1. It is ironic that this phrase, which derives from the book In His Steps by Charles Sheldon, became such a financially lucrative and fashionable Christian accessory. Sheldon advocated a form of Christian activism known as the Social Gospel, and employed the phrase “in his steps” as a means of questioning what Jesus would do for the poor and marginalized in society.
2. It is only after Judas volunteers to commit the act that the Jewish authorities offer money—thus giving the impression that the money is more of a customary gift to say thank you rather than part of an exchange. See Mark 14:10–11.
3. Matthew 26:14–16.
4. Luke 22:3.
5. John 6:70.
6. Acts 1:15–19.
7. John 6:61–71.
8. See N.T. Wright, Judas and the Gospel of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 43–48.
9. Matthew 27:3–8.
10. Mark 14:3–11.
11. John 13:18.
12. Matthew 26:50 (italics mine).
13. John 13:26–28.
14. Matthew 26:24.
15. For a good exploration of Judas see William Klassen, Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2004).
16. In addition to this, Judas sacrificed his reputation for all time by being labeled as the arch-enemy of Christ by most of the Christian Church.
17. Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 16 (italics his).
18. The Gospel of Judas, ed. Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2006), 43.
19. Matthew 26:38.
20. Indeed it is perhaps because of the very nature of the events themselves that we are left with writings that generate so many different accounts. Thus only by embracing all the accounts do we do justice to the relationship between Jesus and Judas.
21. This is, of course, fictitious, except for the verse at the end which comes from John 12:23–25.
22. Genesis 22:1–19.
23. These two stories are deeply complex, and the reasons for their existence in the Bible can be explained in a number of ways. For instance, one interpretation of the Abraham and Isaac story views it as a critique of child sacrifice rather than an endorsement of it. Here the author is seen to be getting on the right side of those who engage in this practice by showing that even Abraham was prepared to engage in this sacrifice at the command of God. Then, once he had affirmed the faith and courage of those listening to or reading the story, the author then informs the audience that at the last minute God stops Abraham and says that a ram will be sufficient.
24. Genesis 18:20–21.
25. Genesis 32:28.
26. Acts 10:9–16.
27. Genesis 3:1–24.
28. The idea of God as a being who is unchanging, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and thus always right is more of a philosophical rendering than a biblical one. In metaphysical theology God is thought to be the perfect being, and perfection is related to the realm of total knowledge, total power, total presence, and absolute oneness. In contrast, the God we encounter in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures seems much more dynamic and messy.
29. Quoted from RSV in Ernest Bloch, Atheism in Christianity: The Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom, trans. J.T. Swann (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), 184.
30. It is ironic to note that a fundamentalist book entitled Encylopedia of Bible Difficulties written by Gleason L. Archer (Michigan: Zondervan, 1982) spends over four hundred and fifty pages offering answers to seeming problems and contradictions in the text. The sheer size of the book itself, which is still far from exhaustive, alongside the poorly honed explanations that are offered, does more to show the complex and conflictual nature of the text than any book designed to directly argue the case ever could.
31. Here I am indebted to the insights of Slavoj Žižek in The Parallax View (London: MIT Press, 2006).
32. Compare Matthew 3:1–3 with Luke 17:21.
33. Philippians 3:12–16.
34. Luke 17:20–21.
35. A nuclear shadow is formed as a result of the utter destruction of an object in a nuclear explosion. Because of the slight difference in heat, the place where the object once was is marked by a permanent shadow on the ground.
36. Or more accurately, between the two creation accounts that we find at the beginning of Genesis.
37. Compare Genesis 1:27 with Genesis 2:4–23.
38. The Midrash refers to a rich Hebraic tradition in which stories are written down that are inspired by elements of the Torah or that frame it in a different light. The Midrash is not given the same authority as the Torah but is employed as a means of exploring and interrogating the rich and diverse meanings of the Torah.
39. A term referring to the dark underworld of Kabbalistic imagination.
40. This name is constructed from the gathering together of every letter in the Torah to form a single word.
41. See Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 69–71, and the children’s book The Secret Name of Ra, retold by Anne Rowe, illustrated by Donald Harley (Chicago, IL: Heinemann Library, 1996).
42. Exodus 3:4.
43. In chapter six we will examine the response that Moses is given and show how it can be viewed as a way of challenging this pursuit of the name.
44. Moses would have been well aware of the common names for God, such as the generic word “Elohim,” which simply refers to God, and the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton, which is traditionally rendered as “LORD” in the Bible.
45. The Septuagint is a Greek rendering of Hebrew Scriptures from the third century BC. This document was the standard translation of the Old Testament in the early Christian church and is still viewed as canonical in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
46. Exodus 3:14.
47. In reality he put forward a number of arguments. We will only be considering one here.
48. René Descartes, Philosophical Writings, ed. Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach (London: Open University Press, 1970), 83.
49. Ibid., 85.
50. In chapter six I shall look at one of the problems with such an approach.
51. This view was deeply embedded in American evangelical theology in the thinking of Carl F. H. Henry, who believed that God’s revelation was propositional in nature.
52. If this is the case then it seems to mean that as soon as one thinks about God (regardless of one’s beliefs) one must, in order to be logical, assert that God exists.
53. Romans 12:1.
54. 1 John 4:8.
55. Troy, directed by Wolfgang Petersen (Warner Bros. Pictures, 2004).
56. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Josefine Nauckhoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), section 125.
57. René Descartes, “Fifth Replies,” in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 2, trans. John Cottingham et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 253.
58. René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes, “Objections and Replies, the third set,” in Descartes: Philosophical Writings, trans. Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Thomas Geach (London: Nelson’s University Press, 1971), 141 (italics his).
59. Blaise Pascal, Penseés, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 60.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid., 60–61.
62. Ibid., 61.
63. Ibid., 63.
64. One of the most common translations/interpretations, as originally found in the Septuagint.
65. Everett Fox, trans., Schocken Bible, vol. 1, The Five Books of Moses (New York: Schocken Books, 1995).
66. Acts 9:1–9.
67. This is why there are so many different descriptions of God in the Bible and in the world. Each of these descriptions, when they arise from the undergoing of God, tells us something about God in the sense that the undergoing of God evokes this act. However, what one person thinks is the most beautiful description of God may be violent and dangerous, because that person may have a damaged view of what is beautiful. Thus the violent fundamentalist cannot be dismissed as inauthentic; rather, the problem may simply be that the fundamentalist’s view of what is most beautiful, a view that is inspired by the undergoing of God, is in fact destructive.
68. Mark 4:30–32.
69. Matthew 13:4.
70. This is a view that can be seen at work in the writing of people such as Josh mcDowell and Francis Schaeffer.
71. Karl Marx, “Toward the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Basic Writings of Politics and Philosophy, ed. Lewis Feuer (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), 303.
72. For instance, in recent times we can recall thinkers such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, Jacques Ellul, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, Daniel Berrigan, and Gustavo Gutiérrez, to name but a few.
73. This distinction was first noted by the philosopher Gotthold Lessing and has been explored to some extent by philosophers such as David Flusser and, more recently, Giorgio Agamben.
74. John 9:25.
75. This is something that Ted Kluck and Kevin DeYoung accuse me of in the book Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be (Chicago: Moody Press, 2008), 49.
76. Luke 5:12–14.
77. Matthew 21:18–21.
78. Matthew 9:4–8.
79. Cf. John 9:1–34.
80. Matthew 16:13–20 (italics mine).
81. Is this not exactly what we see played out regularly when a high-profile religious leader is caught engaging in the very activity that he has constantly spoken out against? It would be premature to label this as a simple hypocrisy in which the person happily engages in an activity he says he rejects (the common line). Rather it is likely that he does reject his own behavior and that this rejection is the very fuel that drives him into it.
82. 1 Corinthians 6:12.
83. We can witness an extreme example of this when we consider the Nazi genocide. Most of those who helped to carry out the murders were not cruel and sadistic individuals. Rather, they were fed an ideological lie that openly acknowledged the horror of what they were doing. The ideology was offered in such a way that murder was seen as the moral act, an act that required the greatest ethical courage and strength to carry out. It was said that this murder was required in order to make Germany great again and lead it into a humane golden age. The genocide was then offered as the truly moral act, even though it was one that could never be spoken of. It was then the ideological system that helped to fuel the mass murder. Without it most of those involved could not have taken part in the genocide. The system itself allowed one to switch off from caring about the individual. Here the individual had to serve the ideological law rather than the law serving the individual.
84. We see this expressed throughout the text, for instance, Luke 15:1–32, or 1 Peter 2:9–10, where the excluded are included in the kingdom.
85. Ephesians 6:12.
86. Unpublished parable.
87. This insightful term was used in a review article dealing with How (Not) to Speak of God written by Gilo in Movement (2006) to describe the gatherings performed by ikon.
88. “The Evangelism Project” is designed to introduce people to the idea of being evangelized and thus rethinking what they believe. With this intent, this group makes regular visits to communities that are founded on certain beliefs about God, the world, and humanity that are likely to be different from those held by individuals in the group itself. The point is not to engage in some kind of interfaith dialogue but rather to listen, learn, and be open to being transformed by the encounter.
89. “The Last Supper” is a meeting in which twelve people gather together in an upper room over food and wine. Each evening a guest is invited to share what the guest believes and why he or she believes it. This is followed by a discussion around the themes that arise during the introduction. At the end of the night we decide how convinced we are by the guest and thus whether or not this will be the guest’s last supper.
90. “The Omega Course” offers the tag line “exiting Christianity in twelve weeks” and is designed to provide a space for people to interrogate issues related to ideas such as the Virgin Birth, the deity of Jesus, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the status of the Bible. The idea is to help all involved rethink their current theological positions, regardless of what they are, in light of exposure to other views.
91. “Atheism for Lent” is a yearly course that uses Lent as a time to reflect upon and discuss the most famous and penetrating critiques of religion. Over the Lenten period we read the critiques of religion offered by people such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx, as well as some contemporary writers. Like “The Omega Course,” this series is designed to help people rethink their theological commitments. However, this time the discussions relate to the views of thinkers from outside the Church rather than from within it.
92. 1 Peter 2:9; 1 Peter 2:4–5; Revelation 1:5–6, 5:6–10.
93. On the ikon Web site (www.ikon.org.uk) there are some concrete examples of how we have ritualistically engaged in this process, or alternatively I have outlined ten examples of such gatherings in the book How (Not) to Speak of God.
94. Adapted from Anthony DeMello, Walking on Water, ed. Gabriel Galache (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1998), 28.