Hell- a book report

I recently read “Erasing Hell” by Francis Chan (and another guy), which is essentially a response to Rob Bell’s “Love Wins”. Bell’s book is a questioning/rethinking of some commonly held beliefs about hell, and in it he essentially states that no one can resist God forever and at some point hell, if there is such a thing, will be empty. Hence the title “Love Wins”.

That is one of the very few things that Bell states directly. For most of the book he volleys up questions without answers, which no doubt must frustrate if not infuriate his more theologically conservative readers (if he has any). I understand that this is part of his point (the fact that we don’t have as many answers as maybe we thought we did, and that questions without answers can be okay), but it does come across as a somewhat cavalier approach to a very heavy topic.

I think that this last point is what pissed Francis Chan off to the point that he felt the need to pen a response (I was going to say “book-length response”, but neither Chan’s nor Bell’s book is what would generally be considered “book-length”).  Chan takes issue with Bell’s reasoning that because Bell can’t imagine a God that would sentence the majority of humanity to never-ending-conscious-torment that God must not be like that. Chan’s retort is essentially that God is whomever the Bible says he is, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not. He then goes on to take the reader through a bit of background of the literature of the time and the rationale for taking God at his “Word”. Annoyingly, Chan attempts to withhold judgement on the issue of hell until he hears what the bible says, although it’s clear from the outset that the conclusion is foregone, so when Chan finally shows his cards it’s a bit of a relief.

I felt annoyed with Bell’s book at times by the narrow scope and lack of depth into the issue, but I really liked what he contributed to the conversation, and the many conversations that I’m sure he started.But if Bell was annoying in his lack of depth, Chan was infuriating due to the fact that throughout his book he purported to be guided solely by the witness of scripture on the issue, when in reality it seemed to me that he simply found a few ‘proof-texts’ and threw in some extra-biblical sources to really wow the reader into thinking that the case is closed on all this hell business. He continually reminded the reader that “We can’t afford to be wrong on this”, and each time I felt myself thinking, “just because we can’t afford to be wrong doesn’t make us have the right answer.” Just because we can’t afford to be wrong on the issue of global warming doesn’t mean we have enough info to know exactly what is going on or how to fix it (or, incidentally, if we can fix it).

My greatest disappointment with Chan’s argument came in the Chapter in which he used a variety of extra-biblical sources to show the milieu that Jesus was stepping into when he was teaching about hell. The reader was left with the impression by the quotes and then by the explicit statement by Chan that the Jewish world that Jesus inhabited had a clear and unchallenged understanding of hell as a real place of “non-remedial punishment” (that is, vengeful punishment). The only stitch of dis-unity with this viewpoint is what Chan includes in a footnote, where he states that well, there was this group called the Sadducees who didn’t believe in an afterlife, so naturally they wouldn’t see hell the same way. The rest of the book is then built upon this argument that if Jesus had some different view of hell than this firmly established Jewish view that the onus is on him to explicitly state that he believes something different, as if he’s some 21st century research student defending his thesis.

So Chan’s main argument completely falls apart when the fact is noted that the group- what were they called again? Oh yea, the Sadducees, whom he mentioned only in a single footnote, were THE RULING SECT IN ISRAEL AT THE TIME! This means that at the very least there was great diversity of opinion on the subject of the afterlife, when the major political party doesn’t even believe in one. The only justification I can see for why Chan might think he can get away with this flimsy logic is that he believes the readers to be too stupid or “not into all that theology” to read a footnote. This is supported by what I felt to be a gently condescending tone throughout the book, which is not unfamiliar to me coming from Christian circles in which those in authority “gently instruct” those of us masses who are too weak of mind to think of these higher matters on our own. I readily acknowledge that Bell does the same thing in his book: being quite selective in his use of sources and arguments to paint a picture, but at least Bell doesn’t conclude by claiming it as the final authority. In fact he challenges the reader to look at it for herself to see if what he says is legit.

Chan disappoints me not because of the stance he takes (I knew going in that he was going to end up there), but that by paying lip service to honest searching and then proof-texting his way towards his answers he does a disservice to the conversation that I was hoping to hear continued. His book seems tailored to Bell’s audience, which is probably why it looks exactly like one of Bell’s books and also why it seems to rely on the reader being swayed by good sounding arguments (rather than supported, rational ones). For Chan to act as the representative of the biblical-literalist viewpoint he should have taken more care to hold himself to the standard of what the actual texts say. Unfortunately the approach he’s taken doesn’t move the conversation or the people forward; it just helps to entrench the sides in their uninformed views.

We are Trees

I had a little thing published in the Spring 2011 issue of Geez Magazine! If you haven’t read Geez you should definitely check it out, and not just for my piece. This is it below:

We Are Trees

“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

What if we were more like trees, converting carbon
dioxide and releasing oxygen?

We live in a bite-back, one-up world where anger,
bitterness, resentment, prejudice and violence are
the soul’s carbon dioxide.

We could receive curses, then give blessings.
We could get manipulated, then speak the truth.
We could be spat upon, then respond with grace.
We could be struck, but not strike back.

The thing about trees is that they need to absorb
CO2 in order to live and grow.

We could do the same. We could absorb hate,
discrimination, judgment and harm, and use
forgiveness to demonstrate healing and love.

This would free us from having to avenge our own
injustices and allow us to open our arms, welcoming
those who are often unwelcome and unwanted.

Photosynthesis and forgiveness are miracles of life.
Without them, the world is a hostile place.

– Ryan McCormick

Hospital Visit

I went to the Hospital Tuesday to visit a guy who was in our housing program. He had taken off from his place and been gone for a couple of months before returning and shortly thereafter suffering what seemed to be a series of small strokes. Being in his 70’s and already having some disabilities, we had been quite concerned and were trying to keep a close eye on him. He was found in his bed by his landlord and rushed to Hospital by ambulance.

When I saw him I was taken aback at how frail and skeletal he looked. He was a skinny guy to begin with but had lost significant weight since the last time I had seen him. I couldn’t help but run scenarios through my mind of what we could have done or not done or done differently. It probably didn’t make any difference in the end, but we seem to need to believe that our intentions have a greater impact than our actions, or maybe it’s just empathy and helplessness that drive our imaginations in those moments.

I talked to the nurse because he was in and out of sleep and didn’t seem very aware, so I didn’t want to startle him. After talking with the nurse though I returned to the room and, upon one of his wakings, said his name and asked if he was doing okay. He responded “Yep” without looking at me, and I asked him if he was just wanting to sleep to which he again replied “Yep”.

I turned off the light when I left. It only marginally darkened the hospital room, but maybe it helped a little bit, and after all the decisions made and not made on his behalf, all the actions I had taken and not, it’s funny that flipping a switch on the way out would seem of such importance to me.

I went back downstairs, noting how many people in the halls at the Royal Alex Hospital are the same people that frequent the halls of the Herb Jamieson, our Homeless Men’s shelter.

I stopped in at the social worker’s office and left a message for the worker on the floor to call me so I could give some background about our mutual client, and then walked further down the hall to the interfaith chapel. I’d never seen it before and I wandered in, maybe to explore and maybe just to sort out my thoughts and offer up a prayer.

I sat down in the second row from the back, not wanting to get too close to the front. There was a man there kneeling in front of the altar. He was leaning on the small table which held artificial Poinsettias and it wobbled just slightly. It seemed surreal that someone was being so given to religious devotion in a place explicitly designated not to one religion, but simply to religion in general. I wondered if he was bowing at the altar of God As an Idea, or he had turned this altar, in his mind, into an edifice for Jesus, or Yahweh, or Allah, or the Great Spirit. Or maybe he didn’t even care about any details except that this was a place to grasp at some hope that someone or something was paying attention and would possibly turn to him in this moment of surrender and listen to his pleas. Was he pleading for himself or for a loved one on some floor above us?

He was shabbily dressed and when he got up to leave I initially looked away and focused my attention on some object I was holding, before looking up as though I had not noticed that he was even there. I didn’t want him to feel as though he was being watched. I noticed that he too I recognized from the shelters.

The object I was holding was the slip the hospital receptionist had given me with my client’s room number on it. I had been holding it all this time as some sort of memento as I had tried to frame the experience in my mind. I got up and made my way out of the chapel, stopping briefly at an abandoned pair of shoes which revealed a man just around the corner, facing Mecca. As I left the hospital I considered keeping this slip of paper that I had kept looking to as though it would provide me some sort of code as to what this had all meant. I decided against it though. I’d remember this often enough without it; indeed more than I’d want to. I threw it in the garbage as I made my way to my car.

It was an unusually warm January day, and as I walked across the suspended pedway the sun coming through the glass felt good on my skin.

 

Empathetic Evolution

    This post has to do with Evolution. I submit at the outset that I do not see Evolution as being at all incompatible with a belief in the bible or Christianity, although it does change some things. I also admit that my learning and conclusions regarding evolution are somewhat undeveloped and will readily concede that my thoughts on this issue may be well-tread ground and are also just musings from an as yet un-researched and not deeply scrutinized position. With all that in mind…    

The evolution of our ability to empathize is possibly the reason for the transition from individual “Survival of the Fittest” to survival as a group. I’ve been learning about evolutionary science lately and it led me to ask why I have my job. Why do I help homeless people to get through life, and hopefully improve their lives, thereby sidestepping the evolutionary mechanism for weeding out those who don’t pass on the most dominant and adaptive characteristics down to the next generation? This seems like a logical question, and one that I’m sure many people have of my profession. That’s why empathy is so strange. At some point in the evolution of our species we gained the capacity to imagine. To feel not only our own pain or passion, but also someone else’s. Why did this happen? Why, from a strictly naturalist viewpoint, would it be beneficial to be able to imagine what another being feels? My suspicion is that there is something beyond strictly a utilitarian purpose in this. Did a supernatural force (aka God) intervene and, perhaps at the moment of consciousness, impute imagination and empathy into us? Is it that our next evolutionary advance is to succeed not just individually or as a certain class or group; but as a whole, as an entire species? Is there a purpose behind the fact that throughout history, along with becoming able to more efficiently destroy each other, we’ve also developed the ability to more bravely and effectively care for one another? Is there a future for us in which we attempt to all cross the finish line together (and I don’t mean by means of apocalypse or jihad)? Will there come a time that those who are best able to propagate the species are those who live in an interplay of feeling, giving and receiving with their fellow humans? Those who are best able to balance the needs of their own lives and the needs of others (and the earth), living in an approximate harmony with all?

    I can think of people I’ve housed who have no life-skills; who drink, smoke (crack), gamble, masturbate and lie excessively; who have burned every bridge they’ve ever walked across; who have experienced devastating traumas, usually at an early age; who, in raising a child would have to overcome the obstacle of never having been raised themselves; whose brains have forever been altered and literally molded by all of the above; is there a future for them in the species? Is there a reason for so much financial, material and emotional investment, or is their predicament of life on the streets, in the alleys, in the dark, simply nature’s way of making sure that their lives are stunted enough to not contribute to the gene pool? I do believe the former. I have to believe that the reason we as a species evolved empathy was to pull each other from the gates of hell and into the kind of life that we all could share in. I have to believe that some measure of parity is possible and even desirable. I have to believe that there is a reason that I feel the way I do about people who are suffering and feel such a strong desire (or at the least a guilt) to do something about it. God has put that in me, and whether or not I’m able to make any discernable difference, I do believe that in the long run this is what’s required of the human race: to grow, to empathize, to evolve.

Micah

My usually  inconsistent entries have an excuse this time as my wife and I welcomed our new baby boy, Micah David, into this world at 9:01pm on Friday, April 30th. I am reminded by this sacred and thoroughly astonishing experience of two quotes:

“Every child that is born is proof that God has not yet given up on humanity”  -Tagore

“We are fired into life with a madness that comes from the gods and which would have us believe that we can have a great love, perpetuate our seed, and contemplate the divine.”  -Ronald Rolheiser paraphrasing Plato

Our little piece of divine madness

The Christian Front-line Worker: Part 1

    There are people in our churches who have experienced different faces of life than the ones that get acknowledged within our church walls. There are those who have worked not only in the “real world”, but in the real ugly world; that dark underside of humanity. There are certain professions which reveal to their employees a dark reality that is far more hopeless and entrenched than I’ve ever heard a pastor on a pulpit describe. In the churches they talk about sin and lostness, but those on the front lines know, and have seen firsthand, the insidiousness that evil can attain to. Nurses, police officers, social workers, counselors, paramedics, some doctors: these people are part of our churches, and they agree with many of the things proclaimed, but at a fundamental level there is a disconnect. They have seen a side of the world that most have not imagined. It is not just that they have seen terrible things, it’s that they have seen terrible things on an endemic and systemic scale. They have seen entire segments of society locked into destructive patterns and generational curses, they have seen again and again the results of cultures of violence, abuse, and neglect. They have spent years trying to fight against this, to push back the darkness, only to find that the darkness is stronger. And the darkness at times has enveloped them.

    So they stand in the services, often beside more appropriately conditioned spouses or loved-ones, and move their lips as the songs are sung, but are listless as they try to reconcile the world they have seen with the truths they know, with the words they hear from the front. It often gets jumbled and while at points they may feel clarity, for the most part they simply struggle in their attempt to put the fractured world back together in their mind.

    The pastor talks about the drug addict who found Jesus and got clean and started a ministry. The front line worker however, knows only drug addicts who were sexually abused as children, who have so devastated their minds and souls over years of abuse, and who upon recovering would likely attain to a level of semi-independence at most. Even then, the family and societal structures around that person would likely pull them back to where they were before, like crabs in a bucket. The front line worker listens to the success story knowing it to be an anomaly. The person on the news and the pastor’s protégé are nothing more than the exception that proves the rule. They are inspiring at first glance, and misleading upon further inspection. The front-line worker knows this, but still struggles to believe that the leaders in her church (that is, the white, middle-aged, affluent men) are right when they say that Jesus singlehandedly overcomes an individual’s sin and gives a completely revised life. Of all the many things the frontline worker has seen, she has never seen this happen the way that they describe. She is not entirely without hope, but cannot honestly frame that hope in the terms described by the men at the front.

The State of their Union

    I fear for the United States of America. I’m sure that there are many possible reasons that come to your head as you read that first sentence, and I may share some of them, but I have a singular fear that in my mind poses the greatest threat to the livelihood of what is still, for now, the greatest nation on earth. I believe it is the same fear that Abraham Lincoln shared when he proclaimed (quoting another notable historical figure) “A house divided against itself cannot stand”.

    I fear for the Unity of those United States. As I’ve followed the recent battle for health-care reform I’ve been surprised again and again (even though I know I shouldn’t be) by the eagerness of people to divide over political interests rather than even attempt to unite for human interests. Whether you agree with the bill put forth or not, the bigger issue is that something needed to be done. For decades now fully one-tenth of America’s people have been crippled by lack of affordable access to health care. To say that the Obama administration’s solutions aren’t ideal is fine, but to effectively walk away from the table and attempt to negate the nations’ best chance in decades of putting forth an imperfect but drastically improved approach at caring for its own citizens is to my mind a moral wrong on the part of Republican and many Democrat politicians. But this is not my main point. It is only a recent illustration of the growing concern I have for the well-being and future of our influential neighbors to the south. Watchers of American (or Canadian, or just about any other nation’s) politics will simply say that this happens all the time, and I’m aware and appropriately discouraged by that fact; but it’s the polarity of it in this current American setting- the extremity- that gives me pause.

    As the left was mobilized by a grassroots movement that brought a relatively young, idealistic, un-connected, (and in my opinion excellent) man to the Whitehouse, the right was caught stunned- staring agape at their nation being swept away from them by social networking and feel-good hype. As the first year in Mr. Obama’s presidency rolls over, the Right is now mirroring the tools and tactics used by the left and creating its own wave of momentum and support for change. Many cells of this movement are equal to the Left in their idealism but not in their ideals.

    I’ve recently come to understand a little bit of what is creating this backlash. There is a huge segment of the population, largely stereotyped (and to some extent accurately) as being located between the coasts and towards the south, who feel that the nation is slipping away from them, out of their grasp. Many see a nation drifting steadily away from the core values on which it was founded. Now the cynic (and lefty) in me wants to say to these people “How can you complain when it was your own guy who started the ball rolling? It was Dubya who greatly expanded the scope and powers of the government and treated your own rights as currency to be spent towards the “War on Terror”. Now you get to take your lumps!” but of course, while there might be truth to that, it doesn’t exactly get us anywhere, does it? The fact is that the nation is steadily polarizing, and the ever-increasing access to information is creating and increasing fringe groups at an unprecedented rate. I will give an example:

If I was dismayed by the Tea Party movement, I am downright fearful of the implications of a group like the Oath Keepers. This is a group committed to protecting and restoring the constitutional foundation of America. Sounds reasonable, right? The problem is that this group caters not so much to genuinely concerned citizens, but to that fringe who easily equate expressing displeasure with armed struggle. Welcomed are the conspiracy theorists and armed militias, the 9/11 “truthers” and the firearms lobbyists. Oath Keepers is made up to a large degree by people in uniform: military, police, veterans, many of whom have strong values of commitment to their country, and many of whom feel to have been cast aside by their country (many Iraqi war vets, for example). They feel that the government is moving towards a Totalitarian state in which they will be forced to surrender their guns, their God, and their rights, and many in this group are ready to take violent action against this. These fears are fanned by fantastic conspiracies of Obama being foreign-born, a Muslim, having a secret Socialist agenda, etc etc. The problem is not so much that there are people who actually believe this stuff- there has always been that population- but that there is well-organized leadership that is willing to connect and exploit these people in a deliberate attempt to undermine an elected government. More moderate Conservative Republicans meanwhile, do nothing to discourage this fringe because they know that their votes may count on it. For now they can only watch and wait for the right time to either adopt or denounce this movement.

    I don’t have fears that a second American revolution is on its way (as some within the movement are hoping), but I think that what we could see is a nation completely immobilized by polarity. My main concern is that the rising level of rhetoric, misinformation, and hysteria could trap the country in a fearful paralysis, resulting in an inability to make any economic or legislative progress. And there are people and groups that are deliberately trying to achieve this for their own personal interests, which is why you’re still hearing about Sarah Palin. There is no reason I can think of why she would have any seat at any political table except that she has the populist backing of this disenfranchised group. She is the ill-advised and overconfident spokesperson for millions of Americans who, up until now felt that they had no voice in a world that was changing much too quickly for them. But it’s not healthy for me to think too much about Sarah Palin. To me the most culpable are not those caught up in the theories, or genuinely scared by a growing government, but those who, being in a position of power, choose to manipulate this; willing to deepen division rather than work towards the good of the nation. I hope for the sake of my friends down south that they are able to experience some economic prosperity (which often serves to relieve tensions), some honesty from their politicians on both sides, and a rediscovery of that great Kindergarten teaching- co-operation. That, and maybe Bin Laden. Nothing unifies like destroying an enemy! Okay, maybe that’s pushing it, but the first three would be nice. The consequences will be steep if unity doesn’t happen; not for one side or the other, but for both.

Rapid Exit Graduation

I was asked to share about a little graduation ceremony we had for the people in our program. Here it is:

For the past two months Hope Mission staff have been gathering for weekly Wednesday lunches. Each week a different department has led the event, with each adding their own particular flavour. From Todd & Todd singing U2 to Marybelle and the gang taking us to Hawaii, each week has brought surprises for the staff who have taken time out from their hectic schedules to spend an hour with their fellow employees.

A couple of weeks ago the staff lunch included an unusual twist, as it became a graduation ceremony for the first group of people to have completed the Rapid Exit Program. The Rapid Exit Program is Hope Mission’s Housing First Program, which means that the objective is to house people quickly and immediately wrap the necessary supports around the person to keep them housed. It is a year-long program, and the goal is that by the end of the year the individual is at a place of self- sufficiency and positive integration into their community.

The program has been in existence for just over a year and that is why we are now seeing our first group of graduates from the program. Five such people were in attendance on Wednesday and received a certificate and handshake as a small token of congratulation for their hard work and successful completion of the year-long program. Some of them have maintained the same housing since day one of the program, while others have occupied two or three places, for various reasons. Each journey is different, and for some the process of being evicted served to become an integral part of their progress; a teachable moment in which, with the team’s help, they were able to identify causes and break the cycle that has for so many years led them back to the streets.

So what the staff were able to see at this graduation was not a collection of perfectly adjusted, “fixed” individuals, but rather a group of growing, learning, often stumbling, but now overcoming survivors. The difference is not that they now have no problems, but that they now have the tools, confidence, and encouragement to overcome problems when they do occur. These five have come to a new and quite surprising place in their lives. For most of the group the role of “inspiration” is a new one, but they are serving as an inspiration to the staff of Hope Mission, many of whom toil for days, weeks, or months without visible fruits for their labor. Occasions like this are special because they offer a visible representation of the investment that the many different staff have put in.

Our five graduates: Larry, Dean, Louise, Larry, and Ron. All have survived much and overcome much, and each one expressed thankfulness at being honored by our staff. It is my suspicion however, that it was the staff who were honored by the presence and witness of these resilient and deeply joyful survivors.

Into the Woods, into the unknown

 

If, in the darkness, you see something in the distance stir,

Don’t shine a light, don’t run away, Don’t

squint your eyes.

 

Allow.

Allow the stirring to form, the creature to move

Allow the unknown inhabitant

To displace the darkness as it pleases

To reveal itself, or not, as it sees fit.

 

It will show you,

The mysteries of the universe or,

Nothing at all.

But it will act of its own accord, and you,

You will watch, will wait, with bated breath.

(though your breath here is better un-bated)

 

It will unveil itself quickly, or

Make you wait, until

Suspense crescendos or,

Boredom drives out intention

 

But it will not be coerced.

Engage it and you will make it

Something other than it is.

Maybe you will catch a glimpse,

Maybe you will define a piece,

But you will never then comprehend it

In its natural form.

In the true Reality of its existence.

 

It has something to reveal to you

Far beyond identifiable details,

Dissectible entrails.

Something,

Beyond you and beyond itself.

 

You must allow it to come to you.

Or not.

A Letter to Myself

Six months ago I was in Africa. While there, our team was given the assignment of writing a letter to ourselves six months from now. I received the letter in the mail yesterday, and thought I would share it here. It’s kind of fun to get a letter from yourself and to hear you talk to yourself affectionately (that doesn’t always happen, does it?) It’s good exercise. For those wondering, Paula was pregnant when I wrote this, but we didn’t know it yet.

Dear Ryan,

    You are an amazing creature.

    Remember today to tread lightly and have sympathy for your fellow creature. Show grace, compassion, and forgiveness as often as the opportunities afford themselves.

    Work hard. But work with a lightness and a joy so that others can be lifted and carried along by it rather than being dragged down when they come by you.

    Keep pursuing your faith. Be diligent in cultivating and nurturing your spiritual life. Take the time you need, but don’t become bitter when it doesn’t happen. Keep learning too Ryan. This is how you are put together to grow. But remember that if you’ve arrived at all the answers you’ve probably arrived at a dead end.

    Be gentle with your incredible wife. Don’t ever sell yourself out just to make peace, but don’t become too obsessed with your own “needs”, or ever take her for granted.

    Let go of your need to control things, namely your image. There’s a lot packed into this one little word, but you know what I mean.

    Remember the many different ‘callings’ you have received from God. Don’t let your uncertainty transform into immobility. God wants you to go where you’re going for some reason.

    Remember different times in your life. Think about what was important and why it is or isn’t now. Spend time with nature and let it bring back memories.

    Let other people laugh at you in a good way, and if they laugh at you in a bad way, know that this does not decrease your value. They are not the ones holding the scales.

    Write. Do it regularly. Set a time for it, even if it hurts sometimes.

    Get enough sleep, but don’t value sleep above people. Don’t value anything above people. Don’t be afraid to love them, but don’t be too devastated by any fallout from that. After all, we are all just renting space here for a time before moving on.

    Send my love to your family. Don’t ever devalue them either. They’ll be gone before you know it.

    If you are going to be having a child any time in the near future the only advice I give you is: Go for it! Dive entirely in and absolutely immerse yourself in love for this completely undeserved gift to you and Paula. If it’s not in the near future for you and Paula then don’t worry too much about these words.

    Take care of yourself. Ryan in a healthy place can be a great thing for people to be around.

    Hang on, because winter will end. Think of new and creative ways to make this season worth living in.

    Let your true self have room to move and let it cause trouble for you every once in a while. Don’t worry about how to find your true self. When you forget or lose yourself that’s usually when it steps forward.

 

    Take care.

Sincerely,

Ryan McCormick