As I reflected on the theme for Transmillennial 2006, It’s All About God, a question struck me.  “Which God?”

 

In today’s pluralistic world, ‘God’ might mean many things.  Is it the god of fundamentalism (of whichever religion)?  Is it the god of Platonism, deism, or preterit-deism that suggests god finished his business sometime in the past and now is simply letting things run?  Is it the god who sits on a throne and determines the course of human events?

 

When it comes to God, generally speaking we seem to have one of two broad options.  The first is polytheism (or Many-gods-ism).  This is the belief that there are many gods like the pantheon of Greek, Roman, Norse deities.  The second is Monotheism (or One-god-ism).  Monotheism is the belief that there is one and only one god.

 

It would appear that today’s world has opted for polytheism.  We have Eastern gods and Western ones.  Pagan gods and druid gods.  Gods whose followers practice yoga or pray five times a day or take communion every Sunday.

 

The gods in today’s globalized world compete in the marketplace for adherents.  They’re like a fast food menu.  Would you like you god(s) to be Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Muslim, Ancestral, Jewish, or Christian?  Would you like to supersize that god?

 

Many people reject metaphysical gods all together in favor of the all-encompassing secular gods that go by the name of Science, the Market, or the Economy.

 

At this point, you may think I’m loopy.  You might be wondering, “Wait a minute.  There is only one God.  The One True God, and all other gods are not really gods at all.  Only one God spells his name with a capital G (and maybe a capital OD too).  It just so happens that this ‘capital G’ God is my God.”

 

If this is what is going through your mind, then you are a monotheist.  Supposedly, one of the hallmarks of Western society is “Monotheism”—or what Thomas Cahill calls, The Gift of the Jews. 

 

Unfortunately, most ancient Hebrews simply were not monotheists.  Most ancient Hebrews—even including first-century Second Temple Jews were Henotheists.  (Henotheism is not the worship of chickens.)  If polytheism is the belief in many gods, and monotheism is the belief in one (capital G) God, then henotheism is the belief that there may be many gods, but I serve only one god.  It is “my-god-ism.”   Henotheism says, “You have your god.  We have ours.”

 

Many Biblical passages indicate that ancient Hebrews leaned toward henotheism.  Like Commandment 1.  “You shall have no other god before me,” has “other gods” built right into the equation.

 

 

Upon close inspection, we find three big problems with Monotheism in today’s world.

 

Problem One. Almost everyone who gives a flip about God is, ultimately, a monotheist.  Hindus have Brahman.  Buddhism has enlightenment or pure consciousness.  Taoists have Tao.  Muslims have Allah.  Jews have Yhwh.  Christians have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

 

So the question might not be, “Are you a monotheist?  Instead, the question is “which monotheism do you accept and practice?”  At this point, you might object: “All those other (small g) gods aren’t the same as my (capital G) God.”  All this simply illustrates the second big problem with monotheism.

 

Problem Two.  Many (if not most) folks who see themselves as monotheists are henotheists in disguise.  “They have their god and we have ours—even if their god is only a figment of their imagination.”

 

This type of monotheism-that-isn’t-monotheism finds expression in terms of “Our God has selected us to be his special people.”  We are the one nation under God or the One True Church, and as such we see ourselves as having a duty to be faithful to this one God by bringing the rest of the world under the rule of our God.  We might do this via “evangelism,” imperialism, holy war, or in court.  Steven Poole, in his book Unspeak, describes the “playground game of My-God-Is-Better-Than-Your-God.”

 

On the world stage, one group wages a holy war against another, and the other responds with its leaders announcing a crusade.  Within Western society, religious monotheists wage a war on secular monotheists, who return fire by attempting to wipe out public conversation related to God.

 

The point is that many monotheists (who are really henotheists) often express their version of theism through some type of violence.  It seems like children of the Lord far too often resemble Children of the Corn.  In her book, The Curse of Cain, Regina Schwartz argues that monotheism is violent by its very nature.  While that may be an overstatement, it gives us a cogent and stern critique to consider thoughtfully.

 

Problem Three.  Almost no one is a monotheist—even those who claim to be monotheists.  Hinduism has Brahman but also a pantheon of other divine beings.  Islam has Allah but also powerful forces like jinn.  Buddhism has Enlightenment but also samsara.  Christianity has Father, Son, and Spirit but also demons, an Antichrist, and a malevolent anti-god.  While no good monotheist would equate evil or harmful spiritual beings as being gods in their own right, it seems like these beings get a lot of credit for being nearly god.

 

Beyond that (and more to the point), we in the West (including Western Christians) talk about all of the gods of our society.  They may not go by the names of Zeus, Baal, or Aphrodite, but they are our societal gods just the same.  We call them the Economy, the Market, Democracy, Liberty, the Media, Hollywood, the War, Society, and Culture.  We ascribe to them personalities, principalities, and powers.  “The Economy grew stronger last quarter.  The Market is nervous.  Democracy is spreading.”

 

We see the hand of these gods at work as they determine our fate. We offer them sacrifices of higher interest rates, 401(k) investments, and ticket sales.

 

Even within Christianity, each sub-branch has its own god vying for our attention and acceptance.    The god whose body becomes bread literally.  The god who hand selected you for salvation and your neighbor for condemnation.  The god who wants you to take communion every Sunday.  The god who wants you to honor him on Saturday night.  The god who likes organ music and the god who prefers rock and roll.  The god who doesn’t permit women to speak in public worship services.  The god whose real followers speak in tongues and the god who stopped miraculous work 2,000 years ago.  The god who is going to kill two-thirds of all Jews in a nuclear holocaust while faithful Christians levitate into heaven.

 

Now, besides the fact that everyone is a monotheist and no one is a monotheist, monotheism works just fine.

 

 

But here’s the rub.  Doesn’t the God we read of in the Bible (the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) want us to acknowledge him and only him as the One True God?  It would seem so Biblically.  The Shema: Yhwh our God is One.  The prophets, in passages like Isaiah 44:10, ridicule idolatry (which isn’t necessarily the same as monotheism).

 

Christian Creedal traditions emphasize monotheism first and foremost.  Nicene Creed begins with the famous words: “We believe in one God…”  But the history of the creedal formulations shows that these were designed to exclude political opponents far more than honoring the One True God.

 

However as I see it, there is a bigger question: “Is God’s ultimate purpose getting all people to recognize that there is only One True God?”  Let me put it more bluntly:  Is God’s ego so big that God needs everyone’s conscious recognition in order to feel like it was worthwhile creating us in the first place?  Is God so insecure that God needs my verbal (if not mental) acknowledgement in order to feel complete?

 

Let me phrase it another way, “Did God call Christ to the cross simply to get our attention?”  Maybe we’d be well served to remember James 2:19.

 

I believe that unlike us God does not live from the outside in—seeking affirmation from others.  Perhaps there is something else at work.  Something bigger that God is concerned with, has always been concerned with, and always will be concerned with.

 

As I see it, God’s primary concern—God’s overarching interest—is love.  The New Testament word is Agape.  I believe that God poured so much of himself into love—that God so identified with love—that the apostle John could say without fear of being contradicted, “God is love.”  Theos agape esti.

 

This truth, this realization, this call can help us transcend the debates of what Jonathan Kirsch calls “God against the Gods.”  The disputes of monotheism versus polytheism have gotten us nowhere.  The wars over the proper brand of monotheism have caused no little amount of bloodshed.

 

So today I am calling for a “New Kind of Theism.”  A theism that transforms the fruitless millennia of fighting over who owns the rights to God—as if God were a commodity to be brokered.

 

Today, the new kind of theism I am calling for is Agapetheism.  Agape—Love—tells us who God is, what God does, and what God calls us to.  Agapetheism is simply this: Approaching God in terms of Love, not number.

 

 

Agapetheism frees us from metaphysical speculation on the “attributes” of God and jot-and-title squabbling over the “right way” to honor the One True God.  It breaks down the barriers between secular and sacred versions of god.  Agapetheism opens for us the freedom to love God without restriction, to see God everywhere, and practice the presence of God regardless of the situation because wherever love is God is present.

 

Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel described God as the “God of Pathos,” the God of Passion.  Taking this as a cue, Agapetheism changes our focus from looking at God as a Being “apathetically out there somewhere” to being the passionate One in our midst and in our hearts.  A God who is filled with passion is fully engaged.  A God (as John Caputo reminds us) of tears and compassion who is moved by our sighs and cries.

 

Agapetheism defuses fights over God because love does no harm, is not puffed up, does not seek its own.  Agapetheism doesn’t even enter the religious fracas, because Love is not in fights over God.  Love does not behave rudely.

 

Speaking of behaving rudely: Agapetheism never asks someone, “What do you believe?”  Instead, Love asks, “How can I serve you?”  Do you see the difference?

 

This takes me back to the Christian creeds for a moment.  Of the major creeds, do you know which ones mention God’s love?  Apostles’ creed?  No.  Nicene?  No.  Chalcedon?  No.  They go into detailed formulation on what their framers consider to be the one true nature of the One True God, but they all ignore Love—which God is.  This leads me to ignore the creeds.  By ignoring Love and instead focusing on who is in and who is out, the creeds help establish deep structures in historic Christianity that run counter to both Christ and God.  It is time we transcend these patterns and form new deep structures.

 

But perhaps you feel a need to formally express your faith.  Jesus formulated and expressed Agapetheism like this: “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  That’s enough.  Anything more than that is too much.  Once we get this down to an art, then maybe we can move on to something else.  However, I suspect once we practice loving God and our neighbor that we won’t ant to move on to anything else.

 

But what does that mean?  How do we live Love?  1John 3:17-18 tells us to love God by being generous to others.  We can practice Agapetheism by practicing compassion.  You express love for God wherever you encounter another person, because “compassion” is literally “feeling with.”

 

 

Let’s unpack Agapetheism a little bit more.  A good place to start is with Jesus in Mark 12:28-34.  Jesus affirms there is one God (which ultimately everyone believes), but he reveals something surprising about this God.  Actually, the scribe reveals it, and Jesus agrees.

 

God has not instructed you to conquer the word in his name.  All that God wants is for you to experience love because in experiencing Love you experience God.

 

According to Jesus and the scribe, the way to express love for God is not through acts of piety or worship.  Not by sacrificing, singing, or praying.  Instead, the way to love God is by loving your neighbor as yourself.

 

See, God and your neighbor have a lot in common.  They are both what Jacques Derrida calls the “wholly other.”  Both God and my neighbor are “not me.”  For me to love either one calls on me to open myself, to create space, to embrace.  In opening to the neighbor who is “wholly other,” I open to God.

 

Jesus affirmed the scribe’s answer about loving God and others by telling him: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”  Why was the scribe so near?  Because he intellectually knew the significance of loving God and loving the neighbor (the other)?  Or was it something else?

 

A parable. Once there was a Christian who attended praise gatherings weekly. She sang, prayed, was baptized, took communion, and even spoke in tongues. But she threatened her children and ignored the homeless. She told diseased people that it was a punishment for their wicked ways. She prayed that she would eventually be pulled off the planet to keep bad things from happening to her while million of others would be left to suffer unspeakable horrors.  At the same time, there was a Buddhist (or maybe it was a Muslim, or it might have been an atheist) who never set foot inside a church building or worship warehouse, never read the Bible, and never took communion. But she visited the sick, took food and clothing to the homeless, and volunteered in a HIV/AIDS clinic. She encouraged her children to express themselves even if they disagreed with her.  Which of these is closer to the Kingdom of God?

 

 

As I read Jesus in the Gospels, this is what Agapetheism is all about: loving God by loving others.  The apostle John asked, “How can you love God who you haven’t seen while hating your brother or sister whom you have seen?”  This realization helps us make practical sense of the controversial phrase, “Every eye shall see him.”  When we look with the eye of love, we see God.  Because seeing is not about what is seen.  Seeing is a reflection or a projection of the See-er; it is a commentary on the one who is seeing.

 

Perhaps you’ve encountered Rubin’s Vase.  A black and white drawing.  Look at it one way and you see a vase.  Look at it another way and you will see two faces looking at each other.  What do you see?  There are two images, but only one is visible at a time.  What you see depends on what you are looking for.

 

Now consider a homeless person.  What do you see?  What are you looking for?  In Matthew 25, Jesus said that he is that homeless person.  On another occasion, Jesus told Philip: “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”  To put it more bluntly, “To see a homeless person, a sick person, a lonely person, an injured person—to see Another person—is to see God.”  So when Jesus said, “The poor you will have with you always,” we can hear, “God you will have with you always.”

 

When we look with the eyes of love, we can’t help but see God and God’s kingdom everywhere, because Love is in our gaze, and God is Love.

 

Love helps us see God and God’s Kingdom in a fresh light.  John Caputo (in The Weakness of God) wrote that the Kingdom of God is the event called by the name of God.  And what is the name of God, but Agape?  Love!  The Apostle Paul put it like this in Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

 

When we are moved by love, speak love, embody love, enact love, transmit love, and show love, we are doing nothing less than expressing the Kingdom of God, the Domain of Love.

 

 

Now, you may be concerned about Heaven and Hell.  But is there any greater Heaven than loving, and any greater hell than unloving?  You don’t have to wait until the afterlife for that.

 

But what about unbelievers?  Well, is there anyone who does not believe in love?  As far as I can see, there are no atheists because everyone believes in Love, and to believe in Love is to believe in God.

 

But what about doctrine?  Shouldn’t we teach people the truth?  Letting people believe what isn’t really true isn’t love is it?  This is especially important for those of us here at Transmillennial 2006.  We believe that God has consummated the Abrahamic promises.  All families of the earth are blessed and are being blessed.  We want to know how to get others to see things the way we do.  Wouldn’t it be great for everyone to know that Matthew 24 is united.  To know that Revelation is talking about 70 AD, not the end of the planet.  To realize that the resurrection deals with covenantal realities, not physical corpses.  Shouldn’t we do everything we can to teach people that?

 

Well, it depends on what you mean.

 

If you mean, that we should get the whole world to believe that Matthew 24 uses symbolic language or that Christ’s Second Coming happened 2,000 years ago—then the question really becomes: “Why?  Why do you want people to know that?”

 

Is it just to have the “right information?”  To possess the intellectual knowledge?  To help affirm you in your beliefs?  If this is the case, then you’re better off not teaching anyone anything because Love is not the primary factor.  There are enough people in the world who believe Matthew 24 is fulfilled, but live empty lives. I was one of them for a long time.

 

But if you mean that knowing certain things will help people live more freely and to love more passionately, then you’re on to something.  Teach passion with passion!

 

Robert Costa, the chairman of the board of Presence Ministries said: “The reason we’re here is to reach as many people on this bloody planet as we can with what God has done.”  Amen.

 

But before you set out on a teaching quest, ask yourself: “Has what God has done helped me to love God more passionately and live compassionately on behalf of others?”  Your answer to that question will answer your question about teaching.

 

It has for me, and that’s why I teach, and it’s why I teach in the way I teach.  I used to have a love for Doctrine.  I would beat people (and myself) with the Bible.  But my encounter with Agapetheism has transformed my love for doctrine into the Doctrine of Love.

 

But doesn’t Paul say that love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth.  And doesn’t Jesus say that if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments?  Yes on both counts.  But what is the truth beyond: “God is love and has blessed all families of the earth” (Romans 15:8)?  And what is the commandment of Christ but to love one another (John 13:34-35)?

 

There’s a story from the life of Jesus that helps illustrate this.  We find it in Luke 9:49-56.  Jesus is traveling through the regions of Samaria with his disciples.  The Samaritans refuse to show Jesus hospitality, and this affront incenses the disciples.  James and John ask Jesus for his permission to emulate Elijah.  They want to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans.  Jesus balks at this request.  “But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what kind of spirit you are of for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.’ And they went on to another village.”

 

Jesus’ question to James and John is as poignant today as it was 2,000 years ago.  Do you know what manner of spirit you are of?  Do you know what manner of spirit Jesus was of?  God is of?

 

Knowing the scriptures and loving others do not have to conflict with one another, but sadly they often do.  When it comes to doctrine and teaching, Agapetheism speaks the language of Love and the grammar of compassion.  The fruit of the Spirit is Love, kindness, gentleness.  Agapetheism speaks this language with its words and its actions—without strings attached, without any agenda beyond loving.

 

So, when it comes to teaching, let me ask you two questions.  First, “What if everyone believed doctrinal facts exactly as you do?  Would the world be a better place?”

 

Second, “What if one person, two people, 10,000 people loved God by loving their neighbor?  Would the world be a better place?”

 

Though I understand all Eschatology but have not Love I am a clanging cymbal.

 

We at Presence have a very small goal.  We want to help reframe the way the entire world sees and experiences God.  We’re doing this in many ways including this 18^th annual conference, Max’s forthcoming book on Romans 9-11, the Transformations course, online articles, forums for dialogue, Zone conversations and Transformation Intensives.  All of these and many other teaching tools are employed to help raise humanity’s awareness to and practice of the Loving Presence of God amongst us.  They are not ends.  They are means.

 

What we want—what I want—is to be so filled with Love (so filled with God) that we can’t help but see God everywhere because when we look with Love, we will be looking with and into the eyes of God.  As medieval mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.”

 

You still might be wondering about “hard core” eschatology.  However last time I checked “hard core” was reserved for pornography, and pornography has little to do with Love.  More importantly, the story of God’s pursuit of us is eschatology.  Love is eschatological.

 

Consider what Paul wrote in Romans 13:8-10, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

 

Paul echoes this sentiment in Galatians 5:14.  “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

 

Both of those passages seem pretty eschatological to me.  My definition of eschatology is this: “Eschatology is the description of the infinite passion God has for you and for me and for all of us.”

 

So, you decide. What is closer to the heart of God: for people to know that Christ returned in AD70 or that God loves them?  It doesn’t have to be one or the other, but we can spend so much time, effort, and energy on the first.  Why not invest a little in the second?

 

 

But what of someone asks me a question about God, the Bible, or theology that I can’t answer?  Listen closely.  Love is the answer.

 

But what about terrorists and really bad people?  What about them?  Didn’t Jesus say, “Love your enemies?”  And didn’t Paul write in Romans 5:10 that while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son?

 

But it’s not that easy.  Who said love was easy?  Love sent Christ to the cross.

 

But how can you expect the whole world to love?  I don’t.  I expect me to love, and I invite you to love also.

 

But isn’t love, just a feel-good dream?  Yes.  It is a dream.  A God-sized dream, a dream that God invites us to dream along with him.  A dream of passion for the impossible.  And God is in the Impossible Business, for with God all things are possible.  With Love all things are possible. When you dream of God, what do you dream?  I dream of a world filled with people filled with Love, filled with God.

 

But what is Love?  This is what we want to know, but this is one thing I cannot say.  We could call Love the emotion-fueled thoughtful practice of compassion.  But to give a discourse on what Love is would rob love of its passion, thereby making Love something other than love—turning it into an object and a cold calculation rather than a heated passion.  And doesn’t the world have enough cold calculation already?

 

There is only one way to know Love, and that is to love.  So, let the dead bury the dead.  You go and preach the kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of Love.  The Kingdom of Compassion.

 

But will Agapetheism really work?  Will people really accept that God is Love and God really does love us all?

 

I do.  Why should I think someone else won’t?

 

But more than that.  Love always “works” on the small scale.  When I love my wife, children, neighbors, friends, and enemies love always works.  It’s just that Love hasn’t been tried on a large scale.  We’ve seen pockets of Love here and there.  We’ve all been moved and touched by Love, but fear, oppression, and violence—all in the name of the One True God—have been the popular way.  And what has fear, oppression, and violence gotten us?  Inquisitions, Crusades, Jihads, Hells, Excommunications, and Disfellowships.  So, why not try love.  Just once.  And let’s see where Love takes us.

 

Granted, we have thousands of years of entrenched practice to overcome, but together we can forge a new path.  We can create new deep structures.  A new way.  A new theism.  Agapetheism.  A new Love.

 

So, we begin today—together—by declaring today a day of love.  Making today a day of Love, a day of God.  And as one day turns into the next and the next, the practices of Love and compassion will become more ingrained in me and in you and in all of us.  Before you know it, a day of Love has become a week of Love, a month of Love, a year of Love.  A humanity at Love.

 

In this upcoming year, I want to hear your stories and struggles with Love.  Call me with them or email them to me.  We can talk about it together one-on-one.  Or better yet in the Presence Forum and the Zone where people who look to Love can join together in spreading the Love of God.

 

Together we can grow in love, grow in God, as we open to one another.

 

And if it seems wrong for you to love, choose for yourself this day who you will serve.  Whether the gods which our forerunners served, the gods of religion, the gods of secularism, the gods of oppression, the gods of violence, the god of exclusivisity, the gods of acquisition, the gods of polytheism, monotheism, or henotheism.  But as for me and my house, we will love in the name of the God who is Love.

 

 

URL: http://www.presence.tv/cms/conf-agapetheism.php

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