STORIES

Sponsored Projects

Library at Large

Announcement

Achievements

Calendar of Events

Exhibitions

 
Credits

Archives

Relativity Theory: God in History

For many in the academy, religion and thinking just don't mix. A person's god is a matter of chance and chemistry: you're at the right place at the right time with the right emotional make-up, and, bam, you're a believer. Intellectuals often argue that a broad perspective and a modicum of reason obviate the possibility of faith. They may admit to radical relativism, they may grab at slender straws to justify an ethical framework, but they give responsibility for morality fully and directly to humankind. This is all they know for sure.

Not so for Donald Heinz, dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, professor of religious studies, Lutheran minister, and holder of a Ph.D. in religion and society from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

"I rather enjoy being an anomaly at the university," Heinz said last month in his office filled with fine prints from Germany. And then he smiled the way he does when he senses a battle. He's a happy rebel.

On Sunday, March 12, at 4 p.m. in PAC 134, Heinz will deliver the fourth lecture in The Millennium and the Historians' Understanding of Culture and Society, this year's series sponsored by the Friends of History, College of Humanities and Fine Arts, Department of History, and Humanities Center. Heinz's lecture, "Thomas Muentzer: Millennianist, Protestant, Revolutionary, Marxist Hero," is about an exuberant rebel who was killed for his support of the peasants' uprising in early sixteenth-century Germany.

Heinz explained, "In seminary, we were taught that Martin Luther instigated the Protestant Reformation and in so doing turned Europe upside down. However, Luther's radicalism did not include social reform. It was theologian Thomas Muentzer, a renegade disciple of Luther, who wanted to apply the principles of the reformation to the terrible economic conditions of Northern European peasants.

"To Muenzter's astonishment, Luther turned against him and called upon the German principalities to destroy him. Lutherans are taught that Luther was correct in this action -- and I bought this argument for a long time."

But not forever. In fall 1998, Heinz took a leave from CSU, Chico to conduct research for his newest book in eastern Germany, where Muentzer had become a hero under communism. (Heinz's The Last Passage: Recovering a Death of Our Own, Oxford University Press, was released earlier that year.) "There was a fanciful dimension to this pilgrimage," Heinz said. "As an ethicist on the left, I wanted to atone for Luther's error and champion the peasants' revolt at last."

Heinz is interested in to what extent radical social change can be materialized at this point in history. The new book, "a utopian attempt to write the biography of God," is tentatively titled The Long Coming of God, The Final Ascent of Humanity, The Re-enchantment of the Earth.

The book argues, said Heinz, that Luther was wrong. "One really should try to achieve utopian order on earth rather than imagining heaven some day," he said.

How does Heinz reconcile his religious beliefs with the life of the mind? He has no difficulty at all. He said, "Religion can be a powerful force for good. Look at Marx. He was a radical Jewish prophet without God. But he was wrong to imagine people are purely economically driven, that people could be satisfied without religion.

For Heinz, Lutheranism is a religious tradition capable of embracing culture (arts and sciences) while retaining a belief in God. The two come together in a powerful synergy. Atheism often depends on the borrowed capital of religious traditions; that is, the best instincts and values come from religion.

"I am not saying," he explained, "that only religious people can be moral. But the left lacks a system of meaning without paying proper tribute to religion."

Heinz's religious thinking is relativistic, something that makes him more akin to his university colleagues than might be first apparent and something that makes him more a rebel in spiritual spheres than many of his faithful friends. He said, "The divine dimension of the universe allows itself to be symbolized in many systems historically. God always exceeds these systems' ability to name Him. But there is no other way for humans to proceed. Only these systems are available."

Many religions argue their absolutism, of course. That doesn't bother Heinz a bit. "In every time and place," he said, "there are attempts to express 'ultimacy,' which will inevitably be historically rooted -- and therefore limited. A rational posture, too, is simply a worldview with claims to 'ultimacy.' So when academics pretend that only religions claim a hold on the absolute, we have a problem. University intellectuals are as capable of fundamentalism as religious figures. Deconstruc-tionists can see this. There is no final movement. An unexamined worldview to which you give commitment can be critiqued by subsequent stages. Newton was eventually critiqued by Einstein."

Whether you consider yourself enlightened by reason or religion, relativity or sacred writ, Heinz's lecture will surely prod you to examine your worldview. And that should make the academic anomaly's dream come true.

-- Thomasin Saxe, College of Humanities and Fine Arts