The Little Friar

Okay, so it's election season in the United States.  I've seen any number of Christians lamenting that the current candidates for President presents them with a choice between two evils.  In that scenario, they say, you choose the lesser of the two evils.  And depending upon one's perspective of which evil is "lesser", then that's the particular candidate they put forward as the "obvious" choice. For years, I've urged Christians to take their obligations to their neighbors seriously and therefore not to take a particular vote every four years with the kinds of seriousness that border on idolatry.  One vote on one day every four years is far less significant than the decisions we make every day -- the votes we cast -- with our time, money, and attention.  "Policies" on the economy, war and peace, justice and the like are made every day, in myriads of ways, not just one day every four years in November.  So if we want to take our votin...

A friend of mine has been tapped to teach a seminar on theodicy in pastoral care and theology next fall, and he's asked me to think through what I believe a seminar like that should include. Theodicy (a.k.a. " the problem of evil ") is one of those theological digressions that take place in nearly every introductory class of theology that I teach.  I once was very reluctant about that.  These days, though, I think it offers the most fertile ground for getting pastors to think theologically, so I find it -- sadly enough -- one of my most exciting topics.  Particular suffering of the sort encountered in pastoral ministry problematizes theology's preference for neat answers.  Any pastor who's ever walked into a hospital room knows this. My classes on theodicy tend to be a mix of Simone Weil , Marilyn McCord Adams , John Hick , James Cone , Sarah Coakley , GK Chesterton , Augustine , Aquinas , and Barth .  A serious theological discussion about theodicy will...

Or, why it's wicked to solve the problem of evil.  Or, what to preach about doom, gloom and the cross.  Nowhere does apologetics get more off course than when theologians and philosophers attempt theodicy , trying to solve the "problem of evil".  Let me lay out today, as part of my continuing exploration of what unapologetic  preaching looks like, why that's the case.  My thesis is this:  Any  biblical theodicy (defence of God in the face of manifest evil and suffering) must at some point be eschatological , that is, it must refer to the future for which Christians hope.  Let me clarify.  I begin with three biblical characters who each acutely faced the problem of evil in their experience, not simply as an intellectual puzzle.  Joseph, for being an arrogant prat to his brothers, is sold into slavery.  Twenty years later, he ends up being in the position to take revenge and humiliate, enslave or kill them.  Apart from a little t...

I've gone without saying much here about Milton's Paradise Lost . I first read Milton as a senior in high school.  And, I have to admit, as a literary character, I was impressed with Milton's depiction of Satan.  Not heavily biblical, mind you, but he casts a long shadow down the literary tradition.  So any talk about evil and the demonic has to deal with this tradition.  Some of  our greatest modern characters (e.g. Melville's Ahab) are in fact precisely reincarnations of Milton's Satan.  But my own favorite  contemporary incarnation of Milton's Satan is found not in literature, but in the 1997 film Devil's Advocate .   The Satan-character in this film (a lawyer named "John Milton") is modelled very closely on  Paradise Lost , and he is brilliantly brought to life by Al Pacino.  Like Milton's Satan, this lawyer is above all a rhetorician -- he loves to make long, egocentric speeches.  He's self-important and long-winded about his s...

Everything I wrote yesterday about the demonic and Satan sounds all well and good -- odd, for sure, in that I take spiritual warfare  seriously, but do so only as a way of re-enchanting and reconnecting the physical with the spiritual.  And, let's admit it:  That's different in lots of Christian circles these days.  But , even if it all sounds oddly reasonable, there's still a looming question:   It's all well and good to align "the principalities and powers" with human (generally political) power structures, but how does this account fit with the gospel narratives where Jesus appears to encounter evil spirits inside of people? In keeping my sketchy-note theme, let me lay out some ideas here.  This isn't meant to be a full-blown book-length theology of the demonic or spiritual warfare.  (I'm tempted to pull together lots of different, scattered posts here into just such a work.  If you think it'll sell, let me know.  I still may do it.) ...

Let me continue my thoughts on the trinitarian re-enchantment of the world, miracles and the demonic with some notes -- I'm sure these will be more scattered! -- on the Satan.  Throughout  the Bible, the satan is portrayed as being a creature ordained and directed by God, fulfilling his function of being an adversary.  In fact, the Hebrew word  satan  means "adversary", and in its earlier usage it carries the definite article ("the satan", or "the adversary").  Satan is portrayed as a courtroom prosecutor, and God is the judge; Satan looks for evidence against God's people (e.g. Job 1-2), and God even lets him use entrapment and sting operations.  Over time, however, the portrayal of Satan shifts from being God's servant to being God's enemy, as Satan takes his efforts to accuse God's people further, breaking the boundaries that God puts on him (think for example of Daniel 10).  By the time we get to the NT, Satan is God's enemy, ye...

A friend asked today what I thought about demons, angels, and the like.  I sketched out a few remarks that covered a lot of territory before we had to call an end to the conversation.  So let me lay out here a few more of the specifics of how I think about demons and the demonic.  And let me begin with some of the usual ways these things are constructed.  First, there are the Literalists.   The Literalist takes the passages in the Bible about demons and spiritual powers literally.  The Literalist, thus, has a robust notion of spiritual warfare and believes in the reality of demonic possession (although they might believe this to be a very rare and extreme event).  I have a couple of problems with this position.  First, ontologically, it's just hard to believe in demons in the modern, scientific age. To quote Walter Wink's Naming the Powers :  "We moderns cannot bring ourselves by any feat of will or imagination to believe in the real existenc...