Responses...#6 (Two for One!)

So this is actually a response to two books. The first was entitled "I am My Body" by Elizabeth Moltmann-Wendel, the second "The Healing Path" by Dan Alendar. Now, I didn't write a response for Wendel until after I read Alendar because Wendel kind of disturbed me. She had an interesting blend of mysticism and feminism that, quite franlky, weirded me out. It wasn't until after I read Alendar's book that I was able to go back and pick out some decent concepts from Wendel; Alendar "illuminated" rather than "elucidated" in this case. Alendar's book was chiefly about suffering as a Christian. Let me ask this: Why do we think suffering a bad thing? Are we not told that we will suffer? Was not our very salvation accomplished through suffering? I think this is why I have such a problem with the modern evangelical "health and wealth" teachings that say if you're not making money and living comfortably, then you must be in sin. (The Mormon church, incidentaly, is having a problem with younger generations filing for bankruptcy because they got in over their heads trying to keep up appearances.) As you will read, I believe suffering to be a clear sign of obedience, of identifiation with God. Anyway, here's my response (Sorry, it's a little long):

I had to do these two works together. I was at somewhat of a loss of how to comment on Molttmann-Wendel until I read Allender.
OK, so I’ve got more circles. Actually, this time it’s more like those magic linking rings that you would see an amateur magician use. He has three or four solid rings that he somehow makes pass through each other and become linked. The trick is that there is a notch in one that the magician conceals with in his hand, and, through clever manipulation, never reveals while giving the illusion that the solid rings are passing through each other. Well, I have had experience with these rings. As an awkward youth, I spent a few years practicing slight of hand, collecting props and tricks, and various paraphernalia of prestidigitation, even performing before sometimes impressed, but mostly patient and forgiving friends and family. I thought those days were behind me, but, once again, I find myself with linking rings in hand. Only this time my rings are already linked, and I’m trying to find that notch to see how they got connected.
Dan Allender has reinforced a concept that I picked up in reading Elizabeth Molttmann-Wendel. Our bodies are intrinsically and inseparably connected to our minds, and souls. In fact, they are part of it. As Moltmann-Wendel has proposed, the state of our body at any given time affects how we not simply perceive ourselves to exist, but, surely, how we actually exist. In grasping this concept I asked myself the question, “why do we so want to separate ourselves from our minds, souls, and the ability to reason. I have said before that the Enlightenment sought to separate the knower from the known, but know I see that it did much more than that. It sought to separate the knower from himself! Rather than linking rings, the “Enlightened” magician is sawing a man in half with no plans to put him back together. What I came away with from Moltmann-Wendel, and what I carried into Allender, was this: that from its very creation, both the soul and mind were never meant to be without the body. God created Adam from the dust of the earth, but he did not get up and live, he was not complete, until God Himself breathed life into him. There is no mention in the scriptures of the soul living before the creation of its physical house. That concept, the one of existing outside our bodies before our birth, has its roots in ancient Greek philosophies. Likewise, as from its creation, the soul is meant to be in the body throughout eternity. The hope of Christianity is the bodily resurrection of Christ. The scriptures refer to the physically risen Christ as the “first fruits” of the resurrection. Is it not obvious that we too, as followers of Christ, will experience the same bodily revivification? And once risen, we will stand in judgment; And once judged those found innocent, only through the blood of Christ, will enter into glory and receive….a new body where mind, body and soul will exist perfectly forever in the presence of its Creator. Mind, body, and soul can not exist independently, nor were they ever meant to.
As this ring glistened in my mind, I could not but continue to contemplate it. As I looked at it more closely, I saw that it began to reveal itself to be linked to another ring. This ring is a little harder for me to explain. (I ran it by my wife -patient woman; God bless her- and she kind of looked at me funny, so I go into this topic knowing that it is not quite all there yet). While being engrossed in such talk of the body, I could not help but consider the bearing of my thoughts on the human condition of being made in the image of God. It seems to me that there may be a connection to God in our very existence that is much deeper than conventional thought. I had always been taught that to be made in the image of God referred to that which separated us from the rest of creation: the ability to reason, the capacity for emotion, the possession of a soul. However, as I began to see that these things are all intrinsically connected to our physical being, I had to extend those concepts beyond what I had previously considered. How come, in considering what the image of God is, I had limited my thinking to only one aspect of the Tri-une God? Could it be that to be made in His image means to reflect Him in not only mind, but also in body and soul as well? Is not Christ, the physical manifestation of God, God’s body? Is not the Holy Spirit, that which extends from God to govern our relationship with Him, His soul? Do we not mirror God in our created ness as mind, body, and soul as He exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? The mind: the governing entity over all our functions; the body: that through which we connect to the world we are in, and carries out the bidding of the mind; the soul: that through which we are able to have interactive, not just responsive, relationships and that allows us to see the acting of the body as under the governing of the mind which is, also by the spirit, revealed to be not a separate dictator, but as in a harmonious relationship with the other two, acting and interacting in one accord. Or, at least that is how they should interact, if it were not for our fallen state. The corruption of sin has tainted each aspect of our image. The function of each is the same, but the integrity of their operation is damaged. The sanctification process takes place on all these levels. The mind is renewed, the soul taken over, and our body, I believe, is dying, doing away with what will be replaced by our new bodies. We are the tri-une creation of the Tri-une Creator. (Linked rings, still looking for the notch.)
As I read Allender, I could not help but see this concept elucidated as early as the first chapter. This book is about embracing pain. Not necessarily enjoy it, but seeing it for what it is: a tool used by God to conform us to His image. We experience pain in our body. Even times of mental anguish, as Allender showed us in his friend whose struggle with pornography was discovered by his young son, affect the body. I distinctly remember my mother-in-law spending the nights after the sudden death of her husband huddled on the floor of the bathroom shaking in between fits of vomiting. Allender doesn’t so much say this as he does imply it, but it seems to reinforce Molttmann-Wendel’s proposals. While reading, I could not help but realize that God, too, experienced pain in His “body”. God experienced pain in Christ.
“As men and women after God’s own heart,” Allender wrote, “we are called to walk the path Jesus walked. Jesus, ‘a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering….” (Allender, 15). He quotes Isaiah here to show that the scriptures themselves not only tell of the sufferings of Christ, but characterize Him with pain and suffering. I was shocked and dismayed to pointedly contemplate the modern evangelical propensity to preach a gospel of health and prosperity and to show suffering as something that is our fault or something that is undesirable and to be avoided. Do not the scriptures tell us that we will suffer because Christ suffered? Why are we so eager to eliminate the very thing that identifies us with our Savior on the very level which we image Him? We often hear from “inspirational” preachers that God wants the very best for His children and that HE would never want us to suffer. Where do the scriptures say that? We have forgotten, or maybe even ignored, that God’s best for us is not to keep us safe and wealthy, but that His best for us is what is best for Him. God’s best for us is that He be glorified by, in, and through us. Just as Christ was hung on a tree for the sake of His Father’s kingdom which exists to Glorify God forever, we too may, in fact will, as the scriptures tell us, suffer for the sake of the glory of God. The scriptures also tell us that God was pleased by the crucifixion of His son. Our suffering for the glory of God should be expected, embraced, and borne with the hope that He will indeed be glorified by it, that we will indeed be made more like Christ through it, and that we indeed are experiencing it by the decree of God.
Allender’s book often times made me turn to scripture and just as often offered a new view of it. The context of suffering as supplied by Allender brought to mind three specific instances involving the person of Christ. First, I thought of the story of the death of Lazarus. Christ, being fully God, knew that Lazarus was dead before the report came to Him. In the same way, He knew that He would give the command and that Lazarus would walk out of that tomb. He knew this. And yet, when He arrived at the tomb of His dear friend, He wept. Christ grieved. In the garden on the eve of His death, Christ, knowing that He would rise on the third day, knowing that the whole process was for the glory of His Father and the gathering of His kingdom, knowing all this, He was found in the throws of fear and anguish, in desperate prayer. Christ, again, suffered. Suffering is our responsibility. As Allender said, “Once the inevitable pain comes, it is too late to consider how we will allow ourselves to be shaped by it, “ (p 5). Just as the heat of battle is not the time for a soldier to learn to fight, but a time for him to exercise that which he has learned and demonstrate his faith in his commanding officers, our moments of suffering are proving grounds of who we are, what we believe, the faith that we claim we have. They reveal the strength of God to carry us through it, or they reveal our weakness to us and serve in the capacity of our conforming to the image of Christ for the glory of God. The psalmist does not pray for deliverance from the valley of the shadow of death, but proclaims the hope he has in the rod and staff of the One that lead him there to see him through to the other side. We must suffer. It is, at least in some aspect, how we image God in the person of Christ. The third piece of scripture that came to mind tells not of the life of Christ, but that of His servant Paul. The book of Philippians was written by Paul while he was in prison. His existence at this time was not comfortable, I’m sure. He was in the state of suffering. Yet, while in that state, he wrote these words, “Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance,” we see his hope, “as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always,” we see his faith, “Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death,” we see his acceptance and acknowledgement of the purpose of his suffering. Then, he says this, which floored me. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” His living, his suffering, he described as Christ. His possible death, the ceasing to be of his corruptible flesh, and, therefore, the receiving of his new glorified body, was gain.
This might not all add up, I know. It may even be hard to follow due to my hurriedness and incomplete thought on the matter, but I hope you can see the rings, see that I have connected Allender and Molttmann-Wendel. I hope to further inspect all the rings, and find that allusive notch that grants them unity.