Slices of God

In the fall of 2016, leading up to election, I posted this piece on divergent shadows and the higher dimensional object casting their shapes. It is no less relevant today, given the political turmoil observed world round. It continues to speak to me now, just as it did when first written. Enjoy . . .

We live with and fight over many opposing perspectives. From religion to politics, opinions are rigid and staunchly held as uniquely correct. Opposing views are thought of as misinformed, erroneous and even evil. How is it that we humans can use the same data, yet end up with such contradictory views? The answer might be found in a dimensional illustration.

For the purpose of our discussion, let’s pretend there are three major political groups: the circles, the squares, and the triangles. They argue incessantly over which of them has the correct set of political standards. The debates wage on. Unfortunately, none of them is willing to consider that the set of beliefs they cling to so vehemently may be but a shadow of a much more sophisticated object.

As you can see, the circle, the square, and the triangle are but shadows of an object more beautiful than any of the three independent shadows could imagine. What would happen if each of the three groups stopped to consider for a moment that the shadow they adhere to is cast from an object in a higher dimensional realm? Might they slowly begin to realize that they each hold tightly to lower dimensional shadows of the same entity?

Whether we are dealing with theology, philosophy, science, or politics, we humans gravitate toward less sophisticated and quite limited perspectives, sacrificing a much richer and more beautiful overarching perspective. Let’s put some meat on the issue.

One political group (let’s call them the Squarinians) argues that it is wrong to send adults to their death via war or execution, but it is OK to kill unborn babies via abortion. Another group (the Triangularians) argue that it is wrong to abort an unborn life, but it is OK to send adults to their death, since it is either an honorable loss or deserved consequence. I am not quite sure where the Circularians fit in.

One group may argue that we need less government, but promotes the elite to an economic monopoly over middle and lower classes. Another promotes a large governmental beast, but seeks to level out the economic playing field, caring for the less fortunate.

One group calls the other liars, cheats, and bigots. The other group calls the former liars, cheats, and bigots. Both are guilty for limiting their perspectives to weak and dying shadows. When the sun goes down, the higher dimensional object will still be there, waiting for us to stop stumbling in the dark while we seek our preferred shadows, and begin to seek and develop a higher dimensional common ground.

I am not offering a preferred lower dimensional political opinion. I am neither a Squarinian nor a Triangularian. I have often considered becoming a Circularian, but it too is limited. What is the solution? It begins by recognizing that none of us has the one and only correct perspective. None of us! We are too constrained by this limited realm to claim such an arrogant stance. Strangely, we need these diverse lower dimensional perspectives in order to assemble a view of the larger dimensional gem that casts the shadows. Did you get that? The Squarinians, the Triangularians, and the Circularians need each other!

This does not mean that each of the three shadows has no faults. The fact that they are each a lower dimensional shadow guarantees error! This is why the three must work at assembling a higher dimensional perspective. Therein the beauty and the faults are revealed.

So where do we go from here? The prophet Micah gave us a dimensional exhortation: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Notice the triune nature of the requirement. What is required of us? It is a dimensional requirement: to recognize that we need the triangle, the square, and the circle, and to converge them in unity.

A beautiful entity awaits our discovery!

– Sam Augsburger

In my growing up years there was a picture hanging in our church of a black Jesus. It seemed natural to me. I always thought of Jesus as a man of color. He certainly wasn’t white. Strangely, though, for many, Jesus was white: in skin, beliefs, and behavior. It’s a sad tendency of broken humans to squeeze God’s image into ours, rather than the reverse. 

I have witnessed quite a few Facebook posts lately that have oozed with bitterness toward the white man’s gospel. Several have expressed hatred of the white man’s Bible. While there may be some misled ideas as to the origins of the Bible, the sentiments are legitimate nonetheless. The horrific events that many of my friends have witnessed and/or experienced throughout their lifetimes are not simply due to misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the Bible, though the white man’s gospel is often riddled with manipulating, self-righteous, discriminatory, and even hate-filled interpretations. No, it goes beyond interpretations. My friends have read some of the texts within the Bible that are simply not representative of the person of Jesus of Nazareth and his teachings. 

There . . . I said it. Knowing that some readers will stop at this point because I have issues with some of the texts between the bindings of the Bible, I must trudge on. I am not willing to slough off such passages, or attempt to provide eloquent academic and exegetical explanations, hoping my friends will forgive such words and keep on loving my white gospel. Some of the words are just not Jesus. 

It should be no surprise to you that the Biblical approach to slavery is one source of such bitterness. My friends cannot tolerate reading Paul’s words in Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, and Titus where he instructs masters on how to treat their slaves. They ask, “Do you really expect me to believe this book?” In one post, a friend expressed hatred for the old hymn, “Amazing Grace,” because John Newton, the writer of the song, continued as a slave trader after his amazingconversion. 

Somewhere down the long list of problematic issues is a condescending self-righteousness that seems to accompany many versions of the white gospel: even some well-intentioned versions. I have witnessed the white gospel saying, “Well, you know those people . . . they just don’t get it.” One white friend of mine rebuked me on Facebook by saying, “Didn’t you notice the ethnicity behind that comment?” And, whatBiblical texts support these positions? 

I can’t write such a post without referencing the white gospel that slimes its way out of Washington these days. It doesn’t even come close to resembling Jesus. Lord, have mercy on us!

So where does this leave us? With Jesus. He said it quite simply: love God and love humankind [Mark 12:29-31]. LOVE! ALL HUMANKIND . . . It’s as simple as that. And that, my friends, is the Jesus Gospel, not the white man’s gospel.

-Sam Augsburger

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (Excerpts from 1 John 4:7-21 – NIV)

Who are my brothers and sisters? Well, the short answer is family, friends, community, races, religions, nations, immigrants, refugees, the homeless, the sick, the hungry, the lonely, the dying, the lovable, all creation, the unlovable, the arrogant, racists, haters, bigots, bullies . . .

Yep, even the latter ones. If we hate the hater, we too are liars. It’s really hard, but it’s the Way.

Oh for the grace to love!

-Sam Augsburger

Fingerprints of God are everywhere. Some have become so commonplace that we no longer recognize their origin. Yet they remain.

As uniquely as these prints reveal themselves, a common arch persists throughout their forms: grace. Grace is the essence of God’s nature. Thomas Merton, in The Seven Storey Mountain, wrote, “What is ‘grace?’ It is God’s own life, shared by us.”[1] God’s life surrounds us. Grace surrounds us.

I once thought God had little to no time for me. This omnipotent being surely had greater things to accomplish than to tend to my finite whims. However, my understandings of infinitude and grace are tarnished by the brokenness of this world. My perceptions are warped by my brokenness.

Karl Barth once wrote, “The grace of God and the omnipotence of God are identical. We must never understand one without the other.”[2] I assumed one negated the other. Unbeknownst to me, omnipotence has no insecurities or limited timeframe to get in the way of being infinitely gracious. Infinitely: even unto me.

Grace is a strange entity. It is grace because it is accepted. It is accepted because it is grace. It is through grace that we become aware of our need for grace. Grace opens the receptors to grace. Likewise, we cannot extend grace nor help anyone see his or her own need for grace until we are completely convinced of our need for grace.

This fingerprint is everywhere. It beckons us to step back from our microscopic views to see more than the arches, loops, and whorls. It calls us to see the fingerprint. It calls us to see grace.

I leave you with a grace-filled fingerprint by Lorie Gooding (1972) . . .

He Is Everywhere

In every flower, I see I see his face

In every bush and tree his matchless grace

In all the stars that shine, I see his light divine

He’s with me all the time

In every place

I see him in the hills and mountains tall

It is his voice that fills the waterfalls

The rivers and the rills

The clouds, the moon, the sun

He’s in them every one

He’s all in all

He fills the widest sky, the deepest sea

I cannot tell you why

It’s mystery

But my rejoicing is I know that I am his

How wonderful it is

He walks with me

I cannot stray beyond his loving care

He compasseth my path

He’s everywhere

In morning’s joyous light

In gloom of deepest night

I never walk alone

My Lord is there

Grace is always there. Grace to you for the journey into grace!

-Sam Augsburger

[1] Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain, 186.

[2] Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 126.

From all appearances there seem to be islands on this planet of ours. Yet, even islands are grounded to the same bedrock as the continents. What is more, our earth, according to Albert Einstein is attached to the rest of the universe. He demonstrated through general relativity that mass, no matter how small or large, warps space-time. The entire universe feels the presence of even the smallest mass.

From the realms of quantum mechanics, to general relativity, to theology, it seems that all things are connected. Reggie McNeal says, “The science of quantum physics also contributes to this new way of thinking. The quantum universe is not a universe of things but a universe of relationships . . . The quantum vision of the universe is more interested in the whole, in how things interrelate. Its fundamental unit is not even single, but plural.”[1]Diarmuid O’Murchu concurs, “In the quantum worldview, nothing makes sense in isolation; basically, there are no boundaries, and influences can emerge from several sources, many probably unknown to the human mind at this stage of our species evolution.”[2] There are no islands.

John Donne (1572-1631) once wrote,

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated . . . As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, and who am brought so near the door by this sickness . . . No man is an island, entire of itself . . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”[3]

This interdependency of all things is clearly demonstrated in nature. None of us can do anything that is not felt by our entire existence. Furthermore, none of us can become anything without the whole. I find tremendous irony in listening to those who claim to be self-made individuals, whether entrepreneurs or isolationists. Show me a millionaire whose wealth did not come from someone else and/or ultimately the earth. Ironically, there would be no millionaires if it were not for the non-millionaires. Even a politician who claims to have climbed to the top on their own ignores those whom they climbed over to get there. No, we are all a part of the whole. We are connected.

Anthropologists have observed that various cultures around the world are keenly aware of the connectedness between all things. Diarmuid O’Murchu reports in Quantum Theology, ”In prehistoric societies, and in many parts of today’s world (especially Africa, Latin America, and Asia), the individual’s value and worth are esteemed relative to the person’s role within, and contribution to, the common good, vividly expressed in the Bantu proverb ubuntu umuntu ngabantu, meaning: ‘I am because we are.’”[4]Parker J. Palmer says in his book Let Your Life Speak, “Inner work can be helped along in community. Indeed, doing inner work together is a vital counterpoint to doing it alone. Left to our own devices, we may delude ourselves in ways that others can help us correct.”[5]Furthermore, Desmond Tutu exclaims in No Future without Forgiveness, “We are individually only what we are by our connectedness to the whole of humanity. This is ubuntu.”[6]

So what does all this have to do with refugees? You do the math . . .

Ubuntu!

-Sam Augsburger

[1]Reggie McNeal, The Present Future:  Six Tough Questions for the Church(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003), 57.

[2]O’Murchu, Quantum Theology:  Spiritual Implications of the New Physics, 32.

[3]John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions(1624), Meditation 17.

[4]O’Murchu, Quantum Theology:  Spiritual Implications of the New Physics, 91.

[5]Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, 92.

[6]Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness(New York: Doubleday, 1997), 31.

Religion is an expression of the brokenness of humanity. It is an effort to move beyond our brokenness. The problem is, however, the more we try to restore ourselves and move beyond the brokenness, the more broken and imprisoned we behave. We believe that our efforts are pure and right, yet exemplify through our fruits that we are still as broken as when we set out to fix ourselves. Is it due to our finiteness that we fail so miserably? Perhaps.

On the flip side, it is an error to assume that finite beings cannot please an infinite God. We are a subset of his existence; an existence he created. Why would he not take pleasure in this subset? Surely, this infinite God longs for our restoration. Yet one way or another we end up getting in the way and contribute to our own imprisonment.

What is at the root of religion? Religion is the natural outcome of human tendency to either deny or defy the infinitude of God.This denial may be willful or subconscious, but it is denial nonetheless. In a sense, it is an organized rebuttal of God’s eternal essence. It is a limited human measure, an illusion of having a grasp on the infinitude of God. It is a formor structurewithout power to transform.[1]

Having said that, there is another perspective on religion. I believe religions are foreshadows of ultimate transformation, knowledge, and relationship with God. Most are misrepresentations of the infinitude of God, but their significance lies in the foreshadowing of transformation. Religion is humankind’s attempt to know and get right with God. Redemptive transformation, on the other hand, is God’s solution: building a relationship with humankind and making us right with him.

Simply ridding ourselves of religion only yields another religion. The process of destroying idols can quickly become a new idol. Arguments that failed religionsare proof of the non-existence of God are as weak as arguing that there is no such thing as parents because the children are misbehaving. Even atheism is a religion in and of itself (for it too denies and defies the infinitude of God). Arguably, there has to be more. Why would we yearn for transformation if it were not possible?

Religion, when understood as foreshadowing ultimate transformation, is quite another story. God speaks and relates to religious peoples precisely because he understands our finitude. In infinite grace, God speaks to us. God wants a relationship with us more than we will ever want one with him. He can and does answer the prayers of religion in spite of religion. That is the most profound thing of all: God, even though hindered by religion, uses religion to relate to us nonetheless. In his desire to free us, he uses religion in spite of religion. What a strange existence. What a strange God!

My all-time favorite Biblical text is Isaiah 61:1 – “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lordis on me,because the Lordhas anointed meto proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captivesand release from darkness for the prisoners.” This includes freedom from imprisonment by religion.

— Sam Augsburger

[1]For more on denying and/or defying the infinitude of God, see chapter 2.09 in Slices of God: Strange, Dimensional, and Fractal Perspectives on God and the Cosmos, pp. 107-108.

The Koran calls God the merciful and the compassionate.[1] The Bible says, “The Lord is compassionate, abounding in love.”[2] Fractally, we are called to be followers and imitators of Compassion: we are called to be compassionate.[3] Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbors (albeit an expanded definition of neighbor!)[4] It is a call to live compassionately, to empathize with sufferers, to be caretakers of those unable to care for themselves, to go the extra mile. It comes from a transformed heart: one full of compassion. If you want to know how to change the world, scripture makes it perfectly clear: “Love never fails.”[5]

To seek the truth is to be filled with compassion. The Dalai Lama understands this. In his book The Art of Happiness, he says, “I would regard a compassionate, warm, kindhearted person as healthy. If you maintain a feeling of compassionate loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door.” Such behavior creates openness and facilitates communication, enabling us to relate to each other more easily.[6] This is how we are to live. When we have and express compassion toward all beings, then, and only then, is God fully expressed in us. There is no greater truth than compassion.

It is also through compassion that we extend truth in grace to others. Karl Barth said, ”By this we shall be judged, about this the Judge will one day put the question, ‘Did you live by grace, or did you set up gods for yourself and perhaps want to become one yourself?’”[7] Living by grace means more than accepting it. Compassion opens the valve for grace to flow to others.

What does compassion look like? Perhaps we need to start by looking at Jesus’ description of what it does not look like. In a paraphrase by Richard Stearns, in his book The Hole in Our Gospel, Jesus said, “For I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that lead to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved.”[8]

In very revealing words, as reported by Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine, a Native American at a New York conference on social justice, attended by theologians, pastors, priests, nuns, and lay leaders, said, “Regardless of what the New Testament says, most Christians are materialists with no experience of the Spirit. Regardless of what the New Testament says, most Christians are individualists with no real experience of community. Let’s pretend that you were all Christians. If you were Christians, you would no longer accumulate. You would share everything you had. You would actually love one another. And you would treat each other as if you were family. Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you love that way?”[9]

Our focus has turned on itself. We have lost sight of the two greatest commandments: love God and others. Without compassionate living we are chaos to God. Fractally, when we ignore the needs that surround us, we ignore God. When we ignore God, we ignore our own souls.

God is love.[10] In a very real sense, theology is the study of love. If our theology is built on compassionate truth, it is true theology. If we love all humankind in word and deed, we are a part of God and his domain.

All the theological debates may be waged, all the academics may argue and publish, all the strange, dimensional, and fractal books may be sold, but if none of it is filled with compassion, it is nothing. Theology that is of God is not complex; it is simple: love God and love all humankind. That is it. If you want to be sure your theology never fails you: be compassionate. The details will take care of themselves.

– Sam Augsburger

[1]Sura II:158.

[2]Psalm 103:8.

[3]Ephesians 5:1.

[4]Mark 12:29-31.

[5]1 Corinthians 13:8.

[6]Lama, The Art of Happiness:  A Handbook for Living, 40.

[7]Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 152.

[8]Richard Stearns, The Hole in Our Gospel(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 59.

[9]Wallis in Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor, 200.

[10]1 John 4:8.

I have a deep respect for the life and work of Stephen Hawking. What an amazing mind! His gift to the world of physics was priceless. I found his practical and down-to-earth ability to explain very complex ideas in simple terms quite helpful. What’s more, his gift of encouragement to those with disabilities was profound.

It should be no surprise, however, that I find a couple of his proclamations very problematic, if not contradictory. As reported by USA Today, Hawking said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.” “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”[1] Of course, as a theist, I do not agree with this statement. However, this is not the quote that I find the most intriguing. You may be surprised by the one I find to be so revealing, and in a very subtle way.

In a lecture on black holes, Hawking described the shape of a black hole as spherical, yet not perfectly spherical. He went on to say, “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist.”[2] Do you see the problem? To elaborate on it, I must refer to the great mind of C.S. Lewis.

One of Lewis’ antagonists once retorted that there is “no meaning to life.” To this Lewis replied, “If there is no meaning to life, how is it we have come to know what meaning is all about?[3] In other words, if there were no meaning to the universe, we would not know what meaning was in order to identify its absence!

Do you see it now? If, as Hawking asserted, there is no such thing as perfection, how is it we have come to know what perfection is? How, if it does not exist, have we been able to identify its absence? By what standard are we declaring that this universe is imperfect?

I am not refuting the imperfection of the universe. In the book Slices of God, you will find that I am convinced our universe is indeed imperfect. In fact, I believe it is broken. What I am arguing is that by insisting that there is no such thing as perfection, Hawking ironically argues that it does exist. As soon as we are convinced of the absence of one entity, we find ourselves proving its existence.

We must then ask the question, “Where does perfection exist?” Hawking, as well as many other physicists, believe the universe is comprised of 11 dimensions. Most of these physicists believe the 7 “extra” dimensions (beyond 4-dimensional space-time) are tiny, curled-up, invisible dimensions that only serve the subatomic quantum realm. Perhaps, but there may be more to these dimensions “than meets the eye.”

I believe that in some extra-dimensional realm, perfection does exist. You may call such a realm “the next domain,” “heaven,” “the afterlife,” or by any other name, but therein exists perfection and ultimate meaning. Some call this perfection by a more common designation: God.

If there were no perfection or afterlife, Hawking would not have argued for their nonexistence and you would not be reading this post.

– Sam Augsburger

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/nation-now/2018/03/14/heaven-fairy-story-what-stephen-hawking-says-happens-when-people-die/423344002/

[2] http://www.newsweek.com/stephen-hawking-quote-life-universe-aliens-dead-843692

[3] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1952), 39.

Twenty-five years ago I started carving a walking stick out of a six-foot piece of walnut. I first turned it out on the lathe, and then started carving a blend of several Old Testament passages that reads, “If You Will Walk In My Ways And Follow My Statutes Then I Will Be Your God And You Will Be My People And It Will Be Well With You.” I got really ambitious and decided to carve the text using a raised Old English font.

Well, it took me eleven years to get through, “ . . . My Statutes Then I.” At that point our young family moved to a small farm that soon captured every waking moment of our days. The carving went on hold for the next fourteen years.

Almost a year ago we decided to move off the farm to a much smaller house and property. Having given up maintaining fencing, mowing acres of grass, and fixing one thing after another, I found myself thinking about finishing the walking stick. Sadly, however, the task had morphed from a joyful challenge into a job to get done.

Thinking about how quickly I could wrap up the project, I launched into carving the next word. “Will” was not fun to carve. The thrill was gone . . .

Last night I went back into the shop and prepared to carve the next word: “Be.” All of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks: I don’t know how to “be” anymore. I lost the ability to slow down and “just be.”

At that moment, I hit the reset button, sharpened my chisels, put on some relaxing music, and began to carve. Slowly and out of nowhere a joyful smile found my face. A tinge of delight in the detail took me by surprise.

As I carved, a number of phrases began floating through my soul. “Always be humble and kind.” “Be compassionate.” “Be content.” “Be anxious about nothing.” “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

I am slowly learning to be again. Just be.

– Sam Augsburger