On Thursday evening Dr. Dan held his first Book Party Discussion in Midtown Manhattan. As a participant I was asked to write a little a report. Here follows a few of my observations

The event was very well attended by a group with diverse religious and non-religious backgrounds. The room reserved for the party could not have been better. Situated adjacent to beautiful Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan it was a warm cozy room, well lit, smartly laid out, and perfect for a relaxed engaging discussion.

First Daniel shared the inspiration that led to writing the book: “I kept encountering students all over Asia in the colleges and seminaries where I taught who had a naive romantic notion of American religion and culture” he said.  Asked to develop some ethics lectures in Burma he worked out some thoughts taken from the little phrase by Paul the Apostle: “We walk by faith and not by sight.” “The truth in this phrase” he said, “gradually opened up a new horizon providing fodder for a rethink about what is going on in many strands of Christian spirituality, religion and culture – especially in America.”

Here follows a couple fragments from the notes I took during the discussion.

“Poets, prophets, sages and apostles spoke of the spiritual magnitude, God, who is under, in and over all of life (‘underneath are the everlasting arms’ Deuteronomy 33:27). Hidden behind the material veil this spiritual power – God – is present and real. But this hiddenness sets up two follies, spiritualism and secularism. Spiritualism, or better described as toxic spirituality, tries too hard to discover the Spirit. It wants to see, touch, feel and verify if not possess these hidden ‘everlasting arms’ that are said to be under us.  But this attempt to remove the veil that clothes the unseen means trespassing a boundary.  The attempt to bring the hidden spiritual things of God out into open where they can be seen and experienced without faith may be sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly. The insect that flies too close to the light is burned. Hiddenness protects God’s godness, and when faith is in the equation, it protects humans’ humanness.”

“Secularism on the other hand has staked its honor on the premise ‘what you see is what you get.’ But when what we see, touch, feel and decipher through, reason becomes the be all and end all, the measure of life’s offering, sooner or later life will take us too high and too low. It’s like hooking one’s skates to a roller coaster. Severed from the invisible the visible becomes everything and destroys us. Severed from hidden divine love we are left with human love, and whether fickle or constant, it is not enough. Separated from hidden divine forgiveness and mercy we are left alone with our immediate experience of life and the regrets, hates and hardness of heart that follow in its train. Exorcise ‘hiddenness’ out of the equation of life and one ends up with a banality that progressively destroys everything wise and precious. Taking its queue from the sacred text, faith posits hidden meaning, hidden value, hidden love, hidden mercy, pity and compassion, and hidden grounds for hope all rooted in the invisible magnitude of God. Exorcise this hidden reality and sooner or later the visible immediate experience itself gains a demonic magnitude that becomes our undoing.”

“Faith is a form of spirituality that respects this ‘hiddenness’ of God and releases an ethic of restraint, reverence and respect.”

The application of this thesis explicitly within Christian understandings was saved for another discussion.

These thoughts provoked comments and discussion, several books were purchased and everyone had a good time. Stay tuned for the next report preceded with an announcement of the date, time and place of the next book party/discussion.

Elizabeth Age
Blog Editor