The Death of Transcendent Authority, The Birth of Divine Silence

The Future of Christianity in a Global Age, Part 4

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Last week, someone replied to one of my articles to tell me that my “make it up as you go along theology” (I believe that was the phrase) wouldn’t hack it. Accepting Christ as Savior was the only way. Of course, the reply included some proof texts for good measure.

First of all, if anyone ever does this to you, I strongly recommend not replying to the person. Every response reinforces the behavior. You make it more likely they’ll not only do it again to you, but also to others.

Second, I maintain strong boundaries. I deleted the comment and blocked the person without warning. I also encourage you to do the same when someone tries to hijack your space.

My reasoning is this…

My space here is like my home. People who come here are guests. If a guest enters my space and starts trashing me, I will kick them out immediately. I will not subject myself to that kind of abuse, and I don't want other guests to be exposed to it as a matter of hospitality.

Anyway, that's how I deal with toxic behavior in my online space. And yes, that behavior is toxic.

Fuel for the fire

Today, I'm less concerned about the above behavior and more concerned about where it came from in the first place. In this case, it's a manifestation of a particular kind of theology.

In the mind of my accuser, for all intents and purposes, his vision of God is Actual God. Practically speaking, there is no difference.

Sure, if you were to ask him about it, I'm sure he’d say God is beyond him. But is that really the case? His behavior shows he’s unwilling to entertain the idea that he could be wrong, that God could be different than what he thinks.

To put it another way, his God-concept is meant to point to the Mystery, to symbolize Actual God. But in his case, his God-concept is infused with the Divine Authority Itself that empowers him to make his pronouncements. In his mind, his God-concept and Actual God have fused into one.

He is confusing the symbol with the symbolized. And, this is the very definition of idolatry.

From extreme to subtle

Yes, this is an extreme example. But I like extreme examples because they make the idolatry easy to see. And the better we get at seeing it in extreme examples, the better we become at seeing it in more subtle ones.

And, this is where it all starts to come home…

Can any of us really say that we haven't fallen into that trap? Can any of us say we’ve never confused our symbolic concepts of God with Actual God?

I know I have. Believe me, I have made firey pronouncements about Divine Justice empowered by my belief in the God of Jesus. And, yes, I’ve said some pretty nasty things to people along the way.

While we might feel guilty in retrospect regarding things we said or did during those times, I don’t think we need to feel ashamed of having ended up there. In fact, I think it’s natural for human beings to confuse our perceptions of God with Actual God, our experiences of the Divine with the Divine Itself.

I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t get a certain “high” off feeling “connected to God”? Who doesn’t feel vitalized from the feeling of tapping into Divine Authority and getting to tell others “how it is”?

And here’s the bigger thing…

When we experience this kind of empowerment, we feel a lot safer in the world. And that is a common human quest: The quest to feel safe and secure.

But if the Christian religion is to be a healthy religious option within our multi-faith world, we need to move beyond this primal concern for safety, and we need to stop equating our Christian God with Actual God.

As I was saying…

In this series, I’ve mapped out where typical Christian positions draw the line when it comes to relativizing their religious symbols as they relate to other religions.

• Exclusivists: Unwilling to relativize anything

• Inclusivists: Unwilling to relativize Christ

• Pluralists: Unwilling to relativize Heaven

• Perspectival Pluralists: Unwilling to relativize God

The line none of them seem to want to cross is relativizing God.

Spoiler: I believe that’s exactly the line we need to cross.

In my last article, I introduced “radical theology”, also known as “Death of God” theology. There are a few different ways to interpret that “death”. For some, it’s a literal, metaphysical death. For others, it’s the realization that the old understanding of God is irrelevant in our world.

While I’m an “armchair theologian” (inasmuch as I am any theologian at all), I consider myself to be a radical theologian at heart. And it’s now time for me to lay out where I’m coming from and why it matters in our ecumenical and multi-religious paradigm.

Welcome to radical theological pluralism

I was going to call my approach “radical pluralism” so I could directly connect radical theology with the categories of pluralism and perspectival (or orientational) pluralism. Then I decided to ask ChatGPT if that term has been used in the field.

Apparently it has. In 2020 Mikel Burley wrote A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion: Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary.

I have not read this book. According to ChatGPT, we have a lot of overlap, but it sounds like I'm willing to go farther than he is.

Because I have not read him and do not know for sure whether we belong under the same label, I've decided to call what I'm doing “radical theological pluralism”. Perhaps it’s a better name since he approaches the topic as a philosopher of religion whereas I approach it as a radical theologian.

Here’s how I see the “Death of God”

Everybody’s life is a story. It has a beginning, present, and idealized end. The story arc that goes from beginning, through the present, and to the idealized end is your “truth”.

Stories function as the meaning-making framework for your life. When you walk into a situation, it’s sheer chaos. Then, you apply your story to it like a cookie cutter to cookie dough. What emerges is your experience of the moment.

You then measure that experience against your truth (your story arc). Inasmuch as it aligns with your idealized end, it is good (or meaningful). Inasmuch as it is misaligned, it is bad (or meaningless).

Your spirituality is a sub-story within your life’s story. It is how you make sense of Ultimacy. It relates Ultimacy to the idealized end of your story. Your spiritual end (or religious end) is reflected in your story's end.

Within your spiritual narrative, you have a God-concept. It sums up the whole spiritual narrative and binds you to it. It’s your projection of Ultimate Possibility for yourself and the world. Your God-concept (your vision of Ultimacy) reflects your spiritual end as it calls you to pursue it.

It is your relationship to your God-concept that empowers you to tap into your personal idealized end and manifest it in the here and now.

And here’s the kicker:

Your God-concept doesn’t exist.

It’s just a concept.

Postmodern culture is experiencing a meaning crisis.

Why have we lost sight of Meaning?
Is there any hope of getting it back?
Better yet, is the loss of Meaning really a bad thing?

If you long for a path forward, my theology book Drinking from an Empty Glass: Living Out of a Meaningless Spirituality is the book you’re looking for.