The binding of moral clarity

Simple-minded for the posh, Douglas Murray is yet another sign of our ludicrous times. He pontificates about cults of freedom and death, moral sanity and evil with the unencumbered ease of a Hamas militant. He challenges imaginary adversaries to produce better IDF fighting plans while conveniently forgetting to ask for better Palestinian strategies in the face of nuclear power. Not all asymmetries are created equal, apparently.

He speaks of consensus around Churchill's historical prestige without ever specifying the parameters of that consensus - Allied consensus? British consensus? Oxbridge consensus? He dismisses the death-defying promises of the Aqidah while ignoring the felicitous cruelty of the Aqedah. Don't Christians celebrate the infinite love of the ultimate sacrifice? Aren't all flags ominous anchors of death cults? Doesn't morality itself ground its propaganda in subordinating life to death-worthy horizons? 

Isn't Douglas Murray telling us what he's dying for?

CosmicPeterson

I am bored. Over six years later and people still wonder at the postmodernism of Jordan Peterson. We've all been postmodern ever since Pentheus' head ended up on his mom's stick. We are blind to the points of our stories. Every Apollo hides a (t)horny Dionysos. Someone has to let the serpent in. Or out - fuck knows.

We need to move on to the stupid bits. Like Peterson's love for Eliade, the fascist. Like his delusion that anyone can somehow stand outside ideology. Isn't he eager to admit that hell is all too real in human history? Maybe it's because hell is adaptive. Maybe all hierarchies are Dantean. Maybe God requires the Devil. Nay, maybe God and the Devil are one. The One.

Like the fact that the Tree of Life, with all its arbitrary levels of resolution, is hierarchical. Jesus dying on the Tree is no better than the saprophyte feasting on the holy rood. And the storyteller cannibalising the Tree of Life is the worst parasite of all. Someone needs to speak for the saprophyte. And Peterson needs some wood to die on. A little death at least.

The geek's Deepak

The recent popular fascination with the meagre thinking of Jordan B. Peterson is both amusing and sad (a very Trumpian ‘sad’, that). Amusing, because it’s always fun to see strange bedfellows (evolutionists and creationists, psychologists and racists, or the very Marxist combo of academics and rednecks) mate over pet peeves (political correctness and the plight of the white male). And sad, because it’s largely built on ignorance, on the part of both Peterson and his fans.  

Take the delusion that a biological basis for ‘dominance hierarchy’ would somehow threaten Marxism. Or the associated confusion over the pretence that Christianity, in which “the last shall be first”, would somehow provide a corrective for ‘cultural Marxism’. Not to mention the complete ignorance of the long history of Christian Marxism. 

Or consider the inability to see that religions provide ideologies too. That God only survives in an environment where language is policed (with ‘correct pronouns’ as well). That Christianity is also, historically, the advocation of slavery - not only the pseudoscientific babble of Jungianism.

Inveighing against the ‘French professors’ who have infected liberty-loving minds with their postmodern ideas is only the posh version of the Bush-era ‘freedom fries’. It ignores the basic fact that postmodernism is nothing if not the culmination of the Judeo-Christian tradition (a form of Greek thought, let’s not forget). And it belies the mysteriously less-than-obvious reality of Peterson’s own postmodernism, as showcased in his insistence on the utility of Christianity as fiction directrice, or in his concept of “truth”.

That anyone had to wait for the gospel of Petersonism to learn about “silencing your inner critic”, or that parents are supposed to be more than friends to their children, or that one should listen and pursue understanding before trying to argue against an opponent, boggles the mind. That one would prefer Peterson over the masters of self-help, like Marcus Aurelius or Montaigne, is just stupid. But that the evangelist of Petersonism stands to make a fortune over his traffic in ignorance and banality surely fulfils the great free-market prophecy of 2 Timothy 4:3-4.

The joys and perils of live classical

Two and a half years of living in the UK have afforded me and my wife quite a few opportunities to applaud some of our favourite artists. I've mentioned Arcadi Volodos, Valentina Lisitsa and Eric Whitacre before. Boris Berezovsky was a slightly hurried delight; Marc-André Hamelin showcased his complete mastery and superb musicianship; András Schiff, talking about and performing the Diabelli Variations, brought to mind the luminous memory of Daniel Barenboim's Chicago Beethoven masterclasses of almost a decade ago; Mitsuko Uchida was equally at home in Mozart and Messiaen; Stephen Hough (whose beautiful Schumann album is playing right now in my EarPods) offered a lacklustre Liszt (1st concerto) and an offensive encore (a badly played Chopin, in a Hungarian themed program); Cédric Tiberghien was the perfect companion to the effusive Pieter Wispelwey. And Midori was imperial in DoReMi.

Fabio Biondi's Europa Galante was almost beyond reproach; Lionel Meunier's outstanding Vox Luminis made us go back for their second London appearance; nobody does a fresher, more exciting Messiah than the Academy of Ancient Music; the Belmont Ensemble of London deserved better brass players on the night; The King's Singers in Salisbury Cathedral were electrifying; The Thallis Scholars in their anniversary concert at St Paul's were ravishing; Jeffrey Skidmore's Ex Cathedra is a worthy institution; so are The Cardinall's Musick, or the Temple Church Choir. The Choir of Westminster Abbey is definitely dwarfed by the cavernous abode of the famous dead. And yes, we also enjoyed non-classical performances by Straight No Chaser and The Real Group.

Excepting most of the events hosted at Wigmore, where one can still encounter the impudent wrapper crackle, and the occasional well behaved audience, I still curse the time and money so often wasted by idiot concert goers. The constant fidgeting and pen clicking right behind me at Cadogan Hall; the sonorous bracelets right across the isle; the unruly bunch of kids, whose chaperon couldn't be bothered, at the unforgiving Symphony Hall in Birmingham; the distinguished elderly lady next to me with an infernal tick-tock on her wrist; and, most shameless and annoying, the use of loud, sometimes culminating, passages to “mask" all sorts of coughing. Shall I mention the slender pensioner who threatened to step on my phone, only because, at intermission, I was sharing with my wife some of the best pics from our earlier visit at the Manchester Art Gallery? Classical concerts can be downright dangerous in this gentlemanly country.

Flirting with eternal damnation

If last January's event at the crossroads of atheism and religion was the emergence of The Sunday Assembly (possibly the fastest growing “church" in the world), this January former Adventist pastor and minor celebrity Ryan Bell is making news with his plan to chronicle a Year Without God. For this “believing atheist" it comes as no surprise that both (many) believers and (some) atheists find it hard to wrap their heads around such a venture. While no two intellectual biographies are the same, I'll throw in my two cents.

It's not that one should dare opt for eternal damnation that irks the faithful - the world is, after all, replete with the numerous sorts of the doomed. It's the flirting which they find simply appalling! They haven't yet learned Tim Minchin's “anthem to ambivalence". A “true believer" loves an unbeliever, nay, he/she needs the unbeliever - it's the latter who gives the “true believer" his/her gravitas. “The Cross", for instance, is supposed to divide history and the world in clear, opposing parties. One can either embrace or reject its claims. Sitting on the fence suggests the possibility that “the Cross" is not all that important to either history or the world. It ridicules and offends the devout way more than outright rejection.

As for reading atheist literature, one need not look further than the Bible itself. When the stultifying straightjackets of a “spiritual" hermeneutics are put aside, this ancient collection of texts reveals itself for what it actually is - the best argument for atheism conceivable. God is only a mirror for humanity. There is no such thing as prophecy, let alone “Messianic prophecy". The apocalyptic imperialism of the “Kingdom of Christ" is no better than the delusional dreams of Jerusalemite world dominance. And I'd replace the likes of Spinoza and Locke with George Carlin, Tim Minchin and the rest of the best preachers of disbelief. If one is to go to hell, why not go laughing?

Times and means of rapprochement (V)

In Cult and Character, the red cow ritual (Numbers 19) is interpreted in an inescapably contradictory manner (see pp.183-184). On the one hand, Gane states that “the red cow ritual avoids bringing corpse contamination into any contact with the sanctuary". But he had just written that “in other purification offerings... the blood, carrying the moral or physical impurity, affects the sanctuary", meaning specifically that “sacrificial purification of the offerer necessarily involves transfer of his/her evil to YHWH". Why would anyone avoid “bringing corpse contamination into any contact with the sanctuary" when the whole point of expiation is, according to Gane, to bring sin and contamination into expiatory contact with the sanctuary? On the other hand, Gane is among those who see the red cow ritual as a sacrifice. The sevenfold sprinkling toward the sanctuary is a remote application of חטאת blood to the sancta. How can Gane concede then that “the red cow ritual is the only חטאת sacrifice in connection with which automatic defilement is mentioned, and this defilement only occurs when the impure person does not receive the benefit of the sacrifice" (his emphasis)? It would seem that Gane cannot help defiling the temple. Rebellion and sacrifices alike dump man's iniquity upon the holiest. Sacrifices only dampen (“downgraded toxicity", as on page 179) an otherwise boomeranging blow to the fickle flame of Yahweh's gory glory (I admit I got carried away).

Returning to Leviticus 16 and “the goat unto Azazel", one cannot escape the similarity the Yom Kippurim ritual bears to the apotropaic gestures of Leviticus 14:7.53. In neither of these instances is there any intimation of transfer (of disease or impurity) or of blood functioning as a “ritual sponge". The cleansing human is a healed human, while the house to be cleansed has never been declared unclean (we have already noted the post-quarantine rite of passage in Leviticus 13). Similarly, whenever the temple is to be rededicated, any agent of impurity (idols mostly) is removed before the performance of inaugural sacrifices. The כפר sacrifices are nothing but gestures of approach - “rituals that confirm and routinize the recognized borders of the sacred place" (Ron E. Hassner's definition from a decade old article on interreligious conflict). Yom Kippurim was not the antidote to, but the culmination of a whole year of ritual activity. There was no reversal in ritual semantics, but a deepening of the כפר purpose - coming as close as possible to the flammable presence of God. Sacrifices were not meant to decontaminate the temple (Milgrom's theory) or contaminate it throughout most of the year (Gane's). They only mended fences. In this context, the suggestion that the horns of the altar (or human body extremities, for that matter) functioned as boundary markers (Gn.31:52) and therefore as (covenant) memorials (Ex.24:4) seems quite plausible.

Kicking the Lord out of the church

At a friend's prompting, I attended yesterday's Sunday Assembly (The Guardian chronicled the event). It's fashionable nowadays for atheists to attempt to salvage whatever's deemed good in religion. Alain de Botton even wants to go back to building atheist temples. As if humans have ever built anything but atheist temples, or held anything but atheist worship services! To the eye unforgetful of the simple fact that all gods are of our own making, any temple, shrine, synagogue, church or mosque is an atheist monument. There is barely a need to invent an atheist alternative. The cityscape is, as ever, saturated with atheist sanctuaries.

While it's true that I enjoyed the “sermon" on Dirac's equation, it's no less true that I found the address delivered in last December's Christmas Carol Service at St Paul's Cathedral equally atheistic, humorous and enjoyable. Whether it's Freddie Mercury (“Don't Stop Me Now") and Stevie Wonder (“Superstition"), or Herbert Howells (“A Spotless Rose") and John Tavener (“God Is with Us"), music is music. Whether one attends a spiritual retreat, a party conference, or the Super Bowl, words are words, ritual is ritual, emotional manipulation is emotional manipulation, the money collected is money collected. One cannot escape being religious and atheistic. And, by the way, tautology is the atheistic font of all religion (“I am who I am").

An atheist church can be no better and no worse than any other religious congregation. More reasonable, maybe. More meaningful, not at all. Will I go back?

Times and means of rapprochement (IV)

In a note on page 341, Gane writes: “Transferability of blame / culpability is primarily attested in cultic contexts: Exod 28:38; Lev 10:17; 16:21-22. But the fact that it also appears in the noncultic setting of 1 Sam 25:24 and 2 Sam 14:9 shows that it is not... foreign to the mundane sphere of life." This statement is problematic on every conceivable level. Exodus 28:38 has nothing to do with the “transferability of blame", as it is perfectly equivalent to Numbers 18:1 and refers to the (unborrowed) Levitical responsibility for the sancta. The “sin offering" of Leviticus 10:17 is the very same as the one in 9:15 - an inaugural, purificatory sacrifice (no iniquity involved, unless one would argue that YHWH's glory was welcomed at the sanctuary with a small dose of ill-defined communal guilt). As a general statement on the purpose of חטאת‎ sacrifices (including those of Leviticus 9 and 16), Moses' words only suggest that they are meant to remove any obstacle to approaching the sacred. As for “the goat unto Azazel", quite a few commentators have stressed the fact that Aaron's confession itself suffices to instantiate the ominous onus to be carried away. Aaron and the sancta bear no guilt, no impurity.

To find any appearance of the “transferability of culpability" in narrative texts is even more preposterous. Both 1 Samuel 25:24 and 2 Samuel 14:9 contain highly rhetorical discourse, designed to persuade a figure of authority into clemency. A similar device is mentioned in Matthew 27:25, yet no amount of hand washing has ever exonerated Pontius Pilate. What's more, the two chapters of Deuteronomistic history are nowhere near suggesting the kind of guilt displacement envisaged by Gane. In the first one, Abigail opens her plea with a clear attempt to substitute herself to her nutty husband as chief of clan (so that she be allowed to negotiate with David on behalf of her entire household). She distances herself from Nabal's behavior, and assumes only the guilt of not having known of David's servants' initial arrival (v. 25). Abigail's gift (beracha, one of the names of the mincha that Jacob offered Esau - cf. Genesis 33:10-11) is to be accepted on her account, as it is her (more or less rhetorical) פשע that requires forgiveness (v. 27-28). Nabal is still to be judged for his egregious insolence, by the precise strike of David's God himself (vv. 26.39), through the felicitous scheming of his considerate wife (v. 19.36-37). Abigail never adopted his liability, only his responsibility. Collateral damage avoided - pissing against the wall decriminalized.

In 2 Samuel 14, the wise woman of Tekoa conjures up a case of manslaughter, for which the Torah provided the right of asylum. In granting his subject's (hypothetical) request, David does not pardon a murderer, but redefines the conditions of asylum. He is in no danger whatsoever of incurring guilt, as judges have always been interpreters, not automaton enforcers of the law. In v. 9, the woman simply offers to bear all the responsibility for the security of her son, which the king quickly counters with his willingness to be personally involved in thwarting any threat to said son (v. 10). David is generally quite inclined towards clemency, even to the point of proffering curses on the rightful avenger of blood, especially when clemency would have been politically expedient (see 2 Samuel 3:27-30 in context).

In his desperate attempt to read “transfer of guilt" into the Tanakh, Gane should have rather resorted to Numbers 30:16. The husband who belatedly nullifies his wife's oath is said to bear her guilt. But this would have only served to reaffirm what we've found already: forgiveness is never transfer of guilt in the Levitical world. Forgiveness extinguishes guilt (just as punishment does, with different results).

To see, hear and taste

A nice, self-forgetful afternoon at The Courtauld Gallery. A self-indulgent, savory dinner at Sitar. Indian food cooked and served with French precision, glazed with sitar music. The untiring detail of a 14th century ivory diptych, the unforgiving eye of Lucian Freud.

I am glad to report that our second visit at the Royal Albert Hall, at the end of August (for Whitacre's Proms debut), was a happier affair than our first. The public was there for the music. Eric was there for the show (his music in his wake). I agree with this reviewer, when he writes that “the most extraordinary sounds came in American composer Edwin London's ingeniously simple re-imagining of Bach's harmonisation of a Lutheran chorale", and with this reviewer, when she declares herself unimpressed by the evening's premiers.

I do promise to finish my discussion of Gane's book. The aroma of incense beckons.

Speaking truth to stupid

I've spent the last three weeks, since the latest post, catching a cold and passing it on to my wife, watching in bewilderment the disgraceful show many Romanian politicians and some Romanian media figures are putting on these days, discovering the new, controversial HBO series The Newsroom, taking a short trip to the Jurassic Coast, meeting old friends for the first time, and savoring leisurely, at dusk, the exquisite French food one finds at Thierry Tomasin's decadent Angelus. And yes, we have booked tickets to another Royal Albert Hall event - the late night, late August Whitacre concert. Fingers crossed.

The current Romanian PM is, ironically, a former prosecutor who has recently been shown to have plagiarized his PhD dissertation and who has orchestrated a parliamentary putsch. His actions and complete lack of moral rectitude serve to remind much of Europe that my native country is still a fledgling democracy, caught between its communist past (single-party politics, nationalist demagoguery, vilification of opposition) and its seemingly unending present as a banana republic (kleptocracy, endemic corruption, a disabled justice system). By the way, a comparison between recent developments in both Romania and Paraguay (the June ousting of president Lugo) would probably be quite revealing. 

The real drama, though, is not that those in power don't spend much time in front of a truthful mirror (part of the Romanian press has laudably reflected correctly the nature of intentions and machinations on both sides of the political dispute, and the real stakes), but that a worrying majority of the public, old and young, has not had a chance to learn anything about democracy and to internalize its values. Many still respond to puerile dichotomies (one figure or another is always distributed in the role of “the embodiment of evil"), to ritualistic violence (in language or actual public gesticulation), to a carnivalesque reversal of semantics (the thief brags about his honesty, the cowardly accuses others of his own unmentionable sin). It remains to be seen if speaking truth to stupid actually helps.

Times and means of rapprochement (III)

Another exaggeration in Gane's treatment of Leviticus 16 is the emphasis on Yom Kippurim as a day of judgment. Not only is the rabbinic tradition ambiguous in this regard (Rosh Hashanah being strongly associated with the idea of judgment), but one could also take into account passages like Exodus 12:15 and Numbers 9:13, that imply a Paschal judgment (under the same threat of kareth as in Lev. 23:29-30). Covenantal loyalty was not to be tested only by the strictures of Yom Kippurim. But this is a minor point.

More significantly, Gane contends that טמאה ,פשע ,חטאת and עון are distinct categories of evil, with different ritual trajectories (cf. Lev. 16:16.21). This presupposes a level of terminological specialization that is simply lacking in the Pentateuch (or elsewhere in the Tanakh, for that matter). פשע for instance is nowhere associated with “high-handed" crimes (etymology does not suffice), while it is frequently used interchangeably with חטאת or עון (from Gn. 31:36 to Ps. 51:3-5 to Micah 7:18). Gane's thesis also relies on an erroneous syntactical judgment: he cites Lev. 11:46 in support of his claim that לכל־חטאתם in Lev. 16:16.21 is enumerative, not resumptive. But in 11:46, the lamed is clearly genitival, extending the argument of the constructus תורת, and decisively preceded by a conjunctive waw. In 16:16.21, the lamed breaks the syntactical sequence (as in Lev. 5:3; 11:42; 22:5) and is obviously appositive. Finally, maybe the only reason why the טמאה of Lev. 16:16 is replaced by עון in 16:21 derives from the fact that uncleanness cannot be properly confessed (the hitpael of ידה).

Since I've mentioned the category of “high-handed" sins, I should point out the fact that one instance where Gane is wrong precisely for being a Milgromite, and not (only) an Adventist, is his rejection of the idea that the death of those who defile the sanctuary eliminates any need for further atonement. The legal principle of elimination of offenses through capital punishment is upheld in passages such as Num. 35:33 and 1 Sam. 25:39 (Nabal's crime fatally returns on its perpetrator). By the way, if “the guilt of innocent blood" had to be promptly eliminated from the land of Israel (the NRSV of Deut. 21:9), why would YHWH have tolerated a full year of accumulation of “toxic waste" at his very sanctuary? And if God's justice was vindicated only by shedding forgiven guilt (i.e. the guilt of forgiving) once a year, did God have a right to forgive in the first place?

Times and means of rapprochement (II)

Let's dwell a bit more on Leviticus 16. In note 41 on page 230 of Cult and Character, Gane writes: “In this verse [Lev. 16:33] כפר את takes the three parts of the sanctuary as direct objects because the blood is physically applied to them, but purification of the people is expressed with כפר על. Although these sacrifices benefit the people, the preposition על acknowledges that this benefit is not direct in the same way." This statement is a perfect example of how a grammatical point can be overinterpreted for doctrinal gain. כפר על is frequently used with inanimate objects to which blood is applied (even in Lev. 16). And isn't Gane relying on the same prepositional usage of the verb to argue for his theory of exclusive purgation of the sacrifice offerer(s) in Leviticus 4 and 5? Why wouldn't על indicate indirect benefit in the case of outer-sanctum and outer-altar offerings too?

Following many commentators before him, Gane also assumes that the high priest's bathing of Lev. 16:24 is a final step in the removal of sin and impurity from the sancta (and the priesthood). This interpretation fails to notice that the high priest also bathed before entering the sanctuary (v. 4). These priestly washings had nothing to do with shedding guilt or impurity collected from the sanctuary, but were part of the preliminary ritual that also included donning vestments (see m. Yoma in the Mishnah). Ex. 30:20-21 clearly states the apotropaic purpose of temple washings (similar to that of incense use in Lev. 16:12-13), and distinguishes between two types of cultic activities that are preceded by washings - entering the sanctuary and approaching the altar to sacrifice (a distinction obviously mirrored in the duties of the high priest on Yom Kippurim). Thus, there is no hint of decontamination in Lev. 16:24.

Even more remarkably, there is no mention of contamination in verses 26 and 28 either. Contrary to another popular assumption, the persons charged with the disposal of animals do not become unclean. Their ritual use of water is simply a rite of passage (the Mishnah is helpful here too, even if it does use the language of impurity, citing the legal opinion that impurity is incurred by exiting the city, not by contact with supposedly contaminated animals). This meaning of the mikveh is attested in passages such as Lev. 13:6, where the transition from a liminal state (quarantine) to regular community integration is done through water. Being quarantined did not equal being impure (cf. Lev. 13:11). But the road back to community passed through water (this context also illuminates the fact that establishing purity is not necessarily the reversal of a previous condition of impurity - see also vv. 58-59). Additionally, we know from Lev. 4:12 that the carcass of animals whose blood was brought into the sanctuary was to be burned in a clean place outside the camp. Thus, there is no hint of decontamination in Lev. 16:26.28.

Times and means of rapprochement (I)

Roy E. Gane is one of the best teachers I've had. His cult for in-depth knowledge of primary sources and the understated beauty of his character make him a cherished professor. Not to mention that he is quite the pianist. It was only in the last few weeks that I've been able to read his Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and Theodicy (Eisenbrauns, 2005). Seen through the pages of his work, Gane is primarily an Adventist, then - quite appropriately - a Milgromite (the late Jacob Milgrom was Gane's Doktorvater) and finally, and most importantly, wrong.

Anyone who is in the least familiar with Seventh-day Adventism knows how pivotal the two-phase theory of atonement is to Adventist history and identity. The Great Millerite Disappointment itself dissipated in the Adventist interpretation of the Levitical cult (and in the unhistorical historicism of some Adventist apocalyptic exegeses - a topic I will address another time). Therefore, it is no surprise that an Adventist scholar, writing on Leviticus, argues for “the chameleonic ability of the חטאת‎ blood to switch its nature" (Milgrom, in a 2007 response to Gane's book). I do not question my former professor's integrity (especially as I have just lauded his character). But the world of religious studies has its plentiful share of honest and competent specialists who can't all be right. What's more, I will attempt to show, over several posts, that Gane is wrong not only as an Adventist, but also as a Milgromite.

Let's begin right in the middle of it all. One of the main assertions of Gane's reading of Leviticus 16 is that the Yom Kippurim rituals are concerned primarily with the sanctuary, cleansing it, and only secondarily, by implication, with the priesthood and people of Israel (I should say that I agree with Gane and others who spend little time on questions of the history and redaction of the Pentateuchal text, just as I treat the Israel and temple of Leviticus as fictional). Thus, Gane is able to posit a contrast between the goal of inner-sanctum sacrifices and that of outer-sanctum and outer-altar sacrifices (his terminology), the latter always purifying the sinner(s) or the unclean (not the sancta, as in Milgrom's view).

This is patently false. There are 14 כפר goal-descriptive formulas in Leviticus 16 - in verses 6, 10, 11, 16, 17(x2), 18, 20, 24, 27, 30, 33(x2), 34. Seven of them (vv. 6.11.17.24.30.33.34) refer the כפר activity to the priesthood and the community of Israel. Three of them indicate the location of the כפר activity (vv. 10.17.27). Of the four remaining, two could also indicate location (vv. 16.18), with only the final two (vv. 20.33) pointing to the temple complex as the object of כפר. Obtaining atonement for Israel is the purpose of the Yom Kippurim ritual (Lev. 23:28), just as with any purification sacrifice. Milgrom is perfectly justified in extrapolating from Leviticus 16 a modus operandi for all חטאת‎ sacrifices. But, as I will soon show, he is just as wrong as his pupil in assuming that the Levitical sanctuary is ever in need of decontamination. A clue, for now: it is not the prepositional regime of כפר that is decisive in the understanding of the priestly concept of atonement, but the semantics of כפר itself.

Volodos and Lisitsa

My wife and I have recently attended two remarkable piano recitals - the May 22nd Royal Festival Hall rare London appearance by Arcadi Volodos and last night's YouTubed Royal Albert Hall debut by Valentina Lisitsa. I had heard Valentina before, in the 2004 inaugural concert of the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago. She gave a lively, exciting rendition of Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations that fabulous summer night, in the superb acoustic environment of Millennium Park's Great Lawn trellis. As for Arcadi, I had grown to love many of his recordings (I'll be sharing for a while a sampling of his Rach repertoire in the “box of delights").

While the RFH is a wonderful space for music, allowing a single piano in the hands of a master to fill the room with sound of utmost clarity and depth, the RAH is a miserable venue for a piano recital. Yes, it makes for a great video production setting, but the constant noise of the ventilation system and the (lousy) electronic amplification of stage sound wipe out almost any chance of musical enjoyment. Even so, what was really disturbing for us (especially for me, since I, in my atheism, take concert going religiously) was the public's behavior at both events. The unrelenting coughing, fidgeting, dropping of stuff, creaking of stuff, unwrapping of stuff, going off of phones and alarms, and just plain obnoxious muttering accumulate into a sea of despair where the simple pleasure of listening drowns. I have already promised myself and my wife not to attend another piano recital in London ever again. Studio recordings will have to do.

In spite of all that, Arcadi was a constant delight, a pianist in consistent control of his technique and rich in musical insight, while Valentina was a bit of a mess. Indeed, the Kievan has a winsome, unassuming personality (she spoke to the audience, even to let us know what the final score of England vs. Ukraine had been), and generally good interpretive instincts. But her performance is technically uneven and sometimes downright loose, her tempos can be unnecessarily brave, her thinking clouded by impetuosity. On the other hand, the Leningradian's Liszt sonata was an exquisite jewel, showcased with breathtaking simplicity and expressiveness. Some reviewers (musicologists, of course) have found his playing facile (in its seemingly effortless precision) and lacking in Idea. I deem them idiots who haven't understood yet that music itself - well served by the illusion of ease - is the idea.

The wild will be wild

[A text originally written for and published by spectrummagazine.org in February 2011]

Terence Fretheim's Creation Untamed: The Bible, God, and Natural Disasters (Baker Academic, 2010) is the vulgate, abbreviated version of several decades of theological research and reflection. The author of such classics as the older The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective, and the still recent God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation, distills his academic knowledge and pastoral wisdom in two sets of conferences included in this opening volume of the new series Theological Explorations for the Church Catholic, proposed by Nazarene Theological Seminary. 

Those acquainted with Fretheim's thought won't find much that is new in this book. However, the straightforward, lucid approach, the theological breadth and depth of the discourse, the surprising exegetical insight, the limpid style make for an excellent introduction to a still fresh perspective on the perennial topics of human suffering and theodicy. For the Adventist reader, there is much to love and much to be challenged by. 

The first three conferences, i.e. the first three chapters of the book, focus on key passages of the Old Testament - the Creation account, the Flood narrative, and the legend of Job. Each of these is brought to bear on a sensible theology of creation in an attempt to make sense of human suffering. The fourth chapter deals with the general theme of God's image in the Old Testament as it relates to the experience of evil. Finally, the fifth conference addresses practical issues, especially the meaning of prayer and the possibility of a meaningful relationship with God. 

Christians have often held on to a theological fatalism when it comes to the world we live in: “it used to be perfect, but not anymore, therefore all we can do is hope it shall pass sooner rather than later". This mode of thinking encourages “a theology of demolition" - creation is seen as a rotten fruit that needs to be done away with. In contradistinction, Fretheim proposes that “creation is a process" that “moves toward ‘good'". That it was never perfect, but rather “a dynamic reality... a long-term project, ever in the process of becoming". 

Thus, creation is not only the beginning of the world, but the very nature of the world. It is a collaborative process that does not exclude disorder. On the one hand, “God cannot be removed from some kind of complicity" in everything that is going on. And on the other, “the godness of God cannot be bought at the expense of creaturely diminishment". We are in this together. Suffering is not the exclusive experience of humanity, just as creativity is not the exclusive attribute of God. 

The fundamental feature of reality is its interrelatedness. “Relationship is integral to the identity of God, prior to and independent of God's relationship to the world." Therefore, God's interactions with creation are governed by a profound kenotic principle - a divine self-limitation that lets the world “create itself", by “making room" and “letting-be" (a Moltmannian thread here). Ultimately, “human beings are called not to passivity but to genuine engagement, and the decisions that we make will have significant implications for the future of the earth and the nature of the future of God". 

The basic lesson of the flood is not that humans can change, but that God does. He gracefully adapts, as he is painfully entangled in his own creation. The world is dependent on divine suffering; and there are no danger-free zones in God's creation, not even for the Creator. The Biblical God acts more like a father, deeply, actively, riskily interested in the unstunted development of healthy personalities. Randomness, play, ambiguity, disorder, unpredictability are part of a good creation. “No necessary relationship exists between human suffering and human sin." Just as there is free will for us, there is “free process" in the nonhuman world. 

The moral order is an agent of God. He is responsible for creating the potential for suffering. But even the moral order allows for disorder, for failure, for randomness - no tight control. We are blighted with “systemic evils" and “plain old dysfunctionality". Yet, God as “a good medicine", works from within to make things better. And, impressively, “the Old Testament shows that God did not suffer for the first time in the Christ event, and even more, God did not suffer for the sins of the world for the first time on the cross". Christ only brings finality and universality. 

An Adventist reader will enjoy Fretheim's portrayal of God's engagement with human history (as in his noticing the divine prayer of Isaiah 65:2), especially if she has found Richard Rice or Fernando Canale convicing. But she would probably take exception to the remark that, in Genesis, only God rests on the Sabbath, while humans launch in their creative endeavors. Or, more significantly, to the idea that the satan of Job 1 and 2 is an inherent condition of creation, a personification, not a personal agent. Yet, she should be able to appreciate the power of Fretheim's reading of Job as a natural theology. God is, after all, in the whirlwind. 

I personally appreciated, among many things, the author's implicit deconstruction of the usual, deeply useless dichotomy of “natural vs. super-natural" and “moral vs. natural". But Fretheim's presentation is not without problems: if God is a “genuine agent", how comes he only mediates consequences? And is he a moral agent or a natural agent? This ambiguous framing of causality, dubious as it is philosophically, may exculpate God of any legal liability, but most certainly not of his relational responsibility. And, paradoxically, it also makes it hard to salvage any notion of God's personhood. 

Fretheim does a beautiful job at describing a certain quantum uncertainty in matters of faith, a fundamental humility in our theological formulations. “Heightened rhetoric and undisciplined certainty" make for bad, obnoxious believers. Most definitely, Fretheim's book is not for the faint of heart: “What we do and say makes a difference in the shape that the future will take. Indeed, they make a difference in the future of God."