This one's a bit trickier than the previous "Top Five" posts, since I want to keep the movies limited to films made in this decade. The problem with this method is that, since 2004, I've been playing catch-up, trying to see all the classics I could while keeping abreast of current cinema. Because of this, the movies that have had the most impact on me tend to be older (like "The Third Man," for instance, or "Ordet"). However, of this decade's films, I think it's safe to say that these have done the most to shape my vision of the world. I make no claim that they're "the best" or anything of the sort, but they've challenged or informed me in different ways:
5. Dogville. Lars von Trier ties a wagon wheel around Nicole Kidman's neck. Is this film a satire on America or a meditation on the human tendency to take advantage of Divine (or any other sort of) Grace? Or is von Trier just a sadist who loves putting his beautiful female leads through the wringer? Whatever you decide, "Dogville" is a mesmerizing, tantalizing, and maddening experience. After watching "Dancer in the Dark" I've not been able to force myself to watch another of von Trier's films, but there's a clarity (and ambiguity) of vision to "Dogville" that will not let me go. Just take a look at this scene.
4. Black Snake Moan. Three parts exploitation and one part schmaltz. Roll in a little Southern dirt and blood, serve at room temperature. That should be about ninety degrees. Samuel L.Jackson gives a tremendous performance as an aging bluesman, and Christina Ricci holds her own as a white-trash nymphomaniac. Even Justin Timberlake gives a respectable performance. There's certainly a lot to be concerned about from a gender perspective--any movie that involves Samuel L. Jackson chaining Christina Ricci to a radiator to cure her of her nymphomanical ways is bound to raise some cautions--but I think the deeper work of this film is miraculous and graceful--as I've indicated before. It certainly caused me to reflect anew on the power of mourning and of the blues as an agent of graceful catharsis. Scenes like this will stick in your head for a while.
3. Mulholland Drive. David Lynch initially intended this film to be the pilot of a tv series a la "Twin Peaks," and it shows in the many, many loose stories and dangling ends left by the time the movie concludes. Still, "Mulholland Drive" is haunting, beautiful, and--for all that there's a twist to it--deeply human. Naomi Watts is initially unimpressive, but as the film goes on she reveals deeper and darker layers to her character, culminating (as most Lynch films do) in a journey into the darkest recesses of her soul. Some movies with "twists" lose their heart once the twist is revealed (I'm looking at you, "Lucky Number Sleven") but this one doesn't; if anything, it enriches the whole and changes what might have been a creepy soap opera into a meditation on guilt, love, and possessiveness. The trip to Club Silencio (analogous to a journey to the Black Lodge in "Twin Peaks" or through the hole in the silk in "Inland Empire") is worth everything in and of itself.
2. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada." Apparently, the filmmakers kept copies of Flannery O'Connor's work around while making this movie, and it shows. The characters in this film are bizarre--Tommy Lee Jones' singleminded cowhand determined to return his best friend to Mexico to be buried--the boarder guard who travels with him, not entirely by his own will--the waitress at the diner with ties to both Jones' character and the local law enforcement--they're all grotesques. But they are also intensely realized humans, and all of them are scratching around trying to find whatever grace they can. Sometimes they find it, but never in the way expected and never without great suffering and pain. The movie has its share of violence and gross-out moments involving the corpse of Melquiades Estrada, but the best moments are the little ones--Barry Pepper breaking down when a soap opera reminds him of his passionless home-life, or Tommy Lee Jones staring off into the distance mourning the death of his friend. I can't recommend this film highly or often enough. No usable clips on YouTube, but here's a trailer.
1.There Will Be Blood. This may be the best film of the decade. P.T. Anderson retells the classic American mythology that pops up so often, the story of the self-made man who self-destructs at last. There is no question that the whole film is held together by the central performance of Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a towering portrayal of increasing monomania that never becomes one-note.
Plainview is a monster, but he's a monster who reflects our own flaws as if in a funhouse mirror (like Thomas Sutpen, Charles Foster Kane, or Humbert Humbert). I certainly can relate, at my worst times, with Plainview's misanthropic perspective and with the mixture of love and resentment that finally causes him to drive his adopted son away. "There Will Be Blood" isn't a commentary on capitalism or business; it's a portrait of the human heart in conflict with itself. This portrait is illustrated in what is easily the best scene in the film.
Next up: top five albums
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Top Five: Books
Reading and the literate arts are important to me; I think it is impossible to overestimate the impact books have in shaping who we are and how we view the world. These books, all published within the last decade, all shaped me and informed my understanding of life. (They're also all non-fiction--not because I don't read fiction, but because most of my fiction consumption has been distinctly pre-this-decade. Lots of Faulkner and Dostoevsky, not so much Chabon and Franzen). Over half these books came at a particular time in my life, one that I can point to as a turning-point, around the time I first went to Gadsden State Community College. That's to be expected, I suppose, given my youth, but I was surprised to see how instrumental that period actually was, compared to the way it seemed at the time.
My top five personally influential books of the decade are:
5. The European Dream by Jeremy Rifkin. I was already, without knowing it, getting pretty liberal when I took "20th Century World History" at Covenant. It was in the middle of the last election (only last year? Really?) and I was getting pretty fed up with cries of "Socialism." Eurosocialism, I discovered, was a very different thing from what Conservative pundits claimed--it actually, y'know, works and stuff. Wanting to know more, I asked my professor for a book recommendation and he suggested "The European Dream" with the caution that Rifkin is, perhaps, a tad too enthusiastic. Enthusiastic, yes--but I found much to enthuse with Rifkin about. He pointed away from the narrow American individualistic/Capitalistic model and toward a more communitarian and, it seemed to me--and in spite of the irreligious nature of Europe today--a more Christian way of organizing human society. No one claims Europe is perfect, but the system there has a lot to recommend it.
Quote:
4. A Scandalous Freedom by Steve Brown. Brown critiques the tendency, even in "grace alone through faith" Reformed circles, to place requirements and rules for how Christians should act. For Brown, this pulls us right out of grace and back into works-based spirituality. It pushes us into the position of "waiting for the shoe to drop" rather than enjoying the fact that we are God's children. It was enormously freeing to read; up to that point, all my interests had been (as I've indicated before, elsewhere)primarily in the Rushdoony-and-theonomy camp. Brown stood as a rebuke to all that nonsense, a thoroughly Reformed rebuke at that, and he gave me ways to express the already-stirring discontents I had with the more "Truly Reformed" members of the faith.* Since reading this book I've moved in a distinctly leftward direction and I think Brown (who describes himself as so conservative he thinks Limbaugh is a Communist) would get a kick out of the fact that this book helped start me on that path.
Quote:
3. Blue Like Jazz
by Donald Miller. I realize I'm getting myself stuck with the hipster crowd on this one but, hey, I already identify as post-evangelical, so I guess I'm in for it. The truth is, "Blue Like Jazz" came along at exactly the right point (actually, at exactly the same point as the number one book on this list) and crystallized several vague discontents I was already feeling about religion in general. It isn't deep theology--and Miller would never claim that it is--but it is deep confession, an acknowledgment of the vacillating, uncertain nature of faith in our world. It bothered me at the time, how fast-and-loose Miller played with theological distinctions, but it also pushed me to think outside of theological boxes. It certainly prepared me to be receptive to the voices of the various feminist, post-modern, and existentialist scholars I read later in college. If my guess is correct, in the future Miller will prove to have been formative in the development of many young people around my age as they struggled to escape the slow death of the evangelical movement.
Quote:
2. "Surprised by Hope" by N.T. Wright. Wright didn't say anything that centuries of serious Christians haven't said, but he said it in the face of a Christianity that is increasingly inclined to deny hope, to suppose that the only "hope" we have in this world is that Jesus will take us away from this mess. I'll confess, one of the principle draws of Rushdoony et al back in the day was the fact that they (unlike, say Tim LaHaye) offered an opportunity to not only survive but to prevail. Wright offers that same opportunity, but he does it in a thoroughly Christian manner; that is, he does not find the triumph of the Gospel in the imposition of "Biblical Law" but in the renewing and regenerating work of God as seen, particularly, in the resurrection of Christ. For Wright, it's not about control, but about empowering individuals to live lives of interconnectedness. He's also quick to point out that "conservative" theology is often really a tool to maintain Western ascendancy. No wonder he's controversial!
Quote:
1. Everyday Apocalypse by David Dark. I cannot overstate how important this book was to me. When I read it, I had only a passing familiarity with any of the "pop culture icons" Dark discusses; however, his articulation of the apocalyptic mindset changed my brain. It came at exactly the right time--I had just started at Gadsden State, and was just beginning to shed (without realizing I was shedding) the theonomic baggage I had taken onto myself when I decided to be a Calvinist. And even better than upending my understanding of what art does and how the Sacred can come crashing into this world, "Everyday Apocalypse" planted a time-bomb in my consciousness that exploded four years later when I re-read it--interacting through some alchemical method with my college reading and sending me hurtling, again, toward new horizons of understanding. For a 156-page book, that's not bad. Be sure to check out Dark's other books, as well--"The Gospel According to America" and "The Sacredness of Questioning Everything."
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Next up: Top 5 Movies
________
*I should mention that I was helped along in this by my wonderful pastor at the time, Lea Clower, of Rainbow Presbyterian Church in Rainbow City. He was a voice of sanity to a Reformed-Theology-mad ex-Baptist boy.
My top five personally influential books of the decade are:
5. The European Dream by Jeremy Rifkin. I was already, without knowing it, getting pretty liberal when I took "20th Century World History" at Covenant. It was in the middle of the last election (only last year? Really?) and I was getting pretty fed up with cries of "Socialism." Eurosocialism, I discovered, was a very different thing from what Conservative pundits claimed--it actually, y'know, works and stuff. Wanting to know more, I asked my professor for a book recommendation and he suggested "The European Dream" with the caution that Rifkin is, perhaps, a tad too enthusiastic. Enthusiastic, yes--but I found much to enthuse with Rifkin about. He pointed away from the narrow American individualistic/Capitalistic model and toward a more communitarian and, it seemed to me--and in spite of the irreligious nature of Europe today--a more Christian way of organizing human society. No one claims Europe is perfect, but the system there has a lot to recommend it.
Quote:
"The European Dream exists at the crossroads between post-modernity and the emerging global age and provides the suspension to bridge the divide between the two eras. Post-modernity was never meant to be a new age, but, rather, was more of a twilight period of modernity--a time to sit in judgment about the many shortfalls of the modern era. If the sixties generation of protests and experimentation was aimed at both knocking down old boundaries that constrained the human spirit and testing new realities, it came with an intellectual companion in the form of post-modern thought." (p.4)
4. A Scandalous Freedom by Steve Brown. Brown critiques the tendency, even in "grace alone through faith" Reformed circles, to place requirements and rules for how Christians should act. For Brown, this pulls us right out of grace and back into works-based spirituality. It pushes us into the position of "waiting for the shoe to drop" rather than enjoying the fact that we are God's children. It was enormously freeing to read; up to that point, all my interests had been (as I've indicated before, elsewhere)primarily in the Rushdoony-and-theonomy camp. Brown stood as a rebuke to all that nonsense, a thoroughly Reformed rebuke at that, and he gave me ways to express the already-stirring discontents I had with the more "Truly Reformed" members of the faith.* Since reading this book I've moved in a distinctly leftward direction and I think Brown (who describes himself as so conservative he thinks Limbaugh is a Communist) would get a kick out of the fact that this book helped start me on that path.
Quote:
"I don't have to agree with the homosexual lifestyle, with political or theological liberals, or with those who hate Christians. Still, I think I will, as Jesus said, 'let the dead bury the dead' and just follow him. When I need to make a witness, I ill, and when it needs to be really strong, I will make it strong. But I don't have to fix anything or anyone. That is God's business. When I let him be God, I'm incredibly free to be...well, his servant." (p. 149)
3. Blue Like Jazz
by Donald Miller. I realize I'm getting myself stuck with the hipster crowd on this one but, hey, I already identify as post-evangelical, so I guess I'm in for it. The truth is, "Blue Like Jazz" came along at exactly the right point (actually, at exactly the same point as the number one book on this list) and crystallized several vague discontents I was already feeling about religion in general. It isn't deep theology--and Miller would never claim that it is--but it is deep confession, an acknowledgment of the vacillating, uncertain nature of faith in our world. It bothered me at the time, how fast-and-loose Miller played with theological distinctions, but it also pushed me to think outside of theological boxes. It certainly prepared me to be receptive to the voices of the various feminist, post-modern, and existentialist scholars I read later in college. If my guess is correct, in the future Miller will prove to have been formative in the development of many young people around my age as they struggled to escape the slow death of the evangelical movement.
Quote:
"My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a logn time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care. I don;t believe I will ever walk away from God for intellectual reasons. Who knows anything anyway? If I walk away from Him, and please pray that I never do, I will walk away for social reasons, identity reasons, deep emotional reasons, the same reasons that any of us do anything." p. 103
2. "Surprised by Hope" by N.T. Wright. Wright didn't say anything that centuries of serious Christians haven't said, but he said it in the face of a Christianity that is increasingly inclined to deny hope, to suppose that the only "hope" we have in this world is that Jesus will take us away from this mess. I'll confess, one of the principle draws of Rushdoony et al back in the day was the fact that they (unlike, say Tim LaHaye) offered an opportunity to not only survive but to prevail. Wright offers that same opportunity, but he does it in a thoroughly Christian manner; that is, he does not find the triumph of the Gospel in the imposition of "Biblical Law" but in the renewing and regenerating work of God as seen, particularly, in the resurrection of Christ. For Wright, it's not about control, but about empowering individuals to live lives of interconnectedness. He's also quick to point out that "conservative" theology is often really a tool to maintain Western ascendancy. No wonder he's controversial!
Quote:
"[I]f what matters is the newly embodied life after life after death, the the presently embodied life before death can at last be seen not as an interesting but ultimately irrelevant present preoccupation, not simply as a 'vale fo tears and soul-making' through which we have to pass to a blessed and disembodied final state, but as the essential, vital time, place, and matter into which God's future purposes have already broken in the resurrection of Jesus and in which those future purposes are now to be further anticipated through the mission of the church." (p. 197)
1. Everyday Apocalypse by David Dark. I cannot overstate how important this book was to me. When I read it, I had only a passing familiarity with any of the "pop culture icons" Dark discusses; however, his articulation of the apocalyptic mindset changed my brain. It came at exactly the right time--I had just started at Gadsden State, and was just beginning to shed (without realizing I was shedding) the theonomic baggage I had taken onto myself when I decided to be a Calvinist. And even better than upending my understanding of what art does and how the Sacred can come crashing into this world, "Everyday Apocalypse" planted a time-bomb in my consciousness that exploded four years later when I re-read it--interacting through some alchemical method with my college reading and sending me hurtling, again, toward new horizons of understanding. For a 156-page book, that's not bad. Be sure to check out Dark's other books, as well--"The Gospel According to America" and "The Sacredness of Questioning Everything."
Quote:
"If we take Jesus of Nazareth as our historical model of one who resists the forces of blinding darkness with every word and action against the air-conditioned spirituality that loves gloss over substance, we might be nearing a helpful juxtaposition for discussing the radical alternative of apocalyptic witness in our current socio-political climate. When thinking through issues of globalization, commercial realities, and the posture of the Western mind in regard to how we view the world and our role(s) within it, I 'll offer, for what it's worth, a potentially helpful dichotomy: Disney or the Crucified." p.79
Next up: Top 5 Movies
________
*I should mention that I was helped along in this by my wonderful pastor at the time, Lea Clower, of Rainbow Presbyterian Church in Rainbow City. He was a voice of sanity to a Reformed-Theology-mad ex-Baptist boy.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Top Five: 'Blogs
This is the first in a series of retrospective posts looking at 'blogs, movies, books and albums that have proven to be instrumental in changing or informing my opinion over the past decade. In no way do I imply that I agree with or affirm everything said in any of them (particularly the 'blogs), nor do I mean to suggest that these are the only important voices to which I've listened; however, they have all helped to make me what I am today, and I am grateful for that.
So, the top five 'blogs:
5. Looking Closer. Around the time I discovered David Dark and started frequenting Arts and Faith, I also discovered the 'blog of film critic Jeffrey Overstreet. I can't point to specific posts for this one, but Overstreet's whole approach to matters of film and faith helped to shape my own understanding of both.
4. Pandagon. Foul-mouthed, opinionated, angry. Amanda Marcotte and her fellow 'bloggers should be the very kind of writers that turn me off. But, somehow, as I made my long and (it now seems)inevitable journey toward egalitarianism, they (along with the writers at Shakesville and Feministe) helped guide me around the potholes into which young feminist-sympathizing males so often fall. It's also a relentlessly entertaining look at progressive politics in general. Check out "Bathed in the Poo of Christian Love," (which I 'blogged here,) "Feminism Means Never Having To Tell Half The Human Population How Terrible They Are," and "Classy Girls Relinquish Their Claims to Humanity."
3. The Daily Dish. Conservative journalist Andrew Sullivan updates so regularly that I check him multiple times a day, just to keep up to speed. He's the most recent addition to my online reading list, and it says something about his level of quality and insight that I put him as high up as I do in this list. Sullivan has provided a conservative 'blogger I can listen to and respect (much needed after the decline of "The Evangelical Outpost" and "Culture 11"). Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Sullivan's brand of conservatism is distinctly pragmatic, Burkean, and non-ideological. Recommended posts: any of his series on "The Odd Lies of Sarah Palin," and "The Tragedy of Hope." The Dish is more of a news 'blog, so most of the posts aren't really long enough to excerpt, but they're almost always windows into thought-provoking ways of seeing.
2. The Internet Monk. Subtitled "dispatches from the post-evangelical wilderness," this 'blog introduced me to the concept of post-evangelicalism. Michael Spencer aptly and thoroughly critiques the excesses of the contemporary evangelical scene without ever lapsing into mean-spiritedness or that particular kind of post-evangelical haughtiness that comes so easily once that scene has been weighed and found wanting. The iMonk is easily my favorite religion 'blogger. I'm especially appreciative of "Three Days Among the Mainlines," "You Need to Smile More," and "How to Lose a Young Mind #1."
1. Slacktivist. No question here--Fred Clark and his readers have done the most to shape my developing views since I started moving away from the culturally/politically/economically conservative world in which I have always lived, moved, and had being. I first discovered Fred Clark's 'blog through his critiques of "Left Behind" and later discovered that his other posts, too--observations on society and culture from a progressive Christian point of view--helped me to further articulate my growing dissatisfaction with the Evangelical world around me. "Slacktivist" also has the best group of commentators I've come across--smart, diverse, and welcoming to newcomers. Check out the "Left Behind" posts linked above, as well as "Zuzu's Petals," "Weak," "One Cheer for Fred Phelps," and "Translating Huckabee." Then just dig through the archives. It's good stuff.
Next up: top 5 books of my decade.
So, the top five 'blogs:
5. Looking Closer. Around the time I discovered David Dark and started frequenting Arts and Faith, I also discovered the 'blog of film critic Jeffrey Overstreet. I can't point to specific posts for this one, but Overstreet's whole approach to matters of film and faith helped to shape my own understanding of both.
4. Pandagon. Foul-mouthed, opinionated, angry. Amanda Marcotte and her fellow 'bloggers should be the very kind of writers that turn me off. But, somehow, as I made my long and (it now seems)inevitable journey toward egalitarianism, they (along with the writers at Shakesville and Feministe) helped guide me around the potholes into which young feminist-sympathizing males so often fall. It's also a relentlessly entertaining look at progressive politics in general. Check out "Bathed in the Poo of Christian Love," (which I 'blogged here,) "Feminism Means Never Having To Tell Half The Human Population How Terrible They Are," and "Classy Girls Relinquish Their Claims to Humanity."
3. The Daily Dish. Conservative journalist Andrew Sullivan updates so regularly that I check him multiple times a day, just to keep up to speed. He's the most recent addition to my online reading list, and it says something about his level of quality and insight that I put him as high up as I do in this list. Sullivan has provided a conservative 'blogger I can listen to and respect (much needed after the decline of "The Evangelical Outpost" and "Culture 11"). Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Sullivan's brand of conservatism is distinctly pragmatic, Burkean, and non-ideological. Recommended posts: any of his series on "The Odd Lies of Sarah Palin," and "The Tragedy of Hope." The Dish is more of a news 'blog, so most of the posts aren't really long enough to excerpt, but they're almost always windows into thought-provoking ways of seeing.
2. The Internet Monk. Subtitled "dispatches from the post-evangelical wilderness," this 'blog introduced me to the concept of post-evangelicalism. Michael Spencer aptly and thoroughly critiques the excesses of the contemporary evangelical scene without ever lapsing into mean-spiritedness or that particular kind of post-evangelical haughtiness that comes so easily once that scene has been weighed and found wanting. The iMonk is easily my favorite religion 'blogger. I'm especially appreciative of "Three Days Among the Mainlines," "You Need to Smile More," and "How to Lose a Young Mind #1."
1. Slacktivist. No question here--Fred Clark and his readers have done the most to shape my developing views since I started moving away from the culturally/politically/economically conservative world in which I have always lived, moved, and had being. I first discovered Fred Clark's 'blog through his critiques of "Left Behind" and later discovered that his other posts, too--observations on society and culture from a progressive Christian point of view--helped me to further articulate my growing dissatisfaction with the Evangelical world around me. "Slacktivist" also has the best group of commentators I've come across--smart, diverse, and welcoming to newcomers. Check out the "Left Behind" posts linked above, as well as "Zuzu's Petals," "Weak," "One Cheer for Fred Phelps," and "Translating Huckabee." Then just dig through the archives. It's good stuff.
Next up: top 5 books of my decade.
What, it's been a decade?
"That gum you like is going to come back into style."
Huffington Post has a slideshow of 12 things that became obsolete this decade. On the block: classified ads and compact discs (much to the regret of those of us who value our hard-drive space). It's hard to realize that it's been a decade already, and when trying to put in order all the things that have happened, or even all the movies and trends that have come and gone, everything becomes a bit overwhelming, especially considering the fact that I've only been really in touch with popular culture and film for about half of it--roughly since the opening of this 'blog and really kicking into high gear once I discovered the work of David Dark. I've said before that Everyday Apocalypse fundamentally changed the way I looked at art and at the world around me. The only comparable event up to that time was my first encounter with Sixpence None the Richer.
Since that time I've been experiencing a widening of vision under the tutelage of David Dark, of Bob Dylan and (more recently) David Lynch. I've moved from heavy infatuation with the theonomy of R. J. Rushdooney to a highly critical opinion of anyone trying to create a "Christian order" (by legislation or otherwise). I've moved from acceptance of gender-roles dogma to a deep discomfort with any systems that try to keep people in their "place." I've even started to self-identify as a progressive. It's no accident that this change-of-mind came during my formative college years, and I doubt I will have a proper perspective on it until the next decade has passed, but the simple recognition of it reinforces how much of life is packed into these little ten-year bundles.
I'm at a delicate place right now, experiencing post-college malaise and post-evangelical guilt as I witness how much harm American Evangelicalism has done to itself and the rest of the world through its many failures of love and devotion to power-retention-mechanisms. But it's true that I've come a long way over the past decade, and can expect to travel just as far (hopefully farther) by the time I hit 33 in 2020. It'll be an interesting trip--that's certain.
Coming up: I'm going to post lists/commentaries on my top five 'blogs, movies, books, and albums of the decade--those works that have most contributed to the expansion of my vision and understanding of myself and the world around me. Hope they prove interesting.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Scary Monsters
Scary monsters, super creeps
Keeps me running, running scared
That's why the actual President Obama won't do for the Tea Partiers. They need him to be monstrous -- to be the America-hating new Hitler elected by a country of monsters who chose him for those very qualities. The Tea Partiers need such imaginary monsters to serve as a foil to make themselves feel good by comparison.--Slacktivist
“Ha, ha, ha! You will be finding enjoyment in toothache next,” you cry, with a laugh.--Dostoevsky
“Well, even in toothache there is enjoyment,” I answer. I had toothache for a whole month and I know there is. In that case, of course, people are not spiteful in silence, but moan; but they are not candid moans, they are malignant moans, and the malignancy is the whole point. The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans; if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan. It is a good example, gentlemen, and I will develop it. Those moans express in the first place all the aimlessness of your pain, which is so humiliating to your consciousness; the whole legal system of nature on which you spit disdainfully, of course, but from which you suffer all the same while she does not. They express the consciousness that you have no enemy to punish, but that you have pain; the consciousness that in spite of all possible Wagenheims you are in complete slavery to your teeth; that if someone wishes it, your teeth will leave off aching, and if he does not, they will go on aching another three months; and that finally if you are still contumacious and still protest, all that is left you for your own gratification is to thrash yourself or beat your wall with your fist as hard as you can, and absolutely nothing more. Well, these mortal insults, these jeers on the part of someone unknown, end at last in an enjoyment which sometimes reaches the highest degree of voluptuousness."
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Thinking about Advent
Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel
I was speaking to my father earlier today and it occurred to me that the above song is, perhaps the best Christmas song I know of. Of course, technically it's an Advent song, but I'm more temperamentally inclined toward Advent than Christmas anyway, as might be guessed. After all, the entire flavor of Advent is either (depending on which direction you look) despair tinged with hope or hope tinged with despair. Either way, it's hardly the unquestioning happiness so often foisted on the American Church as "joy in the Holy Ghost."
After all, we live in a world gone wrong, a world where everything is broken. We live in a world where the very few are rich (or even comfortable) at the expense of the very poor, where millions die every day from curable disease, even in the developed world. Things are bad, and life is hard (and getting harder). And Advent is based on that realization--he hopeful leaning-forward of the people of faith as we cry out for the Christ to come.
As I continue to seek out that historical rootedness that seems to evade the American Church at large, at least in the part of the country where I live (where even Reformed folk can't think beyond the Reformation), I am heartened by the knowledge that the Church has set aside a period of meditation such as Advent. It is a time when we await the coming of God at Christmas, the Apocalyptic incoming of Truth that upends the systems of power in the world.
That, in the end, is the source of our hope. Jesus turns the world upside down. His Incarnation as a humble member of a nation oppressed by Imperial Rome relativized all systems of power, turned them around, and carried with it the promise that God was elevating (is elevating) the weak to become strong. Not strong in the way Rome would recognize, but strong in a far deeper, more holy way. It is a hope that enables us to seek justice in the world in which we live, rather than resigning fatalistically to it.
Friday, December 04, 2009
This Sunday I'm Talking about Hope
Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves
(From "Hope" by Czeslaw Milosz)
Explanation of the icon pictured can be found here.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Batten Down the Hatches!
Eventually, I'm going to post something that doesn't involve me gnashing my teeth. I'm really enjoying my Mosaic Study Bible; it does a good job, it seems to me, of bringing together a huge range of Christian voices from across the ages and not hewing to any narrow doctrinal or culturally-conditioned message. Good stuff.
Meanwhile, I came across this article today. "Christian Bootcamp Seeks to Arm Home-Schooled Youth for 'Spiritual Warfare.'" Now, the author clearly doesn't really understand the intensely weird world of evangelicalism, and so sloshes around some watery stuff wondering what Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas means when he says that Christianity is a "bloody religion,"* but the article is interesting because it points to what I believe is a fundamental mistake made all across the evangelical (and particularly, conservative-evangelical) landscape in America.
The author begins by outlining the alarming numbers of young people leaving the Church in America--huge percentages abandon the faith by the time they finish High School, and I would imagine that even more leave once college sets in. I've got my own ideas about why this happens, but this is Rev. Thomas' story, so let's look at his solution:
That's right; the solution is to batten down the hatches. Kids these days just aren't pushed hard enough, don't have enough of the "Christian Worldview" shoveled into their eager little heads, and so they're falling away like flies. So what should we do? Send them to camps, push more worldview thinking on them. If the color of the Cross is a dye, then these kids need to dye harder. Push, push, push--keep them inside the bubble reading Christian histories of an America that never existed and Christian textbooks of a science that is no science, and for heaven's sake, don't let them get out there among the feminist gay Muslims, because these kids must stand up by standing out.
The problem with this method is that it simply doesn't work. Well, it might work on a few, and on a few of their kids, causing the movement to inbreed like something out of a horror film, but I think the author of the article is correct when she says,
And beyond. I was recently reading N.T. Wright's short book on the "Gospel" of Judas, and he suggests that much of the fascination with the Gnostics among Biblical scholars in America is in reaction to the strict nature of American fundamentalism. That is, they were raised to be young-earth, inerrancy-touting true believers, and when the artificial constructs around them fell, they reacted strongly and grabbed hold of anything that could be called "not-fundamentalism." Now, perhaps Wright is too reductive, too dismissive of the work of scholars like Elane Pagels (whose Reading Judas I found very helpful and interesting), but I think he points out the logical, the inevitable, conclusion to all this hatch-battening. Instead of safeguarding the children in the faith, Rev. Thomas is setting them up to be driven away from it.
___________
*I suspect he's reacting against the bloodless happy-clappy wing in evangelicalism, the one that leads so easily into prosperity-gospelism and away from the hard realities of the world like, y'know, sin.
Meanwhile, I came across this article today. "Christian Bootcamp Seeks to Arm Home-Schooled Youth for 'Spiritual Warfare.'" Now, the author clearly doesn't really understand the intensely weird world of evangelicalism, and so sloshes around some watery stuff wondering what Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas means when he says that Christianity is a "bloody religion,"* but the article is interesting because it points to what I believe is a fundamental mistake made all across the evangelical (and particularly, conservative-evangelical) landscape in America.
The author begins by outlining the alarming numbers of young people leaving the Church in America--huge percentages abandon the faith by the time they finish High School, and I would imagine that even more leave once college sets in. I've got my own ideas about why this happens, but this is Rev. Thomas' story, so let's look at his solution:
Thomas' Elijah Ministries has started the Kingdom Leadership Institute, a weeklong ideological boot camp for home-schooled Christians between the ages of 14 and 21. His recently released book, The Kingdom Leadership Institute Manual, is a roadmap for their training and a fascinating -- if twisted -- look at the concerns of far right evangelicals, complete with a game plan for action.
That's right; the solution is to batten down the hatches. Kids these days just aren't pushed hard enough, don't have enough of the "Christian Worldview" shoveled into their eager little heads, and so they're falling away like flies. So what should we do? Send them to camps, push more worldview thinking on them. If the color of the Cross is a dye, then these kids need to dye harder. Push, push, push--keep them inside the bubble reading Christian histories of an America that never existed and Christian textbooks of a science that is no science, and for heaven's sake, don't let them get out there among the feminist gay Muslims, because these kids must stand up by standing out.
The problem with this method is that it simply doesn't work. Well, it might work on a few, and on a few of their kids, causing the movement to inbreed like something out of a horror film, but I think the author of the article is correct when she says,
[E]ither way, Thomas' fighting words are sure to unsettle at least some of his youthful charges, sending them squarely into the arms of 21st century secularism.
And beyond. I was recently reading N.T. Wright's short book on the "Gospel" of Judas, and he suggests that much of the fascination with the Gnostics among Biblical scholars in America is in reaction to the strict nature of American fundamentalism. That is, they were raised to be young-earth, inerrancy-touting true believers, and when the artificial constructs around them fell, they reacted strongly and grabbed hold of anything that could be called "not-fundamentalism." Now, perhaps Wright is too reductive, too dismissive of the work of scholars like Elane Pagels (whose Reading Judas I found very helpful and interesting), but I think he points out the logical, the inevitable, conclusion to all this hatch-battening. Instead of safeguarding the children in the faith, Rev. Thomas is setting them up to be driven away from it.
___________
*I suspect he's reacting against the bloodless happy-clappy wing in evangelicalism, the one that leads so easily into prosperity-gospelism and away from the hard realities of the world like, y'know, sin.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
To Speak Positively is No Easy Thing
"[I]n order for this operation constitutive of the symbolic and the social to appear in its full truth and for it to be understood by both sexes, it would be just to emphasize its extension to all that is privation of fulfillment and of totality [...] the break indispensable ot the advent of the symbolic."
(Julia Kristeva, "Women's Time")
"A theology that takes its cues from the parables has no other course than to accept what may appear to be severe limitations--limitations imposed by never leaving behind the ordinary, the physical, and the historical. But these limitations are the glory of parabolic, metaphoric movement, for they declare that human life in all its complex everydayness will not be discarded but that ti is precisely the familiar world we love and despair of saving that is on the way to being redeemed."
(Sallie McFague, "Speaking in Parables")
This is kind of a sequel to the previous post, which I ended by asking this:
[C]an you construct a positive "Christian Worldview" that is in any sense concrete? That is, can you create a worldview of affirmation, one that seeks the good of the city you're in and does not delight in false accusations, hysteria, and witchhunts?
The question was partly rhetorical, as the reader might guess from the quotes I've arrayed like cannons (or canons) above this post. The first is from Kristeva--a typically dense mass of tangled jargon that boils down to this: that our discourse is tied up in separation, in distinguishing this thing from that thing. The creation story in Genesis makes the same point: all things are at first a formless and void mass, with no distinction, and then God speaks (He asserts/inserts distinctions) in order to "make sense" of the world; Adam is called upon to do the same thing when he names the animals.
There is, moreover, a healthy branch of Christian thought that teaches us to be suspicious of any "positive" speech about God--any speech, that is, which seems to tell us what God is. We can only speak in negation--God is not mortal, divisible, temporal. Even to say "God is Spirit" is to say more about what God is not--He is not flesh, fleshy, fleshly--that about what God is (what, after all, is "Spirit" and how can we speak of it apart from pointing to our own physicality and saying "not-this"?).
Now, there are all sorts of interesting questions that arise here about the validity of systems of separation and negation, about power-structure and all that, but I'm not wanting to go there in this post. Instead, let's take these separations as a given, and go from there. It is a far easier thing to speak negatively than to speak positively about the world. And our systems of order incline us toward this, so that when it comes time to define a "Christian Worldview" we almost invariably speak in terms of what it is not. It is not an accident that the "Worldview Weekend" crowd posture themselves as opposing different things: Marxism, Liberalism, Historical Revisionism, and so on. Nor is it an accident that the broader Evangelical culture does the same: "pro-life" means "anti-abortion"; "pro-family" means "anti-gay-marriage"; and so on. It's not even an accident that I am writing this post to distinguish myself from these elements. To make distinctions and take the negative seem to be the natural human responses to the world.
But is this ideal? An is does not an ought make. And even if we conclude that we cannot escape this system of difference, why should we not strain against it? Kristeva suggests that the unformed, unified, in-distinct world can collide with the world of systems and produce new insights, new ways of living, simply by calling the systems we take for granted into question. I submit that this juxtaposition is the heart of the metaphoric movement, that the breaking of semiotic systems is the business of the parabolic mode.
That's where the second quote comes in. I think I am not stretching McFague's point too far when I say that the metaphoric mode not only strains against systems of negation, but accepts this strain as vital to its mode-of-being; if the systems did not exist, there would be no dynamism, no charism when the Divine reveals Itself in (or in spite of) the daily world of this-not-that.
Bringing it all back home to so-called "Christian Worldviews," then, we might think of the Christian as a person who holds a vacillating appreciation for and discontent with a world that forces her to make all positive statements in terms of not-that. And this discontent will force her to seek out new modes of expression, new ways of understanding, and new contexts for discussion, which will all strain against the linguistic world that chains them so solidly to earth.
Of course, this says nothing about specifics--is or isn't the "Christian Worldview" pro-life, anti-Marxist, pro-marriage, pro-poverty relief, and so on? And the Christian, with a smile on her face not so much of knowing as of blissful anticipation of knowledge, will reply, "Yes" in the face of the urge to make distinctions.
Because the truth is, the "Christian Worldview" is simply whatever understanding of things a particular Christian might hold at a given time, whatever arises out of the tension between the Universal and the particular. In the end, it will rebel against any effort to table it, to graph or to chart it, to put it into words that speak in only one sense. Because the Reality we interact with is beyond all distinction, our efforts to cage It will always lead to strain--the kind of strain I pointed out in my last post when I spoke of the need to make the Bible say what we need it to. And when that happens, we can either accept the strain and yield to the metaphoric dance, or else we can run.
For myself, I had rather be alive and dance.
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