“Author Of Creation: Free Will, The Trinity, And The Restoration Of All Things”

As Christians around the world contemplate the promise that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning all things will be made new, one may wonder what such an audacious claim actually means. My friend and colleague, retired Butte College philosophy instructor Ric Machuga, proposes an answer in “Author Of Creation: Free Will, The Trinity, And The Restoration Of All Things” ($34 in paperback from Cascade books; also for Amazon Kindle).

For Machuga, it’s a matter of “faith seeking understanding,” and thoughtful believers as well as others interested in the Christian story, and whether it “hangs together,” will perhaps find unexpected (and delightful) answers to some of the most perplexing questions: What is a free will? What is the soul? Who is God? What is Jesus? What is belief? With so much evil in the world, how can God be all-powerful and truly good? Who will be saved?

Though philosophically astute, the book offers a vast variety of everyday examples to make its points, drawn from tennis, biology, the lottery, and an author and the author’s book. In fact, Machuga argues that the best way to understand God is not as a “Supreme Being” (the biggest dude on the block) but rather as a divine author with creation as his “book.” 

God is like Shakespeare, and creation like Hamlet. So it’s mistaken to think of God as a Divine Craftsman within the universe, part of the cause-and-effect chain, and better to recognize that God created the universe with time, not within time. 

Shakespeare intimately knows Hamlet, but Hamlet, of course, knows nothing of Shakespeare. Similarly, humans know nothing of this unknowable God except that in the Incarnation “God (the father) writes himself (the Son) into our story and then sends the Spirit who teaches us how to read what God wrote.”

In the end Machuga proposes what he calls “trinitarian universalism,” that “this God both can and will choreograph our free choices to bring all creatures to a glorious end…. A Supreme Being can’t ensure that ‘all shall be well’ without violating human freedom.”

Easter hope, then, is a sure and certain promise.

 

“Heretic Too!: An LGBTQ-Celebrating, Divine Violence-Denying, Post-Christian Universalist’s Responses To More Of Evangelicalism’s Concerns”

Chico writer Matthew Distefano, theological provocateur and Tolkien-lover, returns for another jab at the conservative evangelical tradition he grew up in. “Heretic Too!: An LGBTQ-Celebrating, Divine Violence-Denying, Post-Christian Universalist’s Responses To More Of Evangelicalism’s Concerns” ($19.99 in paperback from Quoir; also for Amazon Kindle) is a sequel to his earlier “Heretic!”—though this time he calls himself not a heretic but an “apostate.”

Though “I still think Jesus is the bee’s knees” (and so, he adds, is Buddha), “I don’t necessarily care about all the ins and outs of the faith. I no longer care about the Apostles’ or Nicene creeds, or any of the creeds for that matter. I no longer consider myself part of the Church…. Instead, I’m way more interested in who Jesus was as a human being, why it’s important to study his life, and, if you’re so inclined, to put into practice his ethical teachings.” 

Later, though, Distefano notes that “I live on the fringes of Christianity,” and its pull continues to be evident in each chapter, which critiques many of the teachings found in evangelical circles. “It’s not that I don’t care for what Christians have to say, it’s just that I’ve become more enamored with Buddhism than I ever thought imaginable,” and “one can be a Christian and practice Buddhism.”

The bottom line is that through the strife of our present life, “love wins”—or should. Distefano wants to dismantle the doctrines that, he says, separate person from person, and that includes hell, marriages with gender-assigned roles, and heterosexual sex as the only “normal” kind (the author has come out as bisexual). The book ends with impassioned letters against Christian nationalism and the rise of Trumpism.

“Often times,” he writes, “I am cheeky, and sometimes I can be rather biting.” His theological explorations are peppered with barnyard epithets which, in an odd way, are the sign of his caring. He envisions love abounding (which doesn’t mean anything goes), a world with the sensibility of the Hobbits’ Shire, a place one can enjoy good pipeweed (in his case, cannabis) and talk with friends far into the night.

“Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism Of Karl Barth”

Chicoan and substitute teacher Max Feiler graduated from Duke Divinity School in 2019, where he struck up a friendship with one of his professors, Stanley Hauerwas, born in 1940. 

A theologian and author of dozens of books, Hauerwas’ vision of the Christian life is perhaps most accessible in “Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony,” co-authored with Will Willimon, a retired United Methodist bishop who, Feiler writes me, “told me recently that I reminded him of a ‘young Hauerwas’” in his constant awareness of human sinfulness and possession of a rather wicked sense of humor.

The abiding question for Hauerwas is the place of the Christian church in light of Easter’s resurrection reality, when the temptation is to succumb to narcissistic impulses or to take over the reins of secular power.

Now, in a series of lectures and occasional pieces entitled “Fully Alive: The Apocalyptic Humanism Of Karl Barth” ($29.50 in paperback from University of Virginia Press), Hauerwas reflects on key themes from a controversial career, influenced by many, but especially Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). For Barth, as for Hauerwas, the “humanism” of liberal theology, which focuses on the human response to God, must be rejected.

In its place is the humanism revealed in Jesus Christ who in taking on our humanity revealed what it means to be fully alive, fully human. It is “apocalyptic” since Barth lived  “through an apocalyptic time but also because he saw the world as forever changed by a Galilean peasant.”

Though the book isn’t the place to start with Hauerwas, it is full of trenchant observations: The capitalist system “destroys human attachment to, and affections for, relationships and institutions by embedding them in impersonal exchanges.” More sarcastically, he writes that the American story is one called “freedom”: “That story produces people who think they have been wounded by being born.”

Hauerwas considers how the Kingdom of God made manifest in Jesus Christ ought to display a new kind of politics, showing an alternative to narcissism and power that can befriend “the least of these.” His is a provocative view, but, as he observes, “Few sins are more deadly than making God boring.”

"The Story Of Christianity Told As Good News For All"

My friend and retired Butte College philosophy instructor Ric Machuga begins his new book with a provocative theological statement: "I believe in the God who can and will save everyone. My belief," he continues, "is grounded in a literal reading of St. Paul: 'Just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all' (Romans 5:18)."

The claim is provocative, of course, because at first glance it seems to override human free will. What about those who choose not to believe? In the book's sixteen chapters Machuga tackles the question head on, first through a philosophical lens and then through a theological lens. Even those who vehemently disagree will find I-never-thought-about-it-that-way insights in "The Story Of Christianity Told As Good News For All" ($15.99 in paperback from Quoir, quoir.com; also for Amazon Kindle).

If moderns sometimes talk about “choosing to believe,” Machuga questions the coherence of that claim. He tells his own story of how "God’s choreography" brought him to belief in universal salvation, belief that for him is as undeniable as the roses outside his office window. "Belief is voluntary," he writes, "but it is not chosen."

Central to Machuga's argument is that in Christianity, God is "non aliud," meaning "not 'another thing or person' in the universe." His key theological claim tracks with Augustine, that God created “a world with space and time, not in space and time.” God is not just another a thing in the universe competing with human free will. 

The book uses some important, and mostly jargon-free, philosophical distinctions to draw out the implications of this view, which allow for affirmation of the traditional Christian Creeds within the context of “salvation for all.” And, importantly, it places new emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity and the revelation of this transcendent God through the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth.

Machuga’s own story of this gift of belief is woven into his account, and it’s clear his prayer is that this volume may also be part of the Holy Spirit’s choreography for the person who takes up this book, and reads.

"The Sounds Of Worship (The Cult Of Sound)"

Technology is crucial in bringing a worship experience to those sheltering in place. Yet technology can also be a barrier to "authentic worship." That's the claim made in a new book directed especially to conservative evangelicals. 

The author, Livermore resident David Dirks, is a Chico State University grad who helped pioneer KCHO-FM as Chief Engineer. Now retired as a video producer for Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories, he leads the sound/media team at Brentwood Bible Fellowship.

Designed to be read by church leadership, "The Sounds Of Worship (The Cult Of Sound)" (self-published and available on Amazon Kindle) offers a "theology of sound" for churches with around 100 or so in attendance. 

Can those who sing or speak be heard clearly? Is the sound in the room too loud or too soft? The book provides basic technical advice on setting up sound systems, creating the right mix for band members and the congregation, and the importance of the FOH--the "front of house," "the person who mixes the sound for the congregation...."

But here's the key question, Dirks writes: "Are the sounds that you make, whether as a musician or an engineer, consistent with sounds that honor and glorify Christ? ... When we exalt our talents and abilities and elevate our technology as the source of the power in worship, we turn worship on its head. We practice 'the cult of sound.'"

Instead, "sound should seamlessly reinforce the worship time.... All glory should go to God." Beware "the deceptive emphasis on the worshiper as a consumer." Authentic worship is from the heart, in a spirit of joy.

The last part of the book is a jeremiad, a lament over how technology consumes our attention. Is a tech sabbath needed? 

The balance is difficult: "My life’s work is based ... on the use of technology.... At the same time, it is incumbent on me and each believer in the all-sufficient work of Christ and His resurrection to place boundaries on the use and influence technology has on day-to-day living and ... within the time of worship that we share together."

Dirks' book seeks to be a companion in that challenge.

"After Trump: Achieving A New Social Gospel"

Donald Heinz, Lutheran minister and Chico State University emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, offers in his new book "an invitation and a manifesto." He calls for a revitalized Progressive Christianity "that mimics the liberating God of the Bible." 

He wants the voice of the church to be heard once again in the public square (rather than a watered-down political liberalism too embarrassed to talk about Jesus). He wants to draw on "Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, evangelical, and neo-Anabaptist" teachings to restore the prophetic mission of the church in proclaiming God's "preferential option for the poor."

In "After Trump: Achieving A New Social Gospel" ($28 in paperback from Cascade Books; also for Amazon Kindle), Heinz says "what society most needs from the church" is "the prophetic imagination of alternative realities"--a vision of justice and the common good--brought into the public square. 

We must, he says, take sin (personal and corporate) seriously, but reject what he calls "freeze-dried biblical literalism." "In the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims, love stretches law and custom towards new forms of social justice. Arms full of antipathy to gays cannot carry the Gospel too." The church is a "parade" as it marches into the public square with this new prophetic vision; and it is "pilgrimage."

"Pilgrimaging towards a new social gospel is the task the times require if we are not to continue our descent into Trumpism--white racism, resentment, selfishness, a rapacious free market, and government in the interest of the 1 percent." The church is (or should be) on the move, collaborating with other institutions but never dissolving into them. 

Heinz situates this liberation within a historical and cultural context. He writes that "the crisis of secular modernity (begun with the Enlightenment) is that it created a thought world in which the Bible simply was no longer allowed to speak." But it must: The "canon within the canon"--"God as liberator, played out in the exodus, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul"--provides the key to what the Bible can say in the public square.

The two Donalds (Heinz and Trump) present starkly different worldviews. The book calls readers to "think on these things."

Uncontrolling Love: Essays Exploring The Love Of God"

Immense tragedies, such as the Camp Fire, may for some call into question the traditional idea of God as both all good and all powerful. How is one to make sense of how a loving God acts in a world so full of suffering?

Recently, Thomas Jay Oord, who teaches theology and philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho, has proposed a reformulation of the attributes of God, suggesting that "love comes logically first in God's nature" and that this love "cannot override, withdraw, or fail to provide the power of freedom, agency, or existence to creation. Consequently," says Oord in the introduction to a collection of short essays on his ideas, "God cannot control creatures or creation."

For Oord, "the God who must love and cannot control others is not morally responsible for failing to prevent evil. ... God doesn't even 'allow' suffering, because God can't stop it acting alone. Therefore, God is not culpable for the genuine evil in our lives."

Implications of Oord's theological position are presented in "Uncontrolling Love: Essays Exploring The Love Of God" ($16.95 in paperback from SacraSage Press; also for Amazon Kindle), edited by Chris Baker and others.

The dozens of accessible essays consider "who God is," "how God acts," and "how creatures respond." One of the contributions is from Butte College and Chico State University philosophy instructor Olav Bryant Smith. In "Contributing To God's Growing Perfection," Smith writes that when we say that certain special events in our lives are "perfect" (like "a first kiss") we also recognize they are fleeting, our circumstances ever-changing.

Could it be the same for God? Rather than ascribe total power and knowledge to God, Smith writes, perhaps God grows in "perfection" "in response to the expressions of a universe of creatures striving to participate in establishing their own myriad beautiful creations.... Much of the Bible suggests a God waiting to see what we'll decide and then responding accordingly."

Readers will have to decide whether Oord and Smith resolve the problem of evil satisfactorily. In emphasizing human free will that can't be overridden by God the book offers a sometimes startling rethinking of traditional theology.

"The Day The Revolution Began: Reconsidering The Meaning Of Jesus's Crucifixion"

The Christmas story invites readers, in the words of the carol, to "Hail th'incarnate Deity." The declaration is that God has come to earth in Jesus, that Israel's true King has arrived. But few understood the path Jesus would take, that it would involve not a triumphant military conquest but instead a shameful death on a cross.

Biblical scholar N.T. Wright contends that "the New Testament insists, in book after book, that when Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross, something happened as a result of which the world is a different place. And the early Christians insisted that when people are caught up in the meaning of the cross, they become part of this difference."

Wright explains in "The Day The Revolution Began: Reconsidering The Meaning Of Jesus's Crucifixion" ($28.99 in hardcover from HarperOne; also for Amazon Kindle). (In the book's acknowledgments he mentions a number of colleagues "who have given me the benefit of their experience and insight … even though we still disagree about many things." Among them: Reformed theologian Michael Horton, who grew up in Paradise.)

The book is a popular account of Wright's claim that the death and resurrection of Jesus was the culmination of Jesus' vocation, "the one moment in history on behalf of all others through which sins would be forgiven, the powers robbed of their power, and humans redeemed to take their place as worshippers and stewards…."

Wright insists that the crucifixion is not the story of an angry God, fed up with humans and out to kill them all, with Jesus stepping in at the last moment and taking the wrath upon himself. Instead, "for the early Christians, the revolution had happened on the first Good Friday. The 'rulers and authorities' really had been dealt their death blow."

That makes it possible for humans to "embrace the 'covenant of vocation' or, rather, be embraced by it as the Creator calls you to a genuine humanness at last, calls and equips you to bear and reflect his image" and turn away from misplaced worship of money or sex, "when the power of love overcame the love of power."

Good news

Imagine ancient Rome more than two millennia ago during civil war, and the word that came to Octavian’s followers. “‘Good news! Octavian Caesar has won a great victory!’ This is good news about something that has just happened.”

Rome “was poised between the news about something that had happened--his decisive victory--and the expectation of something that would soon happen, namely his return in triumph. That is what news does: it creates a new period of time. ... And your life, right now, would be different as a result. Something has happened; something therefore will happen. And the way things are right now is different as a result.”

For Biblical scholar N.T. Wright, the gospel, the Easter story, is, infinitely more powerfully, “Simply Good News” ($24.99 in hardcover from HarperOne; also for Amazon Kindle). Subtitled “Why The Gospel Is News And What Makes It Good,” the book notes that “The good news that Jesus announced, like the good news that his first followers announced about him, was not a piece of advice, however good. It was about something that had happened, about something that would happen as a result, and about the new moment between those two, the moment in which people were in fact living, whether they realized it or not.”

What is this news? “That the one true God has now taken charge of the world, in and through Jesus and his death and resurrection. The ancient hopes have indeed been fulfilled, but in a way nobody imagined. ... Life has come to life and is pouring out like a mighty river into the world, in the form of a new power, the power of love. ... One day it will happen, completely and utterly, to all creation; and we humans, every single one of us, whoever we are, can be caught up in that transformation here and now. This is the Christian gospel.”

Though Wright deals with the distortions of the Easter message grown up over the centuries, outside the church and within, ultimately his insightful and compelling account is a humbling story about the God who humbled himself to give us all the best news possible.

God, miracles and free will

Butte College philosophy instructor Ric Machuga, my friend and colleague, has just published “Three Theological Mistakes: How To Correct Enlightenment Assumptions About God, Miracles, And Free Will” ($33 in paperback from Cascade Books).

For Machuga, the European “Enlightenment” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the flourishing of experimental science and consequent love of mechanistic explanations, seriously distorted the thinking about God. The consequences, he writes, have been profound, and profoundly disturbing.

Mechanism assumes that “physical causes always have predictable effects fully determined by the laws of nature.” If that’s the case, so Enlightenment thinking goes, then these laws can be fully quantified mathematically. The implication is that “if something is physically caused, then it was not caused by God” (and vice versa). And the cause has to be one or the other. If an outbreak of cholera devastates the invading Assyrians, then the Biblical tradition ascribing the cause to God (Isaiah 37:36) is rejected.

These are all bad ideas, Machuga argues, because they’re false, but also because they embroil Christians in controversies over free will vs. an all-powerful God; who or what is responsible for evil; whether God acts miraculously; how hell can exist if God is good; and whether God’s existence can be known in the first place.

By contrast, the author responds with comprehensive “correctives” drawn from the perhaps surprising agreement between St. Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Catholic philosopher, and Karl Barth, the Reformed Protestant theologian in the twentieth. The book will repay careful reading and may lead to an “enlightenment” of a far better sort.

What unfolds is an understanding of God and his creation that transcends either/or thinking, exposes Enlightenment errors, and sets the stage for the working out of a deep and winsome Christianity.

The author will be presenting a talk on “two views of God” at the Science and Religion conference, February 6 (5:30 - 8:30 p.m.) and 7 (8:00 a.m. - noon) at Colusa Hall on the Chico State University campus. Suggested donation at the door is $10, $5 for students. Check “Science and Religion Conference (2015)” on Facebook for details.

Making sense of C.S. Lewis

What is the power of Clive Staples Lewis, author of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Screwtape Letters,” to lead contemporary readers to an understanding of Christianity, to deepen the faith of believers, and to be a faithful companion for those facing some of life’s biggest decisions? The Oxford scholar died in 1963, and yet his popularity is undiminished. Why?

Greg Cootsona, Pastor of Adult Discipleship at Chico’s Bidwell Presbyterian Church, and an academic in his own right, says of his own journey that “Lewis taught me that Christian faith could withstand serious intellectual engagement.” As a student at UC Berkeley, he writes, “My crisis of doubt found an answer in the gospel, and I can attribute a fair measure of this to Lewis.”

In “C.S. Lewis And The Crisis Of A Christian” ($16 in paperback from Westminster John Knox Press; also for Amazon Kindle), Cootsona weaves Lewis’ own life story around its central decision-points, the crises that shaped his writing.

As a young atheist, Lewis wrestled with the crises of materialism, meaninglessness, and anomie (no source of moral guidance). Eventually, describing himself as a “reluctant convert,” Lewis the Christian had to face the question of  the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the nature of the Bible. And as a human being, he dealt head on with the crises of suffering and death, and with feelings. If God feels close one day, why does he feel absent the next?

Through rereading Lewis’ works and research in Lewis archives in the US and UK, Cootsona finds renewed guidance for his own life and ministry.

Lewis experienced a lifelong sense of “poignant longing. He described it as a search for joy (which Lewis frequently capitalizes because he uses it as a technical term). The taste of joy—and the desire it evokes—began early in his life and gradually expanded, like a time-release capsule that drove him to God.”

This book gives another taste of that Joy.

The author will be speaking about Lewis and signing copies of his book at Lyon Books in Chico on Monday, October 27, at 7:00 p.m.