I'm not interested in Lisa Brown's vagaina (or Jase Bolger's penis)

News from my home state of Michigan...

For speaking out against new abortion legislation, (or perhaps for the manner in which they spoke out,) two State Representatives were banned from speaking on the last day of this latest session of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Barb Byrum suggested that the legislation be amended to require men to prove that their lives are in danger before receiving a vasectomy.  I'm not a fan of joke legislation, but I can accept that it is an effective way to impact public opinion.  I'm not sure I can accept the equivalency of abortion and vasectomy, but I respect Byrum's point, however imperfectly made. 

Rep. Lisa Brown's comment?  "I'm flattered you're all so interested in my vagina. But no means no."  There has been a strong reaction to the idea that Brown is being punished for using the word "vagina" but I think she is being punished for using sarcasm (which is as unprofessional as it is un-clever).  I doubt anyone is bothered by her (probably intentional) evocation of rape and sexual assault with the words "no means no".  They should be.  Comparing this legislation to rape is intellectually dishonest, and throwing around rape humorously, even if it is pointed humour employed in a serious situation, is tasteless.

That being said, Brown's comments are hardly the most offensive thing said in a legislative session, and Byrum's are even milder.  This is an obvious case of one political party censuring and silencing another.  I wish I could say that this kind of thing is shocking.  It isn't. 

What is so interesting to me about this incident is how it highlights the impossibility of approaching the abortion issue in an intellectually honest way.  I sympathize with these two lawmakers for that reason. 

I've written at length about abortion before, but I'm more twisted up now.  Please excuse the following burst of cognitive dissonance, I just have to get it out of my system:  I wish there was a way to frame this issue that didn't involve simplistic narratives depicting a two-sided war between backwoods Biblical-fundamentalists/True-Believers and enlightened/myopic cosmo-feminists.  Coercing a woman to do something isn't very Christian, and squelching the act of childbirth isn't very feminist.  No, both of those statements are absurd.  Maybe.  We can't and shouldn't legislate based on Biblical values if we wish to remain consistent with the principles of this government's secularist founders.  I suppose that also means we can't legislate based on feminist values, because those founders were also, for the most part, staunchly patriarchal.  I don't really mean that, obviously.  I believe in keeping the US government totally secular, and I certainly want to defend the reproductive rights of women, but aren't there other, less painful methods?  Isn't our willingness to accept abortion a symptom of the same values that fuel our militarism?  The idea that I have more of a right to exist than you do is the most destructive idea in the history of ideas.  Abortion must be allowed in order to keep our laws consistent with the values of our culture.  On the other hand, fuck those values.  Human life, even though I can't define exactly where it begins, should be cherished, not trivialized and devalued like it is in our selfish, irresponsible, late-capitalist cesspool of callous violence and myopic ideological crusades.  Women should be allowed to get abortions.  No one should get an abortion.  Except in cases like ectopic pregnancies, maybe incest, maybe rape.  Rape is the most evil act imaginable because it attempts to reduce a person to a disposable hunk of flesh that can be thrown away.  Abortion is rape.  No, that is a false equivalency, like abortion = vasectomy.  The government has no right to decide what people do with their bodies.  Abortion is good for society. Abortion is a violent act.  Our society's survival requires certain acts of violence. Is it worth it? What are we preserving?

That didn't feel good.  In fact, it felt terrible, just like it feels terrible every time I think about this issue.

Good Friday, 2012

As a Christian, I am more of an atheist than you could ever be.

Your atheism is an empty, intellectual assurance. Like the Fundamentalists, you cling to timeless, objective truths.

We who go with Christ to be crucified are not swearing loyalty to any truth. We are suffering the loss of a truth. We are forsaken. We are separate from everything that tethered us. Morality, meaning, and metanarratives are bled out into the dirt beneath us.

I envy the passive secular atheism that you enjoy. You don’t feel the collapse, the hemorrhaging, the terror as God is ripped from your chest. I would be far happier there than I am on this hill, in this place of skulls.

I don’t claim that God does not exist. I claim that God is crucified and buried. The Earth is unspun, and Ultimacy is emptied. That is an atheism that lives and moves.

I believe that this loss of divinity is the trauma that all of humanity is sharing, and I choose to stand in solidarity and love with the rest of humanity. We are all going together to Golgotha.

Today is Good Friday, but really, it is always good Friday.

Kierkegaard on Exegesis

The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined.

Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament. I open the New Testament and read: "If you want to be perfect, then sell all your goods and give to the poor and come follow me." (Matthew 19:21) Good God, if we were to actually do this, all the capitalists, the officeholders, and the entrepreneurs, the whole society in fact, would be almost beggars! We would be sunk if it were not for Christian scholarship! Praise be to everyone who works to consolidate the reputation of Christian scholarship, which helps to restrain the New Testament, this confounded book which would run us all down if it got loose.

-Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

The Death of God on Google Video

I want to share with you a fascinating, vintage documentary (about 30 minutes long) about the controversy surrounding Thomas J.J. Altizer’s “Death of God” theology. It’s fascinating how much has changed and how little has changed.


Part I





Part II

Happy Birthday, Paul Tillich

"God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."

-Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology I

Ideas v. People: Sketch 3

To this editorial by Warren Buffet, a trusted friend suggested that Buffet is arguing for socially-justified armed robbery.

The ultra-rich only have that money because they exploit a cycle of poverty that allows them to underpay people like me, keeping us helpless and subservient and paralyzed. That’s at least as immoral as the government collecting taxes. I don’t have a choice in either situation, unless I want to rot in a cell (not paying taxes) or in a ditch (not laboring). So, if I have to choose between two kinds of robbery, one which hurts a tiny portion of the population (who, frankly, will still be getting fat and happy anyway), and one that hurts a huge percent of the population…

If the government isn’t going to assure a decent standard of living and at-least-somewhat-equitable opportunity for every American (something that will require armed robbery), then there shouldn’t be a government at all, we should give this land back to the people from whom we stole it, and go back to Europe or whatever sewer we crawled out of. The only possible way we can justify the continued existence of the United States government, and the “United States” as a concept, is to use the considerable resources and ingenuity at our disposal to alleviate the suffering of ourselves and our neighbors. The fact that we are unwilling to do that (gridlocking ourselves with demagoguery, apathy, avarice, masturbatory materialism and petty, partisan mine’s-bigger contests) makes a case for packing up and calling it a day, or at the very least changing our name to The United States of Fuckpoorpeople

Ideas v. People: Sketch 2 (St. Paul and Homosexuality)

Could Paul have conceived of healthy, homosexual monogamy? Are Paul's remarks moral proclamations for all time, or the understandably frustrated anti-Roman spite of a politicized first-century Jewish thinker? Does Paul see homosexuality as a symbol of vulgar Roman extravagance? Is there really a heteronormative agenda at work? What does Paul mean when he writes "In Christ there is no male or female"?

Does Paul see homosexuality itself as sin? Does Paul see anything as sin? Does he distinguish "sin" from morally-neutral behaviors? Or is "sin" (to Paul) everything and nothing? Isn't Paul also antagonistic to heterosexual behavior? Does Paul sympathetically characterize homosexuality as a malaise from which people must be saved?

Does the burden of proof fall on me, or on those who claim that homosexuality is sin? If these people appeal to the Levitical code, is their reading selective? What are the assumptions upon which their belief is based?

Don't we have to agree on a few sweeping assumptions before the conversation can move forward? How can I have this conversation with someone if I don't share their view that scripture is inerrant?

Doesn't Jesus himself stand up for the dignity of marginalized people against the moral presumption of the pious?

Can the Spirit of the law be separated from its letter? Are we bound by rules for which we are unprepared?

Ideas v. People: Sketch 1

If capitalism is your god, your god is dying. As they used to say in seminaries: “Any god that can be killed should be killed.”

Capitalism is failing because – as its adherents will tell you – “We didn’t do it like we’re supposed to.”

Remember, this is why Communism collapsed. No one ever did Socialism “like we’re supposed to.”

We also never did democracy, Christianity or the NFL draft “like we’re supposed to” but we need to accept compromise. If a system is so fragile that only it’s most pristine and flawless permutation can function, then that system is no good to us.

Ideas v. People

The energy of faith, hope, and love is the unheroic Passion of Christ crucified, the energy of his death and resurrection binding us to him. Passion is not willpower. Passion is the surrender of meaning and power, the emptying that is incorporation into Christ. Passion is the soul’s life.

Paul Hessert, Christ and the End of Meaning

I don’t believe there is a Hell in the afterlife, and this is probably why I am not evangelically-minded. If I did believe in something like that, I would be obligated to spend every waking moment saving (or trying to save) anyone I could from that fate. In light of infinite, endless suffering, nothing else could be worth doing.

I understand the impulse, however, to share profound experiences, and the impulse to defend and explore what we hold dear. The Christian experience compels us to invite (as fishermen, if you can excuse that imperfect metaphor) others to share in it.

When asked which commandment is greatest (see Mathew 22:36-40), Jesus answers “Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Love him with all your soul, and love him with all your mind."

I believe this means to strive toward a connection to Ultimacy, to accept our relative smallness, and to cease rebellion against the laws of the physical universe (our rebellion against our own mortality, for example, as seen in the Transhumanist movement.)

Jesus adds a second commandment, one that is like the first: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Everything in the books of Law, everything from the prophets is about these two things.

Perhaps, then, all or most Christians can agree on these priorities:

1) God

2) Humanity

We may understand the finer points (like, what “God” refers to) differently, but let's use this as a starting point. The two commands are alike. There is no clear distinction between loving others and loving God. What we do to anyone we do to Christ. Christ. God. Meaning. This is why our selfishness and our callousness to the needs of others does not expose the truth that we are very-naughty-indeed, it exposes the truth that we are mired in an existential failure.

Notice that there is nothing on the list between God and people. Doctrine and dogma are not included. In fact, Jesus appears to be saying that doctrine and dogma exist only to promote these two priorities. (If we intend to include our doctrine in the category of “God” we are making a grave mistake.) The conclusion is that people are more valuable than ideas.

Christian churches talk about fundamentals, the things on which they will not budge. At the same time, they evangelize, inviting people to share in the experience while, at the same time, alienating those people with “fundamental” ideas about the role of women, homosexuality, marriage, economics, violence, and a host of other contentious issues. It seems wrong to bend one’s principles to appease potential “buyers” but a question lurks: Is this idea worth more than the people you will lose?

This is why I have so little patience for talk about politics in the US. People appear more concerned with the triumph of their ideology than they are with the needs of others. I can rant about this at length, but why bother?

Any person is more precious than any idea. Christ calls us away from the idols of ideology, away from our loyalty to Truth-claims, and into a wilderness of love.

Good Friday