RUDOLF OTTO and Me minus the ELCA's Statement on Human Sexuality

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Why, you might ask, do I continue to take Rudolf Otto’s name in vain? It’s a quirk. I have many quirks, as anyone who knows me knows. I find my quirks amusing. Is that the height of narcissism, to find oneself amusing?

Yes. Of course.

I confess and own it. I’ve noted in a previous post the unusual (not unique) view of the world I have through temporal lobe epilepsy and other amusing defects. One symptom of TLE, for those who are not familiar, is hypergraphia. Read Dr. Alice W. Flaherty’s book. On page 218 she says,

The need for narrative, the need to place events in stories, shapes much of our writing and speech. Linking facts into cause-and-effect chains makes them easier for our brains to absorb, making them more memorable for readers and even for the writer. Creating narrative links gives a sense that there a causal chains that will allow us to predict and control events in the future, a sense that is not always true. (1)

Rudolf Otto, for the time being, is one of my narrative links, helping me make “cause-and-effect chains” where there probably are none. (Cause: the idea of the numinous. Effect: allowed me to remain a Christian all these years. Cause: Using Otto’s name over and over. Effect: will raise my blog to the top of the hit list when someone Googles “Otto.”)

Back to narcissism:

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self (I Corinthians 4:3, KJV).

OK. Out of context. But remember, I’m dealing with narrative “links” here, not logic. Narcissism may, in fact, for those who believe the Bible, not be such a bad thing.

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (I Corinthians 4:7, KJV).

Paul gives me permission to find myself amusing. I don’t “glory” in my quirks as if I had invented them. I find them amusing because I received them. Did I receive my epilepsy? I certainly didn’t cause it or choose it. Did I receive my bipolar condition? I didn’t cause it or choose it. Did I receive my alcoholism? I better stop while I am ahead. So I can glory in (at least find amusing) all these things if I remember that I received them. They are my gifts. They are what makes me different from you.

The ELCA continually ignores Paul and debates whether or not I “received” who I am. Did I invent my homosexuality? did I receive it? (If you think a vote or two in August is going to end the ELCA’s addiction to sex or settle our obsession with the received/chosen argument, you have more dangerous mental quirks than I have.)

Pardon me another narrative leap-and-link that probably makes no sense to anyone but me. I was struck the other day reading an article titled, “Science, Religious Naturalism, and Biblical Theology: Ground for the Emergence of Sustainable Living.” No, I’m not going green here. I internalized the following paragraph:

We see evolution. . . . as more than . . . . the mechanics of genetics. . . . it is also a record of individual struggle and courage, of stubborn refusal to give up in the face of odds that must have seemed overwhelming, a story of personal failure and personal triumph. Our lives are a gift of a cosmic creativity that, against all the odds. . . . found a way of giving existence to all that is, and did so through the personal courage and creative choices of individual organisms as they struggled to make sense of the daunting changes they confronted. (2)

I make no claim to courage. I’m weak and self-pitying most of the time. But there it is, the same idea I quoted from Paul (“what hast thou that thou didst not receive?”). Our lives “are a gift of a cosmic creativity that, against all the odds. . . . found a way of giving existence to all that is.” And that includes those quirks I find amusing, and the danger of narcissism attendant with them.

And so back to my friend Rudolf Otto. Here’s one of his observations about Jesus.

But he also possessed and manifested. . . . the warmest feeling and the purest love. Where all failed he knew how to understand, to pardon, to raise up, and to console. Pulbicans and sinners whom others cast out, he sought, discovered and awakened the flickering spark of their faith and love. (3)

Narcissists one and all and those who find your gifts amusing, enter.

(1) Flaherty, Alice W.. The Midnight Disease: the Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.

(2) Fisher, George W. and Gretchen van Utt. “Science, Religious Naturalism, and Biblical Theology: Ground for the Emergence of Sustainable Living.” Zygon 42.4 (December 2007).

(3) Otto, Rudolf. Life and Ministry of Jesus According to the Historical and Critical Method. 1908.