Relayed without comment:

"What moral conservatives fail to perceive is thus how, to put it in Hegelese, in fighting the dissolute liberal permissive culture, they are fighting the necessary ideological consequence of the unbridled capitalist economy that they themselves fully and passionately support." –Slavoj Zizek

We Will Never Be Ancestors

I have never been able to imagine a future for humanity, only a timeline that extends far behind and not far ahead. We may have children and grandchildren, maybe even great-grandchildren, but we will never be anyone’s ancient ancestors, I just know it.

Maybe this is why I’ve always been so drawn to speculative fiction about future scenarios. Any future is better than no future, and with few exceptions, even the most dire dystopia has hope. I like to imagine that we will be able to overcome anything we face. I wish I could believe it, too.

The Well of Sacred Text

"Don't fall down the well of scripture.
Use the words to keep moving.

Thousands are trapped in the Qur'an
and the Bible, holding to a
rope.

It's not the rope's fault.
Let the wellrope pull you out.
Then let the wellrope go."

-Rumi "The Well of Sacred Text"

Election Day

If we chose to follow Christ, we are making a commitment to provide for the needs of others even at the expense of our own comfort and liberty. It is the Christian’s responsibility to love the poor, the marginalized and the victims of violence. It’s not always easy to know how to do that, and it will not look the same in every situation, but if our best resource for helping others is some arm of government, so be it. We should be open to that possibility.

I would prefer that Christians take the initiative to alleviate poverty by choice and conviction, but this has not happened. There are people in America eating out of dumpsters while Christians (and I indict myself first of all) accumulate luxury. Until this changes, we are in no position to argue. It is true that government aid is abused by some, but this is vastly preferable to the negative consequences that could result from withholding aid just because some take advantage. Even if the majority of those receiving aid are taking advantage, it is not the Christian's place to judge or withhold. The Gospel is clear: Give to anyone who asks.

That is not to say that Christians should be taking wealth by force and redistributing. The role of the Christian is to be the person from whom wealth is taken. We should surrender these worldly treasures with a glad heart. If the government taxes your robe, give them also your cloak. The uniqueness of the Christian Gospel is most evident in the fact that it is absurd by any worldly standard and will give us no comfort or happiness, and in the fact that we are not saved by these works but will live for others anyway, even at the cost of our own lives, simply out of love. That is the decision.

Our willingness to serve and suffer gladly will potentially be an example to the rest of humanity that there is a way beyond power and coercion. We won't live to see it, but we will do what we can anyway. Or perhaps our servitude and suffering will never impact the world around us and we will apparently sacrifice for nothing, but that's the risk. Better to follow Christ into hell than to stay with Satan in paradise.

The message of Christ is not one of fairness; it is one of absolute and unconditional compassion. It is not justice; it is grace. If we understand God as a just ruler who indulges our pretenses of legal jurisprudence, condones our wars as righteous, and proposes for us a rule-based political philosophy, then Jesus is not our savior. The Gospel stands in total opposition to individualist and American values, but if we are to profess Christ, this affiliation must take precedence over all else. It may even exclude all other affiliations. Our economic philosophies and our proud politics are idols and we should busy ourselves with the destruction of our idols. Find your life and lose it, lose your life and find it.

This is not an easy commitment to make, but I hope to truly make it someday. Until then, I'm not sure I have any right to call myself a Christian. The uncomfortable irony of my life has been that I repeatedly encounter people who live radically in accordance with Christ's teachings but in no way profess to be Christians, while those who do profess to be Christians so frequently slam the door in their Messiah's face. What we do to each other we do to Christ, after all.

If you choose to vote today, please remember that.

Waiting for The Great Pumpkin with Richard Dawkins

The title of this post is the title of a snazzy one-act (one joke?) play that I am too uninspired to write.

Though more commonly known as That Guy Who’s Married to That Girl Who Used to Be Married to Your Favorite Incarnation of Dr. Who, English scientist Richard Dawkins is also one of the more articulate and outspoken public faces of the New (sic) Atheism. While not likely to be remembered as an innovator on that front, Mr. Dawkins has a knack for maintaining composure in the face of the most exasperating questions, and his sense of wonder regarding the beauty of our universe is a contagious awe that makes him the most accessible among the latest batch of religious fundamentalism’s critics.

Some of his pithiest remarks, immortalized in Facebook profiles and countless blogs, reveal his limitations (calling pantheism “sexed-up atheism” is akin to calling biochemistry “sexed-up alchemy”) but no one mistakes him for a philosopher or sociologist. It is unfortunate in a way that the current de facto voice of atheism has to be a scientist. Working from that discipline enables a critique of only the most superstitious theological models. Horses don’t come much deader than that, though in the fallout from this (now obsolete) conversation, thinkers who remain in the religious spehere will happily find themselves in more sophisticated company.

To the project of developing a Christian position that was tenable for the 20th Century, it could be said that no one has contributed more than Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. (My friend Michael Stohrer told me this is a suggestion that would "make Nietzsche’s moustache quiver with rage".) In the same way, the popular atheists of this moment, by funneling essentially old-hat arguments into shiny new best-sellers, have brought the purging fire skepticism to a large audience, and the spiritual ideas that survive will be the ones worth saving. For that, believers should be grateful.

Rather than an heir to Bertrand Russell and Antony Flew, Dawkins is a charismatic provocateur whose civil and unwavering rhetoric could potentially contribute to getting participants in the popular conversation onto the same page so we can take the conversation farther.

Tomorrow’s Dawkins will have to be more sophisticated, someone who, like his audience, will accept the conclusions of hard science as a given but is willing to dive into abstract, even subjective concepts beyond myopic materialism. In any conversation, the no-saying position must be meaningfully occupied, (lest we fall into a sheepish consensus) and this position requires three-dimensional thinkers able to adapt, thinkers who are unbeholden to predecessors. The 21st Century’s religious conversation must move past simplistic science/religion binaries as well as the common inability to understand or distinguish between the diverse positions that exist within one tradition.

Parable #2

There was a man named Adam who walked the Earth when it was new. He had a wife who was beautiful and kind. God walked with them, and taught them how to care for the Earth and receive from it everything they would need.

Adam’s wife bore many children and, as Adam’s progeny multiplied, God promised that Adam would be the father of many nations. The children of Adam delighted in their world, bathing in the rivers and cooling their bodies in the shade of the trees. God walked among them in friendship, often appearing as a son of Adam so he could live among them without making them afraid.

Only Adam knew the secret name of God, because his relationship with God was a special bond. The whole Earth was a gift to Adam, given on the condition that he would attend to it faithfully and serve all who inhabit it with compassion and love. Adam served faithfully, and lived with his children in paradise.

Eventually, Adam took a second wife, who spoke to serpents and shared with him knowledge about new things called Good and Evil. She taught Adam that some people, called “sinners”, were not to be loved as others were loved. Adam and his new wife made laws, and began to rule over the nations they had begotten. They demanded that their children revere God, whom they believed had given them the wisdom to rule. Many rebelled against Adam and they were punished. Others obeyed and they were rewarded. God watched in silence as the Earth was divided.

Adam’s new wife had a jealous heart and she said to her husband “Your first wife is disgracing your name. Last night, on the bank of a river, I heard her talking to God and she called Him by his secret name, which is a privilege only allowed to you. This sin can not be pardoned. You must chase her away.” Adam, with a heavy heart did just that, and his first wife went away, never to be heard again.

Sensing a new possibility, the possibility of exile, Adam and his new wife made a decree that sinners would be banished to the vast deserts that surrounded their paradise. This banishment meant certain death, as nothing could thrive in those endless sands. Adam was feared by his children, but this fear made them righteous and good.

News reached Adam that God had been seen cooling in the shade of a tree with sinners, eating meals with them and calling them His friends. On the bank of a river one summer morning, Adam spoke to God. “You are spoiling our world. I rule by virtue, and in your name. When you are seen with sinners, my daughters and sons question your holiness.”

God rebuked Adam. “What do you know of holiness? I made you a steward of this Earth, not its ruler. I only asked that you serve with compassion and love, but you decided to rule over others with fear.”

Adam tried, but could not remember God’s secret name. He went away in anger, and in his heart he cursed God.

Adam told many others what God had said, and they all began to resent God. Finally, on one bright summer morning, Adam came to God, followed by a mob of his children.

Before nightfall, God hung from the gallows.

The following morning, the gallows was empty, and a young boy, who had been sleeping on the ground nearby, told Adam that God had come down from his noose in the night, waking up the boy to say goodbye. Now, said the boy, God would wander the endless sands of the desert with the sinners in exile. The child was whipped for his lies.

Without God’s company, Adam and his children felt a void in their hearts. So Adam made new gods. Some were statues, some were books and some were great buildings that reached toward heaven. Finally, even Adam himself became a god.

Proud and powerful, Adam and many of his children began to abuse the resources they had been given. Some acquired wealth and privilege, while others were left to suffer. Adam built machines to move across continents. He built terrible weapons and gave them to his children, who aligned themselves behind borders and waged bloody wars in the name of their gods. The keepers of the law tore through the lands of Adam’s children, persecuting anyone who blasphemed these new gods. Anyone who disobeyed was sent to the dessert.

Adam took many wives, and each bore him daughters and sons only to use them against him. Adman’s family was ravaged by manipulation and deceit.

Only physicians driven by avarice attended Adam’s bed as he died. The father of so many nations was buried in a secluded wood far from any city, and his burial was attended only by his children who had not reaped the riches of their legacy. Many of them had returned from exile in the desert. Standing over his grave, these sons and daughters of Adam made a pact with one another.

“On this spot, we renounce all that our father has built. We pledge to attend to this world faithfully and serve all who inhabit it with compassion and love.”

Not far away, in the dark of the wood, God smiled, approving. And He put faith in these new daughters and sons of Adam.

Tolerance

The arguments over the Islamic community center in New York have been frustrating, but they have given me the opportunity to think about what we are talking about when we talk about religious tolerance.

Tolerance is a fine ideal, but I think it sets the bar too low. We “tolerate” a crying baby on an airplane. We should try to sincerely RESPECT religious traditions, not just when it is fashionable to do so, and not out of a desire to feel More Multi-Cultural Than Thou.

Part of that respect means engaging in thoughtful, critical appraisals of the tenants of those traditions (and their countless permutations – those distinctions matter!) Patting people on the head and saying “Whatever beliefs make you happy are just swell with me, sport!” is not respect. That’s condescending bullshit. I’m not saying we all have to be Christopher Hitchens (I did say “thoughtful, critical” appraisals) but we don’t really respect these traditions if we don’t find them worthy of inquiry. For an example of what this respect might look like, we can turn to Islamic doctrine. One of the things about Islam that is so remarkable to me (even if it is an accident of chronology) is the way other faiths (well, the two other Abrahamic faiths, anyway) are deemed important and worthy of respect. That being said, Islamic doctrine is intellectually honest enough to temper that respect with the firm belief that (for example) the divinity of Christ is incorrect, perhaps even blasphemous. In that act of thoughtfully disagreeing, Islam is a million times more respectful than, say, the nebulous openness of Unitarian Universalists. (Sorry, UUs!)

We can think of the phrase “I respectfully disagree” as having an all-too-apt mirror-image: “I disrespectfully agree.”

The Declining Day

A woman in the city spun on her heels
She spoke in verses, she made an appeal
She lit a fire in paradise, poured water into hell
Some say veils were lifted, some say palaces fell
We paused for a moment
Then went on our way
Busy and blinded to that declining day

Along the River Tigress ashes were poured
Nine-hundred-Twenty-Two, the year of our Lord
Some would make a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage within
But the world fought a mystic and the world always wins
The moon was split open
The light died away
But something cast shadows on that declining day

Elephant in the Room: Abortion and Violence

Many people can not talk rationally about abortion, and I don’t blame them. It must be hard to have an open-hearted conversation with someone if you think they are oppressing women or killing babies. However, having that open-hearted conversation is required if we are to be intellectually honest people, and furthermore, that conversation is a necessary and subversive act against the manipulations of the powerful. Clearly, it is convenient for certain people if we continue to believe that abortion is a clear-cut issue of good and evil. For these people, debate over abortion has little to do with protecting the unborn or defending the autonomy of women. For these people it is a way to manipulate us to vote for one political party and not for the other political party. The internal consistency of a prescribed set of views does not matter. What matters is the acquisition of power. I find it endlessly strange when a person whose politics strongly emphasize fiscal pragmatism, even occasionally at the expense of human life, is opposed to abortion, which is, if we are to be frank, fiscally responsible. Likewise, it has always troubled me that so many otherwise “liberal” people, opposed to the death penalty and militarism, can be so comfortable with abortion, which is, if we are to be frank, an act of violence.

Much of our public conversation on abortion in the US has to do with religious arguments, primarily arguments from an ostensibly Christian standpoint. What the Christian standpoint should be, however, is not always obvious.

In an essay titled “On the Soul of the Embryo” Umberto Eco points out Thomas Aquinas’s view that an embryo is given a vegetative soul, then a sensitive soul, and finally, in a body already formed, a rational soul. A supplement to Summa Theologiae says that an embryo that dies before it is infused with a rational soul will not take part in the “resurrection of the flesh” while even those born dead will take part. The pre-rational-soul embryo is not human. Eco makes a connection to Catholicism’s reluctance to accept evolution, not because it conflicts with a literal understanding of the creation story, but because it erases the distinction between human life (possessing a rational soul) and life more generally. The position that the embryo qualifies as human life because it will eventually become human is, according to Eco, the position “once adopted by the materialist-evolutionists of the past” and a position that contends that “there is no dividing line… in the course of evolution from plants to animals to humankind.” Defending human life is a noble goal, defending ALL life is impossible unless we become motionless, and starve ourselves so as not to kill any insect or plant.

Modern believers are less likely to believe in the literal “resurrection of the flesh” believed by Aquinas, either because we no longer subscribe to his pre-modern world view or because our ideas of the afterlife are more informed by diluted Dante than any theologian. Regardless, Eco’s essay raises quite eloquently the difficulty of defining the limits of personhood in a way that allows us to defend a consistent and tenable position on human rights.

The history of Christian thought does contain a precedent for opposing abortion. “We are so forbidden to murder,” Tertullian said, “we may not even kill the fetus in the womb.” His phrasing implies that even if abortion is the mildest form of murder, Christians are still not allowed to do it. Like many early Christians, Tertullian’s opposition to abortion was a logical extension of his pacifism.

The refusal of Christians to serve in the military is not an invention of Quakers or Mennonites or Jesus-hippies protesting the Vietnam War. It is a tradition dating back to the early centuries of the Christian faith and precedent can be found in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, and Justin Martyr. Even under the ostensibly “Christian” rule of Constantine, Bishops like Basil of Ceserea called for soldiers to be excommunicated. Athanasius (who so famously gave Arius the verbal smackdown of a lifetime at the Council of Nicaea, thus defining Christian doctrine for centuries to come) believed Christianity was inherently non-violent. Martin of Tours asked to be released from military service saying “I am Christ’s soldier; I am not allowed to fight.” When his conscientious objection was refused, he offered to stand on the front lines without a weapon. This refusal to serve had to do, in part, with a generally untrusting attitude towards the state, which was understandable considering the on-again, off-again persecution faced by Christians (a persecution which was typically met with non-resistance) as well as passages in the canonical gospels such as Christ’s command to “turn the other cheek” and his forbidding Peter to use a weapon in the Garden of Gethsemane. Before Christian pacifism buckled under the influence of the “Just War” theory of Augustine, Christians were considered bad citizens in Rome because of their refusal to serve in the military. Centuries later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau would state in “On the Social Contract” that Christians are of no use to the state. Along those lines, Christian anarchists like Leo Tolstoy have pointed out that the state is of no use to Christians. Both of these points are somewhat correct, but neither is reflected in the values of our present situation, one in which Rousseau’s vision of a diluted State-religion compatible with the best interests of the state has been fulfilled by the pop-Christianity that overlaps so greatly with the Pro-Life movement.

Not only does the Pro-life movement overlap with many pro-military sentiments, this movement is bent on changing the law, which puts the focus not on questions of love and compassion (the priorities of a Christian) but on issues of legality and power (decidedly NOT the priorities of a Christian.) Christians are to respect worldly authorities and submit to them (“Resist not an evil man”) but only God is to be obeyed, because one can not serve two masters. How should a Christian respond to abortion, then?

One of the forms of abortion to which the early Christians reacted was the act of abandoning unwanted infants to die. This is not what we are referring to when we talk about abortion, but those early Christians did not make a distinction, and the situation offers a precedent. The early Christian Church was disproportionately populated by women and orphans, abandoned babies rescued from garbage dumps and raised by the communal Christians who shared all of their property (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, you might say…) All things considered, it wasn’t a bad life for these orphans (other than the potential for being burned alive or fed to lions on account of their faith, of course.) This was a case of people passionately sacrificing whatever they had to defend and maintain human life.

Standing outside of a clinic and hurling stones, demanding that a woman carry her child to term, give birth, and then raise that child, despite the possibility that she may be psychologically or financially incapable of doing so, is bald hypocrisy. Until we cultivate communities that offer a guarantee that all children will be cared for, we have no right to express moral outrage over abortion. In our situation, corrupted by inexcusable economic disparity (as exemplified by the public school system) and a culture founded on individualist selfishness and “poor-by-choice” Protestant-ethic mythology that blames people for their own hardships, Christians have an obligation to oppose this conventional wisdom and give everything to care for anyone in need. Anyone can say they support life, but it is only very few who will open their home to unwanted children and struggling single mothers. In fact, most people won’t even spend a Saturday volunteering.

There are people, shining examples, who are willing to make sacrifices for the life of another. They are not exploiting the abortion debate to seize power, they are not sitting in judgment, and they are not carrying signs or threatening doctors. These few distribute food and diapers to struggling parents, arrange meetings with adoption agencies, and lobby to fix the foster-care and education systems that so frequently allow children to slip through the cracks.

Human life is precious and should be defended. Human beings have a moral obligation to protect each other from violence, be it the violence of abortion, the violence of militarism, the violence of social stratification or the violence of state-sanctioned executions. Preventing the act of violence isn’t enough though. Anyone can rage against death, but supporting life, anyone’s life (the truly “pro-life” position) is a long-term project that will demand everything from us.

Reverend Carlton Pearson on This American Life

I want to point you to an episode of This American Life called "Heretics." It focuses on the experience of Carlton Pearson a "rising evangelical megastar" who, due to a change in his personal beliefs, lost his congregation and became a heretic.

You can stream the episode for free here.

Freedom is Slavery and Weakness is Strength

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8, New American Standard Translation)

This passage, from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, is believed to be quoted from a first-century hymn. “Emptied” is the Greek word “kenoō” which denotes self-abnegation and sacrifice.

In some translations, “bond-servant” is translated as “slave”. What’s troubling is the fact that Christ’s “taking the form of a slave” is so directly related to his “being made in the likeness of men.” I don’t think Paul is suggesting that slavery is our natural human state, though. Christ is (among other things) the perfect human, not the natural human. This means that submission, being like a slave, is something we are to strive for to achieve like-mindedness with Christ.

But choosing to be like a slave is even more upsetting than discovering that slavery is our natural state. I’m the product of an American youth, which means that submission is something I’ll accept only for a little while, until my personal Easter comes in the form of self-salvation in revolution and rebellion. Luke Skywalker, Patrick Henry, and all that.

Voluntary submission, on the other hand, is either the expression of a Saint’s ascetic disposition, (in which case it has very little to do with me,) or plain perversity; social and political masochism and the irresponsible deferment of my civic duty in favor of a disgusting, self-debasing quietism.

This is partly true: the way of Christ is plainly perverse by almost any widely accepted standard. But this perverse self-debasement is anything but the deferment of civic duty. The choice between political engagement and kenotic submission is a false choice.

Submission is a subversive act. The submissive refuses to seize or exercise power, and refutes the popular myth that pursuing power is a high and noble pursuit. The submissive offers a dramatic example of what happens when the powerful are not restrained by a fear that their victims will retaliate, allowing the oppressor to publicly vilify himself. The submissive offers a strange new approach to power structures, a loving response so bizarre that it can’t be ignored, and so counter-intuitive that it has the potential to change people’s hearts.

In the gospels, Jesus has no political or social capital. He has no legal authority and does not participate in the guerilla warfare of the Zealots. He is an innocent and virtuous man when he is executed, and by going to his death without a fight, he proves and exposes the moral posturing of the powerful and pious. He prays for his persecutors, not only demonstrating that the way of life he taught was actually livable, but also demonstrating a profound love for the misguided people who possess political power. That profound love has lasted for centuries in the collective imaginations of millions.

We are told in the Gospel that the greatest expression of love is laying down life for a friend. And we are also told that while anyone can love their friends, we should even love our enemies. Should we lay down our lives for our enemies?

If we do, we will not escape our Coliseums and crosses. What will happen to us will not be pleasant or pretty, but we will offer a dramatic example that is hard to ignore. It’s easy to hate tyrants. Everybody hates tyrants. But what will people make of those odd women and men who despise tyranny but love the tyrants? With this vivid example burned into our collective imagination, how can hatred be a tenable option? The impulse to kill for our liberty (an impulse which tends to annihilate the liberty of others) is obsolete. Our revolutions, which so frequently offer only temporary relief from oppression, are exposed as transitory.

This sounds pretty unrealistic, but we might as well give it a shot. What have we to lose? Our lives? The lives of a few measly Christians seems like a pretty small price to pay for even the possibility that humanity can abandon this trajectory of self-destruction.

Of course, a charge of conservatism can be raised here. Or a charge of pusillanimousness. To the former I’ll say that this kenotic submission has been so rarely attempted that is radical by definition. To the latter charge I will say that it takes some serious guts to willfully take the form of a slave.

There's a catch: If every human being submits in this way, it would mean ruin for everyone outise the tyrant's palace.

This kenotic ethic is a special obligation for Christians. Other people will fill other roles. Of course, this means that it is absolutely necessary that there be engaged citizens who are not Christians. And so the evangelical impulse must be abandoned.

Anna Mercedes has written an essay (anthologized in The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken) called “A Christian Politics of Vulnerability” that extends the implications of kenotic life into the realm of doctrine:

If Christians are to be in continuity with the kenotic life of God…we will have to empty ourselves even of our grasp on the one incarnation of Christ in Jesus. Our own doctrines will need to reflect an ontology of weakening; we will need to become comfortable with a loosened grasp on truth… Christians immersed in a politics of vulnerability are never able to arrive at one permanent truth claim about God or faith, nor are they able to make one steadfast political claim based on their theology. (The Sleeping Giant Has Awoken, pages 47-49)

Now, if the True Believers in American exceptionalism (welded as it is to American Christianity, sadly) shudder and recoil from submission, this universalism will give them one hell of a migraine.

Jacques Ellul once wrote that Christians are not people to whom a special reward is given, Christians are people to whom an extra responsibility is given. Following Christ hurts. If it doesn’t hurt, we’re doing it wrong.

Loosing our grasp on truth is painful, but maybe we have to lose our doctrine, like our lives, in order to find it.

A Parable

Adapted from a tradition:

A man named Simeon lived upon a ten-inch by ten-inch piece of wood held up by the stump of a dead tree. On this tower he had only his garment, an animal hide turned inside-out so as to be uncomfortable, and a whip which he used to mortify his body.

As people would walk past and see him, they would be amazed. “Clearly, Simeon is devoted to God,” they would say.

The High Priests, who knew their authority was threatened by such an impressive display of piety, would regularly ask him to come down.

“Brother,” they would say “You have done more than enough, why don’t you come down so we may throw a feast in your honor?”

Each time the High Priests would ask, Simeon would refuse, and all who heard would be amazed by Simeon's humility.

One day, Jesus of Nazareth came upon Simeon’s tower. Recognizing Jesus as a holy man, Simeon nodded to him silently.

“What are you doing?” Jesus asked.

Simeon, who rarely spoke, was astonished by the question and felt moved to break his silence. “Brother, isn’t it obvious? I am serving God.”

Jesus asked “Who told you to do this?”

Simeon replied “I do this of my own will.”

Jesus asked “How do you eat?’

Simeon replied “Once a day, my brother brings me a jug of goat’s milk and a crust of bread.”

Seeing that Simeon’s brother was taking care of Simeon, Jesus replied “You are not serving God, your brother is.”

As quickly as he had arrived, Jesus was gone. “What a foolish man,” thought Simeon, as he continued to torture himself upon his piece of wood.

Epistle to Mammon

Happily Deconstructing

In What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, author John D. Caputo discusses a theme from Derrida’s The Post Card:

Even when it is not lost and even when it is understood, a text remains structurally and in principle capable of being understood differently–by different communities of readers at different times, in other times and other places—so that it is always happening but never arrives decisively at just one final destination that would be authorized to pronounce its meaning once and for all.

Caputo goes on to stress that the first Christians approached the Hebrew Scriptures with a "creative misreading" and that the Christian tradition is a history of "taking the story of Jesus differently, again and again, in the course of the ages, in changing times and circumstances." Many will buckle under this suggestion, and buckle to their pet Truth-claims, fortified against the dreaded Relativism or against a history of ecclesiastical misappropriations used to justify violence. These are fearful responses.

Caputo, as a deconstructionist, advises us to let the New Testament happen to us, as opposed to deriving instruction from the text. You might recall various ministers advising you to read under "the guidance of the Spirit."

And if the Spirit, having blessed you with a critical mind and a modern education asks you to demythologize, lifting the eternal truth from the temporal constructs that house it, what will you do? If this reading denies the historical claims of the Gospel story, and finds a different sort of meaning, will you accept it?

You might recall Origen’s belief that the letter of the text, the surface meaning, is not to be adopted when it would "entail anything impossible, absurd or unworthy of God." With an extra 2000 years of discovery, our ideas of what is and what is not absurd will inevitably differ from those of the writers of the New Testament, and those of Origen himself.

Armed with this knowledge, should we re-interpret the text, as Jesus re-interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures (Mark 2:22-28)? What authority do we have to do such a thing?

Maybe we have no authority, but to faithfully and continually reevaluate the text and read it in a new light, (that is, to make the text a meaningful part of our lives,) we must refrain from pronouncing any one reading as final and absolute. We must deny that we have any authority at all, and also question the authority of previous readers and commentators, while remaining open to their ideas and experiences. We must continually wrestle and fight with the text.

Peter Rollins, in The Fidelity of Betrayal, writes:

It is all too common for Christians to attempt to do justice to the scriptural narrative by listening to it, learning from it and attempting to extract a way of viewing the world from it. But the narrative itself is asking us to apprach it in a much more radical way. It is inviting us to wrestle with it, disagree with it, contend with it, and contest it--not as an end, but as a means of approching its life-transforming truth, a truth that dwells within our limits and yet beyond the words.

The conflicts that will arise from our divergent readings will frequently be tense and uncomfortable, but this will augment the tension and discomfort already within the text(s), an edifying characteristic of the multi-faceted New Testament. I am not suggesting we stretch the text to suit our agenda, I am suggesting we explore it free from our preconceived notions and assumptions about what we are supposed to find there, and I am suggesting that this act be an act of community.
 
It is important that we conduct our dialogue with a sincere love for each other. This will not be easy. We feel we have so much invested in the text that differences in understanding are threatening to us.

In a chapter called "Sentences" from New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton talks about "the men who run about the countryside painting signs that say 'Jesus saves' and 'Prepare to meet God'":

Strangely, their signs do not make me think of Jesus, but of them. Or perhaps it is "their Jesus" who gets in the way and makes all thought of Jesus impossible… In any case, their Jesus is quite different from mine. But because their concept is different, should I reject it in horror, with distaste? If I do, perhaps I reject something in my own self that I no longer recognize to be there… Let not their Jesus be a barrier between us, or they will be a barrier between us and Jesus.

Recriminations on Every Side

If you'd like to know what the "emergent church" is trying to emerge from, point your ear at some of that movement's harshest critics.

Ligonier Ministries has made this video available for your viewing pleasure. If you would like to hear the entire message, you may purchase it at their website. (Don't worry, gentle readers, content on the good ol' B&D will remain free of charge.)



In the video, after defining post-modernism as a rejection of truth ("all the rest of it is really decoration,") radio host Al Mohler says this: "Today’s liberals were evangelicals yesterday, and what we continually have are break-offs in which people who are the sons and daughters of the ones who rejected the liberalism, you know, bring it in in a different way and in a new form, and… just to be short, let me tell you that if you get the truth-question wrong, you’re going to be abhorrent in every dimension of the life of your church and in your personal understanding of Christianity."

I think Mr. Mohler is making a mistake if he is afraid of an abhorrent understanding of Christianity. What should terrify him is a comforting, rigid understanding rooted in the assumption that Truth is simple and well within our grasp.

In the New Testament, I see a Jesus who is radical, angry, contrarian, heretical and furious with the intellectual and moral pretension of the pious and powerful. I see a Jesus whose messy, confusing message is offensive and upsetting to almost everybody. It is abhorrent. Objectionable. Repugnant.

If you want someone who will tell you what you want to hear and confirm the rightness of your doctrine, Jesus is not your man. He is perfectly unacceptable. He is an utter scandal.

Despite the best efforts of the pious to sanitize and domesticate this scandal, there is a contagious fury burning in those red letters, a fury against everything we stand for and everything that comforts us.

If we follow someone so utterly obscene, our church will be abhorrent and we will remain always among the marginalized. Exactly where we should be.

On this virtual spot I am going to explore that abhorrent Christianity.

...but first, here's some Walt Whitman

To Him That Was Crucified
My spirit to yours dear brother,
Do not mind because many sounding your name do not understand you,
I do not sound your name, but I understand you,
I specify you with joy O my comrade to salute you, and to salute
those who are with you, before and since, and those to come also,
That we all labor together transmitting the same charge and succession,
We few equals indifferent of lands, indifferent of times,
We, enclosers of all continents, all castes, allowers of all theologies,
Compassionaters, perceivers, rapport of men,
We walk silent among disputes and assertions, but reject not the
disputers nor any thing that is asserted,
We hear the bawling and din, we are reach'd at by divisions,
jealousies, recriminations on every side,
They close peremptorily upon us to surround us, my comrade,
Yet we walk unheld, free, the whole earth over, journeying up and
down till we make our ineffaceable mark upon time and the diverse
eras,
Till we saturate time and eras, that the men and women of races,
ages to come, may prove brethren and lovers as we are.

(from Leaves of Grass)