| The "albatross syndrome"
The
image is derived from Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in which a ship’s
crew is enthralled by an albatross, a sign of assurance, as it leads them out
of the Antarctic where they had been blown by a storm. But someone shot the albatross.
The dead albatross becomes a bad omen in a series of mysterious events, with the
responsible sailor made to wear it around his neck. In the nemesis of these events,
every sailor dies, except for the mariner, who carries the weight of their fate
for the rest of his life. When
the joy of trust in the gospel is killed through the reduction of faith merely
to a category of human experience, similarly, it becomes a dead albatross and
a bad omen among others. The
albatross syndrome occurs where the experience of believing assumes primary focus,
while the gospel to which Christian faith gives testimony is an embarrassment
and therefore a burden. Once a source of delight, the gospel is now a bad omen
that haunts humanity; once a joy, it is now a dead weight—an albatross. Once
the reception of a word otherwise for human life is diminished, faith can only
shrink to a focus of reflection on the self or a form of aesthetic activity. Such
faith no longer believes beyond the capacity to believe in its own believing.
Beyond divinities and voices conjured from human minds and tongues, no word is
heard that flesh and blood alone do not reveal. It
is possible to sustain a semblance of Christian identity while resisting any testimony
beyond human experience. Whether by tradition or necessity, as Christian identity
remains the context for some form of belief in believing it becomes a dead albatross.
This can occur in a theological academy or a pastoral context. The
albatross syndrome is not a new phenomenon, even if it is a pervasive issue in
our time. New Testament writers refer to having
a form of godliness but denying its power or being bewitched by another gospel that is in reality oppressive. Why does
the albatross syndrome occur? How can Christian faith become for some, merely
a reflexive process—a belief in believing as a beneficial activity? v With
the pervasive elevation of reason’s critical authority in the modern era, Christian
allegiance was increasingly disturbed by its inability to avoid reason as a newly
applauded arbiter of all things. Focus on the experience of believing took pressure
off the need to verify such allegiance before the forums of reason. The phenomenon
of believing cannot be contested. As an activity of thinking and volition, believing
has its own validity in the modern focus on the human subject as the centre of
personal meaning. In
the quest for acceptance in a sceptical age, nineteenth century theology increasingly
focused on the experience of faith instead of the focus of Christian faith in
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet atheists responded by suggesting that human experience
tells us nothing but the interpretations given to it—God is merely a human perspective
writ large. Famously, Feuerbach suggested that if love can be ascribed to God,
love might instead be God. It
is possible to project onto God and love whatever we wish. New Testament testimony
reminds us that we have very little idea of God without Jesus Christ. We also
have a limited grasp of love, grace or truth. Focus on the experience of believing
does not take people beyond relative verities of human experience and reasoning. The
impetus of modernity sought to show that human life can and must be interpreted
wholly with reference to human intelligence and experience. Humans are the sole
context and arbiters of their experiences, including religious or spiritual experience.
Believing
as a focus of human experience is orientated toward religion and associated disciplines
as a helpful human activity instead of faith as response to a vocative call and
reality otherwise than human subjectivity. A focus merely on the experience of
believing displaces any unique possibility to which faith responds; it can therefore
be invested with any agenda of choice. Within
an acceptance of religions as equal, focus is necessarily given to the experience
of believing because any focus on Christian testimony to gospel immediately questions
the possibility of religious equivalence. Yet focus on believing as a civic investment
toward social goodwill can be expressed in myriad forms of belief in human possibilities
for society, its progress and future. Focus
on believing as a political investment locates the centre of believing in the
partisan rhetoric of one tribe among competing versions of the social good and
human possibilities. Yet in the absence of Christian specificity concerning human
nature and the redemptive possibility for human dignity, such believing can amount
to human self-belief according to tribal rhetoric. In
Christian testimony to gospel, Jesus Christ gives specific shape to God as grace
and truth and shows us what love can be like in human life. Without this focus,
we may well be projecting our inclinations and desires—social, political or religious—onto
God. Without Jesus Christ giving shape to the Christian claim that God is love,
we may also be projecting our desires and agendas onto love, making it our god.
v Believing
is an illusion when it is merely a belief in believing; it is akin to having faith
in an onion—the human self that, layer upon layer is an enigma, however well we
think we know ourselves. Even what is assumedly known of the self can be divided
by regret, doubt or guilt. As a labyrinth of unperceived desires and motivations,
we are unknown to ourselves as much as known. Any
deputed “shadow-side” of an assumedly known self is not a discrete region that
can be integrated within a surveillance of the known. It is folly to assume we
know what is unknown; it is inane to assume we can then integrate the unknown
into our lives. Biblical
testimony offers another perspective on the labyrinth of human nature in which
the self is a site of hubris before God and duplicity among others. This is everywhere
present after Jeremiah’s citation of the deceitful heart, Paul’s reference to human hubris in presuming to be wise or Jesus’ reticence to trust humans, because he knew what was in them. Humans
consist of subtle self-deceptions about their significance, their compromises
and their assumed capacity for righteousness. The exhortation to “befriend our
shadow” might seem plausible if humans are the final arbiters of their experiences
as wholly self-known but it makes no sense in Christian testimony to gospel, which
articulates a very different view of humans who, of necessity, are called to be
born anew by the living word of God. If
a belief in believing includes befriending a shadow side, what is embraced is
a desire for self-belief to the extent that human self-compromise becomes another
pretext to consolidate belief in the self. Nurturing such self-deception, even
by the most plausible artifices, is a deadly game of avoiding the rich possibilities
for human life that are offered in God’s grace through Jesus Christ—in spite of
believing in ourselves not because we believe in ourselves. The Pharisee and Publican
provide the contrasting attitudes. Instead of the cross there is an albatross (Pt. II) when believing is merely
focused on believing—despite the human divinities that are conjured in the name
of spirituality, religion or human aspiration. God disclosed in Jesus Christ is
alone an adequate focus of faith. In
Christian testimony, the ultimate point of reference is not human perspective
but the word of God declared in the gospel. Without this focus, idols are constructed
instead, the most subtle idol being ourselves under some guise of spirituality
or religion, yet nevertheless a very dead albatross. References:
Coleridge “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; Feuerbach The
Essence of Christianity. |
