Feels redundant to keep saying after every new release from Zahnd that this feels like his most personal and vulnerable project to date. That was true for The Wood Between the Worlds. It seems equally true for his newest, Unseen Existences. A book that arguably works to break into the present trend in Christian scholarship towards reclaiming a theology of the body and of creation and suggest that for as necessary as that reclamation has been, there is inevitably something important that gets neglected with any such paradigm shifts.
For Zahnd, this is the simple belief in heaven.
It’s not that Zahnd is looking to rewind the clock and return to a space and time before the theological giant N.T. Wright popularized and made accessible the forgotten idea that in the Christian story Heaven is in fact being brought down to earth, not us escaping earth to go to heaven.
Or, for example, to borrow a lyric from a recent collaboration between Neal Carpenter and Drew and Ellie Holcomb:
Since when, since when is it not okay. To dream of what’s right here in the room instead of world’s away, What if the future I am after is right here today, Since when, since when is it not okay, So help me Lord, help me Lord to keep carrying on
Zahnd is taking the heaven come to earth idea and suggesting that something happens when Christianity neglects and forgets one of it’s core and most fundamental truths: that heavenly realities nevertheless “lie beyond the human senses.” As he suggests, “At it’s core Christianity confesses a participation with the unseen existences of heaven… and sets forth the sacred paths into these unseen existences.” (page 37)
What’s interesting, and perhaps a bit more subtly intertwined, is the ways he bemoans a Christianity that has quietly taken on some of the markings of materialism and physicalism, both hallmarks of modernity. Instead of not being at home “in the land of their sojourn,” we have lost the art of life as a pilgrimage towards that mysterious true home to which we belong. Here he speaks of “the tyranny of materilialism” being made manifest in a world that has quietly become skeptical and, dare he say it, a bit ashamed of that Christian profession in an unseen realm. Here he begins to appeal against that predominant tendency in Wright to jettison all things platonic, and find instead a value in becoming comfortable with the sort of dichotomies that materialism readily finds ludicrous. Not at the expense of the created world, but as a way of keeping in view the redemptive story that holds our sacred pilgrimage in it’s hands.
We traverse this earth with a strident belief that the Divine Mystery has and does and indeed is breaking into our midst. Just because modern materialism shouldn’t lead us to bury this simple fact in favour of something more tolerable. In doing so we lose sight of the stories that wtness to this basic fact of our religious and spiritual convictions. We are taught to see religious experience as some lesser and less trustworthy and less demonstrable form of truth. And yet to sit in the company of these stories, something we know deep down, is to suggest otherwise. We need not be ashamed of the simple nature of this truth about how such conviction works and operates. Unseen Existences isn’t the same as saying it is unknowable, unencouterable, undemonstrable.
If Wright’s premise holds true, that to rip apart heaven and earth is to be left with a Christian narrative unable to speak to either, Zahnd’s claim that “When heaven is removed from our cosmology, earth loses it’s meaning” just might be the present crisis that emerges in the wake of this needed correction.
“The image of the invisible God” is indeed a premise that hinges on the invisible God being made visible in our midst. This is the shape of our sorjourn. it has always taken this shape. He gives a final chapter to his walking of the Camino de Santiago to give this a flesh and blood and tangible image, but all throughout his impassioned plea to remember the mystery that informs the journey breaks through, not just with his story but with the endless stories of those who have walked before him and us.
And yes, I can see this book sitting in that uncomfortable middle space, being at once too conservative in some of it’s theological outlook for some (how dare you take the scriptures and the death and resurrection of Jesus this seriously), while similtaneous feeling too liberally minded (how dare you speak of the divine mystery in all things). But for what it’s worth, this is nothing new for Zahnd. It is in fact part of his appeal. He critiques the Tradition he belongs to from the inside, but also is one of it’s biggest defenders.
Another lyric from a song that could be the soundtrack to this book. From Pilgrim Way by Stillcreek:
Verse 1
This is my comfort in affliction
That Your promise gives me life
When I’m fearful and surrounded
This I call to mind
Verse 2
Lord You’ve always been a shelter
The safest place I know
I remember what You’ve spoken
It’s my only hope
Chorus
I set Your words to a melody
I keep Your words
Right in front of me
As I walk this pilgrim way
As I walk this pilgrim way
Your statutes have been my song
Verse 3
When I look upon the wicked
Holy anger burns within
But when I rest upon Your justice
I take comfort yet again
Chorus
I set Your words to a melody
I keep Your words
Right in front of me
As I walk this pilgrim way
As I walk this pilgrim way
Your statutes have been my song
Bridge
This is how I spend my life
I remember day and night
Trusting every word You’ve said
Treasuring Your promises
Bridge
This is where I find my hope
I know You will lead me home
Following for all my life
Carried by the love of Christ
Chorus
I set Your words to a melody
I keep Your words
Right in front of me
As I walk this pilgrim way
As I walk this pilgrim way
Your statutes have been my song
Outro
Your statutes have been my song
The Stories of my Life 