Wow, so it has been a while (per usual :/). I am now in week #3 of my job as ACM at da Zone. I really love it. It's hard, it's challenging, it's dynamic, and working downtown is really great. I'm all set up just about now, which is really fast for them, and I think I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to right. This job is a perfectionist's nightmare, so I'm trying to adjust to the whole 'making the right decision on not enough information' thing. I had a long weekend this weekend for memorial day and so I spent it moving in to my new apartment. It's a fixer upper, which is really fun for me right now. I love hands on projects like this and it's all minor stuff anyway. But it's good, really good. I really enjoy my place; there's something liberating about having you first real place all your own. It makes a man stand real tall and proud, even if it is a bit of an eyesore at the moment. That will change in time. I worked my tail off at the place today, clearing out the last people's junk, and cleaning like you wouldn't believe. I dropped 150 at Home depot getting just cleaning supplies and one project that needed immediate attention.

See the doorway to my kitchen had this 1 inch gap in it along the top and the right hand side. The previous tenets had covered it up with duct tape so I didn't notice at first, and afterwards thought it really weird. But my neighbor, who's a really cool guy, informed that it contributed to a serious bug problem at the place. So I bought a few pieces of 1x3 and hand sawed them to the length, nailed them up, and caulked it so no bug is ever getting through there again! Now you might giggle at the fact that I used maximum strength adhesive instead of real caulk, but I did it all by myself thank you very much! And I think it looks GOOD! :P The kitchen's a nightmare, I'm gonna have to remodel it sometime soon. I'll talk to "Soup" (my landlord, who is AMAZING) and get clearance for it sometime in the future. The next few projects center around door repair, electric stuff (all cosmetic really), and refinishing my floor (which I'm REALLY excited about). I plan to be living here for a few years at least, and these little projects are really fun for me and I'm looking forward to making this lil apartment in the hood and real nice place to live, to match the really nice people who live here! :)

Well it's 9pm, that means bedtime for this geezer. Don't expect regular updates, I don't have much computer access. But I'll do me best! :)

So this was a saved ranting on the difficulties of job searching, that I never finished. Needless to say God took care of me. But it was a really cool deal about finding encouragment from Isaiah 40 and placing supreme faith in God. I serve a truly wonderful God! :)

But! I had to post my final paper in 19th cent. philosophy. See my last paper was atrocious! But this one my prof said was really insiteful and really great when I talked to her (and she's def not a Christian!). See the typical satnce for christains is: Nietzsche was a loon, trying to make sense of a world without God, but we have God therefore he's not worth much. I went the opposite route: Nietzsche was right, and so is orthodox Christainity. See what ya think! :)

Towards Nietzschean Christianity:

From a Will to Power to a Will to Love

In Zur Geneologie der Moral Friedrich Nietzsche offers readers a chance to discover their likely slavish mindset. However, Nietzsche is most famous on the popular level for his self-proclaimed identity as the Anti-Christ.  In the book he traces the history of morals and finds one particular institution, among others, to be particularly harmful to western society: Christianity.  Nietzsche continually refers back to Christianity, sometimes comically and other times with damning critique.  For Nietzsche Christianity is simply the ingenious invention of the clerical elites to develop a herd of weak, guilty, slaves to the moral code the priests have defined.  Nietzsche rejects all religions, Christianity in particular, in favor of a Will to Life via a Will to Power. However, Nietzsche’s Will to Power is not the only avenue to a powerful Will to Life, a greater one may exist in the Will to Love. While Nietzsche’s critique of common Christianity is well taken, the Orthodox Christian stands apart and transcends democratic Christianity to exercise a Will to life via a Will to Love.

Fundamentally, there are two types of unchangeable moral agents: slaves and nobles. The vast majority of humans are slaves; these are the followers, those who are simply part of the herd.  Slaves define evil, that which is opposed to the institution, then good, what is in accordance with the institution.  From this understanding of good and evil, it follows that the enemies of the slaves are likewise evil. Slaves are also reactive by nature, even and especially when they attempt to act like a noble.  Finally slaves also find creative forces to be external.  Nobles on the other hand, are naturally active, self-affirming agents who find the good first and worry about the bad afterwards.  For nobles creative forces are internal; that is to say they create value.  Also the enemies of nobles have to be considered good to be worthy enemies of the nobles.  For Nietzsche the nobles are the healthy life-affirming moral agents, whereas the slaves are the sick, life-denying who will die off in favor of the nobles via natural selection.  The nobles are the strong and the slaves are the weak; and this is not a matter of volition but simply an unalterable matter of nature.  It is the nobles who exercise a Will to Power; that is a will which is active, evaluative and life-affirming.  For Nietzsche a Will to Power and a Will to Life are virtually coterminous.  By contrast, the reactive nature of the slave produces guilt and bad consciousness, eventually resulting in a maximal indebtedness to God in the Christian tradition.  The doctrine of Sin controlled by the ascetic priest reinforces this self imposed guilt and is another manifestation of the self-imposed cruelty that typifies Christianity.  Christianity, Nietzsche reveals, offers what is a mere illusion of selflessness; in actuality it results in nothing more than self-imposed cruelty as it suppresses the will.  Even one of the loftiest of values Christianity posits, love for neighbor, is nothing more than a controlled discharge of a Will to Power that the ascetic priest enacts on her followers to excite the psychologically disabled slaves to the creation of the herd.

One common, Christian approach to critiquing Nietzsche must be rejected prior to moving forward.  Nietzsche understands God to simply be the deified form of Truth, in whom faith should abandoned.  From this the problem of the value of truth emerges for Nietzsche, however, it is uncertain that he seriously considers the logical, possible reality of such a being.  Nietzsche simply understands God to be an elaborate value.  It might be tempting to simply, flat-footedly assert the reality of the supernatural through various branches of scholarship and thereby dismiss Nietzsche in wholesale fashion.  However, Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity is well taken; many are simply slaves, routinely occupying pew seats on Sunday mornings and slavishly going about their lives in ressentiment the other six days.  Yet, if an orthodox and richer rendering of the Christian tradition is considered, Nietzsche can be moved forward, rather than dismissed.  Such a rendering of Christianity reveals a Will to Life that extends beyond a Will to Power; the Christian achieves a Will to Life through a Will to Love.

In his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” 18^th century preacher Jonathan Edwards eloquently demonstrated the nature of sin and guilt Nietzsche saw the clergy impose upon the laity.

"There is laid in the very nature of carnal men, a foundation for the torments of hell. There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceeding violent in their nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in the hearts of damned souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in them. "

There is no doubt that sermons and teachings such as these in the Christian tradition invoke reactions of guilt and indebtedness with respect to God for many.  In thus observing Nietzsche was completely accurate, however, he failed to extend his observation beyond the surface.  On the surface the appearance of the Christian is that of the self-imposed cruelty Nietzsche describes; yet, internally the Orthodox Christian[1] couldn’t be farther from it.  Nietzsche’s claim is that the will is suppressed in the doctrines of sin and the subsequent guilt associated with sin.  In this particular instance, Nietzsche fails to distinguish between a suppressed will and a transformed will.  The Orthodox Christian doesn’t merely suppress her will; she transforms it out of Love.  The difference externally is negligible and apparently slavish, yet internally the difference is dramatic and powerful.  A true slave must act in accordance with the will of the master whether the slave desires to or not. The Orthodox Christian on the other hand, acts not out of force of will but out of pure volition, as an initiative of love towards God[2].  It is this understanding of action towards God that Jesus sums up the laws of God as simply loving God and loving one’s neighbor[3].  The outside observer sees didactic rules that seem to enslave the Christian, when in the truth of the Orthodox Christian’s perspective the actions are initiatives of love towards God.  While Nietzsche observes a slavish acceptance of another system of values, in fact the Orthodox Christian sees these values as important to their subject of love, God, and therefore act out of love.  Relating to God within the dynamic of love allows the Orthodox Christian to experience the divine in full confidence, affirming the self now free from any sense of guilt[4].  The words of Jonathan Edwards are not beloved by the Orthodox Christian for any reason other than the encouragement to experience the reality of God’s love, which is refreshing[5], life-giving[6], and self-affirming.  Importantly, not all who claim to be Christian act out of love for God; many indeed act as the slaves Nietzsche describes.  However, the present concern is not for the weak, ill practiced Christian faith, but rather for the Orthodox Christian. Therefore, the Orthodox Christian is active, initiative taking and life affirming; yet this Will to Power is exercised through a Will to Love. 

            The second major tenet of Christianity Nietzsche claims as disillusionment is that of selflessness.  Selflessness is important to consider for the Christian rendering of what I am calling a Will to Love, as Christian love is inherently selfless.  Nietzsche understands selflessness to be a cruel paradox.  The fact that pleasure/joy is sought through torturous means of self denial is yet another manifestation of the gruesome pitch of slavery Christianity has helped create.  This “triumph in ultimate agony” does little more than deny one’s own reality for Nietzsche.  Yet, selflessness is certainly a basic aspect of the Christian tradition, dating back to some of the earliest Christian texts. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others[7].”  However, for the Orthodox Christian this does not deny reality, rather it suspends the superficial for the sake of grasping the deeper, fuller reality of love in the temporal realm.  The Orthodox Christian forsakes natural and self-gratifying pursuits, i.e. adopts ascetic practice, in favor of communing in love with a God whose love satisfies the Orthodox Christian in the temporal realm beyond that of natural pursuits.  Therefore, the ascetic life is incomplete and only a partial perspective if left unto itself; Orthodox Christianity posits an exchange for the ascetic life: a fuller, richer communion with the divine.  Nietzsche failed to comprehend that the pleasure/joy from asceticism was not achieved in itself, but rather through the open door asceticism created that made the reality of the divine all the more available in the present.  The Orthodox Christian cannot focus upon her own sufferings at all; for such a consideration would remove the focus from Christ to the self-based righteousness, a perverse, paradoxical self-worship that Nietzsche likely saw.  Asceticism simply allows the Orthodox Christian to take in more of the love of Christ, while expensing a Christ-like love towards others, ergo the importance of the order of Jesus’ teachings on the greatest commandments[8].  Dietrich Bonhoeffer confirms this love paradigm with respect to actions eloquently,

“All the follower of Christ has to do is make sure that his obedience, following and love are entirely spontaneous and unpremeditated. If you do good, you must not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, you must be quite unconscious of it. Otherwise, you are simply displaying your own virtue, and not that which has its source in Jesus Christ.[9]”

Thus, the Orthodox Christian is no longer orthodox if she regards her asceticism as Nietzsche describes it, for no pleasure can be derived from self-denial.  The source of the Orthodox Christian’s joy and pleasure is the love of God, which allows her to act out her love towards God via love towards others.  Thus, the Will to Love removes the paradox from selflessness and replaces it with the ability to create value. 

By developing richer and fuller love for God, which entails a love for others as previously mentioned, the Orthodox Christian creates value in all the she does.  For in every act of the Orthodox Christian is love; therefore, the object of her action has been given value by virtue of her love.  In order for a subject to receive love it must first be considered worthy enough to be loved.  Therefore, by her act of love the Orthodox Christian creates new value not only for herself by in the object of her love as well.  “How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!-and such reverence is bridge to love[10].”  Nietzsche affirms here the connection love for one’s enemies can have for the noble, ironically however he posits Christianity as slavishly despising one’s enemies in ressentiment.  However, Christianity teaches love for one’s enemies, not hatred[11].  The Orthodox Christian, therefore, has the air of nobility surrounding her in her love for her enemies; yet, the common democratic Christianity is most likely that which Nietzsche describes.  Thus, the Will to Love is a Will to Life with regard not only to value creation but also to the love of one’s enemies in the same noble sense as Nietzsche’s Will to Power.

Thus, the Will to Love is every bit as rich and full of life as Nietzsche’s Will to Power. Like the noble, healthy moral agents who regularly exercise a Will to Power, the Orthodox Christian defines the good first, love for God and others; no other thought can compete in the her paradigm, save that of the divine.[12]  In the Orthodox Christian’s love for God and others they are active, initiative taking, self-affirming and thereby life affirming, like Nietzsche’s noble.  The Will to Love is also value creating in its ability to ascribe value to life through love and the worthiness of its recipient.  Also, the Will to Love extends to the Orthodox Christian’s enemies, who are declared not only good, but worthy of their love.  However, the Christian of orthodoxy who exercises a Will to Love is every bit as rare as the noble Nietzsche depicts.

Nietzsche levied serious and extensive charges against Christianity, and not without warrant.  The vast majority of Christians are a herd of slaves, ignorantly submitting to the whims of the ascetic priest.  Many Christians in the western church are reactive to the guilt and sin, operating only on terms of supposed rights and wrongs espoused by the acetic priest with blistering cynicism at the oppositional world.  Therefore, Nietzsche’s damning critique of Christianity is not brushed aside or taken lightly, rather it is affirmed.  Just as few individuals exhibit the Will to Power, few exhibit the Will to Love; the exclusive elitist class within the realm of the Will to Power finds its analogous reflection in the realm of the Will to Love.  “…Many will say to [Jesus] ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and do many things in the power of your name?’ Then [Jesus] will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me you evildoers.[13]’”  The life of an Orthodox Christian is not a common life, nor did Jesus expect it to be democratically cheapened. This is not to say Jesus didn’t desire many to walk the path; he simply acknowledged its treacherous difficulty.  The Orthodox Christian is very similar to Johannes de Silentio’s Knight of Faith, who one could meet and never know the better.  For the Orthodox Christian performs many the same actions that other Christians do; she occupies the same Sunday church pews, she serves at the same soup kitchens, and she attends the same bible studies.  However, the internal flow of love that exudes her every action, hidden even from her, is known to God and God alone.  The first question that one may ask concerning the Will to Love is ‘who exercises such a will?’  Yet the asker is frustrated, for no one knows except God. 

Lastly, one key difference that differentiates the Will to Power and the Will to Love involves the inevitable outcome.  In the Will to Power the logical conclusion of things is that the strong will outlast the weak and the weak will inevitably be exterminated by their own weakness.  However, the strong in the Will to Love do not overcome the weak on earth, for their love will not permit them to forsake the weak.  “Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak.  The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship[14].”  The Will to Love must always have an object of its love, therefore making necessary the fellowship of the weak.  Further, the Will to Love cannot ever be an exclusive love or demonstrate favoritism.[15]  Yet when eschatology is considered, the strong are permanently separated from the weak due to their weakness, analogous to Nietzsche’s Will to Power.  Yet is only analogous to the Will to Power’s separation for it is not naïve assumption of progress that rules the conclusion, but a righteous, loving God.  The distinction is powerfully phrased by New Testament Scholar N.T. Wright thusly,

“The biblical picture of God’s new world-a world without sin, injustice, death or any such thing-is not like the utopian dreams of those who think by sheer progress the world will gradually become a better place, those who build their golden future on the bones of those who have suffered in the past.[16]”

Therefore, the Will to Love has a distinct advantage over and against the Will to Power in its concluding agent or lack thereof.  The Will to Love saves all until the only agent capable of accessing the depth of one’s love, discerning the strong from the weak, does so in perfect knowledge that only such an entity can possess[17]. 

            Nietzsche made very insightful and very true critiques of the common practice of Christianity.  However the Orthodox Christian has emerged from the alleged depths of slavery to not only meet the Will to Power but to counter it with her Will to Love. The Will to Love meets all the demands of a Will to Power, and so is certainly a Will to Life.  However, the rarity of the Orthodox Christian is great indeed, though none but God is aware of her existence.  The most significant difference lies in eschatology, yet this is only a result of conflicting perspectives on the reality of the divine, which Nietzsche denies from the outset.  However, if such an allowance for the divine were available in Nietzsche’s program, the Will to Love would certainly demonstrate itself to be an advancement of the Will to Power.

 

 

Bibliography

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich

            -The Cost of Discipleship. New York: Touchstone, 1995 [1937].

            -Life Together. New York: HarperCollins, 1954.

Coogan, Michael, ed.  The New Oxford Annotated Bible.  New York: Oxford UP,

2001.

Kaufman, Walter and Hollingdale, R.J. ed. On the Genealogy of Morals. New York:

RandomHouse. 1989 [1967].

Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace. Nashville, TN: Abingdon. 1996.

Wright, N.T. Evil and the Justice of God. Downer Grove, IL: InterVarsity. 2006. 

 

*WARNING* The following are the confessions of a struggling Christian. they deal with issues so initmate that it seems imprudent to publish them even on a blog. But given that it is my blog and it's not exactly R rated, i hope, I'm pressing forward with my thoughts on the matter.

You know what's crazy? Sex (as in lust, thoughts, or any sex related function related to the individual) is harder for me to give up than food. As I did last year I fasted from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, i.e. 72 hours. I tell you that to tell you this: the motivation behind it was to develop stronger virutes in the domain of self-control. Sadly, it really wastn't difficult to go that long without food; largely this was due to the fact I knew I would in fact be indulging (eating that is) in the abstained substance sunday evening. People ate near me constantly, offered me food not knowing I was fasting, and I had no problem (saturday evening one girl ate warm and smelly Buffalo Wild Wings next to me in the Middle Ground). But ask me to not think about sex or do anything sex related and I'm toast. It's not for me not trying either: I've done it all. No internet porn/nude movie scenes- check. Accountability partner- check. Prayer daily-double check. Brokenness over my sin to tears-many times. All this and more and this cursed passion remains. I tell you all this to give context for you on this issue as I have experienced it.

There are two BIG lies in the church and the non-church, and each is proudly aware of the dillusion of the other. The first lie deludes the church- that real chirstains are pure and ought to be non-sexual being outside marriage, the non-church is well aware that is total crap. People are hung up on sex, no metter what your religion tells you about it.  The non-church goes further and buys into the second lie, that the issue is trivial and so long no one gets hurt or unjustly violated no harm is done, whereas the church is aware that is a serious issue and not to be taken lightly. Yet christians in my opinion are probably some of the worst at handling the issue. They can't speak about the issue at all without one of two things, and they usually use them both: judgment/condemnation (christains are really good at that one ;) ) and "not until marriage." the latter is my favorite; christians whine alot about having an equal divorce rate to non-christians- you know why they do? Non-christians know why; christians get hung up in thier religion and tell themselves to get married to have sex. Therefore, many christians marry for that sole purpose intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. If I had my way the former would get a bullet in the head if for no other reason than being an idiot and demeaning their spouse to the roll of a sex-doll. But let's move past the lies, the facades, and the pretense. Let's get real for a second.

If I could wish anything I would for one thing only, well two things I guess: courage and faith. Courage to do what's ncessary and faith to take jesus seriously (Mt. 5.30). Yes I mean that if I had the courage and faith I would make myself a eunuch (if you don't know what that is, google it). Some, likely those unfamiliar with the struggle, would say that ludacris, but I'd gather that it's definately half-heartedly crossed the minds of many christian men. I know women have a hard lot compared to men, with their periods, child-bearing and whatnot; but I certainly hope they don't think men have a particularly easy one physically either. It's pretty psychologically tramatic to take sin seriously and realize how your body seems hell-bent on sex one way or another no matter what you do/don't do. I'm not trying to stack the chips, cuz men would lose that one- I'm grateful I don't the female burden. But I am certain that this issue has reaked havoc on my psyche the past ten years and will likely do so until I'm pushing up daisies.

For those unfamiliar with what I'm talking about let me explain how this works and why it is near impossible to solve. Their are two main section of this problem: the internal and the external. It's pretty well known that men think about sex AT LEAST once a day, often more. The internal is where Jesus said it's equal to doing it physically (Mt. 5.28).  Like I said take sin seriously and men's minds switch to panic mode when they read this verse. We are weak when it comes to sex, and marketers know this full well. We buy things, go places, do things all more often is we are drawn in by a seductive, sexy female. Most women in fact know that drop of a hat they could entice a guy to do about anything if sex is dangled as a lure. Further, what better way to bring guys to chick flicks than a good sex scene? Same goes for TV. Internet pron is a enourmas industry and its not like they don't advertise. Wether its channel surfing, internet brosing, movie going, billboard scanning sex confronts the men constantly, who yes are visually stimulated more than anything else, everywhere.  This not to mention how a lady dressed a certain way, or caught in vulnerable position can instantly have the same effect. Great for the non-christians, another nail in the coffin of the christain though. 

Importantly, the internal has a way of animating itself externally in proportion to thought. So if I hate david enough, eventually I'll say or do something to reflect that. If I love my mom enough, I will do something to refeclt that. To this issue, if I harbor sexual thoughts enough, I will act on them in some capacity. At best this brings ineffable shame and humiliation on the self and at worst it murderously tortures the soul for invovling another person in it.  So if the average man thinks about sex on average about once a day, odds are his sexual activity is fairly active as well, granted probably not as much- but still pretty active. Again, swell and dandy if you buy the second lie that it doesn't matter, pure hell if you take sin seriously.

Therefore, the christain has a couple options. 1) he can make for himself a purity bubble, forsaking his respect among non-christain for being a "prude" and encase himself from the evil cruel world or 2) he can put himself out in the world and struggle to not look at the girl sunbathing in a small swimsuit, click on the porn ad, fast forward through the R rated sex scenes, and do his best to stay pure. But alas, I'm here to tell you it's little more than a pipedream to expect complete and total purity. inevitably, stress and fatigue take thier toll, defenses drop and you're back at square one- a detestable wretched sinner. Not a bad start for christian I suppose; grace is good but is only as meaningful one's knowledge of their own sin. But where God may understand many simply do not. there's so much shame, hurt and regret christian men harbor with this issue that it's virtually a taboo subject for many. women? forget it- they seem to be the problem, lol! (just kidding)

Thus I suppose I want to do my part to say that people need to talk more about this. Women need to know more about what, why, and how men struggle with this, in as much as they can stomach it. But more than all this, I just wanted to say that spiritual disciplines like fasting are awesome and grow my faith like nothing else; however, I remain a cynic at heart and were it not for the grace of God I would absolutely refuse another day of life if it meant I didn't have to deal with this any more. 

How's that for TMI? ;)