In the autumn of 1997, Jamie Howison invited Robert Farrar Capon to speak at St. John’s College in Winnipeg, where he was then serving as the college chaplain. A pair of brilliant lectures and a lovely dinner prepared by the College chef were followed by late evening drinks at the hotel where Robert and Valerie Capon were staying. Bidding adieu for the night, Capon remarked, “If anything ever brings you to New York, you should come out to Shelter Island and look us up.” Three years later, Howison did just that, and then arranged a return visit in the winter of 2004, bringing with him a tape recorder and as many questions as Capon could handle. These excerpts from many hours of conversation offer a great taste of what Capon offered to Howison over those days.
Creation, Good and Evil
“On the third day you have the first real good whiff of the scent of good and evil because you have death introduced as the mechanism of life. Everything eats everything else. Seeds must die in order to become plants. They die as seeds. I mean, you can keep seeds 2,000 years, and they will still grow. But if they fall into the ground and die, then they become plants; they become a part of the dance, and this is the way the place works.”
On Sin:
“Sin is an attempt to control the ecology for our own purposes, rather than to let it be.”
On Death and New Life:
“It seems to be a world running downhill, into death — and actually it runs uphill into the multiplication of species. It is fruitful. Fertility means death. It is the death of lives that makes soil fertile.”
On the Fall:
“The problem in Genesis 2 and 3 is control. It was Satan who suggested it. It’s not going to hurt you; you’re not going to die, which was correct; they wouldn’t die on the spot, but otherwise it’s not correct, because it will hurt you. You try to control what God does not control … what he lets be.”
On Vegans:
“Vegetarianism as a principle doesn’t work because you have to kill tomatoes and lettuces and carrots and things like that. It’s all based on the wrong principle because the place works fine without it.”
Scripture:
“The scripture is the Word of God, which means first of all the second person of the Trinity, incarnate.”
On Theodicy:
“The Bible very clearly blames evil on God. ‘I make peace, I create evil — I create bad — I the Lord do all these things.’ This is within his will. In his hands it is safe because it is beneficent.”
Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness:
“The dialogue in the wilderness between the devil and Jesus is a dialogue in Jesus’ own mind. It is presented as a movie would present it, as a dialogue between two characters. That’s fine. The devil is quoting scripture. Very clearly. Jesus responds always with mere commandment passages, but the devil quotes messianic passages. What’s going on in Jesus’ mind is: ‘What the hell kind of messiah am I going to be? I’ve got two choices. I’ve got the man on horseback, the conquering hero, the raiser of the great army of God and so on. Or I’ve got the suffering servant.’ The former is what everybody expects, and it was tempting to Jesus; that’s why it is called the testing. Here’s Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, having heard the scriptures most of his conscious life, and here he is weighing and balancing the dichotomy of good and evil, of good and bad, of power by control and power by letting be.”
The Scandal of the Gospel:
“‘While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.’ This is the scandal of the gospel. This is the absolute scandal, that God lets it happen. He lets it happen because it pleases him.
On Sin and Salvation:
“The Word speaks us into being and we be, then we contradict the speaking of the Word — the third chapter [of Genesis]– and then in the very moment of our contradiction, for all eternity and for every moment of our contradiction, he counter-speaks our contradiction. You are not being offered a salvation you can get by any device; you already have it by no devices whatsoever by your own doing; you are whole in Christ. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”
God’s War Against Evil:
“God doesn’t like evil, he takes up arms against evil; he takes up arms by laying down his arms, which from our point of view isn’t acceptable. You see, it isn’t acceptable to us that he doesn’t do something about it. And he doesn’t do anything. At three o’clock on Good Friday afternoon we trust that in Jesus the whole world is made new. What in fact happens historically in time and space at 3 o’clock on Good Friday afternoon is nothing. The liars are still lying, the murderers are still murdering, the warriors are still warring. Three days later, on Easter morning, Christ rises from the dead, and that puts the capstone on the fact that the job is all done. What in time and space improves? Nothing. And the last key are the sacred wounds. He goes to his Father with the marks of our sins, with the divine remembrance of our sins in his hands.”
On the Future of the Church:
“The days of the establishment are over, by a long shot. I think that is good news. I mean, God breaks so that he may heal, but the breaking comes first. That’s true of everybody’s life.”
On Sin and Grace:
“You don’t get to heaven without your sins. You get to heaven with them, reconciled.”
Finding Closure:
“Your adultery, your wife’s adultery, your murder of somebody else’s child, whatever, there is no closure. The closure is in accepting it, not getting rid of it; not getting bravely past it, but going into it. God, who hates our sins of control, submits himself to our control.”
On Redemption:
“It’s not in any repair job that God does on creation. He does not abolish evil; he takes it home.”
Death and Salvation:
“In the midst of the shipwreck, we are not saved from our sins; we’re saved in our sins. We’re not saved from our deaths; we’re saved in our deaths. My death is my salvation. Physically, it is the moment of my salvation, if you want to put a moment. That’s why we’re supposed to die daily to sin. Sin is always there, and we’re supposed to die daily to it. That doesn’t mean that you have to improve. That’s the mistake of religion. You don’t have to improve. In the parable of the lost sheep, what does the sheep have to do to get the shepherd’s attention? Get lost. That’s all. It is the losing of the creature that drives the parable. That’s why he pays no attention to the 99, because they didn’t do anything like that. And the 99 have no need of anything; it is only the lost one. And the lost one is the whole world. It is clinched in the next parable, the lost coin, because it makes it clear that he’s not simply after a lost coin, but that he’s after a complete set. The woman is after a complete set because, without the lost, the thing cannot be complete. So he pursues the lost, and he pursues the lost of course because that’s all there is to pursue with us.”
Death and Good News:
“All deaths are good news, however horrible, however nasty they are for the person that dies, they are the ultimate moments of good news.”
COMMENTS
8 responses to “Robert Farrar Capon’s Table Talk”
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That’s RFC alrighty!
Would it be possible to hear the audio?
“Gold:
“What does the sheep have to do to get the shepherd’s attention? Get lost.”
Capon had such a unique and insightful way of the gospel. It was truly Good News
[…] (For part one, click here) […]
[…] part one, click here, and for part two, click […]
[…] part one, click here, and for part two, click here, and for part three, click […]
[…] In his book Kingdom, Grace, and Judgment, Robert Farrar Capon talks about the final judgment day and God’s wrathful fire, but not as a means of condemning sinners. Instead, God’s fire burns away the evil in the world that plagued people and robbed them of life. In this way, God’s burning fire saves us, bringing us life, unfettered by the pain we suffered here on earth. We may not get to heaven without our sins, but they won’t matter when we get there. […]
Thank you so much for this.
The one sheep is the whole world.
The temptation is a dialogue in Jesus’ mind.
Superb.
Thank you.