The Slavery of Death: Part 14, Eccentric Identity

In this post I want to finish our exploration of Arthur McGill's book Death and Life: An American Theology. More, I want to starting tying together a lot of the threads from this series.

Across the last two posts we've been using McGill's work to approach two texts:

1 John 3.8b
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

Hebrews 2.14-15
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

According to McGill, Americans are dominated by a culture of death avoidance. Fearing death we create identities built on possession and ownership. As McGill says, "I can do this securing in two possible ways. First, I may try to seize bits of the world for myself. Second, I may act in such a way that I will be approved by other persons or forces so that, in reward for something I have done or because they expect themselves to benefit from me, they will deliver some bit of reality over into my control." McGill calls these two routes to identity aggression and appeasement.

We see in this, in light of Hebrews 2, the association between a fear of death and a bondage to sin and the devil. Fear of death leads us to create a "sinful identity," an identity built upon possession. More, this fear causes us to fear loss and dispossession. This fear infuses existence and brings us into conflict with others. As McGill writes,

What propels people to possess? Their fear of death, their fear that their identity will be taken from them.

...

A sinful kind of identity surely requires aggression or appeasement; it requires defenses against others and against the threat of death as final dispossession.

...

[When we define our identity] in terms of a reality which we can have and which we can securely label with our own name, we live under the dominion of death; we live under the dominion of dispossession. We live in terror of death, of having this bit of reality which we call ourselves, taken from us. Our whole existence is controlled by that terror.

In light of all this, let's now attempt to connect McGill's analysis with the work we did early in this series. Specifically, we can see a parallel between McGill's "identity of possession" and sarx, Paul's word for the sinful identity. As NT scholar James Dunn has described Paul's use of sarx:

[Sarx denotes] what we might describe as human mortality. It is the continuum of human mortality, the person characterized and conditioned by human frailty...

Sarx creates sin because, being mortal, we strive to fend off death through possession. As John Chrysostom observed: "[H]e who fears death is a slave and subjects himself to everything in order to avoid dying." Here we see how mortality fears are the source of our "selfishness," of our "fleshly desires." As Orthodox theologian John Romanides has summarized:

Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man's fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him...Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man's weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent. Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement, egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up. In addition to the fact that man, [as John Chrysostom has written,] "subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying," he constantly fears that his life is without meaning. Thus, he strives to demonstrate to himself and to others that it has worth. He loves flatterers and hates his detractors. He seeks his own and envies the success of others. He loves those who love him and hates those who hate him. He seeks security and happiness and wealth, glory, bodily pleasures...Fear and anxiety render man an individual.

Having connected McGill's analysis to the Eastern Orthodox perspective regarding the relationship between sin and death we can now turn to the Christus Victor themes of salvation. The Scriptures say that the Son of Man appeared to "destroy the devil's work," to defeat the one who "holds the power of death." So how might this happen in McGill's analysis? How might we be rescued from sin, fear and the devil?

The answer builds off of McGill's notions regarding an identity based upon possession and how that makes us anxious about dispossession. Christus Victor salvation, for McGill, involves us being liberated from an identity of possession. Liberated from this identity our fears of dispossession will cease allowing us to respond in love to those around us. The fear of death dissipates and love can emerge. "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear."

How might this look? McGill gets his answer by examining the identity of Jesus in the gospels. Where does Jesus get his identity? And how is Jesus's identity different from our identity of possession? Toward an answer here is McGill analyzing the identity of Jesus in the gospels:

In the New Testament portrayal of Jesus, nothing is more striking than the lack of interest in Jesus' own personality. His teachings and miracles, the response of the crowd and the hostility of the authorities, his dying and his resurrection--these are not read as windows in Jesus' own experience, feelings, insights, and growth. In other words, the center of Jesus' reality is not within Jesus himself. Everything that happens to him, everything that is done by him, including his death, is displaced to another context and is thereby reinterpreted. However, this portrayal is understood to be a true reflection of Jesus' own way of existing. He himself does not live out of himself. He lives, so to speak, from beyond himself. Jesus does not confront his followers as a center which reveals himself. He confronts them as always revealing what is beyond him. In that sense Jesus lives what I call an ecstatic identity.

In all the early testimony to Jesus, this particular characteristic is identified with the fact that Jesus knows that his reality comes from God...Jesus never has his own being; he is continually receiving it...He is only as one who keeps receiving himself from God.

The key to Jesus's identity is that he doesn't "own" it. Jesus doesn't "possess" himself. Rather, Jesus receives his identity. His identity is gift. The center of Jesus's identity exists outside of himself. In the language of David Kelsey Jesus is living an "eccentric existence." From Kelsey's book Eccentric Existence:

[T]he question "Who are we as creatures?" makes it clear that while I have my personal identity only in and through relations with other creatures of giving and receiving, my personal identity is not given to me by them in their assessment of me and does not depend on their judgments of me. My personal identity is free of them, grounded elsewhere. I am radically given to directly only by the triune God. Faith as trust responsive to God's giving is the attitude that my right to be and act, and the justification of the time and space I take up being and acting, is not contingent on my meeting the needs or acquiring the approval of any of those finite others to whom I give and from whom I receive in the society of creatures. Faith is the attitude of trust in God's radical giving of reality as alone definitive of my personal identity: a finite creature called and empowered to be, to act, and to give in my own place and time. Your personal identity is defined by God alone and not by any creature. It is eccentrically grounded and defined. (p. 339-340)

An "eccentric" identity is an identity grounded outside the boundary of the self. An eccentric identity is the opposite of McGill's identity of possession where, as he describes it, "I have a boundary which marks the domain of my reality." As McGill notes, Jesus did not define his identity in this manner. Jesus had an "ecstatic" or "eccentric" identity, an identity found outside of himself in the Father. Consequently, Jesus feared no one. Was competitive with no one. Was aggressive toward no one. Why? He didn't own himself. And, thus, could not be dispossessed of himself. McGill on the dynamics of the Christ-like, eccentric identity:

[B]ecause I no longer live by virtue of the reality which I possess, which I hold, which I master and keep at my disposal, I am free to share myself and all my possessions with others. Above all...I can be honest with others. I can be open before them. I do not have to draw a line to mark the boundaries of my reality where I place a sign which says "Keep Out." I do not have to conceal my being behind a wall in order to keep it mine and to prevent others from taking it from me. Since I never have myself, I can never be dispossessed of myself. In short, in all my relations with other people I am freed from the anxiety of having always to keep possession of my own reality in order to be.

The classic example of this in the gospels is Jesus's lack of fear in the face of Pilate.

John 19.9b-11a
“Where do you come from?” Pilate asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above."

Jesus doesn't have to aggressively protect himself from Pilate. Jesus's non-violence, his ability to love, was founded upon his eccentric identity. Free of the fear of death Jesus is free from sin, violence, and the devil. Perfect love had cast out fear. Thus, Jesus can go to the cross and forgive those who sent him there.

It is as John Chrysostom says, "[H]e who does not fear death is outside the tyranny of the devil."

Once again, as we saw early in this series, we see the close connection between the fear of death and sin. But our earlier biblical/theological analysis is now starting to unpack in ways that might allow us to get a handle on, psychologically speaking, what it might mean to be set free from the fear of death and why that liberation might allow us to exist in loving ways with others. Following McGill, when we fear death we cannot love others, for death causes us to adopt an identity based upon self-ownership. This sort of identity, and the striving it promotes, brings us into rivalry with others. As John Romanides describes:

Love that is free of self-interest and necessity fears nothing...All human unrest is rooted in inherited psychological and bodily infirmities, that is, in the soul's separation from grace and in the body's corruptibility, from which springs all selfishness. Any perceived threat automatically triggers fear and uneasiness. Fear does not allow a man to be perfected in love...Being under the sway of death and not having real and correct faith in God, man is anxious over everything and is ruled by selfish bodily and psychological motives and, thus, he is unable to love unselfishly and freely. He loves and has faith according to what he perceives to be to his own advantage...Thus, he is deprived of his original destiny and is off the mark spiritually. In biblical language, these failures and deviations are called sins. The fountain of man's personal sin is the power of death that is in the hands of the devil and in man's own willing submission to him.

Consequently, if we want to step out of this dynamic--to step out of our anxiety-driven rivalries as Jesus did with Pilate--we need to adopt an eccentric identity. A loving identity that is "free of self-interest and fears nothing."

Across these posts we should be gaining a sense of what all this might look like. Opposed to an identity of possession we have an identity received as gift. Rather than holding onto our identity with a death grip, we come with hands that are open. Perhaps there is no better vision of what this might look like than in Philippians 2:

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped...

Note the role of grasping--holding onto status, reputation, power. Clinging to--grasping--the stuff of self-definition, self-esteem, personhood and identity. Grasping is an identity of possession.

And how many of us are engaged in this activity? Grasping at identity? Clinging. Holding on. Knuckles white.

But if we let go, if we don't fear death, loss, and dispossession, the devil begins to lose his power over us. We are starting to see how the Son of Man is "destroying the works of the devil" by "freeing those who all their lives where held in slavery by their fear of death." As John Chrysostom describes:

For indeed 'man would give skin for skin, and all things for [the sake of] his life,' [but] if a man should decide to disregard this, whose slave is he then? He fears no one, is in terror of no one, is higher than everyone, and is freer than everyone...And when the devil finds such a soul, he can accomplish in it none of his works. Tell me, though, what can he threaten? The loss of money or honor? Or exile from one's country? For these are small things to him 'who counteth not even his life dear,' says blessed Paul.

Do you see that in casting out the tyranny of death, He has dissolved the strength of the devil?

Notice how Chrysostom describes the victory over Satan as the victory over the identity of possession. If nothing can be taken away from us the strength of the devil, which is based upon the fear of death, is dissolved. This freedom is exactly what Jesus demonstrates in Philippians 2. Jesus lets go, empties himself, entrusts himself to the Father. Nothing can be taken away from Jesus because he doesn't own it in the first place. Jesus doesn't fear dispossession because he's already dispossessed himself in the act of kenosis. Consequently, no one could threaten or scare Jesus into acting selfishly or aggressively. As Pilate discovered, the fear of death, Satan's greatest tool, was ineffectual against Jesus. Death had no power over Jesus. This allowed Jesus to fully love us, "to become obedient to death, even a death on a cross."

John 15.13
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

And let's return to Philippians 2 to note that this route, this letting go, is the remedy Paul puts forward to reduce rivalry, the violence produced by grasping, by the identity of possession. This link between possession and rivalry is also nicely illustrated in the book of James:

James 4.1-2
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

What causes violence--quarrels, fights, and killing? An identity seeking to possess. Desiring but not having. Coveting but not getting what we want.

The solution, again, is to receive our identity, as Jesus did, as a gift from God. We learn to let go. And by adopting this eccentric identity we begin to "have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus."

1 John 3.14-18a; 4.17b-18a
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?

In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love.