A Modest Proposal for a Nonlinear Systems Hermeneutic


Fr. Larry Hart

This essay is an early draft of an article published under the title of “A Modest Proposal for a Systems Philosophy of Hermeneutics, As Applied to the Composition & Transmission of the Four Gospels” in Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and TheologyIt has also been posted on academic.edu.  In this online posting footnotes occur as endnotes, followed by a bibliography.

Since the beginnings of the Enlightenment, the notion of a scientific hermeneutic has insinuated itself into academic Biblical studies –– particularly as regards the composition and transmission of the Gospels and the investigation of Christian origins. When Hobbs and Spinoza drew up lists of contradictions, inconsistencies, and anachronisms they had detected in the Pentateuch, they were setting out to disprove its Mosaic authorship, and by extension the entire Biblical corpus, by means of a rational and objective methodology. When 300 years later the Jesus Seminar conducted its investigation into the authenticity of Jesus’s sayings and deeds, it claimed its work to be based on objective scientific procedures. It meant, of course, that it was following along the hermeneutical lines of linear logic begun by Hobbs and Spinoza, and further developed and refined by a succession of scholars as “higher criticism”, or more correctly what is now known as the “historical-critical” method. However, here in the first quarter of the twenty-first century there is a shift in perspective as significant for Biblical studies as the Enlightenment was from Semler to Borg. This postmodern perspective recognizes that there is no philosophy, no theology of hermeneutics, without presuppositions, that absolute scientific objectivity is a delusion. It is as suspicious of logic and reason as higher criticism has been of faith. It perceives the universe more in terms of quantum mechanics than Newtonian physics; and, most significantly, embraces a more nonlinear systems understanding of processes. More and more this new perspective sees historical-critical methodology as flawed and unable to render a consistent and comprehensible understanding of Scripture –– particularly the Gospels. What is posited here is that a more nonlinear systems hermeneutic provides a reasonable way forward in the interpretation of Hebrew and Christian Scripture.

I Higher Criticism Reprised
As noted, in the seventeenth century Thomas Hobbes (1558-1679) and Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) drew up long lists of what they believed to be irregularities, mistakes, and prolepses in the Pentateuch, and then used them to argue that Moses could not have been the author of the five books of the Torah. The brilliant French physician and medical professor at Paris University, Jean Astruc (1684-1766), was disturbed by what he considered “this sickness of the last century”, and in 1753, determined to refute Hobbes and Spinoza, published, a defense of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Translated into English the rather unwieldy title was Conjectures on the original documents that Moses appears to have used in composing the Book of Genesis.

Astruc believed that the modern eighteenth century literary methods that had been developed in the study of the classics could be used in assessing the authorship of Genesis. He drew up parallel columns and assigned verses to each of them according to what he saw as the defining features of the text; for instance, whether a verse used “YHWH” or “Elohim” in referring to God, or whether it had a doublet (two accounts of the same event, such as the creation narrative or of Sarah and the king). Astruc identified four documents in Genesis which he believed mirrored the Four Gospels He arranged his results in four columns, declaring that this was how Moses had originally written Genesis, which later had been combined into a single book. This explained, he argued, the repetitions and inconsistencies which Hobbes and Spinoza had noted.

Astruc’s work was taken up and further developed by a succession of German scholars who saw Astruc’s method of analysis logically leading to an entirely different set of conclusions than those he had reached. 1 Among the philosophers, theologians, and Bible scholars in this long line who continued to refine and apply this new methodology of “higher criticism” as it came to be known, or the “historical-critical” method as it is now more commonly identified, were: Johann Semler (1725-1792) who rejected the inspiration and correctness of both the Old and New Testaments; Johann Eichhorn (1752-1827), who in his adaptation of this methodology saw the entire Bible as having been written by many hands, and all supernatural events related in the Old and New Testaments as attributable to superstitious beliefs; Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), for whom the task of hermeneutics was to understand the thoughts of the author by discovering in works of a similar genre and, in balance with the grammatical interpretation, why a work had been produced in the first place; Ferdinand Baur (1792-1860), who argued that second century Christianity was a synthesis of Gentile and Jewish Christian thought; Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), who interpreted religion and Scripture primarily in anthropological terms; David Strauss (1808-1874) who distinguished between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history and interpreted the ideas of Christianity as myths; and, Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) who is most famous for the documentary hypothesis––the argument that the Pentateuch had its origins in a redaction of four originally independent texts identified as JEDP. 2

The three primary types of “higher criticism” as it eventually developed from Astruc’s work are: literary, form, and redaction criticism. Literary criticism attempts to understand the various strata, or layers of meaning, in a text. The first layer concerns the meaning and elements which are on or near the surface. Many of these can be answered by such questions as: Why? Who? What? Where? When? and How? However, most stories seek to communicate something both subtler and more significant than what is easily discovered in their literal content. Marcus Borg was correct, “The Bible always means more than it says”. The second strata of meaning has to do with identifying the mood and emotional content through an analysis of imagery, language, and style. Through a study of the author’s diction, phrasing, and selection of detail, it is thought, a third level establishing the attitude of the author toward the audience, characters, settings, and subject matter can be discovered. The analysis of the fourth layer is an attempt to interpret the author’s intent in light of what has been learned from examining the first three strata. 3
Specifically, the literary critic seeks to identify various phenomenon in the text, such as: (1) Doublets (stories that occur twice and how they compare or contrast). (2) Commentary (a comment made on a text by a scribe that has been incorporated into the text by a later copyist). (3) Stylistic Differences (stylistic and vocabulary differences that might indicate a different authorial hand). (4) Chronological varia (the insertion of a newer word in place of an obsolete term).

Historical criticism, or the historical-critical method, investigates the origins, social, cultural, literary, source and historical elements, of ancient texts in an attempt to understand the writer’s beliefs and intentions.
Redaction criticism studies the collection, arrangement, editing and modification of sources. It frequently tries to reconstruct the thinking and values of the “community” it imagines gave rise to a document or piece of writing and the purpose of the author, or authors, in writing a particular text. Source criticism refers to the effort to establish the sources used by authors and redactors in composing or editing a text. “Q” is one such source widely assumed by scholars. Unfortunately, sources are much easier to imagine than to factually discover in reality. 4 Form criticism also seeks to determine a unit’s original form and its historical context by classifying units of scripture according to literary patterns.

II Historical-Critical Method and Jesus Studies                                        Norman Perrin in What is Redaction Criticism? provided something of a summary to the above and an introduction to the development of the historical-critical method as practiced in Jesus Studies.

The purpose of form criticism has been to get behind the sources which literary criticism might identify and to describe what was happening as the tradition about Jesus was handed on orally from person to person and from community to community. Form criticism has been especially concerned with the modifications which the life and thought of the church––both Jewish-Christian and Gentile-Christian have introduced into the tradition, and form critics have worked out criteria for distinguishing these strata in the Gospels which reflect the concerns of the church from the stratum that might be thought to go back to the historical Jesus. . . . Redaction criticism is the most recent of the three disciplines to have become a self-conscious method of inquiry. It grew out of form criticism, and it presupposes and continues the procedures of the earlier discipline while extending and intensifying certain aspects of them. The redaction critic…is especially interested in the formation of the Gospels as finished products. 5


Gerhard Maier, the imminent German theologian and Scripture scholar at Tübingen, described redaction criticism as: “A theory which holds that the writers of the Gospels were not historians but theologians. To develop their own respective theologies”, explained Maier, “they (the writers of the Gospels) ascribed to Jesus words He never spoke and they credited him with things He never did. These ‘inventions’ were necessary in order to have a basis for the theology the writers wanted to develop”. 6 Higher criticism, or what has become known as the “historical-critical method” is, then, a theological and hermeneutical perspective with its own lengthening history. Indeed, it has been engaged in this meticulous, fragmenting, speculative, atomizing analysis, and secularization of the Bible for nearly three-hundred years now — depending on one’s starting point. 7

Albert Schweitzer famously dated the origins of the quest for the historical Jesus from H. S. Reimarus (1694–1768), 8  but Reimarus himself was, of course, actually representative of the whole Enlightenment critical orientation. The Bible, Reimarus insisted, is to be studied like any other book, and the life of Jesus is to be found in the Gospels by means of critically sifting and weighing their contents. Reimarus, then, sought to discover through “logical analysis” of the Gospels, and by careful attention to problems of relative credibility, who Jesus was as an actual historical figure.  Reimarus’s conclusion was that Jesus was a mortal Jewish prophet, and the apostles founded Christianity as a religion separate from Jesus’s own ministry.

Adolf von Harnack (1851-1931) sought to demonstrate the dependence of ancient Christology on non-Christian sources for its concepts and terminology as a way of arguing that Christianity had to get back beyond the Christ of dogma to what he thought to be the “essence of Christianity;” specifically, to the teachings of Jesus about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

William Wrede (1859-1906), known for his now abandoned investigation of the so-called “messianic secret” in the Gospel of Mark, suggested Jesus’s instructions to keep his identity hidden in Mark was a literary and apologetic device by which early Christians could explain away what Wrede thought the absence of any clear claim of Jesus to be the Messiah.

Rudolph Bultmann (1884-1976), famous for his program of demythologization, argued that the message of the new Testament was expressed in mythical terms, which are now best interpreted according to the concepts of existential philosophy. Only faith in this existential message, the kerygma of the New Testament, rather than any particular facts regarding the historical Jesus are necessary for claims of Christian faith.

III Paradigm Christology
These attempts to discover through literary analysis of the Gospels who Jesus was as an actual historical figure have resulted in numerous manifestations of what the American neo-evangelical scholar Bernard Ramm referred to as “paradigm Christologies”; that is, Christologies that point to something unique, “special” is perhaps a better word, about Jesus which constitutes some higher ideal to which human beings may aspire. 10  It might be said, for instance, that “Jesus was truly the person for others,” especially, the poor, the outcasts, and the oppressed, that “Jesus loved as no other has loved”, or that “Jesus was a completely authentic existential person”.

For Schleiermacher, who was in a very real sense the father of paradigm Christology, Jesus represented the perfect God-consciousness which he said is in us all. The essence of the Christian religion, he argued, is the feeling of “absolute dependence” on the Father that Jesus felt. This, thought Schleiermacher, was the pattern to be followed in living the Christian faith. Since Reimarus and Schleiermacher, historical criticism in its unending permutations and in its number of paradigm Christologies has proliferated. Marcus Borg’s portrayal of Jesus as sage, mystic (or spirit person) and political activist is one contemporary example.

IV Criteria of Authenticity
Enchanted by the hopeful beginnings of the Enlightenment, those scholars instrumental in the development of historical-critical methodology thought they would be able to develop the tools necessary for the scientific investigation of the Bible. This hope was pursued enthusiastically throughout the modern era as if it were a real possibility already achieved. However, historical-critical methodology is now itself increasingly called into question. For one thing its notions of what science is and does is built on the supporting pillars of nineteenth century perspectives and logic. Its imagination and thought process continue to be shaped by Baconian methodology and Newtonian physics rather than that of quantum mechanics or nonlinear systems thinking. For example, the historical-critical method has a religious-like faith in the Enlightenment dictum that the solution to any problem comes through applying formal logic and the scientific method with total objectivity. Consequently, one frequently hears New Testament scholars, especially those engaged in a close scrutiny of the Gospels, asserting radical skepticism as an essential principle of biblical criticism as if that were the same thing as objectivity.

However, postmodern thinking regarding objectivity is changing. It begins with the recognition that there is no such thing as the sort of absolute objectivity that the children of the Enlightenment thought possible. Paul Ricoeur noted that, the illusion is not in looking for a point of departure, but in looking for it without presuppositions. “There is no philosophy”, he said, “without presuppositions”. 11 Ricoeur went on to say: “Consequently, it (understanding) is never without presuppositions; that is to say, it is always directed by a prior understanding of the things about which it interrogates the text”. 12  In developing his theory of tacit knowledge Michael Polanyi, poly-mathematician, chemist, social scientist, and philosopher, argued that the belief that the exact sciences are characterized by complete objectivity is a “delusion”. 13  This is true not only because of our distorting prejudices and presuppositions, but also because every experience we have ever had influences the very questions we raise. We cannot escape our own total involvement in formulating what we know—or think we know. If this is true even in the exact sciences, how much more is it true in biblical and historical studies? And speaking of the exact sciences, or even just the disciplines of research psychology and sociology, no one who has ever had even an introductory course in research design and statistical analysis would mistake biblical or historical studies for “real science”. McKnight asserts in a simple and most straight forward manner, “Contemporary literary criticism lacks a universally accepted set of principles and methods”. 14  The reality is there are multiple ways of knowing, 15  and knowledge itself is a complex system. 16 

Abraham Maslow, one of the most frequently quoted psychologists of the twentieth century, suggested, based on his own research, an alternate path to “scientific objectivism”, one which he believed would render more accurate perceptions and deeper understanding:

My finding is that which you love you are prepared to leave alone…. We make no demands upon it. We do not wish it to be other than it is. We can be passive and receptive before it. Which is all to say we then can see it more truly as it is in its own nature rather than as we would like it to be or fear it to be or hope it to be. Approving of its existence, approving of the way it is, as it is, permits us to be nonintrusive, nondemanding, nonhoping, nonimproving, to that extent do we achieve this particular kind of objectivity. 17

What Karl Barth, who thought historical criticism both necessary and justified, says of Adolf Jülicher’s work on Romans is as pertinent to our hermeneutical situation as it was to his own.

We observe how closely Jülicher keeps to the mere deciphering of words as though they were runes. But when all is done, they remain still largely unintelligible. How quickly he is. without any real struggling with the raw material of the Epistle, to dismiss this or that difficult passage as simply a peculiar doctrine or opinion of Paul. . . attributing what Paul has said to his ‘personality’, to the experience on the road to Damascus, (an episode which seems capable of providing at any moment an explanation of every impossibility), to later Judaism, Hellenism, or, in fact, to any exegetical semi-divinity of the ancient world. 18

If Barth’s criticism of criticism seems a little harsh to us, it must be remembered that he wrote his commentary on Romans as he listened to the exploding artillery shells of World War I and sought in his reading of Paul what might be of substantial and intelligible pastoral help to the people of his congregation rather than what was merely critical and speculative.

V Erosion of the Criteria
The criteria of dissimilarity, which argues that a saying attributed to Jesus must be distinguishable from both first century Judaism and early Christianity in order to be considered genuine, has been the primary test of the authenticity of Jesus’s sayings. 19 And the tools of form criticism and redaction methodology have provided the necessary support for the criteria of dissimilarity. For instance, form criticism asserts that only those traditions about Jesus were retained that reflected the interests of the early church. However, the criteria of dissimilarity, and form criticism itself, are beginning to erode both because they defy common sense and lack appropriate academic rigor. As Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter note in their Quest for the Plausible Jesus: “First with regard to the erosion of the criteria of dissimilarity… Objections were raised that separating Jesus from Judaism and early Christianity overlooked the continuity between Judaism, Jesus and early Christianity, a continuity that doubtless was present”.  20

The simple hard fact is that the criteria of authenticity are fraught with problems:
• Jesus is cut off from Jewish culture which renders him, as a historical figure, unintelligible. 21
• There is a failure to recognize that what any given exegete finds embarrassing may say more about what that particular interpreter thinks should be embarrassing than what the early followers of Jesus, or later the church, actually found embarrassing.
• Quite puzzling questions are left unanswered, for instance: If the Church wrote its answers to later issues into the text at a later date, why are not such matters as circumcision, or what foods are kosher, emotional and contentious topics in the early church, not dealt with definitively in the Gospels?
• There seems to be no awareness of the fact that if the answer itself is correct the question is nearly irrelevant.
• There is no real recognition that we simply do not know all we want to know or need to know; and, therefore, cannot account for unknown variables such as the elements of coincidence, or chance. Surely, hermeneutics in the twenty-first century cannot ignore the philosophical implications of Heisenberg or the emerging theory among quantum scientists that an event may be both cause and effect.
• The assumption that the Gospels were written from a community rather than to a community seems increasingly unwarranted. The only evidence given for the existence of Matthew’s Jewish community, or for Mark’s, Luke’s, or the Johannine community as the source of the Gospels comes from the inventive imagination of scholars. William A. Johnson argues, “The text does not merely serve or reflect its readers. . .  but actively seeks to create the ideal reading community to which the writing aspires”. He contends that texts are constructed in such a way as to guide speech, thought, and behavior. Communities, then, were the recipients and not the source of biblical texts. 22  This obviously leads to a radically different way of reading the Gospels than that of form criticism.
• Complicating matters enormously for scholars following the linear historical-critical method, is the discovery that the work of ancient story tellers and historians was characterized by both fixity and flexibility––stability and diversity. In both the oral and written tradition of the first century Mediterranean World there is characteristically a teaching, or tradition, to be treasured, but it is formulated variously depending on the emphasis the teller might want to bring out for a particular audience or occasion. The story might be told by different, or even the same storyteller with different emphases, in a different order and with embellishments as long as the teller remained faithful to the core truth. This also means that there is no event or saying which can be traced back linear step by linear step, peeled back layer by layer, until the scholar comes to the pristine original. There is, rather, only the witness to the event. 23

There are just two more difficulties among the many problems with the methodology of higher criticism and the criteria of authenticity that I will note here. The first is a question which is actually rooted in scientific inquiry. It is a question often raised but generally ignored: “Why is it that those using the same methodology come up with such different, even contradictory, results”? 24  The mark of reliable science is that work done (experiments performed) in a prescribed manner have a common outcome. Finally, the historical-critical method is built on the premise that the Gospels are the result of quite a lengthy process; indeed, such an incremental evolution is essential to the entire enterprise of higher criticism. However, more convincing is Larry Hurtado’s argument that the Jesus story, with its accompanying adoration and devotion, is better described and explained as exploding into the first century world rather than evolving. 25

Given all this, Morna D. Hooker writes in the foreword to Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity edited by Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne: 

Contributors to this volume are divided between those who think these ‘tools’ (tools for determining the authenticity of Jesus’s words and deeds) still have a modest role, and those who are determined that they must be put aside altogether. Perhaps however, the time has come to abandon the whole enterprise of trying to discover “the real historical Jesus”.  26

There is much more but this should be sufficient to provide some understanding of why I am convinced that the historical-critical method is intellectually stuck and has left Scripture with little to say that is relevant or intelligible to a world with its back against the wall. 27 Maier, therefore wrote: “The higher-critical method, for all practical purposes, has arrived at the end of a blind alley, we are faced with the responsibility of finding a different method of Biblical inquiry and scholarly study––one better suited to its subject. . . that the prospects are poor should not keep us from finding a better method”.28

Nevertheless, there is a simple, if difficult, way out. I say difficult, because while understanding systems theory presents no great problem to any reasonably intelligent person, becoming a systems thinker involves a personal cognitive shift that is not easily made.

VI Systems Thinking
As already indicated, the way out being posited here is that of systems thinking. Systems thinking, at least in its formal sense, is a little less than seventy-years-old. After 1955 the continuously accelerating speed and complexity with which computers calculated, organized, stored, and retrieved information required a more efficient way for the human mind itself to manage and understand the vast quantities of information now available. General systems thinking was the scientific response to this need. 29  In systems thinking the focus is more on how information is organized than on content––process rather than content. In order to understand an organized whole, it is thought, we must identify not only a system’s individual parts, but the relation between them as well. A crucial tenet of systems thinking is: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. A fully assembled automobile engine has a power and greater functionality (is something more) than all its component parts lying in an orderly but disconnected arrangement on a garage floor. A family, a church, a hospital, a nation, the Bible are all greater than the sum of their parts and must be understood holistically.

Another major difference between systems and non-systems thinking is how cause and effect are understood. Systems thinking is nonlinear. Linear thinking is driven more by the older concept of simple cause and effect in which one cause has one effect––A causes B which then causes C and so on. 30 The historical-critical method invariably assumes it has correctly identified A and therefore thoroughly understands B and everything that follows. Systems thinking on the other hand has to do with seeing a whole field of causes and effects in which each cause itself becomes an effect and each effect a cause. Strange as this may sound, even scientists now question the traditional concept of cause and effect. For example, physicists now think that at the quantum level gravity may be both cause and effect. Moreover, in systems thinking as A affects B its strength and manner of doing so changes as B in turn affects A. This means that Scripture must be understood holistically and with an appreciation for the fact that we never apprehend all the relational variables.

Michael Patrick Gillespie’s book, The Aesthetics of Chaos: Nonlinear Thinking and Contemporary Literary Criticism, although itself sometimes a rather linear presentation that leaves one wondering about Gillespie’s own process, is well worth reading. Gillespie, who is Professor of English at Marquette University, notes that in linear Newtonian thinking, which still determines the work of literary critics, one idea or observation creates the facts that become the basis from which successive ideas or observations are derived. “This approach”, he argues, “produces interpretations far too narrow to accommodate the full potential of literary expression”. 31  John Ciardi’s cogent argument for how poetry is be read is fully applicable here. Ciardi asserts that the first question is not what does a poem mean, but how does it mean? “Why does it build itself into a form out of images, ideas, rhythms? How do these elements become the meaning”. 32  “Literary critics”, says Gillespie, “have become so used to the inconsistencies resulting from linear thinking that they simply ignore those particulars that do not fit its assumptions––what Newtonian scientists, upon encountering such irregularities, call ‘white noise'”. Gillespie sees quantum mechanics and chaos theory as providing a way of configuring literary studies “by finding connections in antinomies that commonplace Cartesian thinkers see only as contradictions; and, through this accommodation to ambiguity. . . move toward recognizing an order in the universe that scientists following Newtonian methods cannot hope to discern”. 33

One of the underlying principles in chaos theory, which is included in systems thinking, is the notion that there is an order that emerges out of chaos, that there is a relationship between the two, and that everything is interrelated––every particular is part of a larger pattern. This interrelatedness and interdependency of each part of a system means that looking at the components of a system in isolation without seeing the whole not only distorts and confuses our understanding but may even collapse the system. 34  Edwin H. Friedman, rabbi, and pioneer in applying systems thinking to family therapy, therefore observed:

Each component, rather than having its own discreet identity or input, operates as part of a whole. The components do not function according to their ‘nature’ but according to their position in the network. . . . To take one part of the whole and analyse its ‘nature’ will give misleading results, first, because each part will function differently outside the system, and second, because even its functioning inside the system will be different depending on where it is placed in relation to the others. In fact, the very notion of effect becomes relative. 35

From a slightly different angle, it might be noted that linear thinking with its philosophical and theological atomization easily falls prey to what Alfred North Whitehead called “the fallacy of misplace concreteness”. The more specialized students and scholars of an academic discipline become; that is, the more socialized in a particular discipline’s abstractions and methodology, the more elaborate the abstractions themselves become with the end result that the abstractions themselves become detached from reality. 36

In transitioning now to the composition and transmission system of the Gospels, by which I mean the four canonical Gospels, I will issue one important reminder and make one paradoxical observation regarding the nature of systems thinking. First, systems thinking is just that, it is a way of thinking. It is not particularly difficult to teach a student the concept of nonlinear thinking, it is a great deal of difficulty for them to learn to actually think in a nonlinear fashion. Second, and I think this particularly significant for Biblical studies, with systems theory “it no longer becomes necessary to know all about something (a text for instance) in order to comprehend it”. 37

VII Systems Components of the Gospels
The focus in this essay is primarily on three components of the composition and transmission system of the four Gospels. (1) The oral tradition, (2) the written Gospels as rough, unfinished notes or memoranda (hypomnemata or commentarii) and, (3) The Gospels as ‘eyewitness’ testimony. However, it must be kept in mind that there are many other elements of the system as well––accident, opportunity, necessity, the sensus divinitas, and that grace which the historian and philosopher Glenn Chestnut described as “the mysterious X factor”. 38 Certainly, the nature of the Gospels as a system can be more easily seen if, with John A.T. Robinson we conceive the writing of the synoptics as having been composed in parallel (I would say interactively and interdependently) rather than in a rigidly sequential process. The question, then, becomes: What if the whole process by which the Four Gospels came to be was far more fluid and dynamic than supposed, occurring not only within the context of a continuous oral exchange but also a sharing of written notes?

Robinson, who did not think the synoptic question entirely resolved, stated in Redating the New Testament, “Rather I believe that there was a written (as well as oral) tradition underlying each of them (the synoptics) . . . The gospels as we have them are to be seen as parallel, though by no means isolated, developments of common material”. . .  39 Matthew Larsen’s proposal, it seems to me, meshes quite nicely with Robinson’s more fluid and dynamic image of interplay or “parallelism”.

In his Gospels Before the Book which offers a way of reading the Gospels that could totally upend Jesus studies. Matthew Larsen maintains that the Gospels are hypomnemata (Greek) or commentarii (Latin). While the two words share the same wide range of meaning––public records, rough drafts, lists, announcements, commentary, memoranda, and notes––their most common feature is that they represent an unfinished, unpolished, writing project. They were, even if extensive, essentially notes which might be written by anyone. They could be written, for example, not only by the highly educated or elite, but by doctors, soldiers, builders, and other lower status worker––or even slaves.

The narcissistic Cicero, the Roman statesman, philosopher, and consul, as well as one of Rome’s most highly regarded poets, orators, and prose stylists, worried over how future generations would know how great he was. His answer was that a book would have to be written in his praise. However, this created a dilemma. He didn’t want to be seen as praising himself; but he thought no one could write such a book, actually any book, better than he could. The solution wasn’t difficult to find. Write detailed but unfinished notes and have Herodes Atticus, a notable Greek scholar and writer himself, edit and publish the notes (hypomnemata or commentarii) as a book authored by Atticus. 40  One of Larsen’s key emphases is that hypomnemata (notes) are just that–– a brief record of facts, topics, or thoughts, written down as an aid to memory––rather like Pascal’s Pensées. They may serve as the basis for a book, but they are not intended as the finished literary product itself.

In Theaetetus, observes Larsen, Socrates tells Eucleides about a conversation he had with Theaetetus. As soon as Eucleides arrived back home in Megara  he wrote hypomnemata (made notes) of his conversation with Socrates as he remembered it. Later he wrote everything he remembered in the style of the conversation itself. 41  After that he made frequent trips to Athens to ask Socrates what remained unclear or forgotten to him. He would then return home to Megara and correct his notes about this prior conversation about a conversation. 42  Larsen goes on to explain by quoting Lucian’s How to Write History: “After the writer has collected everything, let the writer first weave together from them a rough draft (hypomnema ti sunuphaineto) and make a text that is still unadorned and disjointed. Then, after the writer has put it in proper arrangement (ten taxin), let the writer bring in beauty, give it a touch of style, shape it, and bring it to order”. 43  This is the process Larsen believes is especially evident in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark; that is, he sees the Gospel According to Mark as a collection of unfinished notes, a rough draft, and Matthew as the further refinement of that draft––the very thing scholars have thought unlikely. In Luke’s prologue with its reference to the attempts of others to set in order an account of the Jesus narrative and his own intention to provide a more careful account, along with the prologues more elevated and sophisticated style, seems to support Larsen’s hypothesis. The Acts of Timothy, late fifth century, includes a tradition of the earliest gospel texts as disorganized notes. When the disciples of John came to Ephesus, according to this tradition, they had with them a loose collection of notes which John reworked and arranged as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John then wrote another Gospel, the Fourth Gospel, to cover what he thought had been left out of the first three. 44

Larsen wants to emphasize that the Gospels were not regarded as closed texts by early Christian readers, but as unfinished stories and sayings of a tradition that remained fluid and open to expansion and revision. Just how that fits with the early stabilization of the Christ narrative I am not quite certain.

One of Larsen’s many intriguing examples is Artemidorus Daldianus, a second century soothsayer famous for his five-volume work on interpreting dreams. Artemidorus gathered material, notes, for his books from other diviners during his extensive travels through Greece and Italy. Larsen’s interest in Artemidorus is principally in Artemidorus’s worry that others will steal his ideas or alter his books. Larsen’s argument is that the Gospels in their early form were unfinished and open books susceptible to alterations. However, it is also worth observing that according to Larsen, Artemidorus sought to “head off” or at least mitigate the effects of such efforts: “I ask those who read my books,” he wrote, “not to add or remove anything from their contents”. 45 We might note that Artemidorus faced problems in this regard that the writers of the Gospels did not. For one thing his sources were more private and not easily accessed; whereas the Gospels were more public, open, easily accessible; and, therefore, more amenable to verification. To this might be added the overall continuity of the canon.

However, what is exciting is the notion of each of the Gospels as a “notebook” somewhere on the route to becoming a finished literary product, but never quite entirely refined or achieving the sort of literary elegance defined by the Greco-Roman world—either because that was not their intended purpose or because their original recorders and custodians were not from the learned elite who possessed those literary skills.

VIII Notes of Oral Witness Testimony
Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham provides another element of the systemic composition and transmission of the Gospels. What I am suggesting, or perhaps asking, is: What if the Gospels are not formal histories or bibliographies, but more like notebooks or memoranda—notes of multiple and varied observations, conversations, events, experiences, impressions? How does one, using the methodology of form or redaction criticism, sort out such notes, on any subject, contained in someone’s composition book? By doubling down on the application of “modern literary methods”? I am not certain after reading Gospels Before the Book, that even Larsen quite grasps how problematic his thesis is for source, form, and redaction criticism. But what if Richard Bauckham is correct? What if the Gospels are essentially eyewitness accounts, and what, we might further ask, if more or less in parallel with these oral eyewitness accounts rough notes were written–– memoranda of what Jesus’s Palestinian contemporaries, especially family, friends, disciples, and recipients of his kindness, heard, saw, and thought of him or felt in his presence? Surely, the earliest friends and followers of Jesus must have talked frequently with others in synagogue, at work, in the marketplace, at the village and town gates, and in the temple precincts of what they knew of Jesus both before and after Easter. This is all part of the system.

It is not within the scope of this paper to recapitulate Bauckham’s rather lengthy and through discussion of the Gospel’s as eyewitness testimony; or, to explore his definition of “eyewitness”. However, it is possible and worthwhile to note the following from his book:

This directness of relationship between the eyewitnesses and the Gospel text requires a different picture of the way the Gospel traditions were transmitted from that which most New Testament scholars and students have inherited from the early twentieth-century movement in New Testament scholarship known as form criticism. . . . it has bequeathed one enormously influential legacy. This is the assumption that the traditions about Jesus, his acts, and his words, passed through a long process of oral tradition in the early Christian communities and reached the writers of the Gospels only at a late stage of this process. . . The Gospels embody their (the eyewitnesses) testimony only in a rather remote way. . . There is a very simple and obvious objection to this picture that has often been made but rarely taken very seriously. . . . Vincent Taylor wrote that “If the Form-Critics are right, the disciples must have been translated to heaven immediately after the Resurrection”. He went on to point out that many eyewitness participants in the events of the Gospel narratives “did not go into permanent retirement; for a generation they moved among the young Palestinian communities, and through preaching and fellowship their recollections were at the disposal of those who sought information”. 46

It seems to me that a piece that is enormously helpful to Bauckham’s entire theory is the probability that those who first told the Jesus story (the disciples, apostles, and earliest believers) had not only their own first-hand experiences of the Messiah, as well as the oral stories of what others said they had experienced to pass on as verbal memorizations, but also hypomnemata, commentarii, memoranda, notes of events, conversations, and experiences as resource to share. 47What must be seen is a first century setting in which informal conversations, discourses, and the writing of notes and memories were all taking place simultaneously, interactively, interdependently. 48

IX A “Restorative” Hermeneutic
Modern criticism is “stuck”––stuck in a philosophy of analysis that is largely conjectural, that frequently begs the question, that is severely limited by linear thinking, that is sadly debilitated by professional ambitions; and is, therefore, generally inconsequential when it comes to pastoral care or spiritual formation. 49  Neither has the textual analysis of the historical-critical method (linear thinking), as represented in the criteria of authenticity, served the study of the Gospels or of Christian origins all that well. What is needed is a systems perspective which sees the composition and transmission of the canonical Gospels holistically, interactively, and interdependently. Such an approach will include many elements in its field of vision; including, but not limited to: (1) The original orality of the Gospels as “eyewitness” testimony shared generously within the Christian community (churches), as well as with outsiders. (2) The probability that the Gospels represent notes, rough drafts, outlines, or memoranda of this testimony more than they do finished books of history or polished literary forms––notes which may, like all notes, seem disorderly and confusing; but, nevertheless, represent eyewitness reports of what Jesus of Nazareth said and did, and of how he was perceived by his contemporaries. (3) That the inscribing of these notes seems to have begun very early, 50  openly, publicly, and somewhat in “parallel”, even interactively, with one another and certainly in conjunction with oral tradition. If all the actions and responses of each element in the gospel composition and transmission system were diagramed and portrayed graphically things would look much wilder (like the graphics of fractals on a computer screen), but they would also be both more explanatory and beautiful than any visualization provided by the historical-critical linear model.

Obviously, we may argue the accuracy of the observations of the earliest Christians or even doubt their truthfulness as we might with any witness providing testimony about an event. But in the end what these people thought and said of Jesus, and reported of their encounters with him as told in the canonical hypomnemata is all we have. 51  Well, that, and the sacred oral tradition that is both ancient and continuous 52  but of sufficient power for those who live in the aura of its meaning to discover, in the words of Paul Ricoeur: “A time of criticism. . . that is no longer reductive but restorative”. 53

Summary
This paper briefly recapitulates the history and methodologies of higher criticism before suggesting modern New Testament criticism is “stuck”. It proposes not that criticism be abandoned, for there is no going back to a pre-critical time of reading the biblical text. What is posited is a less linear systems approach with at least three components: (1) The oral tradition of The Gospels. (2) The written Gospels as rough, unfinished notes or memoranda ( hypomnemata) or commentarii) as proposed by Matthew Larsen (3) The Gospels as “eyewitness” testimony as presented in Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

End Notes

[1] E. F. Klug argued in his forward to Maier, “Historical-critical methodology cannot be claimed as a neutral discipline”. Whether we begin with Hobbes and Spinoza, or Semler its origins and continued development, with, as Maier himself states, ” . . .its endless chain of perplexities and inner contradictions”, represents not scientific objectivity but a negative prejudgment of the Biblical text. G. Maier, The End of the Historical-Critical Method.  (trans. E. W. Leverenz –– R. F. Nord) (Wipf and Stock; Eugene, OR 2001), 8, 11.

[2] For a contrary perspective see: U. Cassuto, The Documentary Hypothesis. Eight Lectures.  (trans. I. Abrahams) (Oxford University Press; Oxford 1972).

[3] For a specific, clear, and practical critique see: C.S. Lewis, Fern-seed and Elephants. And Other Essays on Christianity (Harper-Collins, New York 1975) 86-105.

[4] For a discussion on whether “Q” was an actual source for the synoptics or more of a scholarly fiction see: M. Goodacre –– N. Perrin, Questioning Q. A Multidimensional Critique. (InterVarsity; Downers Grove, IL 2004).

[5] N. Perrin, What Is Redaction Criticism? (ed. D. O. Via Jr.) (Wipf & Stock; Eugene, OR 2002)) vi.

[6] Maier, End of the Historical-Critical Method, 108.

[7] It should be noted that the historical-critical method is largely a Protestant phenomenon. Catholic scholars have been somewhat more judicious in embracing its methodology and a little more cautious in accepting its radical conclusions.

[8] A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. (trans. W. Montgomery) (Dover Publications; Mineola, New York 2005).

[9] Schweitzer ended his study with Wrede. Schweitzer has often been thought of as having ended the quest for the historical Jesus whereas the reality is he extended and perpetuated it.

[10]B. Ramm, An Evangelical Christology. Ecumenic and Historic. (Thomas Nelson; Nashville, TN 1985) 177-179.

[11] Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil. (trans. E. Buchanan) (Beacon; Boston MA 1967) 348.

[12] Ricoeur, Symbolism of Evil, 351. 

[13] M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge. Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. (University of Chicago Press; Chicago, IL 1962) 18.

[14] E. V. McKnight –– R. A. Spencer, “Contours in Literary Criticism and Methods” in Orientation By Disorientation. Studies in Literary Criticism and Biblical Literary Criticism Presented in Honor of William Beardslee.  (Pickwick; Pittsburg, PA 1980) 53-70.

[15] G. F. Chestnut, God and Spirituality. Philosophical Essays. (iUniverse; New York 2010). Also: L. Hart, The Annunciation. A New Evangelization and Apologetic for Mainline Protestants and Progressive Catholics in Postmodern North America. (Wipf and Stock; Eugene, OR 2017) 165-173.

[16] P. M. King –– K. S. Kitchener, Developing Reflective Judgment. Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults (Jossey Bass; San Francisco 1994).

[17] A. H. Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. (Penguin; New York 1993) 16 –17.

[18] K. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans. (Oxford University Press; London, 1933, Sixth edition 1968) 7-8.

[19] For a critique of this and other criteria as used by the Jesus Seminar see: W. R. Herzog II, Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God. A Ministry of Liberation. (Westminster John Knox; Louisville; Louisville KY 2000).

[20] G. Theissen –– D. Winter, Quest for the Plausible Jesus. The Question of Criteria (trans. E. Boring) (Westminster John Knox Press; Louisville & London 2002) 6.

[21] See: N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God. (Christian Origins and the Question of God Volume Two; Fortress Press; Minneapolis, MN 1996) 91-98.

[22] W. Johnson, “Constructing Elite Reading Communities in the High Empires,” Ancient Literacies. The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome. (eds. W. A. Johnson –– Holt N. Parker) (Oxford University Press; Oxford 2009) 328-329.

[23] D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels. (William B. Eerdmans; Grand Rapids 2011) 38-39.

[24] Still worth reading in this regard is: C. S. Lewis, Fern-seed and Elephants, 90-99.

[25] L. Hurtado, How On Earth Did Jesus Become God? Historical Questions About Earliest Devotion to Jesus. (William B. Eerdmans; Grand Rapids, MI 2005) 25-30.

[26] C. Keith –– A. Le Donne eds., Jesus Criteria. The Demise of Authenticity. (T. and T. Clark International; London 2012) xiv.

[27] Hart, The Annunciation, 138-191.

[28] G. Maier, The End of the Historical-Critical Method, 48.

[29] Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) is recognized as one of the earliest figures in the development of general systems thinking.

[30] Circular thinking is not nonlinear thinking. It is merely a line of cause and effect with the ends tied together.

[31] M. P. Gillespie, The Aesthetics of Chaos. Nonlinear Thinking and Contemporary Literary Criticism. (University of Florida Press; Gainesville, FL 2003) 3,16.

[32] J. Ciardi –– H. Barrows –– H. Heffner –– W. Douglas, How Does a Poem Mean? (Part Three of an Introduction to Literature; Houghton Mifflin; Boston, MA 1959) 668, 663-670.

[33] Gillespie, The Aesthetics of Chaos, 3,16.

[34] C. P. Cordon, “System Theories, An Overview of Various System Theories and Its Application in Healthcare”, American Journal of Systems Science, Vol. 2, No. 1, (2013) 13-22.

[35] E. H. Friedman, Generation to Generation. Family Process in Church and Synagogue. (Guilford Press; New York and London: Guilford Press, 1985), 15.

[36] H. Daly –– J. Cobb, For the Common Good. Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future (Beacon Press; Boston, MA 1994) 25, 122.

[37] Friedman, Generation to Generation, 15.

[38] Chestnut, God and Spirituality, 1-22.

[39] J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (Westminster Press; Philadelphia, PA 1976) 94.

[40] M. D. C. Larsen, Gospels Before the Book (Oxford University Press; Oxford, New York 2018) 12.

[41] Notice Eucleides did not have a stenographic verbatim he worked from, but from memory wrote notes in the style of the conversation.

[42] Larsen, Before the Book, 19.

[43] Larsen, Before the Book, 107.

[44] Larsen, Before the Book, 150-151.

[45] Larsen, Before the Book, 100.

[46] R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Grand Rapids, MI 2017) 6-7.

[47] Imagine this possibility: A wealthy woman in Jerusalem witnesses a healing of Jesus and pays a scribe to write about it in a letter she sends to her chronically ill sister in Damascus. Or a rabbi having heard the beatitudes goes home and writes them down as he remembers them.

[48] Dunn, Jesus Paul and the Gospels, 22-44.

[49] Anyone who doubts this should read in its entirety: A. Sabar, Veritas. A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.(Doubleday; New York 2020).

[50] John A.T. Robinson made a convincing argument for the composition of the entire New Testament occurring prior to 70 C.E. At the very least we know the Gospel had a stable core no later than 40 C.E, but probably six years earlier. See: Robinson, Redating the New Testament, 1979. Also:Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 2005 edition.

[51] Dunn therefore notes that the question we should ask is not what Jesus originally said or did, but what did Jesus most characteristically say and do. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels, 11,40.

[52] Most people, even today, heard the gospel narrative before they ever read.

[53] Ricoeur, Symbolism of Evil, 350.

 

Bibliography

Barth, Karl Barth, ‘Preface to the Second Edition,’ The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford University Press, 1933, Sixth edition, 1968).

Bauckham, Richard.  Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Second Edition, 2017).

Cassuto, U. The Documentary Hypothesis: Eight Lectures, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Press, 1941, English Edition reprinted 1972 by Oxford University Press).

Chestnut, Glenn F. God and Spirituality: Philosophical Essays (New York: iUniverse, 2010).

Ciardi, John. Herbert Barrows, Hubert Heffner, and Wallace Douglas, How Does a Poem Mean? Part Three of an Introduction to Literature, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959).

Cordon, Charissa P.  ‘System Theories: An Overview of Various System Theories and Its Application in Healthcare,’ American Journal of Systems Science, Vol. 2 No. 1, (2013).

Daly, Herman and John Cobb. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994).

Dunn, D.G. Jesus, Paul, and the Gospel’s (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2011).

Friedman, Edwin H. Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue (London: Guilford, 1985,).

Gillespie, Michael Patrick. The Aesthetics of Chaos: Nonlinear Thinking and Contemporary Literary Criticism(Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2003).

Goodacre, Mark and Nicholas Perrin, Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004).

Hart, Larry. The Annunciation: A New Evangelization and Apologetic for Mainline Protestants and Progressive Catholics in Postmodern North America (Eugene Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2017).

Herzog II, William R. Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God: A Ministry of Liberation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000).

Hurtado, Larry. How On Earth Did Jesus Become God? Historical Questions About Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids / Cambridge, U K: William B. Eerdmans, 2005).

–––––. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids / Cambridge, U K: William B. Eerdmans, 2003).

Johnson, William. ‘Constructing Elite Reading Communities in the High Empires,’ in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome, ed. William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Keith, Chris and Anthony Le Donne eds., Jesus Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (London: T. and T. Clark International, 2012).

King, Patricia M. and Karen Strom Kitchener, Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994).

Larsen, Matthew. Gospels Before the Book (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Lewis, C. S, Fern-seed and Elephants: And Other Essays on Christianity (New York: Harper-Collins, 1975).

Maier, Gerhard. Biblical Hermeneutics, trans. Robert W. Yarbrough (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994).

–––––. The End of the Historical-Critical Method, trans. Edwin W. Leverenz and Rudolph F. Norden (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1977; Eugene, Or: Wipf and Stock, 2001).

Maslow, Abraham, H. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: Viking Press, 1971, Penguin 1993).

McKnight, Edgar V. ‘Contours in Literary Criticism and Methods’ in Orientation By Disorientation: Studies in Literary Criticism and Biblical Literary Criticism, Presented in Honor of William Beardslee, ed. by Richard A. Spencer (Pittsburg: Pickwick, 1980).

Perrin, Norman. What Is Redaction Criticism? ed. Dan O. Via Jr. (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2002).

Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

Ramm, Bernard.  An Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic (Nashville • Camden • New York, 1985).

Ricoeur, Paul. The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon, 1967).

Robinson, John A. T. Redating the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976).

Sabar, Ariel. Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife (New York: Doubleday, 2020).

Theissen, Gerd and Dagmar Winter. Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria, trans. Eugene Boring (Louisville & London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).

Wright, N. T. Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume Two, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).

Comments on Religion & Spirituality

Larry Hart, Curtal Friar

A Short Definition of Religion
I have been wondering, from some of the things I see via social media whether I am supposed to feel embarrassed that I am a religious person. Increasingly I see items meant to debunk the whole idea of “religion” and proclaiming the superiority of “spirituality. “I find them rather off-putting. If one reads them carefully, they are not so much criticisms of religion in general but of the Christian Faith in particular. Actually, in thinking about it, this has been pretty much true historically. When Karl Marx said, “religion is the opiate of the people,” he undoubtedly had the Judaic and Christian religions in mind. He said quite explicitly: “The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility,” the struggle of humanity is, therefore, a struggle against religion.” Many of the posts I read which are dismissive of religion often would not even make sense if applied to say Buddhism or Taoism or any of the major religions. Besides this, I find they simply do not correspond to my own experience, or the experience of the deepest Christians I have met in my eighty-year journey of faith. For example, when Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the popular astrophysicist, says: “People turn to religion not to be informed, but to be massaged. It tells them what they want to hear, not what they need to know,” it is for me a complete disconnect. For one thing religion is not about acquiring information, it is about transformation. Tyson, as an atheist, polite though he is, simply does not understand the nature of either religion or spirituality. For another, I wonder if Tyson has ever read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) or what Jesus said about the cost of discipleship in Matthew 16:24-27. I would think what people really want to hear is that there are no rules. It is, for example, a rather nice “massage” when Neo says at the end of the Matrix, “There are no rules,” and flies up and away like Superman.
I understand religion in light of what that word means and has always meant in the ancient and simple Latin from which it comes; namely, all those practices, attitudes, and associations that bind, tie, or connect a person to that mysterious presence, to that transcendent reality the Christian calls God. A Hindu engaged in yajña (a sacrificial ritual) the Buddhist in jhāna/dhyāna (meditation), the Moslem on pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Christian reciting The Lord’s Prayer in church or sitting alone in silent contemplation are all performing religious practices meant to intimately connect them, as Saint Anselm put it in the eleventh century, to “that than which no greater can be conceived”––to that which is really beyond all concepts, ideas, thoughts, explanations, or imagination. The Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Four Pillars of Islam, and the Two Great Precepts of Christianity are religious principles which, if followed, are meant to deepen and enrich spiritual awareness and bring illumination. If we find ourselves wanting to say, “No, these are spiritual rather than religious principles,” we will have only demonstrated how very difficult it is to tease the meaning of religion and spirituality apart. For example, love is most certainly a spiritual quality (a state of consciousness), but it is also an art, a discipline, a practice: “Love is as love does.”

The Missing Noun in Spirituality
Spirituality involves the recognition of a feeling, or sense, or a belief that there is something greater than ourselves, that there is something more to being human (to life) than sensory experience, and that the greater whole, the deeper and higher reality, of which we intuitively know we are a part is something that, although unfathomable, beyond naming and unutterably inexplicable, is best described by some such words as spirit, consciousness, mind, or soul. Huston Smith who died at the age of 97 in 2005 (a deeply spiritual person and imminent scholar), probably knew more about the major religions of the world, both academically and experientially, than any other person on earth. His book Religions of the World is still used widely in universities and seminaries, and his documentary series with Bill Moyers was highly acclaimed. He wrote in his book Why Religion Matters, published in 2001 that he did not much like the word “spirituality.”

It is a bad sign when spiritual, an adjective, gets turned into a noun, spirituality, for this has the dog chasing its own tail. Grammatically spirit is the noun in question, and spiritual its adjective. Spirituality is a neologism (a newly coined word) that has come into existence because spirit has no reference in science’s world and without grounding there, we are left unsure as to what the word denotes.

I suspect that it is the words very vagueness that has led to its growing usage. It is malleable enough to use it to refer to the depths without saying anything disagreeable about those depths, and to mean pretty much whatever one wants it to mean. Nevertheless, I think we are stuck with the word and so define it as I do above after a survey of its most prevalent definitions on the internet. However, I continue to stress the point that some caution needs to be observed in listening to celebrity authors and popular guides who are so cavalier in expressing a precise understanding of what spirituality is and is not.
The Apostle Paul does use a word in his writing than can be translated as “the spiritual person,” so in the thought of the New Testament spiritual, or spirituality, does have a noun (a reference point) in which it is grounded––”Spirit.” The Greek term Paul uses is pneumatikos. He uses it to mean someone in whom the Spirit of God lives and illuminates with the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of the cross––a comprehension of the full implications of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. The spiritual person according to Paul’s use of the term in the Corinthian correspondence is one who is empowered by the Spirit (uppercase S) to live the universal law of love, and whose life produces the good fruit of Galatians 5. In the New Testament “Spirit” is, then, the noun lacking in the popular literature of the twenty-first century where the tendency is to dumb-down virtually everything touched by American culture.

Distortions
Religion and spirituality should both be about transformation, about becoming more human, more alive, and more expressive of what the ancient Greek philosophers thought of as the good, the true, and the beautiful. Unfortunately, both religion and spirituality may be distorted––become nothing more than a fragile shell concealing a rotten inside and hiding a bad odor. The psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck said in his book People of the Lie that most of the truly evil people in this world are not in prisons and jails, they are in political office, church leadership, and corporate board rooms. They are people of the lie because while evil they want to look good. They are what the New Testament calls hypocrites–– literally actors wearing masks. In the Greek plays one actor might play several parts, and for each part wore a different mask. The design of the mask revealed the character being played. When Jesus accuses the Pharisees of being hypocrites, he is not attacking religion. Jesus, the historical person immersed in the same sort of everyday life we all are, was himself religious. He attended synagogue, observed the Jewish holy days, studied Torah, helped the poor, encouraged observance of the Ten Commandments, and worshipped in the temple. The problem as Jesus saw it is not that the Pharisees were religious but that they were merely playing at religion like actors on a stage. Because rather than being real their religion is a pretense it is worthless (see James 1:26-27). Jesus was never critical of religion, but he was highly critical of religious (or spiritual) pretense, and of its misuse to hurt the poor and the vulnerable.

Response to Seven Contrasts of Religion and Spirituality
Some where I saw a list of contrasting religion and spirituality––a list of seven characteristics distinguishing religion from spirituality––a rather strange thing to do for anyone who really believes everything is ultimately one. Be that as it may, I repeat each contrast here with a brief response:
1) Religion worships God. Spirituality encourages oneness within God.
This assertion, like each of those that will follow, is a gross over generalization, and if the author were honest meant to apply specifically to the Christian faith rather than to religion as a whole, or even to the five major religions of the world. As an over generalization, and whether applied to Christianity specifically or one of the other major wisdom traditions, it is simply not correct. There is a difference, for example, in how Christians and Hindus speak of this “oneness,” but both religions certainly do speak of it as a possible and desirable reality. Christianity encourages both sacred reverence (the worship) and love of God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and a union of love, an intimate communion, a natural organic oneness like that of a grape vine and its branches (See: Acts 17:28; Ephesians 4:6; Galatians 2:20; John 15: 6, 9; 17:20-23; Matthew 22; 37; Deuteronomy 6:5; Jeremiah 9:24; 1 Corinthians 1:31 ). As the above statement stands it shows little understanding or appreciation for worship. For one thing, religion does not worship God. It is the religious person and not the religion that does the worshipping. Actually, worship is more of an attitude or state of consciousness before it is something one does. More precisely we could say it is a combination of two attitudes or two states––a condition of profound awe and complete trust. Worship is a key philosophical and theological concept. It means to value, to attribute worth to, or to revere. A crucial question for each of us, whether we call it a spiritual, religious, or psychological question, is: “What do we value more than anything else? What matters to us more than anything else? ” To put it another way, “What matters to you, what concerns you, so much you want to become immersed in it, to be one with it? What do you not only praise, but find completely and ultimately praiseworthy?” Biblically the word “worship” means to bend toward as in a bow. So, the question is what do we bend our heart, mind, body, and soul toward? Does that sound like a trivial thing to you? Paul Tillich, a theologian and philosopher of considerable consequence, urged seeing the question as one of Ultimate Concern. Whatever is our Ultimate Concern, Tillich argued, whether money, sex, power, status, success, the nation, a political ideology, or Yahweh will determine absolutely everything else about us.

2) Religion says God is outside you. Spirituality says God is within you.
This assertion depends, again, on which religion we are talking about. For the Hindu everything is Brahman, so there is, so to speak, no outside or inside of you; in fact, there is really no you––just Brahman. And Buddha who claimed to be enlightened really had nothing to say about God. As far as Christianity is concerned: “There is. . . one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6 NASB). “It is no longer I who live,” wrote Paul, “but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20 NASB). There are undoubtedly religions which believe God is external––out there somewhere, but Christianity is most certainly not one of them. In the Judeo-Christian tradition God is here, there, and everywhere. Arguments against Christianity, such as this one, are frequently based on the remedial teachings of Christianity whose larger implications have not been understood. The fact is, given the dynamic nature of moral and faith development few will ever reach the higher stages of understanding. I am not so arrogant as to think I am one of them. If you are interested in reading more in this regard, I would suggest Mary Wilcox’s Developmental Journey or Stages of Faith by James Fowler. In his epistles the Apostle Paul refers a number of times to the Christian religion as a great mystery. A mystery as used by Paul is a secret that is, paradoxically both open and hidden. It is open to those who have been “initiated” into it and who, in the words of the great French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, “live in the aura of its meaning.” To the uninitiated and to those living outside its meaning it is hidden–obscured. The writer of the Book of Hebrews, therefore, urges Christian believers to keep moving forward in their faith development like this: “Leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God.” Since the early years of Christianity there have been “teachers” peddling some self-manufactured religion (calling it wisdom or spirituality) who have wanted to make believers in the Messiah think they were missing out, that they need something more and better–– something that the self-promoting teacher claims to have. The above assertion contrasting religion and spirituality seems to belong to this genre. However, don’t let them frighten you, and don’t worry about where you fall on someone’s arbitrary scale of spirituality. Christianity is “a condition of complete simplicity” (T.S. Eliot) and Christian perfection is not found in the ability to discuss religious theories or in some static state from which no further progress is possible, but whether you are making continual progress in learning to love as God loves. Many of the deepest men and women I have met across the years would have found talk such as this uninteresting and nonsensical, but faith, hope, and love were realities they lived every day.

3) Religion separates people who have different beliefs. Spirituality unites people regardless of their beliefs.
We live in a culture in which large numbers of people, especially among the college educated, would like to think there are no rules, no definitions, no boundaries. But that is simply not reality. In fact, I know of no one who lives as if there are really no difference, or as if they are united with everyone regardless of belief. Psychologists are confident that emotionally healthy people have appropriate psychological and emotional boundaries––a good understanding of where they end as individuals and where other people begin, good boundaries like body cells are semipermeable keeping the bad out and letting the good in. Contrary to Robert Frost’s “Mending Walls” all boundaries are not foolish. If you believe, for instance, violence can be a solution to political problems there is indeed a bright line drawn between us. Ghandi insisted that there was a dividing line between those who saw nonviolence as a mere technique and those who saw it as a universal spiritual principle of both Christianity and the Hindu religion––love and ahimsa. If you think it fine to deny workers a sustainable wage, the poor health care, a hungry child a free meal, or a black person the right to vote, there is a line between us, and I am not embarrassed by that fact. My Christian religion teaches me to recognize such lines for some purposes, but to ignore them if you need my help and to never use differences as an excuse for mistreating or diminishing anyone in any way. “Be wise as serpents,” said Jesus, “and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Making value judgements is an integral part of being human––and of being spiritual, religious, or wise. If you see no difference between Mother Terresa and Jeffrey Dahmer that’s a problem. I would suggest watching the film Dead Man Walking. The character of Sister Helen Prejean will help you understand the Christian way.

4) Religion teaches people to be afraid of hell. Spirituality teaches people to create heaven on earth.
Again, the concept of hell is not found in every religion. Instead of worrying about hell the people of some religions worry about being reincarnated as a mosquito or maybe a dung beetle––worry about a never-ending cycle of birth, suffering, and death. The Christian religion teaches the hope of heaven––that there is an end to the cycle of suffering and death, the confidence that there is a placeless place, a state of being if you will, where all the love we have ever experienced in this life, where all the goodness we have experienced or extended, where all that is best and noblest about us in this life will not come to nothing, but rather come to its full fruition. It teaches that nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever separate us from the love and presence of God. Thus, empowered by hope and gratitude it also teaches that we should work to see that “God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). No group, no institution, no human organization, no non-religious person in history has done more for the hungry, for the universal education of children, medical care, or the alleviation of poverty in the world than Christians. I suspect, though I have not researched this, that much of the objection to hell, which is a symbolic or figurative way of saying that we each will ultimately be accountable for what we have done with the gift of our life, has to do with the human tendency to want to escape the consequences of our own bad acts, the wish as the old saying goes, “To have our cake and eat it too”––to be both free to choose, and to choose the results of our choosing. (See: Matthew 6:10; John 9:1-5; Romans 8: 37-39; Revelation 14:13). I would think that if one were going to attempt to “create heaven on earth” it might be helpful to know just what this religious concept of “heaven” really means. However, when you have found a place where human beings have managed to create “heaven on earth” please let me know. I would like to buy a bus ticket for a day trip (See: C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce).

5) Religion is based on fear and restriction. Spirituality is based on love and freedom.
The Christian religion is based on the belief, according to 1 John 4:7-8, that God is love. This is not the same as saying love is God, but God is love just as God is light, and truth, and justice. If God is love then we were created by love for, love, and when we die, we go into love. Jesus taught, quoting from the Old Testament as he did so, that the two great commandments of the Judaic religion were to love God with all of one’s heart, and to love others as oneself. When this love works as intended within us it dispels fear (1 John 4:18). That is what the Christian religion teaches if it is at all faithful to the teaching of Christ and the Apostles. As for other wisdom traditions and religions I don’t know of, say any Buddhist or Taoist teachers, who would consider those religions to be based on anything other than love as compassion, peace and harmony. This obviously does not mean there are not charlatans and false teachers, phony pastors, deranged priests, evil monks, and ignorant clergy in every religion who play on the fears of people, but their teaching is a contradiction to the religion they espouse. I have purposely not included modern and postmodern self-help gurus and self-proclaimed psycho-spiritual babble masters in the above since they belong in another category altogether. I am not altogether certain as to what is meant by “restriction” in the above contrast. I do know that every major religious tradition, that every wisdom tradition, sees self-restraint, self-discipline, attentiveness, and willingness as essential to spiritual progress. All the greater religions leave us free to choose our own way but point out that we are not free “to choose the results of our choosing.” Those who truly understand God’s commands know that they free us from our own compulsive, self-destructive ways. There is a prayer in the Book of Common Prayer that catches the paradox perfectly. It says, “To serve you O’ God, is perfect freedom.”

6) Religion feels like being a single drop in the ocean. Spirituality feels like being the entire ocean in a single drop.
I have listened to many accounts of spiritual, or mystical experiences, and have read a lot of research on religious or spiritual experiences but have never come across this description before. I would be interested in knowing whether it comes from the writers own personal experience or just his or her own surmising. I find it strange that anyone truly knowledgeable in mystic or spiritual matters, or who speaks so authoritatively on the subject, would engage in this kind of judgement or value comparisons of “spiritual” experiences. I certainly wouldn’t suggest seeking them out as a spiritual director. That aside, this assertion is something of a reversal of the belief in the Eastern religions which imagines the aim of the spiritual life as being like a single drop of water falling into and merging with the ocean of cosmic consciousness. But here, in good narcissistic American fashion, it is hard not to think of oneself as the whole ocean. As previously noted, “spirituality” is actually a new word that has entered the English vocabulary, and as far as I know, there is no accepted standard definition as to exactly what it means. Neither has there been, as far as I know, any time-tested research into “spirituality” as an experience. There has been a great deal of research on “religious” experience and “mystical” experience. These experiences have sometimes been described as an “oceanic feeling.” I suspect the above insertion, however, differs from the “oceanic feeling” in that it intends to slip in the New Age notion (which is actually a very ancient one) that we are the ocean––God. If you are interested in a thoughtful discussion of religious or spiritual experience, I would suggest reading William James’s classic Varieties of Religious Experience, Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism, William Johnston’s Silent Music, or even my own From the Stone Age to Thomas Merton: A Brief History of Contemplative Prayer. For now, I will simply say this: If your goal is spiritual progress don’t get anxious about the presence or absence of experiences, don’t worry about their height or depth, just remain faithful to the spiritual disciplines to which you feel drawn. What matters more than any experience is what you do with it. If your real interest is just in having experiences (a most unspiritual attitude) I have no suggestions. Maybe try LSD, or smoke a joint, or a couple of shots of Bourbon, which may or may not facilitate a nice experience––although eventually those sorts of artificial aids are likely to throw your whole life into reverse while you’re doing about ninety down the highway.

7) Religion is based on other’s experience. Spirituality is based on your own experience.    I can no longer restrain myself. For each of these contrasts I have wanted to ask the impertinent question: “How do you know that? Have you conducted original research that has been peer reviewed and is now generally accepted? How many hours have you listened to the stories people have to tell of their personal spiritual journey? What did you learn by listening? Did you just snatch what you claim out of the air? Did you hear it somewhere and thought it sounded good? What have you experienced yourself? Have you ever been in spiritual direction? Are you aware of evidence the rest of us are not privy to? If so, how did you come by it? Where can the rest of us examine it for ourselves?” Such questions, of course, cut both ways. If you go to larry’s inklings on Buzzsprout you can find about eight episodes of twenty minutes each, beginning with Episode 1, explaining my understanding of how we know what we know––or think we know. Okay! I am over my fit. Now, in regard to this seventh contrast. There is nothing we have that we have not been given. Everything we know, or think we know, has been either directly or indirectly mediated through others. So, a little humility may be in order when we start to think about what our religion or our spirituality is based on. There is nothing wrong about having learned from parents, teachers, pastors, and others. I would never have learned to read if it were not for my mother. Through books I have been mentored by many great Christian saints and mystics, and by wise Rabbis like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Nahum Sarna. I first learned how to do pastoral care from a pastor who sometimes visited in our home when I was a young boy and always left us with a sense of the peace and presence of God––something for which I will be grateful until the day I die. I also learned from my mother that integrity matters more than survival. Some things we need, of course, to unlearn, and hopefully there will be others along the way who show us how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Furthermore, it is sheer hubris not to consider the possibility that our interpretation of our own experiences may not be terribly askew. The real question for the Christian is whether they have come to experience a belief firsthand or whether it has remained second hand. When Jesus is on trial, Pilate asks Jesus if he is indeed King of the Jews. Jesus responds by asking in turn, “Is that your own idea, or did others talk to you about me” (John 18:33-34). When Job encounters God in the whirlwind Job responds to God in awe: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You.” What I believe is based on personal experience, but not personal experience alone. My faith is based on a number of things considered together: reason, the Biblical witness, the study of ancient and modern thinkers, and their experience (the whole experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition, of people I know personally, trust, and respect, and my own as well), on scientific insights, and on a kind of knowing that comes only from an honest attempt to live into the meaning of my faith. In the end what matters more than the any experience itself or how you describe it––as being like a drop in the ocean or like being the ocean itself––is what you do with the experience. If someone suggests to you that one positive experience is not as good, or as spiritual as another my advice to you is run away really fast.

Concluding Observations on Religion & Spirituality
I cannot remember when I did not know, at least as an idea, something of the immensity and mystery of God. I was taught that God was inexplicable and undefinable, a reality greater than anything I could possibly imagine; in fact, that it was both futile and wrong to form mental images of God. To this day I have no mental picture of God in my mind––nothing. But God’s presence is as real to me as I am to myself. I remember one day when I was quite young, I went with my mother and stepfather to visit his parents, Elmer and Vera Emerson. They lived in a large old Victorian cottage. The adults, half a dozen of them, were all talking in the living room while a cousin and I played on the floor. My step-grandmother, Vera, was a devout Methodist whom my mother called an angel. At that time, Vera was suffering from breast cancer and was often in excruciating pain. The amazing thing was that she could go into her bedroom and pray, and when she came out, she would be free of the pain––at least for a while. I am not certain, but I think this must be what the adults were talking about when one of them said: “Well God is everywhere, even in this very room.” My cousin and I heard that and got really silly with it. We were running around the room flailing the air with our arms, laughing and shouting, “Where are you God? I can’t see you! I can’t feel you!” My mother stopped us and said gently but firmly something like this, “No, you know you can’t see God with your eyes or feel God. with your hands. But you also know God is just as real as you are and is always everywhere. If you can remember that, if you can always remember God is with you and loves you no matter where you are, and no matter how bad things are, or how scary things may be, you will feel better. So you should always be respectful of God.” In that instant I had an experience I would describe in adult language as an experience of the immensity, of the infinity, of God, the transcendence of God coupled with a simultaneous sense of God’s immanence, of the closeness of God, of God’s near intimacy. It was a determinative moment in my life. Being open to God, paying attention, through prayer, contemplation, worship, reading and meditating on the sacred page, taking personal inventory (examen of consciousness and of conscience), and service is my religion––or is it my spirituality? Where all that takes my consciousness, my awareness, my understanding, my soul, my spirit my heart or whatever you want to call it, the love and gratitude it stirs to life and growth in me is, in contemporary terms, my spirituality, or is it my religion? For me there is no substantive difference. When I think of the Spirit speaking to me and to every woman and man of faith through the Sacred Scriptures, I cannot distinguish between religion and spirituality. I can say for certain, that historically the only real measure of whether one is genuinely religious or spiritual is a changed life (James 1:27; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). I suspect that God is less interested in the fine vocabulary distinctions we might make in trying to establish our superiority than the character wrought in us by the patient workings of the Spirit.

Discussing Good, Evil, and Trump With a Friend

Larry Hart


Let me begin by saying I very much appreciated receiving your email, and the generous spirit so characteristic of you with which it was written. Brenda and I remember you often with many good thoughts. If this response seems a little too lengthy, please know that this is because I want to be as thoughtful as I can in answering your questions and clarifying those places where I seemed obscure in my last response.

To Judge or Not to Judge
First, as to your concerns about where I seem somewhat judgmental to you: I think, and Biblical scholarship bears this out, there is a basic difference to be found between judgement and. judgementalism. It is a difference to be found in Scripture, not in the use of different words but by the context of whatever text is under consideration. Judgement in its negative sense arises out of the fears, anxieties, resentments passions, and malice in our own heart; and is, therefore, capricious, harsh, and unpredictable in the emotional, psychological, and or physical pain it inflicts, or would like to inflict, on those it condemns. It often focuses on the trivial and inconsequential with a degree of seriousness that can become more problematic than the original issue itself; that is, the level of seriousness itself can become the larger problem. Judgement in its positive sense is something more like thoughtful discernment. It is the ability to determine right from wrong, good from evil, and health from pathology. Discernment requires a high degree of self-understanding, purity of heart (removing the planks from our own eyes) and honesty––honesty with God, ourselves, and others. What AA calls “rigorous” honesty. Of course, that I want and try to follow the path of discernment rather than judgementalism is no guarantee that I do so with any great success. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the two.

Wise Serpents and Harmless Doves
When you say you “disagree with my distinction between big and little sins,” I assume you are responding to my writing that, “The Bible makes a distinction between rather garden-variety sinners and people who are cruel and evil.” As surprising as it may seem, Scripture itself, although it does not use my casual phrasing, bears this out. Depending on which translation you use, Numbers 15:22-32 and Psalm 19:3; make a distinction between the seriousness of a sin of ignorance, mistake or unintentional, and sins that are presumptuous, deliberate, or defiant. You ask, with a humility I know you possess, “But who am I to judge another person’s level of sin?” But if we cannot see the gulf between the moral and spiritual character of say a Jean Valjean and the Thénardiers in Les Misérables; or, to use a real life illustration, between a young and wealthy man “chasing women,” as you put it, and a lecherous old sex addict pursuing porno actresses and sexually assaulting multiple women on airplanes, on busy streets, at home with his wife in the other room, and in that Bergdorf Goodman Department Store dressing room (the latter a legal fact), we are, indeed, in real trouble. Jesus once said, “Be wise as a serpent, and as harmless as a dove.” We can’t do that if we confuse naivete, permissiveness, gullibility, or even kindness with an honest and clear-eyed assessment of reality.

Calling Names or Speaking Truth
My point in noting that Jesus called Herod “that old fox” (vermin), was simply to demonstrate that being non-judgmental does not mean being too “nice” to speak the truth. However, I am not sure what you mean in using King David’s adulterous and homicidal behavior as a case for non-judgmentalism. Perhaps you mean that God loved David even though David did some terrible things. However, as you may remember, the story ends with God sending the Prophet Nathan to confront David with the evil he has done and to tell him that his sentence is that violence (the sword) will never depart from David’s own family. Sadly, for David, even though he acknowledged his wrong and sought to make amends the best he could, there were still consequences that could not be evaded. As for Moses whom you also mention as being a leader who sinned, his fate was for his life to end viewing, with longing, the promised land from a lonely mountain without being able to enter it with his people. Again, forgiveness does not necessarily mean all consequences and responsibilities are nullified. Furthermore, there is a considerable difference between the person who continuously takes his or her own moral inventory and promptly admits wrongdoing, and the person who lives in denial of their own character flaws or destructive behavior. The: “We are all guilty of wrong doing and therefore should not judge another” defense, all too easily becomes a form of both psychological and spiritual denial, the denial that even if something is factually true it is irrelevant, and that itself defies both formal logic and common sense in that, in this case, making a “judgement” (discerning) is the very thing voters are being asked to do. Finally, I am a little curious as to why, given how notorious Donald Trump is for calling people  names, you are more concerned with how someone as inconsequential as myself characterizes him, than with how someone as influential and powerful as he is characterizes and accuses the innocent.

Great Again
I have to admit I do not know what is meant by “make American great again,” or what historical period is being referred to––when America was great and when it fell from that greatness. So, I will just say, I think the Greek philosopher Heraclitus was right: “You cannot step into the same river twice.” The temporal world is fleeting, constantly in flux, its kingdoms fading, its history like a vague and swiftly passing dream. Someone may long for some past white America and worry that soon all the white people will all be a darker shade of brown. Given the global movement of people today and racial demographics being what they are, that is exactly what will eventually happen. It is statistically inevitable. However, I fail to see the tragedy in that. This is just a personal aside and expresses one of my biases, but I think being bald I would look better, be more handsome, as a man with more color. Be that as it may, nostalgia, whatever it is for, is a kind of soul sickness, a longing for an idealized past that never existed and the belief that the future can never be as good as what was. So, the best we can do is to live well in the context of the present moment. But beside not knowing what historical period is meant, I don’t know what is meant by “great.” How is the greatness of a nation to be measured? Is it measured by military power, by gross national product, by scientific and technological achievement, or by the number of its billionaires? I can tell you with absolute confidence, the American empire will not last forever––no empire does. The life of every empire is finite, and its existence can be plotted on a bell curve. That is simple historical fact. Plato (438-348 BCE) in his Republic tried to find a way around that inevitability but obviously failed. Every empire, from its inception, suffers from the congenital and morbid disease of pleonexia (greed). I think there is also another question we need to ask, “Why would anyone want American to be great?” Why not good, kind, peaceful, or just?

Competency
As to why I see Donald Trump as cruel and evil, or parallel to that why I see him as lacking the competency to serve as president. I scarcely know where to begin. The last I read, over 70,000 mental health professionals have signed a petition, saying “Donald Trump manifests symptoms of serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incompetent to serve as president. A book written by over two dozen mental health experts argues, as does his own niece who is a clinical psychologist and has hadthe opportunity to observe him “up close and personal” over a period of many years, that Trump, whether due to personality disorder and /or other mental health issues, is not fit to be the president. There are a few professionals who would argue that it is impossible to make that diagnosis from a distance. I would normally agree, especially if in regard to historical figures, say like Beethoven, but in the case of Donald Trump there is a mountain of observable evidence.

Trumps, IQ is estimated to be in the dull normal range––probably around 90. His vocabulary and verbal process, which is easier to evaluate and quantify objectively, is at about the fourth-grade level. I have come to that conclusion not only from the data I have read, but from my own experience as a public-school teacher, my training and work as a counselor in various professional settings, and from the accounts of people like Bill Barr and others responsible for briefing Trump on security issues.

As to why I consider Trump to be an evil person. In the koine Greek in which the New Testament was written there are two words for evil. The first word is kakos, which describes a thing which in itself is evil––things like cancer, a drug or gambling addiction, a spinal injury resulting in paralysis, or homelessness and hunger. The second word is poneros, which describes a person or a thing which is actively evil. The person who is poneros is the person in whose heart there is the desire to hurt or harm. The Hebrew word for “evil” is ra’ a general term denoting physical harm or personal distress, but more often refers to immoral or unethical action, to what is wicked, to what causes misery, hurt, distress, or injury, and to what is unkind and vicious––as in destructive and cruel. Although M. Scott Peck, the well-known author and psychiatrist, wrote his book People of the Lie as a psychiatric study of evil, I have always thought it harmonious with a Christian perspective. In it Peck defines evil as that which kills, diminishes, or destroys life in any of its forms––physical, emotional, psychological, intellectual, or spiritual. Jesus said to certain leaders (in first century Jewish Palestine there was no real distinction between political and religious leaders): “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” You should have no difficulty in coming to a full sense of what evil is if you put the Greek and the Hebrew definitions along with Peck’s thesis together with Jesus’s words. Evil is, as M .Scott Peck’s young son announced, “live spelled backwards.” Peck calls his book People of the Lie because evil people don’t want to be found out. They want to look, to appear, good. Consequently, most of them are not found in prisons and jails. They tend, instead, to be in corporate boardrooms, political office, or ecclesiastical leadership. But one of the easiest ways to detect them is by the trail of destruction they leave in their wake. Another way to say all this, is that what matters is the pattern of someone’s life. A methamphetamine addict who is clean for a year, uses this Monday, and then stays clean after Tuesday can talk about having had a slip. But if after a year clean and sober uses every day it’s not a slip. It’s active addictive usage. It’s the pattern that counts. It’s what we leave in our wake that matters.

The Past Predicts the Future
So, what has Trump left in his wake? What pattern can be seen?
1) The crude sexualization of his daughter, Ivanka, on a Howard Stern’s show was, in my opinion, not just creepy but evil. Do you imagine for a moment that it had no impact on her––that it was not hurtful?  He used the same exact expression of Hope Hicks who ran crying from the Oval Office when he said it. There are least three sexual assaults that we know of, none of which were without harm, for there is no assault and no abuse that does not do damage. But we do know of the specific damage it did to E. Jean Carroll.
2) Building multimillion dollar projects and then declaring bankruptcy (five times) is a great way to get expensive projects completed for free, but does anyone really imagine that his bankruptcies were without devastating consequences for businesses and workers. In the Old Testament not paying workers the wages due them is by definition “wicked.”
3) He has now been married three times and betrayed his sacred vows every time. That’s a direct hit on what? Eight lives? I’m not saying his wives were merely innocent by standers, I am saying these three failures and betrayals are spiritually and psychologically diagnostic, and neither the diagnosis nor prognosis is good.
4) The Hollywood Access tapes are also diagnostic. He wasn’t just a young rich boy boasting of his sexual prowess. He was a nearly sixty year old man and ought to have grown up––at least a little. Instead, he displayed, as he has often, a vision of women as nothing but sex objects to be used for his own gratification. My goodness! Half the population of the country is female. How can he work in their best interest when he doesn’t even see them as persons.
5) In the top tier of Trump’s administration there was a staggering 92% turnover as of January 20, 2021. Mark Esper, Defense Secretary under Trump, called Trump a “threat to demonocracy,” John Bolton, Trump’s one time Security Advisor, declared Trump “unfit to be president.” Sarah Matthews, former Trump aide, says, “It is mind-boggling” how many members of his own staff have denounced him¬¬ and believe he is dangerous and incompetent.” Former Trump Attorney General William Barr says Trump was “manic, unreasonable, and off the rails.” But what is truly stunning is not just the rate of turnover, but how Trump turns on and trashes the people who have served him.
6) He is a pathological liar. There seems to be nothing he does not lie about and no place where he does not cheat¬¬. To name a few: he lies about his golf game, his hair, his wealth, his education, his taxes, his business dealings, his crimes, and his achievements as president. The selling of stock in his media company is, whether legal or not, a scam. That he is guilty of fraud is now another legal fact. As I sit here writing I am listening to a Trump ad claiming that my vote could be canceled out by someone who is not even a citizen. That’s just not true, but there are people who will be afraid and believe it, as crazy as it is. But that’s all Trump has to rely on. Truth and reason are strangers and aliens to him, his friends are mendacity, fear, chaos, and anger.
7) He is an angry, impulsive, and violent man. It is impossible not to see in photograph after photograph, in video clip after video clip, or hear in speech after speech, a man saturated through and through with anger––with paranoid rage. If you or I engaged in the kind of witness tampering and threats against the courts, or those only tangentially connected to court officers, he has we would be in jail. Get in his way and he will make your life a living hell. At political rallies he has encouraged his supporters to smash protestors in the mouth. He is noted for his temper tantrums and furious rages in which those around him, and responsible for advising him, become afraid to speak to him or to give him bad news. He warned on Truth Social of “death and destruction” if he were charged with a crime. He claims that if president he has the power to send political opponents to prison, mental institutions, or to assassinate them with impunity. He, and some of his henchmen like Roger Stone, are known to have said they want opponents dead. When it was revealed that he had gone to the White House Bunker during a protest, something he thought reflected negatively on him, he said according to his own staff: “Whoever did that (leaked that information) should be executed.” It was difficult for saner minds around him to convince him that the United States can’t just drop a nuclear bomb on Venezuela because it is annoyed with the Venezuelan president. I don’t need to listen to or watch MSNBC to know that he incited the murderous January 6th attack on the capital which injured 174 police officers and resulted in the death of five others. I can watch the footage from his rally and the attack on the capitol and interpret it for myself. Just as I can grasp the hate and anger in Hitler’s speeches without hearing any commentary. When the terrorist mob screamed for Mike Pence’s lynching, Trump’s own staff report that Trump said Pence “deserved it.” He destroyed the lives of two poll workers by accusing them of voter fraud. He didn’t just subject children to the trauma of separation from their parents at the border but did so in such a way that some of them will never be reunited. He subjected those detained at the border to inhuman living conditions. Of course, to Trump all this trauma doesn’t really matter or arouse pity because to him, or so he says, “they are not human.” I think such behavior justifies my use of the word “cruel” to which you object. I know about the cruelty at the border, not just from watching the news, but from talking personally with people who were doing “charitable” work with both children and adults on the border at that time. He and his administration did everything possible to wreck the effort to counter the effects of global warming. Again, how do I know that? I know it because his own words and the words and actions of his administration are on record, and because I have tried to read and understand the scientific research. I have talked personally with scientists involved at a high level with climate research. He is, indirectly, responsible for thousands of COVID deaths. So, I am not really impressed by the claim that Trump is merely the victim of fake news. But my real point is that Trump is toxic––poisonous to everyone and everything, even to this fragile plane we inhabit. Trump supporters think they are safe from his wrath, but the reality, as shown repeatedly in history, is that no one is safe from the capricious and erratic behavior of any tyrant. Even though you are a friend, tell him he is the equal of Jesus and he will smile, bring him bad news and he will throw his lunch against the wall. Who do you think has to clean the ketchup off the wall? Do you think he cares? The only life that counts is his own, not because he, like most politicians, has an oversized ego, but because he is, clinically speaking, a narcissist––a clinical disorder far more serious than simply having a big ego.

A Final Note
Well, I have to stop now. I used to collect hard copies of the angry and bizarre things Trump says and does but the clutter became so great on my desk that I had to stop. Now I see an entire book, well organized and concise, would not be able to contain the evidence for psychologically or pastorally diagnosing Trump as incompetent and evil. It is simply too much to keep up with the debris he leaves in his wake. So, I will just say that the best predictor of increased future chaos and violence is past violence and chaos.

Notice that none of the above is about a policy issue. It is all about character and fundamental competency, about universal moral values, and good and evil. I have no idea how to solve things like the rather intractable border problem. Of all the candidates I thought Nicky Haley had the most reasonable and practical suggestion for at least how to investigate the problem. But I do know the difference between treating people who arrive at our border cruelly or humanely. As a pastor I have had many strange people, some of them scary, show up at inconvenient times at the church door. I have tried to treat them all with kindness––even if they were threatening and I had had to call the police. I also know, as Brother Possum learned too late, not to put a viper in my pocket. I want you to know I wish no harm to Donald Trump. I pray him no harm. I wish him no suffering. I do pray God will render him completely impotent, powerless to do any individual or any nation any further harm. What I cannot do is “call evil good or put darkness for light.”

Peace and everything good,
Larry+

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