Tillich and Fear and Anxiety

In the second chapter of The Courage to Be Tillich addresses the difference between, and the interdependence of, “fear” and “anxiety.” This is very important for Tillich as much of the rest of the book is devoted to “The Courage to Be” in the sense of how this “Courage” offers solutions to these anxieties.

As I understand it, Tillich says that fear is different than anxiety in that fear is directed towards a definite object whereas anxiety has no particular object. Rather, its “object is the negation of every object.” (Courage p. 36.) Anxiety is not, however, simply directed at the unknown. After all lots of things in life are unknown and are faced without any particular anxiety at all. The unknown giving rise to anxieties is the type of unknown that “which by its very nature cannot be known, because it is nonbeing.” (Courage, p. 37.)

Tillich gives, as the clearest illustration of this point, the example of death. The fear component Tillich describes as the fear of dying – the object being the sickness, possible agony, and loss of everything that accompanies the anticipated event of death. It is just a component of the anxiety, which has as its object the unknown of “after” death – the threat of the unknown inherent in non-being. The anxiety lies in the inability of an individual to preserve her or his own being. This basic anxiety, Tillich tells us, cannot be done away with because it “belongs to existence itself.” (Courage, p. 39.)

Tillich identifies three types of anxiety that he focuses on for the rest of the book. They are (1) the anxiety of “fate and death,” (2) the anxiety of “emptiness and meaninglessness,” and (3) the anxiety of “guilt and condemnation.” These basic anxieties of life are what the courage to be, according to Tillich, must help us overcome. These three types of anxiety point to the three directions in which “non-being can threaten being.” (Courage, p. 41.)

Now this may sound quite depressing (that the rest of the book is largely about death, meaninglessness, and guilt) but it is actually quite uplifting because it really is about a positive approach to dealing with those large problems. This courage eventually leads Tillich to ideas about a "God above God" that allows theism itself to be transcended. But there are a few more steps on the way before he gets there...

Evolution, Creationism and Change.org

Okay, here is yet another reason to be happy Obama won the election. "Change.org" is a social action network website set up by Obama's folks where you can go to "learn about causes, connect to good people & nonprofits, and take action." They send you emails now and then about good causes and such and a few days ago they sent out an email that linked to a page headlined 'Petition: Thank Politicians Who Say "No" to Creationists.' It is a thank you note for some Texan politicians who are fighting the creationist dominated Texas State Board of Education. As the web site notes it is a fight that impacts more than just Texas - Texas is a huge textbook market and standards here can affect textbook writers and publishers in ways that impact other states as well. Thank you to Change.org for recognizing this as something important to bring to peoples attention. Can we have an administration that is actually interested in science as more than just a political tool? Yes we can!

Hick Online

John Hick has an official website and it has some nice articles on it. One I particularly like is called "Believable Christianity." It was a lecture given in October of 2006 at Carrs Lane URC Church, Birmingham. John Hick is a prominent philosopher writing on the subject of religious pluralism. The whole essay is very much worth reading and ruminating on. It ends with

... there will never be genuine peace between the religions until each comes to recognise the equal validity of the others. Let us all do in our time what we can to bring this about.

Evolution in the Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle ran one of those editorial pages today in which you have two contrary viewpoints side-by-side. Today there was a pro-evolution editorial next to an anti-evolution one. The pro-evolution essay was written by William Brinkley, the dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. With the headline "Dismal science education explains dispute over Darwin" it is a reasonable look at the current debate about teaching evolution in school and says nothing particularly controversial. He ends it with "For the most part, I generally agree with the late Stephen Jay Gould, science and religion are two non-overlapping magisteria that do not dance well together but can remain best of friends."

The anti-evolution piece however, is just way over the top. It is written by Kelly Coghlan, a lawyer. Not just any lawyer however, his website is www.christianattorney.com and is scary to say the least. His article is entitled "Teach weaknesses that Darwin saw in [his] own theory." It is so poor one really doesn't know where to start. What do weaknesses that Darwin saw in his theory have to do with anything? He has been dead a long time and the field has moved on a lot. Probably the biggest weakness Darwin saw in his own theory was that he had to hypothesize a method of passing on traits that could randomly mutate from generation to generation and in his day there was no such thing known about. Perhaps we could teach children about that and how he anticipated the discovery of DNA. Somehow I doubt that is what Coghlan is talking about. But what is he talking about? I have no idea. He manages to imply that folks who accept the evidence that evolution happens through natural selection are more likely to be serial murderers. And no, I am not kidding. How did the Chronicle decide this merited publication?

The thing Coghlan shows most clearly is how this is not about science at all, but about religion. He implies that evolution is an atheistic theory and that teaching about the theory's alleged "weaknesses" would make it less likely for students to become serial killing atheists. If this were all about science, then if they did teach students about these "weaknesses" surely the lesson taught would be about how science is working its way through the "weakness" to find an alternate explanation rather then invoking God to replace the science with mythology.

Happy 200th Birthday to Darwin!

I'm sure that this will be all over the news and blog world today, but it is the 200th birthday of one of the most important scientists the world has ever known. His theory of evolution by way of natural selection helped us to define our place in the universe and provided the "missing link" between ourselves and the rest of the living world. After Darwin we know that we are all related - every living thing on earth has a common ancestry. The living world consists not of separate "kinds" that co-exist, but instead a complex web of distant relations. The advances for medicine and the general study of biology that this idea has made possible cannot be exaggerated. So take a moment or two out of your busy day to think about this fellow and the incredible leap he took, to apply his theory to humankind itself - something many still cannot come to terms with. But as he said way back in the 19th century:

“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities... still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” - Charles Darwin (1809-1882.)

Greg Brown at the Mucky Duck

James McGrath recently gave this blog a nod with a “2009 Inspiration Award.” That was very kind, and I am supposed to pick five blogs that I find inspirational. I will do that but it may take me a while. I don’t get to read a lot of blogs and there are some issues I have to resolve (like it is narcissistic to mention one’s spouse’s blog?). So in the meantime I thought I would write a bit about other types of inspirational folk. And as we recently went to see an inspirational folk singer perform, I thought I would start there.

Last Sunday April and I went to the Mucky Duck in Houston to see one of our favorite singer-songwriters, Greg Brown. I think that part of Brown’s appeal to us is that he is a liberal Midwesterner who grew up (like us) in a working class family and so we relate to him in a very unconscious way. He sings a lot about small communities in the Midwest like the ones we lived in and grew up in. (In fact he mentions my hometown, somewhat unfavorably, in one of his songs which I drew his attention to after the show and we both had a laugh about. “Oh yeah,” he said, “I said something about it being full of ‘dope fiends, blown whores, and methamphetamines’ right?” Yep, that was it!)


He also sings a lot about religion and I think we relate to him there too. To hear him talk about it he is very liberal in terms of religion, but he feels strong ties to the old time religion he grew up with. One of our favorite songs of his is “Billy From the Hills” that he wrote for his father. He often mentions in concert that his dad was a Pentecostal minister when he was growing up. (“He spoke in tongues, and healed by laying on hands. Yeah… we moved about once every two years or so.” – From his description on his album The Live One.) Then he lets the audience know that later in his life he became a Baha’i. Again from The Live One: “I guess you could say his life was an opening up. Interesting guy my dad.” At this show he also mentioned that late in his life his dad took great pride in doing the electric work for a Baha’i church in Illinois. (Greg is from Iowa.) Then he launched into a great version of “Billy.”

As I said he makes it very clear that he is religiously liberal but he loves the old time religion too and feels connected to the passion those folk bring to their faith lives. On Sunday he treated us to one of those songs “Poor Backslider.” They work very well with folk like us who have known people just like (or barely removed) from the one he is describing and even introduces some fairly serious concerns many of us have with atonement theology and delivery from “original sin” by Grace rather than works.

I'm a poor backslider in the pit of sin
I try to crawl out. I slip back in
Come Savior save me--get a hold of my hand
Please don't let me slide back in the dark again

Well the preacher told me hope was never gone
I combed my hair with water and put my white shirt on
One Sunday morning I put the family in the car
dropped them down at church and went on down to the bar

Audrey left me and she took my kids
I miss them children--I'm sorry for what I did
When I get drinking I lose control
When you lose your family it's like you lost your soul

Now the mill is failing, I'm on shifting sand
I sit in my trailer and I wring my hands
No children's voice, no woman's touch
Just a whiskey bottle, some shotgun shells and such

Should not have let that woman get me so annoyed
Should not of hit my girl; should not of struck my boy
Should not of took off running like a turkey through the corn
Should not of bought this gun; should not of ever been born

The preacher told me Jesus laid down his life for my sin
Well I'd lay mine down too if I could do it like him
Three days in the grave--that sounds good to me
I just have some problems with eternity

I'm a poor backslider in the pit of sin
I try to crawl out. I slip back in
Come Savior save me--get hold of my hand
Please don't let me slide back in the dark again

(From the 1990 album Down In There.)

Now the character in “Poor Backslider” may be far removed from myself and (I suspect) Greg, but he grew up in the same environment as we did and I recognize him. He might have lived down the street from me... Greg Brown wrestles with religion in a way that is recognizable to me and his songs provide a welcome place to hear music reflecting an outlook on religion and life that seems somewhat akin to mine. He straddles the line of the small town traditionalist and the progressive radical – the same line I have straddled since I left home for the university.

Greg was very on from the start of the show down singing several covers and old folk songs alongside his originals. There was even a Dylan connection – he sang a song he attributed to the Mississippi Sheiks but he sang the Dylan arrangement. For the oral tradition folks among you, you can tell because the Mississippi Sheiks version is actually called (from the early 1930s) “The World is Going Wrong.” When he recorded it for an album in 1993 Dylan updated it to the more pessimistic “World’s Gone Wrong” on his 1993 album World Gone Wrong and Greg sang the Dylan version. He also did some old blues, some Mose Allison (though not his own excellent “Mose Allison Sang Here”), and a very funny Randy Newman song.

The Mucky Duck is a wonderful venue and if you are in the Houston area and love folk music do give it a try. But get your tickets early – it is a small place where you sit and eat dinner. Maybe a 150 people can fit in, so we had to buy tickets about 6 months in advance and even then one of the two shows had sold out. It was well worth the wait.

Houston Chronicle on the Importance of Evolution

As his 200th birthday approaches, the Houston Chronicle ran a nice story today on evolution from a slightly less common angle - the importance of evolution in the development of "new technologies."