Recently I came across this verse in the bible (1 John 5:4),

For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

What I find fascinating in this verse is the undecidablity at work. For does it mean that our faith overcomes the world (as some translations suggest) or that being born of God overcomes both the world and faith? I chatted to a biblical scholar about this verse and he quickly pointed out that while there seems to be a little bit of grammatical uncertainty in the source documents the wider context (i.e. 1 John’s high Christology) allows for only one legitimate reading (the first one).

Yet, when reading 1 John I see a complex interplay at work between a high Christology and a line of thinking which would seem to undermine it; causing us to rethink what we mean by believing in Christ. For instance we find an argument that informs us that all those who live a life of love dwell in God and that if we say we love God yet hate our neighbors we are liars (1 John 4:16-19). Yet this is set right beside an argument that tells us in no uncertain terms that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah is born of God (1 John 5:1).

The problem here arises because of a certain tension between the idea that only those who love are born of God alongside the idea that only those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah are born of God. We can imagine plenty of situations where these would overlap but also many where they would seem not to (imagine a basic Venn diagram here). So what is being said? While asking this question it is also useful to recall that 1 Corinthians 12:3 tells us that no-one can say “Jesus is Lord” without the spirit of God.

It is only honest here to admit that the idea that believing Jesus is Messiah or (even more crazily) merely affirming that Jesus is Lord somehow brings one into relation with God initially appears rather strange. Personally I know people who believe Jesus is the Messiah with more conviction than they believe the sun will rise tomorrow and I receive emails every week from people proclaiming “Jesus is Lord” (and then asking that I give them my bank details so that they can deposit millions: for a nominal fee of course).

So what are we to do if we cannot read these verses as claiming that intellectual belief in Jesus as Messiah (or, more radical still, mere affirmation of this without even the need of belief) is proof of being born of God?

It would seem that 1 John is making a different claim, the author seems to be suggesting, not that those who believe in Jesus as Messiah will naturally love but rather those who love believe in Jesus as Messiah. This reading requires a different understanding of belief. Here the author of 1 John seems to be suggesting, in the very midst of its high Christology, that belief is embodied, that it is incarnated. In short that it is affirmed in the transformed life of the believer.

The radical, heretical, claim here is that one is not called to believe in the death and resurrection of Christ but rather to be the site where that death and resurrection is made manifest, not to believe in the miracles of Jesus but to be the place where a miracle takes place. In short belief in the Messiah is one that is affirmed only in the life that emanates love, sacrifice, forgiveness, mercy and joy.

What we have in 1 John then is simultaneously a high Christology mixed with the idea that this high Christology is never said, but only lived.

Thus no-one can say Jesus is Lord without the Spirit or believe that Jesus is the Messiah with loving. Why? Because one does not say “Jesus is Lord” with ones lips but with ones loving touch. And one does not believe that Jesus is Messiah with ones mind but with the offering of water to the thirsty and coats to the cold.

Now I am no biblical scholar so these are only some fractured thoughts on the text. But it does seem to me to make sense, not only of 1 John in general but also of the verse I mentioned at the beginning of this post. A verse that seems to hint that if one is born of God then the world and even faith are overcome (i.e. those without even a mustard seeds worth of faith can be part of this upside down, radical kingdom).

Here is a parable I have been working on called ‘The agnostic who became an atheist”. I will print the parable below and hold off on giving a commentary until my next post. I recently gave a talk entitled ‘On the Supreme difficulty of atheism and why only the Priest can attain it’, which may help contextualize this parable. This talk is available online somewhere.

There was once a world-renowned philosopher who, from an early age, set himself the task of proving once and for all the non-existence of God. Of course such a task was immense for the various arguments for and against the existence of God had done battle over the ages without either being able to claim victory.

He was however a genus without equal and possessed a singular vision which drove him to work each day and long into every night so as to understand the intricacies of every debate, every discussion and every significant work on the subject.

The philosophers project began to earn him respect among his fellow professors when, as a young man, he published the first volume of what would turn out to be a finely honed, painstakingly researched, encyclopaedic masterpiece on the subject of God. The first volume of this work argued persuasively that the various ideas of God that had been expressed throughout antiquity where philosophically incoherent and logically flawed. As each new volume appeared he offered, time and again, devastating critiques of the theological ideas of God that had been propagated in different periods of history. In his early forties he completed the last volume, which brought him up to the present day. Yet the completion of this phenomenal work did not satisfy him. For he still had not found a convincing argument that would demonstrate once and for all the non-existence of God.

And so he spent a further sixteen years researching arguments and interrogating them with a highly nuanced logical analysis. But by now he was in his late fifties and had slowly begun to despair of ever completing his life project.

Then, late one evening while he was locked away in his study, bent wearily over his old oak desk surrounded by a vast sea of books; he felt a deep stillness descend upon the room. As he sat there motionless everything around him seemed to radiate an inexpressible light and warmth. Then, deep in his heart he heard the voice of God address him,

“Dear friend, the task you have set yourself is a futile one. I have watched on all these years as you pour your being into this endless task. Yet you fail to understand that your project can only be finished with my help. Your dedication and single mindedness has not gone unnoticed and it has won my respect. As such I will tell you a sacred secret meant only for a few… dear friend, I do not exist”

Then, all of a sudden, everything appeared as it was before and the philosopher was left sitting at his desk with a deep smile breaking across his face. He put his pen away and left his study never to return. Instead he joined a monastery where he saw out the last of his days in gratitude to God for helping him complete his lifelong project.

Norman’s latest reflection on my new book can be found here.

Just want to bring your attention to the work of a guy called Norman Jeune III who is working through my new book and engaging critically with it. His work is noteworthy because, although he is coming from a different place from myself and would be critical of my position he is taking great care to read my work carefully, understand it, and engage meaningfully with it. Sadly this type of careful hermeneutic is all too often eclipsed in the midst of name calling and reducing others to straw men. So the work of Norman is to be commended as exhibiting what might be the most important point of theological engagement (namely the ‘engagement’).

Check out his comments and my response here and here

Check out the following image created by Nadia Pleasner as part of her Simple Living campaign, a campaign designed to raise awareness of the Genocide in Darfur. The image is currently under attack by the design house Louis Vuitton. Thanks to Luke’s Commonplace Book for bringing my attention to it,

Just thought I would offer a small excerpt from my forthcoming book The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief (release date 19th June - but this seems to change on a daily basis). This quote is from chapter one and encompasses the primary question that I address within the book,

There are countless people who betray Christianity, individuals who turn their backs on its message because they no longer believe in it or because it asks too much of them. But there are a few who betray Christianity, not because they no longer believe in it, but because they believe in it so deeply, because they understand that unless the seed of our Christianity falls to the ground and dies it will remain a single seed, but if it is allowed to die it will produce many seeds.

With this in mind we may wonder whether the deepest cost entailed in embracing the radical message of Christ—that we lay down our life and pick up our cross and follow him—may not simply be the call to sacrifice our own life (something we are asked to do before we pick up the cross), but the call to sacrifice what we love more than our life.

The cost of Christianity, for so many, is thought to lie in the demand that we die to ourselves for the sake of our Christianity. The cross we are called to carry is thus one upon which we are to be put to death. But what if this cross we bear had another meaning? What if the cross that we are called to carry is not for us at all but rather, like the cross that Simon of Cyrene labored beneath, is really for another—a cross for us to crucify what we love? Is it possible that the cross we labor beneath must be used to crucify our Christianity? How many of us can truly understand this question? How many of us can really know what it is like to destroy what we love for the sake of what we love—to be the most faithful of betrayers? Yet perhaps it is precisely this that we are being called to: engaging in that most difficult task of putting our religion to death so that a religion without religion can spring forth.

One day the Master called his youngest disciple to sit and eat with him in private. This disciple had been in the temple for many years and had carefully followed the ways of his teacher, learning to emulate the life of the Master as best he could.

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The Master was now an elderly man and knew that he was close to death. He was fond of this disciple but knew that he had not yet received enlightenment. And so he said to him, “You have been a diligent and dedicated follower of my teachings for many years and you may well one day become a great teacher. However you are in danger of betraying me in your thoughts and actions.”

“Never” replied the disciple; “since I was young I have followed your ways, never deviating from the path that you have ploughed. I never cease to reflect upon your words and I never tire from engaging in the rituals and prayers that you have taught. I swear to you that I would never betray you.”

“But you fail to understanding my friend”, replied the Master, “The fact that you have never betrayed my teachings, and the fact that you swear never to betray them; this is to betray them already”

——–

Is it not the case that among the most important teachings of a great religious leader to their most dedicated disciples will involve the words, “do not follow me”. The problem of course is that the disciple must take seriously the words of the teacher in order to take to heart the message that she ought not to. The priestly role here is one that rejects its privileged priesthood in order to facilitate a priesthood of all believers. This does not mean that there is no priestly role however, for there is an important place for someone whose job it is to refuse the place. Something Jesus is recorded as doing quite often (for example when the rich young man calls him “good teacher” and he strangely rejects the term “good”, pointing beyond himself).

So then, what if to swear that we will never betray our great teacher is to betray him already (reifying his dynamic way of love into dead letters)?

A few days ago I attended the Belfast Film Festival to see a documentary called “Audience of One” produced by new director Michael Jacobs. It was a fantastic piece of work that records Pastor Richard Gazowsky and his church as they attempt to produce what they beleive will be one of the greatest films ever made (described as a cross between Star Wars and The Ten Commandments). All this despite the fact that the pastor saw his first ever film at the age of 40 (The Lion King) and never made anything before.

Jacob’s fly-on-the-wall documentary follows the enevitable car crash as it unfolds in their attempts to make “Gravity: The Shadow of Joseph”

It offers an intriguing and unflinching insight into the power of religious delusion as it follows sincere, likable and otherwise reasonable people being drawn inexorably further and further into the fantasy of a charismatic but naive and child-like (rather than unscrupulous) pastor. It was all the more interesting to myself as I personally experienced a similar form of spirituality (thankfully there was no camera around to record me at the time).

Sadly the documentary seems pretty difficult to get your hands on and you may need to ask you local independent cinema to show it or contact the director with a request.

You can watch the trailer here and read an interview with the director here

If you have the chance, I would recommend that you find a quiet place and take some time to reflect upon the following exhibition of photography by Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta. These pictures record images and excerpts of interviews with people shortly before (and after) their death. It is a powerful and moving exhibition that evokes personal reflection upon the nature of human being. Life Before Death is currently being exhibited in London.

Once you have read the excerpt on the right hand side of the screen click on the picture. Click here

Paraclete have just released the prologue and introduction to my forthcoming book The Fidelity of Betrayal. If you would like to see it then click here and follow the link. Hope you enjoy.