Personal testimony for the day . . .

 

Literature and Liturgy: Expert, Signifier, and Construction

Can any comfort be found in anything but the words of God, which are found in God’s person? Who is God’s person but Jesus?

In The Return of the Gods Jonathan Khan explicates what he considers are the gods of ancient time which have returned. Through the labyrinth of names and deifications, Khan demonstrates in his own right how he believes that such gods have pervaded the modern world in their ancient forms. Each of which had suffered the process of demythologizing in the twentieth century. Among the god’s Khan mentions are ones that have never left the minds of the people from whom they originated.

Now, of Baal which has origin in the ancient Near East there is the image of an iron bull on Wall Street and on the coinage of the EU. But this bull may perhaps have its origin for the EU in the myth of Zeus taking the form of a bull that abducts and ravages (rapes) the beautiful goddess Europa. But the EU probably does not find its strength in such a mal-figured image of victimization.  The bull stands on Wall Street, on the other hand, absent the presence of the girl in front of it which was removed in 2018 and has had her image erased and the inscription of her successful voyage to the New York Stock Exchange in her place. Such a signification is quite the story of the West these days where the weak and oppressed even innocent have overtaken and/or destroyed monuments of power.

Among the gods Khan re-embellishes are a mix of Near Eastern, far Eastern, Norse and Indian, as well as Polynesian which transcend in some way the God of Abraham and overtake the world with their guile, seduction, and evil strength. In my reading Khan starts out in his book on the gods with mixture of demythologized and invigorated gods and goddesses as well as gods who seem to have had their satanic power all along in the world up to today. Khan is not entirely clear in the first section of his gods book whether he intends to indicate gods who have always existed alongside Elohim or the image, typography of the gods being reinvented and reused.  The later seems to be more likely for any writer from Khan’s background and considering that Khan uses gods from so many parts of the world.   

While in a service in a church today this all hit me like a load of bricks only a bull could bring with it. Hence I will write about what this line of thought brought up for me. The literature we take for granted likened to the myth of old and renowned is very rich and embedded with so much and so many meanings that it is often difficult to tease out, as though anyone would want to unravel these meanings or let them wash over one’s soul and refresh that one with the love of the Lord. In the literature and liturgy we find love incarnate in hymn and word possibly an affair which could enrich us for life. But, as with Khan’s work we ask ourselves do these words suffer under the weight of demythologizing or deconstruction or do they stand quite firm for us?

A bit of self revealing here never hurt anyone and moves me to numb tears because Jesus has been Bultmann-ized as that dear professor Bart Ehrman at UNC has conceded to in his efforts to cover the trail of lies he perpetuates in the form of the truths he does speak. The atheist he has become is only a symptom of what Jean-François Lyotard cleverly called the postmodern turn, that gaze into the nothingness of relativism and the reflection of nothingness in the mirror of a godless life.

To find freedom from these chains that bind us one only softly and tearfully sings Precious Lord take my hand lead me on help me stand I am weak I am tired I am worn . . . Like Seraphim we cover our eyes and we also fall flat prostrate as angels do before the Lord, I fell this morning pray God lift me up!