Axeliad II

to listen, click here

 Axel­­iad II 

If ignorantly, he declaimed also loudly, he wanted me to tell you:

What theology can do that philosophy cannot: recognize our total depravity. We humans (homo egoisticus sanctimonialis): our noblest nobility is poorly disguised self-interest sustained by thinly veiled self-righteousness. “Thinly veiled” and “poorly disguised,” but only theology sees through.

     Now, if it could only acquire a sense of humor, the end would not have to come with fire and ire. Instead of fire, there could be farce; instead of ire there could be laughter. Instead of judgment there could be redemption.

     The kind of judgment we find in Daniel, in Zephaniah, in Revelation, in Cotton Mather and Tom Cotton has nothing to do with redemption: 144,000 may be saved, a few more or a few less, but for what? They aren’t even saved really; they are only salvaged, kept alive.

     But redemption is not salvation of that pale sort; redemption is not salvation of any sort. Salvation may heal – that is the root of the word. But redemption carries on.

    

The problem becomes how to describe it, redemption. Is this why it has dropped out of theology in favor of salvation – that it is so difficult to define? It is not judgment; it is not salvation; it is not heavenly bliss – it has nothing to do with heaven at all.

It is not farce! There is too much violence – especially, there is too much anger – in farce. But it is not genteel (drawing-room) comedy either. There is not enough plain foolishness in that; it is not sufficiently . . . silly.

Maybe, redemption is a shaggy-dog story, a wandering from distraction to distraction, a chasing of a tangent by a tangent, a story that heads nowhere and gets where it is going, a world without end, world without end and so no “amen.”

     Judgment, salvation, “heaven” (and farce, most comedy) have this in common: they all have to get somewhere. There’s no point to them, if they don’t have a point, and there must a way to get to it.  Clearly! “Strait is the gate and narrow is that way.”

Redemption is not a way. Redemption is there wherever “there” already is, however accidentally.  For redemption direction is directionless; pointedness is ultimately pointless, because we never get to “ultimately.” Here is a story without a plot: There is no beginning, no middle; there is no end. Everything “done gone sideways” -  Thank God!

It doesn’t matter if the “shaggy dog” goes off the rails. If there’s no road nearby, it just lights out for the territory, heading cross country till it happens on a balloonport or an abandoned VW microbus that happens to have a full tank. In the back window is a sign that says, “Steal me!” And we do.

“Why do bad things happen to good people?” It’s the wrong question. The right question is this:  “Where does anyone get off thinking she is good?”

02.28.17