Wrestling With God

I picked up an interesting book the other day at Fuller called “The Fidelity of Betrayal: Towards a Church Beyond Belief” by Peter Rollins.

In an interview here       Rollins states:

…"what if God is not to be found directly in our beliefs and practices but rather indirectly as the name we give to the source that generates our desire to form beliefs and practices". 

If one believes that we ought to take this question seriously then we are led to ask where it leads. This is something that I began to explore in How (Not) to Speak of God and that I have continued to investigate in The Fidelity of Betrayal. If the last book involved exploring how such an idea leads to the embrace of doubt, complexity and ambiguity then this new book investigates faith as the outworking of a constant wrestling with our religion, a struggle that involves being ready and willing to betray the very theological and ecclesial structures that sustain us. In exploring this I wish to show how betrayal, contrary to popular thought, can actually express the most radical fidelity to the source that generates our desire to forge these vast structures in the first place. In short, the book can be described as a singular sustained reflection on what it means to be baptized into the name "Israel", a name that describes one who grapples with God.   

How many of us in Armstrongism ever really wrestled with the scriptures, doctrines and church traditions?  The answer to that is quit simple.  None of us did so while we were part of the collective.  Armstrongism lived in a world of black and white.  It was believe it or leave it.  There was no ambiguity, there was no room for doubt,, there certainly was no place for questioning. How many times did we have to sit through screaming harangues by HWA as he bellowed about “The Two Trees”  It got so that when we saw him walk out on stage you could hear people groan. At least we got to hear him scream at us live.  I can’t imagine sitting in an Elks Lodge in the middle of the country listening to a stupid tape of him bellowing!  Oy!

Armstrongism left no room for members to doubt, to question, or to wrestle with scriptures.  To dare to wrestle and to question was a sure sign of being unconverted.  That word alone sent shivers down members spines.  To be unconverted meant you had lost your place in eternal salvation.  To be labeled as “unconverted” was tantamount to a death sentence.  There was no hope for you.

Armstrongism has always love to imitate and pretend to be Jewish.  Yet Armstrongism has always neglected one of the major understandings of Judaism. Questioning, arguing and wrestling with God were major themes in Hebrew scriptures.   

Abraham felt perfectly comfortable questioning God and God did not seem to have a problem being questioned.  When you read about Abraham arguing with God about not destroying Sodom if he could find 50 righteous people and then argued God down to 10 righteous.

Rollins writes:

This discussion continues until Abraham has persuaded God to hold back from destroying the city so long as there are as few as ten righteous people living there.  Regardless of how one wishes to interpret the nature of this dialogue, it is obvious that the narrative affirms (1) that Abraham felt able to question God and (2) that God did not seem to mind being questioned. The story even seems to  imply that God wants Abraham to disagree, for why else would God be presented as openly and audibly considering whether or not to destroy Sodom within earshot of Abraham?

 
Then there is the story of Jacob wrestling with the stranger who approached Jacob as he was camped out by a river. This stranger was unable to over power Jacob in a fight which lasted all night.  The stranger even had to ask Jacob to set him free. Jacob refuses without first asking for a blessing.  The stranger says, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with human beings and have overcome.”

Rollins writes:

 Whereas Abraham questioned God with a certain deference and respect, this story presents Jacob in a much more defiant and aggressive light.  Jacob does not seem in any way repentant when he discovers who this stranger really is, and God, far from seeming to have a problem with such an unrepentant follower, bestows the victor with the blessing of a new name that would come to represent, not only Jacob, but all of his descendents.

It is here, in this encounter between Jacob and God, that we discover why the Jewish community is marked out by the name “Israel.”  This title represents the spirit of a people who have “wrestled with God and with men and have overcome.” This name illuminates the living dynamic of Hebraic faith. It magnifies a radical idea that marks out the Jewish people, describing something almost paradoxical about this faith: that absolute commitment to God involves a deep and sustained wrestling with God.  In this story we discover that the Israelites are to be marked out, not as a people who live out their faith through unquestioning submission but as a people who demonstrate their love and commitment to the source of their faith in a radical commitment to fighting with that source. This is a people to be marked out by struggling, by passion, by critical engagement.

Whenever in Armstrongism did we ever struggle as a church to wrestle, question and argue  with God?  Where was there any passion Armstrongism?  How can you be passionate for something that you think you know everything about it?  Whenever was their critical engagement in Armstrongism?  When were members allowed to question, argue and challenge beliefs?

Rollins continues:

While the Islamic faith is derived from a word that can be translated as “submission,” the tribes of Israel bear a different name, one that evokes the image of conflict, tension, and turmoil.  Thus, if relationship with God within this tradition is to be understood as promising peace and harmony, it cannot be understood as a peace and harmony that stands in contrast to a kinetic life of tension, striving, and  conflict. For the blessing that God bestowed upon Jacob brings us face to face with the fact that God wants a fight.

Then we jump to Peter as an example and his dream about foods that were considered unclean:

About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.
“Surely not Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
The voice said to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

 Rollins writes:

This vision fundamentally challenges what Peter holds to be a command of God and opens up a difficult dilemma: in order to obey the command of God he must disobey the command of God.

Rollins continues:

“…each of them brings the reader face to face with a time when individuals have questioned, fought an even betrayed the word of God as a direct result of their fidelity to the way of God. More than this, each of these examples is framed in such a way that the reader is left with no doubt that the wrestling was acceptable to, and even desired by, God. Yet the text is structured in such a way that it challenges us to go deeper, for it does not merely offer us examples of people who wrestled with God but also presents us with situations in which we are invited to do the same. The text itself places us into various situations where the God we read about is one whom we must question, not out of our weakness or selfishness but rather from out of  the very depths of our faith.

Can you imagine people in Pack’s, Flurry’s and Meredith’s cults every vocally questioning? They wouldn’t dare, because it just is not done!  Plus, they would find their asses out on the street so fast they would not know what hit them.

Armstrongism cannot allow questioning because it cannot allow dialogue between members and the elite.  Constructive dialogue about scriptures, doctrines, beliefs all lead to a richer environments where people are free to explore and deepen their relationship with their God.  But you never see this happening in Armstrongism.  The rules and beliefs were laid out by one man seventy some years ago. There was no dialogue at that time. It is a known fact that HWA never discussed things with the COG in Stansbury. He told them how things were going to be and when they ignored him he left in a huff and started his own church.  No wrestling, no dialogue, no questioning, no arguing, no enriching conversations.  Nada, just pitched a fit and left.

So to this day you do not see wrestling with scripture, dialogue or questioning in Armstrongism over things.  The only people from Armstrongism who seem to question are those that have left it.  You had to have that spark in you to wrestle and to question in order to begin the process of leaving.  Even if you have been kicked out and disfellowshipped, you started that ball rolling by questioning something.  

What has questioning done for you?