Iona Story

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn and settle on the far side of the sea, even there your right had will hold me fast. Psa. 139:7-10.

Far/Near

It is a long way to Iona. Even if you live in Great Britain you spend a good deal of time on various modes of transport to finally make it to the holy Island. For me it involved a long, crowded flight to Heathrow, another one to Glasgow, a bus ride into the city, a three hour train trip to the west coast city of Oban, a ferry to the Island of Mull, an hour and one half bus ride on winding single lane roads across Mull, and, finally, another ferry to Iona itself. By the time you arrive it seems you have put as much time and space between yourself and your old life as possible. It seems that Glasgow is lost in the misty past—let alone Chicago. For me the distance was important. It became a great deal more than physical distance—it was psychological distance, spiritual distance. After fourteen years of joys and disappointments, celebrations and frustrations, I was near neither to myself nor to my God. Sometimes it takes distance to be able to see that. Sometimes you need to be far away to see again how near God really is. Iona is that kind of place—both far and near. It is remote and familiar. Splendid and ordinary. Immanent and transcendent. In its aching and simple beauty the carefully constructed defensive structure I had erected slowly dissolved. The rough places became, if not smooth, at least smoother. The thick places became thin. Of course, it is not hard to rebuild those structures. But for a moment—they were down.

Together/Alone

I knew no one on my trip or on the Island. I knew I would be in a room with three other men. When I arrived at the abbey I found myself assigned to a space on the second floor of the rebuilt dormitory section of the abbey. I could go out of my room, turn left and go through a door, down a flight of steps, into the abbey chapel. I could turn right, go up a few stairs into the abbey library. My three roommates were from Norwich in England. They were all well over 70 and had known each other all their lives. When they conversed with one another they were nearly incomprehensible to me. There were two bunk beds and I was in the top bunk. I had a flashback to being 10 years old and sleeping in cabins at Bible camp. It was close quarters but congenial ones. These were good men who, with their vicar and other members of their church, were like me trying to get close to God again. I treasured our time together.

There were about 45 of us in the abbey that week: mostly from Great Britain, but also from Switzerland, Germany, Norway, and the US. We worshipped together and worked together. I was part of a team that set up and washed up for the noon meal. I also was responsible for mopping the upstairs bathrooms every morning. But there was plenty of time to be alone: sitting in the cool, glorious abbey chapel with sun streaming through the windows, praying where prayers had ascended for 800 years; walking to the north end of the island to watch the surf crash, hear seabird cries, and gaze at distant islands or the pastel mountains of Mull; or sitting on my favorite bench in the still-ruined nunnery—the bench that read “In memory’s garden it is always summer 1973.” I loved being with my colleagues in worship and work. But even for this extrovert there was something profoundly healing about those times alone, with my books, my prayers, my memories—and my God.

Darkness/Light

I was instructed to bring a torch to Iona. I had momentary thoughts of Gandalf leading Frodo and company through the mines of Moria, and then I remembered that a torch is a flashlight for our British cousins. And if you left the confines of the abbey after dark, you needed a torch. There is very little ambient light on the island. Once you have escaped the pale pool of light over the main abbey door you are in pitch dark. There are only a few buildings on the Island, no glaring streetlights, nothing to relieve the darkness or blot out the stars. One evening, after our 9 PM service, we were invited by young Swedes and Norwegians on a confirmation retreat to the Island to participate in a Taize’ service in the St. Oran chapel. The chapel is in the middle of the ancient graveyard of Iona and is the oldest building on the island, dating from the 12th century. It is tiny and perhaps 50 of us were jammed into the small, cold, and dark space. Soon the warm, soft glow of fifty candles lit our faces. We sang, and chanted, and read. It was so simple. It was so profound. I remembered the Psalm—surely the darkness is light to you. Strong young voices and creaky old ones sang out of joy and hope and love. It was the highlight of my pilgrimage.

Heaven/Earth

In the end heaven and earth are wed. In the end we don’t go to heaven, heaven comes to us. In the end, God makes his dwelling place with his people. You can certainly go to Iona and see nothing but pretty scenery and interesting old buildings. But then, I could have stayed in Chicago and be transported into glory while praying in North Park’s Isaacson Chapel—as unlikely as that may seem! But those of us in education and ministry, who make a business out of praying and preaching and teaching, need to be reminded of the thin, gauzy veil between this world and the next. We can become numb worrying about the worship band or the sermon or the business meeting or that troubled marriage in the third row. We can begin to treat the living God like subject matter and our own lives like experiments in holy living. We can live once removed from genuine engagement. We can end up with the pastorate or the professorate, or the deanship as just one more role we play—a role we lose ourselves in. But every now and then, on a tiny, remote, holy island, we can remember once again, who we are, what we are about, and why we signed on with God in the first place. We can pull back the curtain, and for a brief moment hear the heavenly choir cry holy.

John E. Phelan, Jr.
North Park Theological Seminary
Chicago

Jews, Palestinians and Identity Politics

In his posthumous book The Memory Chalet the late Tony Judt, author of such highly regarded works as Postwar and Ill Fares the Land, describes his teenage experience in a left-wing Jewish kibbutz in Israel. Initially taken with the vigorous sense of purpose, egalitarian vision, and physical rigor, Judt became disenchanted with the movement’s “smugness of self-regard” and “ethnic solipsism.” He became wary of “true believers” of any kind knowing “what sort of price one pays for such intensity of identification and unquestioning allegiance.” Much to the dismay of his colleagues in the kibbutz he returned to his native England to attend King’s College, Cambridge. Because of his experience in Israel, he writes, “I was . . . immune to the enthusiasm and seduction of the New Left, much less its radical spin-offs: Maoism, guachisme, tiers-mondisme, etc. For the same reasons,” he continues, “I was decidedly uninspired by student centered dogmas of anticapitalist transformation, much less the siren calls of femino-Marxism or sexual politics in general. I was—and remain—suspicious of identity politics in all forms.” Judt through his long and distinguished academic career remained a liberal. His experience with “Labor Zionism” made him “a universalist social democrat.” He eschewed the rigidities of Marxism, Socialism, and Fascism alike. His commitment to social democracy is well described in Ill Fares the Land, which espouses the value of a government that is grounded in a commitment to the people’s freedom and at the same time intent on providing opportunities for citizens to rise from poverty, ignorance, and fear.

Identity politics are, of course, very popular these days. Everyone seems to be angling to portray themselves as the victim of someone or something. From the bewildering variety of liberation movements on the left to the tangled skein of the “Tea Party” on the right, everyone seems to be casting about for a villain—someone to blame for their misery and oppression. This is not to say, of course, that misery and oppression do not exist. Certainly there are economic, political and social forces that contribute to the suffering and rage of a variety of persons across the gender, ethnic, and class spectrum. Nevertheless, like Judt I am suspicious of identity politics. Such politics are characteristic of postmodernism, with its fragmenting allegiances and splintered identities. Someone once said that in the future we would all receive our “fifteen minutes of fame.” Today, perhaps, we will all be granted “fifteen minutes of victimhood.” The problem with identity politics, among other things, is that it abstracts me and people like me from the community as a whole. It requires me to declare exclusive allegiance to a particular sense of outrage and entitlement. It identifies everyone outside of my circle as “other” and by definition a threat. Rather than create sympathy and understanding it frequently produces resentment. It can, ironically, make the despised “other” feel victimized and put upon and thus contribute to further balkanization.

For years the left has espoused the cause of the Palestinians and denounced Israel. Good liberals could lose their union cards as political liberals if they said anything positive about Israel or raised questions about the actions of the Palestinians. Of course, the same is true of the right: Israel can do no wrong and all Arabs are terrorists. For me this is one of the worst and most dangerous manifestations of “identity politics” and “true believerism.” The “true believer” is not someone who has deep convictions about the truthfulness and appropriateness of their cause. A “true believer” needs more than conviction. A true believer needs an enemy. Their cause must always be in the right and the other side must always be unambiguously evil. I am sympathetic to the suffering of many in the Palestinian territories. I am saddened and appalled by the violence they frequently endure. That being said, I grow weary of some of their advocates apparent unwillingness to acknowledge the justified fear of the Israelis that their fragile democracy will be destroyed and their people once again slaughtered in an anti-Semitic purge. The Israelis have good reason to fear what is going on these days in Egypt. Identity politics are not serving the Middle East well. But true believers are incapable of seeing the world from the perspective of the other—be they Jews or Palestinians.

John E. Phelan, Jr.

Good Work?

President Obama’s recent State of the Union address was a relentlessly upbeat hymn to American ingenuity and creativity. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he produced cheerleaders shaking pompoms and shouting “We’re number one!” Evidently this kind of thing goes down well with the American populace. According to a poll right after the speech 65% of us loved it. This giddy celebration of American ingenuity was, of course, in service of “getting the economy moving again” and enabling American workers to compete in the “global marketplace.” While the economy does seem to be growing again, job creation is lagging and many of the long term unemployed are growing understandably desperate. A job—any job that pays reasonably well and has at least minimal benefits—must look good to them. And Obama, like President Clinton before him, knows that, in the latter’s immortal words: “It’s the economy stupid.” Of course, this is perfectly clear to Republican politicians as well—perhaps even more so. For most of our political leaders, nothing should be permitted to restrict the growth of the economy. The next election depends on it!

Good work is a gift from God. To be without work that sustains one’s imagination as well as one’s family and community is a great sorrow. Georgetown College’s Norman Wirzba argues in his recent book Living the Sabbath that “human work finds its inspiration and fulfillment in God’s own work of healing, restoring, strengthening, and maintaining the life of creation.” From the beginning human beings were created to work alongside God, to continue God’s work of creation. When there was “no one to till the ground” (Gen. 2:5), God created human beings. Adam was given the task of naming the animals God had created (Gen. 2:19, 20). From the beginning human beings were stewards of God’s creation. Work itself was not the result of the first couple’s disobedience, but fruitless and painful work (Gen. 3:16-19). Even good and necessary work would be at times frustrating and difficult. All around us, to this day, we see and experience degrading, destructive, and even useless work. Wendell Berry calls such work “blasphemy”, making “shoddy work of the work of God.”

I have profound sympathy with the jobless and underemployed. I grieve with those who have worked diligently all their lives only to see their life savings evaporate and their homes suffer foreclosure. We certainly do need good work, good jobs. We need jobs that produce delight as well as useful products and services. We need work that, with Wirzba, “finds its inspiration and fulfillment in God’s own work.” One of the great tragedies of this recent near economic collapse is that as a people and a culture we did not step back and ask what a better, healthier, more sustainable economy would look like. We have assumed along with our leaders that  only more of the same will sustain us. I fear that approach is not simply foolish but suicidal. I am not sure what an economy that joined our work to God’s would look like. But I am quite certain we need to ask our leaders and ourselves more probing questions about our current set of assumptions and practices. I fear we are only rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.



John E. Phelan, Jr.

Seeking Moral High Ground

For the last week we have been subjected to a rather distressing game of moral one-upmanship. In the wake of the tragic shooting in Tucson people, understandably, sought explanations and then, unfortunately, rushed to assign blame.


“It’s your side’s fault,” some said.


“Well, your side does the same thing,” was the response.


“Your side is worse.”


“Is not!”


“Is so!”


Ad nauseam.


Both sides sought to wrap themselves in righteousness and victimhood while the real victims lay bleeding in front of the Safeway.


I understand the anger. I was angry myself. Here were Americans engaged in an activity most fundamental to our democracy—speaking to representatives and listening to constituents--and they were killed or wounded by a spray of bullets from a semi-automatic handgun. I had not heard of Gabrielle Giffords. For the first hour or so I did not know whether she was a Democrat or a Republican. In fact, given the area she represented I assumed she was a Republican. And for most of us, Republican or Democrat, it didn’t matter. I was moved by the evident emotion of Speaker of the House John Boehner in the immediate wake of the tragedy and even more moved by the speech of President Obama at the memorial service. When Americans suffer such a tragedy there is no room for partisanship. But we can’t seem to help it.


Incivility, I suppose, like pornography, is in the eye of the beholder. We know it when we see it—or hear it. But we might begin by acknowledging a few fundamental facts if we wish to improve our fractious civil discourse.


1. No one has cornered the market of civility, or for that matter, incivility. The right gets bashed a good deal for incivility. But if you don’t believe the left can be just a vicious and uncivil read a conservative blogger and look at the responses. Read the scornful, profanity-laced tirades in the responses from the left. Could you find the same thing on a liberal blog from the right? Of course. And that is the point. There are angry, hateful, and dangerous people on both the far left and far right. Seeking moral high ground by saying the other side is worse is an act of self-deception.


2. It is not uncivil to disagree and disagree sharply. Our democracy is advanced by such disagreements. But to be productive the disagreements must entail listening to the other, respecting the other, not caricaturing or abusing the other. We need to listen to understand the nature of our disagreements. We also need to listen to learn from the other. Because whether we are on the right or on the left we are bound to be wrong about something! After all, we are fragile, sinful human beings.


3. We must recognize the humanity of the other. It is all too easy to dismiss the other as “a right wing nut” or “a liberal loony.” But behind the opinions we find uninformed or even offensive is a human being made in the image of God. Everyone has a story. Our opinions are part of our personal narrative and some of that narrative may be quite painful. We will never find common ground if we do not first acknowledge a common humanity.


I have not always been civil myself. Certainly in the privacy of my thoughts I have been uncharitable and worse. But in my writings and on Facebook I have recorded thoughts I later regretted—thoughts that were intended to wound, not to enhance our discourse or engage our common humanity. But I need the love of my critics to grow in grace—even if I still in the end think they are wrong. And whether or not they know it or want it, they need my love as well—even when they remain unconvinced by my arguments. For a follower of Jesus the call to love is still preeminent. St. Paul, no stranger to conflict himself, makes this clear in I Corinthians 13. Seeking moral high ground in order to rain down fire on the enemy is, in these days, a particularly inapt metaphor and I trust we will reject both the image and the action.

The Aryan Jesus

I am in the midst of reading Susannah Heschel’s book The Aryan Jesus. It is a study of “The Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life.” Founded in 1939 the institute sponsored conferences, produced books and pamphlets, and worked with university students and pastors in an effort to purge German Christianity of Judaism. Many important German biblical scholars and theologians were prominent members of the institute and participants in its activities. After the war they understandably ignored, suppressed, or minimized their participation in such anti-Semitic activities. Nevertheless, Heschel makes it clear that the impact of the institute and its scholarship survived the war in the scholars and their students. Their research into the nature of first century Judaism and its conflicts with early Christianity shaped European New Testament studies especially, given the prominence of German biblical scholarship. This was seen, for example, in the effort to differentiate Galilee from Jerusalem: to make the former more “Gentile” and the latter more “Jewish”. Recent archeological evidence makes it clear that in the first century even the cities of Galilee were overwhelmingly Jewish. But especially during the pre-war period this was a way to distance Jesus from Judaism and even make him “Aryan.” Heschel makes it clear that this scholarly activity had its roots deep in 19th century anti-Semitic fantasies about race. The “white” Europeans surely had to find different theological and cultural ancestors than the despised Jews. So they constructed a Jesus in their own image—a Jesus who as not only not Jewish, but anti-Semitic—a white Jesus.


Recent generations of New Testament scholarship have rejected the non-Jewish Jesus. But anti-Semitism still hangs over biblical studies and Christianity like a pall. Although I have questions at points about her methods and conclusions, I commend to you Amy-Jill Levine’s The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. Dr. Levine is quite right to point out that our off handed comments about Judaism in comparison to Christianity are often not only offensive, but wrong. There are certainly differences to discuss! There are certainly areas of serious disagreement between Jews and Christians. But these differences can be engaged respectfully, carefully and thoughtfully only when Christians do not caricature and distort Judaism and Jews. These days anti-Semitism is alive and well. It even flies under the flag of liberalism in the blanket critiques of the state of Israel. Israel at times deserves criticism—as done the United States or any nation state. Not all who critique Israel are anti-Semitic. But the popular abhorrence of Israel that characterizes liberal critics in Europe and the US provides cover for anti-Semites to be respectable.

Onward Christian Soldiers?

I have been away from blogging for some time. I am working on a book on eschatology and needed to get some material to my editor. I am returning with a commitment to write more frequently and less lengthily! Writing for me is a way to get my thoughts in some order. I trust others will find my thoughts helpful and perhaps even interesting. In the end, however, I write to make sense of my own struggle to understand and communicate what God is doing within me and within the world. I will also use the blog to describe what I am reading. I am frequently asked about my reading, so here is my chance to let you know and to make some recommendations.


Recently I have been working my way through Peter Gomes’ book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus. Gomes is the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University. He is widely regarded one of the country’s great preachers. I purchased his latest book (ironically at a bookstore right across the street from Harvard yard) last spring. I have been reading a chapter each morning as part of my time of prayer. I was particularly struck by the chapter “The Gospel and Conflict.” Many of these pieces were written during the run up to and the immediate aftermath of the beginning of the war in Iraq. In “The Gospel and Conflict” Gomes explores Christian squeamishness over images of and engagement in conflict.


He begins by citing the Christian tradition of militant hymnody. Many of us were raised with rousing hymns like “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “Stand Up, Stand Up, for Jesus”, and “Am I a Soldier of the Cross.” Most of these hymns have been eliminated from mainline hymnals because of their militant images and triumphalist rhetoric. But Gomes wonders if we really read these hymns well. The Bible and the evidence of our own lives would suggest it is a struggle to follow Jesus and live faithfully in a world filled with many enemies. It is, in fact, naive to pretend otherwise. The Apostle Paul certainly understood the nature of the conflict. He encouraged us to put on God’s armor, to fight the good fight, to face down the spiritual forces ranged against us.


There is no question that our culture is engaged in deadly conflict. This conflict is not chiefly military or even political. The real conflict is over what sort of people we will be—both individually and corporately. The real conflict is, for Gomes, seen in Gandhi’s seven social sins. I would suggest Western culture is deeply entrapped in these sins and that the church must accept the role of struggle and conflict to address them:


• Politics without principle


• Wealth without work


• Commerce without morality


• Pleasure without conscience


• Education without character


• Science without humanity


• Worship without sacrifice


The first in each pair is a good thing distorted and ruined by human weakness and sin. God has called the church to the inevitable conflict engendered when Christians faithfully call for and live out the virtues that balance and ameliorate the dangers of a “good” that can become evil. If we surrender the fight, we are doomed as a culture and a people.  Without the conflict, we are lost.

Culture of Voyeurs

The country is professing shock today at the suicide of Tyler Clementi. The Rutgers freshman killed himself by jumping from the George Washington bridge after his roommate Dharun Ravi recorded Clementi having sex with a man. Ravi then invited others to join him in watching another recorded encounter between Clementi and the man. This is only one of a number of recent teen suicides brought on by bullying, brutality and humiliation. Rene Girard would call this a form of scapegoating. Clementi was sacrificed to preserve the power and group identity of his tormenters. In uncertain times scapegoating produces unanimity and an ersatz, strictly temporary “peace”. When that “peace” is frazzled, it is time to find another scapegoat, another victim to sacrifice. What happens on a small scale in classrooms, dorm rooms, playgrounds and corporate offices happens on a larger scale in parliaments, palaces, and capital cities. Whether it is Islamic radicals rallying their followers against America, the “great Satan” or fundamentalist preachers threatening to burn the Koran the outcome is the same. In other words, what happened to Tyler Clementi was, so far as humanity is concerned, business as usual.


While many in the media are professing shock at what happened I am yet to hear anyone wonder if the climate nurtured by our media contributed to the suicide of Clementi. It is not that our media are any nastier than, say, the reporters and political cartoonists of the 19th century. Reporting, particularly political reporting, has always been a vicious game. It is rather that our current media people have more powerful tools to humiliate and denigrate their opponents. We have become used to “gotcha” journalism—reporters waiting around for a politician or other public figure to say something incautious. Reporters complain about political figures who speak in a careful and scripted manner. But when every offhand and thoughtless remark can be rebroadcast and distorted throughout the 24 hour news cycle, it is little wonder our politicians say as little as possible. “Gotcha” journalism is particularly evident during this political season. The suggestion that Social Security may need to be overhauled, for example, is distorted into a charge that this candidate wants to take away the social safety net and let seniors starve to death!


Savage mockery and brutal distortions for the sake of political gains or ratings growth is as American as apple pie. We see it every day on CNN and Fox. Its very popularity is a damning indictment of our culture. We evidently long to see the “other” humiliated. We long to see “our side” vindicated even if it as at the expense of the truth and common decency. Yes, sometimes the actions of our leaders need to be exposed and challenged. Yes, questions should be raised about going to war or raising taxes or bailing out banks. But if we accept the cruelties and venalities of junk journalism, if we put endure without protest the lies and distortions of pundits and politicians, we make ourselves complicit in a culture of corruption—the kind of culture that leads a young man to kill himself because someone thought it a hoot to expose and ridicule him.


John E. Phelan, Jr.