An Indispensible Safeguard

A Brief Response to Terryl Givens

Recently I stumbled upon a recording by Faith Matters of Terryl Givens’ speech on “Renewing Religious Language”.

I have met Brother Givens. I have read several of his books. I have listened to several of his lectures. I do not always agree with him (see here, here, here, and here, for example), but I think that his pastoral efforts are sincere and his ideas merit examination and discussion.

In this particular speech on “Renewing Religious Language” and the ensuing dialogue, Givens shares several personal experiences and many interesting quotations in order to support his arguments about the meaning of the love of God and the role of the Church as the scaffolding that upholds and facilitates the development of loving relationships.

Givens’ first story about his near death experience off the coast of West Africa reminded me of my own near death experience off the coast of North Carolina many years ago. Unlike Givens who had bravely swum out into the ocean to save a friend, I was caught in a riptide alone and against which, after a mighty struggle, I felt completely helpless. In those moments when I thought that I might drown, I learned something about the mighty power of the ocean. The current eventually coughed me up on the beach, but not before it had rolled me around and taught me a very sobering lesson.

While for the most part I have no qualms about Givens’ call for a renewal of religious language, and while I largely agree with his descriptions of God and the love of God, I also consider that Givens too often errs in the opposite direction from the early Christians against whom he structures many of his arguments. In other words, though I agree that God is not, on the one hand, a distant, impersonal Being without body, parts, or passions who so utterly transcends us mortals that He cannot be moved by our human longings or suffering, I also consider that God is not, on the other hand, precisely the kind of Being that Givens describes. Yes, God is love, and yes love is great. But it seems to me that God’s love is also and often a lot more like that ocean that sobered both Brother Givens and myself.

Furthermore, since the tendency of the world is to reverse the two great commandments and to make an idol of a counterfeit form of the second great commandment, it seems to me that this tendency and this idol must be resisted by properly emphasizing the first great commandment as first, as living prophets and apostles have repeatedly done. (see here and here, for example) It must be resisted because, as C.S. Lewis so astutely and presciently observed:

St. John's saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that "love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be god"; which of course can be re-stated in the form "begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god." This balance seems to me an indispensable safeguard. If we ignore it the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God.”

To be clear, I’m all on board with the need for persuasion, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned in our interactions with our fellow men and women, and I’m all on board with efforts to rescue and invite others into the fold of God. I’m also impressed the Brother Givens rescued his friend from drowning. But as much as I like Terryl Givens and his work, I think that his rhetoric sometimes veers in the direction against which C.S. Lewis warned. Just for the record, I also have misgivings about the Faith Matters organization in general.