"the form wasn't compromised—it was perfect—but the feeling was"
when books and sermons are about experiences the author never completely had...a fictionalized encounter with the sacred.
The art critic Edgar Wind once accused Rilke of having "an emotionally untainted sense of form," meaning that he made these perfect artifacts that seemed to be about experiences he had never completely had. The very perfection of the form depended upon the detachment of the artist, but according to Wind, you could always feel that detachment within the perfection. The form wasn't compromised—it was perfect—but the feeling was. - Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss, 74.
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So much God-talk today speaks of God with a detached, absolute certainty.
“GOD IS…”
The books that can “resolve” the deep mysteries of God win awards and the pastors who can exude confidence in declaring the plans and purposes of God in the world soon inhabit gigantic arenas and brightly lit stages. Such theologians fill pages of talk of God without stepping foot outside their office. Such mega-pastors preach to congregations while inhabiting a fundamentally different reality than their congregants.
Like Rilke, though, these books and sermons too often seem to be about experiences the author never completely had. It is a fictionalized encounter with the sacred. Intellectually, they wax poetic about God’s ‘omni-s’ and parse through obscure Greek verbiage. They speak of their “neighbors” while living in gated estates and New York highrises. But missing from these books is the component of experience: taste and see the Lord is good, the Psalmist says.
And again, like Rilke, we are caught in the dilemma that the perfected form of “good theology” demands this detachment. The task of the theologian, one is taught, is to rid oneself of bias and presupposition and approach the study of God as a blank slate. Indeed, our methodology demands we do so if we are to systematize God and make sense of the divine. Detachment is the precondition of perfection. But, in this pseudo-kenotic endeavor, we fail to say anything substantial about God at all.
The more I see and experience in the world, the more reluctant I am to say anything certain about God and the more skeptical I am towards those who wager such absolute claims about the divine life and action of God. Those who cannot bring God into the realm of experience and existence have failed to identify the God of Christianity.
What we can know of God will not be found in our detached musings made from the safety of an ivory tower or office chamber. It will be revealed in our world as we move through it clinging to God—or, the possibility of God. The closest we can come to speaking concretely about God is by speaking about the world around us, a world that God has called good.
Theology takes on meaningful significance when it is steeped in the world, when it encounters reality, and when it is transfigured by the blessings and struggles of daily life. This is a lived and living theology—weaving through the world and seeking God’s redemptive presence and action in it.
Reading:
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice, and Love (Eerdmans, 2024).
Randall Balmer, Saving Faith: How American Christianity Can Reclaim Its Prophetic Voice (Fortress Press, 2023).
Watching:
Fool Me Once (Netflix)
Love!!!!