The Kingdom Chronicles

Apparently the Vice President-elect on January 20, 2017, purposely will take the oath of office with his hand on a Bible open to 2 Chronicles 7:14. Yet this text cannot, if read properly in its original meaning, be applicable to the context of Christians in the United States, much less to the general population in this country. The United States is not, has never been, and never will become the land of God's people as Israel was the land of God's people at the time these words were written. The United States as a nation-state is not, never has been, and never will become the locus or vehicle of God's redemption of the earth and its people. Following Jesus, the church throughout the world (without identification with and reduction to any one people group or nation) is the locus and vehicle of God's redemption, for all the earth, for all people, with no most-favored nation status. We ill-construe and ill-serve the kingdom of God, our true citizenship, when we misrepresent Jesus and his cruciform re-creation of our world through such poor exegesis and application of God's Word.

To What Community Do We Belong?

To what community do we fundamentally belong? For followers of Jesus, the Church is that community. Our identity and allegiance root in and stem from our being in the Church. Certainly other communities to which we belong – nation, race, clan, gender, language, party, occupation, affinity, and more – shape and even "claim" us to greater or lesser degrees. Yet we must understand and pursue our essential belonging, our paramount and therefore focal identity and allegiance, in and through the community of the Church. We must subordinate, and in some ways and instances even refuse, claims from those other communities on our identity and allegiance, on our very life. To the extent we seek and experience the true commonweal of this world and of our individual life in it – trust and hope and love, and truth and beauty and goodness – we must do so fundamentally within and from the community, the society, which is the Church, which is ultimately the kingdom of God.

Public Decency, Common Good

Have we as a society become so inured to coarse language that we have no inhibitions, no embarrassment, about public use and display of certain words, certain expressions? That we have little or no regard for the sensitivities, even the quality, of common life? Even more, do we who identify as followers of Jesus have no such inhibitions or embarrassment, or have such little regard for common life, for public decencies? "Edification" may or may not be a concept of much currency outside of the New Testament these days. Yet it seems to me that we who claim at least some continuity of heart and mind with the communities of the New Testament might want to consider the notion as a motivation for and measure of what we publicly express and do, with an unabashed desire to foster the quality of common life, of public decency.

Reluctant Leadership

At every level of social organization, we need leaders who do not want to be in positions of leadership.

Brief Note on the Nature of Reality

The first question is not what do we think the world ought to be like, but how has God fashioned the world to be.

The Church: First Fruit of Re-Creation

In To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (p. 158), James Davison Hunter remarks that ecclesiology is, for what he terms the neo-Anabaptist perspective, the form of engagement with the world. This stems from the significance of the communal aspect of Christian faith in this view. The individual is of course significant, but Christ formed a community of believers or followers: the church. Christian ethics is not solely or even primarily individual. It is corporate; it is ecclesiological.

Hunter is right about this in a certain sense. However -- and I am not necessarily reacting to Hunter or to any person in this so-called neo-Anabaptist perspective -- I contend that the reason for the existence of the church is not to engage the world. To employ Hunter's terms, the reason for Christ forming the community of believers is not in order to have a form or means of engagement with the world. The church is not utilitarian in the divine economy. The church is essential in the divine economy. The purpose in the divine formation of the church is the re-creation of the cosmos. The coming-into-being of the church is fundamentally an act of redemption or salvation, first and last, not ethic or mission. Ethic and mission derive from that redemption which is the divine formation of the church. Ecclesiology gives rise to ethic and mission. Or perhaps a more nuanced way of putting this is to say that a comprehensive ecclesiology seeks to understand and explicate both the essential being of the church (redemption, re-creation of the cosmos, the vanguard of the new humanity) and the necessary acts of the church in manifesting that being (ethic, mission). In the end the church is not a divine tool to engage the world outside of the church through ethic and mission. Were that the case, the church would cease to exist in the age to come. Rather, the church is the first fruit of the divine re-creation of the cosmos. In the age to come, when all of time and space are made new, beyond sin and death, in God's grace and power, the church will be the last fruit of that re-creation. Outside of the church will be nothing, for the church will be all, as God will be all in all. With and in God, the church will humbly and joyfully persist in God's good re-creation.

Conviction and Humility

Grant us grace to pursue passionate conviction with commensurate humility. Conviction without humility tends toward coercion and eventual violence. Humility without conviction tends toward mere sentimentalism and eventual subjectivism. Passionate conviction with commensurate humility. This is the way of truth in love.

Citizenship and the Goods of This Life

Saint Paul wrote in Philippians 3:20 that our citizenship, as believers incorporated into Christ, is in heaven. This means that the true or ultimate goods of our life are in heaven, not in this world, not in the countries and cultures where we live. Connect this, as Paul clearly did, with his earlier remarks in chapter 3 that he reckoned all his gains prior to or apart from his life in Christ as loss. It is not that he had not achieved much. He enumerated his manifold accomplishments in Jewish social and religious life. Yet he had lost those goods because he followed Christ. Even more, he considered them rubbish compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, of being incorporated into Christ’s death and life, of holding citizenship in heaven.

We then – as followers of Christ, as believers in Christ, as citizens of heaven instead of citizens of this world – must no longer consider the life and things of this world our true or ultimate goods. For the sake of Christ we must lose them, and we must consider them rubbish compared to the surpassing goods of knowing Christ, of living in Christ, where our citizenship is, in heaven. We must lose the life and things of this world in the sense of not reckoning them as ultimate goods. We must let loose of them in heart and spirit as goods we desire, pursue, claim, and count on as of true and lasting worth. We must even be willing to lose them in the sense of actual deprivation through choices we make or through loss and suffering inflicted upon us by the citizenry of this world.

This is not to say there are no goods in this life and world. For those in Christ and even those not in Christ, God graces his creation and creatures with ores of faith, hope, and love, of truth, beauty, and goodness, amid and despite the disorder, deception, and corruption of sin. Yet the goods of this life and world are only genuinely and durably good to the extent they participate in and bear us toward the goods of our life in heaven. They only do this to the extent we perceive, desire, and experience them as goods which we may, and even in a sense must, lose to gain Christ, to know his surpassing death and life. For Christ, through his crucifixion and resurrection, has transported us to his commonwealth; and we hold citizenship there, where we enjoy the true and ultimate goods of life, from first to last.

Some Thoughts on Romans 1:1-15

About twenty five years before Paul wrote this letter, Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem by Roman authorities with the consent of Jewish leaders. In the intervening period a Christian community arose in Rome. The time was now the middle 50s A.D., with a young Nero in his first years as emperor of the Roman empire.

When Paul wrote, he had never visited Rome. He certainly had not founded the church in Rome. Why then did Paul write? He, like other Christians around the Mediterranean, had heard of the faithfulness of Christians in Rome. He wrote to express his care for them and desire to see them. He also wrote to explain in some detail God’s good news in Jesus, the relationship of the Jewish people and Gentiles to God and to each other, and the ethical implications of being a follower of Jesus. Worthy of deep and prayerful study, this letter engages both our hearts and our minds.

This opening section of the letter consists of Paul’s introduction. It includes a greeting, commendation of the believers in Rome, Paul’s credentials as an apostle, and reasons for his writing. It also includes certain fundamental assertions about Jesus and our relationship to Jesus.

We should take special note of these assertions. From familiarity with church history and our life in the church, we may miss how striking they are, especially in original context. At the outset of this letter Paul reminded the Christians in Rome who really is the ruler of the world – of empires, nations, and people. Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord – not the emperor. Believers belong to Jesus – not to the Roman empire.

Questions of allegiance and identity are basic to life. They are certainly basic to Christian life. As Bob Dylan sang, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” At the outset of this letter, Paul makes clear that we serve Jesus. Our allegiance is to Jesus; our identity (our belonging) is formed in Jesus. Yes, we live in nations and societies of the world. Yes, they assert their claim on us. Yet, as we have been baptized into Jesus’ death and reborn in his resurrection, our hearts, our minds, our very lives belong to him first and last. May we let Jesus, not the world around us, shape our allegiance and identity deeply, fully, visibly.

A Note on the Kingdom of God and the State

We must never mistake relative congeniality between the claims of the kingdom of God and the manifestations of a particular state or society for essential congeniality between them. In principle, the claims of the kingdom must always be distinguished from and valued above the manifestations of any state or society. In certain instances this principled distinction and valuation may be characterized by less tension and by relative congeniality. Here the danger is to be lulled by this comparative peace into the seductive identification of essential congeniality. Allegiance to and identity in the kingdom are compromised or lost, wittingly or not, in a "sacralizing" nationalism or acculturation. In other instances this principled distinction and valuation may be fraught with tension and risk, even to the point of actual loss and death. Here the dangers are at least two. One is to succumb to fear - to mute, hide, and perhaps even repudiate kingdom claims on our identity and life - in order to save our self, our family, and our fellow kingdom residents. The other is to refuse the illicit allegiance of a particular state only to go, not to the kingdom, but to some other set of claims on identity and life, such as ethnicity, gender, or alien philosophy or ideology. Amid all of this we do well to remember and obey the New Testament admonitions to seek first the kingdom of God, to lose our self for the sake of Jesus, and to live as citizens of heaven, from whence comes our savior, our lord.

To the Ends of the Earth

Thoughts on Culture, History, and the Lordship of Christ, Through an Exercise in “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi”


Consider the collect from the Book of Common Prayer for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany.

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Let me propose a thought experiment, based on this collect, to explore certain ideas concerning culture, history, and the lordship of Christ.[1] The impetus for this exploration, besides the explicit value of better understanding the meaning of the collect, is to correlate what we pray and what we believe (lex orandi, lex credendi—the law of praying, and the law of believing). While there are many reasons to examine and employ the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi, surely one is to enlighten our prayer and our belief, so that we more nearly pray what we believe and believe what we pray.

The thought experiment is this. Imagine that the anticipated state in this collect comes true some day—that Jesus is actually known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth. For the purposes of the thought experiment, it does not matter when. It only matters that it comes true at a point within history. In other words, for the sake of the experiment, it only matters that we imaginatively posit a future point when it is true, and that such a reality does not require us to postulate the ushering in of the end of history and the start of the age to come. As we play out the thought experiment, certain implications of the collect’s meaning become clear.

The encompassing reign of Jesus Christ

The collect presents a big agenda. Succinctly, unambiguously, it calls for no less than the world-wide, encompassing reign of Jesus Christ. This collect, then, stands upon and neatly captures the long-standing Christian claim (from Jesus himself) that Jesus is the way, truth, and life, and that he alone is the savior and hope of creation in general and of human existence in particular. Only if we believe this about Jesus, would we earnestly desire and pray that Jesus be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth. Thus, if we believe the collect, if we believe Jesus is savior and light, it would seem an essential part of the Christian faith, that we Christians genuinely do intend the truth of this collect and desire that it come true.

As we pray the collect then, with its bold and bald agenda, and we imaginatively behold the reality anticipated in the collect, we really are confronted with the question of what we believe. Do we pray and truly mean what the collect says, that Jesus ought to be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth? The encompassing reign of Jesus Christ—this is a big intention, based on a big claim. Not a few within the Church, much less outside the Church, would take exception to the collect as, at a minimum, anachronistically naive about the pluralism of beliefs, and likely even insufferably triumphalistic.

Yet we make a great mistake if we assume that the claim underlying the collect is uniquely bold and dubious in our modern era, as many would have us think. Since the inception of the Christian Way, the claim of Jesus’ unique and necessary cosmic significance has been central to the character and dynamism of that Way. Further, since the inception of the Christian Way, the claim has always knowingly been made in the context of religious and cultural pluralism, with numerous and varied counter claimants to the status of the Way, or to the necessity and virtue of syncretism and religious laissez-faire. Hence, we cannot dismiss this collect as merely an anachronism, no longer relevant or credible to a different world or a different Christian consciousness of the world.

Rather, if we are awake when we pray it, the collect must startle and challenge us. Because of the widespread qualification and even rejection within Church structures of the uniqueness and cosmic necessity of Jesus—which qualification and rejection would make the collect tendentious at best—the collect may in our current situation uniquely highlight, on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, the divide between those who pray the collect with integrity of intention and desire, and those who pray it but cannot genuinely mean and desire it, however nice it sounds. And, lest we succumb to the temptation to think ourselves spiritually superior to others, which in fact seems utterly contradictory to superior spirituality, the collect may also throw into sharp relief our own belief commitments, forcing us to examine and answer what we truly believe, so that we can pray truly. For words have meaning. Or, perhaps more accurately, the utterance of words has meaning. Thus the collect cannot be prayed glibly and sentimentally. Imagine, really, the reality anticipated by the collect! Do we actually understand and desire, in God’s good time, the encompassing reign of Jesus Christ? What would it mean for human existence?

History, culture, and the encompassing reign of Jesus Christ

These questions move me deeply. Surely, even in the poverty of my imagining, the fruition of the encompassing reign of Christ would yield realities so splendorous and sublime for creation and human existence that I can scarcely begin to enumerate or even articulate them. Yet in this thought experiment, imagining the encompassing reign of Christ in some future, the questions also push me to deep wrestling with prayer and belief with respect to history and culture.[2] This is because it seems indisputable that, in the reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, many cultures as we now know them would cease to exist. Certainly, cultural monism would not result. Yet much of all cultures would change and even disappear, and perhaps especially would this be the case for cultures that have less rather than more rootedness in Christian history and thought.

Let me make clear at this point that I am thinking from within an Anglo-American cultural perspective (clearly possessing commonalities with and antecedents in European cultural history and elements), a perspective that has as much basis as any culture to claim rootedness in Christian history and thought. Moreover, I am writing principally to people within this cultural perspective, and more particularly to people who adhere enough to the Christian Church to pray this collect on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, or to share its theological perspective, at least historically. While there are many diversities, tensions, and disagreements within it, this cultural perspective is cohesive and patterned enough to be distinct in significant ways from certain other cultures, such as Chinese culture, which has comparatively little rootedness in Christian history and thought.

Yet it seems reasonable to posit that Anglo-American culture would undoubtedly change in the reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, for that would include Anglo-American culture, and Anglo-American culture surely has elements that are at odds with this comprehensive lordship of Jesus (even if we do not all agree what elements are at odds with the lordship of Jesus). At the same time, it seems just as reasonable to posit that Chinese culture, being little or not at all rooted in Christian history and thought, would change far more. In fact, it is possible that Chinese culture would change so much in the reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed that it would largely or fundamentally no longer be Chinese culture as we now know it.

For the sake of the high ground in following this implication of the thought experiment, let us have in mind only those elements of various cultures that we take to be accomplishments or achievements of culture, as against those elements that we might argue are failures or monstrosities of culture. And more, let us acknowledge that human existence has been and is enriched by those cultural accomplishments, at least to some degree, even where religious perspectives and commitments divide and differ. Take, for example, works of art in China, deeply influenced, say, by Buddhism or Confucianism, which can be viewed as achievements of culture, in contrast to Nazi social and political philosophy and practices, which can be viewed as failures or monstrosities of culture. It is my supposition that one can experience and argue, as an example, the achievements of Chinese art and culture, with their enrichment of human existence, even while one disputes and counters certain religious and philosophical claims in the same art and culture.

What then will the encompassing reign of Christ mean for the many, various cultural achievements that enrich human existence, when clearly some of those achievements are not rooted in the reign of Jesus, at least not in any clear or direct sense? When Jesus is known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, we will certainly enter new and sublime riches of existence. Yet, what losses will we also experience in the establishment of that world-wide, transforming reign?

Perhaps these questions of that imagined future can be understood and felt better by also extending our thought experiment momentarily to the past. Imagine that Jesus had been known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth from the beginning of human existence and the rise of human cultures (remember, this is a thought experiment), it follows that non-Christian cultural accomplishments would not have come about. Various cultures would certainly have developed, but across them cultural accomplishments would be Christian, directly or indirectly, in form and substance. Many things that have been accomplished in and through diverse cultures would never have come into being. However, we would not “miss” those cultural accomplishments outside of Christ because they would never have happened. We cannot miss what we have not known. Hence, the questions raised above would themselves not be known.

Yet in reality Jesus has not been known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth. Human history is in fact replete with the rise and variation of cultures and—notwithstanding their failures and even their false religious and philosophical commitments and influences—with the achievements of those diverse cultures, achievements that have enriched and continue to enrich the people of each culture and even people of other cultures. In this sense, keeping with the original direction of our thought experiment, the future reality of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth holds the prospect of those cultural achievements being dismissed, lost, and destroyed, and never being produced again. Then, I submit, it seems inescapable that we would truly miss those achievements, or some of those achievements, or at least some aspects of those achievements. That which has enriched would no longer enrich, and we would experience true loss in those transformations.

It may be objected that the loss in those transformations (of which I wrote in the first notes on the collect) would be offset by the heightened diversity and truthfulness of cultures more closely aligned with the Creator’s full intent.

The essence of this objection has much value. There would be immeasurable gain in the rise, development, and achievement of such cultures. Nevertheless, certain points must be noted to understand the full import of what is meant by loss.

First, it is misleading to think in terms of offsetting the loss. It is one of the great temptations of theology, perhaps especially of Latin and later Western theology, when speaking of the significance of Jesus in terms of canceling or satisfying a debt. The depth of the problem (the “debt”) and hence the meaning of the divine response are not finally captured by an accounting ledger. In accounting, a debit, for example, can be precisely offset by a corresponding credit. No residue remains. They exactly balance or “cancel” each other. The “debt” of sin and the satisfaction of Christ are somewhat otherwise. Jesus does not cancel in the sense of leaving no “residue.” I do not mean that Jesus is less than the “full, perfect, and complete oblation and satisfaction.” There is no other needed. There is no more to be done. Yet somehow sin has changed matters once and for all. In Jesus, God forges a new humanity which is not a mere offset to sinful humanity, nor a mere restoration to pre-sinful humanity. Forgiveness does not equal amnesia. Nor does it return us to Eden. In Jesus, God takes sinful then redeemed humanity into the divine life in a new way, a new way at least in part precisely because it incorporates the reality that humanity was sinful, that God’s love for humanity “now” has a cross at its heart. Indeed, that is why a cross is and must be at the heart of the good news.

Hence, gain does not obviate loss or the genuine experience of loss. The way many Christians glibly and simplistically proclaim the gain and joy engendered by Jesus renders meaningless the cross (the suffering, loss, and sorrow) that Jesus bore and the cross that we must bear in Jesus. Otherwise, we underestimate the depth of the problem, the depth of God’s response, and the depth of our participation in God’s response.

All of this then begs the meaning of history and of the rise of cultures from a Christian perspective, and, in a humble sense, from the divine perspective (assuming for the sake of argument that, while not identical with the divine perspective, a true Christian perspective roots in and stems from the divine perspective). Several questions arise with respect to this.

Are history and culture outside of Christian history and culture meaningless or irrelevant? Or more, are history and culture outside of Christian history and culture inimical to “right, good, and joyful” human existence? Or, are history and culture outside of Christian history and culture distorted —“seeing through a glass, darkly”—but neither purely meaningless nor purely inimical? Indeed, a question prior to these questions is the following. What do we mean when we speak of Christian history and culture? (With respect to this last question, is it not theologically and empirically true, in the world as we know it, that all history and culture, even assuming the most Christian of cultures, is at best an admixture of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed, and Jesus not being known, worshiped, and obeyed? Nevertheless, the fact of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed— if widespread throughout a people, even imperfectly—would profoundly shape and inform their history and culture.)

Or, do all history and culture have meaning and relevance? And if so, what kind of meaning and relevance? Do history and culture outside of Christian history and culture have only corrective meaning and relevance? In other words, do history and culture outside of Christ have meaning and relevance only insofar as they show Christians and other humans what went wrong and what should be corrected for “right, good, and joyful” human history and culture? Or do they have meaning and relevance in true and laudable ways, albeit admixed with miscues, irrelevancies, dangers, and perversions?

In short, can we discern in all history—in true and laudable ways—true divinity and true humanity, so that all history and culture enriches, at least in some ways and to some extent?

If so, we can say that, when Jesus is known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, culture will rise even richer than before, all the while retaining, catching up, and perfecting all that was achieved before? Or, does that future prospect mean not merely the death of history and culture as we have known them, but the utter obliteration and annihilation of all prior history and culture? What amalgamation of gain and loss will that dearly anticipated state involve? What does all of this mean for us, embedded in this here and now of history and cultures, prior to the encompassing reign of Jesus Christ, at least as the collect envisions it?

These are deep and complex issues. We cannot answer them comprehensively and definitively here, if at all. Yet from our consideration of this thought experiment we can derive certain significant principles with respect to history and culture.

In general, varieties of cultures are inevitable and good in the course of human history. The only alternatives are (1) to deny the value and significance of history or (2) to desire worldwide monoculturalism throughout history. Either alternative suggests that in creation God intended an essentially static and thoroughly uniform existence. Dynamism, process, and fecundity are denied. Yet this is unbiblical, and hence it seems unnatural. The account of creation clearly depicts process and fecundity in creation as part of its very God-given essence, prior to and persisting through the Fall. In other words, history is ineluctably essential to what creation is and what creation means. Therefore, even had Jesus been known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth from the beginning and for all time without interruption, varieties of cultures would have arisen in history. Cultures express that dynamic fecundity which is the very stuff of God’s good creation.

The particular varieties of cultures and their achievements, while in a sense resulting from the reality of Jesus not being known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth, possess a complex but true goodness in the wake of the Fall. It is not general variety in culture that we know, but this particular variety of culture. And without having to affirm every and all cultures and cultural elements, we Christians acknowledge and affirm this particular variety of cultures as the only ones we know and hence as the ones we must acknowledge and affirm in light of God’s sovereignty. Therefore, “blessed fault.” Only because of that first sin do we have the cultures we know.

History and culture then possess a double goodness, so to speak. The first is that goodness endowed by God in creation. This is a pure, unalloyed goodness, though, as we have noted, not a simplistic, unvariegated, and static goodness. The second is that goodness derived from God as the medium and the means whereby God acts in and for creation to effect new creation. This most certainly involves variegation and dynamism, both in this existence and in the existence to come.

The test of what is good in culture is not solely (or even primarily) the degree of overt exaltation or acknowledgment or manifestation of Jesus. Because of the hiddenness of Jesus in creation—that is, in history and culture—the “at-one-remove” standard of truth, beauty, and goodness serves as a better test of cultural elements. We ought not expect—as necessary to genuine truth, beauty, and goodness—more of the hiddenness of Jesus to be removed than God has apparently deemed to remove through history.

Because of sin and the suffering of Jesus, the standard of what is good in culture will and must acknowledge and incorporate the realities and effects of sin, of alienation from and even enmity with God. Cultural elements representing, for example, resignation in the face of suffering, the transitoriness of beauty and of existence, sorrow and despair about existence, may well reveal, albeit in a hidden and incomplete fashion, genuine truth, beauty, and goodness, genuine depth in understanding and experiencing human existence, clear realism about human existence and creation (that is, both the heights and the depths, the joys and sorrows, expressible and inexpressible, mundane and transcendent), genuine passion for human existence and creation, and genuine yearning for truth, beauty, goodness, joy, and even the sublime. There is more Christ-like truth, beauty, and goodness in certain Chinese scrolls than in many “praise” songs.

Perhaps, in a particular sense, culture “outside” of Jesus being known, worshiped, and obeyed represents and provides a form of the via negativa by which we “know” divine and thus human reality.

Clearly, in the long tradition of Christian thought many great minds and hearts have wrestled with these and similar questions. Yet the collect for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany brings them sharply to mind for me and, I submit, for anyone who prays the collect with mind and heart truly awake. Acutely, this collect heightens the question of the relationship between prayer and belief—lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of praying and the law of believing). It points to the complex interplay between prayer and belief, with each having formative influence on the other. That relationship in turn heightens issues of integrity and intention in what we say and what we believe. Prayer, intercourse with the divine, even in the Sunday collect, demands no less than all the heights and depths of our minds and hearts—no less than our whole being.

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[1] I propose a thought experiment because of the potential value in such an exercise for extra-ordinary insight and understanding. A thought experiment involves an imaginative construction of a situation or action not practically possible in the realm of the here and now. A thought experiment can allow us to think beyond the possibilities of the purely practical. It can help us move beyond the blinders of pre-determined views and expected data. From the extra-ordinary vantage point of a thought experiment, we may be able to see matters in an entirely new way, yielding fresh and deep insights.

At the same time, we should recognize the risk in employing a thought experiment. To understand the risk, compare the use of a thought experiment to that of a metaphor. In communicating, the use of a metaphor can provide great value in conveying fresh and deep insights. Yet it is always necessary to keep in mind the nuances and true function of metaphorical analogy. For example, a metaphor works as much by what is unlike as by what is like. If one does not understand this, then gross misunderstanding can result. Similarly, one must keep in mind the nuances and limitations of a thought experiment. For example, a thought experiment runs the risk of proffering significant insights when in fact it is so impractical, so removed from verisimilitude, that it finally bears no relevance to our life in this mundane existence.

With these cautions duly in mind, I will proceed in the hope that this thought experiment is indeed truly fruitful.

[2] For the sake of simplicity, I am not making a sharp distinction between history and culture, but viewing them as intimately interwoven processes and patterns.