Mailer on God

by Geoff Ryan

A

t a conference at which I presented a workshop, a bright and earnest Salvation Army officer about my own age, came up to me and asked me who my favourite theologian is. I was flustered. The thought had never occurred to me, to have a favourite theologian in the same way that one has a favourite singer or movie actor or sports team. Later, upon reflection, I concluded that he was trying to nail where I was on his own theological scale – who I aligned myself with and therefore what I might be expected to believe on the litmus-test questions that were important to him.

At the time, I flippantly fired back that it was Mick Jagger. He looked puzzled. I’m not sure my questioner has much of a sense of humour and he certainly didn’t get that particular joke. I was making a joke, but I was also scrambling to cover up the fact that I didn’t have an answer to his question.

To come clean, I haven’t read much standard theology. Put it down to chronic indiscipline or maybe I just don’t have enough smarts to figure it out… my mind wanders. The Canadian theologian Clark Pinnock actually writes quite well so I can pretend that I’m reading fiction, which helps, and I have read some of his stuff. However, not many professional theologians can pull this off. Besides, I instinctively distrust most “professionals” in any field. I’ve often said that theology is far too important to be left to the theologians and that we’re each of us theologians, if we think at all about God.

Which may be how I ended up with Mick Jagger, but which certainly brings me to Norman Mailer. Recently deceased at age 84, Mailer lived an epic life spanning eight decades. He went through six wives (one of whom he stabbed and very nearly killed when drunk and stoned), numerous mistresses and had nine children. He wrote thirteen novels and nineteen works of non-fiction, one play, two collections of poetry, directed four films and won the Pulitzer Prize twice. He helped to found The Village Voice, ran for mayor of New York City and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse his whole life. He was a short, pugnacious Jew and no role model for anyone claiming to be a follower of Jesus. But he was obsessed by God and questions of faith and belief and good and evil.

His last book was: On God: An Uncommon Conversation. New York magazine featured an interview with Mailer based on this book, as their cover story, two months before his death (”The Rise of Mailerism”, October 18, 2007). It makes for absolutely fascinating reading. It is certainly not standard theology and can hardly be called Christian in any classic or even liberal sense, but the ideas batted around by Mailer and the interviewer are great theology – profound, unorthodox and gripping. A few examples:

“…the conviction grew that I had a right to believe in the God I could visualize.”

“I confess I have no attachment to organized religion, I see God, rather, as a Creator, as the greatest artist. I see human beings as his most developed artworks. When I think of evolution, what stands out most is the drama that went on in God as an artist….God is an artist. And like an artist, God has successes, God has failures.”

“My understanding is that God and the Devil are often present in our actions. When we work with great energy it’s because our best motive and our worst motive – or, to put it another way, God and the Devil – are equally engaged in the outcome and so, for a period, working within us. There can be collaboration between opposites, as well as war….But my argument is that when we work with great energy, it is because God and the Devil have the same interest in the outcome.”

“…we are mired in good and evil – mired because we spend most of our time in trade-offs and in the exhaustion of our efforts. One part of us wants to do something to which the other part is opposed. Very often within us, good fights an offensive battle against evil.”

“If you’ll accept my notion that technology maybe the most advanced, extreme, and brilliant creation of the Devil – for technology, of course, does incredible things – then you get a real sense of why some people would be more leagued with the Devil than devoted to God. Half the human universe must by now be on the side of technology.”

“God may say, “I’ve been reconsidering the terrible propensities of the Devil. Let us see if we can conceive of a soul who will be able to war with the Devil a little more effectively, a new soul who will have many of the qualities of the Devil but can transmute them, transform them, elevate our sense of spirit even in the dirtiest, ugliest, foulest places. God may have decided that an iota of goodness in an evil soul can be immensely important.”

“I’ve never understood this: Why is there this enormous desire in God to be glorified? Why is it that so acceptable to so many branches of religion? We laugh at people who insist on being constantly glorified. We speak of neurotic movie stars or spoiled athletes, crazy generals and impossible authors, mad kings and greed-bag tycoons. One of the few things we all seem to agree on is that excessive vanity is hard to comprehend. Where is the need for that?”

Now, all this can be dismissed as the ramblings of an old man, a man who has consistently and with gusto lived antithetically to what my set would consider even the basic norms of acceptable God-fearing morality and behaviour. A dying roué trying to make his peace before his exit, raging against the dying light. But oddly enough, many of the questions he wrestles with in the interview (and presumably in the book, which I haven’t read) touch issues that I wrestle with. My training and my particular sub-culture have supplied me with different conclusions than Mailer, but frankly many of these never really did the trick, and it is only recently have I started to admit this.

I think of the people in my life who have taught me the most about God - a bag lady who used to frequent the drop-in centre I ran, a street-involved crack addict who attends my church at present, assorted prostitutes, an elderly Catholic counselor, a Russian mafioso, my children, various novelists and poets… and I realize that in my short list, there isn’t one professional theologian.

Writer: Major Geoff Ryan is co-founder and publisher of theRubicon, co-ordinator of the 614 Network and organizes the bi-annual Urban Forum. His interests include writing, politics, coffee and his children. Geoff and his wife Sandra minister in Regent Park, a social housing project in downtown Toronto, Canada.

4 Comments to Mailer on God

1. What fascinating quotes! If I look back, I’d say among the people who have taught me the most about God is David Ford, who I believe is currently Regius Professor of Divinity in University of Cambridge. And it isn’t just through his writings, though what I have read has helped a great deal. While I was living and working in a Bible college, David and his wife lost their baby in a stillbirth. I think the way they handled that, and the struggle, the way the community grieved and questioned and the conversations that naturally flowed from the tragedy, demonstrated to me how a theologian who is a professional academic translates his faith into lived reality. It was because of that experience I was then able to engage again, eventually, with studying theology without fear of losing my faith through facing hard questions. Like yourself, though, I also found the most unexpected people to be among my most powerful teachers. Through my child with learning disabilities I discovered the truths Jean Vanier has been writing about for years, and came to understand faith and the grace of God in a whole new way. Similarly as a volunteer with homeless people in London. Praise God for the unexpected people in whom we see the life of Christ and discover the grace of God in ways we would not have thought possible.
Eleanor Burne-Jones on September 9th, 2008

2. After I read the question that led to this article, the first person to come to my mind was also Pinnock. As a believer in free will, the reliability of Scripture, and rational thought, I find Pinnock to be both a humble and courageous thinker. He bravely takes Arminianism to its most logical conclusions and makes our faith both reasonable and appealing. His words reflect love, but so does his life. Maybe I’m also partial to the fact he is a Canadian, eh?

   In terms of a systematic theology, I like Wolfhart Pannenberg.
Juan Burry on September 9th, 2008

3. This is Geoff Ryan at his best, finding the divine in the vulgar. Is there anything more Christ-like? With no sentimentality intended, my list of favourite theologians includes Geoff Ryan (and Sandra) near the top.
John Norton on September 10th, 2008

4. I’d have to say baseball player Yoggi Berra - can you beat the following for divine insight?

    “This is like deja vu all over again.”
    “You can observe a lot just by watchin’.”
    “How can you think and hit at the same time?”
    “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”
    “Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical”
    Mrs. Lindsay - “You certainly look cool.” - Yogi Berra - “Thanks, you don’t look so hot yourself.”
    “Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded.”
    “I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.”
    Interviewer - “Why, you’re a fatalist !” - Yogi Berra - “You mean I save postage stamps ? Not me.”
    “You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
    “Slump ? I ain’t in no slump. I just ain’t hittin.”
    “It’s pretty far, but it doesn’t seem like it.”
    “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.”
    “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”
    It ain’t over till it’s over.”

   RJM
Richard Munn on September 11th, 2008

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