Leslie Flores

Goodbye filioque! Why I became Orthodox

September 26th, 2025

            I think I was a teenager when I started critically engaging the hamartiology I had been brought up with. The rhetoric in the 80s and into the 90s from the mouths of televangelists called every disease or disaster a punishment for sin. Someone once said–and I do not care to find out who it was exactly–that the terror attacks of 9/11 were God’s punishment for America’s sins.

            But eventually my young inquiring mind perceived that this was not how the world worked–from my own theological understanding and experiences, God did not punish sin, like a tyrannous enforcer of lex talionis–yet we do have to face the consequences of our actions, whether sinful or virtuous. Sin brings suffering, whether delayed or immediate, and whether the effects are felt individually or collectively.

            What I was to learn later in Bible college was that I was reacting against Western Christian penal substitution and the Calvinistic teaching of Total Depravity, which had leached into the Pentecostal tradition that I was brought up in via Southern Baptist and Reformed influence. It was here that I started to untangle the myriad influences and theological strains of thought that made up my early life, being brought up at the peak of Evangelical culture in America.

What is an Evangelical?

            It wasn’t until very recently that I learned that Evangelicalism in the United States is comprised of three separate traditions: those of the Pentecostals, the Charismatics, and the Southern Baptists. Due to the fiery, black-and-white, polemic style of most Southern Baptist preachers, it was easy for Pentecostals, who faced a dearth of scholarship and quality resources from our own tradition, would accept SBC preachers as authoritative. This meant that clearly non-Pentecostal (often Reformed) theology came in to influence spiritual formation and the worldview.

               I grew up as a Pentecostal pastor’s kid, attending an Assemblies of God Bible college from 2010–2012. My entire childhood took place during the golden years of the Christian music industry. While CCM was booming, many lives were being changed and people were being saved through all kinds of outreaches across the country, and Falwell’s Moral Majority was becoming a cultural juggernaut in American political life. I became a teenager at the peak of the purity culture movement, and just after the introduction of the radical new ideas touted by the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

               Before the relativism of postmodern thought crept in, before my generation slowly grew up and started leaving their churches (giving us the deconstruction discourse and the exvangelical crowd on Twitter), there was the stable foundation of American Evangelical Christianity, which was and is just as much a cultural movement as it was religious. But what I had been assured was watertight theology and biblical interpretation, and was the truest expression of the early church was in fact not true in the slightest.

Questioning: Theological Beginnings

               I did a bachelor’s in the missions program at Bible college, having received a call to missions in Europe aged 17, and there I had my first basic theological education: systematic theology classes; a class on the history of Pentecostalism and theology; hermeneutics; survey courses in Old and New Testament, and a few upper level OT courses.

            It was in some of these classes that I continued to question, following the growing realization that I was not on board with a conception of the sin nature in humans being “totally depraved,” and puzzling over the complex and hopelessly confusing multitude of Western atonement theories. Gaps in biblical interpretation were not filled and were instead explicated away, creating what I felt were convoluted thought pretzels to make sense of seemingly incongruous details.

            One key example: when I attended the AG General Council meeting in Indianapolis (1999) as a child, another child my age prayed over me in order to receive the gift of tongues, and she prayed in Spanish–but she was not Latina. Although I have been prayed over several times for the gift of tongues, to this day I have still never spoken in tongues. During Bible college, I asked a teacher if the gift of tongues could be given to include the supernatural knowledge of earthly languages, rather than only heavenly languages–he said that this phenomenon was not attested throughout history, or in the Bible. (Bear in mind in Acts 2, each person converted that day hears their own earthly language being spoken in the upper room.) This was just one instance of the spiritual dissonance that was increasing for me as I went through my education.

            One of the most beautiful experiences I had, which made me painfully aware of what I was lacking, was when we traveled to a nearby beautiful church to discuss the theology of communion. It was the first time I had been in such a beautiful church, which had stained glass windows. We took communion together in complete silence–no music, no fancy lights–and I was struck to the heart by the beauty of the solemnity and awe with which we approached God that day. It was a shocking contrast to the era of “Jesus is my homeboy” t-shirts and the flippant, overly casual, and outright disrespectful attitude that Pentecostal Christians can sometimes approach God with.

            I left Bible college silencing the unanswered questions in the back of my mind, and craving a faith that approached the God of the universe with reverence and solemnity.

Dabbling in Dublin: Catholicism

            One of my Bible college professors, during a meeting in which I was seeking pastoral council, recommended I read from the mystic St. John of the Cross and his Dark Night of the Soul, and I rejoiced when I saw that someone else had had the same experiences I had, throughout the course of his walk with Christ. Years later I discovered Doctor of the Catholic Church, Theresa of Ávila, and had the same feeling of meeting a friend who deeply understood me. I learned then the value of reading the works and lives of the saints, and began to crave the depth of tradition and profound, mystical spirituality that I could not find reflected back to me in the Pentecostal church.

            The summer before I moved back to Dublin for my master’s, having already served one short-term missionary term with Assemblies of God World Missions from 2014-2015) I happened upon a sermon from Catholic priest, Father Mike Schmitz, speaking about the True Presence in the Eucharist. Pentecostals have ordinances, rather than sacraments, and for Pentecostals the communion elements of grape juice (not wine) and bread are merely symbolic of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

            His thesis centered around one verse, John 6:66, wherein many of the disciples leave Jesus after being told they must eat and drink His body and blood, or else have no part in Him. He simply posed the question: “If communion was only ever meant to be symbolic, and the disciples knew that, then why did they abandon Jesus?” He said that these devout Jews would have had to have been so offended by the idea of consuming real flesh and especially blood, that this could be the only reason why they left Him in their droves. I was convinced immediately.

            My master’s was under the Catholic institute in Trinity College Dublin, called the Loyola Institute. Through this time I was deeply exploring Catholic theology in all of my classes, while at the same time attending biweekly Eucharistic adoration meetings in the parish of St. Paul’s of Arran Quay, a vibrant young adult group, and the occasional Mass. I was enthralled by the reverence with which my Catholic friends adored the consecrated host, and loved the silent and solemn atmosphere in these meetings. Up to this point I had hoped to live in Dublin long-term, for decades even, and I did sincerely consider Catholicism as an option for me, especially considering the communities I was a part of.

            But there were too many things I found impossible to digest, or even flat-out wrong and unnecessarily harsh in Catholic theology. Papal infallibility struck me as simply the ecclesiastical version of a classic European monarch; the requirement of celibate clergy was clearly the reson for many if not all of the abuses in the Catholic Church; and especially the Scholastic impulse to overanalyze every aspect of the mysteries of the Church exhausted me. I loved the sacramental and liturgical aspect of the Catholic faith, but there was too much that was deemed too definite in a realm that I knew was hardly ever black and white.

Theosis

            Within the first month of my master’s, one of my teachers mentioned the Orthodox term theosis–the process of becoming like God. I was immediately intrigued, and made a mental note to come back to the idea when I started the research phase for my dissertation. I was drawn in because my focus in ministry up until that point had been the issue of discipleship, or spiritual formation. I was passionate about the lifelong process of what in the West is known as sanctification; becoming more and more like Christ. I wanted to teach people very practically how to read their Bibles, cultivate a prayer life, and continue to grow in their faith their entire lives.

            Just before I started studying Orthodoxy, I met someone from Thessaloniki, who was raised Orthodox and came back to his faith as a teenager in a charismatic community called Metamorphosis. We met at the AG church I was attending in Dublin and became fast friends. God knew I would need someone to walk alongside me throughout the journey, who understood both my charismatic upbringing, but had a firm grasp on the finer points of both Orthodox catechesis as well as the Greek language.

            He was the living vector of the Orthodox faith for me, and throughout our friendship in those years, we had countless conversations in which he would explain concepts I was reading about, or correct my thinking with what he had been taught in Greece. I grew in the depth of my relationship with God in a way I never had before. I was coming closer and closer to the Orthodox Church.

            That first summer after I met my Greek friend, I wrote my master’s dissertation on fasting and compared Orthodox praxis with the paucity of its practice in the American Evangelical context. Meanwhile I was reading texts like Vladimir Lossky’s The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, and learning that all the places where I found impossible tension in Catholic theology, the Orthodox perspective immediately resolved. The seven sacraments are called the seven sacred mysteries, and the Orthodox do not even attempt to outline just how something like “transubstantiation” takes place during communion (this word is a Western Christian word), let alone systematize their theology. Hamartiology bleeds into Christology which is inextricable from soteriology… Orthodox priests can be married. And for the Orthodox, sin is viewed as an illness from which we need healing, rather than an crime that must be punished and corrected.

            By 2019, two years after beginning my master’s and a year after meeting my Thessalonian brother, I realized with much trepidation that perhaps God was calling me to become Orthodox. I couldn’t understand it, as it made no sense for my current context. I had no desire to cut myself off from the faith communities I was a part of in Dublin, but I promised God I would do it whenever the time was right. It would be six years before I even remembered making such a promise.

Germany and the Doctorate Years

            A year and a half after I moved to Göttingen to do my doctorate, I was sporadically attending a local Evangelisch church, that is, Lutheran. I had tried several churches and was deeply frustrated, and had contented myself with attending services once or twice a month in a tiny church where I was the youngest person by several decades. I would come and listen and leave–and speak to no one, except to say goodbye to the pastor. All done in one hour, I would trudge back home. I was depressed and had fairly resigned myself to the fact that this is how my faith was going to die; that at last after so many rounds of theological education, I would become a classic case of an exvangelical academic.

            By this point I was still interested in Orthodoxy, and had even bought myself a small komboskini bracelet (black prayer rope) to try and revive my prayer life again. But I had forgotten the promise I made to God, forgotten that I had even wanted to be Orthodox. Yet through a series of events, made friends with two Ukrainian housemates who attended the local Romanian Orthodox church here, and by early March 2025 I was a catechumen, and was baptized then four months later, on July 6th. Finally home!

In part two I will do a little comparison and reflection on my spiritual life now, and look back at Evangelicalism from newly-Orthodox eyes.
Searching for the Half-Orange

September 10th, 2025

Preface

Two weeks after my baptism as Orthodox, I made a new (Orthodox) friend from Bucharest who had just finished a bachelor’s in patristics. While we were discussing my research, he asked me the most probing question I have ever fielded: “How is what you’re learning going to harmonize with what the Fathers say about Scripture?” I had been feeling a little trepidatious, wondering how critical biblical scholarship could or would interact with patristic literature (or patrology, as the Greeks call it), concerned that the two would clash terrifically. I was, however, encouraged by a Greek Orthodox friend that in such cases these two don’t necessarily contradict one another. This post is me venturing forth one little step to show just that!

Introduction

In my 2024 Greek class, I had the privilege of translating some of Plato from the original ancient Greek. It was strenuous work (nothing like the Greek Old Testament), but so richly rewarding. One of the texts we translated was from Plato’s Symposium about the origins of eros, telling the tale of what in German are called the Kugelmenschen, or Sphere People (189c-193d).

In it, the comic playwright Aristophanes is portrayed as the teller of the tale, insisting that humans should honor Eros as the “most philanthropic” of gods. He says Eros has blessed humans with what he calls a healing power, explaining it this way:

Humans, he says, are originally globular creatures, two beings in one, back to back—they come in male, female, and androgyne types. Because they grow too powerful this way, Zeus slices them in half as punishment. These new half-beings keep dying of hunger while hopelessly yearning for their other half, so Zeus mercifully rearranges their bodies so that they can finally unite sexually, and reproduce. Nonetheless, this forces humans henceforth to spend the rest of their lives scrambling around in search of their other half. Thus, he narrates, we humans are innately driven by the force of erotic love, seeking to heal and restore the primal unity of humankind’s original nature.

It may come as a surprise, but there is a striking resonance between this tale and the creation accounts of humanity in Genesis 1 and 2. We can see this not only in the text itself, but in later rabbinical interpretations—and, I will argue, there is a residue of this in patristic literature.

The Creation of Humankind

The creation of humankind can be found in Genesis 1:26-27, as well as in Genesis 2:18-24. We will see in the Hebrew that there is a third, gender-neutral term referring to humanity in general that is used throughout both creation accounts. Below I have modified the NRSV translation for the sake of utmost preciseness, and so that you can get a feel for how the Hebrew reads.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; …So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

—Genesis 1:26a-27

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the human should be alone; I will make it a helper as their partner.” …The human gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the human there was not found a helper as their partner. …And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the human he made into a woman and brought her to the human. Then the human said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

—Genesis 2:18, 20, 22-24

The key Hebrew term I have translated alternately as human/kind is simply the term adam, which has become a common male name. The word adam is a play on words, coming from the word for soil or earth, adamah. In order to preserve this pun we might translate adam as “earthling” instead. In fact, this pun is preserved in the English word “human,” since the word derives from the Latin humus, meaning the same as the Hebrew adamah. Essentially we see that gender did not exist until God “split” the human, called Adam, by taking the rib and creating Eve. Perhaps we could say that Adam only recognized his otherness as man (Hebrew ish) when he saw the woman Eve in her otherness (Hebrew isshah) and burst forth into poetry—the first poem in the biblical canon!

And in what could be considered an etiology (origin story), Genesis 2:24 gives reason for why humans unite as “one flesh” in marriage. Adam was one who was made two, who recognizes his other half and yearns to be made one with her—again. Does this sound familiar?

Rabbinic sources would support this interpretation of an original androgyne, too. Jeremiah ben Eleazar says, “Adam was created as androgynous.” (Bereshit Rabbah 8:1) Samuel ben Nahman also says, “when God created the first human, he gave him two faces, connected back to back.” The two genders are then separated so they can face one another and “relieve their loneliness.” (Reisenberger, Azila Talit. “The Creation of Adam as a Hermaphrodite—and its implications for Feminist Theology.” Judaism, 2001, 42:4, p 450.)

Patristic Support

Turning now to the Church Fathers, we see the same idea of a double being in the first human, and the human’s division. Gregory of Nyssa (4th century), in De Opificio Hominis (On the Making of Mankind) argues that the imago Dei is intended to image the archetype for all humanity: Jesus Christ. In reference to Genesis 1, he quotes Paul from Galatians 3:28 “there is neither male nor female,” saying that this verse “declares that man is thus divided,” that is, according to gender. He continues:

“Thus the creation of our nature is in a sense twofold/double: one made like to God, one divided according to this distinction: for something like this the passage darkly conveys by its arrangement, where it first says, ‘God created man, in the image of God created He him,’ and then, adding to what has been said, ‘male and female created He them,’—a thing which is alien from our conceptions of God.” (De Op. Hom., XVI 181).

Human nature is both single and dual, as Ephrem the Syrian (4th century) tells us. Regarding the account from Genesis 2, Ephrem reinforces the notion of an original twofold human: “God then took [Eve] and brought her to Adam who was both one and two: he was one because he was Adam, he was two because he was created male and female.” (Commentary on Genesis, II.12)

Concerning the Genesis 1 account, he emphasizes the wholeness of Eve, which does diverge some from Plato’s myth. Ephrem states that Eve was in Adam’s flesh, as well as in soul and spirit with Adam, “for God added nothing to that rib which he took out except the structure and the adornment.” (Commentary, I.29.2) “Everything,” he says, “that was suitable for Eve, who came to be from the rib, was complete from the rib alone.” Therefore we maybe would do better to view Adam and Eve indeed as two who were cleft apart from each other, but beings who were always integral and perfect in themselves. This is in contrast to the macabre tale of the Kugelmensch, who have deformed scars following their slicing in half. These scars Zeus directs Apollo to sew up, and so this strangely deformed flesh Apollo tucks into what becomes the human belly button. The Genesis 2 account gives us a beautiful image of God fashioning a flawless creation with His hands, neither Adam nor Eve lacking in form.

Conclusion: La Media Naranja

In Spanish the idiom for one’s other half is media naranja, or half-orange. Quite fitting, all things considered. And I would venture to say that the idea of your significant other being your “other half” comes directly from Plato’s myth, if not simply from the common human experience of our innate condition. Eusebius (4th century), funnily enough, accuses Plato of badly plagiarizing Moses (Praep. Ev. XII, 12:67), begrudging, “It is obvious he is not ignorant of the story,” (my translation) although he insists that that Plato does not understand the original sense or intention of the Genesis accounts.

So what is my point in drawing these parallels? My aim is not to hypothesize about the significance the adam‘s gender, or lack thereof. I also make no statements about a direction of dependence or the dating of either of these texts, even though my doctoral supervisor relishes finding Hellenistic influences in the Hebrew Bible. No, there must be something deeper in meaning, which goes beyond this kind of philological hair-splitting.

If we speak of erotic love in terms of searching for or treasuring our other half; if Scripture itself tells us that the original human was a dyadic being, containing both male and female; if generations of religious interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, have found profundity in this reality, what does that then tell us?

Modern individualistic society, like the American culture I come from, harps on about being self-sufficient, it prizes the individual. Current popular feminism would tell me, as the mother in the 2003 movie Freaky Friday says, “Remember, you are a smart, strong, beautiful, independent woman and you do not need a man to complete you.” Even wider Evangelical culture would emphasize the same ideas; usually it is married couples “exhorting” their single friends that they are indeed made whole in Christ, or some such. Regardless of whatever discourse we tune into: does it matter if an outside source tells me that I am complete, if my own understanding of my soul’s estate and my circumstance in life would say otherwise?

Ask the most fulfilled single person you know, who is also looking for their someone if they feel complete. Ask the newly married couple, trying for children and who have suffered a miscarriage if they feel complete. Ask the transplant from one country to another, when they are severed from their support system if they feel complete. God Himself said when He saw the earthling Adam, who was two in one, that it was expressly “not good for the human to be alone.” (Gen 2:18) And although this story of creation of humanity would seem to center around marriage or romantic love, what it carves out in the clearest block letters is a a stark statement on the inherently incomplete nature of humanity—made even worse after the Fall.

In spite of our cultural, theological, or ideological upbringings, we are all lacking. Any hard-won sense of fulfillment in any arena of our lives quickly fades or sours, and we are left with the gnawing sensation that we are incomplete. What is clear to us both in our souls and in Scripture is this—we need each other. We need communities built on mutual flourishing. I would personally declare that this can only be found when we are collectively striving toward some transcendental purpose. This is the True North, and this is the way to leave a legacy that lasts beyond our lifetimes.

And on that note, I’d like to thank—in alphabetical order—my conversation partners and inspiration for this topic: Doru, Georgios, Irini, Panayiota, Panteleimon. It takes a village to raise a child—or a baby Orthodox! Ευχαριστώ and mulțumesc!
The Foremothers of Christ: Redeeming Bathsheba

July 12th, 2025

Introduction

In case you were unaware, there are four women listed in the genealogy of Christ in the beginning of Matthew: Tamar (Gen 38), Rahab (Josh 2), Ruth, and “the wife of Uriah,” or Bathsheba. The story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11-12 is often read as a major condemnation of David’s character, and Bathsheba is harshly castigated for her actions, upheld as a negative example.

The older, evangelical tradition can often blame Bathsheba for “causing” David to “fall” into adultery, never mind the reality that adults are all responsible for their actions and choices. But if we read the text of Samuel closely, David is never characterized as a perfect human. Far from it, for he is a womanizer, brash, boastful. This interpretation of misplaced blame is severely lacking, and fundamentally misogynistic.

However, there has been a turn in scholarship in recent years, especially following the #MeToo movement, which has sought to amplify and center the voices of victims, which interprets the tale of David and Bathsheba of one that is nought but of terror, rape, and a straightforward abuse of power. I, however, am going to argue that this more recent position is an over-correction and an imposition of a modern-day world view.

Rather than empowering women, this interpretation places an unnecessary strain on a text that does not ultimately wish to warn us against an abuse of power. There is enough terror and sexual abuse in the Hebrew Bible, and there is no need to utilize David as an example of an abuse of power, particularly when there are so many other clearer instances of this elsewhere. Not to mention that such texts are outright depressing, and can be triggering to hear discussed ad nauseum, especially by scholars who can get lost in the theoretical and forget about real life.

Finally, regarding Bathsheba’s “fault,” the very points of contention for which Bathsheba is excoriated in commentaries can in fact be used rather as a credit to her character and cleverness—just as it is with all the women who are mentioned in Christ’s genealogy. (All translations below are my own.)

Assault and Terror in the Hebrew Bible

In 2 Samuel, the pericope of David and Bathsheba is conspicuously silent on the relations between them. In contrast to this, there are two other cases in which women are raped, one being Dinah, the daughter of Jacob (Gen 34); the other being David’s own daughter Tamar, by his son Amnon (2 Sam 13). Both of these cases have in common a clear reaction of grief to the traumatization and cultural shaming of the women who were victimized.

In Genesis 34, although Dinah is not given a voice of her own, her brothers are “grieved and angry” (v. 7). Simeon and Levi act swiftly to avenge her by killing every male in the city of Shechem, “on the third day, when they were still hurting” (v. 25). In the case of the second biblical Tamar, after she is assaulted “she took ashes upon her head, and tore the long robes she was wearing, and lay a hand upon her head and went away, crying aloud” (v. 19). Only after two years is Absalom able to avenge her, her and he has his servants kill Amnon (2 Sam 13:23-29).

The only record we have of the sexual encounter between David and Bathsheba, on the other hand, is in 2 Sam 11:4: “And David sent messengers and fetched her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.” Although the word here I translated as “fetched” could alternately be translated as “seized,” or “took,” there is nothing in the context to suggest it was a violent taking of Bathsheba to bring her to David, nor does the ancient Greek translation use a violent word, but rather the common, neutral word meaning “to take.” I do not think it is simply because David is using his power for selfish ends that the text is lacking any sort of grief or indication of affliction or traumatization.

Redeeming Bathsheba

There are several details in the text which I would like to point out that have been used to denigrate Bathsheba, which I think can be instead interpreted in the general tradition of biblical women using their very limited means in a clever and cunning way in order to secure a future for themselves. If you are not familiar with the other three women, I highly recommend reading their stories with this in mind! The circumstances each of these women find themselves in are exceedingly difficult, and they take actions that could be seen as simply morally wrong.

However, rather than being used as an illustration of a bad example, these women, particularly by being mentioned in an otherwise male-only genealogy, are honored for their bravery and brains. Each of them finds themselves in a real life-or-death situation, without a man to properly care for them and ensure their health and flourishing. They take drastic measures in dire circumstances and in the end, through their shrewdness find themselves folded into the ancestry of Jesus Christ! There is nothing I can think of that would honor or praise these women more highly.

Bathsheba’s Home Life

The odds are stacked against our heroine. We know that she is the wife of Uriah, a mercenary soldier who comes from the Neo-Hittites, a people skilled in warfare originating in northern Syria and southern Anatolia. (Wright, Jacob L., David, King of Israel and Caleb in Biblical Memory, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 82-83.) This is the only detail we have about her familial status—she is childless. In this society, women had no rights or property, and so were wholly dependent on both their husbands as well as any children they may have, particularly the firstborn sons, if they were so fortunate as to have a son.

Immediately this sets the tension for the scene—a woman married to a professional soldier knows that she must take swift and decisive action in order to preserve her life and wellbeing. Her only option following her husband’s imminent death would be starvation or prostitution. The next detail we learn about Uriah’s character is that he is so set on making a name for himself in battle that he entirely abdicates his responsibility to care for his wife (1 Sam 11:13). When invited to dine with the king back at the palace, he refuses to “go down” to be reunited with her. This sort of decision stands in shocking contrast to the overall ethos of the Hebrew Bible, which emphasizes over and again the importance of progeny and the continuation of the people, and therefore the faith. Bathsheba instead decides for bravery and self-preservation, and in the process, stakes out an everlasting legacy.

The Character of David

David, we know, is a womanizer. His first wife is a woman named Michal; later he marries Abigail; then he has Bathsheba. Bathsheba knows this about the king, and if I may be so bold, she also knows she is a babe. Although Bathsheba is often portrayed as bathing on the roof of her house in verses 2 and 4, this blatant public exposure is not entirely necessary. David spots her while he is taking a walk along the roof of “the king’s house,” or palace, seeing that she is “exceedingly beautiful” (v. 2). My room where I currently live has high ceilings, and when I am up on my bed in my loft, I can easily glance across the street and see directly into the rooms of my neighbors—all their furniture, whether they’re eating or laying on their beds watching Netflix, whatever it is.

Bathsheba would not need to be on her own roof bathing—this is an absurd notion, and because she is performing ritual bathing following her menstrual cycle, this indicates to us that she is a devout woman, and no harlot. (Although another one of the women in Jesus’ genealogy is also a harlot, and another one gained a son through “harlotry,” so the line of what is morally acceptable is not exactly black and white in these circumstances.) Bathsheba could simply have waited until the afternoon sun was beaming into her house, left the curtains slightly parted, and performed her ablutions from the [relative] privacy of her own home. The trap is set.

Ritual Purification after Menstruation

The next important detail in this story is in verse four, given in the NRSV as a parenthetical statement—she was purifying herself after her period. This is outlined in Leviticus 15:28-30—a woman is to wait a full seven days after the last day of her menstrual cycle before she is allowed to rejoin normal life and activities in her home, but only after a ritual bath in a mikvah. The average menstrual cycle takes around 28 days: day one begins on the first day of bleeding, which lasts for 3-5 days; ovulation occurs around day fourteen, and the fertile window lasts several days. The simple math places Bathsheba right at peak fertility in her monthly cycle.

One commentator in a classical exegetical source notes that this window of time was widely known in the ancient world as the most fertile period for a woman. (Smith, Henry Preserved. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, International Critical Commentary (New York: Scribner, 1899), 318.) Therefore this would have been common knowledge, particularly to the childless Bathsheba, and she seizes her opportunity in a timely manner. In the following verse she sends to inform David that she has, unsurprisingly after their union, become pregnant.

Bathsheba Immortalized

I do not necessarily see an abuse of power here, or really that David has any particularly great power in this situation. It is easy, as we know, for any male to forcibly grab a woman and assault her—David does not need servants to do this dirty work for him, especially considering how strong and mighty he is. 1 Samuel 17:33 names him “a man of war from his youth,” in the same pericope where he slays Goliath, we learn that he also has killed multiple lions and bears to protect the flocks of his father.

Bathsheba knew that she as a childless woman was about to become destitute and homeless as a widow, and acts to find a way to save her own life. The child that results from of her union with David of course dies in infancy (vv. 15b-23), which I personally see as a mercy to the child. It was an illicit and shameful situation, to be sure, and that child would have been marked for life as the child that resulted in the cold murder of his mother’s first husband, a bastard.

The second child to be born of David and Bathsheba is none other than the son who would become king and build the tabernacle to Yhwh—we now know him as King Solomon, to whom is accredited nearly all the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible canon. Strictly speaking in terms of the welfare of Bathsheba, her tale is something of an R-rated film with a fairy tale ending. She lives the rest of her days in the palace, becoming the Queen Mother. When framed in this way, one could definitely say—good for her, I am happy for her. Snap in a Z-formation. Call her an empowered woman.

And to speak in more Christian terms, what we see here is the grace of God made manifest in the lives of both David and Bathsheba, taking the imperfect decisions they made and redeeming them far beyond what either of the could have imagined. The choices that both these two people made had eternal repercussions.
MMMBop: Friendship in the Wisdom Literature

June 16th, 2024

This is a blog post that only one person in the history of the universe could write, and that person is me—with my love of the Bible and my love of Hanson, this is something that has been burning in my chest for something like twenty years, ever since I read Ecclesiastes in my early teen years. All translations are my own.

Friendship in Proverbs

A friend loves in all seasons; and a brother or sister is born for distress. Prov. 17:17

One of the biggest hits of yesteryear, which is rapidly approaching its thirtieth anniversary, was a song released by some long-haired blond homeschool kids, a band of three brothers called Hanson. They blew immediately to international stardom with their utter smash hit MMMBop, which is usually remembered for its nonsensical chorus of “du bops” and “duba dops.” They were raised on doo-wop and early rock ‘n’ roll, and their simple rhyme scheme in their lyrics and old-fashioned musical style still reflect this.

However, if one takes a second listen and pays attention to the lyrics of the verses, it is clear that this song has a deep message, which was ripped directly from the pages of the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. And soon the made up word “mmmbop” will also have a relevant meaning.

Verse one starts off this way:

You have so many relationships in this life / only one or two will last / you go through all the pain and strife / then you turn your back and they’re gone so fast. //

So hold onto the ones who really care / in the end they’ll be the only ones there / when you get old and start losing your hair, / can you tell me who will still care? // … in an mmmbop they’re gone.

If we take a look at Proverbs 18:24, we can render this verse, which is very difficult in Hebrew, roughly this way:

A friendly person has many acquaintances; but there is a companion (lit. one who loves) that clings tighter than a brother or sister.

In a delightful interplay on this Proverbial idea of seasons or moments, of loyal friends for all time, we see that Hanson describes the flighty, fair-weather friend as gone in an mmmbop, that is, in an instant—probably more quickly than we can sing those two syllables!

The meaning of this verse is debated, and therefore is rendered differently in any translation one may read. This verse is, technically speaking, an antithetic bicola, meaning the two clauses of the sentence portray opposite ideas. Thereforem within this binary expression is encompassed the whole truth about friendship.

The first half of the verse can alternately be translated thusly: “A person of many friends is slated for only self-destruction”; “There are friends who are for only ruin,” and “A person of many friends brings his own ruin.” The idea is—in stark contrast with the one who loves that cleaves tighter than a sibling—that some friends are only superficially interested in you, and are nowhere to be found when trouble comes. In an mmmbop they’re gone.

Proverbs further fleshes out these ideas of friendship in 14:20-21:

Even their neighbors/friends disdain the poor person; but the rich person has many who love them.

The one who despises their neighbor sins; but the one who shows deep compassion the poor—how happy/blessed!

The first verse states a reality, even if harsh. It is easy for resentment to build, for instance, between Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani, when Chandler is out thousands of dollars in the first seasons of Friends because Joey is a broke, out-of-work actor. Contrary to that, take Billie Eilish as another example. She said she recently realized that the people who surrounded her—who she considered to be her friends—were not in fact her real friends, seeing as they were only on her payroll. She decided after this to enforce professional boundaries with these people she worked with, and to rekindle old friendships, or forge new ones with people who truly cared for her, and not simply her money.

The Unpredictability of Life

The second verse, and later the bridge of MMMBop say:

Plant a seed plant a flower plant a rose / you can plant any one of those / keep planting to find out which one grows / it’s a secret no one knows //

Can you tell me? (If it’s gonna be a daisy or a rose?) / You say you can but you don’t know / Can you tell me which flower’s gonna grow? / You say you can but you don’t know

Here is where I was struck to the heart when I read Ecclesiastes, for its near complete parallel of 11:6:

In the morning, sow your seed and at evening do not let your hand rest; for you do not know which will flourish, whether this one or that one, or whether the two of them both will be good.

In the context of life, and especially friendships, this is a heartening reminder that we have no way of predicting which relationships in our lives will in fact flourish. Just seeing my life play out since the major upheaval that was my move to Germany has brought some shocking lost connections, as well as the pleasant surprised of some other friendships being restored to me.

Overall it is apparent to me that not only were the three Hanson brothers, Isaac, Zac and Taylor, raised on a steady diet of Scripture, but that this song has an incredibly deep message of wisdom to convey. It embraces the reality that life happens and things change, and that we should be diligent to sow our seeds of friendships, in spite of the fact that some losses are inevitable. After all, there are always one or two friends along the way who are closer to us than kin, and are nothing but loyal. This is one of the sweetnesses of life!
The Lament of Matty Healy: Addiction, Suffering, and the Body

May 30th, 2024

This post is Part II of some reflections on the body, the prophetic voice and lament in our society. Part I is here.

I want to speak about Matty Healy with compassion, despite the barbed words and bizarre actions of his in the last year and a half. His case interests me because his music is often so very embodied, whether speaking of partaking in drugs, touching another person, or even vomiting into a toilet. These lyrics are unpolished and visceral, and consequently listening to The 1975’s music—particularly when seeing the spectacle of their live shows—is quite the transcendental experience.

Addiction and Compassionate Inquiry

Unfortunately in our society, addiction is a rather dirty word, and we do very little to actually help with the restoration and healing of those who struggle around us with varying addictions.

One of my favorite thinkers these days is Gabor Maté, a Hungarian-born physician, a descendent of Jews who were killed in Auschwitz, based in Vancouver, BC. Maté spent over a decade working with drug-addicted patients in downtown Vancouver in a residency and resource center called the Portland Hotel.

In many an interview he always poses the question, “We shouldn’t ask why the addiction, but instead why the pain?” He is a champion of what he calls compassionate inquiry, and during his years serving those most ill in Vancouver, learned to move past the culturally-ingrained disgust and revulsion for these addicted people, and see them for the inherently valuable, and yet broken people that they are. None of us is immune, either from pain, or from our feeble, temporary attempts to self-medicate it.

When I gave a guest lecture at Northwest University in early 2023, I chose to use Matty Healy as an example of a modern-day lamenter, for his bodily imagery in one of their 2016 songs. It is not in spite of his struggles with addiction, but because of it that I argue he is an excellent example of genuine cathartic lament, which I feel is severely lacking in our society and in our churches.

So, in typical prophetic fashion, just like Jeremiah, we will move from prophecy now to lamentation.

A Theology of the Body

I always will argue that our bodies are relatively neglected in our practice of faith, of spiritual disciplines, and often in our daily lives. We must live as integral beings, and this means to honor and express the inevitable outrage and deep sadness that we will feel in our lives. Good, proper lament can help us do three things: it will help us cultivate a “holy attentiveness” to our bodies; will inform our sense of justice, and help us center our focus on bringing the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth.

One of my favorite theological thinkers on the topic of the body is Baylor University’s Matthew Lee Anderson, who says, “This is the paradox of the body: The body is a temple, but the temple is in ruins. The incarnation of Jesus affirms the body’s original goodness. The death of Jesus reminds us of its need for redemption. And the resurrection of Jesus gives us hope for its restoration.” (Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith, 2009, p. 35.)

Anderson argues that society’s view of the body tends to focus on a number of things such as sexual liberation; an “obsessive” focus on physical health or appearance; and a sort of “If it feels good (and doesn’t hurt anyone else) then do it” approach. What we need is a renewed Christian body ethic which is totally counter-cultural, both against wider secular society, and against broader American evangelical Christian culture.

Instead of splitting the soul from the body, and concentrating on only what is “spiritual” (and this is essentially Gnosticism, not Christianity), we should remember that we are integral beings; body, mind, and spirit are all one, there is no division or disconnect anywhere. Remember, both a spirit without a body and a body without a spirit equals death.

Why Lament?

In the 2001 film “The Fellowship of the Ring,” Frodo tells Gandalf, “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” This expresses what we so often feel—we long for a whole and pure world, one with no sin, oppression, sickness, and unwholeness. Gandalf, in response to Frodo’s deep sadness, says, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” We live in a fallen world, and that fact alone we should lament.

One well-known lament is in Psalm 22, and it utilizes intense physical imagery to convey the depth of the psalmist’s lament:

14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 For dogs are all around me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they bound my hands and feet.
17 I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my clothes among themselves,
and for my clothing they cast lots.

Potsherd

Interestingly enough, a very similar poem called Ludlul bel nemeqi, or The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer was written at least 300 years before that Psalm was penned, in the Bronze Age society of Ugarit. It was written in cuneiform, a pre-alphabetic script, and also utilizes very similar or even identical imagery.

Tablet I:

105 The day was sighing, the night lamentation,
Every month endless silence, the year misery.
Like a dove I would moan all my days,
Like a singer I would wail my lamentation.
With perpetual weeping my eyes [. . . ],

110 My cheeks burned with tears for a fifth time.
The apprehension of my heart darkened my countenance,
Terror and panic turned my flesh pale.
My guts trembled in perpetual fear,
They were hardened as with the burning of fire.

Tablet II:

Through constant turning my sinews were loosened,
105 My limbs were splayed, just hanging apart.
I would spend the night in my own filth like an ox,
I would wallow in my own excrement like a sheep.

Before we turn back to Mr. Healy, what do we observe in these two different laments? We see a concretization of an emotion, the expression of an inward phenomenon through the physical, bodily manifestation of emotion.

Modern Lament:

One of the most moving songs Healy has penned lyrics for is called “If I Believe You.” (Link here if you’d like to watch and experience a taste of the live show.)

Verse 1:
I’ve got a God-shaped hole
That’s infected
And I’m petrified of being alone, now
It’s pathetic, I know
And I toss and I turn in my bed
It’s just like I lost my head (Lost my head)
And if I believe you
Will that make it stop?
If I told you I need you
Is that what you want?
And I’m broken and bleeding
And begging for help
And I’m asking you, Jesus, show yourself

Verse 2:
I thought I’d met You once or twice
But that was just because the dabs were nice and opening up my mind
Showing me consciousness is primary in the universe
And I had a revelation
I’ll be Your child if You insist
I mean if it was You that made my body
You probably shouldn’t have made me atheist
But, oh, I’m a lesbian kiss
I’m an evangelist
And if you don’t want to go to hell then Miss, you better start selling this
If I’m lost, then how can I find myself?

From these lyrics you can see why he is also a bit of a provocateur, but I have highlighted the bodily imagery he used in this song, some of which is identical to the very ancient Ugaritic “Poem of the Righteous Sufferer,” as well as to Psalm 22—tossing and turning in bed. A word to the wise—when he says “the dabs were nice” he is speaking of some kid of drug experience.

To me this song is so beautiful, in all its rawness and unfiltered brokenness. And whenever I have seen this song live, the crowd seems to become worshipful, desperate for satisfaction, for answers, for just a sign, for an encounter with Jesus. We would do well to write more songs of lament, and to sing them regularly in our churches.

Suppression of Emotions and Illness

Returning again to the quote from Anderson above, this is indeed the paradox of the body, and the struggle to find some kind of meaning in our suffering. Lament enables us not only to express these emotions, but to voice an outcry against injustice, moving us to confront God in prayer!

Maté speaks of how important it is not to suppress our emotions, particularly anger (emphasis mine):

“How does emotional repression predispose to illness? Since there is only one system, not four separate ones, whatever happens in any one part of it will affect the other parts. The repression of anger leads to the chronic secretion of stress hormones, such as cortisol, that suppress the immune system. The body’s defenses are disarmed against infection from the outside or malignant changes from within.’

When anger turns against the self, as it does in people unable to express it in a healthy way, hormonal imbalances can induce the immune system to mutiny against the body. Inflammatory autoimmune diseases of the joints, blood vessels and internal organs may follow, and even conditions like diabetes and Alzheimer’s. It would be rare to find an individual with any of these diagnoses whose lifelong emotional coping patterns are not stamped by difficulty with anger.”

In an ironic way, the repression of any emotion, but particularly painful ones like anger, sadness, injustice, etc., can actually harm us deeply in the long-term. Thank God we have the ability and freedom to express our lament! It is healthy and necessary both physically and spiritually, not to mention key to our mental health. Remember, all of these systems are intricately linked to one another.

Conclusion: Self-Compassion is Compassion

So how can we apply these principles to our own lives? It may feel overwhelming or even impossible. But just as I quoted from Maté above, we should start from a place of compassionate inquiry, of self-compassion and honesty with ourselves and with God. Only when we are able to be compassionate and understanding with ourselves can we be truly compassionate to our neighbor. We each have our own limitations and bodily weaknesses, and rather than fighting against them, we should honor them–for only God is limitless and free of weakness. Truly, the expression of honest and raw lament, the acknowledgment and honoring of our emotions ultimately sharpens our ears and softens our hearts to how God wants to use us in this world.
Matty Healy: The Downfall of a Prophet

April 25th, 2024

I have always said that Matty Healy was the prophetic voice of a generation.

That is a controversial statement, and would be considered so probably by both the right and the left now. Before I get into who exactly he is, first:

What is Prophecy?

The typical idea of biblical prophecy is usually that its purpose is for telling the future. However, this seriously flattens the reality of the prophetic literature of the Bible, and thereby cuts us off from what I would argue might be the most nourishing aspects of the genre. Prophecy, at its simplest, is both foretelling, (For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…) and forth-telling.

The key with biblical prophecy is that before any foretelling of God’s judgment were to be fulfilled, the people of either Judah or Israel (depending on the prophet and the year) should be harshly criticized and chastised for the dysfunctional, sinful way they were living as a society. They were not only threatened with destruction and exile, but also given hope in that circumstance. The story of Jonah summarizes this biblical trope perfectly.

In Amos, for instance, Israel in particular is criticized for living in luxury extracted off the backs of the poor in their society, and for their sexual promiscuity:

“Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals—
they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same young woman,
so that my holy name is profaned;
they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink
wine bought with fines they imposed.”

And later Amos criticizes those who lounge on ivory beds (6:4), which would have been an incredibly expensive prestige item. Rather the equivalent of driving a Rolls Royce or wearing a custom-made Cuban chain: exceedingly expensive and wholly ostentatious.

Now, Who is Matty Healy?

Matty Healy is an extremely well-dressed, be-Gucci-ed Englishman of extremely mediocre looks, who is could be seen as perhaps growing handsomer only incidentally because he has begun to go grey early. He, like me, was born in 1989, and is one of the original nepo babies—born to two famous English actors.

The username he uses online, Truman Black, was pulled from a chosen pseudonym on his old Facebook profile, since the British paparazzi were continually trying to get a glimpse into his family’s life, and consequently his life. He says this was how he was able to have normal social media like everyone else, but avoid the press.

The reason why he has become famous in his own right is because he has fronted a band called The 1975 since 2002, with three other Mancunians he met in secondary school. After their initial 2013 debut, then went from a super indie ban with a rabid fanbase to one of the most popular and well-known bands in the world. For my little rock band-loving heart, this makes me happy.

He is also an alternately recovering and relapsing heroin addict.

Prophet or Provocateur?

As their fanbase grew, and as they released new albums, and as I attended concerts of theirs and listened to Healy hold forth in between songs, I began to consider him someone with sharp eyes and deep understanding about the deeply human dreams and desires of our generation. His motivation was always to speak up for the oppressed and the little person.

Songs like “Loving Someone;” “I like America and America Likes Me;” “Love It If We Made It;” and “Sincerity is Scary, are good examples of what I would consider his prophetic voice—critique of society, expression of angst, the desire for hope.

When he reached his zenith as a pseudo-prophet in 2016, it was the same year that both our 45th president was elected and that Brexit was ratified. We were full of so much hope, us Millennials were still considered to be young people, most of us still in our 20’s. I felt that we could rally behind him, for he was giving voice to our concerns and fears, and pushing for the right thing to be done in our societies.

The Downfall: Decadence and Decline

Of course, how could any one of us have known what would have taken place after all that, with the consequent presidential term of 45, the pandemic, and what now sounds at times like the death rattle of American democracy, or perhaps the West overall.

In late 2022 I had the great joy of going to see The 1975 live again, in an amazing venue in Seattle. Such good memories combined with such good, danceable music. Not more than two months later, on the same tour we had seen them on, he made a Nazi salute on stage in Liverpool in an oblique reference to Kanye West’s antisemitism in one of their songs; the following show he trashed the stage in response to the outcry because his message was misinterpreted; the show following that wept onstage and apologized to his longsuffering bandmates.

What’s more, within a month of all of those things, a podcast was released wherein Healy made a string of racist comments about several different people groups and ethnicities, and revealed that he was a consumer of an extremely disturbing form of pornography which portrays black women being violently degraded.

The 1975 have been my favorite band for such a long time. I always felt like it was overreaction when fans would react with feelings of betrayal and anger against their favorite public figures or musicians—until I experienced it myself. I was so pained by this that I wasn’t able to listen to their music for over a year. And despite his downfall, I still see the theme of prophecy as quite fitting for the figure of Matty Healy.

Conclusion

I have no way of knowing whether Matty Healy’s recent revolting rants were drug-fueled; if his prophetic-era rants were drug-fueled, or if they both were. But it became clear to me that his separation from normal life—whether through the numbing affect of his tragic addiction, his immense privilege and visibility as a child of celebrities; or through the extreme wealth that he has now amassed as a rock star—has muffled his ears to what really matters, and shown us that all that he is ultimately concerned with lately is himself. While society burns down around him, he too is lounging on an ivory bed.

He has been talked about greatly in the past days since the release of Taylor Swift’s new album, who ostensibly had a month-long fling with him after ending a years-long relationship, and then wrote several songs apparently about him on her new album. (The major Swifties even wrote and circulated a petition or an open letter or something heavily critiquing the unblemished Taylor for dating such a scumbag. Healy had at one point said that Swift’s mother looked like Miss Piggy. It was a major scandal last summer, believe me.)

So where are we? We don’t exactly have a roadmap for where we are as a society, but we would do well to heed these signs as a warning; that even the most well-intentioned of us can also be enticed by the idols of self and of money. We can be enticed especially by the idol of self-medicating to soothe our pain—for that is what Healy’s addiction is, nothing more than a response to the great existential pain that he carries.

It is also a good reminder that humans are fallible and can break our hearts, even our so-called cultural leaders. Matty said, while he was probably still sober, in an interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music in 2022, that he credited his bandmates with his salvation. I cannot imagine the heartbreak of those closest to him as he goes through these cycles, but I am still hopeful for his restoration and healing—even if it still feels painful to listen to his music.
How to Study in Europe (Master’s and PhD) in Bible, Theology, or Religion

December 27th, 2023

Studying in Europe for many reasons is an amazing choice, but for just as many reasons is much more difficult and requires even more work and research to get to where you need to be.

My Journey

I did my master’s (MPhil) in theology at Trinity College Dublin, which was a 1-year research master’s, for which I applied and won a scholarship that covered my expenses for the entire school year.

I am now at the beginning of my doctoral program in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (Dr Theol to be precise) at the University of Göttingen (pronounced Gut-ingen, as in it takes a lot of guts to study in Germany).

Getting here was by no means a straight line or even my idea of a career path until I was nearly 30 years old and halfway through my master’s program. Very few people actually know they want to study the Bible as an undergrad, and so often PhDs in Bible or Theology will have really diverse bachelors degrees, and some even pivoted from one or two careers a little later in life into studying the Bible or theology at a postgraduate level.

Your Journey: My Advice

Firstly, everyone’s journey is so different, so you should not expect your academic journey to unfold the same way as mine did. Everyone has different academic and personal connections, different resources (and lack of resources), different finances, etc.

Why should you study in Europe?

There are so many very old and very prestigious universities to choose from, with rigorous programs and academic traditions of excellence. Each university you may choose will likely have its own character and specialization or area of research it is famous for, both in theology and in biblical studies.

Financial Considerations

Depending on whether you choose to study in the UK or Ireland, or in Germany like I have, you will have different levels of tuition fees to deal with. While I did win a scholarship for my master’s, I did need to cover the TCD tuition with standard American federal loans. However, the fees for my entire master’s degree were approximately half the fees for one year of my private bible college undergrad. Now more so than ever, it is important to avoid student loan debt (or much of it) if at all possible.

German universities require just a small yearly administrative fee (maybe 200-300 euro) and tuition is completely subsidized by the government, meaning students both local and international do not need to pay for tuition. All that is important is to cover the (relatively small) monthly minimum that the government requires in order to be issued the student’s residency permit. Currently that amount stands at 934 euros monthly, and while it is a tight squeeze, it is a livable amount. Germany is far cheaper than the US, particularly because cities are walkable and public transportation is dependable.

How do I get there?

In the United States, applying to competitive master’s programs and especially doctoral programs is a major roll of the dice. Every year an abundance of extremely qualified candidates apply for programs, and the statistical reality is that you could be rejected, as positions are so limited. This is even more so a reality for funded doctoral programs at the biggest research schools.

In 2021 I applied to four doctoral programs in the US, having made varying levels of connections with the scholars in each university. It was difficult for me coming as an outsider (having done my master’s in Ireland). However, for one university I had a letter of recommendation written for my application by the then chair of Hebrew Bible in their graduate school. Despite the strength of that connection (as he would have become my supervisor), I still unfortunately did not make it into that program.

Wait, so you can just email a scholar?

The best piece of advice I received from an American scholar (and a fellow alumnus of my alma mater) was that if I wanted to do doctoral studies, I should find a scholar whose work I enjoy and admire, and ask if they’d be willing to take me on as a student. Although I did not at that time have any idea of who I’d like to work with, I did eventually, through my own ongoing research, encounter the scholar who is now my Doktorvater (supervisor).

It is possible to email any scholar, and I advise it strongly. You can explain your interests and what you’d like to study, and even request to have a Zoom meeting with them to have a conversation. If you are really serious and feel that you have an idea for research that would yield some interesting new things, let that be obvious in your email! You could connect on some mutual interests, which could lead to an open door for you to become their student.

This is how, without any prior connections, I was able to find my way into my master’s program at TCD, as well as my doctoral program in Göttingen. In my experience, professors can be incredibly kind, generous, and helpful—even if you are not applying directly to their university. The worst that can happen is that they ignore your email, or respond badly to you. In this case then you’d know that you probably wouldn’t want to work with such a rude person anyway.

What is the catch?

The catch, of course, is that you have to navigate your way through mountains of paperwork, find a place to live and eventually a part time job, or somehow apply for funding to live there as a student. This I think is the best option, especially if studying in a foreign language, because it gives you the ability to improve your language skills, surround yourself with an academic community, as well as physical access to their library.

However, lately it is not uncommon, especially for doctoral students, to spend time between their home in the US and wherever their university is abroad. If you find a university and doctoral supervisor willing to be flexible, you might be able to conduct your studies a bit more remotely.

There are also plenty of universities in the UK or even South Africa that will allow you to enroll there as a student and do your studies entirely from home in the US. You may need to do some travel back and forth, but it might not require you completely relocate.

Conclusion

So, while it is not unusual for American students to find their way into master’s and doctoral programs in Europe, it is certainly not easy. Try to find another scholar who has taken this path, perhaps someone who has studied at the same school (or in the same country) you are interested in, and send them a friendly email.

And as always, if I can be helpful or answer any questions, please send me an email at: leslitaflores@outlook.com
True Fasting: An Apologia

February 26th, 2023

I have had a handful of conversations about fasting lately, coincidentally falling around the time of Lent. If you know me very well, you’ll know that this is a topic I love discussing, because of how much it transformed my life. For the last five years, fasting has also been the focus of my academic research, and I am always thinking about it.

The point of contention I always encounter with people in conversations is the issue of fasting from social media. I would like to make an apologia (defense) of fasting as strictly a physical sacrifice of food, meaning that abstaining from social media, as beneficial as this is and can be, is not true fasting. First, we will look at how fasting was historically practiced, especially in the Christian tradition. Then, we will see how in Isaiah 58, the prophet condemns the religious hypocrisy he saw in Judah at the time. Finally, we will see why the physical sacrifice of food is so central to this practice.

What is true fasting?

Practically, fasting has been practiced by both Jews and Christians for at least around two thousand years. In Jesus’ day, Jews observed two fast days per week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Later on, Christians adopted this practice, but changed their fast days to Wednesdays and Fridays. There were also certain days in the liturgical calendar during which Jews were commanded to fast (like on Purim eve, or Yom Kippur, among other days). Lent is, of course, another season marked by fasting or abstention. Typically when Christians do fast, they will spend time in the Word and in prayer when they would normally be eating.

Jesus’ Instructions for Christian Piety

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us instructions for living a pious, or devoted life, saying, “When you pray…” When you give alms…” and “When you fast…” He contrasts the self-focused, performative ways in which people were doing these things with the better way to practice: without thought for what we gain, or how we are perceived. In modern day Evangelical practice, we tend to pray in our “prayer closets” and to give without being recognized for our generosity, although we likely wouldn’t observe fasting, regularly or otherwise.

In Eastern Orthodox tradition, which is incredibly strict around fasting, they follow Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 6 as a unified triad. They are told that on their regular fast days, whatever money they save on food should be given to the poor instead. It is a literal and direct observance of these instructions we have from Jesus, and almost surprising in its outward, community focus. We tend to think of fasting as an individual and private thing, not least of all because Jesus tells us not to broadcast that we are fasting. But our fasting is pointless if it does not in some way help me love my neighbor better, and benefit someone else other than myself.

Hypocritical Fasting

Beyond weekly fasting, in the Old Testament, sometimes it was used as a way to try and get God’s attention, to ask Him for mercy in suffering. Hannah does this in 1 Samuel 1 when she is desperate for a child, and God gives her a son in Samuel, the first prophet of Israel. David also does this in 2 Samuel 12, in an attempt to save his son’s life after conceiving illegitimately with Bathsheba. His plea is not answered in this instance. This kind of fasting is what is happening in Isaiah 58, in which God answers back to why their pleading fasts are unsuccessful. At the beginning of this chapter, God quotes the people of Judah:

“‘Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’” (58:3a).

God responds by saying,

“Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and suppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. …Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?” (vv. 3-4, 5b)

Following this, God corrects them by telling them they should pursue justice and to fight for the poor, oppressed, and marginalized:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” (vv. 6-7)

The setting of this chapter takes place around the end of the 8th century or early 7th century BCE, after the nation of Israel has split in two: Israel in the north (who had already fallen to the Assyrians), and Judah in the south. Isaiah is in the Judean capital of Jerusalem, speaking to the nation of the imminent threat of invasion and destruction on the horizon. He warns them that if they do not return to God, their city will be destroyed. Of course we do know that Jerusalem did eventually fall, to the Babylonians, less than 150 years afterward, and the people of God were sent into exile.

In a manner not much different from today, the poor were being extorted and exploited in order to benefit a very few rich at the top. This is what the prophets time and again condemned, for we know this is not what God commanded for His people. He hates religious hypocrisy and performative piety. In continuation with the Old Testament prophetic tradition, just as in Matthew 6, we also see this in the words of Jesus in Matthew 9:13, where he quotes from Hosea: “I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hos. 6:9)

Social Media “Fasting”

Having done a brief overview of how fasting was practiced historically by both Jews and Christians on a regular basis; how improper fasting was condemned in the Old Testament; and how different Christian traditions practice fasting still today, where do we place abstention from social media?

A simple reductio ad absurdum will make the matter clear: Jesus did not have a Facebook to delete from his phone; Moses did not have Instagram to abstain from; and Paul certainly did not spend his evenings scrolling on Twitter or TikTok. I use social media daily, and I am not calling it evil. Nor am I saying that abstaining from social media for a time is hypocritical, pointless, or self-serving. While there is much benefit in decreasing our time scrolling mindlessly, I maintain it is a shortsighted way to cultivate one of those time-honored spiritual disciplines, like prayer, fasting, scripture reading, and simply sitting still in God’s presence.

As we have seen in both the Old Testament and the New, true fasting must be sacrificial, and involve abstention from food. This sacrifice is just as legitimate whether it is as small as giving up chocolate or meat, or doing a full, water-only fast for a time. The cravings or hunger of the body must be a reminder to us throughout our fast of the sacrifice we have chosen to make, and why we have chosen to do so–and that is so that we see God’s will be done and his Kingdom come!

We are called to imitate Christ in his self-sacrificial love for us, and fasting can become a highly effective way to live out a cruciform life. Through this we willingly enter into the suffering of Christ, even on some small level, for its power to transform us more and more into His image. Therefore, while abstaining from social media is a useful auxiliary to our cultivation of spiritual disciplines, we cannot call it fasting. Be encouraged, this is a doable practice that can yield much fruit, even with the smallest of sacrifices.
Seeking Shalom Part II: Fasting & Flourishing

September 19th, 2022

When I was still living in Dublin I spent the last three years living in an area formerly known as Little Jerusalem, due to the once-thriving Jewish community who lived in the neighborhood. There are some rare Hebrew-origin streets names there which hint at this. I lived on a street called Reuben Avenue, and a stone’s throw away from my house was a Place called Rehoboth, which comes from Genesis 26:22, wherein Isaac finally finds a place to settle with his flocks and his family. Rehoboth essentially means “wide open spaces,” like that 90’s song from The Chicks!

He moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” Gen. 26:22

On the end of Rehoboth Place, there stands an enormous house that looks like it was built to be a multi-family dwelling. Rather, it was for one family in the 18th century who had twenty four (!!) children. They chose a place to live, then outside the city walls, where there were some good spring-fed wells, and they could have enough space for all their children; thus the name, and the large building.

Both this Irish family, and the family of Isaac, had to find a defined and definite place to settle down, in order to flourish. What is the connection between my exploration of weakness through fasting, and flourishing? I believe that it is to be found along our boundary lines.

Boundary Lines

A year ago I wrote about fasting and I made a claim that it should generate compassion through a recognition of our own weaknesses. “What fasting does is simultaneously heighten the threshold for personal suffering, and deepen a sense of compassion because of that suffering.” I have recently realized that I never backed up that claim, which is unscientific of me. Today I want to explore this claim a little bit, drawing from pastoral metaphors of boundary lines and wide open spaces.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. Ps. 16:5-6

As we know from the first chapters of Genesis, each of us is like a cracked mirror–broken, weakened, flawed. Each of us has a lack, in one form or another. We each carry spiritual and therefore physical impoverishment, and to deny this about ourselves and the world would actually be an expression of that fallen state. Our brokenness should lead us back to God, without whom we cannot flourish. However, we are also finite beings, with other, normal–or even healthy–weaknesses, which delineate who we are and our abilities.

One of my now-favorite bible scholars I actually came across during the first lockdown while I was unemployed, and I reached out to him mid-2020 to thank him for how much his research had re-energized me as a scholar. (Ultimately our conversations and his guidance is what in fact led me to Germany this summer!) In my first email, I mentioned I was interested in researching fasting in the Hebrew Bible, and he responded that the isolation and low activity of the pandemic felt like a kind of fasting to him.

Although it was not technically fasting per se, many of us had the time to step away from our normal lives and to deeply examine our souls, to remind ourselves of what we truly value. We also faced our greatest fears around mortality and health, financial instability, and isolation. It was a painful denial of the goodness of social interaction for the greater good of others’ physical health and safety, as well as our own. It was a kind of vow of poverty which we all had to take.

Hangriness & Bad Habits

In one of my first posts about fasting, back in 2018, I talk about how fasting makes us hangry, in more ways than one: “There’s a deeper kind of agitated hunger that we uncover through fasting.” In my initial days cultivating this discipline, I used the physical hunger pangs I was feeling to redirect my mind toward my goal of uninterrupted time with Jesus, solely focused on Him and His Word. I became more able to tolerate the alarm signals in my body, and to train my being to understand that while I would be breaking my fast that evening, there was a greater good I was in pursuit of. This resulted, eventually, in control over my constant sugar cravings, among other transformations.

Initially I just saw this as a wonderful ascetic practice that was intended to bring about greater self-discipline and therefore Christlikeness. However, when I first began fasting, it was late 2016 and I had, for the second time, moved back from Dublin to live with my parents. I was 26 years old, living in a town where I had no friends, and the place just made me feel trapped, lifeless, and at times, hopeless that I would ever find my way back to Dublin to live there more permanently. So it makes sense that a sugar buzz temporarily dampened the depressed feeling I was living with. However, some of that hopelessness also stemmed from my fear that God would forget about me, and that He would not provide for me to return to Ireland. A spiritual wound, a sin-flaw, not to trust fully in God, and to take my own emotions as the truth.

Central here is that we often, or always, fail to see that “bad habits” are always somehow connected, especially our bodily habits, to deeper pain. If we don’t acknowledge the root cause, our spiritual impoverishment, then we will never be rid of the symptomatic bad habits that either niggle at or hound us daily. God wants deeper and deeper healing for us, but we have to have the bravery to choose it.

Boundary Lines

Let us return to the classic pastoral metaphor that I began with in Psalms. Each of us is allotted a wide open space, a pleasant and fertile land which is our lives, and it is our God-given responsibility, like Adam, or Isaac, to cultivate, nurture, and protect that land. If I am the landlady of my own life, and my silly sheep keep escaping through a broken fence in their pen, I must do the hard work of rebuilding that fence, ultimately to protect my livelihood. Then when the foxes come prowling around my perimeter at night, my sheep will no longer keep becoming someone else’s dinner.

How does this generate compassion, then, as I am claiming? Perhaps I know a younger or more inexperienced landowner who has broken fences that need mending, and they think buying border collie puppies will solve the problem, but it just doesn’t work. I could show my neighbor instead how to repair their fence. Or maybe I own a portion of forested land, and I can share timber for fencing, because my neighbor is poorer than I, and they are in need of wood. Awareness of our flaws should make us more compassionate toward the flaws we see in others, rather than antagonistic and full of blame and anger. I am no better than anyone else.

Put plainly, the goal of asceticism is to bear the fruit of righteousness, but that righteousness is not only of value in and of itself; it must be of benefit to others. This means mending fences, shoring up our weak places, and learning to flourish within our rehoboth.

Dwelling in Rehoboth

A further example from my time in Dublin: I initially thought that I loved youth ministry, but after seeing how exhausted and sick I became after one week of youth camp (two summers in a row!) once I returned to Dublin for my master’s, I stepped away from youth ministry to focus on young adult ministry, and especially, my studies. This is another kind of human weakness–a weakness at our limits, which actually indicates where our strength is. It makes sense that I would be plagued by awful sinus infection for a week or more after Pulse camp, because my body was constantly in fight-or-flight mode from overstimulation, lack of sleep, and physically pushing myself.

Our limits delineate who we are, which is why it is so important to know and fight for our boundaries. I am not responsible for guarding someone else’s cabbage patch; or if I try to pull slugs off someone’s tomatoes all day, then the rabbits will nibble away all my radishes, and my overgrown zucchini will choke out the onions, and all my ripe plums will fall to the ground, wasted.

How are my physical and mental limits also tied to my flawed sin nature? I can see now that my adrenaline-fueled time in youth ministry was actually driven by a wrong idea that I had to change my personality in order to fit in (and avoid rejection) as well as a sense of obligation to “perform” like a good missionary. That stemmed from my own previous wounds, insecurities, and dysfunctional ways of viewing the world. I didn’t respect my own limits, which is a sure path to burnout and spiritual barrenness. Once I started to respect those limits while doing my master’s, then I began to produce fruit that has led me to begin dreaming of a career as an academic and scholar.

Self-Compassion is Compassion

The cultivated pain and discipline of fasting (focused time in prayer and Bible-reading) clears our vision and gives perspective into our souls, illuminating the places where we need His healing. The time we spend reading the Bible, rather than eating, nourishes us with divine wisdom to then understand the shortcoming of others, and more broadly, the systemic dysfunction in our world. To willingly create a limit (i.e., I will fast once a week) can be perceived as weakness in a productivity-driven society. But it is within those boundary lines, on our fertile inner fields, that we can begin to flourish. That is God’s gift to us!

My responsibility–indeed, my calling– is to give that gift back to Him, through loving my neighbor as myself. If I am flourishing, then I can better serve others and find ways to help them flourish uniquely. I want to give out of a plentiful harvest. This includes the joyful responsibility of respecting my own limits and cherishing my unique strengths, but also the continued task of healing and ever-increasing in Christlike character and love. This, friends, is how we stay in pursuit of the shalom of the Kingdom, bringing heaven down to earth.
Snowdrops vs Slush

February 7th, 2022

The transition from winter to spring manifests itself completely differently in Ireland, versus here in the semi-arid steppes of the Columbia River Basin. We had over a foot of snow a month ago, and now it is melting away, slowly revealing only mud or flattened, dead yellow grass below. I recently saw someone in Dublin post a photo of snowdrops that had just appeared, and it reminded me of what I was missing. After the years I spent in Dublin, cycling through the seasons, and immersing myself consciously and subconsciously in the Irish way of things, I began to acclimate to the Celtic calendar and the rhythms of nature, which are much quieter and subtler than here in the US. Last week marked the entry into spring with the ancient feast of Imbolc, and St. Brigid’s Day.

Syncretism or Symbolism?

In nature, Imbolc brings the beginning of spring through the beginning of lambing season, the appearance of crocuses and snowdrops, and longer days, among other things. Snowdrops are tiny white flowers on slender, delicate stems, which appear at the end of January, and bring with them a sigh of relief. It brings a joy that reminds us that winter was dark and long and dormant, but that there was something lovely waiting to appear under the black soil, usually sheltered by some tree above.

Imbolc is associated with the mysterious figure of St. Brigid, who is attributed with establishing many convents, especially in County Kildare, between the 5th and 6th centuries. She was such an early saint that she is venerated both in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic church, because she was pre-schism! Brigid’s mother may even have been baptized by St. Patrick himself, making her an extra special figure.

She also has the same name as an Irish spring goddess, whose feast day was originally Imbolc, on February 1st. The goddess Brigid had a druidic shrine in Kildare. A Norman writer in the 12th century described her temple, wherein an eternal, ashless flame was guarded, and apparently no men were allowed to enter. Some scholars think that St. Brigid was a Christianized version of an already existing Celtic tradition, in Imbolc. We’re not even certain Brigid was a real person, and she could function as a composite figure representing several actual Irish Christian female saints, unnamed but roughly from the 5th or 6th centuries.

Hagiographies, or the biographies of saints lives, are delightfully mysterious and not straightforward, but the principles and truths that these compilations communicate are far truer than any accurate historical representation of how they lived. It’s not for us to say what is historical; too much time has passed. But the value in their lives lies not in the exact details, but in understanding what we can learn from these brothers and sisters in Christ. This was the ultimate goal of hagiographers who wrote about important Irish figures like St. Patrick, St. Kevin, St. Brigid, and St. Columcille. They were less historians and more theologians, weaving mysterious elements within that point the reader toward an awe of God and His faithfulness in the saints’ lives. Similarly, just because fairy tales are not “true” doesn’t mean they aren’t true, if you know what I mean. Metaphor and symbol can be much more powerful than direct speech, even for those of us who have seen and do believe in the miraculous, supernatural power of God.

We might call St. Brigid a syncretistic figure, and in missiology we don’t like that; but after living in Ireland so long, the pull of the seasons, the influence of nature and our dependence on her are irresistible reasons to associate a figure like St. Brigid with the beginning of spring. Instead of syncretism, it could be viewed as a redemption of good and natural human celebrations, only viewed through the life-changing power of the resurrection, symbolized, for the Irish, by St. Brigid’s life and ministry. All the more wonderful is the fact that women’s work in the Kingdom of God is routinely celebrated and remembered these past fifteen centuries.

Sacred Seasons and Liturgy

Much in a similar way to how our Christian holidays conform to seasonal celebrations (Christmas right around the winter solstice, Easter vaguely within spring, etc.), our daily and yearly rhythms are the boundaries and limits in which we can best understand and practice our faith. I find myself, even as a Pentecostal, yearning for much more liturgy in church. It orients us to the truth, to God, and our relationship to Him, time and again, especially when our lives look so different after living through a global pandemic.

I don’t know how to explain it, but the changing of the seasons in Ireland feels much more immediate. Spring arrives in the beginning of February, summer in May, and autumn in early September. Something about its northerly latitude and the mild weather means that within a day or two of new seasons, aligned instead to the lunar cycle rather than the solar year, there is a definite shift that occurs. Suddenly, the color of the light changes, as days lengthen after Imbolc, the air seems less oppressively cold, and with the appearance of snowdrops and crocuses, it’s a reminder of just how incredibly fertile the land is, and always was.

The green persists year-round in Ireland and there is often no snow to melt away, but fresh life and delicate flowers bursting from the ground can bring a joy that I cannot describe, after the doldrums of January pass, and the edge of depression that everyone feels after such long, dark nights. Everyone begins to feel it, and with it, more optimism, and all the chats usually contain the phrase, “Grand auld stretch in the evenings, isn’t there?” (This refers to the increasing stretch of extra daylight in the spring.)

Snowmelt

Lately as I slowly awaken to how much I do miss Dublin, after two months away, and a changing season, spring in a “foreign” place, without snowdrops or St. Brigid’s crosses, feels a little disorienting. Not only am I separate from the community and family I have in Dublin, but the evidence of spring here is just slush and mud, as the snow melts away. I crave that fresh and vibrant Dublin air, potent with humidity and tinged by the mingling of river water and salt air.

As I adjust to life in the US again and see signs of hope and spring emerging far differently and less beautifully than in Dublin, I think of all my peers who have been struggling for years to find some semblance of stability or security in our lives, our careers, our living situations. It is especially precarious for those of us foreigners who lived or still live there, and the unique challenges we face. So many from my generation have seen huge upheavals in our lives; career changes or job losses or moves back home, amid all the other losses and chaos and societal unrest. As I grieve for my old life, I grieve collectively with my friends and my two sisters, who have also lost much in the pandemic.

I don’t recognize my surroundings anymore, and it is confusing and disorienting to yearn inwardly for Irish spring and the dependable changes as this new year progresses, and to be unable to find that. The incipit of spring in 2022 represents something totally new; it represents something very uncomfortable: both hope and ambiguity. As I settle into a new job in a university, preparing for my next chapter as a scholar, still unsure of where I will be living 6 months from now, the slushy snow and mud that is under my feet when I take a walk reminds me that sometimes newness and hope can be a little bit ugly and unappealing.

Yet, hope is still hope, even when it takes on a strange form. We can still sing, like Israel did, even from the ruins.

“Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.” Isaiah 52:9 NRSV

What is an Evangelical?

Questioning: Theological Beginnings

Dabbling in Dublin: Catholicism

Theosis

Germany and the Doctorate Years

Preface

Introduction

The Creation of Humankind

Patristic Support

Conclusion: La Media Naranja

Introduction

Assault and Terror in the Hebrew Bible

Redeeming Bathsheba

Bathsheba’s Home Life

The Character of David

Ritual Purification after Menstruation

Bathsheba Immortalized

Friendship in Proverbs

The Unpredictability of Life

Addiction and Compassionate Inquiry

A Theology of the Body

Why Lament?

Modern Lament:

Suppression of Emotions and Illness

Conclusion: Self-Compassion is Compassion

What is Prophecy?

Now, Who is Matty Healy?

Prophet or Provocateur?

The Downfall: Decadence and Decline

Conclusion

My Journey

Your Journey: My Advice

Why should you study in Europe?

Financial Considerations

How do I get there?

Wait, so you can just email a scholar?

What is the catch?

Conclusion

What is true fasting?

Jesus’ Instructions for Christian Piety

Hypocritical Fasting

“‘Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’” (58:3a).

Social Media “Fasting”

He moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” Gen. 26:22

Boundary Lines

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. Ps. 16:5-6

Hangriness & Bad Habits

Boundary Lines

Dwelling in Rehoboth

Self-Compassion is Compassion

Syncretism or Symbolism?

Sacred Seasons and Liturgy

Snowmelt