So why do this...

There are lots of people who blog. And they all have their own passions about which they blog. The "blogosphere" is huge. I've personally tried to tend away from my own passions as they seem to get me into trouble. That doesn't mean I don't want to write or that I am not passionate about things, but I have tried to limit my passions to things that are not personal. Things that are external to me, and not simply things that represent my interests.

True, I am interested and passionate about this topic, but this topic exists outside of me. It's not something I am conjuring up out of my own unique personality and creativity. At least, that is my fundamental standpoint. And that is sort of the crux of the issue.

If God does not exist, then this blog is about as useful as a blog describing my personal feelings toward something like, say, video games. But, if God does exist, then I feel like I have chosen the thing that matters most in the universe about which to write. And if the purpose of this journal is a "mitzvot" to bring me closer to God, then what better subject matter could there be?

I guess, for me, it comes down to that above paragraph. I am an "either/or" sort of person. That black and white thinking has gotten me into trouble, but in this setting, I think it is justified. Either God exists or He does not. I am not sure there is a "both" option.

Either there is a "moral order" to the universe, or there is not. By "moral order," I mean an external moral reality of absolute right and wrong against which all human experience can be judged. If the latter, if there is not a moral order, then all questions of morality by definition become questions of ethics belonging to the closed system in which they were raised. Was the holocaust "moral?" If there were no absolute moral order, then someone would find some way to justify it, and believe in its morality, without anyone else being able to pull rank on a higher "moral order" (because we have said for this argument that it doesn't exist) and strike down their argument.

But if there is a higher, external, absolute moral order to the universe, then all questions of human morality become secondary to that absolute morality. We can never falsely justify something "immoral" because it can be externally judged as such.

To me, it seems this is something ingrained in humanity. As children, we cry out, "it's not fair" as though we know, deep down, there is a "fairness" doctrine outside of our little family life to which we can appeal. And, as children, we seek validation from our parents for our mudpies or any other human endeavor. Who hasn't said, "Mom, look at me, look at me?" How many mothers have heard those words...

As we grow into adults, maybe we get cynical and come to believe that there is no "fairness," there is no "moral order." Or we grow up and learn not to seek validation in others. But do our beliefs in the lack of existence of something make that lack a reality? Just because we begin to believe that life is not fair, does that really make life not fair? Or is life completely fair? Is there a moral order from which this fairness springs?

It's my belief that there is a moral order. There is a fundamental meaning. But what drives me is how to get there. If language is imperfect, according to Derrida, then how can something written in language get us to an understanding of a perfect moral order? And if we cannot get there, by definition, why try? Are we still just making mudpies? "Hey God, look at me, look at me..."

If there is a fundamental moral order to the universe, if God exists, then there is another argument. There either is, or is not, a written document that exactly depicts this "God." There either is or is not a perfect representation of His revelation in human terms.

One could say that the Bible is it. But which version? Which of the 10+ English translations is it? Is it even the English version, or is it the Spanish version? And if we find one version that is "perfect," does following it to the letter simply just represent legalism?

I believe in a fundamental moral order, But I have a hard time believing that there is a perfect human representation of that moral order, and if there is not, then how much room for interpretation is there? That is, if there is a document which most closely represents the expression of God in human understanding, but is not "perfect," then how much room is there for an individual to take what he or she wants from it like some sort of Chinese menu?

Even if we go the other way, and say that the Torah, perfectly copied, is the divine revelation of God's word, we still leave room for human interpretation.

So, how do we go about the search for ultimate meaning when we know that search can never be ultimately satisfied? I have come to believe that it is in the search that meaning lies. And therefore, my mitzvot, my task to bring me closer to God, will be in this search, through a dedication to this process.

That Post-Modern problem...

I don't want to spend a long time writing about differing philospophical viewpoints that have helped to shape current thought, because doing so would be a distraction from the truth I glean for myself from my Bible study, but I would like to point out one influential writer, and quickly describe his works. I will be referring generally to this thought process during my writings, using his name as a general descriptor of this post modern thought process.

Jacques Derrida remains a controversial philosopher today, and to my mind, is emblematic of post-modern critical thinking. He is the philosopher most associated with deconstruction, which is a term he used to describe a pursuit of meaning of a text to the point at which, due to the inability to find a commonly agreed upon starting point, all text has no underlying definable "meaning."

"Deconstruction generally attempts to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings; that any text has therefore more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incomparability of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction

As you can imagine, if this thought process is applied to the Bible as a work of "literature," then meaning is removed from the Bible.

This process is fundamentally "relativisim," or the idea that everything is relative to some other "thing" without any concrete starting point, or fundamental truth upon which we can build all other references. By pursuing relativism to its end, one might wonder where God exists or if He could in this thought process.

The interplay between this thought process, which many people will find absurd in its final expression, and the contradictory concept of legalism and accountability in the Bible and in Bible study, and finally the application of that interplay to real world problems is what spurs me to journal, and to write this blog. If anyone reads this, I hope I can share my enthusiasm with him or her, especially when certain passages ring so true. Why do they ring true? Is it legalism to say "This is the truth?" Are we acting in love if we see another who does not believe in that "truth" and then reject him, saying "he is not one of us."

And what does all of this mean to someone who is hurting and who goes to the Bible in quiet reflection and prayer to find solace from a damaged and hurtful world? Where do we stop, and just quietly hold this person?

An Introduction

This year our pastor asked us to perform a Mitzvot as we read the One Year Bible together. As far as I am able to glean from a variety of sites, a Mitzvot is "an individual path to connect oneself closer to God." www.hanefesh.com/613_Mitzvot.htm

I have read the One Year Bible twice (over 2 years) and then read a regular bible a third time over a third year, changing to a new version but letting the readings guide how I read the different bible. I grew up in Nashville wondering, who are these odd people who call themselves "Christians?" I subsequently became one through this process of reading and study. As cerebral of a conversion process as this sounds, there was plenty of emotionalism that went with it. I find that the emotionalism does not lend itself as well to verbal description, so I will not dwell on it.

My most influential adult experience with Christianity was through the teachings of a Church of Christ pastor named Rubel Shelly. His life experiences shaped his interpretation of the text, and inspired my conversion to Christianity. One of his main goals, it seemed to me, was to decrease sectarianism. He preached these sermons inside what was (in my view) a somewhat sectarian environment. The tension that this dichotomy created fueled many inspirational ideas, ideas that still stick with me and will be the subject for many of my posts.

If one of the interpretations of the life of Christ is as a reformer to a Jewish religion that had become entrapped in a phariseeical legalism, how then do we worship Christ without falling into a similar legalism ourselves? And if we don't have some legalism, how can we have "accountability" in a healthy manner? And how do we tie the concept of legalism and biblical interpretation to the post-modern world in which we find ourselves, a world in which we are told there is no definable meaning in language? How do we use a non-definable communication structure to worship Jesus in a healthy, non-legalistic manner, establishing boundaries of behavior for which accountability can be ascertained?

It's that fundamental tension that fires my pursuit of faith. It's one thing to pursue Christ in a biblical manner because the Bible tells us to do that. It seems to be another thing to pursue Christ in the world outside the Bible, especially in these confusing times where we are given so many conflicting messages.

So, as I read the One Year Bible again this year, I have chosen, as my Mitzvot, to write this blog. My desire is to connect myself closer to God. I could journal this, and not blog, but I find that if I write for others, then my thoughts remain more focused and accountable.