Chapter 4 -- Discussion Notes



The 4th Word from the cross -- "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"



1. Throughout the book Neuhaus has frequently referrred to Jesus as a "derelict." How do you feel about his use of that very harsh term? ("...... the English word 'dereliction' catches the desperation of the scene.")

2. The author defines the term in the opening sentence of the chapter: "......the derelict, the abandoned one." It brings to the fore the urgent question of whether Jesus was truly abandoned on the cross. Was he? If yes, why? If no, why did he cry out ("The Greek word used suggests that he screamed with a loud cry, .....Why!!!!" --p. 103)?

3. "'Dereliction' is an apt word for the times we call modern" (p. 104). From that assertion the author words a scathing assessment of the current world. What is he referring to when he says, "No matter how many fairy tales we tell, when we know that they are fairy tales, they cannot re-enchant the world." (p. 104)?

4. "Dover Beach" (easily found on the Internet) is a famous poem which speaks of a "long, withdrawing roar." What is it that withdrew and is gone ....... and has left us with "fragmentation, alienation, forsakenness, abandonment"? (p. 105). Spend some time thinking about this. (In what sense is this gloom the result of our being forsaken by God? In what sense is it the result of our forsaking God?).

5. WWI destroyed a sense of optimism that many prior to 1914 possessed, a belief in "the inevitability of progress." (p. 107). But perhaps the greatest loss was of a place to turn in our disillunionment. Neuhaus says with bewilderment (while considering the fact that the "presumably enlightened century" -- the 20th -- loosed more rivers of blood and piled up more corpses than any century in history), "Yet our nights are not torn by the scream, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why is this so? What did "the enlightened century" do with God? Or what did we learn in our enlightenment about God? (That he doesn't exist? That he is impotent?)?

6. What does the following statement mean? -- "Our world is filled with pitiable Last Men and Last Women, as well as secular nihilists." (p. 108). Why does life have no definable meaning to them? Why then do they contnue to insist that their "lives have meaning"?

7. The worst thing that could possibly happen has already happened -- On a certain Friday afternoon God was killed. Given that, to what does the following statement refer? -- "To be sure, at the heart of darkness there is also hope, because the worst word is not the last word."

8. Neuhaus sees hope in the hoplessness of the cross, light in the utter darkness. Perhaps it's not overstating the case to say that there was a touch of optimism in the horrible cry from the cross. "One who cries out, 'My God, My God' -- although he be crying to a God experienced as absent -- has not lost hope." How might the cry of a derelict who had lost hope differ from Jesus's cry?

9. What are the "American specialties of long standing" mentioned on p. 117? What role (if any) does the cross play in the practice of these American specialties?

10. What in the world has happened to a culture that believes it to be a "mark of sophistication" to reduce "wonder to banality"? (p. 125), to treat "reverence as vulgar; irreverence (calling a crucifix submersed in a bottle of urine art) as chic" (p. 125)?

11. How does "radical subjectivism" (p. 126) judge the motives/actions of one who jumps in a river to save a drowning child and another who watches from the bank as the child drowns?

12. What does the following statement mean? "It is precisely in the darkness of abandonment that God's power shines through our human weakness." (p. 136).