Interview Insights Editor William Greenway Interviews
Cynthia L. Rigby
Bumbling Forward in Faith Professor Rigby, you told us your topic last January, before COVID-19, George Floyd, and the shaking of our world. Why did you focus on the demonic? Mainly because of the number of questions I get about the devil, demons, and evil forces in the world when I’m out visiting churches. Mainline theologians don’t talk much about the demonic, so I proposed this topic to nudge myself into thinking more about it. What sense can we make of biblical imagery of principalities and powers and demons and the fight we wage with them? You begin with a Paul Tillich quote about creative faith and the truly ultimate. What is truly ultimate and what is creative faith? The truly ultimate is whatever ultimately drives us. Tillich wants our ultimate concern to be God, not our perception of God, not our construction of God, but the God who is above God. For instance, in his day, and still in ours, a misplaced ultimate concern is nationalism. Whenever our ultimate concern is not God, it becomes idolatrous and requires confessing and repenting and a return to the God above God—on this particular point, Barth and Tillich agree (and they do not agree about much). How does this jive with creative faith? Creative faith is always open to receiving from this God who is above God, always open to the God beyond our idea of God melting us, molding us. Creative faith is open to transformation even in times where God seems to be acting in very un-Godlike ways, which can feel very risky. You also cite J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, where she has Dumbledore say we should always call things by their proper names because “fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” What are these devils we should take care properly to name today? The pandemic has unearthed so many. As noted in my essay, Catherine Keller says “too many” to deal with all at once. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, anti-environmentalism, ageism—so many people who have died of the coronavirus are dying because they’re in homes for people who are elderly and not getting the treatment that they deserve. Disparities in class are being unveiled. I’ve read that disparities in class have become inadvertently visible in Zoom classrooms, where suddenly in 12
