The Danger of Worship: Untamed, Chapter Two
(During the month of April I’m blogging through Alan and Deb Hirsch’s latest book, Untamed. Previous posts: Chapter 1)
Your sincerity is not enough. Everyone is sincere, but there is a real-live God, with real-live thoughts, values, and expectations that exclude other thoughts, values, and expectations as possibilities of goodness.
If the first chapter of Deb and Alan Hirsch’s latest book, Untamed, concerned the re-affirmation of a personally accessible God, then the second Chapter wants us to know that God is dangerous. Moreover, as history’s slew of cult leaders and televangelists attest, it is also dangerous to miss the truth about that God. Such false prophets are very sincere about their faith, as Martin Buber has noted:
“False prophets are not godless. Rather, they adore the god “success.” They themselves are in constant need of success and achieve it by promising it to the people. But they do honestly want success for the people. The craving for success governs their hearts and determines what rises from them. That is what Jeremiah called the “deceit of their own hearts.” They do not deceive; they are deceived, and can only breathe in the air of deceit.”
This means getting the “fundamentals” about God right, but before you make the mistake of hearing a re-hashing of fundamentalism here, you must understand what the Hirsch’ mean by this term; for them, the fundamentals refer to being like Christ:
“We easily lose focus on what is essential. We miss the fact that discipleship has to do with becoming like Jesus, living the Shema, and not forgetting that the “more important matters of the law,” namely love, mercy, forgiveness, justice (Matt. 23:23–24), are nonnegotiables in the equation.”
This is in sharp contrast to the fundamentals of fundamentalism, which are unquestionable, universally certain doctrinal propositions of truth that must be consciously affirmed. For the Hirsch’s this is too abstract, and this places them squarely in postmodern territory (though, not lost in its wilderness). Indeed, it’s likely that many sectors of Christendom will dismiss the these ideas as legalistic because some of the focus is being shifted to include what we do (what they call, “living the Shema”), as well as what we believe (i.e. “believing in Jesus”).
The authors indirectly reject fundamentalist conceptions of legalism as a false dichotomy, instead seeing legalism as too much emphasis on doctrinal purity. They affirm that, “The reality is that what we believe about God does have consequences. History is full of people who have wreaked enormous damage and even killed for what they believe in.”Our theology dictates our conception of what it means to be good and right, and how it will look to build a just society.
For the authors, this is where the Shema – the core Jewish prayer, taken from Deut 6 – comes in. For the Hirsch’s, Jesus’ placement of the Shema (or what Scot McNight calls “The Jesus Creed“) in Mark 12:29-31 as the central explication of faith is his remarkable distillation of right theology and praxis in one simple statement, a statemnt which holds the two concepts of belief and action firmly together – making his “way” into a concrete, bodily faith:
“The follower of Jesus broadens his or her knowledge of God through living truth, not just believing in it. True knowledge of God must be expressed in practice or action—that’s why the Bible is one-third ethics. Obedience— body and soul—is part of the condition of God’s covenant (for example, Exod. 24:7; Jer. 11:3) as well as the momentous parting words of commission under which we live (Matt. 28:18–20). As C. S. Lewis says, “Obedience is the ‘holy courtesy’ required for entering into the divine relationship.”
This is how we truly come to know God: by faith, which means believing Jesus’ teachings to the extent that we put them into bodily practice and learn how, through trial and error, to become like him through the enabling grace of God given by the indwelling Holy Spirit. The teachings and actions of Christ, including the Shema, are not only the starting point for our theological conception of God, but also our guide for whether we’re getting it right or wrong.
Another distinctively postmodern aspect of this chapter is the Hirsch’s insistence that such a life simply cannot be lived individually. While we all can know God, no one individual can know God completely. Rather, because everyone is wired differently with a variety of temperaments, strengths, and weaknesses, we must pursue the knowing of God in community. That is the place of proper theology.
The rest of the Chapter explores some of the ways that people are derailed in their discipleship – with emphasis on the big three of sex, money, and power – but the core message remains the same: we recapitulate what we worship, therefore we must endeavor to know God as God really is. For the authors, this means that the first order of Christianity is a full-orbed, holistic worship (not just singing), which they call “dangerous” because it has the capacity to put us in contact with an untamed God who transforms us beyond our meager lusts.
Some Questions For Reflection:
- Do you agree that we imitate that which we worship? Can you think of examples from non-religious life?
- What is your concept of worship? What are the most effective ways you engage in worship?
- What are you thought on the proposition that we can only know God in community?
This sounds like a great book so far! I fully agree that we imitate what we worship and that we can only know God in community. John’s letters seem to bear this out as clearly as anything: “Those who claim to be in the light but hate a fellow believer are still in the darkness” (1 John 2:9).