Low Anthropology, The Big Relief and Seculosity book reviews

 I have been reading these three books all spring, summer and fall thus far.  I just finished Low Anthropology by David Zahl, so I'll hit on that first.  The reason this has taken so long is because there is just so. much. good. stuff in these books.  Almost every paragraph had gems worth digesting, so reading one chapter per week was about all I could absorb!  It hit home in so many ways, and gave an opportunity to change our views to one of more grace for ourselves and for others (which we all desire as believers).  I'm not going to write much of my own thoughts, because I honestly can't figure out how to even sum up each chapter.  I'm going to post reviews and some YouTube videos that you can check out on your own.

From Amazon~

"In Low Anthropology, popular author and theologian David Zahl explores how our ideas about human nature influence our expectations in friendship, work, marriage, and politics. We all go through life with an "anthropology"—an idea about what humans are like, our potentials and our limitations. A high anthropology—thinking optimistically about human nature—can breed perfectionism, anxiety, burnout, loneliness, and resentment. Meanwhile, Zahl invites listeners into a biblically rooted and surprisingly life-giving low anthropology, which fosters hope, deep connection with others, lasting love, vulnerability, compassion, and happiness.

"Zahl offers a liberating view of human nature, sin, and grace, showing why the good news of Christianity is both urgent and appealing. By embracing a more accurate view of human beings, listeners will discover a true and lasting hope."

A few of my favorite sections in the book, in no specific order and with no particular correlation:

"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls." ~Carl Jung.  Avoiding low anthropology is both the easiest and hardest thing in the world. It's easy because we are surrounded by countless strategies for sidestepping evidence of our limitations, inconsistency and self-centeredness, and doubleness (the inner conflict Paul speaks about in Romans 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.)

In regards to fundamentalist Christianity, "sin was/is the inflexible yardstick by which we measure others". Actions, words, even thoughts aren't safe from scrutiny. The list of sinful offenses seems infinite. Sin served as a foundation for self-loathing, a vehicle for shame and repression and all manner of judgement. But the prevailing thought was that sin could be avoided if you just tried hard enough. Settings where faith looks like more of a sin-management program rather than a dynamic relationship with a loving God is high anthropology. Church should be the one safe place to bring our shame and shortcomings, not the place where extra helpings are handed out. We can never underestimate the fallout of these legalistic forms of religion that all of us can be handing out or on the receiving end of and/or suffering the aftermath of.

High anthropology folks distance themself from "wrongdoers" because they believe that those who do wrong are a different type of person than they themselves are. When we realize that other people may express their pain differently than we do, we can have compassion not judgement. Not labeling them as a bigot, a rageaholic, or whatever label we might want to put on them. Low anthropology takes the uncomfortable position that resists categories. So called "bad people" are capable of doing good, and so called "good people" are capable of doing bad. This does not excuse anyone's actions, but helps us to see that we ourselves can be the bully or the abuser instead of trying to rid the world of "bad guys".

Basically, any time we think that other people could and should do better than they are if they'd just try a little harder (even though we know that we can't), we're coming from a place of high anthropology.  Or if we think that if they just had more and more of the *right information* they would do *the right thing* (even though more information doesn't fix our own doubleness problem).  A low anthropologic view says that we're all sinners in need of God's grace and that He's always trying to draw us closer to Himself, through all our life's experiences.

• Low Anthropology Interview, and another one on 1517.
• Chad Bird's book review on 1517.org
• Low Anthropology | Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary

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The next book is The Big Relief, also by David Zahl.

From the back cover~

"We could all use a little--or a lot--of relief from the pressures of life. And there is no bigger relief than the grace of God.

"In The Big Relief, popular author David Zahl spotlights grace as the most important, urgent, and radical contribution Christianity has to offer the world. He helps us understand the beauty and depth of grace, outlining how it provides relief from the guilt, status anxiety, and accelerating demand that characterize so much of modern life. Drawing on the witness of Scripture and a wide variety of contemporary examples, he unpacks the theology of grace in a fresh way, exploring its many fruits--such as freedom, play, surrender, humility, rest, surprise, and joy.

"Zahl invites us to embrace Christianity as a refuge rather than as a project, a beacon of hope instead of a vehicle of shame, and a harbor of refreshment in a worn-out world."

"The central hope (and scandal, and paradox, and challenge) of Christian faith, brought down brilliantly to ground level for all of us weary souls."
--Francis Spufford, author of Unapologetic and Light Perpetual

"The Big Relief is more than a good read; it's a breath of fresh air and a burden lifted all at the same time. Zahl calls us to lay down the heavy loads of performance and anxiety and reminds us--once again--that all is grace."
--Hannah Anderson, author of Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit

"The Big Relief reminds us that grace is a party, a piñata exploding with God's best candy, a free and never-ending gift. This book just might help you fall back in love with the weirdest, wildest theological concept in all creation."
--Harrison Scott Key, author of How to Stay Married and The World's Largest Man

• Chad Bird's review here on 1517.org
• Why David Zahl wrote the book
• The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World  by David Zahl

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The last one (which was written first) is Seculosity also by David Zahl.

This one focuses on "enoughness".  How many things measure our enoughness in this world, and how exhausting that is.  How we've replaced justification from God with self-justification from people and things around us to be viewed as enough.  And how someone is always measuring if we're enough.  How the church has become a place of measuring it (reproach anyone?), when it should be a relief from it.

"Zahl writes in Seculosity of our desire or yearning to be counted or recognized as “enough” by society. To be “enough” one must be successful in career achievements that come with important accolades, financial remuneration and recognition. Our success as parents starts with which child-raising models we follow and which pre-school we got our child into before s/he was even born. To be enough we must adopt the latest technological gizmos designed to make our lives shine above all others. To be enough we must consume the right foods/beverages and exercise regimen that produces the “correct” physical body. Being enough also requires one to subscribe to the right political movement or thought. And of course, one needs the right romantic partner or spouse to cap off one’s “enoughness.” " [source]

Ways this might play out in our own lives (the titles of the chapters)? Seculosity of busyness, romance, parenting, technology, work, leisure, food, politics, Jesusland (when church itself becomes another place to assert your enoughness &/or righteousness instead of a place to receive it). If you can succeed in keeping off of it in one area, you can be assured you'll find yourself guilty in another.  We can't escape it.  And then what to do about them all. (PS, again it's all grace).  

For example, instead of just actions being bad/good (Biblical sin or not), now our food is labelled bad/good and then it defines whether we are bad/good if we eat those things.  Controlling our weight (or lack thereof) determines our moral success or failure.  And it's ok to judge others by these standards (which it's not).  It's just another form of legalism in it's simplest definition (adding rules to Scripture that aren't in Scripture).  This also goes for where we eat/won't eat, what we eat/don't eat, organic/non, fast food/slow food, imported food/local food, home grown/store bought all have a measurement of good/bad to them.  And we subconsciously or consciously measure our own choices and those of others by these standards.  There's even a new eating disorder called orthorexia "which starts as an innocent attempt to eat more healthfully, but then we become so fixated on quality and purity...every day is a new chance to eat right, and do "good" and rise above others in dietary prowess, and self-punish if temptation wins (usually through stricter eating, fasts and exercise).  Self-esteem becomes wrapped up in the purity of the diet, and they feel superior to others, especially in regard to food intake."  These people often end up malnourished because their life becomes so stressful that their personal relationships suffer and social isolation ensues.  It becomes an obsessive pulse taking of enoughness.  We can't love or serve one another when we're so busy measuring ourselves or our loved ones.  That's just one example from the book of the ways Seculosity plays out in our lives.

This can also happen in the cultural field.  When churches start to get involved in cultural shifts/conflicts (immigration, prejudice, etc), they have little to say to the perpetrators of the inequality.  The said sinners in the equation.  Forgiveness has to be earned in these cases, instead of a common understanding of sinfulness and the common need for mercy from an all-powerful God.  The church has become a schoolhouse only for saints at this point (that I agree with).  What seems like a good cause can become just more do-gooding to measure if we're enough.  We want others to see our activism, our dedication to the cause, our sacrifices.  Our moral superiority becomes very apparent! (circle back to high and low anthropology)

The long and short of it all comes down to this: knowing what we should do or be does not give us the ability to do or be these things.  For example, if a friend tells you to "just relax", it rarely works as commanded.  The human heart always has and always will be in conflict with itself.  Religions of control work for a short while because they appeal to our yearning for control, but eventually they run out of steam because of this reality.  They promise joy and peace, but ultimately deliver anxiety, self-consciousness and loneliness and thus despair.  Christianity offers hope through grace, if we believe in justification by faith.  There's not much more to it, unless of course you read my post on legalism and moralism which most (all?) of us succumb to at some point or another to try to be "enough" by the people we know and thus think that's what God requires as well.  How do we remedy all this?

1. We speak more about death than we already do.  Our never-enoughness doesn't compute in the language of eternity.
2. We focus on human motivation (hearts) rather than behavior.  We're all in more bondage than we admit, more sinful than we think and so is everyone else.  "What the heart desires, the will chooses and the mind justifies". Everyone you meet is in the same dire condition.
3. Fundamentally Christ-centered, meaning not church centered nor consumer centered.  Grace- centered Christianity exclaims loudly "nothing that needs to be done hasn't already been done" (by Christ)

Thinking Fellows podcast interviewing David Zahl on this book (really good!)

1 Thess 3:11Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.

12And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:

13To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.