Steven HAuse just released a documentary on YouTube, for which, along with a few others (see the list below), my two brothers (Robert Warren Hart and David Bentley Hart) and I were interviewed.
Thank you for this, very helpful. I’ve thought of the bible for some time as a kind of biography - spiritual, emotional, psychological - from my / our birth in Genesis, coming to consciousness in the Garden of early infancy, inevitably having to leave it to start our journey, progressing through all the developmental stages described by Piaget, Gebser and others, reflecting all our vices and virtues, our darknesses and shadows until we reach the apotheosis of Jesus’ coming, teaching, death and resurrection - the resolution of all the preceding confusions, missteps in the transcendent acceptance of ourselves, of suffering, and the perfect love of the son, spirit and the father. The letting go of the ego on the cross, and the liberation from the death of the little self. And to top it off, apocalypse/revelation which I think of as the Christian version of the Tibetan Book of the Dead - the soul’s final journey back to the City of God. So the bible is a reflection of ourselves and like a reflection in water, it never comes back at us the same way twice. It’s a conversation and a journey, of discovery. Not a message from a divine dictator.
I would quibble only slightly with the interpretation of Revelation, which I view through a somewhat Girardian lens … but I will read again with a mind open to your TBoTD take. (I hadn’t thought of it that way at all.)
Mainly because it is the last book in the canon, so logically it should be about the end. But a lot of the imagery reminds me of all the devils and illusions and bardos the soul encounters in the TBotD (ie none of this is real, but if you don’t see through it, you have to go around and try again 😂 o dear)
Great video, I have always had an issue with inerrancy. However, coming initially from a Roman Catholic background, I detect a similar issue with the role of Tradition, which has unfortunately been a stumbling block keeping me from going back to that tradition or the orthodox. Regarding the later, somehow my baptism which was performed by my uncle, a Roman Catholic priest, being illegitimate rubs the wrong way, and both come off as God having a favorite Church. But that is my hangup.
Yes, I believe the same way I was born and raised to Roman Catholic and been interested in orthodoxy the past eight years, but I cannot make the jump because the chrismation seems like a confirmation redone I try to apply what’s on this video to my Evangelicalism
Dear Mr. Hart - I really enjoyed the documentary, particularly the Hart brothers! I didn’t know about Robert Warren Hart. He seems nice and more pastoral than DBH. Maybe you are the mean between? :)
Anyway, I’m one of the ladies in the back of the church, trying always to reconcile how so much of what I hear from the front - or behind the closed door - seems to make what is essential and simple and quite lovely so complicated. (Or taking what is essential and turning it into something to hard and solid that it breaks everything with its simple force.) We ladies are there in the Hindu and Sikh temples, probably the synagogues too. Not the mosques though, but I may be wrong. Western Buddhism too. Even the modern, householder version of Yoga.
(Truth is, we don’t really try to *always reconcile* it, we kind of just know it’s there and then go about our work.)
Here’s what we know in our bones to be the harmony underneath the noise:
“As a mother watches over her only child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with loving kindness.” metta sutta (paragraph 4)
“With the same evenness of love they behold a Brahmin who is learned and holy, or a cow, or an elephant, or a dog, or even the man who eats a dog” Bhagavad Gita 5:18
(Or how Krishna makes - is it Mahabarata or Shrimad Bhagavata, I can’t recall *because it doesn’t matter*! - Draupadi’s sari wrap endless in the Kaurava’s attempted disrobing after she was lost in a dice game! Who will not love him for this?!)
“Wherever the Lord is Worshipped in adoration, there the Lord becomes one’s friend and helper.” (Hakamnama Ang:733
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest until your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt 12:28-30
And I don’t know from where it came, but “Chop wood, carry water.”
Thanks for your substack — it often feels like a cool drink on a hot day. Very clear and refreshing.
PS: I’m well aware that some of the ladies at the back of the church are not as I describe. But there is some truth to the notion.
I think there is enough for all- some needing more solid, some less.
In the end it is our hearts that need softening.
I think of the "solidity" of Lewis's angelic beings, or of human persons truly become themselves and transfigured in glory; what is solid is real. And there is a path though very narrow, in the Christian tradition undiluted, to total fullness and contentment. This may baptize and make use, maturely, of the wisdom, practices (transfigured and 're-meaninged' in christ), and insights from other spiritual traditions.
I would share one little minor rankle: for someone like myself, I adore 'DBH' in his rhetorical ways. Not because they are 'soft' and 'pastoral' always, but because we are all allowed to be human, and some ways of being human are being pushed out unfairly from the public square by Modern prejudices. The heart is a secret and hidden vessel; love is not just softness; things are not in their appearances and feeling *alone*, etc.
Also, YES!
I adored that scene (I only saw the movie dramatization) how Krishna makes the beautiful woman's sari wrap eternal! Such a playful yet profound protection of the weak.
Thank you for this, very helpful. I’ve thought of the bible for some time as a kind of biography - spiritual, emotional, psychological - from my / our birth in Genesis, coming to consciousness in the Garden of early infancy, inevitably having to leave it to start our journey, progressing through all the developmental stages described by Piaget, Gebser and others, reflecting all our vices and virtues, our darknesses and shadows until we reach the apotheosis of Jesus’ coming, teaching, death and resurrection - the resolution of all the preceding confusions, missteps in the transcendent acceptance of ourselves, of suffering, and the perfect love of the son, spirit and the father. The letting go of the ego on the cross, and the liberation from the death of the little self. And to top it off, apocalypse/revelation which I think of as the Christian version of the Tibetan Book of the Dead - the soul’s final journey back to the City of God. So the bible is a reflection of ourselves and like a reflection in water, it never comes back at us the same way twice. It’s a conversation and a journey, of discovery. Not a message from a divine dictator.
Oh my, yes!
I would quibble only slightly with the interpretation of Revelation, which I view through a somewhat Girardian lens … but I will read again with a mind open to your TBoTD take. (I hadn’t thought of it that way at all.)
Mainly because it is the last book in the canon, so logically it should be about the end. But a lot of the imagery reminds me of all the devils and illusions and bardos the soul encounters in the TBotD (ie none of this is real, but if you don’t see through it, you have to go around and try again 😂 o dear)
Great video, I have always had an issue with inerrancy. However, coming initially from a Roman Catholic background, I detect a similar issue with the role of Tradition, which has unfortunately been a stumbling block keeping me from going back to that tradition or the orthodox. Regarding the later, somehow my baptism which was performed by my uncle, a Roman Catholic priest, being illegitimate rubs the wrong way, and both come off as God having a favorite Church. But that is my hangup.
Yes, I believe the same way I was born and raised to Roman Catholic and been interested in orthodoxy the past eight years, but I cannot make the jump because the chrismation seems like a confirmation redone I try to apply what’s on this video to my Evangelicalism
Dear Mr. Hart - I really enjoyed the documentary, particularly the Hart brothers! I didn’t know about Robert Warren Hart. He seems nice and more pastoral than DBH. Maybe you are the mean between? :)
Anyway, I’m one of the ladies in the back of the church, trying always to reconcile how so much of what I hear from the front - or behind the closed door - seems to make what is essential and simple and quite lovely so complicated. (Or taking what is essential and turning it into something to hard and solid that it breaks everything with its simple force.) We ladies are there in the Hindu and Sikh temples, probably the synagogues too. Not the mosques though, but I may be wrong. Western Buddhism too. Even the modern, householder version of Yoga.
(Truth is, we don’t really try to *always reconcile* it, we kind of just know it’s there and then go about our work.)
Here’s what we know in our bones to be the harmony underneath the noise:
“As a mother watches over her only child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with loving kindness.” metta sutta (paragraph 4)
“With the same evenness of love they behold a Brahmin who is learned and holy, or a cow, or an elephant, or a dog, or even the man who eats a dog” Bhagavad Gita 5:18
(Or how Krishna makes - is it Mahabarata or Shrimad Bhagavata, I can’t recall *because it doesn’t matter*! - Draupadi’s sari wrap endless in the Kaurava’s attempted disrobing after she was lost in a dice game! Who will not love him for this?!)
“Wherever the Lord is Worshipped in adoration, there the Lord becomes one’s friend and helper.” (Hakamnama Ang:733
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest until your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt 12:28-30
And I don’t know from where it came, but “Chop wood, carry water.”
Thanks for your substack — it often feels like a cool drink on a hot day. Very clear and refreshing.
PS: I’m well aware that some of the ladies at the back of the church are not as I describe. But there is some truth to the notion.
Yes, indeed.
I think there is enough for all- some needing more solid, some less.
In the end it is our hearts that need softening.
I think of the "solidity" of Lewis's angelic beings, or of human persons truly become themselves and transfigured in glory; what is solid is real. And there is a path though very narrow, in the Christian tradition undiluted, to total fullness and contentment. This may baptize and make use, maturely, of the wisdom, practices (transfigured and 're-meaninged' in christ), and insights from other spiritual traditions.
I would share one little minor rankle: for someone like myself, I adore 'DBH' in his rhetorical ways. Not because they are 'soft' and 'pastoral' always, but because we are all allowed to be human, and some ways of being human are being pushed out unfairly from the public square by Modern prejudices. The heart is a secret and hidden vessel; love is not just softness; things are not in their appearances and feeling *alone*, etc.
Also, YES!
I adored that scene (I only saw the movie dramatization) how Krishna makes the beautiful woman's sari wrap eternal! Such a playful yet profound protection of the weak.
I grinned and tears did come to my eyes as well.
respectfully;
-Mark Basil