that we are to cooperate with God in
our activities while placing him rightfully in authority over our lives.
Beach: You mention above that Paul was writing in a specific historical situation and that he was not writing to all
people at all times, and the logical extension of that statement infers that all of the language of the Bible is
historically conditioned, thus one should not use the Bible to justify intolerance, hatred, murder, slavery, dominating
women, killing disobedient children, stoning witches, and killing homosexuals all of which are sanctioned in various
parts of the Bible. Thus, as Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan argue, the Bible is a “historical” document, which one
can use to access “God” through tradition, but it should not be used as the basis or sole authority for living in the
21st century. You seem to be walking a slippery line between the fundamentalist’s belief in the sole and
fundamental authority of the Bible as the guide for living (no matter which century it was written in) and the more
sophisticated and socio-politically aware Christianity of the Borg/Crossan-school of historical criticism. Please
comment.
Williams: You’re on the right track in your understanding of what’s at stake here Josh, but you must be careful so
as not to oversimplify. The Bible is a very complex work written by multiple authors over thousands of years across a
multitude of historical/social/political/economic conditions. It is into those complex conditions that I see the stream of
God’s revelation inserting itself. Before I will accept your terms, you must establish them. Thus, I will not accept your
list above relative to the Bible until you make a case for your particular interpretative point of view. These are
complex matters that require complex treatment. Right now, you have asserted a number of elements you believe
are “sanctioned” by the Bible without providing any context or argument for why this is so. Next time, do so and I’ll
be happy to deal with any example you provide.
Your perception of what is at stake is accurate insofar as you raise the question of authority. I think that issue is
central. Thus, do we follow the guidance of our own egos, or do we follow God’s will, or do we follow some mix of
the two – what do we look to as a fundamental guide for our lives? In my view, we are to see God as our ultimate
authority – as the defining source of authority for our lives. The liberal theological position is to say that the Bible
itself is not grounded in divine authority but is just a record of experience. The problem with liberal Christianity and
atheism is that they minimize or eliminate God’s role while maximizing the role of the ego. Ego idolatry is the source
of sin and the very thing we need to get away from in order to be free to find life as it is meant.
My position (and the broader evangelical position) is to accept that the Bible is conditioned by different
times/places/events even as it contains the revelation of God’s truths. Parts of that revelation are only applicable to
the time in which they were given, and other parts are applicable for all times. The key to sorting this out is the
problem of interpretation. Thus, I (and evangelicalism more broadly) combine a belief in the authority of the Bible
with the importance of being socially and politically aware.
Are We Living in the 'End Times'?
Essay 3 - J. M. Beach: "Apocalyptic Eschatology"
Evangelical Christianity in its preoccupation with Jesus as “Christ” and the more modern obsession of literal
interpretation of the Bible has passionately given birth to a host of millennial schemes, whereby, the “end of the
world” becomes immanent. This eschatological urge seems to be ingrained in the very origins of the early
“Christian” communities whose devotion and love of Jesus not only exalted him into a messiah figure as the
“Christ,” but also transfigured the violent and unjust death of the revered teacher in creative tales and
compensating myths, whereby, Jesus as the “Christ” would return sword in hand, to cleanse the world of all evil
doers, banish the hordes of Satan into a fiery pit, and end human history in order to inaugurate a 1,000 year
triumphal reign of God before leaving the earth with the elect for an eternity in Heaven. The grandeur of this
delusion does not diminish the powerfully immanent emotional attachment that Christians have for centuries
attached to their desire for the divine to finally and for all descend and bring about the lost paradise of “God’s”
supposedly “original vision.”
The apostle John especially added theatrical flare to the mythological pretense underpinning his more fictional than
factual accounts of Jesus’ life. The metaphysical introduction of John’s Gospel is truly awe-inspiring and a testament
to the Greek influence on the early Christian communities. The divine, rational order of “Logos” comes down from
the heavenly realm of the ethereal firmament to become “flesh” and “live among us.” This is just one of the
wonderful metaphors that John invokes to mythically inflate the majesty of Jesus. John proves himself the most
literate of the four canonical authors, as he is steeped in the ancient traditions of Greece and Judea, and like Paul,
John pilfers the Jewish Old Testament for obscure passages to put forth as prophetic revelations of the “Son of
God.” One is told time and again in John’s Gospel that Jesus was not “of this world” and, thus, his significance lies
in a more perfect, heavenly realm outside the boundaries of earthly existence to which sinfully mortal humans must
aspire.
One is also confronted with another aspect of Jesus that is significantly lacking in the other Gospels and that is
“judgment.” In John 9:39 Jesus says, “I came into this world for judgment,” which while playing into the established
prophetic school of thought found in the Old Testament becomes, in relation to John’s otherworldly portraiture of
Jesus, a frightful glimpse of the angry tyranny let loose by Jehovah in days of old. In John’s Gospel it seems more a
threat than anything else. To use a vulgar paraphrase: “God going to cleanse this putrescent hell-hole of a planet
and you better be on the right side or else!” Thus, when John’s Jesus tries to back track a bit in John 12:47 by
saying, “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but
to save the world” it seems shallow and insincere, especially since Jesus, just one verse later, says, “on the last day
the word that I have spoken will serve as judge” (12:48). Jesus’ real message, John has made perfectly clear, is
that “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25), I am “God:” over and over Jesus says “I am he,” which is code for
accept me or else face judgment and eternal damnation.
During the trial of Jesus, John has Pilate rhetorically ask, “What is truth” (18:38)? Of course any close reader of
John’s gospel knows the answer, which is the very bedrock assertion of the Christian faith and the line perhaps
most quoted by modern Christian fundamentalists: Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me” (14:6). John metaphorically uses “truth” more than any other Gospel (1:
17, 4:23, 8:32, 14:6, 14:17) and explicitly sets up the chauvinistic and exclusive dogma that Christianity is the only
“true” faith and way to “God.” Thus, in an early fundamentalist fiat, it should come as no surprise when John
passes off his entirely fantastic and otherworldly Gospel at literally “true” (21:24).
It is in this same distortion of the notion of “truth” that John pens an even more perverse and outlandish tale of
“revelation,” “final judgment” and the “end of the world.” In The Birth of Christianity (1998) chapters 17 and 18,
John Dominic Crossan has persuasively argued that a “nonapocalyptic eschatology” existed within the early
communities of Jesus’ followers and that only later did a revisionist “apocalyptic eschatology” arise over fifty to one
hundred years after Jesus’ death, embodied in such documents as the Gospel of John and in John’s “Revelation.”
John’s Revelation deserves a place amongst the Greco-Roman pagan myths as a prototypical visionary drama of
contamination, ritual cleansing, and rebirth. But certainly anyone who would dare assert that what John described
is actually going to come to pass in the near future is completely bereft of sanity or tolerance. Thus, the whole
enduring notion of the “end of the world” and the modern Christian fundamentalist’s dogmatic expression and
adherence to this lunacy is one of the strongest and most obvious demonstrations of the deep psychopathology of
the Christian religion.
John, over two thousand years ago, thought “the time is near” (Revelation 1:3) and thus urged the underground
communities of Christians to bide their time and endure repression because the triumphal Christ would be coming
soon for revenge (1:7, 9). The first part of John’s “Revelation” seems no revelation at all, but merely a bunch of
violently dictatorial threats thinly veiled in the voice of Jesus as vengeful “God.” Over and over John’s “voice of God”
says, “repent” or be destroyed. John’s “God” decrees a totalitarian nightmare more horrible than any Christian
crusade to date: “I will give authority over / the nations; / to rule them with an iron rod, / as when clay pots are /
shattered” (2:26-27). Then the book deteriorates into a vengeful bloodbath of “trials” and “tribulations” because
“the Lamb that was slaughtered” (5:12) has come back to judge the earth and “reign” triumphal, and, incidentally,
to reward the chosen servants of “God:” For you have taken your / great power and begun to reign. / The nations
raged, but your wrath has come, / and the time for judging / the dead” (11:17-18).
The climax of John’s “Revelation” comes when an “angel of the Lord” decrees that the “beast” of Satan and his
hordes will be defeated and these demons and the whole earth will be judged in blood:
So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and he threw it into the great
wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine
press, as high as a horse’s bridle, for a distance of about two hundred miles. (14:19-20).
And this is the pacific Christianity of love and forgiveness? No rational person with a shred of decency could
condone this violent and genocidal program of extermination. John advocating a systematic destruction of the
“damned” seems no different than Hitler’s program of Holocaust or Neo-Nazi visions of racial cleansing (for example,
The Turner Diaries). John’s apocalyptic vision is a truly sickening and despicable instance of bloodthirsty intolerance,
but resonant with a host of historical geo-political campaigns of Christian tyranny, most recently the wars of
aggression by George W. Bush. Bush’s professed belief that he is a “servant of God” and his declaration of war
against the vague, spiritual enemies like “terrorists” and the “axis of evil” seem eerily reminiscent of John’s bloody
revelation. It would seem fitting if George W. Bush just came out and quoted scripture in Revelation as his ultimate
justification for war and American consolidation of power:
In righteousness he judges and makes war…He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God…From
his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine
press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “Kings of kings and Lord
of Lords” (19:11-16)
I do not think there is any better description of the Imperial motivations of George W. Bush than this, nor do I think
there is any other conclusion in the minds of fanatic, right-wing evangelical Christian fundamentalists than this
despicable bloodbath.
The human race must leave behind all primitive notions of catastrophic and violent destruction of “evil” if any rational
and just consensus is to govern the world. I think the time for uncritically celebrating the historically conditioned
apocalyptic visions of the past is over. Are we living in the end times? If George W. Bush and his administration
have their way the world will be engulfed in wars; America will turn into a police state with no government services
and poor education (unless your rich!); Christianity will be promoted as the one, “true” way to “God;” and the
environment will be rapped of resources and polluted beyond recognition to the point of catastrophic species
extermination and the untold consequences of Global warming. To the question, “are we living in the end times?” I
would reply, perhaps, perhaps. But I would add, it has nothing to do with “God.”
Conversation
Williams: Well, my friend, I sympathize with your concerns relative to the violent judgment of God as understood by
many evangelicals to be “coming soon.” The end of his world has been portrayed as a violent, cataclysmic event
that results in horrific destruction as a result of God’s judgment of those who have rebelled against him. I think
there are many ways in which you and I can clarify some important issues around this material.
I understand your worries regarding Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the destruction of the environment, and
America becoming a “police state” comprised of the poorly educated who lack “government services.” Do you think it’
s possible for evangelicals to hold to a belief in an end times judgment by God while still caring for the environment,
desiring to prevent war, advocating for government services and solid education?
Beach: Frankly, Patrick, I do not. For centuries one of the bedrock assertions of Christianity has been its dualistic
withdrawal from the actual, material-political world. The Neo-Hegelian critique of Christianity unearthed a great
insight into the aggressions and exterminations perpetuated in Jesus’ name. Basically, Feuerbach, Marx, and others
criticized Christianity as an “individualistic” religion that preached personal salvation and renunciation of the
material/political world because this world was “corrupt” and damned by God. You know the story. Christianity has
always been about “personal salvation,” and when evangelical, about “saving souls.” Mainline Christianity in terms
of the message communicated to the lay-people, as we both know, has never been concerned with the real politick
matters of this world. In almost every single historical example that I can call to mind, the call to reform the existing
world as a “mandate from God” has been met with resistance from mainstream Christianity and condemned as
heresy, which is ironic as the down-and-dirty, minister-to-the-poor, fuck-the-authorities-and-status-quo attitude of
most heretic reformers and revolutionaries is closer to the original mandate of Jesus. I think mainstream Christianity
from its very origins in the early church is a perversion of Jesus’ material message of “The Kingdom of God” is of this
world, in this world, embodied in real people. This has always been a revolutionary message. It got Jesus killed.
Its gotten a lot of other people killed as well (Martin Luther King Jr. & Oscar Romero are two very popularized,
contemporary examples).
Personally, Patrick, I feel you have an overly idealized and naïve view of what Christianity means and how it is
practiced, especially in the U.S. You might try to defend your “Christianity” with “band-aid” programs of prison
ministries, soup kitchens, missions trips, youth outreach, etc, but each of these programs are ultimately self-serving,
thinly veiled attempts to “save souls” and are not all that concerned with alleviating the socio-economic pain and
suffering of the body and exploited communities. And one of the most time-tested truisms of what I’m saying, ala
Bertrand Russell, has been the perverse and detestable stance of Christianity on sex. In the world we live in, it is
absolutely immoral and obscene to deny birth control and family planning, yet the church continues to do so.
Williams: Well, frankly my friend, I’m disappointed that you don’t think an end times believing evangelical can also
value the environment, seek to prevent war, and advocate for government services and education. I was hoping
that you would offer a thoughtful perspective as to how an evangelical might channel some of his/her energy into
“this-worldly” concerns; instead, you’ve taken a position governed by intellectual, theoretical considerations that
distorts your perceptions. Of course, an evangelical who believes in the end-times can support taking care of the
environment, seek to prevent war, advocate for government services and education. I am one.
I’m afraid that your bias against Christianity is compromising your ability to think critically. You offer valuable points
of view but then you over simplify them and reduce them into one sided, dogmatic positions. These issues are multi-
faceted and more complex than you’re allowing. For instance, of course there are Christians who have fled from the
practical realities of the world, but there are many Christians who embrace the problems of the world. Martin Luther
King Jr. was an ordained Baptist minister.
And what of this false opposition that you’ve set up between the Kingdom of God as being otherworldly versus the
Kingdom of God being “of this world, embodied in real people”? Of course it is. You assert that I “might try to defend
my ‘Christianity’ with ‘band-aid’ programs of prison ministries, soup kitchens, missions trips, youth outreach, etc, but
each of these programs are ultimately self-serving, thinly veiled attempts to ‘save souls’ and are not at all that
concerned with alleviating the socio-economic pain and suffering of the body and exploited communities.” On what
do you base this?
What you’ve offered is a sweeping generalization and oversimplification that outruns what you should claim in good
conscience. Your exhortation that people’s suffering and pain should be relieved is valid, but how can you reduce
the only concern to that of saving souls? I’m not an expert on Christian missions, but my understanding is that
missionaries work to achieve the holistic well being of those they minister to. Your one-sided assertion that all
Christians care about is saving souls and that they don’t care about other needs is utter nonsense. Your list
(“prison ministries, soup kitchens” etc.) makes my point. These are activities that meet peoples’ real needs where
they are, in the world. It’s not either/or. If you care about someone, you want to help the whole person. Of course,
if you believe that someone’s soul is in jeopardy, you want to share the gospel. But, if you love that person, you
also want to relieve their suffering. There are all sorts of Christian ministries all around the world that work for the
this-worldly good of others.
Beach: You are right, to some extent, about my over-generalizing and in places losing a grasp on the complicated
motives that go into any human action, but my general criticism about “Christian” motivations stands, and you didn’t
even try to address it. The militant atheist Christopher Hitchens, whom I respect in some matters and disagree with
him on many others, wrote a very good book on Mother Teresa (who is soon becoming a saint) exposing her work
with the poor as a self-serving mission to save souls for God and that alone. Mother Teresa admitted as much in an
interview with Hitchens. The Vatican Council, during their trial to evaluate the “saintliness” of Mother Teresa even
called Hitchens in as the “Devil’s Advocate” to criticize Mother Teresa and make a case against her life (of course his
council did not win the day). Here is a “holy” woman, a “saint,” by the most general of Christian standards and she
devoted her life to working with the poor, but what did she really do? Did she actually raise any individuals or
families or villages or societies out of socio-economic poverty? No. Did she try to alleviate the suffering of the poor
she came into contact with by constructing hospitals, family planning centers, job-training centers, modern schools?
No. What did she do? She mythologized the idea of being “poor” and told the poor that they were truly blessed
and would be rewarded in the next life, in the coming “kingdom of God.” All she did was save souls, and whatever
material comfort she might have given the various individuals that came into contact with her was a secondary
concern. Thus, I do make a generalization, yes, but based upon the creed-driven religion that you follow, the
primary mission of Christianity is to “save souls for Christ” and ministering to the socio-economic needs comes a
distant second – at best! And your uncritical and shallow invocation of Martin Luther King Jr. is a great case in
point. Martin Luther King Jr. was not initially interested in the civil rights movement. He was a Christian minister, as
you point out, primarily interested in being a minister and saving souls. For the first part of his career, King tried to
address racism and inequality through Christianity and the Southern Baptist Church, but he could do little and his
white superiors and fellow clergyman disapproved of his more radical opinions and his growing conviction in
organized protest. The official line of Christianity at the mid-point of last century was that every human soul (not
body) was equal before God and that reform, if it should come, should come eventually in “God’s time.” Martin
Luther King Jr. had to go against his church and join forces with the secular NAACP and other non-religious
affiliations (like the central role played by the radical, homosexual Bayard Rustin in the civil rights movement who
has been marginalized for several decades).
So, to return to my original criticism, but rephrasing: yes “there are all sorts of Christian ministries” that do “work for
the this-worldly good of others” as you say, but they do so primarily in order to “save souls for Christ,” which you
cannot deny. I have seen first hand or been told by people with first hand experience what goes on during mission
trips, prison ministries, aiding the poor via homeless shelters and missions, working with street kids, volunteering at
Job Corps, and various other “Christian ministries.” While the primary stance of “saving souls for Christ” does not
necessarily prevent or preclude addressing the socio-economic circumstances of the world’s “oppressed,” based
upon the tract record of Christianity, I think there is clear evidence for arguing that Christians more often then not
address and meet the needs of the “spiritual” first, and socio-economic problems second, if at all. And further, when
Christians do address the socio-economic realm, it tends to be through the value system of Christianity, thus when I
was a part of a missions-trip in my youth we went to Mexico not to built a school, but to build a mission and hold
“revival meetings.” Now at the mission, there was an orphanage for the handicapped, which meet the needs of say
10 or so children, but the institution was a mission built for training missionaries and serving the needs of the
church, not primarily for helping Mexican orphans. This is the predicament and what I consider to be the moral
pathology of Christian “ministries:” the “salvation” of the “soul” seems to be the primary concern, while ministering
to the needs of the body and addressing systematic injustice are not always addressed.
Williams: You write: “John advocating a systematic destruction of the ‘damned’ seems no different than Hitler’s
program of Holocaust or Neo-Nazi visions of racial cleansing.” Then, you move to connect such violent extermination
with the “wars of aggression” by President George W. Bush, asserting that both G.W. Bush and “fanatic, right-wing
evangelical Christians” desire to cause a “despicable Imperial bloodbath.”
First, however much you may dislike Bush, it seems a real stretch to try to compare the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
to the mass murder of the Jews by the Nazis. Second, I certainly don’t know of any evangelical Christians who
would advocate wholesale killing of the unsaved; thus, your comparison between the Nazis and the Bush
administration and “fanatic…evangelical Christians” doesn’t hold much water. Of course, there are a few mentally ill,
unbalanced people who claim to be Christians yet shoot abortion doctors and might advocate such violence; but, to
my knowledge, there are not many of them. Third, John’s Revelation is very different from Hitler’s Holocaust. John’s
Revelation is descriptive of an anticipated future event; the Holocaust was a proactive murder campaign that
actually occurred. Revelation used highly metaphorical, non-literal language; the Holocaust was replete with ultra-
literal, concrete language about who was to live or die based on purportedly racial characteristics. Finally, John’s
Revelation originated out of a persecuted, oppressed community seeking deliverance from their suffering; the
Holocaust was a murderous assault by a powerful imperial nation (Germany) upon their (and their neighbor’s)
minority Jewish populations. Thus, John’s Revelation and the atrocities of the Holocaust are in fact very different.
Beach: Ah, Patrick, now your logic and historical knowledge seem to be compromised. First, I do not compare the
Holocaust with Bush’s Imperial wars, but I do compare both back to John’s intolerant vision, which celebrates the
exclusion and execution of a categorically stereotypical group, the “damned.” You are right to say that John’s vision
is an “anticipated future event,” which is tantamount to saying a distopic plan of future genocide, and as such, it
has inspired and continues to inspire fantastic visions, which can very easily deteriorate into some nut-case’s
delusional rampage to actually enact a genocidal campaign. I’m not saying that most people who read Revelation or
the Bible and go out to kill people, but it has happened and continues to happen. Perhaps one of the most potent
historical examples was the militant arm of the U.S. abolition movement and John Brown in particular. Also, if you
read Revelation and the Neo-Nazi propaganda, race war inciting novel The Turner Diaries the similarities are
frightfully manifest. And people DO go out and act on The Turner Diaries, Timothy McVey (the Oklahoma City
Bomber) is perhaps the best well known. So what I’m saying is that Revelation fits within a “genocidal genre” and it
is, thereby, little different from Hitler’s plan for the Holocaust. I also think George W. Bush’s murkily defined foreign
policy of “axis of evil,” “preemptive strike,” and “war on terrorism” are also well within the genocidal genre and Bush’
s Imperial plan is a world catastrophe waiting to happen.
Your historical generalization of Nazi Germany is completely inaccurate, ironically enabling you to misread the
similarities between the Nazis party and the early church. The Germany of the Nazis was not a “powerful imperial
nation” as you describe, but more akin to the early church who you described as “a persecuted, oppressed
community seeking deliverance from their suffering,” albeit the nature of the persecution surrounding post WWI
Germany was quite different from the early church. I don’t want to go into a long historical lesson here, but as I
think you well know, Germany was one of the weakest Imperial powers to begin with, but lost its Imperial domain
after WWI, whereby, the drastically one-sided Treaty of Versailles put Germany into an economic straight-jacket,
which, combined with the U.S. stock market crash in 1929 felt the world over, handicapped the social democratic
Weimar Republic, which was never able to get off the ground, and this lead to very deep seated socio-economic
animosity percolating within the majority of Germans, which, combined with the virulent anti-Semitism using Jews as
a scapegoat for all of Germany’s ills (anti-Semitism already incubating in Europe for a thousand years due almost
exclusively to Christianity, see the great book by Jacob Katz From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-
1933) enabled a popularly elected Nazi party to push through the fascist Third Reich and Hitler’s reign of terror.
Similarities? The young disgruntled Hitler and his early Brown Shirt followers where a bunch plotting malcontents
who felt persecuted by a “Jewish/liberal conspiracy.” The Christians became a scapegoat for all of Rome’s ills and
were a persecuted minority. Hitler composed his epic Mein Kampf in jail. John composed Revelation while exiled on
island of Patmos. Both the Nazis and Early Christians composed fantastical, cataclysmic apocalypses that served to
exercise personal feelings of persecution, exclusion, and socio-political unrest. The Nazis, to the human race’s
infamy, enacted their despicable genocide. Elements of the Christian church are eagerly awaiting their opportunity
to do the same.
Williams: You write: “now your logic and historical knowledge seem to be compromised.” No my friend. You are right
to clarify that you were comparing the Holocaust and “Bush’s Imperial wars” with “John’s intolerant vision” and not
with one another. However, keep in mind that if A=B and B=C, it’s reasonable to infer that A=C. Your imprecision is
more at issue here, not my logic or knowledge of history. Ironically, you go on to assert that all three (Revelation,
the Holocaust, and Bush’s wars) fit into a “genocidal genre;” hence, you validate my earlier point about your
comparison between the Nazi mass murders and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I suggest you sharpen your own
understanding and your own explication of what you are trying to assert.
You write: “Your historical generalization of Nazi Germany is completely inaccurate.” My friend, you would do well to
embrace some humility. I’ve read Katz’s book, and your brief historical lesson is accurate, but beside the point. What
you fail to see is that when Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany (1933-1945), he was very much an imperial ruler
over an imperial power who nearly conquered much of the world. The similarities between Hitler’s supporters and
the early Christians are superficial at best when compared with the similarities between the Hitler’s Nazi Germany
and the Roman Empire. While a generalization indeed, the comparison between Hitler’s Germany and the Roman
Empire is historically obvious. I encourage you to focus more on the issues at hand my friend; I suggest you spend
less time criticizing my perspectives and more time examining and evaluating your own positions.
What “elements of the Christian church” are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to commit genocide in a way
analogous to the Nazis?
Beach: Yes, the mature Third Reich did have ambitions to be an Imperial power and conquer the world, you are right
on this point, but I stand by the coherence of my associations, which are not black and white equations (=), they
are simply comparisons. But by the very nature of your last question you seemed to have missed my point
completely: the coming “genocide” is the supposed “end-times” prophecy found in St. James’ “Revelation.” Now of
course this genocide will never happen because the “end-times” prophesied by St. James is only a myth – it will
never happen. But there are a significant number of Christians out there who do think the “end times” will happen
and when it does, the majority of the world will supposedly be cast out into the fiery pit of hell to burn for eternity.
That is my point. The illusion of St. John has been uncritically turned into powerful dogma, which too many people
take literally. This greatly concerns me because implicitly or explicitly the Bible advocates genocide and I don’t think
that is a value that we should be teaching our young.
Williams: I was fortunate to attend an excellent lecture by John Dominic Crossan on the subject of Revelation.
Crossan asked us to imagine what it would be like to have our children or friends or family members on a bus that
was blown up by a terrorist bomb. What would we want to do to the perpetrator? A few people tried to offer
sanctimonious and/or idealized answers, but Crossan pressed them – how would you feel, if your mother, brother,
sister, son, daughter was killed? What would you want to do? Examine your hearts, Crossan said. Many of you, he
continued after a pause, would want vengeance. Now, he transitioned, imagine that you are part of a persecuted
community, being oppressed by the Roman government. Your people are tortured and killed. Would you want
vengeance? Many of you would, he answered for us. Now, whether that’s right or wrong, that’s the motivation
behind the Apocalypse of Revelation. Whether we agreed or not with the bloody vision of Revelation, Crossan
wanted us to be sympathetic to the suffering that brought that book about.
Now, for Crossan, that’s all Revelation is – a historically conditioned book in which a persecuted minority wished
vengeance upon its Roman oppressors in symbolic language. From Crossan’s point of view, one might extrapolate
that the Christians who produced Revelation are more closely analogous to the Jews who were massacred by the
Germans than their Imperial Roman oppressors. Evangelicals would see Revelation more prophetically; that is,
evangelicals would see Revelation as being both about the past as well as the future. Part of what is so interesting
about Revelation is that the language is very much non-literal. I recall Marcus Borg talking in class and at my master’
s thesis defense about how fundamentalist evangelicals like Hal Lindsey interpret attack helicopters out of
passages that describe insect type monsters. In my own view, Revelation is derived from a vision of the future that
also spoke to the past, but I don’t think you can correlate current events with the details of Revelation.
Josh, you are an intelligent, thoughtful person who I both like and respect. What I don’t understand is how you
seem to have over-connected such different ideas together as if they are fundamentally the same? Granted, there is
violence and violent language that is common to all three of these scenarios; but beyond that, these are very
different historical occurrences. Why have you closely connected disparate ideas such as the Nazi extermination
campaign, Bush’s wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, and the Book of Revelation?
Beach: Because in my mind they are connected. Religious intolerance is closely connected with social and political
intolerance, which leads to discrimination, persecution, pogroms, death camps, and genocide. You mentioned the
episode with Crossan, which is a good illustration and allows one to sympathize with the psychology of the early
church, but it does not justify the book of Revelation or make it any less perverted. John’s Revelation is the product
of a violently delusional mind. I do not think there is any other way to evaluate the message of that book, whether
you believe it to be historically conditioned or allegorical, it still unequivocally sanctions genocide.
Such “visions” are dangerous, whether we sympathize with the delusional dreamer or not. History overwhelmingly
corroborates my argument. Let me take one current example as a point in fact. Over a half century ago the
Holocaust was happening and no “civilized” country cared to help the Jews, not even the U.S. Nothing was done by
the Allies to help the Jews and no country wanted a large influx of Jewish refugees. The only place remotely open
to a mass immigration was Palestine, which many Jews under the banner of Zion had been trying to fashion into
Israel. But, despite the Jewish myths to the contrary, Palestine already had an established community of
Palestinians and a minority Jewish population ruled by the Imperial English who were protecting their oil-rich cash
crop economies in the Middle East and the strategically important Suez Canal.
Religious luminary Martin Buber wanted a cooperative Jewish and Palestinian State, with an open immigration policy
to help save European Jews. Nobody was listening. British interests kept Jewish immigration to a trickle, thus the
large portion of immigrants who made it to the “Promised Land” were illegal, and the Palestinians where hostile
because the Zionist interests did not want cohabitation; they wanted a Jewish State and the Palestinians out. This,
as you know, has created the tragic situation, whereby, the oppressed Jewish community became in their turn
oppressors. Israel with implicit U.S. support launched a preemptive war in 1968, another preemptive war into
Lebanon in 1982 (where former Prime Minister Barak committed “death-squad activities” (NLR Sept/Oct 2003: 136)),
and a continual encroachment of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem via an aggressive and zealous settler
movement implicitly backed by the Israeli government, which has now lead to a large, concrete wall being built on
Palestinian land to protect Israeli interests. The state of Israel has become an aggressive entity, stealing large
amounts of land illegally and relentlessly persecuting the Palestinian population, often killing innocent civilians while
bulldozing the economic lively hood of an entire people.
While I agree that individual Palestinians have perpetuated numerous horrors via suicide bombers, the Palestinian
people and Islam are not the root causes of the violence in Palestine. Even pro-Israel sources like The New York
Times and Newsweek have recently acknowledged this fact. The pro-Bush Interventionist Fareed Zakaria titled his
Aug 25, 2003 Newsweek column, “Suicide Bombers Can Be Stopped.” In the article he wrote: “we treat suicide
bombers as delusional figures, brainwashed by imams. But they are also products of political realities.” Zakaria,
unlike most other pro-Israel media analysts asked, “What had made this conflict one that moves people not merely
to kill but to die?” And here I want to end this historical lesson with the proposition that “ends must justify means”
and “means must justify ends.” The bloodthirsty revenge fantasies of bloody discrimination and elimination of whole
populations found in the babblings of St. John, John Brown, Hitler, or William Pierce open the way for delusional
fanatics to incite violence and to kill. Look at the political realities of Israel where an oppressed community
metamorphosed into a violent State oppressor and the perverted “ends” of a greater Israel tantamount to the
“political genocide” of the Palestinian cause. Projected socio-political-religious ends must reflect positive human
values, thus, no more revenge fantasies, no more apocalyptic Revelations, no more final judgments, no more
“damned.”
Williams: You write regarding Revelation: “But certainly anyone who would dare assert that what John described is
actually going to come to pass in the near future is completely bereft of sanity or tolerance.” And, you write (the
quote from Revelation 14:19-20): “No rational person with a shred of decency could condone this violent and
genocidal program of extermination.” One of the lessons of my master’s thesis (in which I interviewed 19 evangelical
Protestant Christians) was not to take evangelicals “too literally” (an expression of my friend Chris Anderson); thus,
I must recognize that a disconnect existed between stated beliefs and actions. In other words, I found that
evangelicals who believed things I found objectionable (i.e. that unless one believes in Jesus as their savior, he/she
will be eternally damned; that God through Jesus will come and judge the world in the end-times) were some of the
most kind, loving, honest, humble, and real people I’d ever met. Hence, there was a huge disconnect between the
beliefs I found to be problematic and the actions I found worthy of admiration. As a result of this, I couldn’t help but
realize that evangelical Christians and evangelical Christianity are much more nuanced and complex than I’d
previously thought. Do you accept this disconnect between beliefs and actions? How do you understand it?
Beach: Yes, you are certainly right on the mark, but the “disconnect” does not necessarily translate into
benevolence. My father was a fundamentalist Christian and, while on the whole a loving man and a good father, he
could be an intolerant bigot and authoritarian brute. While he never had the power to inflict his intolerance or
authoritarianism outside his family, I certainly felt the brunt of his tirades and was told more than once as a thinly
veiled threat that “sinners where going straight to hell.” Like I mentioned in Chapter one, I was also later
condemned by my father and told I was going to hell because of my vow of atheism. All atheists, as any good
Christian fundamentalist will tell you, go straight to hell. It is basic Christian dogma. I have also been confronted by
many other Christian friends, family, students, and strangers with the same sentiment. So, while many people have
told me that a fiery lake awaits me when I die, I am aware of the impotent “disconnect” of these intolerant head-
cases and I have been able to deflect the message from the intent of its author and not take the threat of hell
seriously. But this does not justify the root intolerance and violence at the root of many people’s understanding of
Christianity. Condemning someone to hell is a form of psychological violence; it is a type of ideological fascism. But,
yes, in the U.S. there is a “disconnect,” all things considered, however, think about fundamentalists with the same
type of intolerance and violent religiosity in Pakistan, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt to name a few hot spots.
Given a certain type of socio-political atmosphere that “disconnect” can easily disappear. So while I will agree that
there is a certain “disconnect” between ideology and action in most mainstream Christians and fundamentalist
Christians, I still think the intolerant and implicitly violent strains of thought within the Bible and Christian discourse
are a lurking psychosis and a potential threat to anyone critical of Christianity.
Williams: You write that belief in the end-times “is one of the strongest and most obvious demonstrations of the
deep psychopathology of the Christian religion.” What is the essence of this deep psychopathology?
Beach: First and foremost is the attitude of “world denial” that most Christians display. Christianity has always
been about putting faith and hope in another world and waiting for that world to come, which of course, ironically, is
directly opposite of Jesus’ original message. It has taken Christianity 2000 years to acknowledge this world and the
human body as real certainties and not tainted, transient vessels, but even so most Christians still place the
emphasis of their lives outside this world and outside of the human body. I think that is a psychological sickness
and it is a root cause of a lot of the social and environmental problems we are faced with. Particularly psychotic is
the “end times syndrome” that allows a lot of Christians to passively accept social-political ills as fated and
ultimately up to God to deal with, specifically George W. Bush’s opportunistic, short sided, and damaging
environmental policies are a great example of an unbalanced mind. Either Bush is a completely cynical opportunist
and liar or he actually thinks this world will soon perish when Christ returns in triumph. Either way, destructive
nonsense!
Williams: You write of John’s Gospel: “One is also confronted with another aspect of Jesus that is significantly
lacking in the other Gospels and that is ‘judgment.” You have taken a richly nuanced and complex text - spiritually,
theologically, and literarily insightful - and radically oversimplified it. John’s gospel contains many, many elements,
but I would argue that it argues more for the importance of love than anything else. Real, authentic existence is
found in Christ; without that one will suffer dislocation as a result of being separated from true life. This is
descriptive of reality, not an enthusiastic condemnation. John’s gospel is about the value of following God in Christ –
what that looked like in Jesus life and how it can play out in all of our lives. There is the element of conflict between
the early Christian movement and the Jews; it is out of this conflict that John is writing, so I concede there is forceful
“judgment” language that you find objectionable; however, that is only a part of this rich gospel. John is telling the
story of the incarnate Son of God through the rich narratives and theological truths that come with his insights as an
apostle and original disciple of Jesus Christ. Each gospel writer brings his own unique perspective to bear as he tells
this most important of stories. To assert that the essence of John’s Gospel is judgment seem to me an
overstatement and a misrepresentation; John’s gospel is most centrally about love and how to be in right
relationship with God in order to live a life of freedom as one was created to do. Here are some examples from John’
s Gospel to illustrate that it is most centrally about love and the life-giving relationship with God through Jesus
Christ.
Jesus offers assurance to his followers because He and God are with them: 1) “Before long, the world will not see
me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will realize that I am in my
Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and
show myself to him.” John 14:19-21 (NIV); 2) “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you
as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14: 27 (NIV); 3) “Do not let your
hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14:1 (NIV) Thus, Jesus is telling his followers how they
might live calmly and authentically through relationship with Himself and God. Here Jesus emphasizes the
importance of love: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one
another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 (NIV)
Hence, Jesus commands that his disciples must love according not just to feelings but also to actions. To follow Him
as Lord means one must Love; it’s a command, not an option.
In John 10:10b, Jesus explains his central purpose: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
This is the essence of the Gospel of John and the essence of the Christian faith as known through a relationship
with God in Christ. As Jesus asserts: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 31b-32) and “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever
believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37b-38). The
relationship with Jesus then as now is about authentic existence and freedom.
One of my favorite passages in all of Scripture occurs in John’s Gospel Chapter Eight: the story of the woman caught
in adultery. Jesus challenges the crowd ready to murder her: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to
throw a stone at her.” [Gradually, all her accusers and would-be murderers depart, and Jesus asks,] “Woman,
where are they? Has no one condemned you?” [She responds in the negative.] “Then neither do I condemn you,”
Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:7b-11). I could go on and on, but suffice to say that the
Gospel of John is clearly about much more than judgment. Further, there are such rich concrete details and points of
spiritual truth that, agree or disagree, I don’t see how you can dismiss this work as “fantastic and otherworldly”
unless there is something else being brought to bear. Quite frankly, my hunch is that you must be operating from an
assessment colored not by the actual text of John, but rather, from the painful place of wounded-ness resulting from
your experience of judgmental and narrow-minded Christianity as evidenced by your father and others close to you.
How do you understand your reduction of John to being centrally about judgment and not about love and “full” life
as found in Christ?
Beach: First, you have misread my criticism. When I criticize the Gospel of John I do so in larger context than you
seem to be able to admit, i.e. in relation to his other book Revelation, and thus I am addressing his corpus as a
whole. I agree that John, who often refers to himself in his Gospel as the disciple whom Christ “loved,” makes the
issue of love an important theme. But I would argue that his Gospel is overshadowed by the theme of “judgment”
as no other Gospel is, especially when one considers the message of Revelation – and yes, my own preoccupation
with this aspect of John’s message has been influence by my own negative experiences with Christianity. However,
I find your argument for “love” naively superficial, which is indicative of most Christians who intellectually hide from
the implications of Revelation. The same author penned these two books, thus, you cannot read one without being
cognizant of the other. I find your preoccupation on “love” to be representative of your own interpretation of
Christianity in general: you select and focus on what you want to, you do not engage the larger literary or historical
context, and you ignore those passages and texts which run counter to your argument or have socio-political
interpretations outside your own. I will admit that my readings of Christianity in this chapter have been one-sided,
but one-sided for a point: there is an explicitly intolerant and exceptional attitude in the Gospel of John which leads
up to a genocidal furry in Revelation. Yes, this is not the whole story of this writer, but it is an important part. And
my emphasis has been to draw attention to the disgusting and dangerous objectives within the texts of John and
Christianity as a whole. Sure there is a “disconnect” as we discussed earlier, but in my mind the Bible promotes a
pathological and violent sub-text, which with certain frames of mind or in certain socio-political contexts can be a
bomb waiting to go off.
And the Bible and Christianity should not bear the exclusive brunt of this criticism. I think fundamentalism in general
is a pathological state of mind: explicitly dangerous and implicitly violent because there is embedded intolerance and
violence in every major religious tradition’s texts and theology. Look to India, Pakistan, and the Middle East and
you will find countless examples of violent fundamentalism. Look at the U.S. and you will also see a violent Imperial
fundamentalism at work as well. Are all Americans violent Imperialists who want to conquer the world? Absolutely
not. In fact, most Americans seem to deny that the U.S. is involved with any Imperial ventures at all. But every
American implicitly reaps the benefits of living in the richest country in the world, which is dependent upon
aggressive Imperial foreign policies, and most Americans have a strong patriotic identification with U.S. aims and
objectives in the world, although they remain blissfully ignorant of U.S. violence perpetuated around the globe.
Thus, one cannot blame the black-and-white minded fundamentalists who condemn all Americans as Imperialist
aggressors, or conversely, the black-and-white minded fundamentalists who sincerely believe that the whole world
wants to be just like (“us”) the U.S. In both cases you have pathological attachment to a “fixed idea,” which has
little to no corroboration with the actual state of the “real” world and this fanatical attachment to religious or
political dogma becomes the colored blinders used to “see” the world in one, and only one, way – the “right” way.
Thus, this moral attitude readily encourages intolerance, and given the violence lurking in human nature, it can
explode into discriminatory campaigns that can in turn lead to more drastic and despicable measures. Take Ann
Coulter’s lunacy for example. Not only does she proclaim that only one political party has the right to exist in the U.
S., but she has flatly stated, “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals,
by making them realize that they can be killed too” - this in a speech before the Conservative Political Action
Conference in 2002. Now we both know that Ann Coulter is an obscene opportunist and mentally off balance, and
we can both admit that there is “disconnect” in the majority of dogmatically Republican head-cases, but Coulter is
threatening to kill liberals simply because they are liberals. That scares me. I don’t like to think of myself as a
marked man, but according to both the dominant political dogma of Conservative Republicanism and mainline
Christianity I’m doubly “damned.” How is this supposed to make me feel? What if someone came up and told you,
Patrick, because you are a Christian and politically conservative you deserve to not only die, but also burn in hell for
eternity? How would that make you feel? Safe? Secure? Consider my predicament as a politically radical atheist
and tell me I’m misreading the situation.
Williams: You write: “…you have misread my criticism. When I criticize the Gospel of John I do so in larger context
than you seem able to admit.” My friend, I suggest you watch the arrogant and condescending language you are
directing toward me. It doesn’t bode well for your arguments or for you as a person. Plus, it seems disrespectful and
obnoxious. So let us return to your original criticism: You write: “I agree that John, who continually refers to himself
in his Gospel as the disciple whom Christ ‘loved,’ makes the issue of love an important theme. But I would argue
that his Gospel is overshadowed by the theme of ‘judgment’ as no other Gospel is, especially when considers the
message of Revelation.”
First, before we consider Revelation, let’s make sure that we understand the Gospel of John. John and Revelation
are two different texts with different themes and purposes. I’m happy to deal with context relative to John and
Revelation, but I’m not going to accept your oversimplifying one text into the other unless you make a much
stronger case. Right now, your analysis of both texts leaves something to be desired. I’m glad that you recognize
the importance of the role of love as a theme. However, I think your point about judgment in John’s Gospel is an
oversimplification and even a distortion of that Gospel, which seems to rely almost totally on your interpretation of
Revelation; it’s unpersuasive.
Your charge that John’s Gospel is “overshadowed by the theme of ‘judgment’ as no other Gospel is” is simply
inaccurate. To test your claim, I grabbed my NIV Study Bible and flipped it open to the Gospel of Luke. Starting with
Luke Chapter 4, I flipped through Luke’s Gospel looking for Jesus giving references to judgment/negative
consequences, stopping at Chapter 14. Here are a few of the passages that I found:
• “I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.” Luke 10:12.
• “But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you
be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths.” Luke 10:14-15.
• “But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw
you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” Luke 12:5
• “I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Luke 13:3.
• “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Issac and Jacob and all the
prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out.” Luke 13:28.
See also Luke 6:45-49, Luke 8:9-15, Luke 8:16-18, Luke 10:16, Luke 12:8-10, and Luke 12:47-48.
Based on this, I don’t see how the Gospel of John is any more judgmental than the Gospel of Luke; thus, your claim
is incorrect. My original intent was to go through all the gospels, but such a move seemed unnecessary after
reading through the Gospel of Luke. I suggest you pay more attention to the charges you make and the evidence
you use to support them.
You write: “I will admit that my readings of Christianity in this chapter have been one-sided, but one-sided for a
point: there is an explicitly intolerant and exceptional attitude in the Gospel of John which leads up to a genocidal
fury in Revelation.” What are you basing this on? I sympathize with your concerns re: fundamentalism and
Americans being unconcerned with US foreign policies. Plus, I don’t know if Ann Coulter is mentally off-balance, but I’
d say she’s obnoxious, arrogant, and unsophisticated in her thinking.
I’ve been told I’m going to hell before, and I don’t like it. So, I suspect it doesn’t make you feel very good either. For
my part, I wouldn’t pretend to be sure about who is going to hell and who isn’t. It’s not for me to decide. One of the
dangers of making such judgments is that it inevitably locates a person’s focus on another and away from
himself/herself; that’s nearly always problematic because our own faults are the hardest to see.
There is wisdom in your words my friend, no doubt, and I’m learning from our engagement. And, I’m valuing our
dialogue greatly. But, the wisdom in your words is mixed with sloppy and incoherent thinking that does not do
justice to your very valid and real concerns. Perhaps you should take more time in processing and synthesizing your
arguments. I encourage you to embrace some humility lest your prejudices against Christianity blind you like the
prejudices of the fundamentalists you argue so vehemently against.
Beach: Good stuff, here Patrick. But let me make a few clarifications, which you seem to be dancing around, but I
do not see how I have been refuted by your responses: yes, you are right in saying that “judgment” does play a
role in all the gospels to some extent, however, Mark, Matthew and Luke did not go on to pen the disquieting
teleological fantasy found in “Revelation.” Also, and I know you know this, there is considerable evidence that Mark
was written first (some 50-75 years after Jesus’ death) and that Mathew and Luke where based off of Mark’s
original text, but John’s text, which is the latest Gospel narrative included in the Bible – written some 100 years
after Jesus’ death – seems to have been written independently from the other three gospels. John’s gospel is the
most “mythological” and factually suspect, or another way of stating this would be to say that John’s gospel is the
most “creative” and it really stresses the point that Jesus was “God” (hence the repetition of “I AM”). Your point
about Luke does nothing to disprove my argument that “judgment” is an important theme in John. It seems to only
strengthen my case that an exclusivist emphasis on judgment is central to Christian dogma. We will let that
argument stand for another day. My point has been that “judgment” is an important part of the gospel narrative of
John and John carries that theme of judgment to a disgusting conclusion in “Revelation.” Now while this does not
encourage Christians to practice genocide, it does leave an implicit “narrative of genocide” at the core of Christian
exceptionalism, which I find to be both disconcerting and potentially dangerous – and we both know that while the
majority of Christians do not aggressively seek to send the “damned” to hell, there have been small and large
campaigns to this effect throughout history. That’s my point. I don’t see how my argument is problematic, however,
I will admit that I have been personally discriminated against and condemned by Christians for my views in the past
and this has lent a certain passion and rhetorical arrogance to my position for which I apologize if it has gotten out
of hand. As I have said before in our conversations outside of this book, based upon my personal experiences with
intolerant individuals (especially American Christians) I tend to be very intolerant of “intolerant attitudes or
positions.” While you have been entirely just and kind in our friendship, I do carry a certain apprehension with
regards to your deepening commitment to evangelical Christianity, and I have found your uncritical attitudes
towards several important issues to be very disconcerting.
Essay 4 - B. Patrick Williams: "Maybe"
We might be living in the “end times;” however, what is important is that we first seek to love God and then one
another. Jesus says that God’s most important commandment is to: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31 NIV). Our end-times beliefs must be
evaluated according to this standard of love. Humility and seeing with open eyes are called for, not a simplistic and
egocentric correlation between current events and God’s final judgment.
By “end-times,” I mean the prelude to judgment by God that will result in the destruction and transformation of the
world, as we know it. There are two broad evangelical positions relative to the end-times: dispensationalist and
reformed. According to dispensationalists, God will “rapture” the saved church off the earth and then bring a
powerful and violent judgment to bear upon all those who remain. Eventually, the earth will be destroyed and Christ
will come back to judge and reign as king. Ethnic Israel will play out a special role in the advancing of God’s
judgment (c.f. Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology pp. 859-861). Today, dispensationalist-evangelical Christians
anxiously watch current events as anticipatory signals to the end times.
In 1998, I attended a presentation by a prophecy speaker named David Hocking who spoke at a Calvary Chapel in
Corvallis, Oregon. For me, the presentation was (and is) quite shocking. Hocking used contemporary (1998) clashes
in Israel to explain how signs of God’s judgment were unfolding in the Holy Land. Within less than a year, said
Hocking, there would be a massive jihad against Israel, a holy war the likes of which had not yet been seen (which
never materialized). Further, Hocking suggested that there was an unholy alliance between the Roman Catholic
Church and Yasser Arafat. The Vatican had given Arafat permission to yell from the roof of the church of the nativity
that Jesus Christ was not really a Jew. Hocking proudly boasted that when an environmentalist asked his feelings
on the environment, he (Hocking) answered that his Bible told him that God was going to blow up the world, so he
wasn’t much concerned about the environment. My impression of Hocking’s presentation was: bizarre, simplistic,
and arrogant. Yet, there must have been something powerful, as I recognized intelligent people from college classes
who sat mesmerized as Hocking eagerly railed against Muslims and Catholics while celebrating the coming
destruction. I still cannot see how this could advance the cause of love for God and one another.
We must be honest about the fact that people have been expecting an end-times judgment by God for 2000 years.
For instance, during the Black Plague that occurred in the middle 14th century, many suffering Europeans believed
that given the deaths of “25 to 50 percent of the population” and resulting “economic, social, political and cultural
upheaval” (Jackson Spielvogel Western Civilization pp. 367-368), God must be in the process of executing His final
judgment. According to Jackson Spielvogel’s Western Civilization, “World War I shattered the liberal, rational society
of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. The incredible destruction and the death of almost 10 million
people undermined the whole idea of progress” (928). Some saw this carnage as the beginning of God’s end for the
rest of humankind and the world. Whenever there is unfathomably cataclysmic, life-altering destruction, some
assume that the final judgment of God may be near. However, we must realize in all humility that God’s timing is not
our timing.
The danger of obsession with the end is that it can distract us from focusing on what’s important in the here and
now. If we’re obsessed with what might possibly occur, we might become implicitly or explicitly world-denying,
focusing our attention and energy upon what we anticipate will happen when God brings judgment instead of what
we can do to love God and our neighbor most effectively right now. No matter how enthused David Hocking may
have been (and probably still is), correlating current events and the “end times” has failed for 2000 years. God’s
judgment of the world is not up to us; but we can make the world a better place through loving God and each other.
Given Israel’s role in carrying out God’s plans for the end, there is a danger that dispensationalists will support
aggressively pro-Israeli policies regardless of merit. While there is no doubt that the situation in and around Israel
is a difficult and complex one, I don’t think the USA should sanction Israeli activity in a knee-jerk fashion. In light of
Israeli aggression against the USS Liberty in 1967 and near aggression against US Marines in Lebanon 1982-1984,
we must remember that Israel looks out for itself first, sometimes even at direct US expense. Thus, the US must be
free to act according to the good of peace in the region; this may well not be in harmony with Israel’s political aims
and ambitions.
According Wayne Grudem’s explication of reformed theology in his Systematic Theology, apocalyptic language (like
that found in Revelation or Daniel) is not clear enough to establish a one to one correspondence between current
events and God’s bringing about of the final end. Instead, Grudem recommends humility in light of the ambiguity of
these unclear textual references, suggesting “it is wise to have some tentativeness in our conclusions on these
matters” (860-861). He asserts that in the reformed view, there is not an unfolding role for Israel in the end times;
rather, Grudem suggests that the old role appropriated to Israel has been shifted to the church (861-864). Moving
from this to my own view, I believe Christ will come to judge and radically transform the world, but we have no idea
when that will be or exactly what form it will take so we’d best be about the business of loving God and one
another until He comes.
In taking a reformed position that is uncertain about the exact time or nature of Jesus’ second coming, we can set
aside the question of “when is the end” and use current events to turn our hearts back to God and one another.
For example, the current president of the United States seems to some to be a systematic liar (“Bush’s Other Lies”
by David Corn, The Nation, Oct 13, 2003). George W. Bush claims to be an evangelical Christian yet leads us rushing
headlong into a war to seize weapons of mass destruction, only these weapons were never found. People have
died (and continue to die) fighting in Iraq, yet it seems clear that the biggest beneficiaries have been corporations
who stood to make money on the war. Further, the US appears to be fighting an urban guerrilla war with too few
troops who are too poorly trained to accomplish their mission. Given the number of attacks, why not add 150,000
troops to the occupation force in Iraq while replacing the National Guard forces with well-trained US Army and
Marine Corps infantrymen?
Across the America, there is a widespread and harmful “idolization” of the individual self through various forms of
“excess” – drugs, alcohol, sexual and physical abuse to name a few. Instead of making taking a “world-denying”
position by overly focusing on the end of the world, which can distract us from the present or make us politically
dysfunctional (supporting Israel and US Policy regardless of justice or merit), Christian faith can draw believers to
look at our current cultural, political, historical situation and reflect upon how a just God would see it. Would God
value the ways in which Americans seem to be racing to make money at the expense of others, taking drugs to
escape from reality, killing and damaging one another with violence and neglect, making idols of selfishness and the
acquisition of material possessions? Perhaps we as Americans especially can set aside end times worries so as to
focus upon current events that lead us to a greater awareness of the importance of loving God and each other.
Conversation
Beach: Patrick, first of all I agree with all of your critiques of the “end-times” movement within evangelical circles. I
remember as a kid growing up in a fundamentalist Christian church that our pastor would every year around
Christmas give his “end-times-prophesy” update. It really captured my imagination and my father was really gung-
ho about it. His library was filled with people just like Hocking. I know we have both read some great articles on
this phenomenon and that we share similar concerns. However, you stated, “I still cannot see how this could
advance the cause of love for God and one another” in relation to the presentation of Hocking. As I have mentioned
before, you seem to have an idealized interpretation of Christianity based on “love,” which while admirable (and a
interpretation that I largely agree with ethically) I don’t think that it is representative of mainstream Christianity nor
does it mesh with the social and political attitudes and opinions of most Americans. Given the overwhelming
popularity in America of Hocking’s simplistic, arrogant, and morally ambiguous at best “end-times” racket (espoused
by many different voices and in many different mediums – movies, novels, essays, speeches), how would you
evaluate mainline Christianity’s obsessions with this topic? Do you think it’s more prevalent in fundamentalist
and/or evangelical circles? And if you do not consider yourself sympathetic to this ideological position, how do you
deal with it, criticize it, and work to counter its – to my mind – morally bankrupt and potentially dangerous
implications, especially within the Christian community that you operate within?
Williams: Excellent questions Josh. There is no question that the focus on the end-times is more prevalent in
fundamentalist and evangelical Christian circles. I am sympathetic to following God’s will and believing that Christ
will come again; I am unsympathetic to those who think they can accurately correlate current events with the arrival
of God’s judgment.
To me, the danger is in becoming sidetracked from the real suffering and pain in the world so as to fixate upon some
futurist fantasy expectation of the end-times. To an extent, such a focus is harmless and can even be motivating –
such as, in a similar way, a powerful story like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings can be the source of individual motivation.
Moreover, the Christian can draw hope from the expected return of God who will bring healing and peace to this
troubled world. However, if such a focus pulls a person unhealthily away from the day-to-day concerns of life, then
there is a problem. If one forgoes attending to work and the needs of one’s family because he/she is obsessed with
the end-times, then an unhealthy escapism has resulted. Also, I’m leery of political decisions being based upon
abstruse texts of scripture. For example, blindly supporting Israel at all costs because of religious convictions is a
mistake: support for Israel should be based upon justice and need, not preconceived religious affinity grounded
upon unclear texts for support.
When faced with the end-times, I want people to think more complexly about it. I want them to see that just
because they might think that certain current events correlate with scripture, this does not mean that the end is
upon us. Humility, as in some many areas of life, is required. Evangelicals should see that there is a multiplicity of
perspectives on the end and the coming judgment of God.
Beach: My question for you is “how?” How would you, or do you, as an individual who professes evangelical
Christianity, but who also professes a critical rationality and who has a good understanding of history, how would
you direct the attention of fellow Christians to “think more complexly about” the end times narrative, the idea of
judgment, and the exclusive tendencies that these issues bring about?
Williams: Excellent questions. I would (and do) try to get Christians to see that what is here, now, and present is
more important than wondering specifically how the end-times will unfold for three reasons: the greatest
commandments are to love God and others; we really have no idea as to when the end will come so it’s useless to
speculate; correlating current political events with end times prophecies is questionable at best. To focus on the
end-times is problematic because it diverts us from loving God and each other in the present unless it is connected
to God’s bringing a just conclusion to the pain and suffering in this world. So, my aim is to get Christians to love God
and each other now while realizing that basing speculative beliefs on what may happen is a diversion from what
God actually calls them to do.
God calls us through Jesus to love our neighbors and God most of all. On the importance of loving each other,
Brennan Manning writes beautifully (p.136 in The Ragamuffin Gospel):
The way we are with each other is the truest test of our faith. How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-
scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal
confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the anti-abortion sticker on the bumper of my
car.
We are not pro-life simply because we are warding off death. We are pro-life to the extent that we are men and
women for others, all others; to the extent that no human flesh is a stranger to us; to the extent that we can touch
the hand of another in love; to the extent that for us there are no “others.”
Thus for the Christian, loving God and loving others goes hand in hand.
If we spend our time focusing on how the end will unfold and when, we are distracted from love, our primary
mission and duty. As a result of catastrophic events (Holocaust, WWII, Black Plagues), people have been expecting
the end-times for 2000 years; as such, it’s foolish to put a lot of energy into anticipating “when” and “how” it will
occur. Scripture indicates the day of Christ’s return will occur unexpectedly (Luke 12:40, Mark 13:33), and I see
nothing indicative to the contrary. To attempt to specifically connect current political events to the end-times is a
waste of time. Instead, one should focus on trusting God to take care of the future while working to follow God’s will
for today by loving Him and others.
Beach: You mention an end-times “obsession” and state that, “we must realize in all humility that God’s timing is
not our timing.” This seems to imply that while you do not go looking for Jesus’ return under every stone as it were,
you do believe that historical events will at some point come to produce the end of the world and herald Jesus’
return. You stated, “I believe Christ will come to judge and radically transform the world, but we have no idea when
that will be or exactly what form it will take so we’d best be about the business of loving God and one another until
He comes.” Now while this position focuses on an admirable worldly attitude of “loving your neighbor” it also seems
to reflect an ostrich with its head in the ground, trying to hide from stark social and political realities and denying the
frightfully negative implications of the evangelical belief in an end of the world scenario. I don’t see you really
addressing in a critical spirit the morally ambiguous at best “revelation” surrounding the end of the world and that
disturbs me. Specially, it seems to me that you believe that I’m going to be judged by a vengeful God when the
world ends (or when I die), and that most likely I’ll burn in Hell for eternity – baring, as my parents never forget to
tell me, my later return to the Christian fold once I realize my apostasy and reject my hateful atheism, which I
always tell them will never happen. Personally I think you’re crazy and delusional (for while I can concede the
existence of “God,” this end-times business is too much) and I’m concerned about how your delusions might effect
both your commitment to rational criticism and ethical living. Please comment.
Williams: I don’t find anything frightening about a belief in the second coming of Christ and final judgment of God;
such occurrences are not up to me, so all I must do is follow God’s will as best as I can determine it. If I am loving
both God and my neighbor then I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I have no plans to hide or avoid the
concrete, practical events of life in today’s world.
Thanks again for this dialogue Josh. I really admire your honesty and your willingness to carry on in conversation
with me like this. As you know, when I first read your charge of me being “crazy and delusional,” I took it personally,
and felt disrespected. However, after your thoughtful email response in which you explained you didn’t mean
disrespect but were only being honest, I feel much better. It really is an amazing thing, this honest dialogue
between us. You’re right – some knees may get skinned in the process, but better we be honest.
Plus, reading your shock and dismay at my end times belief reminded me of the time (before I was a Christian) when
History Professor Gary Ferngren told me he believed in the inerrancy of scripture; I had taken a big drink of water,
and I almost spit it up all over him, I was so amazed, probably not unlike you are with my end times beliefs. So, it’s
with a smile that I can accept your assessment that I’m “crazy and delusional.”
Beach: Good. I’m glad I did not offend you. I was only trying to be honest and some positions really tax my
credulity. And let me remind you that its my personal opinion that we all, myself included, operate on a daily basis
under the influence of illusionary ideological schemas, but it is my own opinion that it is dangerous to take ones’
illusions too seriously, which can lead to a state of delusion where illusion is mistaken for reality. With that said, I
don’t feel that you have fully addressed the central concerns that I’ve raised in this and the last chapter, so let me
restate them: 1) can you appreciate how the apocalyptic vision in “Revelation” can be disconcerting and ethically
questionable from my perspective? 2) Can you appreciate my concerns about how certain ethically questionable
themes in “Revelation” can be potentially dangerous if read literally or read by a deranged mind? 3) Can you tell me
how your personal belief and faith in “God’s love” can ethically challenge and disarm the exclusivist and intolerant
Christian position that “one must accept Christ or burn in hell for eternity?” 4) The last question is the most
important to me at this stage and I ask that you take it seriously and answer me directly: based upon your
understanding of Christianity and the Bible and based upon your own convictions, do you believe that as an atheist
that I will be condemned to hell (your answer could have two parts if your own convictions differ somewhat from
mainline Christian dogma)?
Williams: Josh, I really value you and the honesty of our dialogue. I’m glad you’re willing to slug it out with me and
keep doing this despite the difficulty of these issues. Such dialogue is meaningful and powerful, even in
disagreement.
Thanks for bringing me back on point here.
Regarding question #1 above: yes, I can see how the vision in Revelation “can be disconcerting and ethically
questionable” to you. I used to find it so myself.
Regarding #2: yes, I can see how Revelation might be dangerous if “read literally or read by a deranged mind.”
Regarding #3: Separation from God is hell. If one is without a close relationship with Christ, one is missing what is
most central. That said, it’s not up to me or any Christian to decide who will be saved or damned eternally. The
Christian is to love, first God and then all others. Loving God and loving others is inextricably bound together. This
can be accomplished whatever one believes about the eternal destiny of a person. So, faith in God and belief that
God will save some for heaven and damn others to hell does not contradict the command to love others. God’s
business is the business of saving and damning; our job as Christians is to love.
Question #4 asks: Will you, Josh, be “condemned to hell” when you die because you’re an atheist? My answer: I
don’t know. Your salvation is God’s business and yours, not mine. Hell is separation from God; if you continue to
reject Him, I’m not sure how He can view that as anything but rejection. However, God’s ways are not mine. He is
beyond our understanding, and I believe when He judges you, He’ll take into consideration every aspect of your life.
Those things will be weighed as will the state of your heart; how He does that, I cannot comprehend, but it will be
just.
You are a bright man, Josh, and you care about others’ intellectual and material needs. I believe God values that in
you. You know, I would love to see you become a Christian because your gritty focus on real suffering and need
would shake up complacent Christians in good ways. However, right now, your systematic interpretation of reality
through an empirical, psychological, and rational lens while barring anything supernatural limits your growth and
shuts out the God who seeks to know you intimately and redeem you from all your hurts and longings and
sufferings and fractures, physical and emotional.
My advice is that you open yourself to truth, all truth. If you do that, God will draw you to Himself and transform you
and your life; he’ll heal you and give you new purpose. C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity (p. 65): “But the truth
is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are [non-Christians]. We do know that no
man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through
Him.” Salvation is not something humans can claim to fully understand. While you appear to me to be out of right
relationship with God both now (and as a result) after death, my prayer is that God will draw you to Himself. In the
end, whether you are saved or damned lies with him and none other.
On page 83, you raise my “idealized” treatment of Christianity and love; in doing so, you’re onto something
important. I’ve been arguing for the ideal Christian and the ideal Christianity. However, I must be clear that in
reality, Christians and Christianity are often anything but ideal (to include myself). While many Christians are great
people, many are selfish and judgmental; most are some mixture of the good and the bad. The world is indeed
fallen. Sin, pain, and suffering exist everywhere.
The Christians who are so judgmental in your experience – those who are arrogantly sure who is going to hell or
heaven, or claim they know exactly what God’s will is for a given situation while displaying no humility – they
embody a distortion of the true, most real Christianity that I’ve been arguing for. True Christians acknowledge their
errors and mistakes, seeking to be humble before God and others. Nobody does it perfectly; we all fail, but some of
us try our best to die to our selfish selves while living for God and others. We are all works in progress; God isn’t
done with us yet.
Someone close to me recently left, with much hurt and pain, a church that has been “home” for several years. I was
told that more hurt had been caused by Christians in this person’s life than non-Christians. For me, as a Christian,
this grieves my heart. It’s sad and pathetic that those who claim to follow Jesus could be such bad representatives
of Him and His love. It’s no wonder that you and others would react so negatively to Christians and Christianity. My
hope is that you and others will experience a love and an authenticity through myself and others who, flawed
though we are, still seek to demonstrate the blessings of His Kingdom.
Who or What is 'God'?
Essay 5 - J. M. Beach: "The Idea of God"
I would like to open my discussion of “God” with a quote from the mystically oriented “depth psychologist” C. G.
Jung (who, it can be argued, evolved into an explicit Christian apologist). Late in life the religiously sympathetic
psychologist Jung began a dialogue with the Jewish theologian and mystic Martin Buber. Buber had criticized Jung
and other Western philosophers, most notably in The Eclipse of God (1952), for denying the ultimate reality of the
“absolute essence,” which Buber called “God.” One of Jung’s replies to Buber is as follows:
It should not be overlooked that I deal with those psychic phenomena which prove empirically to be the bases of metaphysical
concepts, and that when I say, for example, “God,” I can refer to nothing other than demonstrable psychic patterns which are
indeed shockingly real…It is certainly not the task of an empirical science to determine the extent to which such psychic contents
are influenced and determined by the presence of a metaphysical God-head…I do not doubt his [Buber’s] conviction of his living
relationships to a divine Thou, but I am, as always, of the opinion that this relationship first of all goes to an autonomous psychic
content which is defined one way by him [Buber] and otherwise by the Pope [emphasis added].
Jung, in all his sympathy with the religious object of communing with “God,” found it possible to talk about and
assert only what could be empirically verified. Thus Jung always emphasized the human “soul” seen through the
depths of the human mind as the only empirical verification of “God’s” existence – but every psychic consciousness
experiences “God” differently, and all the world’s religions have always been at variance due to the very nature of
subjective human experience. Jung believed in “God” and was most assuredly a “spiritual” person, but he could not
discount an important dilemma: the historical question surrounding both the existence of “God” and the supposed
reality behind all of the various explanations of “God” hinge on the notion of human consciousness and subjectivity:
for the human being, “God” can be experienced and known only through human experience.
Let us go back in time and selectively explore the root issue involved in Jung and Buber’s dispute. In 1807 the
German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel published his experimental Phenomenology of Spirit. It was Hegel’s early (and
most radical) attempt to formulate his idealist philosophy, which was to become a systematic attempt to explain the
eternal “spirit” (“God”) as it manifested itself in history, specifically in individual human beings through
consciousness. Early in the book Hegel writes, “the word ‘God’ [by] itself is a meaningless sound, a mere name; it is
only the predicate that says what God is, gives Him content and meaning.” Thus, Hegel went on to argue, if one
wants to “know” the metaphysical reality or being behind the empty word “God” then one must empirically examine
the physical manifestations of “God” through the linguistic predicates defining the particular characteristic or action
of “God.” This basically means that if one wants to say “God is self-consciousness,” as Hegel believed, then one
would define “self-consciousness” and trace its physical embodiments and, thereby, come to an empirically verifiable
knowledge of what God is like through a knowledge and experience of self-consciousness: the metaphysical idea of
“God” gets meaning through the physical instances of self-conscious being.
Hegel wanted to move away from purely metaphysical speculation in order to empirically verify the existence of
“God” through a systematic exploration of how “God” (Hegel used the term “Spirit”) actually existed in the physical
world through history and human consciousness. Hegel believed this would give theology a concrete, human
meaning. Hegel considered himself deeply spiritual and an advocate of Christianity, and he wanted a simplified,
rational, and material conception for the basis of his faith. Hegel knew that all notions of “God,” especially the
Judeo-Christian concept of a “Personal God,” were highly subjective, rationally hard to explain, and ultimately
beyond conscious human experience and, by extension, human language. One couldn’t really ever “know” or
“express” the all-encompassing totality of ultimate and eternal being, which is the basic conception of “God.” To
theorize “God” as human consciousness, Hegel thought he was simplifying theology so as to give “God” a concrete,
physical presence in people’s lives and, thereby, a new significance.
And in effect he was. But Hegel also opened up several avenues that could be exploited in unforeseen ways, as the
radical group of Young Hegelians exemplified in their religious and political criticisms. First, by acknowledging that
“God” was but an empty word signifying the grand totality and ultimate reality of being that was completely beyond
human comprehension, Hegel seemed to be saying that humans can never really know “God,” and thereby, never
prove “God’s” existence, which in effect could be used to defend agnosticism or atheism. Second, if the ultimate
reality of “God” is beyond human comprehension then all religious expressions of “God” would seem to be only
approximate and humanly fallible, thus, all religions would be human approximations of the reality of “God” and
would be, thereby, equally imperfect and inadequate: “God” is beyond any human conception so no one religion can
accurately convey the reality of “God.” Third, an agnostic stance recognizes that “God” cannot be proven to exist
and thus, one can elect for faith, seeking confirmation of “God” through select, personal experiences taken to be
manifestations of the holy. But conversely, what if one denied the existence of “God,” denied faith, as Karl Marx had
done, and focused exclusively on the material ground and phenomenal value of experience? Then, the empty idea
of “God” could be rejected in favor of the predicates of actual experience - the ideas that can be confirmed through
life, like consciousness, love or justice, because these ideas are full of practical value and power for human beings
trying to live human lives. And while the concepts of love, truth, justice, and equality have all been articulated as
metaphysical absolutes, they can also be apprehended and worked towards as psychological “Ideals” that can be
realized in particular applications. Thus, in exchanging the unknowable “God” for comprehensible “Ideals,” human
beings could begin to glean a sense of freedom and power with which to actualize the idealized predicates of “God”
into actions that could make ideas come to life in concrete material purposes. “God,” radically defined as “human
potential,” becomes a possible, but not necessarily probable reality that can inspire human agency and action.
One of the most convincing and original exponents of this philosophy was Benedict de Spinoza who in the 17th
century wrote, “The only end I strive to attain is to be able to taste union with God, produce true ideas in myself,
and make all these things known to my fellow men.” Spinoza argued quite convincingly, although for his time
heretically, that “men judge things according to the disposition of their brain, and imagine, rather than understand
them.” The power of religious iconography in theology, art, and philosophy are all human products of “vivid
imagination,” thus, Spinoza argued, so called “divine” revelations, the basis of most religions and religious
experiences, are nothing more than products of the powerful faculty of human “imagination.” Spinoza went on to
write, when humans disagree over differing religions or religious experiences they are not arguing about “God” or
“the Holy Spirit,” they are just arguing about the products of “human invention,” which “they shield under the false
name of divine zeal and passionate enthusiasm” in order to “propagate the most bitter hatred.” The point, Spinoza
argued, was that every human being would have a different interpretation of God actualized differently in individual
lives and, thus, tolerance should be the prime moral directive governing religious experience, as no one individual or
group had the exclusive, infallible interpretation of “God.” Judging, censoring, and killing in the name of “God”
seemed to Spinoza the height of human impiety and stupidity.
I would like to stop at this point and combine my brief introduction to Hegel, the radical critiques of Hegel, and my
short discussion of Spinoza into a single theological position, which will serve as my basic theological world-view.
Let us call this theory the Agnostic-Humanistic Theological Position: 1) “God” is the utterly unknowable all-
encompassing totality of ultimate and eternal being; 2) human beings try to explain “God” based on human
experience and through language; 3) these linguistic explanations are derivative of the human brain and are,
therefore, not “divine” revelations, but products of human reason and imagination; 4) all religions and religious
experiences are highly subjective and purely human interpretations of the unknowable “divine;” 5) Because “God” is
unknowable and can only be experienced through subjective human experience then all religions and religious
experiences are equally valid as personal experience, but have no claim to authentic knowledge or proof of the
“divine” and, thus, no one religion or religious experience is THE exceptional description or way to “God;” 6) human
beings exist on a material earth and live in earth-bound societies and are, thereby, constrained by the natural laws
of science and the human laws of particular societies, which means all value and meaning bear direct relation to the
material conditions of existence; 7) human beings create all “value” and “meaning” - these very concepts are only
applicable to the social environment of human beings on the planet earth - and, thus, humans have the ability to
destroy, revise, or create new values, meanings, and social structures, the process of which is empirically
documented through the annals of history.
This theological position has been more or less articulated in many diverse forms throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries and it opened the way for the first “psychologists” like William James, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung and later
psychologists like Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow, and Eric Fromm to scientifically explain the religious impulse
primarily as a highly subjective, mental experience. Both Nietzsche and Freud thought the religious impulse to be an
“escape” from reality, thereby, an illusion that masks empirical reality, which can become a “delusion” denying
reality altogether. James thought the religious impulse a more positive expression of human nature then Nietzsche
or Freud could admit, but James still considered religion to be a highly subjective, “human” experience based on
“passion,” “wants,” “susceptibilities,” and “capacities.” James called religion an “enchantment.”
In 1957, the cultural anthropologist Mircea Eliade surpassed James and argued for an even more sympathetic
explanation of religion. Eliade described religion as a human “construction,” a “mental universe,” an “orientation,”
that created a “sacred” understanding of the multifarious material universe into an ordered “cosmos” (“the universe
that man constructs for himself”), which serves as the basis for understanding reality and as a guide for living.
Eliade described religion as an affirming, willful, and creative act, although hints of Freud’s original pronouncement of
“world denying” are still traceable: “religious man wishes to be other than he is on the place of his profane
experience. Religious man is not given; he makes himself.”
Gordon Allport discussed religion in terms of “sentiment” or personal “interest-systems” by which he meant an
individual’s ideology and, thus, Allport argued that religious experiences are as numerous as individuals. Allport
argued that a religious orientation (ideology) integrates experience and provides meaning and motives, and further,
the imaginative illusions of the human mind generate the energy required for humans to become “agents” and,
thereby, allow for successful action and creation in the midst of a determining environment: “beliefs” generate
“energy,” and “faith” becomes simply a belief based on “probability.” Likewise, Abraham Maslow defined “God” as
human possibility known through “peak experiences” that create ideals or goals, which people aspire to. These
ideals or goals create meaning and value, which motivate people to act, develop their full potential, and create a full
life: in Maslow’s words, “full humanness” is the actualization of “the spiritual life” within “our biological life.” Finally,
Eric Fromm, in a purely secular and humanistic manner, reached the same conclusions. Fromm believed there is “no
spiritual realm outside of man” and that the religious impulse is about human beings actualizing their “inherent
potentialities,” attaining freedom and consciousness. “God,” Fromm argued, is but a symbol of human capability, an
expression of idealized human potential, which provides a “powerful source of energy:” “God is I, inasmuch as I an
human.”
William James and the philosopher John Dewey were careful to separate between the “personal” and the
“institutional” aspects of religion, which later psychologists like Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow and Eric Fromm
theorized in more detail. Basically, as Eric Fromm relates via Karl Marx and Freud, individual humans create their
own religious universe, which becomes an objective reality transcending its human origins and, thereby, it begins to
have a life of its own. Thus, subjective, personal ideas of “God,” which are fluid and imaginative become fixed,
canonized idols worshiped as reality, enshrined in dogmatic rituals and texts, and these give rise to powerful
institutions that often limit human freedom in the name of sublimated motives determined by doctrinal or
ecclesiastical authority. The personal religious experiences of truly exceptional human beings like Socrates, the
Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad all become transformed into institutionalized dogma (often in open defiance of the
teacher’s original message) and become vehicles of thought control, indoctrination, and mass disillusion - almost
always towards the end of a consolidated secular political power. In every case, institutionalized religion detaches
itself from the ever-changing material world and solidifies a rigid, conservative world-view with which to interpret
reality (and it is these highly partisan and rigid ideological platforms that have given rise to various criticisms of
religion as “delusion” or “detachment from reality”).
To end this discussion of “God” I would like to turn to one more philosopher: Immanuel Kant. In the 18th century
amidst rising doubts, Kant wanted to affirm religion, but he made an important distinction in his skeptically rational
philosophy. He knew that no one could ever prove the existence of “God,” thus, there never would be any
justification for claiming one religion as the only way to experience “God.” So Kant separated the physical and the
metaphysical realms. For metaphysical questions, Kant argued for “faith” in “God:” humans must act as if “God”
existed. For physical questions, Kant argued for “faith” in reason: humans must act as if they were free to rationally
determine their own life. Kant took this position of “faith” because he believed that both “God” and the absolute
ideal of “freedom” must exist for morality and progress to exist. In The Varieties of Religious Experience William
James noted Kant’s position and wrote that even though words and theories about “God” are really empty
approximations based on subjective human experience, religiously motivated humans act as if “God” existed and,
thereby, order their lives according to this presupposition in positive ways. James was puzzled, but decided to give
religion the benefit of his doubt: religion could be an illusion, but the overwhelming majority of human beings
seemed to have some religious position. Could all these people be deluded, James asked? Likewise, James
pressed, human reason and science could answer a lot of human questions and did conclusively debunk a lot of
religious fantasy. What place does reason have in religion?
In these questions James set the tone for a century of religiously sympathetic, scientifically literate scholars who
asked: Mustn’t there be some ultimate truth, some ultimate reality behind all these religious experiences and world
religions? Science can explain much, but it cannot explain everything and science can also be short sided or overly
reductionist, so isn’t it possible that the deeper, more complicated recesses of reality lay beyond science’s reach?
These scholars posit a basic presupposition that says, “yes, ‘God’ must exist” (for varied reasons) and then they
theorize and act as if “God” in fact existed. Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s
Religions (1976) is a classic example of this line of thought and it is a commendable book.
But to return to my position: where am I, the agnostic or “atheist,” in all of this? Well I’ll balk in discussions of “God”
and in different company take different stances because I believe “God” to be only an idea, the reality of which (if
there is a reality behind this concept) is completely beyond the human faculty to understand. The intellectually
honest position is to say, no one can (or perhaps ever will be able to) prove beyond a doubt that “God” exists or
does not exist. I can admit that and I am pleased when others do too. Personally, I have chosen against all
theological forms or explanations of “God” and this has lead me to the Agnostic-Humanistic Theological Position, as
noted above, which is infused with psychological explanations of “God” directed towards human ends.
Based on the evidence that I have collected and on my own personal experience, I have decided to take the flip
side of the Pascalian/Kantian wager and live as if “God” did not exist. This makes me, under strict definitions, an
“atheist” – one whose life is not centered on a “God.” I am more concerned with the profane world then with the
sacred. I have devoted my life to teaching and guiding students through this life, facing very real and terrible
worldly problems, and trying to make a positive difference on this troubled earth. Am I wrong or deluded in my
atheistic position? Only “God” knows.
Conversation
Williams: Josh, I’ve got to say, I’ve enjoyed this essay the most by far. You present interesting material and raise
interesting points. There is cohesion to your thought that is very clear, especially your theological position. Through
our dialogue, I’m getting a better sense of who you are and why you think as you do. Finally, I really enjoyed the
section on Spinoza. He is an able thinker with a keen mind.
I’m glad to see that you concede the subjectivity of your own view around God. Frankly, I don’t see how your
perspective is anything but purely subjective and even a bit narrow minded contrary to the evidence. In deciding
that God doesn’t exist and then operating as if He doesn’t, you are systematically shielding yourself from any
evidence to the contrary. In part, you do this by privileging your empirical and psychological bias, ruling anything
deeper and more complex that can’t be clearly explained. Sure, God may be subtler and more complex than you
might like, but that doesn’t mean He’s illusory. Please comment.
Beach: I can concede that my position is “subjective” if you will concede that your position (as well as any other
position a human might take) is “subjective” as well. I have volumes of argumentative, empirical, and speculative
thinkers to back my position up as well as what I consider to be a good argument against the existence of a
personal “God.” And what do you have? What is the “evidence” that you refer too? Yes, you too could refer to
myriad sources of argumentative and speculative thinkers, but your whole ideological position rests on an
experience and an “ultimate” ground of being that is completely unverifiable or knowable outside your own
subjective experience. Your “faith” rests on a “revelation” of “God” that you have personally “experienced” and
even though millions of people might say, “I believe in God” those same millions might also say, “ I believe in free-
markets,” or “I believe that America is the best country on earth,” or “black people are just inferior to whites” or
“the federal government is run by Jews” or “aliens exist.” There is a fine line between corroborated experience and
a mass delusion, and that fine line must be secured by reasoned analysis, empirical evidence, and a healthy
debate. Sure, I can accept that millions of people believe in “God” and I cannot argue away your personal faith or
experience. But you cannot claim that your experience is “real” in any type of concrete or transcendental sense
outside your own subjectivity because there is no concrete evidence outside subjective experience for “God,” nor
can you claim that your “revelation” revealed through the Evangelical Christian religion is the “only” way to “God” or
the “only” religious experience, and here those millions who believe in “God” will find out just how different their
personal conceptions are.
I will never exclude any “evidence” that I deem authentic and I have not cut myself off from contrary positions or
“evidence” as you claim. Our vary dialogue is a case in point. What you seem to be forgetting is that I was an
Evangelical Christian far longer than you have been and I am thoroughly familiar with the Evangelical Christian
worldview. I have encountered enough empirical and argumentative evidence to conclude that not only is
Evangelical Christianity personally unpalatable as a religious doctrine, it is also extremely narrow minded,
exclusivist, and aggressive in its tendency to “convert” others to its doctrines. I am very much “open” to religious
experience and various religious orientations, and even though I cannot admit to being an adherent to any one
systematic faith, there are traditions like Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Zen that I find very appealing – as
well as mystical traditions like Kabbalah and Sufism. I am open to deeper, complex truths that might be un-
quantifiable or hard to comprehend through our reasoning faculties, but any and all “truths” or otherwise need to
have an empirically and logically founded basis in reality established through a critical and learned community of
committed and open-minded researchers. Aliens might exist, but until I see some evidence and concrete
arguments, I’m not going to give it much thought as I go about the business of living my life.
Williams: You speak of Jung referring to conclusions and modes of inquiry like psychology, which can be “empirically
verifiable.” What do you mean by that? Granted, I’m a layman in this, but Jung’s views have always struck me as
fascinating as well as highly subjective – certainly many (the collective unconscious for one) are not even close to
empirically verifiable. In fact, I think one can argue that psychology has been largely theoretical and speculative up
until about the last 20 years. Sure, psychological theories by Freud and Jung have explained data, but behavioral
psychologists like Ellis and cognitive psychologists like Beck have been the first to reach actual empirical conclusions.
Please explain how Jung is empirical in a way that bears on your theological position?
Beach: First of all, I did not say that Jung’s psychology is empirically verifiable. What I did say was that Jung
wanted to empirically study and verify religious experience. And I agree, Jung was highly subjective and I must
admit that I reject almost all of his psychology as metaphysical babble. However, both he and Freud (and I disavow
most of Freud’s theories as well) through psychoanalysis were seeking to empirically research and verify the inner
recesses of the human mind to try and know (and separate) subjective perception from objective phenomenon. You
are right to be critical of early psychologists for the field began as an offshoot of philosophy branching off into
empirical medicine. The German doctor Wilhelm Wundt wrote the first textbook Principles of Physiological Psychology
in 1873-74, which thereby influenced many first generation of American psychologist/philosophers like Granville
Stanley Hall, William James, Charles Pierce, and John Dewey who tried to separate the concepts of 1) “mind” or
“consciousness” from 2) the biological “brain.” Psychology in many ways was an amalgamation (especially with the
birth of psychoanalysis and then depth psychology) of philosophical speculation and empirical research well up to
the 1970s when the biological “brain” field really started to define psychological studies. I mentioned mostly
philosophical critiques of religion and religious experience in my essay because we are having a philosophical
argument and I presented arguments and counter theories to explain divergent, secular conceptions of “God.” I
hope this distinction is clear.
Williams: I enjoyed reading your theological statement of belief. However, I’m curious as to what has made you
conclude that God is totally unknowable? You seem to be assuming this and not establishing it. Then, you move
from your assumption to conclude without offering any criteria that “all religions and religious experiences are
equally valid.” Do you really think so? Are child sacrifices just as valid as Buddhist meditation? Is the Jonestown cult
on a par with Native American Religion?
Beach: The idea that “God” is utterly unknowable is a bedrock concept in almost every major world religious
tradition, especially Judaism and Kabbalah (“God” did not even have a name in the Old Testament). I defined “God”
and said that if a material being of that description exists then we could never know it, or at least we could not
verify it conclusively. Let me phrase this in a way intimately related to your own personal religious experience. I too
had that conversion experience to Evangelical Christianity that you had. I too accepted Jesus into my heart and
made him my “savior.” I had visions of Jesus, God, and heaven. I “felt” what I considered to be “God’s” presence
and I felt the “love of Christ” as you no doubt refer to. I was baptized by water and I was baptized into the Holy
Spirit. The later experience was supposed to give me a “gift” and I had “felt” that perhaps my gift was prophecy,
not so much as in telling the future, but in teaching others. Of course with each of these experiences I was aware
of my own mental projections and I was never fully satisfied with my “spiritual” walk with Jesus, nor with many
ethical and political connotations of American Christianity. I came to know myself responsible for my religious
“feelings.” I found my many personal “revelations” and “intimations” to be nothing more than my active imagination
and my own will to believe. It eventually all wrung completely false and I rejected the whole pretense as subjective
inspiration directed by a manipulative, yet caring and devotional communal structure. And as I have come to believe
now, the actually subjective essence of religious experience is not necessarily false (as it seems personally “real”),
but that the kind of religious experience promoted by Evangelical Christianity was personally distasteful because it
was uncritical, narrow-minded, exceptionalist, arrogant, intolerant, and dangerously manipulated by cynical political
forces (i.e. Republican politics). If I had wanted to retain my belief in “God” I could have transferred my allegiance to
another religious tradition, but after studying all the major (and many minor) religious traditions, religion in general,
and many other related issues, I decided to leave religion behind for a secular world view.
When I say that all “religious experiences” are equally valid, I am talking about the subjective, life-affirming,
personal experiences that are the basis of most world religious traditions. I am not talking about rituals,
institutions, or dogmas. Once we cross this line, then you will find my stance much more critical. Morality exists
independently of “God,” it always has and always will. Morality, simply put, is the ground rules, the “laws” of a
people. It is my personal opinion that morality should be democratically criticized, evaluated, and agreed upon, and
that it should also be revised.
Williams: I did an independent study with Marcus Borg on the subject of psychology and religion. In our study, we
read Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections and most of James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience. As I recall from
conversations with Dr. Borg, both men conceded that there was something authentic in religious experience and
suggested that God operates/communicates through the subconscious (James) and the collective unconscious
(Jung). Of course, any personal experience is subjective to a degree, but here are two men, James and Jung,
inferring based on their study of human behavior and experience that there is something more than the human
psyche at work. How does this square with your theological position?
Beach: You are right. Both men where deeply religious (or rather deeply “spiritual” and really anti-traditionalist),
not in a small part because both had deeply religious fathers and family and they both were raised in deeply
religious/spiritual societies. And I would agree that there is something un-quantifiable at the core of not only
human existence, but at the center of life, as it exists in its multiplicity on this planet. We as humans are only just
beginning to understand the relational ecology that guides all life on this planet. I think we’ve come along way from
the superstitious and doctrinally rigid 19th century, and I don’t think we need to invoke worn spiritual or religious
metaphors. Yes life is complex, and yes scientific materialism is but one way to apprehend the complex beauty of
life. Yes, we do need other ways to see and understand life, religious vantage points included. But, as James
would formulate in his great philosophical platitude, “Pragmatism,” we must always and forever shy away from
arrogantly assured, single-minded, dogmatically conceived, exceptionalist views of reality. James argued, and I
agree, let us have a “Pluralism” of views. Let us embrace the complexity and grandeur of life and not reduce it
entirely to some metaphysical speculation or to some dogmatic creed.
Williams: Several times, you refer to religious belief as delusion. I find this very interesting especially given that I’m
well rooted in reality as near as I can determine. What most strongly causes you to see religious belief as delusion?
Beach: Good point, although it is my personal opinion that you are quite an exceptional case of the American
Evangelical Christian. You are perhaps one of the most “rooted in reality” Christians that I have met, but this does
not mean that we see eye to eye on what “reality” means. I would refer you to a section in a book that I just
finished last year, but which remains unpublished, Towards a Philosophy of Poetry: Essays on Culture, Subjectivity,
and Ideology. Basically I argue that the human mind through imagination (and I refer you to the section on Spinoza
in this essay) creatively interacts with reality, i.e. consider children at “play.” For me this is a defining experience for
all of humanity, as I would argue we never leave that state of “play” as adults. We continually invoke our
imagination creatively interacting with reality all our lives. The problem comes when we take our imaginative “play”
too seriously, forget the that our images are self or communally created, thereby, reifying them, and thus we can
become a victim of a delusion and mistake our imaginative “play” for reality – sometimes with disastrous
consequences, sometimes with no negative effect at all (and here I would refer you to the story of Don Quixote,
which I devote some time to in the book Towards a Philosophy of Poetry).
Williams: You oversimplify about Socrates, the Buddha etc. having followers who take original teachings and turn
them into “vehicles of thought control, indoctrination, and mass disillusion – always towards the end of a
consolidated secular power.” Can you be more specific and move away from this universal, over-generalizing
language that assumes too much and states too little.
Beach: I don’t think that I am over-generalizing at all. Buddha told his followers specifically, I’m not a deity and you
must find your own path to Nirvana. What happens, a great part of the Buddhist tradition deifies the Buddha and
doctrinates his path. We could go into each specific context and more, for they all have the same outcome, but we
really don’t have the time in this conversation. I will simply say that I will address the specifics of my interpretation
of Jesus in an upcoming chapter of our project, which I’m sure we will discuss more in depth.
Williams: You are your most sympathetic to religion after discussing the possibility that “science can also be short
sided or overly reductionist”; hence, you indicate some scholars suggest that perhaps there is a “deeper, more
complicated…reality…beyond science’s reach?” Then, you mention Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth, and conclude, “it
is a commendable book.” I was glad to see this. Why is Smith’s Forgotten Truth commendable? How do you
understand Smith’s contention that there is more? How does this square with your theological position?
Beach: Specifically I commend Smith’s criticism of “Scientism,” which I agree is a potent, yet misguided ideology. Of
course this has nothing to due with “science,” as “Scientism” is really a perversion of the scientific method.
Scientism is overstepping the bounds of human reason and declaring our way of seeing is the only way of seeing
the world. As you know I do not favor this type of epistemological arrogance. I respect much of Smith’s project, but
I disagree with many of his conclusions, especially his pessimistic and fatalistic conclusion that humans are
powerless to control their “progress” and thus implying that we are at the hands of some absolutely powerful
“God.” Rubbish! And I find that this type of attitude really prevents a lot of people from realizing that our material-
historical position in life is the doing solely of human beings and that if we want better, then we must create that
better- there is no fate, we are in control of our own destiny!
Essay 6 - B. Patrick Williams: "The Source of Life"
There is not enough time or space to treat the subject of God in an essay such as this. However, I’ll take a few
moments to present three theological perspectives related to God: two from liberal (non-orthodox) theologians plus
a more comprehensive, orthodox summation by an evangelical theologian. The first two treat the nature of God and
how we speak about God; the last focuses more precisely on who God is. All three point to a God both intimately
knowable and beyond our capacity to fully understand.
In his Systematic Theology Volume One, Paul Tillich writes that God is humanity’s “ultimate concern” which “must
transcend every preliminary finite and concrete concern. It must transcend the whole realm of finitude in order to
the answer to the question implied in finitude” (211). According to Tillich, God is beyond what we can fully articulate
because He is in fact the foundation of reality:
Thus the question of the existence of God can be neither asked nor answered. If asked, it is a question about that which by its
very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer – whether negative or affirmative – implicitly denies the nature of God. It
is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as to deny it. God is being-itself, not a being….As the power of being, God transcends
every being and also the totality of beings – the world. Being itself is beyond finitude and infinity; otherwise it would be conditioned
by something other than itself, and the real power of being would lie beyond both it and that which conditioned it. Being- itself
infinitely transcends every finite being. (237)
For Tillich, God is not understood as a person in the orthodox or evangelical sense, though God is still seen has
having personal qualities. According to Tillich:
A personal God: this indicates the concreteness of man’s ultimate concern…. “Personal God” does not mean that God is a person.
It means that God is the ground of everything personal and that he carries within himself the ontological power of personality….God
participates in everything that is; he has community with it. He shares its destiny. (223, 245)
God deeply connected to all things even as He transcends them. Tillich’s perspective takes seriously the vastness,
depth, and complexity of God.
Given that God is both the foundation of reality and beyond what we can fully apprehend, we must speak about
God symbolically. Tillich writes: “There can be no doubt that any concrete assertion about God must be symbolic, for
a concrete assertion is one which uses a segment of finite experience in order to say something about him. It
transcends the content of this segment, although it also includes it” (239). He expands further:
Religious symbols are double-edged. They are directed toward the infinite which they symbolize and toward the finite through which
they symbolize it. They force the infinite down to finitude and the finite up to infinity. They open the divine for the human and the
human for the divine. For instance, if God is symbolized as “Father,” he is brought down to the human relationship of father and
child. But at the same time this relationship is consecrated into a pattern of the divine-human relationship. (240)
Tillich concludes that often there is a confusion that results in the mistaken conclusion that symbols are not real.
This occurs “due to the identification of reality with empirical reality” that so often occurs today (241). However,
Tillich counters that symbols convey to “God and to all his relations to man more reality and power” (241). To
confuse what is real only with what is empirically verifiable is a mistake, especially when done so with God, who for
Tillich is most fully communicated via symbol.
In The God We Never Knew, Marcus Borg amplifies a symbolic understanding of God. Borg writes:
The large number of biblical images for God [king, judge, lover, mother, father, friend, rock, cloud etc.] has an immediate
implication: multiplicity points to metaphoricity. That is, it implies the use of metaphor. Obviously, God cannot be literally all of
these. Nor is it the case that God is literally one of these (for example, king or father) and metaphorically the rest….The reason
lies in the ineffability of God: language about God must be metaphorical….Metaphors are evocative. Suggestive of more than one
meaning, they are resonant; they have multiple associations and cannot be translated into a single equivalent literal statement.
(58-59)
Thus, God cannot be reduced to the finite as categorized literally in our language; God is more than we can speak
about save through metaphor.
Metaphors of God suggest the closeness between God and His creation. “Importantly,” Borg notes, “many of these
metaphors are relational, imagining not only God but ourselves in relationship to God.” (60). He goes on to explain
how “God as Mother” indicates one of God’s central qualities: compassion. “Not only is compassion a female image
suggesting source of life and nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for
us as a mother feels for the children of her womb. Spirit feels the suffering of the world and participates in it” (73).
For Borg, “God as Intimate Father” connotes a God “who is close at hand and who may be trusted to give good gifts
to his children” (73). “God as Journey Companion” points to “God as a companion who travels with us. It includes
the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day that led the Israelites through the wilderness….In the Emmaus Road
story, the risen Christ journeys with his disciples even though they do not recognize him” (75). In a variety of ways,
God relates with us deeply, intimately, and personally.
In Christian Theology, evangelical theologian Millard Erickson asserts that God can be understood according to God’s
“greatness” (“natural attributes”), God’s “goodness” (“moral attributes”), God’s “Immanence and Transcendence,”
and God’s Trinitarian nature. For Erickson, God’s greatness is comprised of “spirituality, personality…infinity” (289-
293). Given that “God is spirit…he is not composed of matter and does not possess a physical nature….he is not
limited to a particular geographical or spatial location” (294). God has personality: “He is an individual being , with
self-consciousness and will, capable of feeling, choosing, and having a reciprocal relationship with other personal
and social beings” (295). As such, “He is not merely one of whom we hear, but one whom we meet and know”
(296). God is “infinite” and thus, “omnipresent,” thereby having “access to the whole of creation at all times.”
Further, God is “not restricted by the dimension of time” and He is “aware of what is happening, has happened, and
will happen at each point in time” (300-301). God knows us even better than we know ourselves. “We are all
completely transparent before God. He sees and knows us totally….[knowing] all things” (301). Finally, God is
omnipotent. There is nothing He cannot do, whether it be activating the “plagues in Egypt” or the “nature miracles
of Jesus, such a stilling the storm…and walking on water” to changing “human nature” to causing the elderly Sarah,
wife of Abraham, to become pregnant well “past the age” for childbearing. God can do anything; He is not limited.
The second section of Erickson’s treatment of God centers on God’s goodness - “moral qualities of God” such as
“moral purity,” “integrity,” and “love.” In the first place, God is morally pure because God is holy. God’s holiness
means God is unique – “totally separate from all of creation” - and absolutely pure and good; as such, God “can be
trusted and loved,” and He should be held in reverential awe (310-311). Given this absolute goodness, God is
righteous in His activities and just in His treatment of others, requiring a that our actions be morally upright (312-
314). The second of God’s moral attributes is His integrity. Having integrity means that God will be truthful in His
communication to us and He will be faithful in doing “what he has said he will do” (316-317). God’s third moral
attribute is “love,” which can be understood as His “eternal giving or sharing of himself.” It contains God’s
“benevolence” – “God’s concern for the welfare of those he loves,” and He loves us all. Sending Jesus Christ the
Son of God to die for all humankind is an example of God’s “self-giving” love. Also included in God’s love is God’s
grace which “means that God supplies us with undeserved favors.” Thus, “God deals with his people not on the
basis of their merit or worthiness, what they deserve, but simply according to their need.” God is also merciful, full of
“tenderhearted, loving compassion.” And, God is persistent in His love. No matter how far away His followers stray
or how much they fail Him, He still welcomes them back when they seek him (e.g. “Moses” and “David”) (318-323).
God is both within all things and completely beyond them. According to Erickson, “God is both immanent and
transcendent. God is present and active within his creation, but superior to and independent of anything he has
created.” Thus, “God’s spirit originates and/or sustains all things; everything is dependent on him….God is present
everywhere….Disjunctions are not to be sharply drawn between either God and humans or God and the world” (327-
330). When speaking about God, we enter the realm of that which is not empirically verifiable.
Erickson highlights several implications of God’s immanence and transcendence. Given God’s immanence, He can
work through all elements of reality, such as through an M.D. in treating a patient or a non-Christian
country/organization/person. Further, given that God is “present and active within” nature means that people
“ought not exploit it for their own pleasure or out of greed.” Two final implications of immanence: “We can learn
something about God from his creation,” and “ he is present and active within humans who have not made a
personal commitment of their lives to him” (337-338). God is everywhere available and present to us.
God’s transcendence also has important implications. In the first place, Erickson writes that God’s transcendence
means that there “is something higher than humans. Humanity is not the highest good in the universe or the
highest measure of truth and value. Good, truth, and value are not determined by the shifting flux of this world and
human opinion.” Thus, there is an objective standard outside the judgment of our limited, selfish, shifting egos.
Second, “God can never be completely captured in human concepts.” Third, our “salvation is not our achievement”
but rather, it is God’s “gift to us.” Fourth, God and humans “will always be” different morally, spiritually, and
metaphysically; He will always be more than we are. Fifth, we should always have “a sense of awe and wonder”
before God; such reverence “is appropriate in our relationship with God” (343-344). Finally, we must anticipate and
take seriously God’s activity beyond what we can naturally expect or fathom. Erickson writes:
Thus we will not expect only those things that can be accomplished by natural means. While we will use every available technique
of modern learning to accomplish God’s ends, we will never cease to be dependent on his working. We will not neglect prayer for
his guidance or special intervention. Thus, for example, Christian counseling will not differ from other types of counseling
(naturalistic or humanistic) only in being preceded by brief prayer. There will be the anticipation that God, in response to faith and
prayer, will work in ways not humanly predictable or achievable. (345).
We must seek God’s will and trust God in all that we do. We should acknowledge that our lives are dependent on
Him, following Him always.
Last and in some ways most significantly, Erickson treats the subject of the Trinity – God “is one and yet there are
three who are God” (347). The doctrine of the Trinity states that in essence God the Father, God the Son (Jesus
Christ), and God the Holy Spirit are all equally God (350, 352). Observing that it’s much easier to accept the deity of
God the Father but not so the deity Jesus Christ, Erickson then writes: “For Paul, an orthodox Jew trained in the
rabbinic teaching of strict Judaism, verse 6 [Philippians Ch 2:6 refers to Jesus as the “very nature God”] is indeed
an astonishing statement. Reflecting the faith of the early church, it suggests a deep commitment to the full deity of
Christ” (350). Erickson concludes: “In the final analysis, the Trinity is incomprehensible. We cannot fully understand
the mystery of the Trinity.” It is a paradox.
There is a great deal to be drawn here from the perspectives of Tillich, Borg, and Erickson. All three contend that
God is real and closely involved with humans and the rest of creation. In the first place, Tillich is quite right to see
God as the ground of all being. We are in God and God is in us. To find our place and purpose in life, we must follow
God’s lead. Tillich’s understanding of symbols elucidates how God can be known according to His personal and
transpersonal nature. The symbols both convey concrete meaning and point to meaning beyond themselves. Tillich
is also quite correct that God is beyond what we can fully apprehend. Tillich’s observation that many confuse
empirical reality with all reality is quite apt. Of course, if one systematically brackets out the possibility of reality
beyond the empirical reality one accepts, then one will have no room for God.
Borg and Tillich both emphasize that God is know through concrete particulars that point beyond themselves. Borg
explicates how metaphors illuminate the reality of God because they point beyond themselves in their concrete
particularity. Even so, Tillich is more accurate regarding symbols and God. As Tillich observes, the meaning of the
symbol “transcends” its “content” “although it also includes it.” Thus, the various God-metaphors that Borg so
adeptly cites [king, judge, mother, etc.] are actually included as part of who God is even as God transcends what
these symbols/metaphors say about him. Borg is not wrong, but Tillich is more right. God isn’t a mother as Borg
explains, but God fundamentally has the qualities of a mother as well as all the other metaphorical associations
contained in the Bible. One must not lose the concrete meanings of the God metaphors in favor of emphasizing God’
s ineffability.
Tillich and Borg also emphasize that God is deeply interrelated with His creation. Where Borg surpasses Tillich is by
observing that is available to relate with us personally in deep, intimate ways. Where Tillich’s ground of being seems
impersonal and transpersonal, Borg’s emphasis on God as an “Intimate Father” and “Journey Companion” illustrates
that God is indeed available for close personal relationship with us.
Erickson’s orthodox explication of Christian belief helps to explain why all this matters. If God is really a God who we
can know and who is both the foundation of reality (Tillich) and available for relationship (Borg), then what does this
mean for us? Erickson bridges the gap by explaining more specifically who God is based upon the biblical record. God
is the authority of our lives. He is just and righteous, holy and merciful, immanent and transcendent; we are wise to
reckon with His reality. This means recognizing that we are not the author of our lives and our destinies, but He is.
This means recognizing that what is essential – significance, purpose, meaning - is not found on our own but
through communion with him. Reckoning with the reality of God also means that we don’t reject Him because we
don’t like what we hear about Him or because He’s not obvious or overwhelming or appealing in the ways we would
like. Intimate relation with an all-powerful God is the basis for authentic existence. He is truly the source of our lives.
If we are wise and prudent, we will heed the words of Brennan Manning in his Ragamuffin Gospel: “Let go of
impoverished, circumscribed, and finite perceptions of God. The love of Christ is beyond all knowledge, beyond
anything we can intellectualize or imagine. It is not a mild benevolence but a consuming fire.”
The End of the Conversation (Final Comments by Beach)
Beach: While I respect and am sympathetic with much of Tillich’s metaphysical speculation, I still cannot help but
emphasize that it is nothing but metaphysical speculation: it is all groundless generalization and verbal sophistry
that represents no concrete reality, for as far as human beings are concerned, we can only have very limited and
Earth-specific conceptions of reality. The infinite grandeur and “ultimate” reality of the universe, whatever that may
be, is complete beyond our capacity to know and when humans speak of this realm they are simply speculating,
which as far as it goes can serve useful psychological and cultural purposes, but not for a moment should we
deceive ourselves that we could actually know or name the “ultimate” ground of all being. I think it is human
arrogance and folly to even argue over this issue for no one could have anything remotely conclusive to say.
Beach: Tillich’s concept of “double-edged” symbols is nothing but a verbal sophistry based upon a gross
generalization reducing his own “symbolic” rambling, in the face of no concrete reference point, to a blunt
instrument that conveys nothing but his own subjective speculation. Symbols are not only inherently unstable as
bearers of human meaning, but symbols are notoriously unreliable because of subjective interpretation and also
because of changing contexts (and this is all rudimentary literary theory as you well know). So while symbols can
reach to some intended meaning or reference point, they are reduced to the actual concreteness of the linguistic act
as it unfolds between two or more people struggling for “communication.” Thus, “metaphors” are devices that we
use to name A in terms of B so that the unknown A can be understood in terms of the known B. Now if we are
actually talking about concrete realities, say I want to introduce the profound reality of racial prejudice to a young
white American boy who thinks that there is no racial prejudice in American, then I will try to describe the unfamiliar
concept of “racial prejudice” in terms of something more familiar like merit-based prejudice, sexual discrimination, or
educational discrimination. Through a conversation I can invoke metaphors to describe one reality in terms of
another reality so that both realities can be acknowledged and, thereby, we could then focus more particularity on
the merits of the hereby-unacknowledged reality of racial prejudice so that a fuller understanding could arise. But
this situation is infinitely more complicated (and in my estimation, entirely futile) when one person is talking about
something that is not a concrete reality, like “God,” and therefore language can never leave the metaphorical and
speculative, reducing the perhaps unfounded speculation of one party completely enveloped in abstract and general
words, nothing but words. I completely disagree with your statement, “Metaphors of God suggest the closeness
between God and His creation.” I think “metaphors of God” suggest nothing more than the subjective experience of
an individual. There is no concrete application outside the personal subjectivity of the individual, and therefore, no
point of reference besides the subjective needs, wants, and culturally predisposed habits of the individual.
Beach: I am continually struck, as I got down to Erickson, that you never made a case for the existence of “God.”
You simply started your essay from the point of view that “God” is a given reality, “God” is presupposed without any
argument or evidence and you bring in three theologians to “talk about God” as if there metaphysical constructions
of pure verbal conjecture had any validity except to reinforce, for you, what you already believe. All I see is
groundless talk and empty metaphors describing a presupposed “ultimate” reality that I find completely speculative
and therefore, I find absolutely no substance in any of this theological matter. It seems but empty rhetoric to my
ears.
And while I can admit that Erickson presents an elegant “theory” about a highly speculative concept of “God,” it is
completely groundless and devoid of concrete meaning. Thus, I as an atheist well versed in Christian theology and
the Bible, I could present an equally elegant “theory” about the Christian “God” that highlights God’s jealously,
prejudice, violent nature, capriciousness, cruelty, and lack of justice. My theory would be just as valid as Erickson’s
because there is no concrete, actually existing reference point with which to evaluate whose conception is more
closely grounded in reality. All we have to go back to in humanly constructed narratives (i.e. the Bible and
surrounding commentary), which are just more words representing historically conditioned subjective experiences of
a particular group of individuals who held a particular view of the world. There is no “ultimate,” transcendent
authority. There is no evidence that you could muster to prove your presupposed assertion that an “objective
standard” exists “outside the judgment of our limited, selfish, shifting egos.” You are not even making an argument
in this essay. You are simply taking your presupposition that “God exists,” who you believe to be the “ultimate
ground of authority” and who you believe exists “outside” the realm of human history, and you describe this
presupposition of “God” as if your description of it, which in my mind is a grand fiction, somehow proves that fiction’s
validity. It seems a sloppy and arrogant position to take. I would have been more impressed had you invoked Kant’
s position (which I referred to in my essay Ch 5) and said “God” is beyond concrete proof or concrete human
experience thus we must take the wager and say I will act as if God existed and thus base my life off of this act of
faith, and not try to somehow prove that an act of faith could ever be more than a subjectively determined leap of
faith. You have every right to say, “Tillich is quite right to see God as the ground of all being. We are in God and
God is in us. To find our place and purpose in life, we must follow God’s lead.” But I have every right to reject this
as nothing more than a mere leap of faith on your part. I completely disagree that “the symbols” of “God”
discussed in your essay “both convey concrete meaning and point to meaning beyond themselves,” as you have not
argued a case where your symbols are anything more than speculative fancy. I will go even farther than Brennan
Manning, for I say, “let go of all conceptions of ‘God,’ and if you must have what you consider to be “perceptions of
God” then keep them to yourself, or if you must share, be humble and don’t for a minute claim that your perception,
your conception, or your ‘God’ is in anyway the ultimate or the only.”
Conclusion: Final Words
Williams: Well Josh, my friend, it’s been a good road. I’m grateful for your honesty and candor. This dialogue has
been important to me. Through it, I’ve thought more deeply about my faith and about my life. And, it’s been valuable
for me to “hear” you through it: you are one who has suffered at the hands of Christians and yet you still maintain
an authentic search for truth, even to the point of asking a Christian like me to participate in a dialogue like this.
That’s commendable. You really care about people Josh; that is commendable, too.
You know, I don’t think people listen enough to each other. We’re all so filled with our own perspectives that we
don’t have time for anyone else’s. I’m as guilty as anyone. Even so, our aim in this project was to really listen and
engage, really communicate, no matter how strong our disagreements. It wasn’t always easy, but we listened
anyway. In the end, that’s what matters: getting along respectfully and thoughtfully, even in disagreement.
Our disagreements are strong. I think the most important thing in this world is to have a close, intimate relationship
with Jesus Christ, the uniquely divine Son of God. To not acknowledge and submit to His Lordship is to be
fundamentally lost and out of synch with transcendent reality. Nothing is more important. However, you don’t
believe that there is a God, much less that Jesus was God. At best, my point of view is for you, a useful fiction. So be
it. Let’s agree to disagree, but let’s be real about it. God will honor that. I certainly do.
I have learned from you Josh. As I wrote you earlier via email: “Your perspective is especially important because
you’ve been on the inside of evangelical Christianity, and you’ve been wounded by it. Not only that, but you are
very thoughtful about the filters that we all use to perceive reality. Your honesty, sincerity, and concern for both the
truth and well-being of others makes you worth listening to.” I still hold this to be true, and I even believe it now
more than when we started. My secret hope is that this project can serve as an educational model for students
illustrating how to think deeply while agreeing to disagree, being honest and real about what matters most: the
truth and caring for others. If we’re going to alleviate suffering in the world and encourage others (and ourselves)
to be aware of, and to think outside of, our limited preconceptions, we have to work together and get along with
each other, listening even when it’s hard. In doing so, we’ll participate in the making of a better world.
Thanks Josh. God bless you my friend.
Beach: Patrick, I’m glad we had the chance to have this conversation and I know it has profoundly impacted our
relationship and also our individual world-views. It is good to come into contact and have real dialogue with people,
especially people that differ in age, culture, gender, or world-view. I think it is essential for our capacity to grow as
human beings to stretch our boundaries and to encounter as much of life as we can. I am grateful to you for
accepting this project and giving me the opportunity to converse with you and getting honest and heartfelt replies
to my often pointed and difficult questions. It was never my aim to attack or damage your faith in any way. My
motivations, beyond the confines of our conversation, were simply to open you to my own world-view, ask you to
understand my radical point of view, and finally to urge you to think critically about your own faith and the religious
tenets that you hold. It is not important for people to always be in agreement about metaphysical questions nor is
it important for people to completely understand another’s point of view, but it is important to respect and
communicate with all people regardless of differences in order to encourage and foster a sense of community and a
shared sense of human being. I hope that we have both grown just a little bit through our conversation and that
we have a new respect for each other, our point of views, and our commitments to the endeavor of human justice,
equality, and love. May this project and our friendship stand as a testament to the capacity of human cooperation
and friendship in the midst of deep personal and spiritual differences. May you find a measure of peace and
happiness in this life.
| Copyright J.M.Beach & B. Patrick Williams 2006 All Rights Reserved |
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The world needs real dialogue, that falsehood is just as much the opposite of
dialogue as is silence and that the only possible dialogue is the kind between
people who remain what they are and speak their minds.
-Albert Camus; “The Unbeliever and Christians”
dialogue as is silence and that the only possible dialogue is the kind between
people who remain what they are and speak their minds.
-Albert Camus; “The Unbeliever and Christians”