Perceptions from a Pewboy

In the New Testament book of James, after the author highlights the unholy behavior of mistreating the disenfranchised and ignoring the poor, he offers a teaching that is as timeless as it is revelatory: “What good is it,” he writes, “if you say that you have faith, but do not have works?” (James 2:14)

What does Scripture mean by “works?” I have always believed it to be a reference to those tangible works of ministry that bear witness to the kingdom that God inaugurated in Christ. Works of compassion and justice. Works emerging from a heart that has been transformed and reoriented by the love of Jesus Christ. “What good is it,” the biblical author writes, “if you say that you have faith but do not have works? If a brother or a sister is in trouble and lacks daily food, and you say to them, ‘God bless,’ but do not do anything to supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”

Then the biblical author encapsulates the urgency of his teaching in a powerfully unsettling way: “So,” he writes, “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:17)

I invite you to allow yourself to be unsettled and perhaps even undone by that biblical teaching for a moment. Allow the teaching to make its way into every chamber of your soul. “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is not a saving faith. It is a dead faith.”

Over the centuries of Christian theology, Christian thinkers have perpetuated what I consider to be a misguided and unfortunate debate. The debate is normally referred to as the “faith versus works debate,” and it hinges on this theological question: Are we saved by faith or are we saved by our good works? People on both sides of the debate cite particular scriptures to support their arguments. The people who believe that we are saved by faith alone (in Latin, “sola fide”) are quick to cite scriptures like Ephesians 2:8-9, which reads this way: “By grace we have been saved through faith, and this is not our own doing, but the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” That’s a pretty clear teaching, right?

But hold on. Because, on the other side of the debate are the people who maintain that salvation is received—not EARNED, mind you—but RECEIVED through the doing of good and compassionate works. They cite scriptures like Matthew 25:31-46, in which Jesus makes clear that, in the final judgment, our eternal reward or our eternal punishment has much to do with whether or not we have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoner. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that our good works are indeed an integral portion of the salvation that God has made possible.

For centuries, the theological debate has raged on, spawning hugely unfortunate extremes and unnecessary distortions of biblical truth. But in the book of James, it is made crystal clear to us that debating over faith and works is something like debating over bloodflow and breathing. Which would you rather do without, the flow of blood through your veins or the intake of oxygen? That would be a ridiculous conversation, since life depends upon both of these processes.

In much the same way, salvation depends, according to Scripture, upon both faith and good works. They are both manifestations of God’s saving grace, and they are both inseparably joined in the life of discipleship. Faith, without works, is dead. Good works, without faith, are random and unsubstantiated.

But allow me to be very clear about this: I am not suggesting that we have the wherewithal to EARN our salvation through either our faith or our works. We have neither the rectitude nor the righteousness to accomplish that. Salvation is God’s accomplishment and God’s gift, offered to us in grace. We cannot earn it, nor can we ever achieve it by our own merit. We can, however, RECEIVE God’s gift of salvation. (I don’t think that I have to say much to remind you that there is a vast difference between earning a prize and receiving a gift.)

The God-given, Spirit-empowered mechanism by which we RECEIVE God’s gift of salvation is the two-tiered mechanism of faith and works: faith in Jesus Christ accompanied by the good works that the love of Christ inspires within us.

The Greek word for faith that is utilized in the second chapter of James is a word that implies significantly more than an intellectual agreement or a cognitive speculation. In fact, the Greek word for faith is one that implies trust, reliance, dependable relationship. The kind of saving faith that Scripture describes, in other words, is a life-changing relationship with the living and ever-dynamic Christ—a relationship that changes us inwardly to such an extent that it becomes the joy of our life to bless others with works of mercy, not for the purpose of inflating our ego, but for the purpose of giving expression to the glorious and relentless love of Jesus Christ. That is why Scripture is able to say with conviction that faith without works is dead. If our faith is not accompanied by consistent works of mercy and ministry, then our faith cannot be a LIVING relationship with the LIVING Christ, whose very nature is to identify with the least and the lost.

The book of James would have us to believe that a disciple is a person of faith, but not just any faith. More specifically, a disciple is a person whose faith is nothing less than a daily walk with Jesus Christ and whose life bears witness to that daily walk through the frequent rendering of good and merciful works.

A pastoral colleague of mine made this comment recently:

I think that the institutional church is on the way out…How can it not be? The institution has become more interested in self-preservation than it is in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Another colleague put it this way:

The United Methodist system often gets in the way of authentic ministry. When administrative processes become more important than reaching souls, we wind up becoming idolatrous about our denomination’s way of doing things.

Still another colleague offered these thoughts:

Our [United Methodist] general boards and agencies have become painfully out of touch with the ministry of our annual conferences. Our annual conferences have become painfully out of touch with the ministry of our local churches. And our local churches have become painfully out of touch with what’s going on in their communities. It’s time for us to let go of the institutional church and get back to the life-changing, heart-to-heart ministry that Jesus initiated.

I share these comments with you because of the way that they shed light upon an ecclesiastical trend that is at once both revelatory and troubling. The trend of which I speak can best be described as an eagerness to demonize the institutional.

I will acknowledge at the outset that, as a District Superintendent in the United Methodist tradition, the office that I occupy, in the eyes of many, is a primary cog in the institutional machinery that is in question. I am not blind to the complexity of this, nor am I naïve about the possibility of sounding unnecessarily defensive or self-preserving in a blog post like this one. Believe me, the institutional nature of my current ministry has become frighteningly clear to me over the last year.

First, allow me to offer a word of affirmation concerning the anti-institutional trend that I have described. At its best, this trend is a desperately-needed prophetic critique of structures, leadership, and administrative processes that must consistently be held accountable for their function. This is where the postmodern skepticism concerning anything that smells “institutional” serves the Body of Christ quite well. It is a skepticism that prevents us from bowing at the altar of any denomination’s polity.

Likewise, the anti-institutional trend helps the church to remember that the heart of ministry is not to be found in parliamentary procedure or in an elaborate meeting agenda or even in the successful completion of the year-end statistical reports (cue the whining!). Rather, as the anti-institutional trend makes clear, the heart of ministry is to be found in ever-deepening relationships; in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for the marginalized; and in helping the lost to find their way home to Jesus Christ. If institutional components become stumbling blocks in the way of such ministry, then the anti-institutional trend is right on target: It’s time to dismantle the institution for the purpose of recovering the church’s true mission.

But, to be fair, allow me to point the critique in the other direction for a moment. Here is what troubles me about some of the manifestations of the anti-institutional trend:

First, in my experience (which is my only perspective concerning the issue), the critique of the institution is often voiced most loudly and most angrily by those who have become resentful of the way in which the institution has attempted to hold them accountable. Granted, there are certainly times in which institutional accountability feels like little more than jumping through vapid administrative hoops. On the other hand, institutional accountability, at its best, can become a communal means by which to keep people in proper alignment with the covenants by which they live.

Therefore, when offering a critique of the institutional church, it is imperative for the agent of the critique to be very attentive to his/her motives. A critique that emerges from clear and level-headed discernment can become a prophetic corrective. But a critique that emerges from resentment often ends up sounding more like an agenda-laden venting of one’s spleen.

Second, the anti-institutional trend is often much heavier on the critique than it is on meaningful solutions. If the United Methodist institution were to go away, for example, I would have to go and find a real job, to be sure. (Is anyone hiring, by the way?! Are there any comic book stores that need an extra employee?!) But what would remain in the absence of the existing ecclesiastical institution? How would the work of UMCOR continue in Haiti? How would people be encouraged and equipped to respond to a call to ministry? How would we support missions, local church food pantries and clothes closets, and the formation of meaningful curriculum? How would pastors be trained, sent, and appointed? Would we leave this all to individual inspiration and the formation of “house churches?” If so, what would be the institutional mechanism to connect individuals with ministries that would help them to invest in something that is bigger than their particular corner of the world?

In the current anti-institutional trend, quite frankly, I hear far more random criticism than I do helpful answers to these questions.

Third, the demonization of the institution often overlooks the fact that the concept of “institution,” in and of itself, is neither inherently evil nor necessarily contradictory to the ministry of Jesus Christ. The word “institution,” after all, is a derivative of the Latin “instituere” which means simply “to set up.” Setting up is a discipline that Jesus saw fit to embrace. In a sense, he “set up” (instituted) the disciples and their tasks. He set up (instituted) the Lord’s Supper. He set up (instituted) Peter as the “rock” upon which the church would be built.

And what about the church in the book of Acts? Many of the issues of the early church were issues of “setup”—institutional issues revolving around things like the relationship between Jews and Gentiles; the relationship between circumcision and uncircumcision; the relationship between staying put and being on the move. In order for the church to have been able to address these issues in Acts, it had to take itself seriously as an institutional reality. Which brings me to this point:

Realistically, I see no way to avoid the realities of administration, polity, and structure in the ministry of the church. They are inevitable portions of good stewardship of time and resources.

Let’s say that, in a fit of institutional angst, I am inspired to leave it all behind. “Hey United Methodist Church! I’m tired of your heavyhanded institutionalism! I’m going to blaze my own trail. I’m going to start a church in my living room, and I’m going to keep it small and focused and biblical and real. That is what God is calling me to do.”

How long do you think it would be before my living room church became an institution? How long would it be before the ten or fifteen people in my living room felt the need to become more efficiently organized in order to accomplish the ministry that God was calling them to accomplish?

My point is this: institutional church is an inevitable reality. It always has been. In fact, good ministry DEMANDS good institution (good setup). Therefore, in many ways, the anti-institutional trend is a protest against a reality that MUST exist, in one form or another. The real issue, then, is not whether we will have an institutional church. Of course we will. The real issue is whether or not the institution will be strategic and nimble enough to assist the church in accomplishing the ministry to which it is called. That is a different question altogether.

As I suggested earlier, some will no doubt dismiss this post as little more than the feeble rambling of a church bureaucrat defending the institution that he represents (towing the party line, if you will). I understand that. In that regard, I have no choice but to bear the symbols of the office that I am honored to occupy. But I’d like to think that I’m onto something here—something more than an undue fondness for the institution that pays my salary. I’d like to think that the United Methodist institution can still become a conduit through which the Holy Spirit makes its way into the nooks and crannies of the world to which the church has been called to minister.

Where the institution is outdated, out of touch, or out of whack, my prayer is that we will have the courage to recognize and name that—not because of a destructive eagerness to demonize, but because of a desire for the church to be at its best and its most faithful. Where the institution has caused harm to precious souls (shot its wounded, so to speak), my prayer is that the church will be sensitive enough to recognize and confess those moments of spiritual violence, so that the collective heart of the church will be deepened and softened.

In short, my prayer is that the church’s people will treat the church’s institutional nature, not as an enemy to be demonized, but as a portion of the church’s order that falls within the boundaries of God’s redemptive grace. If that happens, we might be inclined to see the institutional church as yet another segment of the “groaning and travailing creation” (Romans 8:22) that is yearning for the redemption into which God is leading it.

Perhaps this is naïve on my part. I hope not.

There’s a movie out these days called “Avatar.”

Perhaps you’ve heard of it!

Much of the conversation surrounding “Avatar” has focused on the brilliant filmmaking technology that it represents. Its mind-boggling financial success has also occupied many a Hollywood blog.

Beneath these more obvious layers of cinematic discourse, however, there is a conversation that interests me even more. It is a conversation about the film’s theology.

And make no mistake about it, “Avatar” presents a theological narrative that demands the attention of anyone who is willing to invest the time (2 hours and 37 minutes) and money (about 15 dollars) that the film requires.

It would be accurate, I think, to describe “Avatar’s” theology as a modified or at least nuanced pantheism that blends a nature-friendly scientific worldview with a willingness to assign a divine identity to the natural world. Pantheism (which literally means “God is all” or, perhaps more specifically, “all is God”) is not a new phenomenon. It finds its roots in ideas that were embraced by practitioners of pre-Christian Stoicism and Epicureanism—two philosophies that were vastly different in content but similar in their theological treatment of the natural world.

While pantheism has found a variety of expressions and proponents throughout its history, at the core of its message is the conviction that deity does not exist independently of nature. Rather, in pantheism, the Creator and the Creation are joined in the same kind of mystical and relational intimacy that Christians have always recognized in the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

For the Christian, to speak of one person of the Trinity is also to speak of the other two persons, since, in Christian theology, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being, one essence, and one nature. In much the same way, for the pantheist, to speak of nature is to speak of the deity that created it (and vice versa), since, in the pantheistic worldview, Creator and Creation are joined together in one identity, one consciousness, one reality. A pantheist will approach nature, not as a product of God to be stewarded, but as a portion of God that is to be engaged in relationship.

New York Times’ columnist Ross Douthat has rightly observed (in this column) that “pantheism has been Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now.” Douthat maintains that pantheism was what “Kevin Costner discovered when he went dancing with wolves. It’s the metaphysic woven through Disney cartoons like ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Pocahontas.’ And it’s the dogma of George Lucas’s Jedi, whose mystical Force ‘surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.’”

There are probably many different reasons for Hollywood’s fondness for pantheistic sensibilities, not the least of which is that pantheism does not require the naming of a particular deity (which makes it far more theologically palatable to Hollywood than what is often interpreted as a socially divisive Christocentrism). In fact, even atheist moviegoers can buy into pantheism, since, in one sense, the only kind of worship and rebirth that pantheism requires is a reverence for nature and the awakening of an environmentally-sensitive consciousness.

Pantheism, in other words, is seen as an acceptable spiritual common denominator in a theologically diverse culture. In the eyes of many, it brings profundity without dogma; transcendence without complicated sovereignty; revelation without painful conversion; theophany without prophetic demands. In the words of Ross Douthat, “Pantheism opens a path to numinous experience for people uncomfortable with the literal-mindedness of the monotheistic religions…For anyone who pines for transcendence but recoils at the idea of a demanding Almighty who interferes in human affairs, this is an ideal combination.”

It is not at all difficult to discern the pantheistic sensibilities and presuppositions that permeate the narrative of “Avatar.” The film, in many ways, gives expression to the idea that it is not religion that has to catch up to science and technology. Rather, according to “Avatar,” it is the other way around. Science and technology much catch up with (pantheistic) religion in order to be able to live within appropriate boundaries and understandings.

“Avatar” places before its audience a rich and colorful new world—the planet Pandora—the inhabitants of which (the Na’vi) live by a mystical pantheism that maintains that all life (plant and animal) is a part of the same “energy” that must be nurtured and one day given back to its source. The Na’vi’s most revered altar is the holy “Tree of Souls,” a natural sanctuary where the community gathers for sacred rites and special revelation.

At the heart of the Na’vi’s pantheism is a belief in the goddess Ewya, whose essence manifests itself in the oneness that exists between all living things and who is honored when all living things are in the appropriate relationship and balance with one another. As Neytiri (the film’s primary female Na’vi) puts it, “Our great mother Eywa does not take sides, she only protects the balance of life.”

The villain in “Avatar,” not surprisingly, is a corporation from earth that is interested in a precious resource that can only be mined on Pandora. With its technology and its militaristic methodology, the corporation, oblivious to the mystical oneness between the Na’vi and their natural surroundings, simply wants them to relocate so that they might exploit the land for their purposes. (Sound familiar?)

Interestingly, the scientific community that Earth has placed on Pandora begins to open its heart to the pantheistic realities preached by the Na’vi. Sigourney Weaver portrays Dr. Grace Augustine, a scientist whose name bears witness to her openness to further revelation. As the film moves toward its climax, Dr. Augustine offers a speech in which she reveals her conviction that the “primitive” Na’vi are actually onto something with their pantheism:

Those trees were sacred in a way you can’t imagine. I’m not talking about pagan voodoo here. I’m talking about something real and measurable in the biology of the forest. Alright, look — I don’t have the answers yet, I’m just now starting to even frame the questions. What we think we know is that there’s some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons. Each tree has ten to the fourth connections to the trees around it, and there are ten to the twelfth trees on Pandora. That’s more connections than the human brain. You get it? It’s a network—a global network. And the Na’vi can access it—they can upload and download data and memories—at sites like the one you destroyed.

You need to wake up. The wealth of this world isn’t in the ground—it’s all around us. The Na’vi know that, and they’re fighting to defend it.

With that, the theological narrative of “Avatar” comes full circle. Science and religion join in the proclamation of a pantheistic reality in which nature and its inhabitants are connected in a theological symbiosis.

Critical to remember at this point is that the content of Old and New Testament Scripture (which, to be perfectly clear, is the content that I embrace and preach) does not give support to the pantheistic worldview. According to the Biblical narrative (from Genesis to Revelation), there has always been a distinct and revelatory separation between Creator and Creation. This separation exists, not for the purpose of communicating antipathy between the created order and its Source, but for the purpose of clarifying the identity of the One who creates. God the Creator, according to Scripture, is intimately related to the Creation (labeling it as good and going so far as to become incarnationally present in it), while at the same time maintaining transcendent authority over it (thereby guarding the integrity of his sovereignty).

The difference between pantheism and Christian theism lies in the definition of God’s position in the scheme of things. In pantheism, God, in an important sense, IS nature, so much so that to revere nature is to revere God him/herself. By contrast, Christian theism maintains that the person and identity of God exists independently of the natural order, thereby enabling God to be powerfully and redemptively at work WITHIN the natural order for the purpose of bringing all of creation to its intended state.

This difference between pantheism and Christian theology may also be described as the difference between PANTHEISM and PANENTHEISM. Pantheism maintains that all of nature IS God. By contrast, panENtheism (literally, “all in God”) maintains that, while God is separate from nature, all of nature is embraced by God’s scope and activity.

To suggest that all of nature is IN God is a proclamation that resonates in the worldview of Christian theism. Such panENtheism helps us to make sense of a biblical narrative that tells us that we are to steward the natural order and that all of creation is “groaning” for the redemption that God has provided in Jesus Christ. However, to suggest that God IS nature represents a distortion of the relationship between Creator and Creation that sets up a dangerous idolatry in humankind’s relationship with the created order.

Christian theists, therefore, must be prepared to recognize and name the pantheistic narrative by which “Avatar” operates. It need not prevent them from enjoying a spectacular film. But it behooves an audience to understand the theological import of the story it’s being told.

On the other hand, some are so eager to react negatively to what they consider to be the “green agenda” of the political left that they hastily and thoughtlessly demonize anything that smacks of environmental sensitivity. Some of these folks have weighed in on “Avatar” already, dismissing it as yet another product of a tree-hugging Hollywood.

Personally, I do not find such dismissiveness to be particularly helpful—or, for that matter, particularly Christian. The church, after all, has a long history of exploiting the created order. Much of this tendency toward exploitation is resultant of the church’s willingness to interpret the “dominion theology” of Genesis 1 as a Biblical license for an irresponsible domination of that which God has entrusted to the care of humankind. The effects of this exploitive domination are becoming clearer to us every day.

Given this reality, Christ-followers can ill-afford to be dismissive or arrogant concerning “Avatar’s” call to a deeper environmental sensitivity. While we may not agree with the way in which “Avatar” defines the relationship between the Almighty and nature, and while we might be a bit squeamish about the tenets of the Na’vi, we can and must find a right and prophetic message in the film’s call to an ever-deepening attentiveness to the environment and its care.

No one will walk away from “Avatar” with a clearer understanding of the way in which a sovereign God becomes incarnate through Jesus Christ and immanent through the work of the Holy Spirit. That is a Gospel that James Cameron simply will not preach. But his pantheistic “Avatar,” when interpreted through the filter of Scripture, becomes a powerful and richly-textured reminder to the Church that God takes the treatment of the natural world very, very personally.

That, in and of itself, is a beautiful and unsettling idea.