Put on your dancing shoes

DANCING IN THE WILD
SPACES OF LOVE: A
THEOPOETICS OF GIFT AND
CALL, RISK AND PROMISE

James H. Olthuis
Wipf and Stock Press, 2022.

The teaching technology was primitive and the chalk dust was flying. The professor’s face had a thin coat of white and within minutes the board was full of diagrams, words, arrows, circles. When there was no more room on the blackboard, the professor, in his almost trance-like enthusiasm, moved to the walls and the fire escape door. It is the Institute for Christian Studies, somewhere around the late 70’s and Jim Olthuis is teaching philosophical theology. It was a wild pedagogy, more like a dance than a disposition of information. And it was invariably all about love.

What does it mean if we rethink our theology, our Christian practice, and indeed, the very cosmos, from the perspective of love? What happens to doctrines like God’s omnipotence (all powerful), immutability (never changing), omniscience (all knowing), and sovereignty (in total control), if we begin with love? What happens to Christian ethics if the touchstone isn’t absolute law, but a dynamic relationship forged in love? How does such an understanding that all things are generated, sustained and directed to love change our view of the very nature of things?

Heavy stuff. Wild stuff. Beautiful and exciting stuff for generations of students of James H. Olthuis. And now we have a book that brings it all together, something of a “summa,” a summation of more than 50 years of scholarship and teaching.

The risk of love

Dancing in the Wild Spaces of Love: A Theopoetics of Gift and Call, Risk and Promise bears witness to the deeply creative scholarship of Olthuis, grounded in years of psycho-therapeutic practice, and germinated in the intellectual greenhouse of the Institute for Christian Studies.

Olthuis begins at the beginning. How do we understand creation? An exciting and evocative creation theology has always been at the heart of his work. Dismissing the classic doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) as lacking biblical depth and warrant, Olthuis proposes creatio ex amore (creation out of love). “The earth overflows with the steadfast love of the Lord,” declares the psalmist (Ps. 33.5). And that love, Olthuis argues, focusses our creation theology on covenantal relationship, not power. The Creator takes the risk of entering into a dynamic, and potentially dangerous, relationship with creation. Contrary to classic notions of divine sovereignty and omniscience, there is something unpredictable and wild about a relationship that is rooted in the risk of love.

So, how do we live in a world founded in love? How does such an understanding of the world, the Creator, and our own lives, shape our practices, our discipleship, our very identity as human?

Well, Olthuis moves from creatio ex amore to the unfolding of life cum amore, “with love.” Gifted as creatures ex amore we are called to unfold and construct a place for ourselves in God’s world, in covenantal relationship with God, our creaturely kin, and our human community. Gifted in love we are called to live in love, with love.

This is, of course, a life-long sojourn, with many dead ends, failures, tragedies and misdirections along the way. But this is not an aimless wandering in the wilderness. No, this is a path grounded in love (ex amore), in the communion of love (cum amore), and allured to the goal, the telos, the end of love (ad amorem, “to love”).

This is a remarkable book that makes a profound contribution to deep reflection on creation, love, identity and calling. It is not, however, a “popular” book. It can be heavy going. Nonetheless, this is a beautiful testimony to the depth and breadth of Jim Olthuis’s scholarship for more than half a century. So, if you are looking for a creative and faithful Christian imagination that can set us free from the shackles of absolutism and liberate us from oppressive theological categories that no longer speak to the crises and betrayals of our lives in the twenty-first century, then I recommend spending some time with Jim Olthuis.

Wisdom born of tears

The subtitle of this book uses the term “theopoetics.” And that is an apt description of this creative work. There has always been something poetic about Olthuis’s teaching. In class with Jim, you had to get on his wavelength and go with the flow. Yes, there were concepts to be sorted out and put in relation to each other, but there was always something deeper, more imaginative, and more exciting going on. And so it is not surprising that this book begins with two poems by Jim’s life-long friend and colleague, Hendrik Hart. “Love’s Embrace” is as beautiful a testimony to the power of love as you will find. I think of Jim’s book as an extended meditation on Henk’s poem. And “Cross Pollination” brings together the suffering tragedy and liberating hope that Olthuis argues must always be navigated in life ex amore, cum amore, ad amorem.

Having walked the path of trauma and profound brokenness, together with healing and hope, Olthuis embodies a wisdom born of tears. But tears can turn to dancing. So put on your dancing shoes when you read this book.