the great emergence from abundance

Ken Bellows, Self-Portrait with Wine Glass (Gluttony), 2000

In winning team locker rooms, speeches from award recipients, words spoken from those who have escaped disaster with at least their lives and perhaps even more, it is not uncommon to hear prayers of thanksgiving to God, Jesus, saints, etc. for their lot of abundance. Thanksgiving and abundance seem to go hand in hand in American culture, and indeed in American religion. It is as if God's grace and abundance by which ever means is satisfying are related by cause and effect. Abundance is evidence of grace.

However, if abundance is evidence of grace, lack of abundance or pain must be evidence of a loss of grace. hence the response "Why God?" in moments of pain. I posed the question on Twitter if it is possible for a losing athlete, losing award winner, or someone who has lost a loved one to give thanks to God in the same way in that moment as well. Certainly in moments of life and death, this is quite possible. But even here, it is giving thanks for life, for what one has, rather than giving thanks to God himself. In death, the definition of abundance simply has a much higher threshold.

It is even less likely in moments where death and abundance are not at risk to give thanks to God because the threshold of abundance is far lower. In fact, it seems that thanking God and Jesus in moments of loss are only applicable to higher risk situations where life is indeed at stake. Death is a great leveler, it is a zero sum in which everything material and experience itself reaches a void. Death is the absence of everything by which we define abundance and so, anything other than death is something for which one can be thankful.

When we lose something that is important to us that has no real bearing on life or death, why is it so hard to give thanks to God in those situations? It is the very culture of abundance and prosperity that creates this delusion that somehow the more we possess, the greater good God has bestowed, and the less we have in certain situations, the less evidence we have of God's grace. This is strange because it not only ignores the witness of Scripture regarding the place of favor the poor and meek generally have with Jesus, but it also radically alters the notion of God's grace to be something that requires material comfort which again, Scripture is quite clear that material comfort and the grace of God are unrelated.

So should we not give thanks for our abundance? No. It is right to give thanks. However, grace and humility need to be partners in the response that we give to God, for the poor in spirit and by any other means can receive the same grace as well. If material and relational abundance are evidence of God's grace and God's grace reaches to all people, then God is not a just God. No, it is not God who is unjust, it is people who mis-interpret and mis-use abundance as they see fit. It is human injustice that must be rooted out in order for the human situation to correspond the grace that God intends for everyone. Associating grace with abundant living betrays the trust that God gives humanity so seek justice for the poor.

God's grace is a gift that extends beyond any contingencies in which the cause and effect of life finds all people. This includes death itself. Because God's grace is not contingent on what happens in the world in which we live, God must deserve thanks at every point in time and history. A more fitting alternative is to say either that God simply must not exist, or at least the God who gives the gift of grace to all, for all, and forever must not be real.

It was reported at the Great Emergence conference that Phyllis Tickle in a presentation Phyllis Tickle was giving, that "once GLBT issue is taken care of, we have run out of things to hang sola scruptura (sic) on: race, gender, divorce, GLBT." The one problem that holds all of these issues together is how we deal with wealth and material abundance. It is the one issue that all of Americans have in common, especially those form middle to upper middle class environments. After all many here can afford to buy books, read, and discuss spirituality a lot. Now this is not to be a criticism of "emergent" in general, but it is a criticism of American spirituality and religion in general of which "emergent" is a clearly defined and measurable subset. For without abundance, it is hard to imagine an emergent discussion ever taking place.

There is a clear arrogance to most forms of American spirituality because knowledge of God is mediated through abundant living which is evidence of God's grace. We may practice heart-felt pity for the poor, and even give a little to "them". But the idea of wrenching ourselves form the seat of comfort to access a God apart from abundance is foreign and unusual enough that there must be a latent phobia towards it. The test is how well we give thanks to God when our lives frankly suck. When it is all gone, can you do it and actually mean it? If not, you have discovered one of the fundamental problems with the world.

Why not teach our kids and each other to thank God with as much heart in losing and in disappointment as they are fit to do in times of joy and abundance? If we cannot thank God in those moments equally, do we even really know the God to whom we are giving thanks? Rather than pity the apparent loss of abundance in members and cashflow the mainline church once had, perhaps it is time to give thanks for what the mainline Protestantism is in its weakened and increasingly marginal role in the American public? Rather than mourn what we are not, can we genuinely give thanks for what we are and then give to those who clearly have less in the process?

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