Erasing Traumatic Memories?

Gilbert Meilaender, the Lutheran theologian and bioethicist, has some very helpful essays on ethics and the Christian life.  I’ve read his book Bioethics before, which I really enjoyed.  I also own a collection of his essays called The Freedom of a Christian.  I appreciate all the essays, though one that sticks out for me is “Why Remember?”

In this essay, Meilaender wrestles with this bioethical question: would it be good if we could erase some of our most terrible memories?  The question arises since there are certain drugs that can prevent the formation of long-term memories (anti-anxiety drugs or beta-blockers).  For example, if you’d undergo a horribly traumatic experience on the battlefield or at the scene of a fire, there might be a drug to wipe that memory out.  Is that desirable?  Meilaender isn’t so sure.  Here are a few quotes I appreciated.

“It is not fitting…that we should construct the narrative of our life in a way that largely bypasses its embodied character” (p. 186).

“If we cannot say who we have been, we can never know who we are.  Our humanity lies not in mastery over the construction of our life story but in the virtues by which we accept the limits of the body, live truthfully in the face of the past, and seek to give new meaning to what is painful or misguided in that past” (p. 188).

This quote is a bit longer, but it is worth citing in full.

“One who supposed that he could attain that godlike perspective on the meaning of life might perhaps be in a position to know what experiences were so painful that they were better obliterated from memory.  If, on the contrary, we know ourselves as bodies who live in time, whose lives must have a narrative quality but who cannot know the end or full meaning of our life story, then our task is not to erase memory but to connect and integrate memories – to live the story as best one can who does not yet know how the plot will work out.”

“Perhaps, in doing so, some of us will believe that there is no past so painful that it cannot be transfigured and redeemed in a truthful story.  Perhaps, in doing so, others among us may suspect that the best we can do is blow on the coal of the heart and see by and by how the plot takes its course.  But neither approach will find good reason to act as if we already knew the full meaning of life’s story.  In either case we are led to acknowledge our limits, to honor the narrative quality of human life, to accept our need to sustain the life stories of another, and to wonder at the mysterious depths of a ‘memoried’ human life” (p. 190).

One more:

“Human beings…are not to erase the memories that give them pain but to place those memories into a new, larger, and redemptive story” (p. 185),

There’s a lot more to this essay to be sure – I highly recommend it.  This bioethical discussion of the memory is highly applicable to the Christian life.  Many of us have some traumatic memories we’d love to erase.  But perhaps it might not be desirable after all.  In God’s sovereign plan and providence, the trials in our lives – and memories of those trials -are important events that he can use to draw us closer to himself and grow us in godliness, praise, and a stronger desire for heaven.

Gilbert Meilaender, The Freedom of a Christian (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006).

shane lems

The Purposes of the Law: Luther’s Small Catechism With Explanation

 Here’s a great Reformation treatment on the purposes (or uses) of God’s law.

“What purposes does the Law then serve?”

First, the Law helps to control violent outbursts of sin and keeps order in the world (a curb).

Second, the Law accuses us and shows us our sin (a mirror).

Third, the Law teaches us Christians what we should and should not do to live a God-pleasing life (a guide).  The power to live according to the Law comes from the Gospel.”

That’s worth committing to memory: the law is a curb, a mirror, and a guide for the Christian to follow by the power of the gospel.  Even young children can understand that!

This Q/A can be found in Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1991).  As I’ve mentioned here before, this is a sweet little hardcover book that goes through the basics of the Lutheran side of Reformation theology. Even though I disagree with some aspects of Lutheran theology, this book is a great one to own and read.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Vocation

 When I first read through many of Luther’s sermons, I was delighted and refreshed to hear the Reformer explain how a person can be a good Christian in and through one’s ordinary life stations (parenting, working, being a student, etc.).  It was good for me to learn that a Christian doesn’t need to retreat away from others to better follow Christ: he or she can do it while flipping burgers, writing computer software, or changing diapers.  Gene Veith explains this concept of vocation well in his helpful book, God at Work.  Here’s one excerpt.

“…Luther said that faith serves God, but works serve our neighbor.  We often speak of ‘serving God,’ and this is a worthy goal, but strictly speaking, in the spiritual realm, it is God who serves us.  ‘The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Matt. 20:28).  In our vocations, we are not serving God – we are serving other people.  Luther excoriated the monastic hermits who claimed that they were doing such good works in spending all of their time in prayer and devotion.  These are not good works at all, he said; who are they helping?  To offer religious exercises as good works before God while hiding yourself away from other people who might need your help is to miss the point.  Genuine good works have to actually help someone.  In vocation, we are not doing good works for God – we are doing good works for our neighbor.  This locates moral action in the real, messy world of everyday life, in the conflicts and responsibilities of the world – not in inner attitudes or abstract ideals, but in concrete interactions with other people” (p.39).

That’s refreshing: God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does.  God serves us each Lord’s Day in the “divine service” (as we note at the top of our liturgy) and we serve our neighbor in our jobs/vocations during the week.  This is freeing because it keeps the law and gospel from being all mixed up and it means we can be solid Christians in and through our ordinary weekday labor.  We don’t have to become hyper-spiritual mystics who retreat into forest cabins or join a monastery on a solitary hilltop.  In other words, as Veith later says, “Vocation is played out…in the realm of the ordinary” (p.59).

Here’s the full title/info: God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2002/2011).

shane lems

My Conscience is Captive to the Word of God (Luther)

(This is a repost from September, 2011.)

Heiko Oberman’s Luther: Man Between God and the Devil is one of those books that I’ll never forget reading.  I first read it around 10 years ago; I could not set this book down.  In fact, it led me to enjoy and appreciate church history in general, and Reformation history more specifically.  In my opinion, it is even better than Roland Bainton’s Here I Stand (although that may be an apples/oranges comparison, and I do really like Here I Stand).

Here’s a little snippet from Oberman’s book.  It has to do with Luther’s famous answer while he was on trial for his writings: “…My conscience is captive to the Word of God.  Thus I cannot and will not recant, for going against my conscience is neither safe nor salutary….”

“Luther’s appeal to conscience as the highest authority made an extraordinary impression on later generations.  Out of the understandable desire to declare Luther as the forerunner of the Enlightenment, the statement ‘Here I stand, I can do no other’ was reinterpreted as the principle of freedom of conscience.”

“But that is missing the whole point.  Appealing to conscience was common medieval practice; appealing to a ‘free’ conscience that had liberated itself from all bonds would never have occurred to Luther.  Nor did he regard ‘conscience’ as identical with the inescapable voice of God in man.  Conscience is neither neutral nor autonomous: hotly contested by God and the Devil, it is not the autonomous center of man’s personality, it is always guided and is free only once God has freed and ‘captured’ it.  What is new in Luther is the notion of absolute obedience to the Scriptures against any authorities; be they popes or councils….”

“Luther liberated the Christian conscience, liberated it from papal decree and canon law.  But he also took it captive through the Word of God and imposed on it the responsibility to render service to the world.”

Well said.  In Reformation terms, we say that “God alone is Lord of the conscience” (WCF 20.2).  The Lutheran Confessions (I’m thinking primarily of the Augsburg Confession and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession) also explain clearly and frequently that humans or human traditions cannot bind the conscience – only God can by his Word.  Commenting on Acts 15:10 and Galatians 5:1, the Apology says,

“Just as Alexander solved the Gordian knot once for all by cutting it with his sword when he could not disentangle it, so the apostles free consciences from traditions once for all, especially if they are taught to merit justification” (Apology XV).

The above Oberman quote is found on pages 203-204 of Luther: Man Between God and the Devil.

rev shane lems

sunnyside wa

Prayer to Mary?

 In the Roman Catholic Catechism prayer to Mary is explained in part 4, chapter 2, article 2.  The Catechism talks about the “twofold movement of prayer to Mary” which 1) consists of magnifying the Lord for what he did through her and 2) “entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus.”    This twofold movement is found in the Ave Maria (Hail Mary), the traditional Catholic prayer which addresses Mary, who is ”full of grace.”  The Catechism also calls her ”the dwelling of God…with men,” and ascribes to her these names: “the Mother of Mercy, the All-Holy One.”

Because Mary is at the top of the human ladder of blessedness, the Catechism also says we can “entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself…we give ourselves over to her now…to surrender ‘the hour of our death’ wholly to her care.”  In fact, Rome says, “We can pray with and to her.  The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope.”

This is one of the major reasons why the Reformation happened: because Rome was steeped in corrupt, idolatrous worship.  And this is why the Reformation matters today, because Rome has not repented of her idolatry; the above quotes are from the Roman Catholic Church’s modern Catechism.

Herman Bavinck was right: “In Rome, Mariolatry increasingly crowds out the true Christian worship of God. … It is against this idolization of the human that the Reformation rose up in protest” (RD III p. 282).

The [Lutheran] Smalcald Articles (Part 2, article 2) also say it well: “The invocation of saints is…one of Antichrist’s abuses that conflicts with the chief article [the gospel] and destroys the knowledge of Christ [Phil. 3:8].  It is neither commanded nor counseled, nor has it any warrant in Scripture.  Even if it were a precious thing – which it is not – we have everything a thousand times better in Christ.”

The Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1 puts it this way: “Religious worship is to be given to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and to him alone: not to angels, saints, or any other creature: and, since the fall, not without a mediator, nor in the mediation of any other but of Christ alone.”

The Lutheran and Presbyterian confessions are right.  Since Christ alone is sufficient for everything we need in salvation (body and soul, life and death), we don’t have to look elsewhere for anything.  When we do so, we are turning from Christ, committing idolatry, and acting as if his work is not enough.  This is one great reason to thank God for the Reformation -  he used it to bring the focus on back upon Christ and him alone.  Post tenebras lux!

shane lems